John, GOSPEL ACCORDING TO. The fourth canonical gospel, which express tradition since about 170-80 A.D. (Theophilus of Antioch, Irenæus of Lyons, Muratorian Canon) has unanimously ascribed to the apostle John (identifying the 'disciple' of John xxi. 24 with the son of Zebedee), is distinguished by a number of strongly-marked characteristics from the first three, usually known as the synoptical (see GOSPELS). The keynote of what Clement of Alexandria has called 'the spiritual gospel' is struck in the prologue (i. 1-8), where the place of the genealogies and detailed accounts of the circumstances of the birth of Jesus in the synoptics is taken by a profoundly metaphysical statement of the doctrine of the incarnation of the Eternal Logos. The scene of the narrative of the earthly life of Jesus which follows this prologue is laid from first to last almost entirely in Judæa, while in Matthew, Mark, and Luke it is confined with nearly equal exclusiveness to Galilee. While, again, the synoptics, so far as they suggest any chronology at all, seem to imply that the public ministry of Jesus did not extend much over a year (coinciding in this with the mass of early tradition), the fourth gospel mentions at least three passovers, and possibly more. There are, besides, important differences in various minor chronological details. Thus, the cleansing of the temple, which the synoptics place at the end of the ministry, is in the fourth assigned to the beginning; the last supper is dated on the evening before the passover, and not on the passover itself; and the anointing at Bethany is stated to have taken place six days, not two, before the passover. Again, there is a most striking difference in the selection of material. The fourth gospel, passing over much that is common to the other three—the temptation in the wilderness, the transfiguration in Galilee, the agony in the garden, the sermon on the mount, and most of the parables and other discourses—introduces us to new persons (Nathanael, Nicodemus, and others), new localities (such as Cana, Ænon, Sychar, Ephraim, and Bethany beyond Jordan), and new scenes and situations. Its miracles, which are comparatively few, and include no case of the casting out of devils, are not for the most part even alluded to by the others (that of the raising of Lazarus is a conspicuous instance in point); and it has been remarked that they are presented less as deeds of compassion wrought at the pressing call of human need than as spontaneous displays of supernatural power primarily designed to prove a divine mission. The greater part of the work is composed of relatively long discourses, in their argumentative and theological character on the whole very unlike the aphorisms, parables, and practical or prophetic exhortations attributed to Jesus in the synoptics, while they are all very similar to one another in general type, and their style is indistinguishable from that used by the author himself when writing in his own name. The aspects in which, through these discourses and otherwise, Christ, the incarnate Logos, is presented in the fourth gospel, are widely distinct from those in which Jesus of Nazareth comes before us in the others. The element of human development is wanting, and his own consciousness of a Divine nature and mission, as well as the recognition of these by his followers, are represented as having been operative from the first. Finally, it sets forth a more inward and spiritual type of theology and religious experience, and there is for the most part in its eschatology and doctrine of the life eternal a conspicuous absence of those images and conceptions—everywhere present in the synoptics—derived from the Jewish circle of ideas relating to the kingdom of the Messiah and the doctrine of the last things.
