The Johannine Writings

Contents

Part One Part Two

Preface

THE JOHANNINE WRITINGS

BY

PAUL W. SCHMIEDEL

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT ZURICH

TRANSLATED BY

MAURICE A. CANNEY, M.A.

LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1908 __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

PREFACE

IN the German edition, the present work comprises three parts (8, 10, and 12) of the well-known "Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbuecher." The present edition gathers these discussions of the Johannine (and incidentally of the Synoptic) problem into a single volume. It has the further advantage--through the kindness of Prof. Schmiedel--of incorporating many manuscript improvements in and additions to the German text. For instance--not to mention smaller additions--S:S: 26 and 27 in Pt. I. Chap. III. (pp. 130-136), the second and third paragraphs of S: 13 in Pt. II. Chap. V. (pp. 255-257), and the second note in the Appendix (pp. 270-277) are entirely new. In fact, in this, as in other matters, Prof. Schmiedel has spared himself no trouble in order to lay the results of his studies in as complete a form as possible (having regard, of course, to the limitations imposed by a popular German series) before his English readers. In the List of Books at the end of the volume references will be found to some of the author's contributions to the "Encyclopaedia Biblica "which bear directly upon the subject under consideration. It is hoped that the present work will serve as an introduction, and in some respects as a supplement, to Prof. Schmiedel's famous "Encyclopaedia" articles.

THE TRANSLATOR.

July 1908. __________________________________________________________________

Contents

CONTENTS

PART I

THE FOURTH GOSPEL IN COMPARISON WITH THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS.

Part I, Introduction

PART I.

THE FOURTH GOSPEL IN COMPARISON WITH THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS. __________________________________________________________________

INTRODUCTION.

THOSE whose knowledge of the Life of Jesus has been acquired merely from Religious Instruction or from attendance at church services, or from a "Bible History" designed for use in schools, do not realise how much of it is based entirely upon the Fourth Gospel. If we did not possess this, we should know nothing at all about the marriage-feast at Cana, about the cure of the sick man who had lain for thirty-eight years by the Pool of Bethesda, about the gift of sight to the man who was born blind, about the raising of Lazarus, about the washing of the disciples' feet on the last evening of Jesus' life, and about the spear being thrust into the side of the crucified Lord. As regards the expulsion of the dealers and money-changers from the fore court of the Temple, our knowledge would be to the effect that it happened not at the beginning, but at the end, of Jesus' public ministry. Of Jesus' capture we should only have the report that it was effected by a band of armed men despatched by the Jewish authorities, not that it was carried out by the Roman soldiers. The day of Jesus' death would be known to us as the day after, not the day before, the evening on which the Jews ate the paschal lamb. In the case of the crucifixion of Jesus, we should know no more than that, of all his followers, only a number of women looked on from a distance; we should not be aware that his mother and his beloved disciple stood by the cross and received a message from his lips.

These few observations are sufficient in themselves to give us pause to think. Why do the first three Evangelists tell us nothing of all that the Fourth is able to report? Did these things not come within the range of their experience? Yet at most of the events we have mentioned all those are reported to have been present who after wards became apostles; about the others also they must have received very soon afterwards quite definite information, and through them in due course, or through intermediaries, the authors of our Gospels. Or can it be that they had some reason for passing over the information in question? And yet how gladly would they have incorporated it in their books! This same information would surely have served the purpose which they had in view in the whole of their literary undertaking--that of making the figure of their Master shine forth in the brightest light--better almost than all that they have included in their narratives!

Why then did they not introduce it? Did they really have no experience of these episodes, though not indeed because they did not happen? We cannot avoid the question. Nor can we dispose of it off-hand, either in the affirmative or in the negative, by a few considerations. Nothing but a general review of the differences between the Fourth Gospel and the first three will enable us to supply the answer. And, first, these differences must be determined without any prepossessions whatever in favour of one or the other story; secondly, attempts to reconcile the two accounts, in spite of their divergences, must be made and tested; and then only after such attempts have failed shall we be called upon to decide definitely which of the two is the more trustworthy.

