Page images
PDF
EPUB

about thirty years ago. But the recession of the last thirty years toward the position of Baur has never brought us back to his exact position.

There came a time, in tunnelling Mont Cenis, when the workmen from one end heard the click of the tools which the workmen from the other end were driving into the great rocky wall. Something like this has happened in the criticism of the Fourth Gospel. We have had two parties working in opposite directions; but each has been obliged to make concessions by the changing fortunes of the great debate until, at last, we find them standing quite comfortably together on the common ground that the Fourth Gospel in its present form was written early in the second, or late in the first, quarter of the second century; that its long discourses are the parts furthest removed from the historic truth, and are no genuine reflections of the actual teachings of Jesus; that, nevertheless, there are elements of a genuine tradition in the Gospel, both of fact and phrase, which may have derived their impulse from the apostle John; and, more surely, from some authentic source. One of the great

contentions concerning the Fourth Gospel has been as to whether Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the second century, knew the Fourth Gospel. It is pretty certain that he did not know it, and very certain that he did not know it as John's. But, as the discussion has proceeded, this point has become of less importance.

There are still those who are not without hope that they can push this Gospel back to the beginning of the second century; and it is comical to see how eagerly any new discovery that seems to promise this result is seized upon, as if it were a hand to pluck up their drowning honor by the locks. The reason for this eagerness is that the Fourth Gospel represents the high-water mark of the progressive idealization of Jesus in the New Testament. Particularly notable is the way in which those called the progressive orthodox cling to the authenticity of John. Look through their books, and you will find them quoting him a dozen

times where the Synoptics are quoted once. That is to say, they are building their toppling edifice of the superhuman Jesus on the quicksand of the New Testament territory. But an earlier date for this Gospel by some twenty or thirty years will not save its character as an authentic reproduction of the facts of Jesus' life. Professor Toy assures me that, could it, by any critical violence, be pushed back to the beginning of the second century, its character would remain the same: it would still be a dogmatic rendering of the life of Jesus in terms of Greek philosophy, foreshadowing the unethical character of the Nicene Creed in its avoidance of all ethical significance. I quoted this opinion to a professor in one of our most orthodox theological schools, and he assented to it heartily.

The utmost to which the greed of passionate conservatism is likely to attain is this: that the Fourth Gospel is a dogmatic treatise of the first quarter of the second century, holding imbedded in its unhistorical discourses a few golden grains of genuine tradition. And the gain to the natural, human Jesus from this conclusion will be in direct proportion to the loss to the traditional supernatural conception or any recent adumbration of that conception in the new orthodox theology.

The Higher Criticism has worked out not only the obvious differences of the Synoptic Gospels from the Fourth, but also the resemblances and differences of the Synoptics among themselves. The resemblances are strongly marked, and point unmistakably to a common basis of traditional information. In fact, they are called the Synoptics (and their writers Synoptists), not because they present a synopsis of the facts of Jesus' life, but because a synopsis can be made of the three narratives. Not only is the thread of the narrative the same in all three, but the general arrangement is the same. There are only about thirty verses in Mark which do not appear in Matthew or Luke. Forty like sections appear in Matthew and Luke, and these have each twenty in common with Mark. Nevertheless there are, with

common sources.

the agreements and resemblances, differences which are extremely baffling, and which have led to many different renderings of their mutual relations and their relations to their Critics who place Mark first in order of time, generally place Matthew next, but not all of them. Evidently, in both Matthew and Mark there has been much working over and re-editing. We have here the same process of aggregation and redaction that obtained in the bookmaking of the Old Testament.

