The Making of the New Testament

We can see now why Luke finds it impossible to adopt Mark's story of a missionary journey of Jesus in "the coasts of Tyre and Sidon" and will not even mention the name of Cæsarea Philippi. His method in omitting Mark vi. 45 – viii. 26 is more radical than Matthew's, but his motive is similar. The central theme of this portion of Mark appears in the chapter (ch. vii.) recording Jesus' repudiation of the Jewish distinctions of clean and unclean as "precepts of men," and departing to heal and preach in Phœoenicia and Decapolis. This is the theme of Luke's second treatise; and, as we have seen, his solution of the problem is radically different. If he cannot admit that even Paul disregarded "the customs" or Peter preached to Gentiles until after express and reiterated direction of "the Spirit," we surely ought not to expect him to admit the statement that Jesus repudiated the distinctions of Mosaism, declared "all meats clean," and departing into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon first healed the daughter of "a Gentile" and afterward continued his journey "through Sidon" and "the regions of Decapolis," repeating the symbolic miracles of opening deaf ears and blind eyes, and feeding with loaves and fishes. Even if this supposed ministry of Jesus among the Gentiles stood on a much stronger foundation of historical probability than is unfortunately the case (cf. Rom. xv. 8), it could not logically be admitted to the work of Luke without an abandonment of one of his firmest convictions and a rewriting of both his treatises.

Luke was probably not the first to divide his work into a "former treatise" covering "both" the sayings and doings of Jesus "until the time that he was taken up," and a second devoted to the work of the apostles after they had received the charge to proclaim the gospel "to the uttermost parts of the earth." "Many," as he tells us, had already undertaken to "draw up narratives" (diegeses) of this kind, of which the one Luke himself has chiefly employed, had originally, as we concluded, a sequel like his own Book of Acts. There are even features of the Petrine source of Acts which particularly connect it with Roman doctrine (e. g. Acts x. 10-15; cf. Rom. xiv. 14 and Mark vii. 18 f.) and even with the person of Mark (Acts xii. 12). Its balance between Peter and Paul and its close with the establishment of Christianity at Rome, are also suggestive that the greater part of Luke's second treatise came ultimately from the same source as his first. But the division of the work into two parts: (1) the gospel among the Jews; (2) the gospel among the Gentiles, would have followed, independently of any such precedent, from the whole purpose and structure of the work. Christianity is to be proved in the light of its origin, and in spite of the hostility of the Jews among whom it arose, and whose sacred writings it adopts, to be the original, true, revealed religion. To prove this it must be shown that the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus by his own people as a result of his earthly ministry was due not to his own failure to meet the ideal of the Scriptures in question, but to their perversity and wilful blindness. If it is important to prove in the former treatise that the opposition of the controlling authorities among the Jews was due to this perversity and jealousy, it is at least equally so to show that the lowly and devout received him gladly. Hence the peculiar hospitality of Luke toward material showing Jesus' acceptance of and by the humbler and the outcast classes, the poor and lowly, women, Samaritans, publicans and sinners. The idyllic scenes of his birth and childhood are cast among men and women of this type of Old Testament piety, quietly "waiting for the kingdom of God." During his career it is these who receive and hang upon him. Even on Calvary one of the thieves must join with this throng of devout and penitent believers. Jesus' preaching begins with his rejection by his own fellow-townsmen only because "no prophet is accepted in his own country"; though before their attempt to slay him he proves from Scripture how Elijah and Elisha had been sent unto the Gentiles. His ministry ends with his demonstration to the disciples after his resurrection from "Moses and all the prophets" how that "it was needful that the Christ should suffer before entering his glory," and that after his rejection by Israel "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

