SECTION II

the gospel history, in the organic fourfold development of its fulness

The life of the world arises from a fundamental principle, and propagates itself in an infinite variety of forces, forms, and aspects. Proceeding from variety, and seeking this fundamental principle, man appears in his ideality as the centre of life, the idea of the world, according to which all other forms are regulated. When we would contemplate the highest forms of animal life, the last steps of the pedestal on which that life which forms creation’s statue is exalted, these appear to be the ox, the sacrificial animal, the type of suffering and bleeding life; the lion, the type of ruling, royally free life; the eagle, the type of sacred, contemplative life, soaring above the earth. Above these three heights of animal life, man appears as the image of spiritual life, reproducing all these grades in a higher unity (Rev 4:7). Man is the suffering being, who goes through all the woe of the world to its very depths, formed for submission to his fate, the child of sacred sorrow, the ox, the sacrificial animal, μόσχος, like the τράγος or scape-goat, which tragedy symbolically denotes. Man is the royal being, who judicially rules the world, and perpetrates the slaughter of his victims with fierce or joyful enthusiasm. Man is finally the eagle of spiritual enlightenment, flying towards the sun, and viewing all things in the light of the spirit,-the eagle of a contemplation which soars far beyond empiricism. But when man answers to his destiny, and is equal to himself, he is all these at once: he is the tragic sacrificial animal, the contending and victorious lion, the contemplative eagle, loving to abide in the light; he is all in one, and it is in this unity that he is man.

These typical forms of animal life, together with their spiritual unity, man, form the deep-meaning theocratic symbol described in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel (chap. 1), and also in the Apocalypse (chap. 4.) In the symbol of the cherubim above the ark of the covenant, the Israelite beheld the glory of God as reflected in the fulness of the world, the unity of life as it branches out into diversity of form. All that lives belongs to the spirit, is forfeited and sacrificed thereto: this is denoted by the ox. All that lives, enjoys, struggles, conquers, because it represents spirit; this is expressed by the lion. All that lives, loves to float in visionary intoxication in the sunlight; this is the form of life represented by the eagle. But all that lives, reaches its climax in man; the spiritualization of suffering, of action, of contemplation, form in him a unity; and from this unity arises the fourth typical form of life, humanity.¹

We have seen in the preceding part of this work that Christ is the perfect, the glorified man, the God-man. As then man in general spreads abroad his fulness in the world, so does the God-man in the Gospel, the instrument of the world’s enlightenment. And as the fulness of man, as man, ramifies in the world, so does the fulness of Christ ramify itself in the Gospels. Irenæus displayed a happy fertility of presentiment, when he found in the peculiarity of the four Gospels, a reference to the four living creatures in Ezekiel.

The assumption that one single man, in one single work, would have furnished a better delineation of the life of Jesus than four different chosen Evangelists, who complete each other and form one united whole, is equivalent to the view that the personality of Christ might, in its depth and extent, be repeated in other persons, though in weaker forms. But how could He then, as the one Head, stand in true organic unity with His various members? The unity of life spreads abroad its infinite fulness in the four typical forms of life. So is it also with the unity of the life of Christ. It was determined in the counsel of God, and provided for by the Spirit of God, that the life of Christ should be viewed by great but different, separate but concurrent, apostolic characters, and that it should in the same manner be committed to writing by four Evangelists.²

Hence we cannot scientifically know the life of Jesus in all its fulness, nor learn the extent of the effect it produced, unless we are intimately acquainted with it, as represented in the four Evangelists. But even in this case we shall only seek and find the Gospel in its fulness, when, on the one hand, we find in the four Gospels the true unity of the Gospel history, and, on the other, learn to appreciate and understand each expression of the Gospel, in the series of the four Evangelists, in its own definite peculiarity.

Each Evangelist had his special province and gift of grace, by means of which he was to apprehend and represent the Gospel.³ And that each was faithful to his appointed task, is evident from the accordance between the characters of the Evangelists as we become acquainted with them from the Gospel history, and the peculiarities of those Gospels which they severally composed. As, for instance, St Mark’s Gospel is, with respect to its general character, rightly called ‘The Gospel;’ so also is it, with respect to its peculiarity, rightly called ‘St Mark’s.’ This accordance between the Gospels and the known characters of the Evangelists to whom they are ascribed, is at the same time a very important testimony to their authenticity. We are not, however, now regarding this accordance with respect to the authenticity of the Gospels, but as opening our eyes to the fact, that to each Evangelist was given a special and peculiar view of the glory of Christ.⁴

Matthew, the apostle of Christ, who is several times included in the apostolic catalogue, and for the last time in Act 1:13, was formerly a receiver of customs by the Lake of Gennesareth. According to the united testimony of the synoptical Gospels (Mat 9:9, &c.; Mar 2:13, &c.; Luk 5:27, &c.), he was called by Jesus from the receipt of custom to the apostolate. Though the disciple thus called is named Levi by both Mark and Luke, yet there is not the slightest doubt that they intend the same person whom the first Gospel designates Matthew. As a receiver of custom, Matthew must have possessed a certain amount of social education; especially it may be presumed, that he had gained a facility in writing, and was accustomed to the practice of this art. Both the administration of public business and the financial management of private business necessitate systematic arrangement. The public official is obliged to arrange and methodize his business, and consequently to use titles, rules, and indices. Hence Matthew was accustomed to systematize.⁵ And it was consistent with such a habit, that in his written delineation of events, he should be accurate in his statements of the essential, and neglect the graphic and the reflective.

As a publican, Matthew was at variance with the pharisaic party, and the pharisaic disposition among his own people. The dictum of the orthodox Jew designated him as unclean. He must have shared the contempt in which his fellow-publicans were held, and had undoubtedly often experienced it on special occasions, Such constant misconception and neglect with regard to religion, could only be regarded with indifference, through frivolous carelessness, or a more liberal piety and more vital comprehension of the Old Testament. It must have been in the latter respect that Matthew had become free from the power of Pharisaism. Otherwise Jesus, even though He had stopped him in his wild career, brought him to salvation, and won him for His kingdom, would hardly have placed him so early among the Twelve. We conclude then that he was a pious Israelite, prepared for the acknowledgment of Christ by an intimate acquaintance with the Old Testament, and that, being at the same time one of those who were of a freer turn of mind than their contemporaries, he had a feeling of the difference between the law of the Lord and the traditions of the fathers. And if we entertain the reasonable view, that Jesus admitted among the Twelve only those more important and prominent characters in whom natural qualifications for a great work already existed, we must assume, in the case of Matthew also, an important personality.

But the fact of his conversion from a publican into an apostle of the Lord, in whom he recognized the true eternal King of Israel, must have been idelibly impressed upon his mind as a miracle of divine grace. He was despised in the eyes of the false theocrats of Israel, and the true Theocrat thus highly exalted him. He must have learned to feel the contrast between the true and the spurious kingdom of God in all their respective aspects. But even without taking into account the unreasonable contempt of the Pharisees, his former doubtful calling, when compared with his present exalted vocation; his former associates, who consisted partly of the most degraded of men, when contrasted with the consecrated circle in which he now lived; and finally, his former, when compared with his present state of mind; must all have appeared to him in their darkest colours. He was translated from a condition of the deepest shame to one of the highest honour-from a most critical to a most advantageous position. Hence it would accord with such a state of things, that a strong feeling for contrasts should have been formed in him.

Thus Matthew comes before us as a pious and unprejudiced, a resolute and educated, a seriously-minded and important Israelite. The true historical connection of Christianity with pure Old Testament Judaism, as well as the contrast between it and Judaic Pharisaism, are expressed in the fact that this Israelite publican was destined to write his Gospel first of all for Jewish Christians.

The peculiarity of this Evangelist is decidedly expressed in his Gospel. First, with regard to formal peculiarities, it is remarkable that the first Gospel should be the work of that very apostle who was practised in the art of writing.⁶ But it is a characteristic of this Gospel, which is increasingly recognized, that a careful grouping of events prevails throughout. The observation of this circumstance, namely, that arrangement is so very apparent in the discourses in chap. 5-7, chap. 10, chap. 13, chap. 24 and 25, induced, by an over-hasty process of association, the hypothesis that the original Gospel of Matthew consisted only of a collection of sayings. It may, however, be easily proved, that even those parts of this Gospel in which facts are narrated, are arranged according to the motives which evoked them. Thus, e.g., the first manifestation of the Messianic miraculous power of Christ, is exhibited from the beginning of the eighth to the end of the ninth chaps.; and thus also are those great conflicts between Christ and His age, which preceded His persecution, depicted in chap. 11 and 12. These hints may suffice to direct attention to the true architectural fitting in of parts, exhibited by the whole Gospel; the carrying out of this remark must be reserved for our subsequent development of this Gospel. With the tendency of this Evangelist to group his events, is closely connected the feeling which led him to exhibit in juxtaposition things which presented sharp contrasts. We have already remarked upon this style in our Evangelist Thus, e.g., in what striking antithesis do we find Herod and the new-born King of the Jews, and the teaching of Christ and the teaching of the Pharisees in the Sermon on the Mount! The whole Gospel, in fact, is full of contrasts. It is also peculiar to it to exhibit objects only in their bold outlines and characteristic features. When objects are to be portrayed in all their sublimity, it would but exert a disturbing influence to enrich them at the same time with graphic details. In such a case, the delineation of particulars must necessarily be kept under. The reason why Matthew did not descend into particulars, is explained by the fact, that it was the simple grandeur of the Gospel facts which filled his view.

