DR. REYNOLDS'S INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.*
DR. REYNOLDS'S introduction to the Fourth Gospel is so clear and terse, and so fall of learning, that we hope to see it published separately in a volume which it would be easier to handle than the formidable volumes of The Pulpit Commentary, for these require the use of both hands, as well as a good deal of effort to hold for any length of time. It occupies one hundred and sixty-one of these large and closely printed pages, and would make a moderate octavo volume of the highest interest and value, for the subject-matter is quite distinct enough to be separated from Dr. Reynolds's exposition of the text of the Gospel itself, valuable as that appears to be. If this should ever be done, as we hope it may be, we would suggest that Dr. Reynolds should give his illustrative quotations at length from the Gospels, Epistles, and the German and other works referred to, instead of simply supplying the references. This would make the introduction far more useful to the general reader.
There is probably no critical question that arises in connection with the New Testament of so profound an interest as the authorship and authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, and its rela- tion to the three Synoptics. Dr. Reynolds defends the Johannine authorship, but he has made a very careful study of the opponents of that authorship, and is always ready to give a conscientious hearing to their objections. We will attempt, so far as it is possible to do so in a short review, to give an outline of Dr. Reynolds's principal reasons for accepting as he does the apos- tolic origin of the Gospel. In the first place, he holds, on evidence that seems to us at the very least sound presumptive evidence, in the absence of any argument of weight on the other side, that the text of this Gospel was known to and Quoted by Justin Martyr, who suffered martyrdom in 148 A.D., though Justin does not mention the author of this Gospel by name, any more than the author of any other Gospel. Now, Irenmus, who certainly wrote at the end of the second century, and probably within a generation of Justin's death, and who speaks of his own memory as reaching back to the teaching of Poly- -carp (whose martrydom at a great age took place in 166 A.D.), knew and quoted freely from all our four Gospels, giving from the Fourth Gospel no less than a hundred quotations. Ire/nous certainly believed the Gospel to be St. John's, and repeatedly refers to it by that name. If, then, earlier in the century Justin Martyr had quoted from a Gospel which was not then attributed to St. John, but was either anonymous or ascribed to any other writer, we should have the difficulty to meet which Dr. Reynolds thus clearly states :—" The Gospel of John is so different in form, scene, and subject-matter from the first three Gospels, that if it had been fashioned in the interim between Justin and Irenmus, surely some trace would have been left behind of the difficulty of its reception. Unless it had stood on the highest authority of tradition and long usage, it would never have borne the assault to which it would have been exposed. It must have been believed to be apostolic in its origin, and the trustworthy report of apostolic memorials, or it would never have been accepted as genuine. The oft-quoted discrepancies of style and chronology, 86c., therefore become a powerful argument to show that the Fourth Gospel must be much older than Justin."
Perhaps the argument next in importance, so far as the justification of the difference of scene goes between the three Synoptic (and Galilean) Gospels and the Fourth, is that though the scene of the Synoptic Gospels is Galilee until the visit to Jerusalem takes place which ends in the Crucifixion, there are ample traces in those Gospels that their authors knew that there had been visits to Judma and Jerusalem such as the Fourth Gospel alone describes. Thus, according to the true text of Luke iv., 44, Christ is reported quite early in the Gospel to have been preaching in "the synagogues of Judma," which would correspond with the first or second visit to Jerusalem mentioned in John. Again, in Luke v., 17, the Galilean Pharisees are stirred up by emissaries from Jerusalem to oppose our Lord, which is hardly explicable without the early visits to Jerusalem which only the Fourth Gospel men- tions. Again, both Matthew and Luke give our Lord's express words indicating how often he had willed or endeavoured to gather his children in Jerusalem together "as a hen gathereth The Pulpit Commentary. Edited by the Very Rev. H. P.M. Spence. M.A., D.D., Dean of Gloucester, and by the Rev. Joseph S. Ezell, M.A. The Gospel of St. John. Introduction and Exposition by the Rev. H. R. Reynolds, D.D., President and Professor of Theology. Chesbunt College, Fellow of University College, London. Vol. I. London : Regan Paul and Co. her chickens under her wing," but had been defeated by their indifference. This remains without any illustration in the Synoptic Gospels, but receives full illustration from the Fourth. Farther, it is simply impossible to crowd all the events expressly recorded by the Synoptic Gospels into the one year which is all that, superficially at least, is provided for them in these nar- ratives; while the Fourth Gospel allows, and, indeed, requires, a much longer ministry. The visits to Tyre and Sidon, Benin and Permit, the mission of the twelve to Jewish towns and vil- lages, the separate mission of the seventy, all recorded by the Synoptic Gospels, are quite incompatible with a one year's ministry ; and here it is almost certain that the Fourth Gospel, which nevertheless could not have founded itself on the Synoptics, gives the truer impression. Dr. Reynolds also holds that the Fourth Gospel certainly gives the true day of cruci- fixion,—namely, the day on which the Paschal lamb was saeri- ficed,—and that the evidence of the first three Gospels would mislead but for the evidence of the fourth. This he treats as a test of the genuineness and authenticity of the Gospel.
