v. Jewish Ideas and Dialectic.
We are in search of hints and allusions appropriate to the time. The evidence is overwhelming that the author of the Gospel was a Jew, and (as I think) also a Jew of Palestine. The best critics admit this, and it is hardly worth while to stay to prove it; indeed it is incidentally proved by a large proportion of the examples I am giving. But it is of more importance to prove that the author was a contemporary of the events he is describing. Now I will not say that the points I am going to urge exactly prove this. They do, however, I believe, justify us in saying that if the author was really an Apostle, a member of the original Twelve, or closely associated with them, the indications in the Gospel entirely correspond with such a position. If the author was not an Apostle, then he must either have been in a position extremely similar to that of the Apostles, or else he must have taken great pains to convey the impression that he was in such a position. The passages I am about to adduce all reflect with great vividness a state of things like that which must have existed in the time of our Lord.
There is just one period in which the Christian Church stood in a relation to Judaism which it never occupied again: that was in its origin. Christianity arose out of the bosom of Judaism. The first disciples reached manhood as Jews; they were witnesses of the process by which Christianity gradually broke loose from Judaism; they themselves underwent a process of conversion; their ideas were modified little by little as they went on, and in the end the new displaced the old. But they had been as familiar with the attitude of their Jewish opponents as they were with their own; they knew the arguments to which the Jews appealed, the prejudices by which they were animated, the language that they used. I repeat, there was one period to which this description applied, and never another in the same degree. The Fourth Gospel is full of instances of this. Let us turn to some of them.
The earlier chapters have been drawn upon rather freely in other connexions: we will therefore begin with chap. iv. How perfect is the local colour of the story of the Samaritan woman![[50]]
‘The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a Samaritan woman?... The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his sons, and his cattle?’ (iv. 9, 11, 12).
The standing feud between Jews and Samaritans is notorious, and does not need illustrating. ‘The well is deep’ in the most literal sense; the actual depth is about 75 feet. But how appropriate and natural is the appeal to the patriarch Jacob, and the local tradition about him!
‘The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father.... The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (which is called Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things’ (vers. 19-21, 25).
The natural impression of the discourse to which she was listening upon the woman would be that her interlocutor was a prophet. And her first impulse would be to put to Him the burning question which divided Jews and Samaritans—Was the true centre of worship to be sought in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim? It was at one time contended that the Samaritans had no Messianic expectation; but that is now given up. The Samaritans not only had such an expectation, but have it to the present day.
The Jews at Capernaum in chap. vi apply the Pentateuchal history in very much the same way as the Samaritan woman. Some of our modern critics, who have a keen eye for anything to which exception can be taken, and who do not appreciate the simplicity which is not peculiar to St. John but characteristic of the Biblical narrative generally, will say that here we have a ‘schematism,’ a stereotyped formula, which shows poverty of invention. On the contrary, I would describe it as a touch of nature so ingrained in the Jewish habit of mind that it was sure to recur, and harmonizes thoroughly with the historical situation.
Chap. vii is full of the kind of materials of which we are in search; but the greater proportion of them we will reserve for our next head. I must, however, just refer in passing to the expression of the Jews’ surprise, ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?’ (ver. 15). It is just what would excite the astonishment of the populace that one who seemed to be a simple peasant, and had not been a student in any of the current Rabbinical schools, should yet show himself so well able to deal with the profoundest questions that the Rabbis were in the habit of discussing. This seventh chapter places us in the midst of a society which, with only a slight difference of method, reminds us of the restless curiosity with which we are told that Alexandrian Christians canvassed the metaphysical problems involved in the Arian controversy. In Palestine the dominant influence was Rabbinism; the one idea that the people had of learning was Rabbinical learning; and so entirely did the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ cover the ground that the appearance of a teacher who was neither scribe nor Pharisee was sure to be remarked upon.