His peculiarities of form, however, are but the expression of peculiarity of matter. He exhibits the Gospel in its historical relation, as the completion, the spiritual fruit of the christological growth in the Old Testament. It was his task to prove to his own nation that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham (chap. 1:1). But just because Christ was, in his eyes, the true and spiritual King of the Jews, and His kingdom the true theocratic kingdom of God, did Matthew from the very first give prominence to the great contrast between the spiritual Israel and the worldly and hardened Israel. Thence it was, that from the beginning new conflicts were ever arising, thence that we continually meet with fresh sufferings of the holy Heir of the ancient theocracy till His death upon the cross, new triumphs till the manifestation of His glory. The series of the Messiah’s sufferings runs through the whole of this Gospel as its prevailing thought. Even in that overture to the whole, the genealogy, we detect the notes of this tragic theme; for Mary is represented as misunderstood by her betrothed, and in danger of being exposed, together with her child, to civil dishonour; the child is persecuted by the secular power, and doomed to death, while the prelude of His death is seen in the slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem. The preference of this Evangelist for exhibiting Christ in His theocratic sufferings, is manifested in several characteristic traits. Nevertheless he also delights in everywhere displaying His triumphs. How characteristic is it, that it is Matthew who, in the history of Peter’s wounding the high priest’s servant, records the words of Jesus: ‘Thinkest thou, that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?’ Thus it is Matthew who, in recording this incident, is concerned for the dignity of the King; it is Mark who is careful for the character of his friend Peter, and omits the reproof; while Luke, the physician, is occupied with the case of the wounded man, and narrates the healing of his ear. It is also in accordance with this view of Christ, that Matthew, at the close of his Gospel, represents Him as the glorified Prince of heaven, to whom all power in heaven and earth is delivered.

It is clear, then, that we possess, in the Gospel of Matthew, a delineation of the life of Jesus, which presents it in all the distinctness and fulness of a peculiar view. This Evangelist makes our Lord known to us in all the certainty and depth of His relation to history. We here learn to estimate the relations of Christianity to Judaism, and to general historical traditions in the world. We even become acquainted with the double nature of these traditions, as they represent both the outpouring of the curse, and the outpouring of the blessing. Nowhere else is that golden thread which connects all history, the ever advancing though secret progress of mankind, so clearly displayed; and nowhere does the Eternal appear so pure and bright in history, so free from all contamination of the corrupt and perishable, nay, in sharpest and sublimest contrast to all the pretensions of mere dead statutes. Modern philosophy has not always been able to separate the laws of Jehovah from the decrees of the fathers in Israel. At one time, Christ is said to have been crucified according to the Mosaic law; at another, not to have felt bound to observe the Mosaic law in His own conduct. Philosophers might, in this respect at least, learn from Matthew that eggshell dance of the thoughts, the distinction between laws and customs, since Matthew has drawn a portrait, in which the ever correct and quickest motion of a holy life between the most exact observance of law and the freest non-observance of customs is depicted. In this respect Christ is, according to Matthew’s delineation, in an ideal sense the historic Christ; while, according to John, He is in an historic sense the ideal Christ. From this Gospel we may learn to estimate parchments according to their value, the historic veins of the blessing of christological reference, and especially the indestructible thread running through the depths of the world’s history. Here we become acquainted with the idea of the symphony and its accomplishment, with the prophetic relation between buds and blossoms on the tree of the world’s history, between preludes and concluding chords in the history of Israel. But here also we discern the true freedom and glory of that ideal and consecrated life, matured on the tree of history, contrasted with the poor, naked, illegal appearance it presented to those who were prejudiced by the rusted and decayed traditions of history. None other displays, in features so speaking and forcible as Matthew, the nothingness of ungodly temporal or hierarchical power, in its enmity against a Christ sharing the poor man’s lot. The manner in which he exhibits the suffering Son of David submitting to the sentence of death, amidst the misconception and delusion of His own nation, sheds, from that bright centre where the true sin-offering of the human race bleeds to death, a light upon all the tragic events and tragic poems of the world, in their christological and presentient allusions. He teaches us to receive Christ in the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the sick, the naked, the prisoners. But above this holy suffering, we here behold in all its glory the overruling providence of the retributing and assisting God. The kingdom of the Father’s glory surrounds the scene of the historical reality; it beams around, and breaks in at the decisive moment. The harmony between the tender centre of the world, the holy child, and the ardent circumference of the world, the all-ruling providence of God; between that freest life, Christianity, and the eternal appointment, the counsel of God; between the triumph of the kingdom of Christ, and the rule of the Almighty Father; is here depicted in the clearest characters. Hence, this Gospel may be defined as that which casts a light upon the suffering Christ, and in Him on Christian suffering, and all the christological sufferings of the world, especially upon the tragic course of history, by special views and definite representations.

As Matthew sets forth the Redeemer in His relation to history, so does Mark exhibit Him in the reality of His power as the Son of God (chap. 1:1); as He, reposing on the fulness of His Godhead power, manifests His life in an increasingly great, striking, and fervent agency, and spreads blessings around Him, the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

The special ray of Christ’s glory which John Mark’s peculiarity fitted him to exhibit in vivid touches from the fulness of Gospel truth, was the manner in which His deeds revealed the greatness of His person. According to Act 12:12, he was the son of a Christian woman named Mary, in whose house at Jerusalem the believers, or at least the principal among them, were wont to assemble. When Luke wrote the Acts of the Apostles, he was already known and esteemed by the Christian Church, or Luke would not have introduced his mother to notice by naming her son. He was a Christian, and early devoted himself to the apostolic missionary life; on which account Paul and Barnabas took him with them on their return from Jerusalem to Antioch (Act 12:25). Thence he accompanied them, as their helper and minister, on their joint missionary journey (Act 13:5). He travelled with them to Seleucia and Cyprus, and thence to Asia Minor. When they arrived, however, at Perga in Pamphylia, he parted from them and returned to Jerusalem (Act 13:13), while they continued their journey to Pisidia. When they were about to repeat this journey from Antioch, for the purpose of strengthening the churches they had founded, John Mark was again there. Barnabas even proposed that he should again accompany them. ‘But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.’ A strife now arose between them, and they separated from each other. Barnabas, taking Mark with him, sailed to Cyprus; and Paul, choosing Silas for his companion, passed through Syria and Cilicia (Act 15:37, &c.) This John Mark is undoubtedly the same whom we subsequently find again with Paul during the imprisonment of that apostle at Rome; whence it arises that he is introduced to us as one well known to the Christian Church of that time, and as nephew to Barnabas. Paul wrote concerning him, in his Epistle to the Colossians (chap. 4:10): ‘Aristarchus, my fellow-prisoner, saluteth you, and Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas (touching whom ye received commandments: if he come unto you, receive him).’ In his second Epistle to Timothy, he says (chap. 4:11), ‘Take Mark and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.’ In the Epistle to Philemon, Paul mentions him among his fellow-workers, and sends greetings from him (ver. 24). And the same Mark, at another time, sends greeting by Peter to the churches at home, from Babylon. ‘The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you, and so doth Marcus my son:’ 1Pe 5:13. The Mark who could be thus so plainly designated as the friend and acquaintance of the Christians of Asia Minor or Palestine, and who besides stood on so intimate a footing with Peter, that that apostle could call him his son, could have been none other than the same frequently-mentioned John Mark. Sufficient notice of him has thus been handed down to us, even if we do not introduce the tradition, according to which he suffered martyrdom as Bishop of Alexandria.

The incident related by Mark himself, in his account of our Lord’s Passion, of a young man who followed Jesus when He was arrested, and then escaped from the young men who laid hold on him, has frequently been regarded as a circumstance which the Evangelist relates concerning himself. It has indeed been said, that this is a merely groundless supposition. But without taking into account the fact, that the Apostle John also introduces himself into his Gospel without name, and in the same manner as Mark does the young man, we can scarcely fail to recognize in this small episode of the Passion, the identical John Mark of the Acts and Epistles. At the entrance of the troop into the city with their prisoner, when all the disciples had fled, ‘there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body’ (Mar 14:15). This was undoubtedly a young man whom Mark had some reason for leaving unnamed; whom the excitement caused that night by the announcement that Jesus had been taken prisoner, had aroused and driven from his couch; and who already stood in a friendly relation to Him,-a young man who is soon ready, who casts a garment about him and hastens out; who is precipitate in action. This same youth, however, who is so prompt in exposing himself to danger, is just as prompt in flying from it, and again shows himself precipitate and full of anxious hurry: ‘And the young men laid hold on him; and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked.’ We have here, as it were, a psychological prelude to the first missionary journey of John Mark. He was ready to start, prepared for the journey: his ardent desire for missionary work had early brought him into the society of Paul. All went on well as long as they were sailing on the blue waters of the Mediterranean, as long as they stayed in the safe and polished land of Cyprus, and even while they sojourned on the coasts of Asia Minor. But when at length the mountain land of Asia Minor had to be traversed, he gave way-certainly for no reason which Paul could think sufficient-and returned, not to Antioch, but to his home at Jerusalem. Afterwards, however, he was again at Antioch, his fervid mind urging him back to the forsaken path. Barnabas was willing to take him again, and, as Olshausen justly remarks, knowing the good disposition of his beloved kinsman, he espoused his cause. Paul, however, rejected him, on account of his want of reflection, and still hesitating and unreliable enthusiasm. And therefore he again traversed with Barnabas the old and more convenient missionary route. But the Spirit of God was leading him, and he progressively and decidedly advanced from the paths of enthusiasm to those paths of Christian self-denial, upon which he at last laid down his life in the cause of his beloved Master. It is a precious testimony to his growth in humility and earnest faith, as well as to the apostolic benevolence of St Paul, that he was afterwards so closely connected with that apostle, and stood by him during his imprisonment in Rome. But though his individuality was thus progressively purified and sanctified, he could not but continue like himself in all its essential qualities; and hence we always meet with the same old ardour, more wont to kindle into a sudden blaze, than to burn steadily on. Now he is far westward with Paul at Rome, then far eastward with Peter in the region of Babylon. If we add to this the testimony of history, he is finally at Alexandria, and thus dwelt and did the work of an Evangelist in the great capitals of the three quarters of the world. We see in him an apostolic man who maintained a truly earnest faith in an easily excited mind, who was undoubtedly endowed with a powerful imagination and a high degree of enthusiasm; but whom a certain want of profundity of mind, and quiet strength of character, disposed to an external display of enthusiasm which perhaps rendered the strict consistency of Paul too powerful for him, and inclined him to the more congenial companionship of Peter. At all events, the above-mentioned features are clearly discernible in his transitions from one to another of the great missionary stations and renowned apostles.