The second treatise shows how this purpose of God to secure the dissemination of the true faith by the disobedience and hardening of its first custodians was accomplished, chief stress being always laid upon the fact that it was only when the Jews "contradicted and blasphemed" that the apostles said, "It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." There is no interest taken in the subsequent fortunes of Jerusalem and Jewish Christianity, nor even in the fate of Peter and James, after this transition has been effected to Gentile soil. There is no interest taken in the spread of Christianity as such, in Egypt, Ethiopia, Cyrenaica, Cyprus, Mesopotamia; but only where the conflict rages over the respective claim of Jew and Gentile to be the true heir of the promises, i. e. the mission-field of Paul. At the individual centres the story goes just far enough to relate how the gospel was offered to the Jews and rejected, compelling withdrawal from the synagogue, and thereafter it is told over again with slight variations at the next centre. The book concludes with a repetition of the stereotyped scene at Rome itself, in spite of the representation of the very source employed, that an important church had long existed there before Paul's coming, ending with a quotation of the classic passage from Isa. vi. 9 f. to prove God's original purpose to harden the heart of Israel, so that his "salvation might be sent unto the Gentiles." The very fate of Paul himself has so little interest for Luke in comparison with this demonstration of Christianity as the one original, revealed religion, enclosed in Judaism as seeds are confined in the hardening seed-pod until disseminated by its bursting, that he leaves it unmentioned, like that of all other leaders of the church whose death was not directly contributory to the process.

Many, and vitally important to the development of Gospel Story as we know it, as were the sources of Luke, both by his own statement (Luke i. 1) and the internal evidences of his work, he has made analysis extremely difficult by the skilful and elaborate stylistic embroidery with which he has overlaid the gaps and seams. Nor is this a proper occasion for entering the field of the higher critic. Luke-Acts represents the completed development, not the naïve beginnings of this type of the Literature of the Church Teacher. We have seen reason to think we may have traces of the earlier "narratives" (diegeses) to which Luke refers, not only in the great Roman work of Mark, but in a part of the Q material itself. If Antioch were the place of origin of this early source, if here too were found those archives of missionary activity whence came the famous Diary employed in Acts xvi. – xxviii., the contribution of this church to Gospel Story was such as to make Antioch the appropriate centre for the great "historical" school of interpretation of the fourth and fifth centuries. When we consider the dominant motive of Luke and his extraordinary exaltation of 'apostolic' authority we seem to be breathing the very atmosphere of Ignatius the great apostle of ecclesiasticism and apostolic order, discipline and succession. Ignatius' hatred of Doketism, too, is not without a certain anticipation in the opening and closing chapters of Luke's Gospel, and perhaps in the fact that the great exsection from Mark begins with the story of the Walking on the Sea (Mark vi. 45-52).

CHAPTER VIII

THE JOHANNINE TRADITION. PROPHECY

In Paul's enumeration of the "gifts" by which the Spirit qualifies various classes of men to build in various ways upon the structure of the church, the class of "prophets" takes the place next after that of "apostles," a rank even superior (as more manifestly 'spiritual') to that of "pastors and teachers." The Book of Acts shows us as its most conspicuous centre of "prophecy" the house of Philip the Evangelist at Cæsarea. This man had four unmarried daughters who prophesied, and in his house Paul received a 'prophetic' warning of his fate from a certain Agabus who had come down from Judæa. There were also prophets in Antioch (Acts xiii. 1), though the only ones mentioned by name are this same Agabus24 and Silas, or Silvanus, who is also from Judæa. In the Teaching of the Twelve the 'prophet' still appears among the regular functionaries of the church, for the most part a traveller from place to place, and open to more or less suspicion, as is the case at Rome, where Hermas combines reverence for the "angel" that speaks through the true prophet, with warnings against the self-seeker. In 1st John the "false prophets" are a serious danger, propagating Doketic heresy wherever they go. In fact, this heresy was, as we know, the great peril in Asia. However, Asia, if plagued by wandering false prophets, had also become by this time a notable seat of true and authentic prophecy; for the same Papias who shows such sympathy with Polycarp against those who were "perverting the Sayings of the Lord to their own lusts," and had turned, as Polycarp advised, "to the tradition handed down from the beginning," had similar means for counteracting those who "denied the resurrection and judgment." Among those upon whom he principally relied as exponents of the apostolic doctrine were two of those same prophesying daughters of Philip the Evangelist, who with their father had migrated from Cæsarea Palestina to Hierapolis, leaving, however, one, who had married, a resident till her death at Ephesus. As late as the time of Montanus (150-170), the "Phrygians" traced their succession of prophets and prophetesses back to Silvanus and the daughters of Philip.

