CHAPTER XIV.

THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF YAISHOOA, THE FOURTH GREAT TEACHER. PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION OF THE AUTHORITIES.

BEFORE reviewing the life and work of the greatest of the Teachers, it will be proper to devote some attention to the character and date of the histories on which we must depend for our facts, the four "Gospels."

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These, like the books attributed to Moshai, have always been claimed by divines to be of unquestionable authority, because, as they assume, they were divinely inspired, and are consequently infallible. If however, these records are found to give one another the most painstaking and elaborate contradiction, (as they do,) on matters of fact such as the pedigree of Joseph, (for instance,) — it is evident that they are not infallible, and we, therefore, need not discuss the question of their inspiration.

Paley in his "Evidences of Christianity" has made much of the point, that there are four separate records, which, he assumes, agree generally together, and for this reason, are mutually confirmatory. The records however, contradict one another on plain statements of fact, and are therefore, in so far, mutually destructive as evidence. Where they do agree, there is force in Paley's point.

The Archdeacon also assumes, that they are the records of eye-witnesses. In fact, however, none of them claim on their face to be the works of the authors to whom they

My quotations from the Gospels will be from the ordinary or "King James'" version; -as this is intended for a popular work. I have not thought it necessary to quote the original Greek text, or the emendations of the "Revised Version," since these make no important change in the sense.

are traditionally ascribed. None of them speak in the first person except the third and fourth. The author of the third, speaks in the first person while dedicating to a certain "Theophilus," but does not give his own name. The fourth Evangelist writes on the authority of a certain "disciple whom Jesus loved," who is not, however, named, and states that this disciple "testified" to the facts and also "wrote" them down, (John xxi. 24, 25,) and then, speaking in the first person and using the "we" of authorship or editorship, says, "We know that his testimony is true." This distinctly separates the "We" of the author, editor, authors or editors of the work from "the disciple" himself, whose testimony is thus confirmed by them. The real author again speaks in the first person in the last verse where he says that if all that "Jesus did" "should be written," "I suppose that even the world. itself could not contain the books," etc.

The eminent critic Ewald attributes the concealment of the name of "the disciple whom Jesus loved," to the "incomparable modesty" of "Saint John " whom he assumes to be the author of the fourth Gospel. But this "incomparable modesty," (as well as the special love of Christ for that apostle, and the latter's authorship of the Gospel,) —is matter of pure assumption and imagination, without a particle of authority from Scripture. Yohannan or "John" comes prominently forward on two occasions in the Gospels; once as, with his brother Yahakobh or "James," urging Christ to promise them high positions in his forthcoming "kingdom," which they suppose, apparently, to be the renewal of David's, — and again as asking him to bid them "call down fire from heaven" to consume certain people, for which he rebukes them, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." There is neither modesty nor meekness visible in this conduct, but, on the contrary, arrogance and fierce intolerance, which are equally conspicuous in the anecdote preserved by Irenæus of Yohannan at Ephesus, where he rushes out of the pub

lic baths when Cerinthus the so-called "heretic " enters them, calling on his disciples to "follow,-lest the building fall and ye be crushed, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, has entered." Nor is there a single instance where Christ manifests special love for Yohannan. It appears much more probable that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" was "Andrew," who also taught in Ephesus, and whom we may justly infer from "John" xx. 10, to be the "beloved" disciple, as this beloved disciple is there said to have had a home in common with "Peter," "Andrew's" brother.

But this is a side issue. The point now made is, that it was to the disciples or school of this "beloved" apostle, be he who he may, to the Ephesian Christians, among whom "John" and "Andrew" also, taught, and not to the "beloved" apostle himself, except as one of the authorities for its statements, that the fourth Gospel owes its authorship. Thus the Gospel is not that of an eyewitness of Christ's acts, but that of the disciple of an eye-witness. With regard to the Gospels of "Mark" and "Matthew," as well as "John," we have a strong light on the mode and date of their composition from the writings of one of the early Christian "Fathers," (as he is sometimes called,)—a contemporary of some of the earliest, — Bishop Papias of Hierapolis.

