The Making of the New Testament

by Benjamin Wisner Bacon

In Paul's enumeration of the "gifts" by which the Spirit qualifies various classes of men to build in various ways upon the structure of the church, the class of "prophets" takes the place next after that of "apostles," a rank even superior (as more manifestly 'spiritual') to that of "pastors and teachers." The Book of Acts shows us as its most conspicuous centre of "prophecy" the house of Philip the Evangelist at Cæsarea. This man had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and in his house Paul received a 'prophetic' warning of his fate from a certain Agabus who had come down from Judæa. There were also prophets in Antioch (Acts xiii. 1), though the only ones mentioned by name are this same Agabus[24] and Silas, or Silvanus, who is also from Judæa. In the Teaching of the Twelve the 'prophet' still appears among the regular functionaries of the church, for the most part a traveller from place to place, and open to more or less suspicion, as is the case at Rome, where Hermas combines reverence for the "angel" that speaks through the true prophet, with warnings against the self-seeker. In 1st John the "false prophets" are a serious danger, propagating Doketic heresy wherever they go. In fact, this heresy was, as we know, the great peril in Asia. However, Asia, if plagued by wandering false prophets, had also become by this time a notable seat of true and authentic prophecy; for the same Papias who shows such sympathy with Polycarp against those who were "perverting the Sayings of the Lord to their own lusts," and had turned, as Polycarp advised, "to the tradition handed down from the beginning," had similar means for counteracting those who "denied the resurrection and judgment." Among those upon whom he principally relied as exponents of the apostolic doctrine were two of those same prophesying daughters of Philip the Evangelist, who with their father had migrated from Cæsarea Palestina to Hierapolis, leaving, however, one, who had married, a resident till her death at Ephesus. As late as the time of Montanus (150-170), the "Phrygians" traced their succession of prophets and prophetesses back to Silvanus and the daughters of Philip.

We cannot be sure that the traditions Papias reported from these prophetesses were derived at first hand, though it is not impossible that Papias himself may have seen them. However it is certain that many of his traditions of 'the Elders' had to do with eschatology, and aimed to prove the material and concrete character of the rewards of the kingdom; for we have several examples of these traditions, attributing to Jesus apocryphal descriptions of the marvellous fertility of Palestine in the coming reign of Messiah, and particularizing about the abodes of the blessed. Moreover Eusebius blames Papias for the crude ideas of Irenæus and other second century fathers who held the views called "chiliastic" (i. e. based on the "thousand" year reign of Christ in Rev. xx. 2 f.). We also know that Papias defended the "trustworthiness" of Revelation, a book which served as the great authority of the "chiliasts" for the next fifty years in their fight against the deniers of the resurrection. He quoted from it, in fact, the passage above referred to; so that if reason must be sought for his placing "John and Matthew" together at the end of his list of seven apostles instead of in their usual place, it is probably because they were his ultimate apostolic authorities for the "word of prophecy" and for the "commandment of the Lord" respectively. Justin Martyr, Papias' contemporary at Rome, though converted in Ephesus, and unquestionably determined in his mould of thought by Asiatic Paulinism, has, like Papias, but two authorities for his gospel teaching: (1) the commandment of the Lord represented in the Petrine and Matthæan tradition; (2) prophecy, represented in the Christian continuation of the Old Testament gift. This second authority, however, is not appealed to without the support of apostolicity. Revelation is quoted as among "our writings," like "the memorabilia of the apostles called Gospels," but not without the additional assurance that the seer was "John, one of the apostles of Christ."

For 'prophecy,' however acclimated elsewhere, was in its origin distinctively a Palestinian product. Its stock in trade was Jewish eschatology as developed in the long succession of writers of 'apocalypse' since Daniel (165 b.c.). Of the nature of this curious and fantastic type of literature we have seen some examples in 2nd Thessalonians and the Synoptic eschatology (Mark xiii.=Matt. xxiv.=Luke xxi.). More can be learnt by comparing the contemporary Jewish writings of this type known as 2nd Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch. Older examples are found in the prophecies and visions purporting to come from Enoch. For apocalypse became the successor of true prophecy in proportion as the loss of Israel's separate national existence and the enlargement of its horizon compelled it to make its messianic hopes transcendental, and its notion of the Kingdom cosmic. Hence comes all the phantasmagoria of allegorical monsters, spirits and demons, the great conflict no longer against Assyria and Babylon, but a war of the powers of light and darkness, heaven and hell. Yet all centres still upon Jerusalem as the ultimate metropolis of the world, whose empires, now given over to the leadership of Satan, will soon lie prostrate beneath her feet.

Some such eschatology of divine judgment and reward is an almost necessary complement to the legalistic type of religion. If Christianity be conceived as a system of commandments imposed by supernatural authority it must have as a motive for obedience a system of supernatural rewards and punishments. Not merely, then, because for centuries the legalism of the scribes had actually had its corresponding development of apocalypse, with visions of the great judgment and Day of Yahweh, but because of an inherent and necessary affinity between the two, "Judæa" continued to be the home of 'prophecy' in New Testament times also.

