Notes

1. The further attacks of the Tübingen school on the genuineness of the Gospel of John, which have appeared since the introduction to this work was penned, have not in the least tended to make me give up the convictions there expressed (see above, vol. i. p. 135 IF. and 149 ff.) regarding the genuineness of the fourth Gospel. This is not the place to carry the above examination down to the present time, in continuation of what has already been made public. Still less can it be duty here to go into detail, the more it is forced on my observation, that these opponents are accustomed to remove out of the way the most material elements which militate against their own views, by simply ignoring them. As regards, e.g., the external testimonies for the genuineness of the Gospel, the assertion (as above, p. 138) has not yet been confuted, that the reason why Papias did not speak of the fourth Gospel, was because he was able to have personal intercourse with the Apostle John, whom he meant (in the passage referred to, Euseb. iii. 39),¹ under the name of the Presbyter John. As little has the remark, p, 136, met with full justice — that Tatian's Diatessaron, according to its name, must have necessarily been founded on four acknowledged Gospels; that other Gospels than those which later stand forth as acknowledged, cannot possibly have been meant; that, again, the Diatessaron of Tatian must have had a strict reference to the ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ιἰποςζτόλων of his master Justin.² The testimonies of Justin regarding the Memorabilia of the apostles, the reference of Tatian to the four, and the testimony of Theophilus of Antioch to the four Gospels, especially to John, must be considered in their historical connection, in order to understand the impossibility, that one of Tatian's four could have sunk back among the Apocrypha, whilst, on the other hand, another apocryphal Gospel had sprung up, and in all haste taken the place of the discredited Gospel; and therefore the necessity of the conclusion, that his four Gospels were none other than the canonical ones. Also, the explanation (p. 150) why the fourth Gospel was not much quoted during the first half of the second century, still demands a more exact examination, and is not disposed of by rhetorical assertions as to the speediness with which the Gospel of John must have become popular after its first appearance.³ Dr Zeller has specially imposed upon himself the task (in his article on the External Testimonies regarding the Existence and the Origin of the Fourth Gospel, 1845; and in his further remarks on the question regarding John, 1847) of invalidating the external testimonies for the fourth Gospel. His argumentation, founded on the silence of Papias, has been already mentioned. His remarks against the meaning of the term 'Presbyter John,' as applied to the apostle (1847, pp. 166, (fee), can be turned to the best account in favour of our view. This is not the place to examine how far a pseudo-Barnabas, a pseudo-Ignatius, and a pseudo-Polycarp may be associated with the supposed pseudo-Paul, pseudo-John, and the other pseudo-Evangelists and pseudo-apostles, in order to complete the pseudology, from which the school of Baur (among whom indirectly the pseudo-Isodore may again come to high honour) derives the main support and stability of apostolic doctrine and tradition. We therefore at once pass over to Justin Martyr. Zeller has arranged the passages in Justin's writings, along with those of John which they recall, or are said to recall. He seeks to solve, or rather to dissolve, the points of resemblance. When, however, he has laboured through the looser earth to the hard granite, in other words, has come to undeniable instances of agreement, he discovers a mode of evasion (606, etc.), against which all special reasoning is in vain; the resemblances must be explained from the conceptions of a time 'which was full of the Logos-speculation, and to which therefore, on this ground, the peculiar terms of this speculation were familiar, even without special reference to any particular writing.' Quod erat demonstrandum. For one, indeed, who is well acquainted with the depth of individual mental manifestations, it is possible to deduce a Johannean-speculative tendency of the time from a John's Gospel, but not inversely a John's Gospel from an accordant tendency of the time. This would be exactly the same as if one were to affirm a period of the Lutheran mode of conception before Luther, of Gothe's diction before Guthe, of Hegelian phraseology before