The testimony of Papias has been felt by divines, ever since the days of Eusebius, to be very damaging to the "eye-witness" argument. Hence much stress has been laid on his mental inferiority. But in cases like the present, where much mystification has been purposely heaped upon a subject, the garrulous and candid simplicity of a

There is some reason, also, for thinking the "beloved disciple" may have been one of Yaishooa's "brethren," (Mark vi. 3, etc.,) or a brother-in-law, (see “Yaishooa's parentage" in succeeding chapter,) but no good ground at all,—from the gospels, that I know of, for identifying him with the fierce "son of thunder," Yohannan. After the deaths of the apostles, however, church tradition fixed on the latter as the "loved" disciple, - see hereafter. The love-breathing epistles of "the Elder," are probably by the Presbyter John, a different person.

weak-minded man is often more valuable to posterity than the guarded reticence of a shrewd one. His being chosen. Bishop of an important church shows the high esteem in which he was held in his own community.

Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia in the first half of the second century, and was martyred under Marcus Aurelius about A.D. 164-167. He wrote, about the middle of the second century, (or toward the end of its first quarter as some say,) a work in five books, Aoyív κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις, or "An Exposition of the Discourses of the Lord," which is only preserved in a few fragments quoted by Eusebius, Irenæus, Ecumenius and Theophy lact. Papias and Hegesippus the early Church historian were contemporaries.

For the authority for his "Exposition. Papias preferred, (as did Hegesippus,) tradition to any writings then extant, and relied chiefly on verbal reports of the sayings of Christ which he was at great pains to obtain from the immediate disciples of "the Presbyters," the elders, or original followers of Christ. "If it happened," he says, "that any one came who had followed the Presbyters, I inquired minutely after the words of the Presbyters, what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James, or what John or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say, for I held that what was to be derived from books did not so profit me as that from the living and abiding voice," " (ζώσης φωνῆς καὶ μενούσης).

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Two important facts at once appear from this remarkable statement; - 1. That about the middle of the second century or say A.D. 145 to A.D. 150, men of the importance in the church of Papias and Hegesippus knew of no records existing of the life of Christ of sufficient authority to exclude the necessity of depending for its facts upon oral tradition. 2. That there was still living in the time Translation by author of "Supernatural Religion."

of Papias, a second "John," (Ioannes or Johannes,) who is mentioned in the same sentence with the Apostle “John,” yet expressly distinguished from him by the use of the present tense of the verb "say," (with the former's name and Aristion's as nominatives,) indicating that he was then still living, while the past tense "said" is used with the names of the seven Apostles in the first clause, as of men long dead. The expression "presbyters" is, at first, and "the disciples of the Lord," secondly, applied alike to the apostles and to the later brethren Aristion and the second "John," evidently in the general sense of "elders" or "primitive disciples," but the expression in the second clause, "the Presbyter John," by which that worthy is distinguished from Aristion, must be understood to convey the meaning that this "John" was an official "Elder," (peo Búrepos,) the office next that of Bishop in the early church.

It appears also by the testimony of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria, preserved in the writings of Eusebius, that there were two "Johns" buried at Ephesus, one the apostle, the other his disciple (and the disciple of Andrew) the " Presbyter" John, (πρeσßúτepos). This "Presbyter" was certainly the author of one (if not two) of the epistles attributed to the apostle, as it bears the express superscription, "The Elder," (ò peoẞúrepos,) "to the elect lady." As we have already seen, the fourth Gospel in its final verses distinctly brings forward another personality than that of the apostle, as its author, a personality apparently of the apostle's school. It is extremely probable then, that the Presbyter was the author of the gospel as well as of the epistle, and that the identity of name caused the ascription of the former to the apostle. Had a gospel by

The tradition of the mode in which this gospel was composed, - preserved in the early "Canon of Muratori," (date about A.D. 200,) confirms this view. It represents that "Andrew," "one of the apostles," (ex apostolis,) - moved thereto by a vision, recommended " John one of the disciples,” (Johannis ex decipolis,) to write the gospel in question, in which work the latter is said to have been aided by certain