We say more trustworthy. The obvious thing to say would seem to be, Which account deserves to be trusted altogether? But that would not only be unwise for general reasons--because, for instance, an untrustworthy account is not always the necessary alternative to a thoroughly trustworthy one--but also because the matter is not really presented to us in this way. Should the scales turn in favour of the first three Gospels, we are still obliged to bear in mind continually such evidence as that produced by Wernle, for example, in the first number of this series (Religionsgeschichtliche Volksbuecher), concerning the Sources for the Life of Jesus, which shows that none of these was composed by a man who saw Jesus' ministry with his own eyes, and that their trustworthiness is subject to considerable limitations. If the Fourth Gospel deserve preference, its author would certainly appear to have been an eyewitness of the work of Jesus. But even then the possibility arises--and those who accept this view fully avail themselves of it--that in his recollection of events much of his material became dislocated or was more or less seriously obscured.

After comparing the Fourth Gospel with the first three as regards its trustworthiness, our study must advance to an ever wider investigation of its peculiar character, and must then bring to light its deeper roots in the conceptions and ideas prevailing at the time. Later, in Part II. of the present work, we shall have to come to some conclusion as to the author, and the time in which this book and the writings related to it--all supposed to have been written by the same Apostle John--were composed. Finally, we shall have to show the abiding value of these works. Thus, at first we have to enter upon an enumeration of those special points in which the Fourth Gospel differs from the other three. This enumeration might easily be thought a somewhat external matter. The task, however, cannot be avoided because it is of primary importance to find our general bearings. Only gradually can the special peculiarities of the book from higher points of view be summed up in such a way as to present consistent pictures. As regards each particular narrative of the Gospel, therefore, we cannot say at once all that is to be said about it. On the contrary, many narratives will come up for discussion in very many places, our purpose being to show at each stage of our inquiry some new phase which helps to elucidate the question under consideration.

But, on the whole, we are concerned with nothing less than the question, What picture ought we ourselves to form of Jesus? The Fourth Gospel sketches the picture in a very pronounced and quite peculiar way, and no one can pass on without deciding for or against it. The main question with regard to this is whether its features accord with the figure of Jesus as he really existed upon earth, or whether such have been added as were derived from a different, and perhaps even a non-Christian, type of piety and view of the world. Here we have the reasons for including in the present series of books on the history of religion a particularly detailed, treatment of this remarkable book, which has already been called the most wonderful riddle--that is to say, the riddle most replete with what is inconceivable--of all the books of the New Testament.

Turning now to our actual investigation, in accordance with general usage we shall gladly retain the name John (shortened to Jn.) to describe the author, just as in the case of the three other Evangelists we keep the names Matthew (Mt.), Mark (Mk.), Luke (Lk.). Strictly speaking, we should have always to put these names in quotation marks; but that would certainly prove wearisome. Mt., Mk., and Lk. have received in scientific theology the common name "Synoptics," because their gospels, in virtue of their far-reaching agreement, may be regarded or "viewed together" with one glance (Synopsis means "common view"). But even as regards this, it will be borne in mind that the agreement is by no means complete. Only on the whole, and only in comparison with Jn., is it apparent. Where it is found on a particular point, for the sake of simplicity we shall refer only to the Evangelist who gives what is presumably the most original form of a report, that is to say in most cases (though not always) Mk., as representing that which appears in all three Synoptics, Mt. being referred to mostly for those discourses of Jesus not preserved in Mk., or given by Mk. in a less original form. From Lk., therefore, for the most part, only such sections will be cited as are not found in Mk. and Mt.