We cannot be sure that the traditions Papias reported from these prophetesses were derived at first hand, though it is not impossible that Papias himself may have seen them. However it is certain that many of his traditions of 'the Elders' had to do with eschatology, and aimed to prove the material and concrete character of the rewards of the kingdom; for we have several examples of these traditions, attributing to Jesus apocryphal descriptions of the marvellous fertility of Palestine in the coming reign of Messiah, and particularizing about the abodes of the blessed. Moreover Eusebius blames Papias for the crude ideas of Irenæus and other second century fathers who held the views called "chiliastic" (i. e. based on the "thousand" year reign of Christ in Rev. xx. 2 f.). We also know that Papias defended the "trustworthiness" of Revelation, a book which served as the great authority of the "chiliasts" for the next fifty years in their fight against the deniers of the resurrection. He quoted from it, in fact, the passage above referred to; so that if reason must be sought for his placing "John and Matthew" together at the end of his list of seven apostles instead of in their usual place, it is probably because they were his ultimate apostolic authorities for the "word of prophecy" and for the "commandment of the Lord" respectively. Justin Martyr, Papias' contemporary at Rome, though converted in Ephesus, and unquestionably determined in his mould of thought by Asiatic Paulinism, has, like Papias, but two authorities for his gospel teaching: (1) the commandment of the Lord represented in the Petrine and Matthæan tradition; (2) prophecy, represented in the Christian continuation of the Old Testament gift. This second authority, however, is not appealed to without the support of apostolicity. Revelation is quoted as among "our writings," like "the memorabilia of the apostles called Gospels," but not without the additional assurance that the seer was "John, one of the apostles of Christ."

For 'prophecy,' however acclimated elsewhere, was in its origin distinctively a Palestinian product. Its stock in trade was Jewish eschatology as developed in the long succession of writers of 'apocalypse' since Daniel (165 b. c.). Of the nature of this curious and fantastic type of literature we have seen some examples in 2nd Thessalonians and the Synoptic eschatology (Mark xiii.=Matt. xxiv.=Luke xxi.). More can be learnt by comparing the contemporary Jewish writings of this type known as 2nd Esdras and the Apocalypse of Baruch. Older examples are found in the prophecies and visions purporting to come from Enoch. For apocalypse became the successor of true prophecy in proportion as the loss of Israel's separate national existence and the enlargement of its horizon compelled it to make its messianic hopes transcendental, and its notion of the Kingdom cosmic. Hence comes all the phantasmagoria of allegorical monsters, spirits and demons, the great conflict no longer against Assyria and Babylon, but a war of the powers of light and darkness, heaven and hell. Yet all centres still upon Jerusalem as the ultimate metropolis of the world, whose empires, now given over to the leadership of Satan, will soon lie prostrate beneath her feet.

Some such eschatology of divine judgment and reward is an almost necessary complement to the legalistic type of religion. If Christianity be conceived as a system of commandments imposed by supernatural authority it must have as a motive for obedience a system of supernatural rewards and punishments. Not merely, then, because for centuries the legalism of the scribes had actually had its corresponding development of apocalypse, with visions of the great judgment and Day of Yahweh, but because of an inherent and necessary affinity between the two, "Judæa" continued to be the home of 'prophecy' in New Testament times also.