Hegel. But why has Justin not named John as the author of the Gospel, seeing he has indeed mentioned him as the author of the apocalypse (Dial. c. Tryphone, c. 81)? This circumstance, the writer thinks, is inconsistent with Justin's knowledge of our Gospel. We will allow Zeller himself here to answer his own question: 'Justin says this (of John's authorship of the Apocalypse) in a connection, in which he labours to prove the doctrine of an earthly Messianic kingdom to be an essential part of Christian orthodoxy. For this purpose, it would undoubtedly have been very suitable to have mentioned John, not only as apostle, but also as Evangelist,' &c. Answer of Zeller to this observation (p. 589): 'The Epistle (the first of John) speaks, chap. ii. 18, 28, and iii. 2, expressly of an ἐσχάτη ὥρα, and of a future φανερωθῆναὶ of Christ, and is acquainted with the name and idea of ἁντῖχριστος; the Gospel not only speaks nowhere with this distinctness of the outward παρουσία and the end of the world, but it clearly enough resolves the former — chap. xiv. 3, 18, 23, and xvi. 16, 22 — into the idea of the inward παρουσία by the Spirit.' On such conditions, Justin must indeed have acted very foolishly, if, in the passage referred to, he had dragged the Gospel of John into the discussion. We do not share the opinion of Zeller regarding a contradiction between the fourth Gospel and the first Epistle of John; but if Zeller would only appreciate even the appearance of that contradiction according to its importance, he would see the solution of the riddle, why a time, which was indeed full of the Shepherd of Hermas, and of chiliastic expectations, but certainly not of Johaunean speculation, would not exactly have felt occasion to use and cite the fourth Gospel with predilection. As Zeller admits (621) that Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theophilus witness for the fourth Gospel, the burden of the question cannot surely fall on a particular expression of Apollinaris, regarding the disputed sense of which he enters the lists with Ebrard, p. 621 (with reference to Ebrard's d. Evang. Johan. p. 122). We had thought there was enough in the one Tatian, viewed in his retrospective concatenation with Justin, to give testimony to a decided acknowledgment by the Church, already in the middle of the second century, of four Gospels, which in the time of Theophilus stand out more and more distinctly as our canonical ones. We will therefore let all further discussion rest, as we have here only to do with what is decisive. As regards the internal grounds, stress is specially laid on the difference between the mode of conception in the Apocalypse and that of the fourth Gospel. As those who belong to the Tübingen school willingly leave the Apocalypse to the Apostle John, they thus think they have acquired a right to give a verdict against him, with respect to the Gospel. I have already proved in my miscellaneous writings, vol. ii. p. 173, that in the times of the apostles there was a twofold mode of expression in one and the same Christian or apostle, namely, the prophetical, τῷ πνεύματι, and the evangelical or explanatory, τῷ υοῗ (according to' 1 Cor. xiv. 15), and that the first of these modes of expression was adapted to the Apocalypse, the last to the Gospel; what answer has been returned to this? 'Criticism' passes by such decisive elements of judgment in silence, partly from want of apprehension, partly from an evil misgiving.⁴ As regards the relationship of John to the synoptists, the starting point with these writers is ever the same often refuted dualism, which cannot rise to the level of the Christian idea of the Gospels: either their authors must have intended to write abstract historical reports of the life of Jesus, or abstract dogmatic teachings, and thus, in so far as the historical part is concerned, mythical, or even invented. This is especially, as has been more than once stated, the constant supposition on which Baur proceeds. Where he begins to find the trace of significance, of ideality in an historical narrative, its historical character is in his eyes at once destroyed. For the proof of what has now been said, see remarks on the question regarding John in Zeller's Juhrb. 1847, p. 89 (especially 94, 96, and 114). How can one contend with so entirely groundless an assumption? V. Baur thinks, because the fourth Evangelist had a dogmatic interest, he needed to have no historical interest, as to the relation in which his narratives of the journeys of Jesus to the feasts in Jerusalem stood to those of the synoptists.

