But there is something more than silence. The common tradition of the church did not ascribe to St. John a violent death. And we cannot escape the inference by saying that the common tradition relates to John of Ephesus and not to the son of Zebedee; because the earliest authority for the tradition, the Apocryphal Acts of John, a second-century work, without any ambiguity identifies the two.
xi. We might perhaps sum up the whole case thus.
The Life of the Evangelist falls into three periods: first, the period covered by the Gospel in which he appears as the beloved disciple; then, at the end of his career, the period during which he appears as John of Ephesus: and, between these two, the period of some forty years which connects them together. Now we might say of Delff’s theory, that it gives a quite satisfactory account of the first period, and also in most ways of the last, and that in particular it enables us to work in the statement as to the death of the two sons of Zebedee; but that its difficulties come out chiefly in regard to the connexion between the first stage of the history and the last.
On the other hand, the common view gives what I think is really on the whole as good an account of the first period, and raises no special difficulties as to the second, but it does leave some obscurities which with our present knowledge it is difficult to clear away as to the third. And it also leaves the alleged statement of Papias an enigma for which we have no certain solution.
At the same time, although the cohesion is on either view not quite complete, it is in each case far too complete to be rejected in the interests of an agnosticism which only presents no target for objections because it has no tangible form or substance.
LECTURE IV
THE PRAGMATISM OF THE GOSPEL
Different Kinds of Precision in Detail.
I hope the title that I have given to this lecture is not an affectation. The word ‘Pragmatism’ is more common in German than in English. In English it is chiefly used as the name for a particular kind of philosophy which lays stress upon conduct or practice rather than theory. But we want the word, or something like it, in criticism as well as in philosophy. We want a word which shall express a tendency in a given writer or a given book, without begging any questions as to the relation between this tendency in the mind of the writer and the facts that he professes to describe; I mean the tendency to throw his thoughts into the form of concrete pictorial history, whether that history is real or imagined. It is in this sense that I use the word: I use it to describe a very marked characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, the abundance of detail—to all appearance precise detail—with which it presents its pictures. But I do not as yet say anything further as to the nature of this detail or the inference to be drawn from it.
One of the most uncompromising critics of the Gospel[[41]] calls this apparent precision, more especially in the notes of place and time, a ‘trump-card’ in the hands of the defenders of the Gospel. He goes on to give a meagre list, just of some of these notes of place and time, and nothing else. His only comment on them is that they ‘fail to impart to the presentation life, colour, and movement.’ As though life, in the sense of active life, and movement were the only guarantees of reality. It is true that St. John is not what we should call a dramatic writer; his narrative has not rapidity of movement. He is contemplative rather than energetic, and yet he has a quiet intensity of vision that is in its way not less valuable. He must be judged according to his type: we do not (e. g.) apply to a Maeterlinck the same sort of measure as to a Stanley Weyman.
Wrede’s is a specimen of what I consider poor criticism. It is in striking contrast to that which Dr. Drummond has devoted to the same subject. Dr. Drummond discusses in his judicial manner this phenomenon that I have called ‘Pragmatism.’ He begins by noting how the writer ‘specifies particular days, for no apparent reason except that he remembered them, and sometimes even mentions the hour. He often names the disciple who was the speaker, even when the remark is not of great consequence.’ We have said enough on this part of the subject. But he not only specifies times and persons but also places, with which he connects various incidents, ‘frequently for no discoverable reason beyond the fact itself.’ Then again there is, generally speaking, the graphic character of the work. On this Dr. Drummond has some discriminating remarks:—