Work and Person of the LORD JESUS which is most majestic and most commanding. It begins with the significant introduction "The beginning of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST the Son of God,' and while never for a moment concealing, or even keeping in the background, the true humanity of the LORD Incarnate, it sets Him before us as emphatically that which its opening words declare Him to be. It seems probable that in the subject-matter which is common to the first three Gospels we have what was in substance the catechetical teaching of the Apostles of which S. Luke speaks in the preface to his Gospel; if so, it is clear that in their very earliest teaching, not less than in that which is later as represented by S. John, we have a conception of the Divine Personality of our LORD which entirely bears out the dogmatic teaching of the Church. (2) It is impossible here to discuss the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, its harmony with the other three, or its internal unity with other writings in the New Testament bearing S. John's name. The reader can only be referred to the works of the learned writers who have made a careful study of 1 Note the following passages in S. Mark: i. 11; i. 22; i. 27 (Kar' ¿¿ovσlav); ii. 5, 10; ii. 28; iii. 11; iv. 39; viii. 27-29 ; viii. 38; ix. 2-7; xiii. 26; xiv. 22-24; xiv. 62; xv. 39. 2 S. Lk. i. 1-4, περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων . . . περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων. the subject,1 and must be asked to accept their testimony as to its genuineness and authenticity. Three things especially should be borne in mind in reading S. John's Gospel, as accounting, at least to a great extent, for the differences which must strike us between it and the Gospels of the Synoptists: (i) its obviously supplementary character, omitting what would be already well known through the writings of the other three, and supplying accounts of incidents and discourses which they omit; (ii) the difference of the circumstances in which it represents our LORD, much greater prominence, for example, being given to His relations with the leading and learned classes at Jerusalem and His discourses with them; 2 and (iii), S. John's own circumstances at the time of writing, leading him to give prominence to those aspects of the truth which 1 E.g. Liddon, Bampton Lectures, Lect. v. ; Bp. Westcott in Speaker's Commentary, Introd. to S. John's Gospel; Sanday, Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, ch. xix. Dr. Sanday arranges his evidence for the Johannine Authorship under four heads, proving from internal evidence (i) that the Author was a Jew, (ii) that he was a Jew of Palestine, (iii) that he was a contemporary of the events which he records, and, (iv), that he was an eye-witness of those events. All these lines of evidence taken together fit in with the undeviating tradition of the Church that the Fourth Gospel was the work of the Apostle S. John. Cf. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays; Watkins in Smith and Fuller's Dictionary of the Bible, i. 1739-62 (ed. 2). 2 Affording an answer, at least to a great extent, to the objection of M. Rénan, 'Si JÉSUS parlait comme le veut Matthieu, il n'a pu parler comme le veut Jean.' were specially calculated to meet the particular errors prevalent at the end of the first century.1 S. John's witness to our LORD's Divinity is to be found stated in the prologue to his Gospel (S. John i. 1-14). In those verses S. John gives two titles to our LORD which together express His eternal relation to the Father, and which at the same time supplement and correct each other. Those two titles are the Word' and 'the OnlyBegotten Son.' S. John's use of the first title is derived almost certainly from Jewish rather than from Alexandrian sources, and to the Jewish Targums rather than to Philo we must go for its meaning as used by S. John.2 Philo uses the title much more as an abstract term, whilst in the Targums or early Jewish paraphrases on the Old Testament the "Word" of JEHOVAH is constantly spoken of as the efficient instrument of Divine action, in cases where the Old Testament speaks of JEHOVAH Himself. "The Word of GOD" had come to be used personally as almost equivalent to GOD manifesting Himself, or GoD in action.'8 We see at once that this is the way in which S. John uses the title in the prologue. "The Word was GOD'; 1 Especially the Gnostic form of error of which Cerinthus was the leader. 2 See Liddon, Bampton Lectures, pp. 63 ff., 229. Gore, Bampton Lectures, pp. 69, 70. 8 Gore, l.c. 6 2 t of creation, for by Him all things were e'; and not only were all things made by Him, even before His Incarnation He was in that d which He had made, the Source of life and t to all creation, so that when He came in the the change lay not in the fact but in the litions of His coming, namely, in the conons of humanity; 2 the coming in the flesh the coming of One Who all along had been ent in the world which He had made. But only, according to S. John, was He Who was le flesh and dwelt among us' the Word of GOD, was also the Only-Begotten of the Father. By title of Only-Begotten is signified the particion of the Word in the Essence of Him of Whom is the Only-Begotten, a participation shared by other, a participation which makes Him essenly Divine. By these two titles the truth as to LORD'S Person is safeguarded in two directions, two errors which actually arose in later times anticipated; the title the Word of GOD' Tрòs Tòv Ɖebv. The preposition expresses, 'beyond the fact -existence or immanence, the more significant fact of perated intercommunion. The face of the Everlasting Word, if we dare so to express ourselves, was ever directed towards the face e Everlasting Father.' Liddon, Bampton Lectures, p. 231. Cf. the words of S. Paul, Col. i. 16, 17, and of S. AthanS, De Incarn., c. viii., οὔτι γε μακρὰν ὢν πρότερον. 6 1 guards the truth of our LORD's co-eternity with the 6 1 Liddon, Bampton Lectures, p. 237. e S S |