Clemens therefore admitted that he could not feel certain as to the order of events in John’s gospel. It might be, he said, that two events, mentioned in different parts of the gospel as taking place at, or before, a feast, and apparently at, or before, different feasts, might really have taken place at, or before, the same feast. Among several details in which he agreed with Scaurus, one was the narrative of the Walking on the Water. Concerning this he said that, according to John, the walking was not really on the water, any more than a city is really “on a sea” when it is said to lie “on the Ægean” or “on the Hadriatic.” He also agreed with Scaurus as to the story about Peter plunging into the water to come to Christ, which might (he thought) explain Matthew’s story, according to which Christ first walked on the water, and then Peter attempted to walk on it towards the Lord, but failed. Both these, he thought, might be metaphorical.
As regards what Scaurus had said concerning the ambiguity of many words and phrases in the fourth gospel, Clemens admitted it. “But,” said he, “my conviction is that the writer did not use them thus for the mere purpose of being ambiguous, like the oracle ‘Aio te, Æacida.’ I do not deny that he plays upon words, but so does Isaiah. He also repeats and varies phrases, but so do all the prophecies and the Psalms. Similarly he is often dark and obscure. But are there not obscurities also in Æschylus, and Pindar, and in the deepest thoughts of Plato? And whence do these arise? Not surely from a desire to be ambiguous, but from the lawful feeling of a great poet, prompted to use strange language, and sometimes dark language, that is put into his mind to express strange and dark thoughts. So it is with John, at least in my judgment. And as to other parts, which seem artificial—as, for example, when he repeats things twice or thrice in a kind of refrain—I should plead in the same way that a poet, even when most inspired, follows rules. Æschylus and Pindar do not break the laws of Greek metre. Well, Jewish tradition also has rules of its own, quite different from ours, and I believe John observes them.”
Then he referred to John’s use of the word “logos.” Scaurus had described John as leading on his readers from logos to pathos. Clemens admitted that this was true if pathos meant the affections and included that one affection in particular which we call “love.” And he justified John’s course. “For,” said he, “if the Logos is related to God as word is to thought, must we not say that ‘word’ should include every expression of thought, and that the perfect Logos must be the expression of the perfect thought? And what thought can be more perfect than that which Scaurus himself suggests, in his similitude of a magnet attracting all things to itself and causing each attracted object to attract others, so that the multitudinous world is made one harmony? And in the region of the affections, what is this but the highest kind of love, as your friend himself testifies, binding men together in families, cities, nations, and destined, in the end, to unite all as citizens of the city of the universe, or children in the family of God?”
Then Clemens added, without any questioning from me, that he entirely concurred with Scaurus in his feeling that the miracles or signs of Christ, however far they might be literally true, would not be so convincing a proof of His greatness as the power of His Spirit to infuse peace and power, yes, and wisdom, and harmony of thought, into the minds of those who received Him. “I do not mean to assert,” said he, “that all who receive Christ remain steadfast in Him. Many have fallen away through subtle temptations of the world and the flesh; some few, under persecution and the open cruelty of the devil. But as to these last I have noted this. Strong men have fallen while boasting ‘We can endure every torture.’ Weak women have stood fast confessing ‘We can do nothing. Our strength is in the Lord. Our Saviour will stand fast for us.’ Yes, that has been the great miracle, to see slaves changed to nobles, peasants and clowns to orators, fools become wise, and human beasts, not worthy to be called men—ape-like and wolf-like creatures—transmuted into citizens of the kingdom of God.
“And that reminds me of what I specially admired in your friend—the sagacity with which he penetrated to the root of the matter, declaring that our religion is, in reality, no religion at all (not at least what augurs or priests would call a religion) but only union with a personality, a Lord and Saviour and Friend, who is in us and in whom we are, ‘a very present help in trouble.’ We have no system of sacrifices. For He is our sacrifice offered up once visibly on the cross, and offering Himself up invisibly and continually in the hearts of His faithful disciples. We have no code of laws. For He is our law, uttered by Himself once to the ears of the disciples in the two commandments ‘Love God’ and ‘Love thy neighbour,’ when He shewed them how to make all men ‘neighbours’; and now He utters the same law to our hearts, every moment of our lives, giving us a strong desire to do that which is best for our ‘neighbours,’ and helping us to see what is best, and, seeing it, to do it.”
When Clemens said, “He is our sacrifice,” I thought of Paul’s words, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” and of “the blood of sprinkling” about which Scaurus had written. And this led me to ask concerning that other tradition which (Scaurus had told me) was written in the fourth gospel alone, about blood and water issuing from Christ’s side.
“That,” said Clemens, “was the only passage in your friend’s letter where I was strongly moved to ask you to stop reading that we might talk of it at once. His view was new to me. Yet I confess I had always found it difficult to explain how the writer could call on himself to testify to what he himself had asserted. If Æmilius Scaurus should prove right, that difficulty of mine would be removed. Moreover I cannot but admit that John, or any other disciple, would probably have been prevented by the soldiers from approaching to the cross close enough to distinguish the water from the blood flowing from His side. Yet it came on me as a shock to believe that this particular narrative—to which I attach great importance—was based on a vision. Now the shock is somewhat softened. I have been thinking over your friend’s arguments. He is quite right in saying that in John’s epistle, which may be called an epilogue to his gospel, the words ‘He knoweth,’ as expressed in this particular emphatic phrase, would mean ‘Jesus knoweth.’ The meaning may be the same here. Nevertheless, even if it is so, and even if the narrative describes a vision, I should still feel as certain as ever that this vision expressed the real eternal truth.”
“What do you mean,” I said, “by eternal truth?” “I mean this,” replied Clemens, “that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross appears to me foreordained from eternity and destined to last to eternity, as the symbol of the fundamental law of the universe, what Scaurus calls the Law of the Magnet. Call it a dream, if you please. Then such is my dream. But I act on it, or try to act on it, as a reality. The Father gives His life to men in giving His Son to them. The life, says the scripture, is the blood. Some of our brethren would not scruple to say ‘God gives His blood to men.’ I would rather say God has been giving of His life to men from the time when man was first created—not only as a Father and a Mother, but also as a Servant, serving His servants, nursing His children, ‘washing their feet’ (so to speak) as a nurse does, and as Christ did. There are two spiritual realities, or, if you like, two metaphors, to express this spiritual reality. One is, that life or blood is to be infused, like new blood, into our veins. The other is, that in this life, or life-blood, we are also to bathe ourselves, that we may be born again. I know that this will seem to you and to many others an exaggerated, or (as I have heard it called) an ‘unsavoury and distasteful similitude.’ But these protests are outweighed, in my mind, by the faith and feeling of multitudes of simple devout Christians of the deepest and purest insight. One of these, a woman—the most inspired of all women known to me with holy wisdom—continually speaks of bathing herself in the blood of Christ crucified; and so do some of our most inspired poets. You have spoken to me of ‘the constraining love of Christ.’ One of our poets—a man experienced in troubles and knowing only too well what it is to feel forsaken of God—describes it thus in the person of Christ:—
‘Mine is an unchanging love,
Higher than the heights above,