xv. 37). As to the Baptist, in all three Synoptists, he baptizes Jesus, and, in Mark i. 1o, 11, it is Jesus who sees the Spirit de scending upon Himself on His emerging from beneath the water, and it is to Himself that God's voice is addressed; in John, Jesus' baptism is ignored, only the Spirit remains hovering above him, as a sign for the Baptist's instruction. And in Matt. xi. 2-6, the Baptist, several months after the Jordan scene, sends from his prison to ascertain if Jesus is indeed the Messiah; in John, the Baptist remains at large so as again (iii. 22-36) to proclaim Jesus' heavenly provenance. The cleansing of the Temple occurs in the Synoptists four days before His death, and instantly determines the hierarchs to seek His destruction (Mark xi. 15-18) ; John puts it three years back, as an appropriate frontispiece to His complete claims and work.
The passion-narratives reveal the following main differences. John omits, at the last supper, its central point, the great historic act of the Holy Eucharist, carefully given by the Synoptists and St. Paul, having provided a highly doctrinal equivalent in the discourse on the living Bread, here spoken by Jesus in Capernaum over a year before the passion (vi. 4), the day after the multi plication of the loaves. This transference is doubtless connected with the change in the relations between the time of the Passover meal and that of His death : in the Synoptists, the Thursday eve ning's supper is a true Passover meal, the lamb had been slain that afternoon and Jesus dies some twenty-four hours later; in John, the supper is not a Passover meal, the Passover is cele brated on Friday, and Jesus, proclaimed here from the first, the Lamb of God, dies whilst the paschal lambs, His prototypes, are being slain. 'I he scene in the garden is without the agony of Gethsemane; a faint echo of this historic anguish appears in the scene with the Greeks four days earlier, and even that peaceful appeal to, and answer of, the Father occurs only for His followers' sakes. In the garden Jesus here Himself goes forth to meet His captors, and these fall back upon the ground, on His revealing Himself as Jesus of Nazareth. The long scenes with Pilate cul minate in the great sayings concerning His kingdom not being of this world and the object of this His coming being to bear witness to the truth, thus explaining how, though affirming kingship (Mark xv. 2), He could be innocent. In John He does not declare Him self Messiah before the Jewish Sanhedrim (Mark xiv. 61) but declares Himself supermundane regal witness to the truth before the Roman governor. The scene on Calvary differs as follows: In the Synoptists the soldiers divide His garments among them, casting lots (Mark xv. 24) ; in John they make four parts of them and cast lots concerning His seamless tunic, thus fulfilling the text, "They divided My garments among them and upon My vesture they cast lots": the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, which twice describes one fact, being taken as witnessing to two, and the tunic doubtless symbolizing the unity of the Church, as in Philo the high priest's seamless robe symbolizes the indivisible unity of the universe, expressive of the Logos (De ebrietate, xxi.). In the Synoptists, of His followers only women—the careful, seemingly exhaustive lists do not include His mother—remain, looking on "from afar" (Mark xv. 4o) ; in John, His mother stands with the two other Marys and the beloved disciple beneath the cross, and "from that hour the disciple took her unto his own (house)," while in the older literature His mother does not appear in Jerusalem till just before Pentecost, and with "His brethren" (Acts i. 14). And John alone tells how the bones of the dead body
remained unbroken, fulfilling the ordinance as to the paschal lamb (Exod. xii. 46), and how blood and water flowed from His spear-pierced side : thus the Lamb "taketh away the sins of the world" by shedding His blood which "cleanseth us from every sin"; and "He cometh by water and blood," historically at His baptism and crucifixion, and mystically to each faithful soul in baptism and the eucharist. The story of the risen Christ (xx.) shows dependence on and contrast to the Synoptic accounts. Its two halves have each a negative and a positive scene. The empty grave (I-1o) and the apparition to the Magdalen (I i–i8) together correspond to the message brought by the women (Matt. xxviii. I-1o); and the apparition to the ten joyously believing apostles (19-23) and then to the sadly doubting Thomas together correspond to Luke xxiv. 36-43, where the eleven apostles jointly receive one visit from the risen One, and both doubt and believe, mourn and rejoice.
The Johannine discourses reveal differences from the Synoptists so profound as to be admitted by all. Here Jesus, the Baptist and the writer speak so much alike that it is sometimes impossible to say where each speaker begins and ends: e.g., in iii. 27-30,31-36. The speeches dwell upon Jesus' person and work, as we shall find, with a didactic directness, philosophical terminology and denun ciatory exclusiveness unmatched in the Synoptist sayings. "This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou Nast sent" (xvii. 3), is part of the high priestly prayer; yet Pere Calmes, with the papal censor's appro bation, says, "It seems to us impossible not to admit that we have here dogmatic developments explicable rather by the evangelist's habits of mind than by the actual words of Jesus." "I have told you of earthly things and you believe not; how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" (iii. 12), and "Ye are from beneath, I am from above" (viii. 23), give us a Plato- (Philo-) like upper, "true" world, and a lower, delusive world. "Ye shall die in your sins" (viii. 21) ; "ye are from your father the devil" (viii. 44) ; "I am the door of the sheep, all they that came before Me are thieves and robbers," (x. 7, 8) ; "they have no excuse for their sin" (xv. 22)—contrast strongly with the yearning over Jerusalem: "The blood of Abel the just" and "the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias" (Matt. xxiii. 35-37); and "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke xxiii. 34). And whilst the Synoptist speeches and actions stand in loose and natural relation to each other, the Johannine deeds so closely illustrate the sayings that each set everywhere supplements the other: the history itself here tends to become one long allegory. So with the woman at the well and "the living water"; the multiplication of the loaves and "the living Bread"; "I am the Light of the world" and the blind man's cure; "I am the Resurrec tion and the Life" and the raising of Lazarus; indeed even with the Temple-cleansing and the prophecy as to His resurrection ; Nicodemus's night visit and "men loved the darkness rather than the light"; the cure of the inoperative paralytic and "My Father and I work hitherto"; the walking, phantom-like, upon the waters (John vi. 15-21; Mark vi. 49) ; and the declaration concerning the eucharist, "the spirit it is that quickeneth" (John vi. 63). Only some sixteen Synoptic sayings reappear here; but we are given some great new sayings full of the Synoptic spirit.