All the characteristic features of this fervid and enthusiastic Evangelist appear in his work. With respect to the negative side of his character, we recognize a man who is quick, not too persevering, and indisposed to deep contemplation. His Gospel is short; it terminates abruptly; it exhibits no distinct basis of arrangement or division; it communicates but few of Christ’s discourses, and those but briefly, and chiefly such as are of the most fervid kind,-disputes, reproofs, and His sayings concerning the last judgment. It is also elliptical in expression; e.g., where the disciples are forbidden to put on two coats (chap. 6:9); or where the Roman centurion concludes, from the cry of Jesus at his death: This was the Son of God (chap. 15:39).

The lively vigour of this Evangelist is, however, displayed in a rich abundance of positive energy, and it is with this that we are now concerned, The constant excitement and enthusiasm of his view is expressed in the strength of his expressions; e.g., in the accumulation of negatives, οὐκέτι οὐδείς, as well as in his choice of unusual words, modes of expression, and constructions. It appears also in the rapid succession of his pictures; the word ‘straightway’ (εὐθέως) is his watchword. Vigour of this kind generally ramifies into the gifts of a vigorous and graphic imagination, a strong predilection for the concrete, and a consequently happy memory for details, connected with an excitable temperament, with its affectionate mode of expression. Hence it is Mark, with his graphic imagination, who tells us that Jesus was with the wild beasts in the wilderness; that the accursed fig-tree was dried up from the roots. Such finishing touches are entirely in keeping with truth; they are the fruit of independent and closer observation. This Evangelist also manifests his sense for objective detail, when he relates how Jesus, in His passage across the lake, was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep upon a pillow; when he remembers that the blind beggar at Jericho was called Bartimæus, the son of Timæus; and relates the beautiful parable (chap. 4:26, &c.) in so striking a manner, or recalls the gradual process in the cure of the blind man (chap. 8:22). His frequent use of diminutives specially testifies to his affectionate manner of expression (e.g., θυγάτριον, 5:23; παιδίον, 5:39; κοράσιον, 5:41; κυνάρια, 7:27; ἰχθύδια, 8:7). It is in accordance with this same ardent cordiality, that we find in this Gospel frequent transitions to foreign expressions, especially a number of Latin words (δηνάριον, κεντυρίων &c.)⁷ The second Gospel, then, is that of an enthusiastic view, a portraiture of the Son of God in His glorious fulfilment of His office, in the greatness of His operations. The history of Christ is made to pass before us in a rapid succession of great pictures, drawn from the life. He fulfils His beneficent mission in great working days, with sublime effort, and amidst great press of work; a constant storm of forces proceeds from Him. Hence He is also ever encompassed by crowds, especially of the needy, so that often He has neither room to stand nor time to eat; nay, His laborious love at one time kindles into such ardent activity, and produces such an excitement among the surrounding multitudes, that His friends wish to withdraw Him from the crowd, uttering those words of anxiety: ‘He is beside Himself’ (chap. 3:21). He makes the deepest impression upon the people; they wonder, they are beyond measure astonished, they are amazed, when He appears, and manifests His love and power. And His acts were in accordance with such an influence, ‘for He had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon Him for to touch Him, as many as had plagues.’ Wherever His arrival was heard of, they brought unto Him all that were sick in the neighbourhood, and exposed them on their litters in the streets, with the request that they might touch but the hem of His garment; ‘and as many as touched Him were made whole.’ Even the mere appearance of Christ struck the multitude, so that they trembled with reverence and joy (chap. 9:15). His acts are also a continual victory over inimical powers. This Gospel is far less pervaded than the first by anticipations of death. Of the sayings of Jesus on the cross, Mark has preserved only the exclamation: ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ Just the lion-like cry of sorrow. In the same manner, he relates the history of the resurrection chiefly in its most agitating effects.⁸ The disciples, in their sorrow, will believe no announcement of His resurrection: neither that of Mary Magdalene, nor of the two disciples who had seen Him in the way. As soon, however, as Christ appears among them, and reproves their unbelief, their disposition is entirely changed: they are now in a condition to receive the commission to preach the Gospel to every creature. An influx of Christ’s power accompanies His messengers, and confirms their words, after His resurrection and ascension. Thus does Mark conclude his Gospel in complete conformity with his own view; for it was in those miraculous healing influences of the power of the Son of God, which agitate and change the world, that the life of Christ had been contemplated by him. And in this view he is unique; the Gospel which he announces, is the Gospel of those vital powers of Christ which pervade the world. He is ever representing Christ as an ever-active, divine-human energy. The manner in which He moved the minds of the people to every pitch of emotion, to horror, fear, trust, hope, delight, rapture, and poured forth His reproving, healing, and sanctifying power upon these different frames of mind, must be learnt from Mark. The celerity with which Christ accomplished a work so infinitely great; the enthusiastically arduous daily labour by which He filled the world with the power of His name; the ardent and persevering courage with which He burst through the sorrows of the world, and through the grave, and raised Himself to the throne of His glory; are portrayed in this specifically distinct conception of His life as characteristics of the Divine Hero, carrying out His work of salvation in swift and conquering operations. This mighty activity is at the same time a symbol, representing all vigorous, divine works, all the agitating, awakening, animating ministrations of hearts filled with God, all the victories of christological deeds, every lion-like effort, every lion-like roar, every lion-like victory of faith on earth, and in general every ray of victorious power proceeding from the throne of the Son of God.

In the first Gospel we behold the Redeemer, as the promised Son of David, entering upon His kingdom by the path of suffering; in the second He appears before us, as the infinitely powerful Son of God, obtaining a victory over the world amid floods and storms of conquering power, and therefore in the way of divine and rejoicing activity. But we have yet to know Him as seeing and seeking in the Israelites the whole human race; and, though limited as to His earthly surroundings by the Israelitish nation, as delivering and blessing the world. The Evangelist Luke was called upon both to comprehend and exhibit the Gospel history on that side which reflected the divine Son of man.

The first notice of Luke in the New Testament appears in his second work, the Acts of the Apostles, which informs us in the most unassuming manner, that at Troas he first shared in the Apostle Paul’s missionary journey (Act 16:10-11). ‘Loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia,’⁹ are the words in which he communicates the fact of his entrance into the apostle’s company. We then lose him again from the society of Paul and Silas at Philippi (Act 16:17, &c.), where the two latter were cast into prison on account of the cure by Paul of a young woman who was a soothsayer. When they were afterwards liberated, and departed thence, Luke remained, as it appears, at Philippi. When Paul returned to Philippi, Luke again joined him, and sailed with him from Philippi to Troas on their way to Jerusalem (Act 20:6). In Jerusalem also we find them together; Luke going with Paul into the assembly of the apostles (Act 21:18). He was, however, once more separated from him by the arrest of Paul, which was effected by the Jewish Zealots (Act 21:27). After Paul had been sent to Cæsarea, and while he was detained there in milder but tedious imprisonment, Luke seems to have been again in connection with him. For it is said, that the governor Felix ‘commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister of come unto him’ (Act 24:23). At least the command, in consequence of which Paul travelled to Italy, was also a decision concerning him, and for him. ‘It was determined that we should sail into Italy,’ says he (Act 27:1). He consequently accompanied Paul on this voyage, and came with him to Rome (Act 28:14). At Rome Luke was, at least for some length of time, the helper of the apostle. It was hence that Paul wrote in his second Epistle to Timothy, ‘Only Luke is with me;’ and in his Epistle to Philemon, and in that to the Colossians, also written from this city, Luke is included among those who send greetings. It is from the latter Epistle that we learn that Luke was a physician, and that he was beloved by the apostle: ‘Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you’ (Col 4:14); and also that he was a Gentile, since, after it is said (chap. 4:10 and 11), ‘Aristarchus, my fellow-prisoner, saluteth you, and Marcus, &c., and Jesus which is called Justus, who are of the circumcision,’ there follow the names of others, who are therefore not of the circumcision, and it is among the latter that the name of Luke is found.

If we now turn to the account of Epiphanius, that Luke was one of the seventy disciples, and to the information of Theophylact, that he was designated by some as one of the seventy disciples, and, indeed as the one who, with Cleopas, met with the risen Saviour, these traditionary accounts, considered alone, may be purely hypothetical. This is, however, the place to state what may be said in favour of the hypothesis. And, first, we may remark, that Luke alone relates the account of the journey to Emmaus, and that in a very graphic manner; making the presumption that he was himself an eye-witness of what he narrates a very probable one. It is especially striking, that he should leave the name of one of these disciples unmentioned; and when this practice is compared with that of John, this circumstance seems to point to the fact, that the author was speaking of himself. If this were the case, we should then have to conclude that Luke, as a Hellenist, introduced to the Messiah through those who reverenced him (perhaps one of the Greeks mentioned, Joh 12:20), had come with joyful hope to keep the feast at Jerusalem, and had been most deeply agitated by the unexpected turn which matters had now taken. Such a conclusion would explain the expressions, ‘Art thou the only stranger in Jerusalem who hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?’ (chap. 24:18); and, ‘we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel,’ ver. 21. Besides, it is only on this supposition that the expressions περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων¹⁰ ἐν ἡμῖνí πραγμάτων, and οἱ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ, ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι τοῦ λόγου (chap. 1:1, 2), are perfectly clear. Luke thereby declares that he had not been present at the earlier events of the Gospel history, though he had at the later-they had taken place while he already belonged to the sacred circle (‘among us’). He also had then became an eye-witness and minister of the Gospel, but this did not suffice to make him a narrator of the whole Gospel; for such a purpose he must also avail himself of the communications of those who had from the beginning (ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς emphatic by position, expressing the contrast) occupied such a position. Finally, the before-mentioned expression of Papias should be well considered in connection with these circumstances. He had a witness who, together with John, the apostolic presbyter, represented that oral tradition which he places in contradistinction to the writings of Matthew and Mark. When he reduces his Latin name Lukanus, Lucilius, or Luke, to its probably earlier form Aristion, this entirely corresponds with his palæological feeling, as does also the circumstance that he calls the apostles, presbyters.¹¹ (Comp. p. 138 and 148).