The matter which the Synoptics have in common has been called "The Triple Tradition"; and it is very interesting in that it contains a much simpler and less miraculous account of Jesus than the three Gospels in their entirety. This triple tradition brings us very close, no doubt, to the oral tradition that was most widely current among the followers of Jesus some forty years after his death. But we should by no means wish to limit ourselves to this common matter. Luke's additions to it are particularly precious, containing as they do, among other things, the story of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Passing from the Gospels to the Epistles, Paul's quadrilateral, impregnable even to the assault of F. C. Baur, is made up of Romans, the two Corinthians, and Galatians. Baur would allow none but these of the fourteen attributed to Paul to be authentic; but even those who have the greatest admiration for his genius have added to "the big four" First Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon, and, less confidently, Colossians. Taking these eight, we have in them the growth of Paul's ideal Jesus from a man in Thessalonians through the increasing grandeurs of Corinthians and Romans until, at length, in the Epistles to the Philippians and Colossians, he stands upon the utmost verge of super-angelic power and grace, where, but a step, and he has crossed the mystic line which divides him from the Eternal Logos of the Fourth Gospel.

As for the other six Epistles ascribed to Paul, in the New Testament headings and in popular belief, that to the

Hebrews is the most certainly not his of them all. It is a superb continuation of his thought in a manner very different from his, but with a genius equal to his own: from the literary standpoint, much superior. The pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus have been related to the developments and controversies of the second century. They may contain a few sentences from other letters of Saint Paul; but, in general, they presuppose a state of the Church much more definitely organized than in the time of Paul's literary activity. The Epistle to the Ephesians, as we have it, is evidently an attempt to bring Paul on the scene of secondcentury problems, just as the book of Daniel was an attempt to bring the prophet Daniel of the captivity on the scene of the Maccabean struggle. But it must be confessed that the resemblances of Ephesians and Colossians furnish the critics with some of their most difficult problems. Holtzmann, one of the ablest of them, has worked out the idea that the two Epistles are daring variations on some theme of Paul's,-a short Epistle of his to the Colossians. One thing is sure: if the two Epistles are not Paul's, they are Pauline,— natural continuations of his thought upon that line which made him a favorite with the Gnostics of the second century, and suspected by orthodox Christians.

Strangely enough it was in 1835 that Baur published his work on the Pastoral Epistles, assigning them to the second century. I say "strangely enough," because in 1835 Vatke published his "Religion of the Old Testament"; and, as he proposed to work out from the terra firma of the prophets into the unknown regions round about, so did Baur propose to work out from Paul's known Epistles into the rest of the New Testament, making the tendency of each particular book with reference to the differences between Peter and Paul the test of its chronology. This is why the criticism of Baur and his followers of the Tübingen school has been called the "tendency" criticism. Unquestionably, this method has been overworked. But, when every proper abatement has been made, it remains as central and inter

pretative to the New Testament as the tendency to a priestly or prophetic standpoint is to the old like that, marshalling the different books the way that they should go; and, like that, giving a splendor of dramatic interest to the whole body of literature in question which it never had before.

To speak briefly of the other Epistles,- those ascribed to John, Peter, James, and Jude,- that of Jude is an attempt to give the authority of Jude, or Judas, a brother of Jesus, to certain strictures on the Gnostic heresies of the second century, midway of which it probably appeared. Similarly, the Epistle of James is an attempt to give the authority of James, the brother of Jesus, to certain strictures on the Pauline doctrine of salvation by faith. It contains excellent matter, and is, moreover, interesting as an example of the Wisdom literature in the New Testament, a New Testament book of Proverbs or Wisdom of Solomon. The relation to the Fourth Gospel of the three Epistles ascribed to John is their most interesting feature. The first of these, if not written by the author of the Fourth Gospel, was written in his manner and spirit, to confound the Gnostic heretics of the second century. Even the early Church, so little critical, doubted whether the second letter of John should be inIcluded in the Canon. It is put forth as John's, but is evidently none of his, nor even by the author of the Fourth Gospel and First Epistle, of which Epistle it is a mere echo. The early Church doubted the Third Epistle also, and quite properly. As the Second Epistle is imitative of the first, so this is imitative of the second. But it is a nice little "mémoire pour servir." It shows us as by a flashlight to what hard treatment some of the evangelists of the early Church were subjected.

There are two Epistles ascribed to Peter, in neither of which had that apostle any hand. The first was written in the time of Trajan (98–117 A.D.), and reflects the terrors of the edicts issued by him against the Christians. The second of these Epistles is probably the latest book of the New Testament, written well along the third quarter of the

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »