VOLUME XV SLICE IV Jevons, Stanley to Joint (continued 9)

The struggle, however, soon revived with increased force. Hostilities had been resumed with England; the duke of Orleans had squandered the money raised for John’s expedition against Calais; and the two rivals broke out into open threats. On the 20th of November 1407 their uncle, the duke of Berry, brought about a solemn reconciliation, but three days later Louis was assassinated by John’s orders in the Rue Barbette, Paris. John at first sought to conceal his share in the murder, but ultimately decided to confess to his uncles, and abruptly left Paris. His vassals, however, showed themselves determined to support him in his struggle against the avengers of the duke of Orleans. The court decided to negotiate, and called upon the duke to return. John entered Paris in triumph, and instructed the Franciscan theologian Jean Petit (d. 1411) to pronounce an apology for the murder. But he was soon called back to his estates by a rising of the people of Liége against his brother-in-law, the bishop of that town. The queen and the Orleans party took every advantage of his absence and had Petit’s discourse solemnly refuted. John’s victory over the Liégeois at Hasbain on the 23rd of September 1408, enabled him to return to Paris, where he was reinstated in his ancient privileges. By the peace of Chartres (March 9, 1409) the king absolved him from the crime, and Valentina Visconti, the widow of the murdered duke, and her children pledged themselves to a reconciliation; while an edict of the 27th of December 1409 gave John the guardianship of the dauphin. Nevertheless, a new league was formed against the duke of Burgundy in the following year, principally at the instance of Bernard, count of Armagnac, from whom the party opposed to the Burgundians took its name. The peace of Bicêtre (Nov. 2, 1410) prevented the outbreak of hostilities, inasmuch as the parties were enjoined by its terms to return to their estates; but in 1411, in consequence of ravages committed by the Armagnacs in the environs of Paris, the duke of Burgundy was called back to Paris. He relied more than ever on the support of the popular party, which then obtained the reforming Ordonnance Cabochienne (so called from Simon Caboche, a prominent member of the gild of the butchers). But the bloodthirsty excesses of the populace brought a change. John was forced to withdraw to Burgundy (August 1413), and the university of Paris and John Gerson once more censured Petit’s propositions, which, but for the lavish bribes of money and wines offered by John to the prelates, would have been solemnly condemned at the council of Constance. John’s attitude was undecided; he negotiated with the court and also with the English, who had just renewed hostilities with France. Although he talked of helping his sovereign, his troops took no part in the battle of Agincourt (1415), where, however, two of his brothers, Anthony, duke of Brabant, and Philip, count of Nevers, fell fighting for France.

In 1417 John made an attack on Paris, which failed through his loitering at Lagny;1 but on the 30th of May 1418 a traitor, one Perrinet Leclerc, opened the gates of Paris to the Burgundian captain, Villiers de l’Isle Adam. The dauphin, afterwards King Charles VI., fled from the town, and John betook himself to the king, who promised to forget the past. John, however, did nothing to prevent the surrender of Rouen, which had been besieged by the English, and on which the fate of the kingdom seemed to depend; and the town was taken in 1419. The dauphin then decided on a reconciliation, and on the 11th of July the two princes swore peace on the bridge of Pouilly, near Melun. On the ground that peace was not sufficiently assured by the Pouilly meeting, a fresh interview was proposed by the dauphin and took place on the 10th of September 1419 on the bridge of Montereau, when the duke of Burgundy was felled with an axe by Tanneguy du Chastel, one of the dauphin’s companions, and done to death by the other members of the dauphin’s escort. His body was first buried at Montereau and afterwards removed to the Chartreuse of Dijon and placed in a magnificent tomb sculptured by Juan de la Huerta; the tomb was afterwards transferred to the museum in the hôtel de ville.

By his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, he had one son, Philip the Good, who succeeded him; and seven daughters—Margaret, who married in 1404 Louis, son of Charles VI., and in 1423 Arthur, earl of Richmond and afterwards duke of Brittany; Mary, wife of Adolph of Cleves; Catherine, promised in 1410 to a son of Louis of Anjou; Isabella, wife of Olivier de Châtillon, count of Penthièvre; Joanna, who died young; Anne, who married John, duke of Bedford, in 1423; and Agnes, who married Charles I., duke of Bourbon, in 1425.

See A. G. P. Baron de Barante, Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne, (Brussels, 1835-1836); B. Zeller, Louis de France et Jean sans Peur (Paris, 1886); and E. Petit, Itinéraire de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur (Paris, 1888).