Luke was then a Hellenist. The whole history of his life requires us to attribute to him a certain proportion of the Hellenistic education of his age. He was a physician, living in a seaport town. In such a position, although the calling and position of physicians are not to be judged of according to present circumstances, it was necessary that he should satisfy the requirements of the time with respect to a higher degree of cultivation, nor could he fail to experience the intellectual influences and excitements of the age. If, as Eusebius informs us, he was born at Antioch in Syria, he must have been influenced, even in his native city, by the secular learning of his age. In any case, as a Hellenistic Monotheist and proselyte, he had certainly attained that degree of cultivation in which reflection on spiritual relations is called into existence. In his medical career, this reflection would soon develop itself into an investigation of physical, anthropological, and psychological relations. It must also be granted that, in the case of Luke, the force of an important personality was added to these endowments. Even if his connection with Theophilus, who, as we infer from the preface to St Luke’s Gospel, was a man of some importance, is not taken into account, yet his constant association with Paul is well calculated to place his personality in the most favourable light. Perhaps it was owing to the respectability of his position and appearance that the politic and interested magistracy of Philippi left him unassailed, when Paul and Silas were thrown into prison, and that he was also left at liberty at Jerusalem, when Paul was arrested there. If Luke had, in these cases, failed in fidelity, that apostle would scarcely have again accepted him as his companion, nor would he have been subsequently found among the followers of a man so constantly threatened. If he were a man who acted rashly and inconsiderately, how did it happen that he suffered so much less than the apostle whom he accompanied, that his career is entirely lost sight of beside the more persecuted one of St Paul? The Acts of the Apostles displays his talent for research and delineation.¹² Endowed with these gifts, firm, yet submissive and gentle, cultivated and acquainted with the world, he became an assistant of the apostles. We will not insist that he passed some part of his life in intercourse with the Lord. At all events, as an inquiring Greek who, passing through the middle territory of Jewish Monotheism, was seeking the knowledge of salvation, he attained to faith in the Gospel in another manner than the pious Israelites. It was not so much the fulfilment of the Old Testament types and prophecies, as the fulfilment of his own yearnings after the manifestation of the Godhead in flesh, and especially of his anticipations of the fairest of the children of men, the actual ideal Man, the true Physician and Friend of humanity, which made him recognize in Christ the Saviour of the nations. The moral nature of Christianity, its holy humanity, the fulness and universality of its love for man, must have made the deepest impression upon a Hellenistic believer like Luke. But when he subsequently lived in intercourse with Paul, this recognition of a universalism in Christianity, which looks upon all men alike, would grow to a recognition of the grace which, within the sphere of this universalism, turns first of all to those whom the world contemns, that it may restore the balance of eternal righteousness, which hath ‘chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are’ (1Co 1:27-28).

Thus endowed and prepared, Luke was called upon to write the third Gospel. It is his view of the Gospel history. We find his whole self in his work. With respect to its form, it is evident, particularly from its chronological inaccuracies, that he was not personally present at all the events of Christ’s life, especially the earlier ones. We recognize his habit of research in the manner in which he supports his statements by a collection of trustworthy memoirs, often letting these speak in their own words, as shown by the frequent concluding formulæ with which his work is interspersed,¹³ and by the variety of diction employed. Especially does the pure Greek in which the introduction is written, when contrasted with the Hebraistic style of the Gospel, together with its research into Gospel history, testify to the fact that Luke, as an Evangelist, adopted the very language of the evangelical traditions. Schleiermacher, in his above-mentioned work, not only designates Luke a good collector and arranger, but specially praises him for having almost exclusively accepted genuine and good passages (p. 302). ‘This,’ says he, ‘is certainly not the work of accident, but the result of an investigation undertaken for a definite purpose, and of well-considered choice.’ Luke’s acute spirit of inquiry did not, however, merely collect an excellent selection of Gospel incidents peculiar to himself, but also many most valuable notices, which either complete, explain, or even correct the narratives of the other Evangelists. It is he alone who gives the reasons for the birth of Jesus at Jerusalem, the history of John the Baptist, the appearance of Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration (chap. 9:31), the instruction of the disciples in the Lord’s prayer, the circumstance that Peter was armed with a sword at Gethsemane (chap. 22:38), and many other circumstances and occurrences in the Gospel narrative. His statements are in many respects more accurate than those of Matthew and Mark. He clearly distinguishes, for instance, in the prophecy of Christ concerning the last things, between the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. According to him, the saying of Christ concerning the heavenly signs runs thus: There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; according to Matthew and Mark, The stars will fall from heaven. It is he who has preserved the fact of the great difference between the impenitent and the penitent thief, and informed us of the happy end of the latter; while Matthew summarily relates the blasphemy of those who were crucified with Jesus. He says of the disciples, with a psychological appreciation of their state of mind, They believed not for joy (chap. 24:41); while Mark represents them as upbraided by the Lord for their hardness of heart, which nevertheless is equally correct, since they were not yet fully sanctified (Mar 16:14). The reflections with which the Gospel of Luke is interspersed, display also the superior education of its composer. Among these may be reckoned, e.g., the remarks on the miraculous agency of Christ: ‘The power of the Lord was present to heal them;’ ‘there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all’ (chap. 5:17 and 6:19); also the account of the occasion of the transfiguration: And as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was altered. Many allusions in this Gospel seem, either by their insertion or position, to manifest the inclination of its author to psychological reflections. Did he perhaps intend to point out, even in the holy and blessed frame of the mother of Jesus, her fitness for bringing forth the holy Son of man? If this question is left undecided, it is certain that he has inserted in the narrative he gives concerning Jesus at his twelfth year, a reflection on the wondrous development of His mind. ‘Jesus,’ says he, ‘increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.’ It seems also not the result of accident, that in the passage chap. 9:54-62, the religious and moral phenomena presented by four different temperaments are placed in juxtaposition, while it is shown how Christ dealt with and healed each; viz., the angry zeal of the sons of thunder, the sanguine enthusiasm of a believing scribe, the melancholy home-sickness of a mourner, and the phlegmatic delay of a sluggish disciple. This juxtaposition is peculiar to Luke. The important notice of the disposition of the disciples, after Jesus had announced to them His approaching sufferings, is given by Luke alone, and that with such extraordinary emphasis, as must either be attributed to the most thoughtful reflection, or the most thoughtless tautology. It is said, viz., chap. 18:34, ‘They understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.’ Perhaps this might be briefly summed up in the words, they would not and could not understand; that is, first, they would not take it to heart; therefore, secondly, the whole thing remained an enigma to them; and hence, thirdly, what was simple was incomprehensible. Undoubtedly Luke, accustomed as he was to act on motives, lays so strong a foundation, because he had afterwards to build upon it the strange phenomenon, that they did not believe the resurrection though it had been previously announced to them. In the remark also made by Luke, after relating how Pilate sent his prisoner to Herod for judgment, that the same day Herod and Pilate were made friends, may be discerned, as it seems to us, a psychological reflection, and even the refined irony of a Christian acquaintance with human nature. The preservation, too, of that glorious account of how the Lord turned and looked upon Peter after his third denial, testifies to the same psychological acuteness for the wonders of the Light of the World. These various traces of the psychologist in this Gospel, naturally lead us upon those of the physician. To discover then the physician in this work, we need by no means go so far as to seek for technical medical terms. We have already pointed out some of the most striking marks of this kind. All the four Evangelists, for instance, relate the rashness with which Peter cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. Matthew, Mark, and John, however, seem, in the press of this mysterious moment, to forget this slight inconvenience. Jesus, the Saviour, however, though in so terrible a situation, could not leave the wound of the sufferer uncared for; and a report of His interposition being extant, Luke, the physician, could not pass it by, as the others had done. The physician could not but manifest himself in a characteristic report, and he does it in the words: ‘Jesus touched his ear and healed him.’ It is likewise Luke alone who tells us of the sweat which fell, ‘as it were great drops of blood,’ from Jesus in Gethsemane.

When we contemplate the mental peculiarity which meets us in Luke’s Gospel, it is evident that it is its manifestations of divine pity and mercy which form in his view the key-note of the Gospel history. Even his sense for what was humane and rational in argument points to this; e.g., in chap. 13:15, &c.: ‘Doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath-day?’ Christ everywhere appears to this Evangelist in the aspect of the benevolent Redeemer, tenderly sympathizing with the sorrows of men, and consoling them with the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. Very characteristically does he prolong His genealogy beyond Abraham to Adam; His descent is from man. The first of His discourses communicated in this Gospel is that to His poor countrymen at Nazareth, and is founded on a consolatory passage in the Old Testament (Luk 4:17). How tenderly does He address to the widow of Nain the unspeakably touching words, Weep not! while He himself weeps over Jerusalem, looks back with melancholy sympathy upon the daughters of Jerusalem who were following Him on His way to death, and prays for His enemies while hanging in agony on the cross. This same spirit of Divine pity is expressed also in the relation of His Gospel to man, as exhibited in a concentrated form in the view taken of it by this Evangelist. The solitary and childless priestly pair are first visited, and highly favoured, and then, in the highest degree, the poor virgin of Nazareth. The Holy Child is born into the world; but poor shepherds are the first to rejoice at this event, which brightens the last days of the aged Simeon and the solitary Anna. It was through a miraculous benefit that Simon Peter was astonished and first made entirely Christ’s disciple. We soon after find Jesus in the presence of the anxious centurion of Capernaum; even the elders of the Jews intercede for him. How remarkable is the selection of a resurrection narrative in Luke: it concerns the only son of a widow! This kind of selection goes through the whole Gospel. Even the appearance of holy women among the followers of Jesus, was a circumstance which would catch the eye of this benevolent Evangelist. It was quite in Luke’s nature to preserve Mary’s hymn of praise, in which the Lord is extolled as ‘He who putteth down the mighty from their seats, and exalteth them of low degree; who filleth the hungry with good things, and sendeth the rich empty away.’ And if Luke, in his version of the Sermon on the Mount, pronounces the blessedness of the poor, the hungry, the mourner, as such, though with special notice, in the case of the hated, that it is for the Son of man’s sake that they have incurred this hatred (6:22), this is so far from being a mark of that Jewish Ebionitism which declared the poor Jews to be blessed above the rich Gentiles, that it seems, on the contrary, impossible to misunderstand here a direct contrast to that Ebionitism, if there be but capacity to receive the notion that the Gospel does, in fact, seek out its subjects first of all among the oppressed and afflicted. This applies also to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But it is no weak and cowardly pity, which abandons the fallen, that is exhibited in this Gospel, but the divinely strong pity of eternal mercy. Luke alone relates the pardon of the ‘woman which was a sinner,’ the conversion of Zaccheus, and the penitence of the crucified thief; he alone has given us the parables of the lost sheep and the lost piece of money, and that most glorious of all parables, the prodigal son. The contrast between the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Pharisaism, is expressed with the strongest emphasis by this Evangelist. The history of the ten lepers, among whom there was but one grateful, and he a Samaritan-the narrative of the good Samaritan-and the parable of the Pharisee and publican, taken together, express this contrast with most inculpating effect. Luke’s Gospel is to its very close characteristic, for the Saviour departs from His disciples while He is blessing them.