The parallel passages from the other Gospels, which we do not quote, will be found on the margin of most Bibles, either by the side of the verse itself which forms part of a discourse, or at the head of a section to which it belongs. In a more convenient form they may be seen at a glance in a "Synopsis," where they are always printed side by side (see the appended list of books). In addition, however, a copy of the New Testament will be indispensable, because, as one can easily understand, in a Synopsis the context in which a passage stands in the Gospel of which it forms part is not always clear.

At the least, it seems to us to be a matter of urgent necessity that the reader should have a New Testament by his side. Nothing could be further from our wishes than that people should be prepared, or think themselves condemned, to believe our assertions without testing them. And yet it is not possible always to print the whole section of the Bible on which they are based.

By inserting the number of the chapters and verses in the text of this book, we shall, we believe, be studying the reader's convenience better than by giving the references at the foot of the page or at the end of the work. Those who are not interested in them will not, we hope, allow themselves to be distracted by them or think that for their own convenience they should have been omitted altogether, but will be prepared to pass over them. There are some readers--and we hope they are many--who will wish to turn them up, and it may even happen that one of those who in the first instance has felt the numbers to be distracting will suddenly have to be included in the other class of readers. If we had done as he at first wished he would now find himself obliged to search rather helplessly in a Bible with which he is perhaps not very familiar.--An f. after a verse-number refers only to the following verse. [1] __________________________________________________________________

[1] The headings to the subdivisions of chapters were added after the book was already in print, to make it more convenient for readers to use. Consequently, the first words of a new section often follow immediately upon the last words of the preceding section without any regard to the heading. __________________________________________________________________

Part I, Chapter I

CHAPTER I.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS AND THE FOURTH. __________________________________________________________________

1. DURATION OF JESUS MINISTRY.

ONE of the first points on which one wishes to be clear, if one would obtain a general view of the stories of Jesus' life, is this--How long did Jesus' public ministry last? As regards this, Jn. gives us information which is quite clear. The expulsion of the dealers and money-changers from the fore-court of the Temple, which was only preceded by the presence of Jesus at the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee, took place when Jesus had gone up (ii. 13) to Jerusalem to keep the Passover feast, our Easter Festival. Shortly before a second Passover festival, in Galilee by the Lake of Gennesareth he fed the five thousand (vi. 4). At a third Passover feast (xi. 55; xii. 1; xiii. 1) Jesus met his death. Between these there is mention of three other feasts. Between the first and second Passover, a "feast of the Jews," which is not more closely identified (v. 1); between the second and third Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles in October (vii. 2), and the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple in December (x. 22). The references being so definite, it is quite unlikely that a Passover feast has been passed over. We may therefore calculate that the public ministry of Jesus lasted, according to Jn., somewhat over two years (not, as is commonly said, three years).

The Synoptics, on the other hand, do not allow us to fix its duration. They know of no festival except that of the Passover on which Jesus died. The natural thing to do of course would be to supplement them on this point from Jn. But they tell us just as little of any one of the journeys which Jesus is supposed to have made at so many of these festivals. So that if we wished to bring them into agreement with Jn., the effort to do so would give rise to a complaint all the more serious, that they are silent about such important matters. If we are bent on discovering, by means of a calculation which is quite uncertain, how long the public ministry of Jesus is supposed to have lasted, we shall hardly find that it lasted more than one year; in fact, a few months would perhaps suffice to cover all that the Gospels relate. __________________________________________________________________

2. SCENE OF JESUS' MINISTRY.

We have already had to touch upon another main point in which the other Gospels differ from Jn. It affects the scene of Jesus' ministry. According to the Synoptics, Jesus did not come to Jerusalem or to Judaea at all--the most southern of the three parts of the Jewish land lying between the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan, which flows from the north to the south into the Dead Sea--until a few days before his death. Previously he stayed uninterruptedly in Galilee, the northernmost of these three parts. The shores of the Lake of Gennesareth are here the chief scene of his ministry. On one occasion he journeyed outside of the land far to the north-west into the regions of Tyre and Sidon and back to the east shore of the Sea of Galilee (Mk. vii. 24, 31); afterwards he went once to the other side of the northern boundary of Galilee into the neighbourhood of Caesarea Philippi (Mk. viii. 27). His journey to Jerusalem led him eastward of Jordan through Peraea (Mk. x. 1); Samaria, which lay west of this, midway between Galilee and Judaea, which would have been his nearest way, was avoided because an old feud had made the Samaritans unfriendly in their attitude towards the Jews, especially when these were making pilgrimages to Jerusalem (Lk. ix. 52 f., Jn. iv. 9).