(R. Po.)

1 This incident earned for him among the Parisians the contemptuous nickname of “John of Lagny, who does not hurry.”

JOHN (1468-1532), called the Steadfast, elector of Saxony, fourth son of the elector Ernest, was born on the 30th of June 1468. In 1486, when his eldest brother became elector as Frederick III., John received a part of the paternal inheritance and afterwards assisted his kinsman, the German king Maximilian I., in several campaigns. He was an early adherent of Luther, and, becoming elector of Saxony by his brother’s death in May 1525, was soon prominent among the Reformers. Having assisted to suppress the rising led by Thomas Munzer in 1525, he helped Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to found the league of Gotha, formed in 1526 for the protection of the Reformers. He was active at the diet of Spires in 1526, and the “recess” of this diet gave him an opportunity to reform the church in Saxony, where a plan for divine service was drawn up by Luther. The assertions of Otto von Pack that a league had been formed against the elector and his friends induced John to ally himself again with Philip of Hesse in March 1528, but he restrained Philip from making an immediate attack upon their opponents. He signed the protest against the “recess” of the diet of Spires in 1529, being thus one of the original Protestants, and was actively hostile to Charles V. at the diet of Augsburg in 1530. Having signed the confession of Augsburg, he was alone among the electors in objecting to the election of Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor Ferdinand I., as king of the Romans. He was among the first members of the league of Schmalkalden, assented to the religious peace of Nuremberg in 1532, and died at Schweidnitz on the 16th of August 1532. John was twice married and left two sons and two daughters. His elder son, John Frederick, succeeded him as elector, and his younger son was John Ernest (d. 1553). He rendered great services to the Protestant cause in its infancy, but as a Lutheran resolutely refused to come to any understanding with other opponents of the older faith.

See J. Becker, Kurfürst Johann von Sachsen und seine Beziehungen zu Luther (Leipzig, 1890); J. Janssen, History of the German People (English translation), vol. v. (London, 1903); L. von Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipzig, 1882).

JOHN, DON (1545-1578), of Austria, was the natural son of the emperor Charles V. by Barbara Blomberg, the daughter of an opulent citizen of Regensburg. He was born in that free imperial city on the 24th of February 1545, the anniversary of his father’s birth and coronation and of the battle of Pavia, and was at first confided under the name of Geronimo to foster parents of humble birth, living at a village near Madrid; but in 1554 he was transferred to the charge of Madalena da Ulloa, the wife of Don Luis de Quijada, and was brought up in ignorance of his parentage at Quijada’s castle of Villagarcia not far from Valladolid. Charles V. in a codicil of his will recognized Geronimo as his son, and recommended him to the care of his successor. In September 1559 Philip II. of Spain publicly recognized the boy as a member of the royal family, and he was known at court as Don Juan de Austria. For three years he was educated at Alcalá, and had as school companions his nephews, the infante Don Carlos and Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma. With Don Carlos his relations were especially friendly. It had been Philip’s intention that Don John should become a monk, but he showed a strong inclination for a soldier’s career and the king yielded. In 1568 Don John was appointed to the command of a squadron of 33 galleys, and his first operations were against the Algerian pirates. His next services were (1560-70) against the rebel Moriscos in Granada. In 1571 a nobler field of action was opened to him. The conquest of Cyprus by the Turks had led the Christian powers of the Mediterranean to fear for the safety of the Adriatic. A league between Spain and Venice was effected by the efforts of Pope Pius V. to resist the Turkish advance to the west, and Don John was named admiral in chief of the combined fleets. At the head of 208 galleys, 6 galleasses and a number of smaller craft, Don John encountered the Turkish fleet at Lepanto on the 7th of October 1571, and gained a complete victory. Only forty Turkish vessels effected their escape, and it was computed that 35,000 of their men were slain or captured while 15,000 Christian galley slaves were released. Unfortunately, through divisions and jealousies between the allies, the fruits of one of the most decisive naval victories in history were to a great extent lost.