The world and the Church needed this chosen instrument to collect and preserve the brightest, loveliest rays of Christ’s glory, to sound abroad the most peculiar tone of His divinely humane heart, the tenderest and mightiest notes of His tender mercy. Of all the cherubic symbols, it is the image of the man which is the most applicable to Luke. In his Gospel it is declared that the grace of God cares for, nay, is poured forth upon the poor, the lowly, the mean, the overlooked, the despised, the forsaken in the world. Compassion appears in all its freeness, nay, in all its loving, joyful pride, in opposition to the prejudices of Pharisaism, of fanaticism, of ecclesiasticism stiffened into heartlessness, and of absolute pietism relying on its privileges. This grace appears also in its more general form, as love; and in its genial nature as rejoicing, tender loving-kindness, under a thousand aspects. It is incarnated, however, in the Son of man, as holy, glorious humanity, of one nature and agency with Him, manifesting itself through Him, His most peculiar honour. Through Him it is related with all christological life in the world. Whatever of love and kindness passes from heart to heart, every exhibition of faithfulness, help, or good-will, offered in the spirit of true benevolence or pity, proclaims the breathing of that gentle, divine-human spirit, whose fulness flows forth from Christ upon the world. This christological trait is the more precious to the Lord, the more it is outwardly obscured by hereditary heterodoxy, heathen tradition, and similar ancient husks of the old offence. The good Samaritan is one after His own heart, who died on Golgotha under the ban of excommunication, and upon that terrible scene of shame and desolation effected the salvation of the world. Thus does the third Gospel exhibit, together with the abundance and power of the grace and human love of Christ, a world of kindred emotions and influences, proceeding from and returning to Him.

If, then, we regard the Gospel history as the climax and centre of all life, and then remember that all life proceeds from the Spirit, and is, in its deepest foundations, entirely ideal; it is at the same time evident that the relation of the Gospel history to the ideal must be made clear. Since we find, then, that the three first Gospels, notwithstanding the richness of their contents, do not in a specific and definite manner satisfy this necessity, it is evident that we need a fourth Gospel to complete the announcements of the former, by an exhibition of the relation between the Gospel history and the idea.

Both in Christ Himself and in His life, this tone of ideality, the lyric and recognized reference of His life to all that is ideal in the world, could not but resound in fullest purity. This is involved in the firmly established notion of His personality; and isolated expressions of this reference are found even in the synoptists. But are we to conclude that Christ could find no instrument capable of the most definite apprehension of this sacred basis, this deepest and sublimest side of His whole manifestation? Are we to suppose that the most refined, the deepest, the sublimest view of His life, is the production of some idealistic apocryphal author, not included within the apostolic circle? In this case Christ would not have fully manifested Himself, or rather, he who had thus imperfectly manifested himself could not be the perfect Christ. No idealist, with his surplus of philosophical refinement, was needed to supply what was lacking to Him. And what idealist of the Platonic or Philonic school could have done this?¹⁴ The idealistic reasoner of the second century is placed too high, when the production of St John’s Gospel is ascribed to him. The ideal Son of man is placed too low, when the consciousness of His relation to the ideal, and the revelation of this consciousness by means of an appropriate and elect instrument, is denied to Him.

It was the Apostle John who was called to the apprehension of this tranquil ideal depth of the life of Jesus. An inspired enthusiastic thirsting after light seems to have been the chief feature of his character. He was the son of Zebedee, a Galilean fisherman on the Lake of Gennesaret, and brother of James the Great. His father seems to have willingly devoted his worldly superfluity, to higher purposes (Mar 15:40-41); his mother Salome was a pious, courageous, aspiring woman (Mat 20:20). It was probably from her that John inherited his noble mental tendencies. We early find him among the disciples of the Baptist, and he was undoubtedly one of the first disciples of Jesus (Joh 1:35 comp. Mat 4:21, &c.) John, together with his brother James, and Peter, were gradually admitted into a peculiarly intimate relation with the Lord (Mat 16:17). These three disciples were the very elect of the elect.¹⁵ We sometimes see him associated with Peter, especially in the mission to prepare the Passover (Luk 22:8). We subsequently find this distinguished position of John in connection with Peter, appearing as permanent in the Acts. In this book he everywhere appears, with Peter alone, at the head of the apostolic band; he therefore and Peter were decidedly acknowledged as the most gifted, most blessed, and most important pillars of the Church,—an acknowledgment which the Lord’s treatment of them would seem to have sanctioned. With reference, however, to Peter, Jesus had in some respects given John the precedence, and in others postponed him to that apostle. In personal relation to Christ, he was the first, the friend of Jesus, who lay on His breast, to whom the Lord committed the care of his mother-whom in this respect He put in His own position (Joh 13:23; Joh 19:26-27; Joh 21:7; Joh 21:20-25). But in his vocation to found and guide the Church of Christ, Peter was preferred to him, as well as to the other apostles (Mat 16:18-19; Luk 22:31; Joh 21:15). This appointment of Christ formed no legal privilege; it only made the actual natural relations in which the two apostles stood to each other and to Him clear to the Church, and obtained for them the recognition of the community. Hence these relations are seen to exist also in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter everywhere appears in heroic greatness of deed; John walks in mysterious silence near the mighty pioneer-apostle. He must consequently, as far as force of natural character is concerned, be esteemed as far less important than Peter, if the perfectly equal respect they received did not lead us to infer the actual equilibrium of these personalities. We must then seek the distinctive gifts of John in those less conspicuous qualities of heart and mind which are far removed from this prominent activity, and expect to find him as far superior to Peter in his powers of mental contemplation, as Peter is to him in powers of energetic action. This expectation is confirmed, as soon as we compare the first Epistle of John with the first Epistle of Peter. The first Epistle of John forms a homogeneous appendix to the fourth Gospel.¹⁶ In it are displayed that disposition which rises to lyric fervour, that penetration which descends into the abysses of speculative contemplation, united with that deep strong ardour, bursting forth at intervals, which is peculiar to such a mind, and which here appears ennobled by the holy acuteness of a sublime purity. These separate features, however, when jointly contemplated, bear the impress of sublime, childlike simplicity, and are encompassed by a halo of lonely solemnity. The negative side of this said subjective disposition appears in the circumstance, that here, as everywhere, John brings forward but few historical references; in his writings the actual is merged and explained in the contemplative. Its positive side is displayed in the powerful apprehension of all worldly relations; e.g., in the words, ‘Children, it is the last time;’ while the poetic flights of the fervour which pervades all his expressions, is often prominent, as perhaps in the passage where he so solemnly addresses the fathers, the young men, and the children (1Jn 2:13). His enlightened penetration is shown, when he says of God, He is light, and in Him is no darkness; of Christ, The Life was manifested; of Christians, Ye have an anointing, and know all things; while the product of the subtlest speculative tendency is seen when, e.g., he defines sin as the transgression of the law. Yet he is no philosophic or poetic idealist; his mind has a truly practical turn. This is seen even in his ardent zeal; as, e.g., when he says, He that doeth sin is of the devil. This ardour sometimes kindles into sublimest purity. When he says, Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer, we are reading the very soul of a Christian man, to whom the world of thought has almost become the world of reality. But when it is said, Little children, abide in Him, we recognize the tone of his own noble simplicity; and in the words, This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith, is expressed the silent triumph of the man, who, by his unexcitable, almost leisurely seeming solemnity, has left the world certainly as important an apostolic blessing as any of his fellow-apostles have done in their more stirring performances. In the first Epistle of Peter, we recognize an apostle of an entirely opposite character from John, though one with him in Christian spirit. We find here the aspiring spirit, contemplating with peculiar delight the Christian hope, the incorruptible inheritance, and rejoicing with joy unspeakable, and full of glory, in the assurance of the Lord’s return; the preaching spirit, encouraging, exhorting, consoling, and even declaring of the Lord Jesus, that He himself preached to the spirits in prison; the dauntless believing spirit, looking upon himself and his fellow-Christians as a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, to show forth the praises of Christ; the ordering and arranging spirit, giving special exhortations, now to Christians in general, now to servants, to women, to men, to elders, to young Christians; the animated spirit, dealing in concrete views, loving to speak in figures, parables, and examples,—e.g., of the gold purified by the fire, of the sincere milk of the word, of the precious corner-stone, of the typical obedience of Sarah; the valiant and warlike spirit, looking upon the adversary the devil as a roaring lion; finally, the spirit purified by suffering, who would stop the mouth of adversaries not with evil, but with well-doing;—in a word, we find every where that it is the converted Peter who is speaking to us.