However, the one great example of this type of literature that has been (somewhat reluctantly) permitted to retain a place in the New Testament canon appears at first blush to be clearly and distinctively a product of Ephesus. Of no book has early tradition so clear and definite a pronouncement to make as of Revelation. Since the time of Paul the Jewish ideas of resurrection provoked opposition in the Greek mind. The Greek readily accepted immortality, but the crudity of Jewish millenarianism, with its return of the dead from the grave for a visible, concrete rule of Messiah in Palestine repelled him. The representation of Acts xvii. 32 is fully borne out by the constant effort of Paul in his Greek epistles to remove the stumbling-blocks of this doctrine. It is no surprise, then, to find the 'prophecy' of Revelation, and more particularly its doctrine of the thousand-year reign of Messiah in Jerusalem, a subject of dispute at least since Melito of Sardis (167), and probably since Papias (145). Fortunately controversy brought out with unusual definiteness, and from the earliest times, positive statements regarding the origin of the book. Irenæus (186) declared it a work of the Apostle John given him in vision "in the end of the reign of Domitian." The same date (93), may be deduced from statements of Epiphanius regarding the history of the church in Thyatira. Justin Martyr (153), as we have seen, vouches for the crucial passage (Rev. xx. 2 f.) as from "one of ourselves, John, an apostle of the Lord." Papias (145) vouched for its orthodoxy at least, if not its authenticity. There can be no reasonable doubt that it came to be accepted in Asia early in the second century, in spite of opposition, as representing the authority of the Apostle John, and as having appeared there c. 95. In fact, there is no book of the entire New Testament whose external attestation can compare with that of Revelation, in nearness, clearness, definiteness, and positiveness of statement. John is as distinctively the father of 'prophecy' in second century tradition as Matthew of 'Dominical Precepts' and Peter of 'Narratives.'

Moreover the book itself purports to be written from Patmos, an island off the coast of Asia. It speaks in the name of "John" as of some very high and exceptional authority, well known to all the seven important churches addressed, the first of which is "Ephesus." By its references to local names and conditions it even proves, in the judgment of all the most eminent modern scholars, that it really did see the light for the first time (at least for the first time in its present form) in Ephesus not far from a. d. 95.

One would think the case for apostolic authenticity could hardly be stronger. And yet no book of the New Testament has had such difficulty as this, whether in ancient or modern times, to maintain its place in the canon. It must also be said that no book gives stronger internal evidence of having passed through at least two highly diverse stages in process of development to its present form.

The theory of "another John" is indeed comparatively modern. Nobody dreamt of such a solution until Dionysius of Alexandria hesitatingly advanced the conjecture in his controversy with Nepos the Chiliast. Even then (c. 250) Dionysius (though he must have known the little work of Papias) could think of no other John at Ephesus than the Apostle, unless it were perhaps John Mark! It is Eusebius who joyfully helps him out with the discovery in Papias of "John the Elder." But Eusebius himself is candid enough to admit that Papias only quoted "traditions of John" and "mentioned him frequently in his writings." When we read Papias' own words, though they are cited by Eusebius for the express purpose of proving the debatable point, it is obvious that they prove nothing of the kind, but rather imply the contrary, viz. that John the Elder, though a contemporary of Papias, was not accessible, but known to him only at second hand, by report of travellers who "came his way." In short, as we have seen, "Aristion and John the Elder" were the surviving members of a group of 'apostles, elders and witnesses of the Lord' in Jerusalem. If, then, one chose to attribute the 'prophecies' of Rev. iv. – xxi. to this Elder there could be no serious objections on the score of doctrine, for the "traditions of John" reported by Papias were not lacking in millenarian colour. Only, it is not the 'prophecies' of Rev. iv. – xxi. which contain the references to "John," but the enclosing prologue and epilogue; and these concern themselves with the churches of Asia as exclusively as the 'prophecies' with the quarrel of Jerusalem with Rome.

The second century is, as we have seen, unanimous in excluding from consideration any other John in Asia save the Apostle, and if the writer of Rev. i. and xxii. produced this impression in all contemporary minds without exception, including even such as opposed the book and its doctrine, it is superlatively probable that such was his intention. The deniers of the resurrection and judgment did not point out to Polycarp, Papias, Justin, Melito and Caius, that they were confusing two Johns, attributing the work of a mere Elder to the Apostle. They plumply declared the attribution to John fictitious; and since the internal evidence from the condition of the churches and growth of heresy in chh. i. – iii. and the imperial succession down to Domitian in chh. xiii. and xvii. strongly corroborate the date assigned in antiquity (c. 93), we have no alternative, if we admit that the Apostle John had long before been "killed by the Jews,"25 but to suppose that this book, like nearly all the books of 'prophecy,' is, indeed, pseudonymous. It does not follow that he who assumes the name of "John" in prologue and epilogue (i. 1 f., 4, 9; xxii. 8) to tell the reader definitely who the prophet is, was guilty of intentional misrepresentation. If anything can be made clear by criticism it is clear that the prophecies were not his own. They were taken from some nameless source. The "pseudonymity" consists simply in clothing a conjecture with the appearance of indubitable fact.

