deliberately desired to deny the connection of Jesus with Nazareth and Galilee, in accordance with his evident intention of associating the Logos only with the Holy City. We must not pause to show that the author is generally unjust to the Galilaeans, and displays an ignorance regarding them very unlike what we should expect from the fisherman of Galilee.(1) We have already alluded to the artificial character of the conversation with the woman of Samaria, which, although given with so much detail, occurred at a place totally unknown (perhaps allegorically called the "City of Lies"), at which the Apostle John was not present, and the substance of which was typical of Samaria and its five nations and false gods. The continuation in the Gospel is as unreal as the conversation.
Another instance displaying personal ignorance is the insertion into a discourse at the Last Supper, and without any appropriate connection with the context, the passage "Verily, verily, I say unto you: he that receiveth whomsoever I send, receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me."(2) In the Synoptics, this sentence is naturally represented as part of the address to the disciples who are to be sent forth to preach the Gospel;(3) but it is clear that its insertion here is a mistake.(4) Again, a very obvious slip, which betrays that what was intended for realistic detail is nothing but a reminiscence of some earlier Gospel misapplied, occurs in a later part
of the discourses very inappropriately introduced as being delivered on the same occasion. At the end of xiv. 31, Jesus is represented, after saying that he would no more talk much with the disciples, as suddenly breaking off with the words: "Arise, let us go hence" [———]. They
do not, however, arise and go thence, but, on the contrary, Jesus at once commences another long discourse: "I am the true vine," &c. The expression is merely introduced artistically to close one discourse, and enable the writer to begin another, and the idea is taken from some earlier work. For instance, in our first Synoptic, at the close of the Agony in the Garden which the fourth Gospel ignores altogether, Jesus says to the awakened disciples: "Rise, let us go" [———].(1) We need not go on with these illustrations, but the fact that the author is not an eyewitness recording scenes which he beheld and discourses which he heard, but a writer composing an ideal Gospel on a fixed plan, will become more palpable as we proceed.
It is not necessary to enter upon any argument to prove the fundamental difference which exists in every respect between the Synoptics and the fourth Gospel. This is admitted even by apologists, whose efforts to reconcile the discordant elements are totally unsuccessful. "It is impossible to pass from the Synoptic Gospels to that of St John," says Canon Westcott, "without feeling that the transition involves the passage from one world of thought to another. No familiarity with the general teaching of the Gospels, no wide conception of the character of the Saviour is sufficient to destroy the
contrast which exists in form and spirit between the earlier and later narratives."(l) The difference between the fourth Gospel and the Synoptics, not only as regards the teaching of Jesus but also the facts of the narrative, is so great that it is impossible to harmonize them, and no one who seriously considers the matter can fail to see that both cannot be accepted as correct. If we believe that the Synoptics give a truthful representation of the life and teaching of Jesus, it follows of necessity that, in whatever category we may decide to place the fourth Gospel, it must be rejected as a historical work. The theories which are most in favour as regards it may place the Gospel in a high position as an ideal composition, but sober criticism must infallibly pronounce that they exclude it altogether from the province of history. There is no option but to accept it as the only genuine report of the sayings and doings of Jesus, rejecting the Synoptics, or to remove it at once to another department of literature. The Synoptics certainly contradict each other in many minor details, but they are not in fundamental disagreement with each other and evidently present the same portrait of Jesus, and the same view of his teaching derived from the same sources.
The vast difference which exists between the representation of Jesus in the fourth Gospel and in the Synoptics is too well recognized to require minute demonstration. We must, however, point out some of the distinctive features. We need not do more here than refer to the fact that, whilst the Synoptics relate the circumstances of the birth of Jesus, two of them at least, and give some history of his family and origin, the fourth Gospel, ignoring all this, introduces the great