Had he only considered the possibility, that the historical interest could have been melted into one with the dogmatic — as Christian ideal representation of history in the identity of its outward and inward elements — he would not have so peremptorily demanded of the first three Evangelists, to record all the journeys of Jesus to the feasts, if they otherwise knew of them, whilst to the fourth Evangelist he allowed even the privilege (for the sake of the dogmatic interest) to forge several such journeys from his own imagination. We assert not only the possibility, but the necessity, that the Evangelists, one and" all, should write their histories, in an historical dogmatic sense, resting on the identity of the objective and the subjective, and further, that as Christian heralds of a Gospel whose first principle is. The Word w\as made flesh, they stood infinitely above the deplorable jumble of a standpoint, which neither knows how to hold fast the historical in the ideal, nor the ideal in the historical. As regards the single points of difference which are sought to be made out between the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John, — e.g., the mental sufferings of Jesus on the one hand, His farewell discourses on the other; here the cures performed on demoniacs, there the raising of Lazarus from the dead, &c.,— I shall not repeat what I have already here and there stated in this work.⁵ The greatest appearance of antagonism is confessedly found in the report of the Synoptists, regarding the last meal of Jesus, as compared with the report of John. I have above expressed the grounds of my conviction, that John, and likewise the Synoptists, make the Lord to have partaken of the last meal on the evening of 14th Nisan (see vol. i. p. 162; vol. iii. p. 18; and sec. 1 of Part vii.) I have adduced in favour of this view a positive, very definite exegetical ground, which criticism has not yet invalidated. Pilate says to the Jews, according to John xviii. 39, that he releases unto them usually a prisoner ἐν ’τῷ πάσχα; and now he desires to release unto them Jesus. From this it follows, that the paschal celebration, at the time when he spoke these words, that is, on the day of the crucifixion of Christ, had already begun (vol. iii. p. 18.) Besides this, I have pointed to the ethical ground, that Jesus could not possibly have gone to Jerusalem on the day of His betrayal, unless the legal Israelitish obligation of the paschal celebration had led Him thither. As respects the grounds for the opposite view, Dr Bleek (in his Beiträge zur Evangelien-Kritik) has again asserted the contradiction in question, but has at the same time defended the authenticity of John, with many admirable proofs, against Baur (Regarding the Composition and Character of John's Gospel in Zeller's Jahrb. 1844). According to the opinion of this genuine critic, the supposed want of exactness must be laid at the door of the three first Evangelists. Here again the φανεῖν τὸ πάσχα (p. 109) is first discussed. Bleek maintains that the expression cannot have a more general and wider sense, and mean, according to Wieseler's notion, a partaking generally of the legal meats, at least of the Hagigah. But the critical inquiry has gained nothing by this, so long as it has not refuted the view according to which we have apprehended the φανεῖν τὸ πάσχα in the wider sense. The φανεῖν τὸ πάσχα, according to this view, designates generally, not any definite eating whatever, but the entire ritual observance connected with the eating of the Passover, and agreeable thereto, to which the woiding of "all defilement on the day of celebration very specially belonged. In favour of this wider meaning may be urged the passage 2 Chron. xxx. 18, ἀλλὰ ἔφαγον τὸ φασέκ παρὰ τὴν γράῷην. "Those Israelites ate, indeed, the Passover according to the Scriptures, so far as the proper Passover food was concerned; nevertheless, as regards the law of purification, they did not eat it in accordance with Scripture — there was wanting only the legal form of observance. The expression φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα thus included this observance. And so might the observance required by the paschal celebration on the morning of the 15th Nisan, in its retrospective relation to the eating of the Passover on the previous evening, be well designated as a φαγεῖν τὸ πάσχα. Further, it is denied by Bleek, that under the παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα, John xix. 14, the Friday of the paschal feast is to be understood, although, in itself, it may certainly well enough denote the Friday. 'For (John xix. 42) the passage, there laid they Jesus, because the sepulchre was nigh at hand, διὰ τὴν παρασκευὴν τῶν Ἰουδαίων, cannot indeed be easily translated: on account of the Friday of the Jews.' Certainly not; but if one translated the passage, on account of the Sabbath-eve of the Jews, he would not miss the meaning; and the less so, if one take into account the remainder of Baur (Remarks on the question in reference to John, in Zeller's Jahrb. 