“But you spoke, above, about ‘brethren’ as perhaps preaching John’s gospel for him during his decrepitude. Now you seem to incline to think that only one man wrote it?” “Yes,” replied Clemens, “I used ‘brethren’ first, to leave the question open. Then I endeavoured to give reasons for thinking it was one brother; and this conclusion is supported by the style. There are some slight differences in this gospel between the words of the Lord and the words of the evangelist, in respect of style. That is natural; indeed, one would expect many more. But, taken as a whole, the gospel does not shew many styles, as Luke’s does, but only one style—extending to the words of all characters introduced in the book, so that it is sometimes hard to say where a speaker ceases to speak and the evangelist begins to comment.”
“But this is surely astonishing,” said I, “that the author should have so little regard for the words of the Lord as not to make it absolutely and always clear where they end, and where his own comments, or the words of someone else, begin.” “It is astonishing,” said Clemens, “but I am disposed to think that John the Apostle himself may in some cases have left his friends in doubt; and the Elder—or whoever it was that wrote the gospel—may have thought it best to leave the ambiguity as he found it. I pointed out to you above how the differences between the three gospels had this advantage that they forced the reader to think of the spirit rather than the letter of the words of the Lord. But they also had a danger, namely, that men might be puzzling their brains as to the differences of scribes and reporters instead of refreshing their hearts with the Spirit of Christ. Now if the Elder had, so to speak, simply added a fourth parallel column to the three existing parallel columns of the sayings of the Lord, the result might have been to increase that danger.
“You may say that if the Elder felt sure that he had received the exactly correct form of the Lord’s words from John the Apostle, he ought to have set them down thus, whatever might be the consequences. But I do not believe that he did feel sure. More probably he knew that it was impossible, from the old man’s reminiscences, to restore the words exactly, as uttered by Jesus, and that it was best not to attempt a restoration, but to prefer paraphrase, giving their spiritual essence. Or else, in cases where the three evangelists differed seriously among themselves, the Elder might think it best to substitute an entirely new tradition on the same subject.”
“Is it not possible,” said I, “that some part of the gospel may have been written at an earlier date? Are there for example any expressions that shew the Temple to have been still standing at the time of writing?” “I have looked through the volume, searching for such evidence,” replied Clemens, “and can find absolutely nothing except a phrase in a rather obscure and corrupt passage about the existence of a pool, an intermittent pool, near Jerusalem. Now of course a pool is not destroyed even when a neighbouring city is utterly destroyed; and parts of Jerusalem continued to be inhabited, after its capture by Titus, although the walls, and a large part of the city, were razed to the ground. The gospel says, ‘There is in Jerusalem a pool … having five porches.’ I have not ascertained whether this pool is still used (as the narrative says it was then) for medicinal purposes, and whether the ‘porches’ still exist. I must also confess my belief that this is one of several narratives in which perhaps allegory may have modified history. But in any case the phrase ‘there is a pool’ seems to me to afford no basis, worth calling such, for a hypothesis of date. It seems to me of little more importance than if a writer said ‘There is a mountain called the Mount of Olives’ or ‘There is a brook called Kedron.’ I could, if you liked, discuss the passage with you more fully.”
“Let me rather ask you,” said I, “about a matter that greatly interests me. The words of Christ at the last supper—does John give them as Mark and Matthew do, or as Luke, or as Paul?” “That is a case,” said Clemens, “where John does not correct but substitutes. He does not give these words at all. But he inserts a narrative about Christ’s washing the feet of the disciples, and a precept that the disciples are to do the same. The ‘washing of feet,’ as I could shew you if time allowed, is connected with sacrifice, in Leviticus. As to the partaking of the bread and wine, he says expressly that the Saviour gave some of it to Judas—meaning (I think) to shew that there was no efficacy for good in the food, apart from faith and love.”
“And what,” I asked, “as to the words about ‘forsaking’ uttered on the cross, where Luke again differs from Mark and Matthew?” “Here,” replied Clemens, “I do not feel sure whether John introduces a new saying altogether, or gives the substance of the old saying in Mark. Certainly he does not agree with Luke. And let me add that I have examined a great number of passages where words of Mark, being obscure or difficult, are altered or omitted by Luke, and I find that in almost every case John intervenes to support Mark—only expressing Mark’s meaning more clearly and spiritually.
“Concerning the ‘forsaking,’ I suggested to you before that it is a metaphor. If so, the reality may be expressed by other metaphors in the scriptures, such as ‘I have lost the light of thy countenance,’ ‘I am cast away from the joy of thy presence,’ ‘My soul is deprived of the fountain of thy light.’ The Psalms say, ‘O God, my God … my soul is athirst for thee,’ and again, ‘My soul thirsteth for God, … when shall I come and appear before God?’ The ‘thirst’ implies absence from God. It will be satisfied by ‘coming’ to God. Well, John represents Jesus as saying, ‘I thirst,’ in accomplishment of ‘the scriptures.’ Then (as I take it) the soldiers misunderstand this thirst as meaning simply literal thirst. They offer Christ vinegar. Christ ‘took it,’ says the gospel. Then He said, ‘It is finished’ and ‘rested His head’—that is to say, on the bosom of the Father, and ‘delivered over His spirit’.”
“‘Rested His head’ is a strange expression,” said I. “It is,” said Clemens, “but it occurs in Matthew and Luke as follows, ‘The Son of man hath not where to rest His head,’ meaning ‘He hath no home, no resting-place, on earth, but only with the Father above.’ One of the ablest Greek scholars among the brethren assures me that John also uses the phrase to mean this; and I believe it is not used in Greek in any other sense. So, too, ‘delivered over His spirit’ signifies that in the supreme moment the ‘delivering over’ of the Suffering Servant was not passive but active. He delivered Himself over. But I ought to add that, in Aramaic, the same verb means (in different forms) ‘finish,’ ‘deliver over,’ and—the word used here by Mark and Luke—‘expire’.”
Scaurus had said something of this kind concerning the three gospels, and had argued that it increased the difficulty of ascertaining what Christ actually said. But I had supposed that it would not extend to a gospel written in a Greek city like Ephesus and so long after the other gospels, when Greek traditions might be expected to predominate. I was depressed by this frank avowal on the part of Clemens, and remained in silence for a moment or two weighing its consequences.