v. Jewish Ideas and Dialectic.
We are in search of hints and allusions appropriate to the time. The evidence is overwhelming that the author of the Gospel was a Jew, and (as I think) also a Jew of Palestine. The best critics admit this, and it is hardly worth while to stay to prove it; indeed it is incidentally proved by a large proportion of the examples I am giving. But it is of more importance to prove that the author was a contemporary of the events he is describing. Now I will not say that the points I am going to urge exactly prove this. They do, however, I believe, justify us in saying that if the author was really an Apostle, a member of the original Twelve, or closely associated with them, the indications in the Gospel entirely correspond with such a position. If the author was not an Apostle, then he must either have been in a position extremely similar to that of the Apostles, or else he must have taken great pains to convey the impression that he was in such a position. The passages I am about to adduce all reflect with great vividness a state of things like that which must have existed in the time of our Lord.
There is just one period in which the Christian Church stood in a relation to Judaism which it never occupied again: that was in its origin. Christianity arose out of the bosom of Judaism. The first disciples reached manhood as Jews; they were witnesses of the process by which Christianity gradually broke loose from Judaism; they themselves underwent a process of conversion; their ideas were modified little by little as they went on, and in the end the new displaced the old. But they had been as familiar with the attitude of their Jewish opponents as they were with their own; they knew the arguments to which the Jews appealed, the prejudices by which they were animated, the language that they used. I repeat, there was one period to which this description applied, and never another in the same degree. The Fourth Gospel is full of instances of this. Let us turn to some of them.
The earlier chapters have been drawn upon rather freely in other connexions: we will therefore begin with chap. iv. How perfect is the local colour of the story of the Samaritan woman![[50]]
‘The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman?... The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle?’ (iv. 9, 11, 12).
The standing feud between Jews and Samaritans is notorious, and does not need illustrating. ‘The well is deep’ in the most literal sense; the actual depth is about 75 feet. But how appropriate and natural is the appeal to the patriarch Jacob, and the local tradition about him!
‘The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.... The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (which is called Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things’ (vers. 19-21, 25).
The natural impression of the discourse to which she was listening upon the woman would be that her interlocutor was a prophet. And her first impulse would be to put to Him the burning question which divided Jews and Samaritans—Was the true centre of worship to be sought in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim? It was at one time contended that the Samaritans had no Messianic expectation; but that is now given up. The Samaritans not only had such an expectation, but have it to the present day.
The Jews at Capernaum in chap. vi apply the Pentateuchal history in very much the same way as the Samaritan woman. Some of our modern critics, who have a keen eye for anything to which exception can be taken, and who do not appreciate the simplicity which is not peculiar to St. John but characteristic of the Biblical narrative generally, will say that here we have a ‘schematism,’ a stereotyped formula, which shows poverty of invention. On the contrary, I would describe it as a touch of nature so ingrained in the Jewish habit of mind that it was sure to recur, and harmonizes thoroughly with the historical situation.
Chap. vii is full of the kind of materials of which we are in search; but the greater proportion of them we will reserve for our next head. I must, however, just refer in passing to the expression of the Jews’ surprise, ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?’ (ver. 15). It is just what would excite the astonishment of the populace that one who seemed to be a simple peasant, and had not been a student in any of the current Rabbinical schools, should yet show himself so well able to deal with the profoundest questions that the Rabbis were in the habit of discussing. This seventh chapter places us in the midst of a society which, with only a slight difference of method, reminds us of the restless curiosity with which we are told that Alexandrian Christians canvassed the metaphysical problems involved in the Arian controversy. In Palestine the dominant influence was Rabbinism; the one idea that the people had of learning was Rabbinical learning; and so entirely did the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ cover the ground that the appearance of a teacher who was neither scribe nor Pharisee was sure to be remarked upon.
A little lower down we have exactly the kind of argument to which the Jewish people were accustomed.
‘The multitude answered, Thou hast a devil: who seeketh to kill thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one work, and ye all marvel. For this cause hath Moses given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are ye wroth with me, because I made a man every whit whole on the sabbath?’ (vers. 20-3).
I do not think it can be doubted that arguments like this were just what would be constantly heard at the first beginnings of Christianity. But they belong to the time when it was just in the act of differentiating itself from Judaism; and I cannot easily imagine that they would be so clearly realized and so appropriately introduced later.
Of the same kind is much of the discussion in ch. viii. I do not undertake to say that this discussion, or other discussions in the Fourth Gospel, are given exactly as they really happened. I am quite prepared to believe that especially the part in them taken by our Lord Himself was a little different from that which He is represented as taking. But, if I think this, it is because the narrative seems to me (if it is not too much of a paradox to say so) even too true to the time and circumstances in which the discussion took place. No doubt our Lord is represented as holding Himself apart from and above the Jewish controversialists. I feel sure that He did this; but, with the Synoptic Gospels before me, I suspect that He did it in a slightly different, i. e. in a more reserved and—if I may be forgiven the expression—delicate way.
With thus much of preface I will just give a specimen of what I mean by truth to the time and circumstances.
‘The Jews answered and said unto Him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye dishonour me.... The Jews said unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, if a man keep my word, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?’ (vers. 48, 49, 52, 53).
‘Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil’; ‘Abraham is dead, and the prophets.’ These are exactly the things that would be said, and that we may be sure were said. But I am not satisfied with the hypothesis that the author who wrote them was a Jew of Palestine. I believe that he was, and must have been, an actual contemporary and eye-witness of what he is recording.
The same conclusion forces itself upon us all through the next chapter, which is steeped in Jewish ideas and customs; and those not Jewish ideas and customs in the abstract, but in direct and close connexion with the Jewish controversy as it existed in the time of our Lord and centring in His person. I single out a few of the verses that illustrate this most vividly.
‘And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.... Some therefore of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, because he keepeth not the sabbath. But others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division among them.... He therefore answered, Whether he be a sinner, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. They said therefore unto him, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? He answered them, I told you even now, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? would ye also become his disciples? And they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God hath spoken unto Moses: but as for this man, we know not whence he is. The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein is the marvel, that ye know not whence he is, and yet he opened mine eyes. We know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and do his will, him he heareth. Since the world began it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out’ (ix. vers. 1-3, 16, 25-34).
Notice in this the following essentially Jewish ideas: The connexion of sin with physical infirmity, and the speculation as to how far back, in a particular case, this connexion went—whether it was confined to the individual affected himself, or whether it went back to his parents; the observance of the sabbath as indispensable to one who really had a divine mission; in reply to this, the plea that none but a righteous man could work miracles; the relation of discipleship, and the claim of the Pharisees to be in the strict sense Moses’ disciples; and finally, the characteristic abuse of one who bore in his body the mark of having been born in sin, and yet presumed to teach doctors of the Law; for such a one expulsion from the synagogue was a fitting penalty[[51]].