1847, p. 107): 'As, according to Dr Bleek's own remark, it may be rightly concluded from passages such as Exod. xii. 26, &c., that not all Jewish feasts and festival-days had a sabbatical character, the question now presents itself, whether the first day of the paschal feast was at that time still kept with the same sabbatical strictness, considering that rabbinical traditions and distinctions, which in other matters permitted a departure from the letter of the law, might have easily made the one or the other change in such arrangements.' One may add: and very probably did so, if the second day of the paschal feast just happened to be a Sabbath, and, in its double quality of a Sabbath-day and a festival-day, had for its effect, to reduce the preceding day to a παρασκευὴ, to a παρασκευὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, in the same emphatic sense in which it became itself a high festival-day of the Jews (vid. John xix. 31). As regards the passage John xiii. 1, πρὸ δὲ τῆς ἑορτῆς, &c., one must rest satisfied with the conclusion, that the feast could not begin before six o'clock in the evening of the 14th Nisan; that the sitting down to the meal might, however, take place, πρὸ δὲ τῆς ἑορτῆς, and likewise therefore also the rising of Jesus from His seat, to which alone the πρὸ δὲ, (fee, has reference. It is said, indeed, in the same sentence, δείπνου γενομένου; but that this expression is to be understood of the meal then about to be partaken of, not of the meal as already ended, is made clear enough by what follows, the actual partaking having taken place later (vid. ver. 18, and ver. 24). The πρὸ δῖ τῆς ἑορτῆς; must be connected with the ἐγείρεται, ver, 4, as is evident from the construction of the sentence. It is manifest, however, that the reference backwards is to the nearest particulars, preceding the commencement of the feast. For such special acts as rising from a seat, and the like, are not dated by days, but only by hours and minutes. What sort of meaning could the expression have: A day before the feast, He arose from His seat? It is quite otherwise with the expression: Several minutes before the beginning of the feast He stood up from His seat. That this is the right interpretation, we have a confirmation in the parenthetical: εἰς τέλος ἠγαπησεν αὐτούς. For it refers evidently not only to the sufferings of Jesus, but also to the ἑορτῆ τοῦ πάσχα. The Evangelist, however, has his own good reasons for remarking that Jesus took in hand the washing of the feet before the feast commenced; for this was, without doubt, in accordance with the actual order of events. Still less does it follow from the passage xiii. 29, according to which the disciples, not understanding the words of Jesus addressed to Judas Iscariot — That thou doest, do quickly! — partly supposed He had enjoined him to buy those things which they needed for the feast, that the Evangelist regarded the feast as about to take place only on the following day. For if the whole of the next day was still at their disposal for the necessary purchases, the disciples would have had no occasion whatever for interpreting the words of Jesus as a hasty despatch of Judas to buy what was needed with the least possible delay. But this thought might well occur to them, on hearing the urgent summons of Jesus, if for this purchase only a few minutes, perhaps not even so much, still remained. The difficulties started by Bleek in reference to the assumption of the Synoptists, that Jesus was put to death on a Jewish feast-day, have been met by Baur with important counter-considerations, founded on Wieseler's Chronological Synopsis (p. 107, &c.) But when Von Baur himself is of opinion (Remarks, &c., Jahrb. 1847, p. 112) that the author of the fourth Gospel, in order to represent Jesus in every respect as the real paschal Lamb, with the killing of which the typical Passover had come to an end, was compelled at once to omit the celebration of the Old Testament Passover, and to transfer the date of the crucifixion of Christ back to the 14th Nisan, he has exhibited no special insight into the New Testament idea of the fulfilment of Old Testament types. According to New Testament conceptions, Jesus might quite well have kept the paschal feast with the disciples on the 14th Nisan, in the evening (in the beginning of the 15th Nisan), and on the morning of the 15th Nisan Himself have become the true Passover. The Synoptists gave sufficient warrant for this remark in their description of the paschal celebration of the Lord's Supper. But if, in order to such a New Testament realization of an Old Testament type, sameness of date had also belonged, as Von Baur asserts, the early Church must, according to tins supposition, have necessarily transferred the Sunday to the Jewish Sabbath-day, so as to be able to see in it the higher transformation in every respect of the Jewish Sabbath. Apart from this idea of a collision between the fourth Evangelist and the Synoptists, Bleek has defended the authenticity of the Gospel in a masterly and cogent manner; see pp. 201 et seq. The question, how a Gospel of this kind could have appeared after the middle of the second century without combating in a distinct manner the various already existing errors of Gnosticism, Montanism, &c., must still be answered, and is certainly not disposed of by the assertion of the Tübingen school (yid. Bleek, as above cited, against Baur and Schwegler, pp. 218 ff.; Zeller, 1847, p. 169), that the Gospel was a writing intended to harmonize various antagonistic systems. The proper fundamental error of Gnosticism, the assumption that matter is essentially evil, is not here, even in the least degree, grappled with; and it is even so with the fundamental error of the Montanists, that the Holy Spirit constitutes a new and distinct economy, disjoined from the economy of the Son. Least of all can the question raised by Bleek be answered, how it was possible that the quarto-decimally disposed church of Lesser Asia could have received in blind haste, and with the utmost readiness, a pseudo-gospel which appeared to combat their views. See further, in opposition to the attacks referred to, Ebrard and Bleek in the writings above cited. Finally, to the arguments adduced by Bleek in favour of the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, we must still add one, which, it is to be hoped, will acquire an ever-increasing importance. It consists in the fact, that only by the addition of the fourth do the first three Gospels arrange themselves into a harmonious whole, in a chronological and pragmatical, and partly even in a doctrinal point of view. The fourth Gospel is the key to the harmony of the three first. We believe we have given the proof practically in the combined illustration of them.

