Saint  John

    The purpose of the Fourth Gospel is clearly stated in the concluding verses of the 20th chapter: "Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of the disciples, that are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye may have life in His name".  Since the first three Gospels, which were certainly known to the writer of the Fourth, followed the same purpose, viz., to prove the divinity of Christ and to win followers for Him, the author of the Fourth Gospel could have had no other purpose than to record such "signs" as bore directly on the Divine Sonship of Christ, and to reproduce only such miracles and discourses as were not already contained in the Synoptic Gospels.  And this is just what we find him doing.  He repeats the miracles of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Walking upon the Sea because they formed the introduction to the all-important discourse on the Holy Eucharist which was omitted by the other Evangelists.

    The first three Gospels deal largely with Our Lord's life and teaching in Galilee; what was more natural than that the author of the Fourth Gospel should concentrate on the happenings in Judea; for we realize that since Our Lord's ministry lasted more than two years, He must have gone up to the feasts at Jerusalem several times a year as all pious Jews did.  Now, this very fact, that the bulk of the Fourth Gospel consists of what Jesus said and did in and near Jerusalem, explains why it is so unlike the other three both as to form and content.  Chapter 13 of St. Matthew furnishes us with an excellent example of Our Lord's manner of speaking according to the Synoptists.  The whole discourse is made up of a series of parables.  Jesus speaks so simply, so vividly, that no great mental effort is required to understand Him.  In the Fourth Gospel His speeches are full of the profoundest mysteries.  Obviously the reason for this lies in the character of His hearers.  In Galilee the simple, unlettered folk hung upon His lips and eagerly and unquestioningly drank in the limpid waters of His doctrine; in Jerusalem it was different: here Our Lord was constantly engaged in controversy with the theologically trained Scribes and Pharisees; hence the change of style, diction and content in His discourses.  We must also bear in mind that the Evangelist, following out his avowed purpose, selects only such parts of Our Lord's speeches as bear directly upon His claim to Divine Sonship; hence the almost uniform solemnity of language.

    But it may be asked: Why did the author of the Fourth Gospel choose such a lofty and profound style of narration, a style so different from that of the other Evangelists?  The explanation seems to be this.  The Synoptic Gospels reproduce more or less faithfully the original Apostolic catechism or oral Gospel.  When instructing candidates for Baptism, it was the missionary's first concern to give them an outline of the human life of Christ and to imbue them with the fundamentals of His moral teaching.  The Galilean ministry of Christ, with its simple, vivid and popular discourses, was best suited to this purpose.  Later on, those who had been won for Christ had to be introduced to the deeper mysteries of Christianity and to be strengthened to combat the errors of false speculation and heresy.  The teachers would presuppose a knowledge of the main facts of Christ's earthly life, and dwell at length upon His pre-existence and His divine glory.  The Fourth Gospel is the chief representative of this higher stage of Christian instruction.  It has, in fact, been called a "collection of the sermons of the Beloved Disciple".  That it may well be a digest of sermons, is made highly probable by the use of "ye" in 19,35 (and again in 20, 31), which presupposes a group of listeners.

    The Genuineness of the Discourses of Jesus.  If the sayings of Jesus, given by the fourth Evangelist, remarks a modern commentator, were given in the style of the Synoptics, it would be easier to believe them genuine; but the Evangelist everywhere reports Our Lord in the same very sharply characterized language with which he wrote the preface to his Gospel.  It is this obvious similarity between the style of the Evangelist and the style of the discourses of Christ reported by him that has led many non-Catholic Bible scholars to doubt the genuineness of the discourses.  They claim that they are nothing but personal reflections of the Evangelist himself put into the mouth of Jesus to give them more effect.

    To answer this difficulty we must distinguish between the matter and the form, the content and the style of the discourses.  First, as regards the matter, we must remember that the author of the Fourth Gospel was an eye- and ear-witness of what he relates.  Many scenes are depicted so realistically, so vividly, that fictitious invention is out of the question.  The art of memorizing was far more perfect in the days of the Evangelists, when there were no newspapers and few books, than it is now.  Many Jews, we are told, could repeat the whole Law of Moses by heart.  Besides, it is a matter of experience that words which penetrate deep into the soul are retained for years, especially if they were spoken by one whom we love dearly.  Why, then, should it have been impossible for the fourth Evangelist to recall, even after the lapse of many years, the discourses of Him whose "beloved disciple" he had been?  Had not the Lord Himself promised to be with him, and given him His Holy Spirit to bring to his remembrance all that He had said? (John 14, 26; 16, 13; Matt. 28,20).

    Of course, no one will maintain that the Evangelist reproduces the Master's speeches word for word.  The brevity of the recorded discourses leaves no doubt that they are all strongly condensed.  In reading them, we gain the impression that only the leading ideas of a longer speech have been set down in writing.  We can therefore confidently assert that the substance of Our Lord's sayings is faithfully reproduced by the Evangelist.  We have surely no right to expect the exactness of a stenographic copy.

    As regards the question of form or style, it has been well said that the literary canons of the time would lead us to expect great freedom in rendering Our Lord's sayings in the reporter's own way.  "At that time", writes Cardinal Newman, "the third person was not so commonly used in history as now.  When a reporter gives one of Gladstone's speeches, if he uses the first person, I understand not only the matter, but the style, the words to be Gladstone's; when the third, I consider the style, etc., to be the reporter's own.  But in ancient times this distinction was not made.  Thucydides uses the dramatic method, yet Spartan and Athenian speak in Thucydidean Greek.  And so every clause of Our Lord's speeches in St. John may be St. John's Greek, yet every clause may contain the matter which Our Lord spoke in Aramaic.  Again, St. John might and did select or condense (as being inspired for that purpose) the matter of Our Lord's discourses, as that with Nicodemus, and thereby the wording might be St. John's, though the matter might still be Our Lord's" (Quoted by W. S. Reilly, The Gospel according to St. John, p. xxxvi).

    The Author of the Fourth Gospel.  The oldest tradition of the Church ascribes the Fourth Gospel to St. John the Apostle.  The Testimony of St. Irenaeus, a disciple of St. Polycarp, who, in his turn, was a disciple of St. John himself, is decisive.  He writes: "Then, (i.e., after the other three Gospels) John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on His breast, himself published also a Gospel, while he was at Ephesus in Asia".  The testimony of St. Irenaeus is confirmed by St. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch (168 A.D.), who quotes the Fourth Gospel as "inspired Scripture" and by the name of John (Apology to Autolycus, II, 22); and by Clement of Alexandria (end of the second century), who says that "John, perceiving that the other Evangelists had set forth the human side of the Person of Jesus, at the instance of His disciples composed a spiritual Gospel" (cited by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., VI, 14).

    This external or historical evidence is endorsed by the internal evidence of the Gospel itself.  The author was, beyond a doubt, a Palestinian Jew.  He is perfectly familiar with the religious and social conditions of Palestine before the destruction of Jerusalem; and he writes "concretely and in detail" about religious and political parties, about persons, places and institutions without falling into a single error.  Modern Jewish critics of the New Testament have candidly admitted this.  Moreover, the author was a Disciple and Apostle of Jesus.  No one else could have given such minute details about things that took place in the intimacy of the Apostolic circle.  Finally, the author was "the Disciple Whom Jesus Loved".  His own disciples confirm this (21, 24).  St. Peter cannot have been this favorite disciple, since he is clearly distinguished from him (21, 20); nor can it have been James the Elder, the third of the favored three, because he had been put to death in the year 42 A.D.  Hence, it can only have been the Apostle St. John.

    Personality of the Author.  

    The Gospel of the Divine Glory of Christ.  
(to be continued)