Nevertheless Lk., and he alone, does represent this journey as having been made through Samaria; in fact his account of it extends over nine whole chapters (ix. 51-xviii. 34). But he leads us to realise fully that he is not clear as to the facts of his story. Not very far from the end of it, for instance, he repeats (xvii. 11) that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem, and adds that in the course of it he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, whereas Galilee must have been left behind, if his purpose was to reach Jerusalem by way of Samaria. In xiii. 31 Jesus is warned against the snares of Herod Antipas, whose jurisdiction he had already avoided by leaving Galilee for Samaria. Further, on this journey Jesus is supposed on several occasions to have met Pharisees (xv. 2; xvii. 20), and is even said to have been invited to sit at meat with two of them (xi. 37; xiv. 1). But it is certain that no Pharisee could stay in Samaria, where he would come into daily contact with a people which did not observe the strict injunctions of the Jewish Law, and so would, of course, be continually defiled in such a way that no amount of washings and other observances would have availed to make him clean. Lk.'s story of Jesus journey through Samaria has therefore no claim to trustworthiness; it must be left entirely on one side.

In Jn. then the most important thing is this, that Jesus real and abiding dwelling-place during his ministry is Judaea and especially Jerusalem. To Galilee he came only on rare occasions and only for a short time: in ii. 1-12 to Cana at the marriage-feast and to Capernaum, where however he remained "not many days"; in iv. 43-v. 1 to Cana again, as regards which visit only the cure of the son of the royal official from Capernaum is signalised as a (special) event; finally in vi. 1 Jesus crosses the Lake of Galilee without its being said how he came there from Judaea; he feeds the five thousand, on the following night walks across the Lake, on the ensuing day teaches the people; and soon after the Feast of Tabernacles is again near at hand (vii. 2), for which he goes to Jerusalem without returning to Galilee. In the case of the last journey but one to Galilee we learn also where, according to Jn., Jesus original home really was, "Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country; when then he came to Galilee, the Galileans received him kindly" (iv. 44 f.). What is here meant by Jesus country? Judaea is intended, just as certainly as in the Synoptics his father's town Nazareth in Galilee is; for it was in Nazareth, as every one knows from Mk. (vi. 4), Mt., and Lk., that he uttered this saying (the Greek word patris means both father's land and father's town). In i. 45 f.; vii. 41 f., 52, it is true, Jn., like the Synoptics, presupposes that Galilee, especially Nazareth, is Jesus native place, but in spite of this, iv. 44 f. implies the contrary. Moreover, vii. 42 suggests that Jn. may have believed that at least the birth of Jesus took place in Bethlehem, and so in Judaea.

As to the journeys northward from the Lake of Galilee, Jn. is entirely silent. Jesus comes to Peraea shortly before the last Passover according to Jn. also, but on this occasion not by the pilgrimage route from Galilee to Jerusalem, but from Jerusalem (x. 40), where he has stayed since the Feast of Tabernacles (vii. 2, 10), and so without break since October. But, besides this, according to Jn,, on the second excursion also which he makes from here to Galilee (not as in Lk. on the last journey to Jerusalem in the opposite direction), he comes to Samaria (iv. 1-4), and follows up the success which he has here with the woman at Jacob's Well and all the inhabitants of her town, by holding out the greatest expectations of extensive missionary work on the part of his disciples (iv. 35-38), though according to Mt. x. 5 he expressly forbids these same disciples to carry on mission work among the Samaritans. In short, a greater difference with regard to the scene of his ministry can hardly be imagined. __________________________________________________________________

