Besides these there are three works on the conservative side which English-speaking readers at least can never forget—the searching examination of the external evidence by Dr. Ezra Abbot (Boston, 1880, reprinted in Critical Essays, 1888); articles in The Expositor for the early months of 1890 by Bp. Lightfoot (reprinted with other matter bearing upon the subject in Biblical Essays, 1893); and the classical commentary on the Gospel (first published as part of the Speaker’s Commentary) by Dr. Westcott. Of these three works two stand out as landmarks in theological literature; Dr. Lightfoot’s papers were somewhat slighter and less permanent in form, consisting in part of Notes for Lectures, though they bear all the marks of his lucid and judicious scholarship, and though they are I think still specially useful for students.
An Englishman addressing an American audience must needs pause for a moment over the first of these three names[[4]]. It is the more incumbent on me to do this because as a young man, at a time when encouragement is most valued, I was one of many who profited by Dr. Ezra Abbot’s generous and self-denying kindness. He opened a correspondence with me, and sent me not only his own books but some by other writers that I might be presumed not to possess, and it was touching to see the care with which corrections were made in these in his own finely formed hand. I would fain not only pay a tribute of reverence to the memory of Dr. Abbot, but also, if I may, repay a little of my own debt by holding up his example to the younger generation of American scholars as one that I would earnestly entreat them to adopt and follow. I do not know how far I am right, but I have always taken the qualities of Dr. Ezra Abbot’s work as specially typical of the American mind at its best. His work reminds one in its exactness and precision of those fine mechanical instruments in which America has so excelled. To set for oneself the highest possible standard of accuracy, and to think no time and no pains misspent in the pursuit of it, is a worthy object of a young scholar’s ambition.
In like manner we, in England, have a standard proposed to us by Dr. Westcott’s famous Commentary on St. John. It is the culminating product of a life that was also devoted to the highest ends. It is characteristic of Dr. Westcott that the Commentary was, I believe, hardly altered in its later editions from the form in which it first appeared. This was due to the thoroughness and circumspection with which the author had in the first instance carried out his task. I believe that in spite of the lapse of time Dr. Westcott’s Commentary remains, and will still for long remain, the best that we have on the Fourth Gospel, as it is also (with the article on Origen) the best and most characteristic work that its author bequeathed to the world.
In this connexion I must needs mention another American scholar and divine, to whom I am also bound by personal ties of affectionate regard—the veteran Dr. George Park Fisher of Yale. It is matter for thankfulness that he has been able to give to the world, carefully brought up to date, a new edition of his Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief (1902). The pages devoted to the Fourth Gospel are, like the rest, full of knowledge and suffused with sweet reasonableness and mild wisdom. Dr. Fisher’s attitude is perhaps not exactly that of the younger men, but it certainly is not any less near to the ideal. If I were a tutor or professor in an American seminary, there is no book that I should more warmly recommend to my pupils. To imbibe its spirit would be the best training they could have. I should think it especially excellent as a starting-point for further study. It would implant nothing that would have to be unlearnt.
Dr. Ezra Abbot has in many ways found a worthy inheritor in Dr. Drummond; and it is perhaps true that the positive results which he obtained are adequately embodied in Dr. Drummond’s book, though as a model for work of the kind the older essay can never become antiquated. But, speaking generally, I should think it a great misfortune if the better examples of this older literature were thrust out of use by the newer and more advanced criticism. I believe it to be one of the weak points in that criticism that it too much forgets what has been done. It contents itself with an acceptance that is often grudging or perfunctory and always inadequate of results that have been really obtained. The scheme of argument common to the older writers was to prove, in gradually contracting circles, (1) that the author of the Gospel was a Jew; (2) that he was a Jew of Palestine; (3) that he was a contemporary; and (4) an actual companion and eye-witness of the ministry of our Lord. We must expect the last two propositions to be matter for some controversy, and I shall return to them later; but it seems to me that scant justice is done to the argument as a whole.
Since this paragraph was written I have come across some words of Professor von Dobschütz, which are so much to the point that I am tempted to quote them:
‘That the Gospel not only shows a good knowledge of Palestinian localities but also a thoroughly Jewish stamp in thought and expression, is one of the truths rightly emphasized by conservative theology which critical theology is already, though reluctantly, making up its mind to admit: the Hellenism of the Fourth Gospel, together with its unity, belongs to those only too frequent pre-conceived opinions, on the critical side too, which are all the more obstinately maintained the more unfounded they are[[5]].’
Would that all critical writers were so clear-sighted and so candid!
2. Mediating Theories.
The really crucial point in the argument relating to the Fourth Gospel is whether or not the author was an eye-witness of the events which he describes. In any case, if we are to take the indications of the Gospel itself, the author must be identified with ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ But it does not quite necessarily follow that this disciple is also to be identified with the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee. Internally there seems to be a fair presumption that he is; and externally, the evidence seems to be clear from the time of Irenaeus (180-90) onwards. But neither the presumption in the one case, nor the evidence in the other, is so stringent as to exclude all possibility of doubt. We shall have presently to consider the whole question upon its merits. But in the meantime we note that in recent years the hypothesis has been definitely put forward that the author of the Gospel was not the Apostle John, but another disciple—some would say a disciple of his—of the same name, commonly known for distinction as ‘the Presbyter.’ The existence of this second John, if he really did exist, rests upon a single line of an extract from Papias, a writer of the first half of the second century. He too is called a ‘disciple of the Lord’; so that he too may have been an eye-witness as fully, or almost as fully, as the Apostle.