His second Epistle also testifies to the same relation of the two apostles to each other, and to the Lord, by still exhibiting the decided and great contrast of their respective peculiarities. When these two disciples first heard from the pious women the confused report of the Lord’s resurrection, they both ran to the sepulchre. John ran the more quickly; the impulse of his soul was more fervid, his enthusiasm was more soaring, more angel-like. Arrived at the grave, however, either reverence, or deep anxiety, or fearful anticipation suddenly restrained him. The prompt resolution of Peter, however, here gave him the precedence, and he went first into the grave. After the resurrection, we find the disciples, during the long interval of forty days, again on the Sea of Galilee; and again they pass the night upon the water, occupied in fishing. In the twilight of the morning, they see a mysterious personage standing on the shore. John is the first to recognize Him; the eagle glance of his mind seems to extend even to his bodily eye, and he says, ‘It is the Lord!’ At the word of the discriminative apostle, the energetic apostle plunges into the water. It is Peter who swims to meet Jesus. In the high-priest’s palace, which he entered together with Peter, John maintained his exalted and silent individuality before the obtrusiveness of rude accusers, while Peter was driven first to make himself conspicuous, and then to deny his Master. Hence, also, he passed as it were in heavenly concealment through the tribulations of the early Church, while the other great apostles were baptized with a baptism of blood, one after another. Hence, while the other apostles were agitating the great capitals of the then known world by the preaching of the Gospel, John died in peace as Bishop of Ephesus, one of the churches founded by Paul. And hence, finally, Peter was the rock upon which the Church of Christ was built at its commencement; it was his agency which pervaded the apostolic Church, and gave to it that energetic tendency to go forth into all the world, in the power of that Spirit from above which was bestowed upon him, while the contemplative tendency, the tendency of John, could not but retire into the background. But when the enlightenment of the Church, its perfection in inner life and spirituality, was to be promoted; when the sign of the Son of man was to dart forth like lightning, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same; the agency of John might well be the most conspicuous, and perhaps it may be reserved to the Spirit of St John, the sublime son of thunder, the dazzling lightning, the purifying storm, to be that influence under whose light and warmth the Church is to be adorned as a bride for the coming Bridegroom.¹⁷

As is the disciple, so is his Gospel. We will not any further refer to the various judgments that have been pronounced upon this much prized and much despised composition. They stand in more glaring contrast to each other than opinions concerning any of the other Gospels. It is from the hand of an angel, says one.¹⁸ A phantom-like production! says another. On one side, it is said to be the heart of Christ;¹⁹ on another, it is called mystically confused and lengthened out. Certainly John had to bear the cross in his own person, and he has ever had to bear it in his Gospel during its propagation through the world. Yet the unpopular Evangelist was happy, in the midst of all misconception, in the reality of his view of the Lord’s glory; and spirits akin to his have ever been so, in spite of their isolation in the world.²⁰

The fourth Gospel bears the most distinct impress of the above-named characteristics of John. We find in it a profound insight which seizes the historical only in its most pregnant incidents, and contemplates in these, on one side, the whole fulness of the actual, on the other, the whole depth of the ideal. John the Baptist here represents the whole series of pre-Christian Old Testament prophets, through whose instrumentality christological light dawned upon the world; while Peter and John represent the continued prevalence of this light in the world after Christ’s return to the Father. In a few chief incidents, the Evangelist shows us, first, how the light and life, after its appearance, attracted the receptive; and then how the unreceptive turned away from it; then, next, how the contrast between light and darkness was exhibited in more developed form; and, finally, how the signs of the victory which is destined to annihilate the darkness appeared. Thus the history which the Evangelist relates, is thoroughly penetrated by the ideality of his view of the world. The spiritual penetration of his view of Christ appears also in the freshness of his world of thought. As his facts are thoughts, so are his thoughts life. According to his mode of expression, the knowledge of eternal life and the true historic view of Christ is the knowledge of the Father. This inwardness often bears in his Gospel the lovely blossom of a lyric fervour, especially in the farewell discourses, where wave upon wave of inspired, sacred, evangelical feeling appear in a rich succession, which obtuseness of mind has more than once most miserably misconceived. The profundity of the Evangelist has laid down in this Gospel principles of the deepest and purest speculation, principles whose whole depth, when contrasted with the efforts hitherto made by philosophy, stand like the Jungfrau peak among the Alps. And what a wonderful polar relation to that eagle glance, which loses itself in the sunny heights of truth, is borne by that swift, lightning-like, blasting, holy indignation, wherewith the Evangelist sees the condemning light of the Gospel fall upon the world, or upon ‘the Jews,’ the worldly spirits of Israel. He even assumes an appearance of contradiction to designate that desperate hatred of the light in the strongest terms. ‘His own received Him not. But as many as received Him,’ &c. ‘This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light.’ ‘Ye seek Me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves.’ ‘Why do ye not understand My speech?-Ye are of your father the devil.’ How forcible is the reproof: ‘Because I tell you the truth, ye believe Me not!’ And in the midst of all this fervid severity, we still recognize the constant prevalence of that quiet and simple spirit, whose sacred repose and sabbatic peace are forcibly contrasted with the busy restlessness of its opponents, and which is ever a characteristic of the Evangelists through every line of the Gospels. How characteristic is the scene at Jacob’s well, when Christ, so opportunely resting at the well, discloses to a Samaritan woman, with so much freedom, the marvels of truth! The manner, too, in which Christ says to His disciples, at the close of the fourteenth chapter, ‘Arise, let us go hence,’ and then remains with His disciples, sunk in the long and continuous reflections which fill three chapters, without changing the place, is also singularly striking in this respect. These were the moments in which, most especially, the view of the disciple was entirely blended with the deeply stirred, yet solemn frame of his Master. The whole of the twenty-first chapter, also, is pervaded by that sabbatic peace which is best defined as the characteristic peculiarity of St John’s mind. The Evangelist ends his narrative by truly reporting a falsely interpreted saying of Christ. Its full interpretation is reserved to the coming of Christ. Thus the end, when Christ the revealed Word will explain and illuminate the destinies of all, is connected with the beginning, in which the Word and the destinies of all were still resting in the bosom of the Father.

The ancient Church made a fitting selection in the symbol it appropriated to the fourth Evangelist. As the eagle in his lofty soaring attains, in a few great efforts, those pauses of still hovering, when he rests upon his outspread pinions, entranced by the glory of the sun, and, in transports of delight, bends his course towards it; so did the Evangelist quickly free himself from Galilee, from John the Baptist, from the ideal of his mother Salome, and even from the expectation of having as much influence in his own way within the Church as Peter, or breaking up new ground in the world like Paul, and make it both the labour and rest of his life to contemplate and to exhibit the spiritual glory, the light of the world, in Christ and in His history. He was called, in profound and blessed contemplation, to perceive in the Gospel history, and in simple, yet sublime touches, to exhibit the ideal lights which break through Christ’s words and works—the lyric tone of the peace which pervades His manner of acting and expressing Himself; the lightning-like flashes of the conflict between the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of the world, accompanied as they were by the rolling thunders; the life of Godhead in the sufferings of the Lamb, or the enjoyment of eternal peace in the depth of atoning woes; the dawn of the glorification of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Church. Hence his Gospel is the central point of ideal Christology, placing all those expressions of christological life which relate to it in their proper light, and teaching us rightly to estimate all the developments which have resulted from the dispersion of the fruitful seed of the divine Logos²¹ throughout the world. All the guesses of philosophy that the unity of the Eternal Spirit was the ideal principle of the world—all genuine poetic feeling appearing as the blossom of a momentary union with the Eternal Spirit—all manifestations of pure enthusiasm which suffer thought to appear through the tone of feeling, and exhibit feeling in the light of thought; but especially all those inward festivals of Christian peace, in which hearts become so one with the Father in the Son, through the Holy Ghost, that the troubles and labours which had perplexed them are terminated—and all the outward festivals of the Church in which the greatest facts of history glitter with spiritual glory throughout the world, and ring aloud over the earth the eternal thoughts of God incorporated in established customs, so that the dawn of an eternal and untroubled Sabbath already appears upon the high places of the civilised world; in a word, all the incidents of festal spiritual life upon earth, in its reference to its eternal destination,—are echoes of the prevailing tone of this Gospel; and if this apostle is regarded as a prince in the kingdom of Christ, possessing one of the twelve thrones, it may be said that he is the prince of that province whose situation is the highest, and whose beauty is the most tranquil,—that in his realm the noblest vines flourish on the high and picturesque mountains, whose very peaks are surrounded by a genial and fragrant atmosphere, while in the morning sun which illumines the gothic domes of his domains, and lights the festal processions upon their glittering paths, hovers the eagle that brought him his pen from the hand of the Lord.

If, then, the life of Christ is exhibited in the first Gospel with reference to the historical destiny of the world, and especially its tragic events; in the second, to the powers of the world; in the third, to the human heart, and especially the heart neglected, suffering, and feeling its need of consolation; and in the fourth, to the eternal ideals, and to lyric and meditative views of them,—it still appears to us as unalterably one, under each new aspect, in every essential form of human life. This reference may, however, be viewed from four points of view. First, the Gospels teach us the difference of the instruments generally employed to communicate the Gospel, and enable us to estimate the value of this difference. Then, on the other hand, they point out the various forms and degrees of receptivity, and of felt need of salvation, existing in the world. If, then, we view the whole dark world in the light cast upon it by Christ’s Gospel, we may say that we possess a Gospel of all tragic historical occurrences, a Gospel of all forces, a Gospel of all humanity, a Gospel of all ideality. When, however, we refer the variety of this negative fulness of the world, which Christ will fill and illumine, to Him the Head, He appears to us as the purely historical hero, in whom the suffering of the historical curse became, through perfected historical fidelity, the reconciliation of the world, the Gospel; as the Lord of powers, whose harmony He restores, whose new doctrine it is, that with authority He commandeth even the unclean spirits, and who bequeaths to His disciples power over serpents and poisons (Mar 16:18); as fairest of the children of men, the friend of the human race, who listens to all the sighs of humanity, counts all its tears, who meets the funeral procession of mankind as He did that before the gate of Nain, as a helper and consoler; and, finally, as the Elect, the Only-begotten of the Father, in whom the Father beholds Himself, in whom the creative thought of God is one with reality, and whose glorification in the kingdom of the Spirit results in the recovery of the obscured ideality of the whole world, who elevates human nature with Himself into the free and blessed kingdom of the Spirit.