This great triumph aroused Don John’s ambition and filled his imagination with schemes of personal aggrandizement. He thought of erecting first a principality in Albania and the Morea, and then a kingdom in Tunis. But the conclusion by Venice of a separate peace with the sultan put an end to the league, and though Don John captured Tunis in 1573, it was again speedily lost. The schemes of Don John found no support in Philip II., who refused to entertain them, and even withheld from his half-brother the title of infante of Spain. At last, however, he was appointed (1576) governor-general of the Netherlands, in succession to Luis de Requesens. The administration of the latter had not been successful, the revolt headed by the prince of Orange had spread, and at the time of Don John’s nomination the Pacification of Ghent appeared to have united the whole of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands in determined opposition to Spanish rule and the policy of Philip II. The magic of Don John’s name, and the great qualities of which he had given proof, were to recover what had been lost. He was, however, now brought into contact with an adversary of a very different calibre from himself. This was William of Orange, whose influence was now supreme throughout the Netherlands. The Pacification of Ghent, which was really a treaty between Holland and Zeeland and the other provinces for the defence of their common interests against Spanish oppression, had been followed by an agreement between the southern provinces, known as the Union of Brussels, which, though maintaining the Catholic religion and the king’s authority, aimed at the expulsion of the Spanish soldiery and officials from the Netherlands. Confronted by the refusal of the states general to accept him as governor unless he assented to the conditions of the Pacification of Ghent, swore to maintain the rights and privileges of the provinces, and to employ only Netherlanders in his service, Don John, after some months of fruitless negotiations, saw himself compelled to give way. At Huey on the 12th of February 1577 he signed a treaty, known as the “Perpetual Edict,” in which he complied with these terms. On the 1st of May he made his entry into Brussels, but he found himself governor-general only in name, and the prince of Orange master of the situation. In July he suddenly betook himself to Namur and withdrew his concessions. William of Orange forthwith took up his residence at Brussels, and gave his support to the archduke Matthias, afterwards emperor, whom the states-general accepted as their sovereign. Meanwhile Philip had sent large reinforcements to Don John under the leadership of his cousin Alexander Farnese. At the head of a powerful force Don John now suddenly attacked the patriot army at Gemblours, where, chiefly by the skill and daring of Farnese, a complete victory was gained on the 31st of January 1578. He could not, however, follow up his success for lack of funds, and was compelled to remain inactive all the summer, chafing with impatience at the cold indifference with which his appeals for the sinews of war were treated by Philip. His health gave way, he was attacked with fever, and on the 1st of October 1578, at the early age of 33, Don John died, heartbroken at the failure of all his soaring ambitions, and at the repeated proofs that he had received of the king his brother’s jealousy and neglect.

See Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, Don John of Austria 1547-1575 (1883) and the bibliography under Philip II. of Spain.

JOHN, DON (1629-1679), of Austria, the younger, recognized as the natural son of Philip IV., king of Spain, his mother, Maria Calderon, or Calderona, being an actress. Scandal accused her of a prodigality of favours which must have rendered the paternity of Don John very dubious. He was, however, recognized by the king, received a princely education at Ocaña, and was amply endowed with commanderies in the military orders, and other forms of income. Don John was sent in 1647 to Naples—then in the throes of the popular rising first led by Masaniello—with a squadron and a military force, to support the viceroy. The restoration of royal authority was due rather to the exhaustion of the insurgents and the follies of their French leader, the duke of Guise, than to the forces of Don John. He was next sent as viceroy to Sicily, whence he was recalled in 1651 to complete the pacification of Catalonia, which had been in revolt since 1640. The excesses of the French, whom the Catalans had called in, had produced a reaction, and Don John had not much more to do than to preside over the final siege of Barcelona and the convention which terminated the revolt in October 1652. On both occasions he had played the peacemaker, and this sympathetic part, combined with his own pleasant manners and handsome person with bright eyes and abundant raven-black hair—a complete contrast to the fair complexions of the Habsburgs—made him a popular favourite. In 1656 he was sent to command in Flanders, in combination with the prince of Condé, then in revolt against his own sovereign. At the storming of the French camp at Valenciennes in 1656, Don John displayed brilliant personal courage at the head of a cavalry charge. When, however, he took a part in the leadership of the army at the Dunes in the battle fought against Turenne and the British forces sent over by Cromwell in 1658, he was completely beaten, in spite of the efforts of Condé, whose advice he neglected, and of the hard fighting of English Royalist exiles. During 1661 and 1662 he commanded against the Portuguese in Estremadura. The Spanish troops were ill-appointed, irregularly paid and untrustworthy, but they were superior in numbers and some successes were gained. If Don John had not suffered from the indolence which Clarendon, who knew him, considered his chief defect, the Portuguese would have been hard pressed. The greater part of the south of Portugal was overrun, but in 1663 the Portuguese were reinforced by a body of English troops, and were put under the command of the Huguenot Schomberg. By him Don John was completely beaten at Estremos. Even now he might not have lost the confidence of his father, if Queen Mariana, mother of the sickly infante Carlos, the only surviving legitimate son of the king, had not regarded the bastard with distrust and dislike. Don John was removed from command and sent to his commandery at Consuegra. After the death of Philip IV. in 1665 Don John became the recognized leader of the opposition to the government of Philip’s widow, the queen regent. She and her favourite, the German Jesuit Nithard, seized and put to death one of his most trusted servants, Don José Malladas. Don John, in return, put himself at the head of a rising of Aragon and Catalonia, which led to the expulsion of Nithard on the 25th of February 1669. Don John was, however, forced to content himself with the viceroyalty of Aragon. In 1677, the queen mother having aroused universal opposition by her shameless favour for Fernando de Valenzuela, Don John was able to drive her from court, and establish himself as prime minister. Great hopes were entertained of his administration, but it proved disappointing and short. Don John died on the 17th of September 1679.

