Gospel of St John

Characteristics and Object.

The book's character results from the continuous operation of four great tendencies. There is everywhere a readiness to handle traditional, largely historical, materials with a sovereign freedom, controlled and limited by doctrinal convictions and devotional experiences alone. There is everywhere the mystic's deep love for double, even treble mean ings: e.g., the "again" in iii. 2, means, literally, "from the begin ning," to be physically born again; morally, to become as a little child ; mystically, "from heaven, God," to be spiritually renewed. "Judgment" in the popular sense, condemnation, a future act; in the mystical sense, discrimination, a present fact. There is everywhere the influence of certain central ideas, partly identical with, but largely developments of, those less reflectively operative in the Synoptists. Thus six great terms are charac teristic of, or even special to, this Gospel. "The Only-Begotten" is most nearly reached by St. Paul's term "His own Son." The "Word," or "Logos," is a term derived from Heracleitus of Ephesus and the Stoics, through the Alexandrian Jew Philo, but conceived here throughout as definitely personal. "The Light of the World" the Jesus-Logos here proclaims Himself to be; in the Synoptists He only declares His disciples to be such. "The Paraclete," as in Philo, is a "helper," "intercessor"; but in Philo he is the intelligible universe, whilst here He is a self-conscious Spirit. "Truth," "the truth," "to know," have here a prominence and significance far beyond their Synoptic or even their Pauline use. And above all stand the uses of "Life," "Eternal Life." The living ever-working Father (vi. 57; v. 17) has a Logos in whom is Life (i. 4), an ever-working Son (v. 17), who declares Himself "the living Bread," " the Resurrection and the Life," "the Way, the Truth and the Life" (vi. 51; xi. 25; xiv. i6) : so that Father and Son quicken whom they will (v. 2I); the Father's commandment is life everlasting, and Jesus' words are spirit and life (xii. 5o; vi. 63, 68). The term, already Synoptic, takes over here most of the connotations of the "Kingdom of God," the standing Synoptic expression, which appears here only in iii. 3-5; xviii. 36. Note that the term "the Logos" is peculiar to the Apocalypse (xix. 13), and the prologue here, but that, as Light and Life, the Logos-conception is present throughout the book. And thus there is everywhere a striving to contemplate history sub specie aeternitatis and to englobe the successiveness of man in the simultaneity of God.

Narratives Peculiar to John.

Of his seven great symbolical, doctrinally interpreted "signs," John shares three, the cure of the ruler's son, the multiplication of the loaves, the walking on the waters, with the Synoptists : yet here the first is transformed almost beyond recognition ; and the two others only typify and prepare the eucharistic discourse. Of the four purely Johannine signs, two—the cures of the paralytic (v. 1-16), and of the man born blind (ix. I-34)--are, admittedly, profoundly symbolical. In the first case, the man's physical and spiritual lethargy are closely interconnected and strongly contrasted with the ever active God and His Logos. In the second case there is also the closest parallel between physical blindness cured, and spiritual darkness dispelled, by the Logos-Light as described in the accom panying discourse. Both narratives are doubtless based upon actual occurrences—the cures narrated in Mark ii., x., and scenes witnessed by the writer in later times—yet here they do but picture our Lord's spiritual work in the human soul achieved throughout Christian history. We cannot well claim more than these three kinds of reality for the first and the last signs, the miracle at Cana and the resurrection of Lazarus.

For the marriage-feast sign yields throughout an allegorical meaning. Water stands in this Gospel for what is still but symbol; thus the water-pots serve here the external Jewish ablutions—old bottles which the "new wine" of the Gospel is to burst (Mark ii. 22). Wine is the blood of the new covenant, and He will drink the fruit of the vine new in the Kingdom of God (Mark xiv. 23-25); the vineyard where He Himself is the true Vine (Mark xii. I ; John xv. I). And "the kingdom of heaven is like to a marriage-feast" (Matt. xxii. 2) ; Jesus is the Bridegroom (Mark ii. 19) ; "the marriage of the Lamb has come" (Rev.

xix. 7). "They have no wine": the hopelessness of the old con ditions is announced here by the true Israel, the Messiah's spirit ual mother, the same "woman" who in Rev. xii. 2, 5 "brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations." Cardinal Newman admitted that the latter woman "represents the church, this is the real or direct sense"; yet as her man-child is certainly the Messiah, this church must be the faithful Jewish church. Thus also the "woman" at the wedding and beneath the cross stands primarily for the faithful Old Testament community, correspond ing to the beloved disciple, the typical New Testament follower of her Son, the Messiah : in each case the devotional accommo dation to His earthly mother is equally ancient and legitimate. He answers her "My hour is not yet come," i.e., in the symbolic story, the moment for working the miracle ; in the symbolized reality, the hour of His death, condition for the spirit's advent; and "what is there between Me and thee?" i.e., "My motives spring no more from the old religion," words devoid of difficulty, if spoken thus by the Eternal Logos to the passing Jewish church. The transformation is soon afterwards accomplished, but in sym bol only ; the "hour" of the full sense is still over three years off. Already Philo says "the Logos is the master of the spiritual drinking-feast," and "let Melchisedeck"—the Logos—"in lieu of water offer wine to souls and inebriate them" (De somn. ii. 37; Legg. all. iii. 26). But in John this symbolism figures a great historic fact, the joyous freshness of Jesus' ministerial beginnings, as indicated in the sayings of the Bridegroom and of the new wine, a freshness typical of Jesus' ceaseless renovation of souls.

The raising of Lazarus, in appearance a massive, definitely localized historical fact, requires a similar interpretation, unless we would, in favour of the direct historicity of a story peculiar to a profoundly allegorical treatise, ruin the historical trust worthiness of the largely historical Synoptists in precisely their most complete and verisimilar part. For especially in Mark, the passing through Jericho, the entry into Jerusalem, the Temple cleansing and its immediate effect upon the hierarchs, their next day's interrogatory, "By what authority doest thou these things?" i.e., the cleansing (x. 33), are all closely interdependent and lead at once to His discussions with His Jerusalem opponents (xii., xiii.), and to the anointing, last supper, and passion (xiv., xv.). John's last and greatest symbolic sign replaces those historic motives, since here it is the raising of Lazarus which determines the hierarchs to kill Jesus (xi. 46-52), and occasions the crowds which accompany and meet him on His entry (xii. 9-19). The intrinsic improbabilities of the narrative, if taken as direct history are also great : Jesus' deliberate delay of two days to secure His friend's dying, and His rejoicing at the death, since thus He can revivify His friend and bring His disciples to believe in Himself as the Life ; His deliberate weeping over the death which He has thus let happen, yet His anger at the similar tears of Lazarus's other friends ; and His praying, as He tells the Father in the prayer itself, simply to edify the bystanders : all point to a doctrinal allegory. Indeed the climax of the whole account is already reached in Jesus' great saying: "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me . . . shall not die for ever," and in Martha's answer : "I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who host come into the world" (xi. 26, 27) ; the sign which follows is but the pictorial representation of this abiding truth. The materials for the allegory will have been certain Old Testament narratives, but especially the Synoptic accounts of Jesus' raisings of Jairus's daughter and of the widow's son (Mark v. ; Luke vii.). Mary and Martha are admittedly identical with the sisters in Luke x. 38-42 ; and already some Greek fathers connect the Lazarus of this allegory with the Lazarus of the parable (Luke xvi. 19-31). In the parable Lazarus returns not to earth, since Abraham foresees that the rich man's brethren would disbelieve even if one rose from the dead; in the corresponding allegory, Lazarus does actually return to life, and the Jews believe so little as to determine upon killing the very Life Himself.