The four Gospels thus form a cycle in which Christ’s glory is exhibited in the fulness of His life, and His nature developed in the four chief forms of life. Three of these forms stand in evidently sharp contrast to each other; they are symbolically designated by the three forms of animal life. But if the fourth, which is denoted by the figure of the man, is to represent merely the temperament or the higher unity of the other three forms, it would seem, indeed, that we might expect to find in Luke’s Gospel a unity of the other three. Now it cannot be ignored that such a unity is actually presented, or, in other words, that the respective views of each separate Evangelist are re-echoed therein;—that of Matthew, for instance, in his communication of a genealogy and the notions connected therewith; that of Mark, in the exhibition of the constant miracles and journeys of Christ; and lastly, that of John, especially in the prominence given to the circumstance, that Jesus frequently continued whole nights in prayer (chap. 6:1, 9:29, 11:1, 21:3-7). It is, however, equally true, that the peculiarity of Luke is, as we have already seen, strongly contrasted with the peculiarities of the other Evangelists. It would also oppose the idea of the organic relation of Christ to His Church, if His fulness were represented with equal power and emphasis by one instrument. How then shall we explain this apparent contradiction, that one Gospel should pre-eminently represent the divine humanity of Christ, and yet should not appear merely as the unity of the three others, which each give special prominence to one essential christological relation? We obtain an explanation of this difficulty by an accurate distinction between the different stages of human life. Man, as such, appears as the climax of creation, in whom the above-named general forms of life celebrate their higher unity. Paradisaic man, however, existed but for a short period; and historic man, as a fallen being, so lost that height and harmony of life, that he can now, in a humanity subject to weakness and limitation, appear as a special and separate form of life beside the three animal forms; and it is in this limited condition that this fourth living creature represents the historical state of mankind. It is through its imperfect coincidence with the idea that history becomes tragic. It represents a deterioration, in which even that which is most noble in human nature generally appears only in fragments. In this dislocation of human powers, actual suffering faithfulness and pure ideality seemed to be most widely separated. The one is struggling, suffering, bleeding, in the midst of the reality of actual national life. The other is soaring far above reality, in the regions of philosophy and poetry, and is often celebrating her highest triumphs while reality is at its most pitiable state of depression. Between these extremes of natural life are seen, on one side, the ardent zeal of powerful and pious spirits, exercised in manifold and energetic rebukes; on the other, that humanity, specially so called, which no sooner casts a look upon human need and misery, than, with a compassion which no prejudice can restrain, it makes it forthwith its life-task to soothe, to help, and to heal. This deterioration, however, of the christological element is put an end to in the life of Jesus. In Him, man as such, the ideal man, becomes historical; historic man, ideal. His life embraces, in wondrous union and harmony, and in infinite power, fulness, and purity, all the vital powers of humanity, all its aspirations after the heights of absolute perfection.

If, then, we glance once more at the prophetic symbol in which we have a typical reflection of the spiritual relations of human life, of Christology, and especially of the characteristic relations existing between the four Evangelists, the varying hues of signification in the fourth living creature (the human) may now be pointed out.

This human form first expresses the notion of the union of the three other living creatures; it has a reference to the ideal of human nature in its perfection. But it also represents man in his historical weakness and limitation, as he appears co-ordinately with the other forms as a fourth; not merely, perhaps, because the ox bleeds for him in symbolical worship, because the lion terrifies him, because the eagle soars over his head independently of him; but rather because his historic destiny, with its need of sacrifice, the heroic activity of the zealous messengers of God, and the sublime mysteries of ideal life generally, confront him as strange and terrible powers, with whom he is outwardly combined, but not inwardly united. And when he would, in his highest efforts, unite himself with them, this union is ever but a partial one. If he sacrifices himself for the sake of his country, the lion opposes him as his destroyer, as was the case with Huss; if he walks in the ways of the lion, he often renders himself a grievous scourge to others, as proved by the Hussites; if he soars with the eagle, he generally forgets the wants of his fellow-men, as many idealists and mystics have done. Hence he is called upon, in his weakness, to concentrate himself, that he may do what is most human in a human manner, may check human misery with all the might of such divine strength as still remains in him, till the grace of God completes its work by guiding the ardent inward co-operation of those human powers which seem outwardly separated and severed, and restores harmony by the sending of the Son of man.

It is then limited humanity, rather than humanity in general, which is denoted by the cherubic symbol of the man. The notion of human unity, which is involved therein, is an indication of real unity, which was in many ways pointed to by the Holy of Holies of the Jewish temple as a unity to come, though it was definitely represented by no separate symbol, for the sake of giving the impression that it had not yet appeared. This unity was exemplified in an action, at the moment when the high priest tremblingly entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the mercy-seat. The tables of the law represented the roaring of the Lion of Judah; the sacrificial blood represented the Lamb of God, or sacrifice; the priest was the instrument of active compassion; the whole figure of the cherubim at such a moment, under the awe of the Lord’s presence, spoke mysteriously of the eternal idea of the spirit of revelation. The power of this atonement was indeed only symbolic, and soon departed; it was founded, however, on the continual intervention and government of the incarnate love of God, in the depths of Israel’s life.

When the God-man appeared in Christ, in whom the union of all human powers and forms of power was not only realized, but also confirmed and glorified, the old symbolism of the tabernacle had answered its purpose, and the actual life appeared in its place. But the life of Christ, which now entered the world to pervade it, and to change it into pure light and life, entered it in that fourfold form of human life, that its whole fulness might be poured out therein, because it was only by such an entrance that it could certainly comprehend and win the world in all its forms of life; on the one hand, in all its instruments, on the other, in all its necessities.

There are individuals whose gifts remind us of Matthew, others who represent Mark, others again in whom resemblances to Luke or John appear. These all draw, according to their measure, from the fulness of Christ. For the reception of these manifold gifts there exist so many needs, these encounter the fulness of Christ in the form of utter poverty and nakedness. Wavering communities, ever ready to be unfaithful to themselves, need the heroes of suffering fidelity; weak multitudes, tormented by demons, cry for instruments of vigorous and delivering power; the poor and despised of this world long for the Gospel to heal their wounds through the angels of Christian philanthropy; the ever impending torpor of a dull realism and coarse utilitarianism needs sacred spirits who, themselves drawing from the source of eternal life, may be able to extend to the ageing Church the chalice of rejuvenescence.²²

The Church of Christ exhibits these fundamental forms wholesale. The priestly element in the Church reminds us of the view and gifts of Matthew; Mark seems to live again in energetic and powerful revival preachers; the founders of Christian institutions of mercy, the instruments of help to the needy of all kinds, represent the Lord according to Luke’s view; while theology is radically after the style of John, and is indeed ever in a state of declension, when the tone of that apostle seems either strange or offensive to it. In the life of the Church this tone resounds in sacred songs.

These four forms, in their reference to the unity of the divine-human life, are reflected also in the Christian State. Justice and magistracy in the State, for instance, correspond with priestliness in the Church; administration and military order have an internal reference to their counterparts among the powers of the world to come; in those humane institutions by which the State cares for the relief of human need, especially in medical institutions, we find an echo of Christian pity; while, lastly, science and art will only correspond with their ideals, so far as they maintain their natural reference to the Church and theology, and through these as media, to Christ.

Since, then, Christ enters by His Spirit, according to these various forms, into His elect instruments, by them into His Church, by the Church into the State, and by the State into the whole world, He places the rights and value of human peculiarities in the clearest light, nay, protects them even in their form of relative partialities, whether these partialities are displayed in the prevalance of historical fidelity, theocratic activity, universal humanity, or quiet and contemplative idealism. Their rights are defended by the fact that they all exist in perfect harmony in Christ, and that in their united efforts they represent the fundamental forms of edification for His Church. It is only when they sever from or misconceive each other, and withdraw themselves from obedience to the Spirit of Christ, which would bind them together into a real unity, as they already, abstractedly considered, form an ideal one, and have the germ of a real one in Him, that they become blameable; e.g., a humanity which seeks to sever itself from Christian firmness and power, a priestliness apart from the ideality of free judgment, an ideality removed from common life. In such forms they are but phantoms of the life they should exhibit, and even inimical to, and inconsistent with, that life. Hence modern preachers of apostolic succession, and clerical priests, are adversaries to the doctrine of the true atonement, and modern idealists are opponents of John. They are, however, but phantoms. For the Lord triumphantly continues His work, the development of His glory, by quickening and purifying faithful men who exhibit such partialities. It is from such partialities, so far as they remain Christian in their proportion and tendency, so far as they gravitate towards Christ, the centre of attraction to all life, that, as the result of the continuous purification which they receive from contact with each other, those peculiarities burst forth which develop in ever-increasing brightness and beauty, that immortal germ which they bear within them. Ever more and more is one reflected in another, each in all; ever more and more do their contrasts become expressions of the fulness and power of their unity. It is in such a consecration that we behold the four Gospels. How manifold are the contrasts they exhibit! As the eagle soars high above those living creatures who are chained by their nature to earth, so does John soar, in his ideality, above the other three Evangelists; on which account Clement of Alexandria, a partial and idealistic theologian, called his Gospel the spiritual, and dared to designate the others, as contrasted with his, the corporeal Gospels. On the other hand, Matthew differs from the other three by making historical truth, as it glorifies the true King of the Jews in His atoning sufferings, and the illustration furnished by the Old Testament to the New, the central points of His delineation. Mark also proportions his efforts to the aim he had in view; he leaves it to others to report the discourses of Jesus, and to delineate the inner workings of His life. His hero is the Lion who even in death shakes heaven and earth with His cry, and is soon upon the scene again, conquering and redeeming every creature. The aim of Luke, compared with that of the others, is displayed in the force of his universalism: he balances the seventy disciples for the world in general, against the twelve apostles for Israel. The position of the Gospels is also characteristic: the Gospel of historical truth and that of the ideal perfection of Christ are farthest apart; they form the advanced and rear guards of the company. Near to the Gospel of the Lord’s powerful agency stands the Gospel of His mild and compassionate control, the Angel next the Lion. And if the combination of the two first Gospels exhibits the Lord under the contrast of victim and sacrificer, the combination of the two latter expresses the contrast of love ever acting in prayer, and love ever praying in the midst of action. The unity of all is, however, expressed in the fact that they all form but one Gospel, that they all glorify the one Christ.

