Teacher at once as the Logos who from the beginning was with God and was himself God. The key-note is struck from the first, and in the philosophical prelude to the Gospel we have the announcement to those who have ears to hear, that here we need expect no simple history, but an artistic demonstration of the philosophical postulate. According to the Synoptics, Jesus is baptized by John, and as he goes out of the water the Holy Ghost descends upon him like a dove. The fourth Gospel says nothing of the baptism, and makes John the Baptist narrate vaguely that he saw the Holy Ghost descend like a dove and rest upon Jesus, as a sign previously indicated to him by God by which to recognize the Lamb of God.(1) From the very first, John the Baptist, in the fourth Gospel, recognizes and declares Jesus to be "the Christ,"(2) "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world."(3) According to the Synoptics, John comes preaching the baptism of repentance, and so far is he from making such declarations, or forming such distinct opinions concerning Jesus, that even after he has been cast into prison and just before his death,—when in fact his preaching was at an end,—he is represented as sending disciples to Jesus, on hearing in prison of his works, to ask him: "Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?" (4) Jesus carries on his ministry and baptizes simultaneously with John, according to the fourth Gospel, but his public career, according to the Synoptics, does not begin until after the Baptist's has concluded, and John is cast into prison.(5) The Synoptics clearly
represent the ministry of Jesus as having been limited to a single year,(1) and his preaching is confined to Galilee and Jerusalem, where his career culminates at the fatal Passover. The fourth Gospel distributes the teaching of Jesus-between Galilee, Samaria, and Jerusalem, makes it extend at least over three years, and refers to three Passovers spent by Jesus at Jerusalem.(2) The Fathers felt this difficulty and expended a good deal of apologetic ingenuity upon it; but no one is now content with the explanation of Eusebius, that the Synoptics merely intended to write the history of Jesus during the one year after the imprisonment of the Baptist, whilst the fourth Evangelist recounted the events of the time not recorded by the others, a theory which is totally contradicted by the four Gospels themselves.(3)
The fourth Gospel represents the expulsion of the money-changers by Jesus as taking place at the very outset of his career,(4) when he could not have been known, and when such a proceeding is incredible; whilst the Synoptics place it at the very close of his ministry, after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when, if ever, such an act, which might have contributed to the final catastrophe, becomes conceivable.(5) The variation from the parallels in the Synoptics, moreover, is exceedingly instructive, and further indicates the amplification of a later writer imperfectly acquainted with the circumstances. The
first and second Synoptists, in addition to the general expression "those buying and selling in the Temple," mention only that Jesus overthrew the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those selling doves. The third Synoptist does not even give these particulars. The author of the fourth Gospel, however, not only-makes Jesus expel the sellers of doves and the moneychangers, but adds: "those selling oxen and sheep." Now, not only is there not the slightest evidence that sheep and oxen were bought and sold in the Temple, but it is obvious that there was no room there to do so. On the contrary, it is known that the market for cattle was not only distant from the Temple, but even from the city.(1) The author himself betrays the foreign element in his account by making Jesus address his words, when driving them all out, only "to them selling doves." Why single these out and seem to exclude the sellers of sheep and oxen? He has apparently forgotten his own interpolation. In the first Gospel, the connection of the words of Jesus with the narrative suggests an explanation: xxi. 12 "... and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those selling doves, and saith to them, &c." Upon the occasion of this episode, the fourth Gospel represents Jesus as replying to the demand of the Jews for a sign why he did such things: "Destroy this temple, and within three days I will raise it up," which the Jews understand very naturally only in a material sense, and which even the disciples only comprehended and believed "after the resurrection." The Synoptists not only know nothing of this, but represent the saying as the false testimony which the false witnesses bare
against Jesus.(1) No such charge is brought against Jesus at all in the fourth Gospel. So little do the Synoptists know of the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman, and his sojourn for two days at Sychar, that in his instructions to his disciples, in the first Gospel, Jesus positively forbids them either to go to the Gentiles or to enter into any city of the Samaritans.(2) The fourth Gospel has very few miracles in common with the Synoptics, and those few present notable variations. After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus, according to the Synoptics, constrains his disciples to enter a ship and to go to the other side of the Lake of Gennesaret, whilst he himself goes up a mountain apart to pray. A storm arises, and Jesus appears walking to them over the sea, whereat the disciples are troubled, but Peter says to him: "Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee over the water," and on his going out of the ship over the water, and beginning to sink, he cries: "Lord save me;" Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and when they had come into the ship, the wind ceased, and they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying: "Of a truth thou art the Son of God." (3) The fourth Gospel, instead of representing Jesus as retiring to the mountain to pray, which would have been opposed to the authors idea of the Logos, makes the motive for going thither the knowledge of Jesus that the people "would come and take him by force that they might make him a king."(4) The writer altogether ignores the episode of Peter walking on the sea, and adds a new miracle by stating that, as soon as Jesus was received on
board, "the ship was at the land whither they were going."(1) The Synoptics go on to describe the devout excitement and faith of all the country round, but the fourth Gospel, limiting the effect on the multitude in the first instance to curiosity as to how Jesus had crossed the lake, represents Jesus as upbraiding them for following him, not because they saw miracles, but because they had eaten of the loaves and been filled,(2) and makes him deliver one of those long dogmatic discourses, interrupted by, and based upon, the remarks of the crowd, which so peculiarly distinguish the fourth Gospel.