3. THE CLASSES OP PEOPLE AMONGST WHOM JESUS MOVED.

With whom then had Jesus to deal when he came forward to teach in public? In the Synoptics with the most different classes of people. Here we find crowds of people following him into the wilderness to listen to him for days together. The sick come and ask for healing, sometimes abashed like the woman with an issue of blood, who, with out being seen, hoped to be able to touch the hem of his garment (Mk. v. 25-34), sometimes, like blind Bartimaeus at Jericho, crying aloud (Mk. x. 46-48). A rich man desires to learn from the Master what he must do in order to attain everlasting life (Mk. x. 17); a scribe wishes to know which is the most important commandment in the Law of Moses (Mk. xii. 28); another would like to follow him, but does not reflect that Jesus has no place where he can lay his head (Mt. viii. 19 f.); others again desire to follow him, but would first bury their fathers (Mt. viii. 21 f.) or take solemn farewell of their friends (Lk. ix. 61 f.); yet another has a legacy dispute with his brother, and Jesus is to settle it (Lk. xii. 13 f.); the chief tax-gatherer Zacchaeus climbs up a mulberry-tree in order to see Jesus as he passes by (Lk. xix. 1-10). Another tax-gatherer, who may have been called Levi (so Mk. ii. 14 - Lk. v. 27) or Matthew (so Mt. ix. 9), at the beck of Jesus leaves his business to follow him, and at the meal which he prepares afterwards we find Jesus in the midst of the tax-gatherers and their whole company, which was regarded as sinful, but which he so much cultivated that it came to be said, he is "a glutton and a wine-bibber, an associate of publicans and sinners" (Mt. xi. 19). It was at Levi's meal that the Pharisees and scribes, with long fringes to their garments (Mt. xxiii. 5) in token of a singular piety, were present to find fault with Jesus, just as they opposed him everywhere else, raising objection in the name of the Law of Moses to his disciples plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath or to his doing work on the Sabbath by healing a sick man (Mk. ii. 23-iii. 6), or to his declaring that the sins of the paralytic man were forgiven (Mk. ii. 1-12). And he on his part is never tired of pronouncing against that hypocrisy and affectation of holiness of theirs through which they allow themselves to be surprised at prayer in the street, that they may keep their piety well in evidence, and at the same time consume the houses of widows and declare it to be a work well pleasing to God to give to the Temple something which is needed for the support of one's own poor parents (Mk. vii. 11-13; Mt. vi. 5 and chap. xxiii.). In return they try to set snares for him and by captious questions to entice from him an utterance on the strength of which proceedings may be taken against him. And the Sadducees, the aristocratic priestly party, which gave itself up to the joys of life, but held firmly to its position of authority and was relentless in matters of the law, also associated themselves with these efforts (Mk. xii. 18-27).

Where is all this varied picture in Jn.? Only a few of its features confront us there. In Jn. also the Pharisees vigilantly enforce the command that the Sabbath shall not be profaned by any work (ix. 14-16). But what Jesus finds fault with in them, apart from this, is not their factitious holiness, but only their unwillingness to believe in him. In Jn. not only do the Scribes not appear, but--and this is far more important--the publicans and sinners, the poor and oppressed, are missing also. As the particular persons with whom Jesus had to do, apart from his disciples and the sick persons whom he healed, mention can be made only of his mother (at the marriage feast of Cana, ii. 1-11, and at the cross, xix. 25-27), Nicodemus (iii. 1-21; vii. 50-52; xix. 39-42), the woman of Samaria (iv. 7-30), and Martha and Mary (at the raising of their brother Lazarus, xi. 1-44, and at the anointing of Jesus, xii. 1-8).

