The Lost Gospel and Its Contents Part 4

Again, he evidently altered and curtailed what the heathen would not understand, as for instance, in quoting our Lord's saying respecting "anger," he quoted it very shortly, because to have quoted at length the gradations of punishment for being "angry without a cause," for "calling a brother Raca" and "fool," would have been almost unintelligible to those unacquainted with Jewish customs.

The author of "Supernatural Religion" repudiates the idea that Justin, in any of these quotations, makes use of our present Gospels. He examines these [so-called] quotations seriatim at considerable length, for the purpose of showing that Justin's variations from our present Gospels imply another source of information. He considers (and in this I cannot agree with him, though I shall, for argument's sake, yield the point) that--

"The hypothesis that these quotations are from the canonical gospels requires the acceptance of the fact that Justin, with singular care, collected from distant and scattered portions of these gospels a series of pa.s.sages in close sequence to each other, forming a whole unknown to them, but complete in itself." ("Supernatural Religion,"

vol. i. p. 359)

I say I cannot agree with this, because I think that the extracts I have given have all the signs of a piece of patchwork by no means well put together, but I will a.s.sume that he is right in his view.

Here, then, we have, according to his hypothesis, another sermon of Christ's, which, owing to the "close sequence" of its various pa.s.sages, and its completeness as a whole, must take its place alongside of the Sermon on the Mount. Where does it come from?--

"The simple and natural conclusion, supported by many strong reasons, is that Justin derived his quotations from a Gospel which was different from ours, though naturally by subject and design it must have been related to them." (Vol. i. p. 384.)

And in page 378 our author traces one of the pa.s.sages of this "consecutive" discourse through an epistle ascribed to Clement of Rome to the "Gospel according to the Egyptians," which was in all probability a version of the "Gospel according to the Hebrews."

Here, then, is a Gospel, the Gospel to the Hebrews, which not only contained, as the author has shown, a harmony of the histories in SS.

Matthew and Luke, so far, at least, as the Birth and Death of Christ are concerned, but also such a full and consecutive report of the moral teaching of Christ, that it may not unfitly be described as "a series of pa.s.sages in close sequence to each other," collected "with singular care" "from distant and scattered portions of these Gospels." How, we ask, could such a Gospel have perished utterly? A Gospel, which, besides containing records of the historical and supernatural much fuller than any one of the surviving Gospels, contained also a sort of Sermon on the Mount, amalgamating in one whole the moral teaching of our Lord, ought surely (if it ever was in existence) to have won its place in the canon.

SECTION VIII.

THE PRINc.i.p.aL WITNESS.--HIS TESTIMONY TO ST. JOHN.

We have now to consider the citations (or supposed citations) of Justin from the fourth Gospel. These, as I have mentioned, are treated by the author of "Supernatural Religion" separately at the conclusion of his work.

Whatever internal coincidences there are between the contents of St. John and those of the Synoptics, the external differences are exceedingly striking, and it is not at all to my present purpose to keep this fact out of sight. The plan of St. John's Gospel is different, the style is different, the subjects of the discourses, the scene of action, the incidents, and (with one exception) the miracles, all are different.

Now this will greatly facilitate the investigation of the question as to whether any author had St. John before him when he wrote. There may be some uncertainty with respect to the quotations from the Synoptics, as to whether an early writer quotes one or other, or derives what he cites from some earlier source, as for instance from one of St. Luke's [Greek: polloi].

But it cannot be so with St. John. A quotation of, or reference to, any words of any discourse of our Lord, or an account of any transaction as reported by St. John, can be discerned in an instant. At least it can be at once seen that it cannot have been derived from the Synoptics, or from any supposed apocryphal or traditional sources from which the Synoptics derived their information.

The special object of this Gospel is the identification of the pre-existent nature of our Lord with the eternal Word, and following upon this, His relation to His Father on the one side, and to mankind on the other.

He is the only begotten of the Father, G.o.d being His own proper Father [Greek: idios], and so He is equal to the Father in nature (John v. 18), and yet, as being a Son, He is subordinate, so that He represents Himself throughout as sent by the Father to do His will and speak His words.

With reference to mankind He is, before His Incarnation, the "Light that lighteth every man." After and through His Incarnation He is to man all in all. He is even in death the object of their Faith. He is the Mediator through whose very person G.o.d sends the Spirit. He is the Life, the Light, the Living Water, the Spiritual Food.

Justin Martyr repeatedly reproduces in various forms of expression the truth that Christ is the eternal "Word made flesh" and revealed as the "Only-begotten Son of G.o.d," thus:--

"The first power after G.o.d the Father and Lord of all is the Word, Who is also the Son, and of Him we will, in what follows, relate how He took flesh and became man." (Apol. I. Ch. x.x.xII.)

Again:--

"I have already proved that He was the only-begotten of the Father of all things, being begotten in a peculiar manner [Greek: idios], Word and Power by Him, and having afterwards become man through the Virgin." (Dial. ch. cv.)

