course of events, interesting as they are. They may be reflected in this primitive "prophecy prophecy" whose derivation is so remote from the influence of Paul that even the doctrine of the suffering Servant scarcely appears. But we are chiefly interested to note the character and nature of Jesus, as he appears to the eye of this prophet," who is not even of the number of the Twelve, though taken to be " John " by the Ephesian adapter of the visions. Let the attribution to "John " have value or not, we at least have here, in the older elements of this composite book, a primitive Christian "prophecy from the home-land of Jesus. Its conception of Christ carries us directly back to the very beginnings; for it reverts to the symbolism of the farewell Passover, the self-dedication to martyrdom in the cup of the new covenant. Its very foundation is the promise of the heavenly banquet, in which the Son of Man, Jesus, would sit down with the Twelve in his kingdom, and they should reign with him in the new Jerusalem. Other features connected with the Pauline Christology appear in the later elements, but at bottom the conception is simply that of Jesus' parting words. He is for the seer of Revelation the Son of David, who became a passover victim (Tò ȧpvíov) that he might redeem the people of God. Ill indeed could we spare these visions of Palestinian prophets. We may be grateful that they were preserved to us by the effort of an Ionian church to combat antinomian heresy and to hold up the moral standards of a degenerate time by revival of the expectation of judgment and of the approaching end of the age, whatever judgment we pass on the editor's representation of the authorship. From the midst of the martyrdoms of that great crisis of the mother church. its "prophets " look up to Jesus as their Passover, slain on their behalf, and interceding for them " in the midst of the throne."

LECTURE VIII

THE GOSPEL AS THEOLOGY

[Among the "Aspects of Contemporary Theology" which we are here invited to consider is the Reinterpretation of the Fourth Gospel in view of conclusions of criticism regarding its authorship and date which must now be admitted to have at least a considerable measure of probability. If it be the work of an unknown Ephesian disciple of Paul of about the year 100-110, what will be its meaning and value to us?

All the advance of modern exegesis over the past may be summed up in one great foundation principle of what is known as grammatico-historical interpretation. The principle may be stated as follows: The real contribution of any biblical writer to the religious thought of our time must be found, if at all, in the message he intended to convey to his own. He wrote primarily for his contemporaries. Therefore what his language and his references meant to them is the measure of legitimate interpretation. There is no royal road to direct application. The leaps of undisciplined fancy are sauts perilleux. We have indeed the largest liberty of application and adaptation once the author's real intention has been discovered. In most cases he himself will be found to have set the example in adapting the work of his predecessors. But we have no right to cloak our own ideas with the mantle of his authority, nor may we lightly dispense ourselves from the long and toilsome search of grammarian and historian into the conditions of the author's time. That background and environment of language, thought, and circumstance afford the only legitimate key. First the historical sense, after that the inference or lesson.

I am asked at this time to expand a lecture recently given on the service of the fourth evangelist to his own age, and to 1 The general subject of discussion proposed for the Summer School of Theology at Oxford was Aspects of Contemporary Theology." The section here printed in smaller type was prefixed to the closing lecture of the former series, in order to adapt it (in expanded form as two lectures) for the Summer School.

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include his contribution to ours.

The method must be that of the principle stated. In the lectures which preceded I traced the line of development which leads over from the gospel of the kingdom preached by Jesus in Galilee to the gospel about Jesus preached by his disciples and Paul to the world. The so-called "Johannine" writings (by which are usually meant the three Epistles and Gospel ascribed to John, but which unlike the Revelation are anonymous) mark the supreme achievement in this development. Antiquity and modern Christendom alike recognize the fourth Gospel as the interpretative climax of New Testament literature. Consciously or not, this evangelist has placed the key-stone in the arch whose piers are on the one side the Pauline and postPauline Epistles, on the other the Synoptic literature and Book of the Revelation. Antiquity names him "the theologian," appreciating that in his work foundations are laid on which all later theology has built, though when the name was coined it had not as yet attained its modern sense. But the fourth Gospel does present the story of Jesus as theology. What then, was the purpose and bearing of this higher synthesis?]