For the rest, Jesus is confronted only by a single class of men, "the Jews." Over thirty times this expression recurs in the first eleven chapters. Of course in the Synoptics also they are all Jews with whom Jesus holds intercourse; but in them a distinction is actually made between Jews and Jews, which is not made here. Every thing remains indefinite. To the sick man who was healed at the Pool of Bethesda, "the Jews" say, "it is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed" (v. 10). After he has learned who healed him, he tells "the Jews," it was Jesus (v. 15). Was he not himself a Jew then? And was not Jesus also a Jew? The Gospel of Jn. is very liable to make us forget this. Jesus journeys to Jerusalem not for this and that feast, which since he was a child of his people was a festival for him also, but to "the feast of the Jews"; with the exception of the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple (x. 22) all the feasts mentioned in Jn. and referred to above (p. 9 f.) are described in this way. Jesus says to the Pharisees, and another time to "the Jews," "in your law it is written" (viii. 17; x. 34); for Jesus himself, then, this Law is not valid. We even read in vii. 11-13 that at Jerusalem "none spake openly about him for fear of the Jews." Here by the Jews cannot be meant the whole population, but only the authorities whose attitude was particularly hostile to Jesus. The strange expression indicates, however, that the same hostile feeling is imagined to prevail among the whole people. __________________________________________________________________

4. COURSE OF JESUS' MINISTRY.

In accordance with this, as far as the course of Jesus' ministry is concerned it might now be expected to have a very speedy and a violent termination. In particular, it was the expulsion of the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple that, according to the account of the Synoptics, sealed Jesus fate. And, as a matter of fact, no officials could allow their sacred rights to be interfered with in this way without letting all authority slip out of their hands. But in Jn. the expulsion takes place at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, and it happens with out bringing upon him any serious consequences. This is all the more remarkable since in this Gospel no difficulties seem to be felt at all when Jesus is represented as about to be taken prisoner without any clear legal grounds for the action. The High-priests and Pharisees only need to give their agents command to effect the capture (vii. 32). It is not effected, it is true. But why not? Their agents allow themselves to be withheld from obeying their instructions by the power of Jesus' words, and the authorities quietly abandon their object (vii. 45-49). We are told repeatedly that "they" (or "the Jews") sought to take him or to kill him (v. 18; vii. 1; viii. 37, 40; x. 31), but the result is always: "none laid hand upon him" (vii. 30), "he escaped from their hands" (x. 39), or when they wished to stone him, "he hid himself and escaped from the Temple place" (viii. 59). And the reason given is that "his hour was not yet come" (vii. 30; viii. 20).

Now certainly it must not be overlooked that in the Synoptics also (Mk. iii. 6) the Pharisees with the party of Herod took counsel together how they might destroy Jesus after his first cure of a sick man on a Sabbath. On the whole, however, events run their course here in a much more intelligible way. Jesus comes forward in Galilee and finds favour--even an enthusiastic welcome--among the people for a whole period. The intervention of the Pharisees is powerless to check this. When Jesus leaves Jewish territory on the north, he does so expressly in order to escape the pressure now becoming too great (Mk. vii. 24). Only in the end does there come a time when he finds himself called upon to go up to Jerusalem, and there, by means of a solemn entry into the city, to force a decision of the question whether people would see in him the Saviour (Mk, xi. 1-11). The decision follows within few days, and is hastened chiefly by the expulsion of the dealers from the fore-court of the Temple.

In the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, although the circumstances urgently require an immediate settlement of the question, it is deferred again and again; and, finally the decision is caused by an event of which the Synoptics know nothing at all--by the raising of Lazarus. The greatest of all miracles leads the High Council, the highest authority among the Jewish people, to meet together and definitely contemplate Jesus' removal (xii. 47-53, 57). Thus the two accounts do not agree even to what really provided the occasion for the overthrow Jesus. __________________________________________________________________

5. JESUS' WORKS OF WONDER.