Perhaps, however, the most important of Dr. Reynolds's argu- ments for the genuineness and apostolical origin of the Fourth Gospel is that which he derives from the omission of this evangelist to mention expressly the institution of the Eucharist. "When this Gospel was written," he says,—and this is true, of course, whether John or any one else wrote it,—" the Church was an organised institution which had passed through the severe ordeals of transplantation from Jerusalem to Antioch, to Corinth, to Alexandria, to Ephesus, and to Rome. Throughout the Roman world the Holy Supper had a recognised place. The authentic Epistles of Paul to Corinth show incontestably the grounds on which the universal custom rested. The Synoptic Gospels had long since presented, with instructive differences and side-lights, the historic origin of the ceremony ; and it was, therefore, far more probable that the Apostle himself should have felt himself free to set forth some of its fundamental ideas, and the deepest truths connoted by it, than that a theological writer of the second century, claiming to be an Apostle, should have taken such a course. Such a writer could not be by any possibility ignorant of the reputed origin of the well-known rite ; nor would he have dared to omit it. The omission with a reason, justifies apostolic authorship." We think that here Dr. Reynolds has put in the right light the inference which ought to be drawn from the omission of the institution of the Eucharist in the Fourth Gospel. It proves the confidence which the writer felt that, omit what he would of the history of the then well- known and widely diffused facts at the foundation of Christian worship, his words would be accepted as full of authority, as they, in fact, actually were accepted. Bat a writer anxious to obtain for himself the reputation of an authority which he did not as yet possess, would never have been so audacious as to omit the story of the rite on which so many of the discourses which he had pretended to record were nothing but lengthened comments.
Then the argument which Dr. Reynolds draws from the relation between the style of our Lord as given in the Synoptics, and the same style as given in the Fourth Gospel, is full of subtle and sound criticism. To this we can only briefly refer, and must go on to say that Dr. Reynolds's mode of presenting the old argument from the identity of character between Simon Peter as delineated in the Synoptic Gospels, and the traits of the same Apostle peculiar to the Fourth Gospel, is as delicate as it is convincing. He describes the most remarkable trait of St. Peter's character as a kind of "hurry and impulsiveness" which "blunders forward into rebuke and fresh light." This is, of course, illustrated from the Synoptics by Peter's awe at the draught of fishes, and his immediate entreaty, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord ;" by his eagerness to go upon the water to meet Jesus, and his failure of courage when he went ; by his confession of Jesus as the Messiah, and the rebuke he immediately administered to his master for talking of a shameful death,—a rebuke which was in its turn sternly rebuked ; by his refusal to believe that he would ever deny Christ, and his denial within a few boars ;—and it is pointed out that the same character comes out with singular vividness, and with an originality which it is impossible to conceive as presenting itself in the writings of a psendo-Apoetle, first in the refusal of Simon Peter to let our Lord wash his feet, and then in the passionate entreaty,—" Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." This is a very old argument for authenticity. We only refer to Dr. Reynolds's mode of putting it, to draw attention to his very happy and striking phrase that
in this passage Simon Peter's character shows "the same hurry and impulsiveness," "the same blundering-forward into rebuke and fresh light," which he had evinced so early and so often in his previous career.
We have not been able to refer to more than two or three leading features of Dr. Reynolds's very careful and thoughtful introduction to this Gospel, and have necessarily omitted a great deal more than we could mention, though we have touched on some of the most effective of the arguments ; but we can safely assure our readers that it would not be easy to find in the same compass a discussion at once so full of knowledge and learning, and so lucid and terse, as this introduction to the Gospel of John by Dr. Reynolds. It only needs a more popular form, and the citation of the chief passages referred to, instead of mere references, to make it a very telling as well as a very able intro- duction to the study of the most important of all the issues raised in the modern criticism of the New Testament.
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