The career of Don John can be followed in J. C. Dunlop’s Memoirs of Spain 1621-1700 (Edin. 1834).

JOHN OF BEVERLEY, ST (d. 721), English bishop, is said to have been born of noble parents at Harpham, in the east riding of Yorkshire. He received his education at Canterbury under Archbishop Theodore, the statement that he was educated at Oxford being of course untrue. He was for a time a member of the Whitby community, under St Hilda, and in 687 he was consecrated bishop of Hexham and in 705 was promoted to the bishopric of York. He resigned the latter see in 718, and retired to a monastery which he had founded at Beverley, where he died on the 7th of May 721. He was canonized in 1037, and his feast is celebrated annually in the Roman Church on the 7th of May. Many miracles of healing are ascribed to John, whose pupils were numerous and devoted to him. He was celebrated for his scholarship as well as for his virtues.

The following works are ascribed to John by J. Bale: Pro Luca exponendo (an exposition of Luke); Homiliae in Evangelia; Epistolae ad Herebaldum, Audenam, et Bertinum; and Epistolae ad Hyldam abbatissam. See life by Folcard, based on Bede, in Acta SS. Bolland.; and J. Raine’s Fasti eboracenses (1863).

JOHN OF THE CROSS, ST (1542-1591), Spanish mystic, was born at Ontiveros (Old Castile) on the 24th of June 1542. He became a professed Carmelite in 1564, and was ordained priest at Salamanca in 1567. He met with much opposition in his efforts to introduce the reforms proposed by St Theresa, and was more than once imprisoned. His real name was Juan de Yepez y Álvarez; in religion he was known as Juan de San Matias till 1568, when he adopted the name of Juan de la Cruz. Broken by persecution, he was sent to the monastery of Ubeda, where he died in 1591; his Obras espirituales were published posthumously in 1618. He was beatified in 1674 and canonized on the 27th of December 1726. The lofty symbolism of his prose is frequently obscure, but his lyrical verses are distinguished for their rapturous ecstasy and beauty of expression.

Some of his poems have been translated with great success by Arthur Symons in Images of Good and Evil; the most convenient edition of his works, which have been frequently reprinted, is that contained in vol. xvi. of the Biblioteca de autores españoles.

JOHN OF ASIA (or of Ephesus), a leader of the Monophysite Syriac-speaking Church in the 6th century, and one of the earliest and most important of Syriac historians. Born at Āmid (Diarbekr) about 505, he was there ordained as a deacon in 529, but in 534 we find him in Palestine, and in 535 he passed to Constantinople. The cause of his leaving Āmid was probably either the great pestilence which broke out there in 534 or the furious persecution directed against the Monophysites by Ephraim (patriarch of Antioch 529-544) and Abraham (bishop of Āmid c. 520-541). In Constantinople he seems to have early won the notice of Justinian, one of the main objects of whose policy was the consolidation of Eastern Christianity as a bulwark against the heathen power of Persia. John is said by Barhebraeus (Chron. eccl. i. 195) to have succeeded Anthimus as Monophysite bishop of Constantinople, but this is probably a mistake.1 Anyhow he enjoyed the emperor’s favour until the death of the latter in 565 and (as he himself tells us) was entrusted with the administration of the entire revenues of the Monophysite Church. He was also sent, with the rank of bishop, on a mission for the conversion of such heathen as remained in Asia Minor, and informs us that the number of those whom he baptized amounted to 70,000. He also built a large monastery at Tralles on the hills skirting the valley of the Meander, and more than 90 other monasteries. Of the mission to the Nubians which he promoted, though he did not himself visit their country, an interesting account is given in the 4th book of the 3rd part of his History.2 In 546 the emperor entrusted him with the task of rooting out the secret practice of idolatry in Constantinople and its neighbourhood. But his fortunes changed soon after the accession of Justin II. About 571 Paul of Asia, the orthodox or Chalcedonian patriarch, began (with the sanction of the emperor) a rigorous persecution of the Monophysite Church leaders, and John was among those who suffered most. He gives us a detailed account of his sufferings in prison, his loss of civil rights, &c., in the third part of his History. The latest events recorded are of the date 585, and the author cannot have lived much longer; but of the circumstances of his death nothing is known.

