The Early History of the Gospel [236]

LECTURE I
SURVEY OF RECENT LITERATURE

The Situation in November, 1903.

The subject of these lectures illustrates in a striking way the fluctuations and vicissitudes of critical opinion as presented before the public. The facts remain the same, and the balance of essential truth and error in regard to them also remains the same; but the balance of published opinion is a different matter, and in regard to this the changes are often very marked and very rapid.

In November last (1903), when I definitely accepted the invitation so kindly given me by your President, and definitely proposed the subject on which I am about to speak, the criticism of the Fourth Gospel had reached a point which, in my opinion, was further removed from truth and reality than at any period within my recollection. There had followed one another in quick succession four books—or what were practically books—three at least of which were of conspicuous ability, and yet all as it seemed to me seriously wrong both in their conclusions and in their methods. To the year 1901 belong the third and fourth editions, published together, of the justly praised and largely circulated Introduction to the New Testament of Professor Jülicher of Marburg (now translated into English by the accomplished daughter of Mrs. Humphry Ward), the second volume of Encyclopaedia Biblica, containing a massive article on ‘John, Son of Zebedee,’ by Professor P. W. Schmiedel of Zürich, and a monograph on the Fourth Gospel by M. Jean Réville of Paris.[[1]] To these was added in the autumn of last year a complete commentary on the Gospel by the Abbé Loisy, whose more popular writings were at the time attracting so much attention. A profound dissent from the conclusion arrived at in these works was one of my main reasons in offering to discuss the subject before you. The feeling was strong within me that in this portion of the critical field—and I do not know any other so vital—the time was one of trouble and rebuke; that there was a call to me to speak; and that, however inadequate the response to the call might be, some response ought to be attempted.

These were the motives present to my mind in the month of November when I chose my subject. But by the beginning of the year (1904) the position of things by which they had been prompted was very largely changed. The urgency was no longer nearly so great. Two books had appeared, both in the English tongue, which did better than I could hope to do the very thing that I desired—one more limited, the other more extended in its scope, but both maintaining what I believe to be the right cause in what I believe to be the right way. These books were The Gospels as Historical Documents, Part I, by Professor V. H. Stanton of Cambridge, and The Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel by Dr. James Drummond, Principal of Manchester College. I should be well content to rest the case, as I should wish it to be stated, on these two books, especially the second. But by the time when they appeared I was already committed to my task. As I have said, one of them is limited in its scope; and the other—admirable as it is, and heartily as I agree with its principles as well as with most of its details—is perhaps not quite so complete on all points as it is on some; so that there may still be room for such a brief course of lectures as you ask of me, partly to reinforce points already made, and partly, it may be, in some small degree to supplement them.

What I have been saying amounts to a confession that my purpose is apologetic. I propose to defend the traditional view, or (as an alternative) something so near to the traditional view that it will count as the same thing. It is better to be clear on this point at starting. And yet I know that there are many minds—and those just the minds to which I should most like to appeal—to which this will seem to be a real drawback. There is an impression abroad—a very natural impression—that ‘apologetic’ is opposed to ‘scientific.’

In regard to this there are just one or two things that I would ask leave to say.

(1) We are all really apologists, in the sense that for all of us some conclusions are more acceptable than others. No one undertakes to write on any subject with his mind in the state of a sheet of white paper. We all start with a number of general principles and general beliefs, conscious or unconscious, fixed or provisional. We all naturally give a preference to that which harmonizes best with these beliefs, though all the time a process of adjustment may be going on, by which we assimilate larger conclusions to smaller as well as smaller to larger.