It will now, therefore, be our task to exhibit first of all that representation of the life of Jesus which is derived from the four Gospels in combination, and then to bring prominently forward, by an examination of each separate Gospel, the specific nature of their respective views of Christ. These examinations will indeed be but attempts, but even with all their deficiencies they may direct attention to the delicate yet decided organic unity of the four Gospel forms of life, and the indissolubility of their organisms; and if this be in any measure their result, the nuisance of the now prevailing atomistic and talmudistic criticism of the Gospels will be stopped in its career. The greater advantage, however, would be the positive one of more decidedly exhibiting the fulness of Christ in the Gospels, their variety being made the clearer by the more developed delineation of their unity, their unity by a nicer discrimination of their variety.

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Notes

1. Of the apostolic labours of Matthew, especially his later ones beyond the limits of Palestine, and of his end, tradition has much to tell (comp. Winer, R. W. B. i. 73). Eusebius relates that, after writing his Gospel, he directed his efforts to other nations (iii. 24). His new sphere of labour has been variously designated by various authorities. Macedonia, Upper Syria, Persia, Parthia, and Media, have each been named, but the tradition which points out Ethiopia as the scene of his ministry has received most credit. In the times of Clement of Alexandria his martyrdom was not known of, but a severe ascetic course of life was ascribed to him. He was subsequently reckoned among the martyrs. A comparison of the passage in his Gospel (chap. xxiv. 15, &c.) which seems to hint that the time for the departure of the Christians from Jerusalem was at hand, with the statement of Eusebius, that the Christians departed to Pella, a town in the hilly district beyond Jordan, would lead us to seek for the last traces of Matthew in this direction. Pantænus (according to Eusebius) afterwards found his Gospel, in the Hebrew language, in the hands of the Christians of a country called India, by which we must probably understand Arabia (Neander, Church History, i. 113 [Bohn’s Tr.]). In this direction, then, i.e., beyond Pella and towards Arabia, Matthew seems to have terminated his career. It is Bartholomew, however, whom Eusebius designates as properly the apostle of the Arabians.

2. Tradition is very unanimous in its accounts, that Mark left Rome to preach the Gospel in Egypt, where he founded Christian churches, and became the first Bishop of Alexandria. According to Jerome, he died in the eighth year of Nero’s reign. According to the Alexandrian Chronicle, he suffered martyrdom in the reign of Trajan, being burned by the idolaters.

3. The tradition that Luke was a painter is of very recent origin. It is found in the Ecclesiastical History of Nicephorus, who wrote in the fourteenth century. According to Eusebius Luke preached in Dalmatia, Gaul, Italy, and Macedonia. Nicephorus also makes his labours lie in the same direction, by reporting that he suffered martyrdom in Greece. According to Isidorus Hispalensis and the Martyrologies, he died in Bithynia.

4. When Paul was at Jerusalem for the last time (Act 21:18), John seems to have been no longer there. It is probable that the Virgin was already dead, and that he had departed thence. Whither ‘John first betook himself after leaving Jerusalem,’ says Credner (Einl. 215), ‘is a circumstance veiled in utter obscurity. It could not have been to Ephesus, as Paul would then have avoided that place (comp. Rom 15:20, 2Co 10:16, Gal 2:7-8), and would also have spoken in different terms to the Ephesian elders on his return from his third journey. Neither can we admit the presence of John at Ephesus at the time when Paul sent the Epistle to the Ephesians into those districts. But that he was really there subsequently, is testified by history (Iren. adv. Hæres. iii. 3. 4).’ According to Clement of Alexandria, he was banished for a time to the island of Patmos by a tyrant, and came to Ephesus after the death of his persecutor. Domitian is afterwards named as the tyrant by whom John was banished. Tertullian relates the tradition, that John was, before his banishment, thrown into boiling oil at Rome, without suffering any harm. According to Irenæus, he lived till the time of Trajan. Epiphanius says that he attained the age of ninety-four; Chrysostom, that he lived to be one hundred and twenty. On the traditions concerning his advanced years, comp. Neander, Planting and Training, &c., i. 411 [Bohn’s Ed.]

According to Mar 3:17, John, together with his brother James, received a surname from the Lord Jesus. They were called Boanerges. Von Ammon supposes (Gesch. des Lebens Jesu, p. 77) that Mark translated this word incorrectly, sons of thunder, and that it rather means hot-headed ones. Mark, however, is not merely the reporter of the Hebrew, but also of the Greek expression, and it is not as a translator but as an Evangelist that he gives the Greek name. As a Hebrew too, he must well have known that רגש might be so rendered. This designation of the sons of Zebedee has often been referred to their expression of indignation, when they desired to call down fire from heaven upon a Samaritan town, because it did not receive the Lord Jesus (Luk 9:51). Concerning this name, comp. the article of Gurlitt in the Studien und Kritiken, 1829, No. 4; and that of the author in the same periodical for the year 1839, No. 1, Ueber die Authentie der vier Evang. p. 60. The Lord would scarcely have bestowed upon His disciples a surname which would have attached to them a lasting stigma; nor could He, with His perfect knowledge of nature, look upon thunder as merely a ‘senseless destructive power,’ and employ it as a symbolic name in this sense; the phenomenon of thunder was surely too significant, beautiful, and holy in His eyes, for such a purpose. Undoubtedly, thunder was to His mind a sublime phenomenon, testifying to the Father’s glory. In fact, neither moral praise nor moral blame seem intended in this designation. The word denotes a special temperament. As Simon was surnamed a rock, on account of his manly, powerful, and zealous activity, so were James and John surnamed sons of thunder, on account of their calm and lofty temperament, which could yet suddenly flash forth into light and power like lightning. The word was the indorsement of their peculiarity and of their process of development; it included both the reproof of their sinful effervescence, and the loving acknowledgment of the characteristic features of their noble and soaring spirits. [The etymology and significance of this name are most fully considered by Lampe in his Comment. in Joan. Proleg. i. 2—Ed.]

1) Compare Bähr, Symbolik des mosaischen Cultus, vol. i. p. 860. Though the ox ‘was to all nations the emblem of procreative and ‘active power, yet it might well have another signification in the thevcratic realm. Moreover each animal was here a moral symbol, [See Fairbairn’s Typology, i. 222 (3d ed.), and George Smith’s Doctrine of the Cherubim.—ED.]

2) Compare Olshausen, Commentary on the Gospels, vol. i. p. 4.

3) Compare the work of F. Sander, Etwas iiber den eiyenthiimlichen Plan dem die vier Evangelisten bei der Abfassung ihrer Evangelien gefolgt sind. Essen bei Bädeker, 1827; Ebrard, Gospel History, p. 66 ff. ,

4) Comp. my article on the authenticity of the four Gospels, Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1839, i. 7.

5) It has been remarked, that it is questionable whether publicans who farmed the public taxes actually kept accounts, after the practice of modern tax-gatherers. But this is not the question. The impulse to arrange and classify, arises from the necessity of order, and this arises from any official employment.

6) Thus Mark was predisposed to write a Gospel by his ardent spirit of enterprise; Luke, by his education and habits of investigation; John, by that contemplative bias, which in his case far outweighed the external circumstances of life.

7) On the peculiarities of Mark,compare Credner, Einleitung, 102; “Hitzig, Ueber J. Markus u. s. Schriften, 119; Ebrard, Gospel History, 78. [Davidson (i. 152) follows Credner’s arrangement, and exhibits in detail Mark’s peculiarities both of diction and style. Westcott also (p. 344) gives an independent account of the same, though he has ‘derived great help from Creduer’—ED.]

8) Ver. 14 of chap. xvi. so entirely coincides with ver, 8, that the genuineness of the concluding passage might be inferred there from. All is entirely in the spirit of Mark.

9) That both in this passage and chap, xx. it is not Timothy who is the narrator, as some have supposed, is evident, as has been rightly remarked, from a comparison et ea 4,5, and 6 of chap. xx. Comp. Tholuck, die Glaubwürdigheit der ev. Gesch. p. 136.

10) On the meaning of the word πληροφορεῖσθαι, comp. Gfrörer, Die h. Sage, p. 39. ‘Where πληροφορεῖσθαι has the signification of “to be certainly convinced,” it is used medialiter; the subject to which the verb then relates, is always a person, an intelligent being, never a thing. Applied to things, its first meaning is “to complete, to make whole :” compare the use of the word, 2 Tim. iv. 5.’

11) It may be justly asked, Why Aristion, a man honoured by Papias as a disciple of the Lord, and named by him in connection with John the presbyter, was not known and celebrated in the apostolic Church? This difficulty can only be obviated by the supposition, that Aristion was known to the Church by the name of Luke.

12) On the learned acquaintance of Luke with the events of his times, comp. Tholuck, de Glaubwürdighcit der evang. Geschichte, pp. 186 ff. and Strauss, Leben Jesu, p. 254.

13) Such concluding forms are found by Schleiermacher, chap. i. 80, ii. 18, 40, 52, chap. iv. 15, 44. In some, the assumption, which sees concluding forms in generalities of the kind adduced, may deceive; they should nevertheless be duly estimated in the sense in which this critic explains them, as a characteristic trait pervading this whole Gospel.

14) In the Gospel of John, and in his First Epistle, the spirituality of all creative life is expressed in so pregnant a manner, that the opposers of the authenticity of the Gospel may be confidently challenged to point out whence the light of this knowledge could have originated, except from the breast of Jesus, by means of a most germane and elect instrument,

15) [So Clem. Alex, Quis Dives Salv. c. 36: τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν ἐκλεκτότεροι.—ED.]

16) Ebrard’s Gospel History, p. 119.

17) We can here only hint at the fact, that a like spirit is very clearly manifested in the Apocalypse, or, at the converse, that the Apocalypse points to a similar one.

18) Herder,

19) It is so called by Ernesti.

20) E.g., Heinrich Suso.

21) Justin Martyr, Apol. i. 46: οἱ μετὰ λόγου βιώσαιηες Χριστιαινοὶ εἶαι, κ· ἂν ἂθεοι ἐνομίσθησαν, οἷον ἐν Ἕλλησι μὲν Σωκράτηςῑ καὶ Ἡράκλειτυς καὶ οἱ ὅμοισι αὐτοῖς, &c.

22) [Compare Westcott’s Introd. p. 204.—ED.]