John’s main work was his Ecclesiastical History, which covered more than six centuries, from the time of Julius Caesar to 585. It was composed in three parts, each containing six books. The first part seems to have wholly perished. The second, which extended from Theodosius II. to the 6th or 7th year of Justin II., was (as F. Nau has recently proved)3 reproduced in full or almost in full, in John’s own words, in the third part of the Chronicle which was till lately attributed to the patriarch Dionysius Telmaharensis, but is really the work of an unknown compiler. Of this second division of John’s History, in which he had probably incorporated the so-called Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite, considerable portions are found in the British Museum MSS. Add. 14647 and 14650, and these have been published in the second volume of Land’s Anecdota Syriaca. But the whole is more completely presented in the Vatican MS. (clxii.), which contains the third part of the Chronicle of pseudo-Dionysius. The third part of John’s history, which is a detailed account of the ecclesiastical events which happened in 571-585, as well as of some earlier occurrences, survives in a fairly complete state in Add. 14640, a British Museum MS. of the 7th century. It forms a contemporary record of great value to the historian. Its somewhat disordered state, the want of chronological arrangement, and the occasional repetition of accounts of the same events are due, as the author himself informs us (ii. 50), to the work being almost entirely composed during the times of persecution. The same cause may account for the somewhat slovenly Syriac style. The writer claims to have treated his subject impartially, and though written from the narrow point of view of one to whom Monophysite “orthodoxy” was all-important, it is evidently a faithful reproduction of events as they occurred. This third part was edited by Cureton (Oxford, 1853), and was translated into English by R. Payne-Smith (Oxford, 1860) and into German by J. M. Schönfelder (Munich, 1862).

John’s other known work was a series of Biographies of Eastern Saints, compiled about 569. These have been edited by Land in Anecdota Syriaca, ii. 1-288, and translated into Latin by Douwen and Land (Amsterdam, 1889). An interesting estimate of John as an ecclesiastic and author was given by the Abbé Duchesne in a memoir read before the five French Academies on the 25th of October 1892.

1 See Land, Joannes Bischof von Ephesos, pp. 57 seq.

2 Cf. Land’s Appendix (op. cit. 172-193).

3 See Bulletin critique, 15th June and 25th Aug. 1896, and 25th Jan. 1897; Journal asiatique, 9th series, vol. viii. (1896) pp. 346 sqq. and vol. ix. (1897) p. 529; also Revue de l’Orient chrétien, Suppl. trimestriel (1897), pp. 41-54, 455-493; and compare Nöldeke in Vienna Oriental Journal (1896), pp. 160 sqq. The facts are briefly stated in Duval’s Littérature syriaque, p. 192. A full analysis of this second part of John’s history has been given by M. Nau.

JOHN OF DAMASCUS (Johannes Damascenus) (d. before 754), an eminent theologian of the Eastern Church, derives his surname from Damascus, where he was born about the close of the 7th century. His Arabic name was Mansur (the victor), and he received the epithet Chrysorrhoas (gold-pouring) on account of his eloquence. The principal account of his life is contained in a narrative of the 10th century, much of which is obviously legendary. His father Sergius was a Christian, but notwithstanding held a high office under the Saracen caliph, in which he was succeeded by his son. John is said to have owed his education in philosophy, mathematics and theology to an Italian monk named Cosmas, whom Sergius had redeemed from a band of captive slaves. About the year 730 he wrote several treatises in defence of image-worship, which the emperor, Leo the Isaurian, was making strenuous efforts to suppress.

