| 82. Isolated Maxims of Jesus, Common to the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptic Ones. | ||||
The long discourses of Jesus above examined are peculiar to the fourth gospel; it has only a few brief maxims to which the Synoptics present parallels. Among the latter, we need not give a special examination to those which are placed by John in an equally suitable connection, with that assigned, to them by the other evangelists (as xii. 25. comp. with Matt. x. 39; xvi. 25; and xiii. 16. comp. with Matt. x. 24.); and as the passage ii. 19 compared with Matt. xxvi. 61, must be reserved until we treat of the story of the Passion, there remain to us only three passages for our present consideration. | ||||
The first of these is iv. 44, where the evangelist, after having mentioned that Jesus departed from Samaria into Galilee, adds, For Jesus himself testified that "a prophet has no honour in his own country. We find the same idea in Matthew xiii. 57. (Mark vi. 4; Luke iv. 24), "A prophet is not without honour, exce(t in his own country and in his ovn house." But while in the latter case it stands in a highly appropriate connection, as a remark prompted by the ungracious reception which Jesus met with in his native city, and which caused him to leave it again: in John, on the contrary, it is given as a motive for the return of Jesus into his own country, Galilee, where, moreover, he is immediately said to be warmly received. | ||||
The experience stated in the above sentence, would rather have disinclined than induced Jesus to undertake a journey into Galilee; hence the expedient of translating yap by although, is the best adapted to the necessity of the case, and has even been embraced by Kuin l, except that, unhappily, it is an open defiance of the laws of language. | ||||
Unquestionably, if Jesus knew that the prophet held this unfavourable position in his native country, it is not probable that he would regard it as a reason for going there. Some expositors, {P.410} therefore, have 'been induced to understand "country" not as the province, but in a narrower sense, as the native city, and to supply, after the statement that Jesus went into Galilee, the observation, which they assume the evangelist to have omitted, that he avoided his native city Nazareth, for the reason given in the ensuing verse. But an ellipsis such as this explanation requires us to suppose, belongs not less to the order of impossibilities than -the transmutation of gar into though. The attempt to introduce the desired statement that Jesus did not visit his own town into the present passage has been therefore renounced; but it has yet been thought possible to discover there an intimation that he did not soon return there. But to render this interpretation admissible, the entire period of the absence of Jesus from Galilee must have been mentioned immediately before the notice of his return; instead of this, however, only the short time that Jesus had tarried in Samaria is given (v. 45), so that in ludicrous disproportion of cause and effect, the fear of the contempt of his fellow countrymen would, on the above supposition, be made the reason for delaying his return into Galilee, not until after a residence of some months in Judea, but until after the lapse of two days spent in Samaria. So long, therefore, as Galilee and Nazareth are admitted to be the "country" of Jesus, the passage in question cannot be vindicated from the absurdity of representing, that Jesus was instigated to return there by the contempt which he knew to await him. Consequently, it becomes the interest of the expositor to recollect, that Matthew and Luke pronounce Bethlehem to he the birthplace of Jesus, from which it follows that Judea was his native country, which he now forsook on account of the contempt he had there experienced, But according to iv. 1. (comp. ii. 24, iii. 26 ff.) Jesus had won a considerable number of adherents in Judea, and could not therefore complain of a lack of honour; moreover the enmity of the Pharisees, hinted at in iv. 1, was excited by the growing consequence of Jesus in Judea, and was not at all referable to such a cause as that indicated in the maxim about the prophet. Further, the entrance into Galilee is not connected in our passage with a departure from Judea, but from Samaria; and as, according to the import of the text, Jesus departed from Samaria and went into Galilee, because he had found that a prophet has no honour in his own country, Samaria might rather seem to be pointed out as his native country, in conformity with the reproach cast on him by the Jews there; though even {P.411} in Samaria also Jesus is said, iv. 39, to have had a favourable reception. Besides, we have already seen that the fourth evangelist knows nothing of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, but on all occasions presupposes him to be a Galileau and a Nazarene. From the above considerations we obtain only the negative result, that it is impossible to discover any consistent relation between the maxim in question and the context. A positive result, namely, how the maxim came to occupy its actual position, notwithstanding this want of relation, will perhaps be obtained when we have examined the two other passages belonging to the present head of our inquiry. | ||||
The declaration xiii. 20, he that receives you, receives me, and he that receives me receives him that sent me, has an almost verbal parallel in Matt. x. 40. In John, it is preceded by the prediction of the betrayal of Jesus, and his explanation to his disciples that he had told them this before it came to pass, in order that when his prediction was fulfilled., they might believe in him as the Messiah. What. is the connection between these subjects and the above declaration, or between the latter and its ensuing context, where Jesus recurs to his betrayer? It is said that Jesus wished to impress on his disciples the high dignity of a Messianic missionary, a dignity which the betrayer thought lightly of losing; but the negative idea of loss, on which this supposition turns, is not intimated in the text. | ||||
Others are of opinion that Jesus, observing the disciples to be disheartened by the mention of the betrayer, sought to inspire them with new courage by representing to them theirhigh value: but in that case he would hardly have reverted immediately after to the traitor. Others, again, conjecture that some intermediate sentences have been omitted by the writer; but this expedient is not much happier than that of Kuin l, who supposes the passage to be a gloss taken from Matt. x. 40, united originally to v. 16 of chap. xiii. of John, but by some chance transposed to the end of the paragraph. | ||||