2. In the hands of the Saxon Anonyme, the sacred individualisms of the fourth Gospel, which in part, he has again acutely remarked, have been distorted into profane and immoral egotisms. See Die Evang., &c., pp. 8 and 371. His allegorical taste celebrates, in the explanation of the fourth Gospel, the achievement of its own perfection. The six water-pots at the marriage-feast of Cana mean the Jewish ordinances and customs, which Christ filled with the wine of the Spirit of truth; and in accordance with this, the Gospel of John may be divided into six parts (the six water-pots). Towards the end of the work, however, he furnishes us with a remarkable paragraph in favour of the authenticity of the fourth Gospel (see p. 421).

3. Other analyses of the contents of the fourth Gospel, see in Lücke, Commentar i. pp. 177 ff.

4. There is a series of passages in the Gospel of John which indicate a close or retrospect; and for the appreciation of the structure of the Gospel the following are of importance: chap. i. 18, xii. 37-50, xvii., xix. 35-37, xx. 30, 31, xxi. 24.

1) For which, e.g., a suitable place would have been in Zeller's Jahrb, 1845, p. 653.

2) Which in the above, p. 625, is overlooked.

3) See the same, p. 649.

4) Zeller, 1847, p. 164.

5) The school of Baur, so far as I know, has not yet hit upon a remark which might have seemed to them like a god-send in favour of their views, and which I will not here suppress. In the want of a more definite description of the Holy Supper in the fourth Gospel, one might be reminded of the disciplina areana which arose after the middle of the second century, and from it construct a pretty little piece of feasibility, such as would suit the notions of that school. We ourselves are not disturbed by the circumstance, as the absence of a more detailed account of the institution of the Supper in the fourth Gospel is to us sufficiently explained by the connection, and as we find its appointment in reality intimated in chap. xiii. 34.