But why should a writer who wished to clothe with apostolic authority the 'prophecies' he was promulgating, not assume boldly the title of "apostle," as the author of 2nd Peter has done in adapting similarly the Epistle of Jude? Why, if he assumes the name of the martyred Apostle John at all, does he refrain from saying, "I John, an apostle, or disciple of the Lord," and content himself with the humbler designation and authority of 'prophet'?

This question brings us face to face with the most remarkable structural phenomena of the book, and cannot be understandingly answered until we have considered them.

The outstanding characteristic of Revelation is its adaptation of literary material dealing with, and applicable to, one historical and geographical situation, to another situation almost completely different. The opening chapters, devoted to "John's" vision on Patmos and the conditions and dangers of the seven Churches of Asia, employ indeed some of the expressions of the substance of the book. The promises of the Spirit to the churches recall the glories of the New Jerusalem of the concluding vision of the seer. There is some reference to local persecution at Smyrna incited by the Jews ("a synagogue of Satan") and which is to last "ten days," and there is an isolated reference to a martyrdom of days long gone by in the message to the church in Pergamum (ii. 13) recalling remotely the blood and suffering of which the body of the work is full. This we should of course expect from an adapter of existing 'prophecies.' But the converse, i. e. consideration for the historical conditions of Ephesus and its sister churches, on the part of the body of the work, is absolutely wanting. On the one side is the situation of the Pauline churches on the east coast of the Ægean in a. d. 93-95. The prologue and epilogue (Rev. i. – iii. and xxii. 6-21) are concerned with these churches of Asia, and their development in the faith, particularly their growth in good works, purity from defilements of the world, and resistance to the inroads of heretical teaching. The message of the Spirit, conveyed through "John," is meant to encourage the members of these churches to pure living in the face of temptations to worldliness and impurity. The epistles to the churches, in a word, belong in the same class with the Pastorals, Jude, and 2nd Peter, as regards their object and the situation confronted; though they are written to enclose apocalyptic visions which deal with a totally different situation.

The visions, on the contrary, take not the smallest notice of (proconsular) Asia and its problems. Their scene is Palestine, their subject the outcome of Jerusalem's agonizing struggle against Rome. From the moment the threshold of iv. 1 is crossed there is no consciousness of the existence of such places as Ephesus, Smyrna and Thyatira. The scenes are Palestinian. The great battle-field is Har-Magedon (i. e. city of Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon, the scene of Josiah's overthrow, 2nd Kings xxiii. 29 f.). "The city," "the great city," "the holy city" is Jerusalem; though "spiritually (in allegory) it is called Sodom and Egypt" (i. e. a place from which the saints escape to avoid its doom). When the saints flee from the oppression of the dragon it is to "the wilderness." When the invading hordes rush in it is from beyond "the Euphrates." When the redeemed appear in company with the Christ it is on Mount Zion; they constitute an army of 144,000, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes. Two antagonistic powers are opposed. On the one side is Jerusalem and its temple, now given over to the Gentiles to be trodden under foot forty and two months, on the other is Rome, no longer, as with Paul, a beneficent and protecting power, but the city of the beast, Babylon the great harlot, at whose impending judgment the Gentiles will mourn, but all the servants of God rejoice. Jerusalem rebuilt, glorified, the metropolis of the world, seat and residence of God and his Christ, will take the place of Rome, the seat of the beast and the false prophet. The gates of this New Jerusalem will stand open to receive tribute from all the Gentile nations, and will have on them the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. The foundations of the city wall will have on them "the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."