It is less than a century since these and similar features—such as its more elaborate character as a piece of literary composition—began to be discussed in their bearing on the question of the origin and historical character of the fourth gospel. The question was first started by the English deists (see Evanson, The Dissonance of the Four generally received Gospels, 1792), but was not handled with any approach to the fullness and thoroughness which the importance of the subject demanded until taken up by Bretschneider, whose learned and acute Probabilia de Evangelii et Epistolarum Joannis apostoli indole et origine (1820) may still be read with profit. Bretschneider in 1824 professed himself satisfied with the numerous replies elicited by the arguments he had based on the differences between the Johannine and the synoptic traditions, the weakness of the external evidence for the Johannine authorship of the fourth gospel, and the inherent improbability of such a work having been written by the son of Zebedee. In the course of the next twenty years the authenticity was powerfully defended by the speculative insight and rare religious genius of Schleiermacher; but De Wette (1826-37) found himself unable to ignore the element of developed Hellenism in the discourses, and, while not denying the partial authorship of John, inclined to assign the work as a whole to a disciple. A somewhat similar view was taken by Credner (1836), and also by Reuss (1840), the former of whom laid emphasis on the 'subjective' character of the gospel, and held that it was to be regarded less as a history than as a doctrinal exposition, in which the discourses of Christ are mixed up with the Logos speculations into which the author has been led by his studies in Greek philosophy. The discussion of the question reached a wholly new stage in the writings of Baur (chiefly between 1844 and 1847) and his followers of the so-called 'Tübingen' or 'Tendency' school—a school the value of whose labours in quickening a true historical sense for New Testament subjects can hardly be overestimated, and whose influence (not yet exhausted) has been powerfully and beneficially felt far beyond the circle of its immediate disciples. Space will not allow a full statement of the position taken by Baur or of the arguments he advanced in its support. They can be adequately appreciated only in connection with his theory of the development of early Christianity as a whole. This he represents as having passed through three stages—first of acute antagonism between Ebionitism and Pauliism (down to about 70 A.D.), and next of abatement of claims on both sides (down to about 140 A.D.), while finally, after the elimination of Ebionitic and Gnostic extremes, came the reconciliation of the two parties—practically in the ascendancy of Catholicism as exhibited in the Roman Church with Peter and Paul as its two recognised founders, and ideally and theoretically in the fourth gospel (see BAUR; also BIBLE, Vol. II. p. 123). Briefly and generally stated, his view of the fourth gospel is that it was produced about 160-70 A.D. by a Gentile Christian, who, firmly and heartily convinced that the historical Jesus was the incarnate Logos and very Son of God, sought to exhibit this truth to his contemporaries with concrete vividness in a persuasive literary form by means of a quasi-historical narrative embodying the ideas and principles which he regarded as essential, for which end he made free and arbitrary use of such elements of the current (but still somewhat fluctuating) tradition as were capable of being adapted to his purpose. Subsequent discussion has led the modern representatives of the Tübingen school to modify several of these positions as originally taken by Baur. Thus, as regards date, it was urged by the other side that the existence of the fourth gospel was demonstrated for at least 130-40 A.D. by the frequent quotations from it in the writings of Justin Martyr; and it is now generally admitted that the passages referred to prove at least the wide currency at that comparatively early period of many of the special ideas of this gospel. This and other considerations have led such writers as Pfeiferer and Keim respectively to carry it back to 140 A.D. and 130 A.D.; and, indeed, Renan has formulated the canon that the earlier we can place it the less inexplicable it becomes. This canon is suggested by the difficulty of accounting for the introduction of a gospel in many respects so new after the synoptics had once had time thoroughly to establish themselves—and they undoubtedly were established in the recognition of the church by the time of Justin. The opponents of the Tübingen school, on the other hand, such as Weiss, set up an opposite canon; the later the date the easier to explain the allusions to Gnosticism and the comparatively tardy manner in which the work made itself felt in the official theology of the 2d century. Another point in which Baur's disciples no longer hold with him has reference to the authorship, which he assigned to a Gentile Christian. In the course of the keen controversy which Baur's writings elicited, much stress has been laid on the evidence supplied by the gospel itself to the effect that its writer was a Jew, acquainted not only with the LXX. but with the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, familiar with Jewish customs and habits of thought, with the topography and local peculiarities of Jerusalem and the temple, and of Palestine generally. This is now very