1. The Higher Synthesis

The greatest of Paul's disciples was an unnamed successor in Ephesus, the headquarters of his mission field. This is the writer who in the so-called "Johannine" Epistles and Gospel seeks to combine the values of the Synoptic record of the sayings and doings of Jesus with the Pauline Christology. As I have tried to show in the volume entitled The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate it is no fault of this author if the name of "John" (which he himself does not so much as mention) became attached to his work in an age which had begun to demand apostolic authentication. To meet this demand a later hand has attached the well known appendix to the Gospel (Chapter 21). But this section is admitted even by Lightfoot and Zahn to be at least in part an editorial postscript. In fact it does not seem to be known to the epitomator of the resurrection gospel who quotes Jn. 20: 11 ff., in Mk. 16:9-11. And even

the Appendix does not as yet venture explicitly to name the Apostle John as author. It attributes the writing to the mysterious" beloved disciple" who appears in it on several occasions. The name" John" is not mentioned in connection with the Gospel until 181 A. D. The first claims to Johannine authorship were made in behalf of the Apocalypse, which had emanated from the same region in the year 93, and which from the first had purported to be the work of the Apostle. It is easy to see what would happen. However diverse in character, language, and doctrinal standpoint (and no two writings of the entire New Testament are more so), the four anonymous writings of the Ephesian canon (the Epistles and Gospel) would inevitably come to be attributed to the same apostolic hand as the pseudepigraphic fifth, the Revelation. The Appendix meets the demand for authentication with an adaptation of the legend of the Two Witnesses, "red" and "white" martyrdom. But it purposely leaves the precise identity of the "beloved disciple" undetermined. Still it makes the conjecture of John very easy, and by the last quarter of the second century the hint had been widely adopted. The Gospel and First Epistle as well as the Apocalypse were attributed to the Apostle. There was strenuous denial, but this was overcome by the efforts of Irenaeus together with his pupil Hippolytus and men like-minded. Only the Second and Third Epistles, which bore on their face the superscription "the Elder," were still classed for a time with the "disputed" writings. Ultimately all five were considered "Johannine." The belief in Apostolic authorship could not but deeply affect the interpretation. What would our interpretation be were it quite unaffected by this assumption? That is the question we must now attempt to answer.

Papias and the author of the Muratorian Fragment

seem to have found First Peter a useful writing on which to base an introduction to the second Gospel. We have ourselves found that the Epistle of James might be similarly applied to the Second Source, and Jude to the Gospel of Matthew. But at Ephesus prophets and evangelists furnished their own introductory epistles. Revelation has seven preliminary letters; so that it is not (as the Muratorianum has it) Paul who follows the example of his predecessor, John, in writing to seven churches by name in order to address all, but it is Pseudo-John who follows the example of Paul. The fourth evangelist also seems to appreciate the value of covering letters, but he limits himself to the example of Paul's group of three letters sent to this same region, one personal, to Philemon, one to a local church, Colossians, and one general, Ephesians. In like manner the "Elder's" letter to Gaius (III Jn.) covers a second to the local church (II Jn.), which is accompanied in turn by a third, the general epistle (I Jn.). From these so-called "Johannine Epistles," wherein the author addresses himself directly to his readers using the first and second person, we can gain some insight into the conditions which gave rise to them and to the Gospel.

In the Johannine Epistles it is not persecution, as in the Revelation, which is the peril of the churches, but false doctrine. In fact the author repeatedly and explicitly identifies the Anti-Christ with the specific heresy which denies that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, that is, Docetism. He thus excludes the idea of the Apocalyptist, who quite as explicitly identifies Anti-Christ with the persecuting power of Rome. The false teachers have the same pronounced tendency to moral laxity complained of by Jude, Matthew, II Peter, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Epistles of the Spirit to the churches of Asia. But in First John as in Ignatius false doc