Nevertheless, the indication of v. 16 is an useful way-mark. This verse, as well as v. 20, has a parallel in the discourse of instructions in Matthew (x. 24.); if a few fragments of this discourse had readied the author of the fourth gospel through the medium of tradition, it is very probable that one of them would bring the others to his recollection. In v. 16 there is mention of the "sent," and of "sent him," so in v. 20, of those whom Jesus will send, and of Him who sent Jesus. It is true, that the one passage has a humiliating, the other an encouraging tendency, and their affinity lies therefore, not in the sense, but in the words; so that as soon as the fourth evangelist puts down, from memory, traditional sayings of Jesus, we see him subject to the same law of association as the Synoptics. It would have been the most natural arrangement to place v. 20 immediately after v. 16; but the thought of the traitor was uppermost in the mind of the writer, and he could {P.412} easily postpone the insertion of an apophthegm that had only a verbal connection with his previous matter. | ||||
Our third passage, xiv. 31, lies yet further within the domain of the story of the Passion than the one last examined, but as, like this, it can be viewed quite independently, we shall not be anticipating if we include it in our present chapter. In the above passage, the words "Arise, let us go hence" remind us of those by which Jesus, Matt. xxvi. 46, Mark xiv. 42, summons his disciples to join him in encountering the traitor: "rise, let us be going." The position of the words in John is perplexing, because the summons to depart has no effect; Jesus, as it he had said nothing of the kind, immediately continues (xv. 1,), I am the true vine etc, and does not take his departure with his disciples until after he has considerably prolonged his discourse. Expositors of every hue have been singularly unanimous in explaining the above words by the supposition, that Jesus certainly intended at the moment to depart and betake himself to Gethsemane, but love for his disciples, and a strong desire to impart to them still further admonition and comfort, detained him; that hence, the first part of the summons, "Arise," was executed, but that, standing in the room in which he had supped, he pursued his discourse, until, later, (xviii.1), he also put into effect the words, let us go hence. It is possible that the circumstances were such; it is also possible that the image of this last evening, with all its details, might be engraven so deeply and accurately in the memory of a disciple, that he might narrate how Jesus arose, and how touchingly he lingered. But one who wrote under the influence of a recollection thus lively, would note the particulars which were most apparent; the rising to depart and the delay, not the mere words, which without the addition of those circumstances are altogether unintelligible. | ||||
Here again, then, the conjecture arises that a reminiscence of the Gospel tradition presented itself to the writer, and that he inserted it just where it occured to him, not, as it happened, in the best connection; and this conjecture assumes probability so soon as we discover what might have reminded him of the above expression. In the synoptic parallels the command, "Rise, let us be going," is connected with the announcement, "Behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners; behold he is at hand that will betray me;" with the announcement, that is, of the hostile power which is approaching, before which, however, Jesus exhibits no fear, but goes to encounter the danger with the decision implied in that command. In John's gospel, also, Jesus, in the passage under our notice, had been speaking of a hostile power when he said, The prince of this world comes and has nothing in me. It makes little difference that in John it is the power that dwells in the betrayer, and in those led by him, while, in the synoptic Gospels, {P.413} it is the betrayer who is impelled by that power which is said to approach. If the author of the fourth gospel knew by tradition that Jesus had united with the announcement of an approaching danger the words, Rise, let us be going, this expression would be likely to occur to him on the mention of the prince of this world; and as in that stage of his narrative he had placed Jesus and his disciples in the city and within doors, so that a considerable change of place waa necessary before they could encounter the enemy, he added to a)gwmen (let us go), the word e)nteuqen (hence). As, however, this traditional fragment had intruded itself unawares into the train of thought, which he designed to put as a farewell discourse into the mouth of Jesus, it waa immediately lost sight of, and a free course was given to the stream of valedictory instruction, not yet exhausted. | ||||
If, from the point of view now attained, we glance back on our first passage, iv. 44, it is easy to see how the evangelist might be led to insert in so unsuitable a connection the testimony of Jesus as to the treatment of a prophet in his own country. It was known to him traditionally, and he appears to have applied it to Galilee in general, being ignorant of any unfavourable contact of Jesus with the Nazarenes. As, therefore, he knew of no special scene by which this observation might have been prompted, he introduced it where the simple mention of Galilee suggested it, apparently without any definite idea of its bearing. | ||||
The result of the above investigation is this; the fourth evangelist succeeds in giving connectedness to his materials, when he presents his own thoughts in the form of discourses delivered by Jesus; but he often fails lamentably in that particular, when he has to deal with the real traditional sayings of Jesus. In the above instances, when he has the same problem before him as the Synoptics, he is as unfortunate in its solution as they; indeed, he is in a yet more evil case, for his narrative is not homogeneous with the common Gospel tradition, and presented few places where a genuine traditional relic could be inserted. Besides, he was accustomed to cast his metal, liquid from his own invention, and was little skilled in the art of adapting independent fragments to each other, so as to form a harmonious mosaic. | ||||