You will think perhaps that I have been a long time in approaching the direct treatment of the Fourth Gospel. It is quite true that I have thought well to begin the approach from a distance, as it were by sap and trench, before planting my guns—such as they are. I have indeed the ambition in this course of lectures not only to state a case in regard to the Fourth Gospel, but also at the same time to contribute, if I may, to the work so admirably initiated by Dr. Drummond, of commending by the way what I conceive to be sound principles of criticism, as contrasted with others which I consider unsound. It happens that a discussion of the Fourth Gospel specially lends itself to this purpose.
In accordance with what I have been saying, you will not expect of me any new and startling theory to account for the phenomena of the Fourth Gospel. I am content to go back to the oldest categorical statement in respect to it that history has handed down to us. It seems to me that this statement, plain and direct as it is, really gives an adequate explanation, if not exactly of everything, yet at least of all the salient points that need explaining.
Eusebius (H. E. vi. 14. 7) has preserved for us the substance of a passage from the Hypotyposes, or Outlines, of Clement of Alexandria, which he says that Clement derived from the ‘early Presbyters’ (παράδοσιν τῶν ἀνέκαθεν πρεσβυτέρων), and which dealt among other things with the order of the Gospels. After speaking of the other Evangelists, he says that ‘last of all John perceiving that the bodily (or external) facts had been set forth in the (other) Gospels, at the instance of his disciples and with the inspiration of the Spirit composed a spiritual Gospel.’
A very similar tradition had been given by Eusebius in an earlier book (iii. 24). He heads the chapter, ‘On the Order of the Gospels,’ and in the course of it he writes as follows:
‘Nevertheless, of all the disciples of the Lord, only Matthew and John have left us written memoirs, and they are reported (κατέχει λόγος[[32]]) to have been led to write under pressure of necessity. Matthew, having previously preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other peoples, committed to writing the Gospel that bears his name in his native tongue, and so by the written book compensated those whom he was leaving for the loss of his presence. And when Mark and Luke had by that time published their Gospels, they say that John, having before spent all his time in oral preaching, at last came also to write for some such reason as this. The three Gospels first written having been by this distributed everywhere, and having come into his hands, they say that he accepted them, bearing witness to their truth, but (adding) that there was only wanting to their record the narrative of what was done by Christ at first and at the beginning of His preaching.’
At this point Eusebius digresses to show that what was said was true. The first three Evangelists began the main body of their narrative after John the Baptist was cast into prison; but St. John expressly tells us that, at the time of the events related in his early chapters, John was not yet in prison. Any one attending to this, Eusebius said, would no longer suppose that the Gospels were at variance with each other, and would see that John had reason for being silent as to the genealogy of our Saviour’s human descent, as this had been already written by Matthew and Luke, and for beginning with His divinity, as though this had been reserved by the Holy Ghost for him as one greater than they. These last are the words of Eusebius, who is very probably influenced by his recollection of the language of Clement. Unfortunately we cannot locate the rest of the tradition. It would be only a guess to suppose that it came from Hippolytus, at the time of his controversy with Caius. But in any case there is a good deal of evidence to show that the opening sections of the Gospels were being much canvassed towards the end of the second and at the beginning of the third century. The passage is in general agreement with Clement, and avoids his mistake in saying that the two Gospels containing the genealogies were the first to be written. Really Clement alone has all the essential points, which are these:
1. The Gospel is the work of St. John the Apostle—for there is no doubt that he is intended.
2. It was written towards the end of his life, after the publication of the other three.
3. The three Gospels were in the hands of the Apostle, and he had read and up to a certain point approved of them.
4. What he himself undertook to write was a Gospel, not a biography; the difference is important.