Now, we have in these two pa.s.sages four or five characteristic expressions of St. John relating to our Lord, not to be found in any other Scripture writer. I say "in any other," for I believe that not only the Epistles of St. John, but also the Apocalypse, notwithstanding certain differences in style, are to be ascribed to St. John.

We have the term "Word" united with "the Son," and with "Only begotten,"

and said to be "properly (proprie; [Greek: idios]) begotten;" a reminiscence of John v. 18, the only place in the New Testament where the adjective [Greek: idios] or its adverb [Greek: idios] is applied to the relations of the Father and the Son, and we have this Word becoming flesh and man.

Now Justin, in one of the places, writes to convince an heathen emperor; and, in the other, an unbelieving Jew; and so in each case he reproduces the sense of John i. 1 and 14, and not the exact words. It would have been an absurdity for him to have quoted St. John exactly, for, in such a case, he must have retained the words "we beheld his glory, the glory as," which would have simply detracted from the force of the pa.s.sage, being unintelligible without some explanation.

Again, we have in the Dialogue (ch. lxi.) the words "The Word of Wisdom, Who is Himself this G.o.d begotten of the Father of all things." Now here there seems to be a reproduction of the old and very probably original reading of John i. 18, [48:1] "The only begotten G.o.d who is in the bosom of the Father." Certainly this reading of John i. 18 is the only place where the idea of being begotten is a.s.sociated with the term "G.o.d."

We next have to notice that Justin repeatedly uses the words "G.o.d" and "Lord" in collocation as applied to Jesus Christ; not "the Lord G.o.d,"

the usual Old Testament collocation, but G.o.d and Lord, thus:

"For Christ is King and Priest and G.o.d and Lord," &c. (Dial. ch.

x.x.xiv.)

Again:--

"There is, and there is said to be, another G.o.d and Lord subject to the Maker of all things." (Dial. lvi.)

Now the only Gospel in which these words are to be found together and applied to Christ is that according to St. John, where he records the confession of St. Thomas, "My Lord and my G.o.d" (John xx. 28).

Again: St. John alone of the Evangelists speaks of our Lord as He that cometh from above [Greek: ho anothen erchomenos], as coming from heaven, as "leaving the world and going to the Father" (John iii. 31; xvi. 28), and Justin reproduces this in the words:--

"It is declared [by David in Prophecy,] that He would come forth from the highest heavens, and again return to the same places, in order that you may recognize Him as G.o.d coming forth from above and man living among men." (Dial. ch. lxiv.)

Again: though St. John a.s.serts by implication the equality in point of nature of the Father and the Son (John v. 18), yet he also very repeatedly records words of Christ which a.s.sert His subordination to the Father. Nowhere in the Synoptics do we read such words as "I can of mine own self do nothing." "I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me" (John v. 30): "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (iv. 34; also John vi. 38): "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." (xii. 49)

Now Justin Martyr reproduces these intimations of the subordination of the Son:--

"Who is also called an Angel, because He announces to men whatsoever the Maker of all things, above Whom there is no other G.o.d, wishes to announce to them." (Dial. ch. lvi.)

Again:--

"I affirm that He has never at any time done anything which He Who made the world, above Whom there is no other G.o.d, has not wished Him both to do and to engage Himself with." (Dial. lvi.)

Again:--

"Boasts not in accomplis.h.i.+ng anything through His own will or might." (Ch. ci.)

Let the reader clearly understand that I do not lay any stress whatsoever on these pa.s.sages taken by themselves or together; but taken in connection with the intimation of the Word and Sons.h.i.+p a.s.serted in St. John, and reproduced by Justin, they are very significant indeed.

St. John a.s.serts that Jesus is the Word and the Only Begotten--that He is "Lord" and "G.o.d," and equal with the Father as being His Son (v. 18); but, lest men conceive of the Word as an independent G.o.d, he a.s.serts the subordination of the Son as consisting, not in inferiority of nature, but in submission of will.

Justin reproduces in the same terms the teaching of St. John respecting the Logos--that the Logos was the Only Begotten, G.o.d-begotten, Lord and G.o.d. And then, lest his adversaries should a.s.sume from this that Christ was an independent G.o.d, he guards it by the a.s.sertion of the same doctrine of subordination of will; neither the doctrine nor the safeguard being expressly stated in the Synoptics, but contained in them by that wondrous implication by which one part of Divine truth really presupposes and involves all truth.

We have now to consider St. John's teaching respecting the relation of the Logos to man. One aspect of this doctrine is peculiar to St. John, and is as mysterious and striking a truth as we have in the whole range of Christian dogma.

It is contained in certain words in the exordium of the Fourth Gospel: "That [Word] was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

This pa.s.sage embodies a truth which is unique in Scripture: that in the Word was Life, that the Life was the Light of men, and that that Light was (even before the Incarnation) the true Light which lighteth every man.