generally conceded; but it is added that his sympathetic familiarity with the writings of Philo suggests rather an Alexandrian than a Palestinian Jew, while his acquaintance with the Holy Land (which after all cannot be shown to have been exhaustive) may have been acquired in the course of travel. But as regards many of the vivid literary touches on the part of the narrator, which on one theory are held to show consummate descriptive or dramatic skill, and on the other to betoken the eye-witness, it is pointed out that such touches are not wholly absent even from some gospels that are confessedly apocryphal, and, further, that it is not always impossible for one who has only heard the account of an eye-witness to convey in writing some graphic idea of what he has heard. If Baur's view has been in some important respects modified by his successors, concessions have also been made on the 'apologetic' side to such an extent as suggests the possibility of an ultimate agreement between the two parties in the controversy. Thus B. Weiss, in the paragraph of his Introduction (1889) devoted to the 'limits of the historicity' of John's gospel, points out that, writing as he did at such a distance of time from the incidents he had witnessed and the discourses he had heard, it is in the nature of the case unreasonable to expect that at least the longer discourses should be reproduced word for word. John's manner of reproducing the words of Jesus is, in fact, characterised by great freedom, his purpose being not merely to reproduce them but at the same time to explain them and bring out their inner meaning. With this view not merely the actual phraseology but also the historical setting has been frequently modified, the evangelist caring only for the eternal significance of what he had to tell. Precisely because he was an apostle could he do this without embarrassment or hesitation. What applies to his reproduction of the speeches applies also to the narrative portion of his work, where he often sacrifices the actual connection, and modifies the historical colour of events in the interests of his one primary object. The failure of memory in an old man must also be taken into account. The view thus boldly taken by Weiss is substantially also that of Beyschlag and others who cannot shut their eyes to the obvious marks of growth and development which are seen when the ideas of the fourth gospel are compared with those set forth in the synoptical tradition, and who recognise that the author of the former, whoever he was, must, whether consciously or unconsciously, to some extent have been carrying back into a previous generation the matured thoughts of his own time. It remains to add that the external testimony to the authorship of the son of Zebedee is extremely weak; his name is not associated with the gospel until the last quarter of the 2d century, and the story of the manner in which, 'exhorted by his fellow-disciples and bishops, he wrote down everything in his own name' while 'all should certify it,' as given in the Muratorian Canon, is obviously legendary (compare JOHN).
For the literature of the subject, see the New Testament Introductions of Hilgenfeld (1875), Bleek (4th ed. by Mangold, 1886), Holtzmann (2d ed. 1886), and Weiss (2d ed. 1889; Eng. trans. 1887), and also Sanday's Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel (1872). Dr Sanday conveniently arranges modern writers on the subject into four classes: (1) Those who maintain the Johannine authorship and complete authenticity of the gospel, such as Alford, Ellicott, Westcott, Caspari, Wieseler, and (with some qualification) Luthardt; to this list ought to be added the names of Salmon, Light-foot, Ezra Abbot, and indeed of almost all English or Catholic churchmen who have written on the subject. (2) Writers who maintain Johannine or mediate Johannine authorship and qualified authenticity in the first degree, the names here mentioned being those of Lücke ('whose work is still one of the undisputed classics of biblical criticism'), Bleek, Ewald (with some qualification), Meyer, and Orr, to which add the names of Beyschlag, Ritschl, B. Weiss, and of Dr Sanday himself ('To me it is far more probable that [the discourses] represent only the natural, spontaneous, unconscious development that the original elements of fact have undergone in the apostle's mind. It cannot, I think, be denied that [they] are to a certain extent unauthentic, but this is rather in form and disposition than in matter and substance'). (3) Writers maintaining mediate or immediate Johannine authorship and qualified authenticity in the second degree, such as Renan (Vie de Jésus, 13th ed. 1867), Weizsäcker and Wittichen, to which names add those of Reuss and Hase. (4) Writers who deny the Johannine authorship and authenticity entirely—Hilgenfeld, Keim, Scholten, Sir R. Hanson, J. J. Tayler; to this class belong also Meijboom, Hoekstra and Loman (Dutch), Havet, A. Réville, J. Réville (French), and of English writers, S. Davidson, the author of Supernatural Religion, and E. A. Abbott, whose able article 'Gospels' in the Encyclopædia Britannica contains an interesting view of the Philonic elements in the gospel. There are valuable expository works on the Johannine writings by Lücke (1820), Ewald (1861-62), and Reuss (1879); see also the commentaries on the fourth gospel by Meyer (new ed. Meyer-Weiss, 1880; Eng. trans.), Gudet (1864-65; Eng. trans. 1877), Keil (1881), Westcott (1882), Plummer (1882), Sadler (1883) and Milligan (1883).