However, the one great example of this type of literature that has been (somewhat reluctantly) permitted to retain a place in the New Testament canon appears at first blush to be clearly and distinctively a product of Ephesus. Of no book has early tradition so clear and definite a pronouncement to make as of Revelation. Since the time of Paul the Jewish ideas of resurrection provoked opposition in the Greek mind. The Greek readily accepted immortality, but the crudity of Jewish millenarianism, with its return of the dead from the grave for a visible, concrete rule of Messiah in Palestine repelled him. The representation of Acts xvii. 32 is fully borne out by the constant effort of Paul in his Greek epistles to remove the stumbling-blocks of this doctrine. It is no surprise, then, to find the 'prophecy' of Revelation, and more particularly its doctrine of the thousand-year reign of Messiah in Jerusalem, a subject of dispute at least since Melito of Sardis (167), and probably since Papias (145). Fortunately controversy brought out with unusual definiteness, and from the earliest times, positive statements regarding the origin of the book. Irenæus (186) declared it a work of the Apostle John given him in vision "in the end of the reign of Domitian." The same date (93), may be deduced from statements of Epiphanius regarding the history of the church in Thyatira. Justin Martyr (153), as we have seen, vouches for the crucial passage (Rev. xx. 2 f.) as from "one of ourselves, John, an apostle of the Lord." Papias (145) vouched for its orthodoxy at least, if not its authenticity. There can be no reasonable doubt that it came to be accepted in Asia early in the second century, in spite of opposition, as representing the authority of the Apostle John, and as having appeared there c. 95. In fact, there is no book of the entire New Testament whose external attestation can compare with that of Revelation, in nearness, clearness, definiteness, and positiveness of statement. John is as distinctively the father of 'prophecy' in second century tradition as Matthew of 'Dominical Precepts' and Peter of 'Narratives.'

Moreover the book itself purports to be written from Patmos, an island off the coast of Asia. It speaks in the name of "John" as of some very high and exceptional authority, well known to all the seven important churches addressed, the first of which is "Ephesus." By its references to local names and conditions it even proves, in the judgment of all the most eminent modern scholars, that it really did see the light for the first time (at least for the first time in its present form) in Ephesus not far from a.d. 95.

One would think the case for apostolic authenticity could hardly be stronger. And yet no book of the New Testament has had such difficulty as this, whether in ancient or modern times, to maintain its place in the canon. It must also be said that no book gives stronger internal evidence of having passed through at least two highly diverse stages in process of development to its present form.

The theory of "another John" is indeed comparatively modern. Nobody dreamt of such a solution until Dionysius of Alexandria hesitatingly advanced the conjecture in his controversy with Nepos the Chiliast. Even then (c. 250) Dionysius (though he must have known the little work of Papias) could think of no other John at Ephesus than the Apostle, unless it were perhaps John Mark! It is Eusebius who joyfully helps him out with the discovery in Papias of "John the Elder." But Eusebius himself is candid enough to admit that Papias only quoted "traditions of John" and "mentioned him frequently in his writings." When we read Papias' own words, though they are cited by Eusebius for the express purpose of proving the debatable point, it is obvious that they prove nothing of the kind, but rather imply the contrary, viz. that John the Elder, though a contemporary of Papias, was not accessible, but known to him only at second hand, by report of travellers who "came his way." In short, as we have seen, "Aristion and John the Elder" were the surviving members of a group of 'apostles, elders and witnesses of the Lord' in Jerusalem. If, then, one chose to attribute the 'prophecies' of Rev. iv.-xxi. to this Elder there could be no serious objections on the score of doctrine, for the "traditions of John" reported by Papias were not lacking in millenarian colour. Only, it is not the 'prophecies' of Rev. iv.-xxi. which contain the references to "John," but the enclosing prologue and epilogue; and these concern themselves with the churches of Asia as exclusively as the 'prophecies' with the quarrel of Jerusalem with Rome.

The second century is, as we have seen, unanimous in excluding from consideration any other John in Asia save the Apostle, and if the writer of Rev. i. and xxii. produced this impression in all contemporary minds without exception, including even such as opposed the book and its doctrine, it is superlatively probable that such was his intention. The deniers of the resurrection and judgment did not point out to Polycarp, Papias, Justin, Melito and Caius, that they were confusing two Johns, attributing the work of a mere Elder to the Apostle. They plumply declared the attribution to John fictitious; and since the internal evidence from the condition of the churches and growth of heresy in chh. i.-iii. and the imperial succession down to Domitian in chh. xiii. and xvii. strongly corroborate the date assigned in antiquity (c. 93), we have no alternative, if we admit that the Apostle John had long before been "killed by the Jews,"[25] but to suppose that this book, like nearly all the books of 'prophecy,' is, indeed, pseudonymous. It does not follow that he who assumes the name of "John" in prologue and epilogue (i. 1 f., 4, 9; xxii. 8) to tell the reader definitely who the prophet is, was guilty of intentional misrepresentation. If anything can be made clear by criticism it is clear that the prophecies were not his own. They were taken from some nameless source. The "pseudonymity" consists simply in clothing a conjecture with the appearance of indubitable fact.

But why should a writer who wished to clothe with apostolic authority the 'prophecies' he was promulgating, not assume boldly the title of "apostle," as the author of 2nd Peter has done in adapting similarly the Epistle of Jude? Why, if he assumes the name of the martyred Apostle John at all, does he refrain from saying, "I John, an apostle, or disciple of the Lord," and content himself with the humbler designation and authority of 'prophet'?