Various pieces of evidence go to show that it was shortly after this date that he resolved to forsake the world, divided his fortune among his friends and the poor, and betook himself to the monastery of St Sabas, near Jerusalem, where he spent the rest of his life. After the customary probation he was ordained priest by the patriarch of Jerusalem. In his last years he travelled through Syria contending against the iconoclasts, and in the same cause he visited Constantinople at the imminent risk of his life during the reign of Constantine Copronymus. With him the “mysteries,” the entire ritual, are an integral part of the Orthodox system, and all dogma culminates in image-worship. The date of his death is uncertain; it is probably about 752. John Damascenus is a saint both in the Greek and in the Latin Churches, his festival being observed in the former on the 29th of November and on the 4th of December, and in the latter on the 6th of May.

The works of Damascenus give him a foremost place among the theologians of the early Eastern Church, and, according to Dorner, he “remains in later times the highest authority in the theological literature of the Greeks.” This is not because he is an original thinker but because he compiled into systematic form the scattered teaching of his theological predecessors. Several treatises attributed to him are probably spurious, but his undoubted works are numerous and embrace a wide range. The most important contains three parts under the general title Πηγὴ γνώσεως (“The Fountain of Knowledge”). The first part, entitled Κεφάλαια φιλοσοφικά, is an exposition and application of theology of Aristotle’s Dialectic. The second, entitled Περὶ αίρέσεων (“Of Heresies”), is a reproduction of the earlier work of Epiphanius, with a continuation giving an account of the heresies that arose after the time of that writer. The third part, entitled Ἔκδοσις ἀκριβὴς τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως (“An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith”), is much the most important, containing as it does a complete system of theology founded on the teaching of the fathers and church councils, from the 4th to the 7th century. It thus embodies the finished result of the theological thought of the early Greek Church. Through a Latin translation made by Burgundio of Pisa in the 12th century, it was well known to Peter Lombard and Aquinas, and in this way it influenced the scholastic theology of the West. Another well-known work is the Sacra parallela, a collection of biblical passages followed by illustrations drawn from other scriptural sources and from the fathers. There is much merit in his hymns and “canons”; one of the latter is very familiar as the hymn “The Day of Resurrection, Earth tell it out abroad.” John of Damascus has sometimes been called the “Father of Scholasticism,” and the “Lombard of the Greeks,” but these epithets are appropriate only in a limited sense.

The Christological position of John may be summed up in the following description:1 “He tries to secure the unity of the two natures by relegating to the divine Logos the formative and controlling agency. It is not a human individual that the Logos assumes, nor is it humanity, or human nature in general. It is rather a potential human individual, a nature not yet developed into a person or hypostasis. The hypostasis through which this takes place is the personal Logos through whose union with this potential man, in the womb of Mary, the potential man acquires a concrete reality, an individual existence. He has, therefore, no hypostasis of himself but only in and through the Logos. It is denied that he is non-hypostatic (ἀνυπόστατος); it is affirmed that he is en-hypostatic (ἐνυπόστατος). Two natures may form a unity, as the body and soul in man. So man, both soul and body, is brought into unity with the Logos; there being then one hypostasis for both natures.” There is an interchange of the divine and human attributes, a communication of the former which deifies the receptive and passive human nature. In Christ the human will has become the organ of the divine will. Thus while John is an adherent of Chalcedon and a dyothelite, the drift of his teaching is in the monophysite direction. “The Chalcedonian Definition is victorious, but Apollinaris is not overcome”; what John gives with the one hand he takes away with the other. On the question of the Atonement he regards the death of Christ as a sacrifice offered to God and not a ransom paid to the devil.

Literature.—The Life of John of Damascus was written by John, patriarch of Jerusalem in the 10th century (Migne, Patrol. Graec., xciv. 429-489). The works were edited by Le Quien (2 vols., fol., Paris, 1712) and form vols. 94 to 96 in Migne’s Greek series. A monograph by J. Langen was published in 1879. A. Harnack’s History of Dogma is very full (see especially vols. iii. and iv.; on the image-worship controversy, iv. 322 seq.), and so are the similar works of F. Loofs-Seeberg and A. Dorner. See also O. Bardenhewer’s Patrologie, and other literature cited in F. Kattenbusch’s excellent article in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopädie, vol. ix.

1 G. P. Fisher, Hist. of Chr. Doctrine, 159 seq. More fully in R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation, ii. 138-146.

JOHN OF HEXHAM (c. 1160-1209), English chronicler, is known to us merely as the author of a work called the Historia XXV. annorum, which continues the Historia regum of Simeon of Durham and contains an account of English events 1130-1153. From the title, as given in the only manuscript, we learn John’s name and the fact that he was prior of Hexham. It must have been between 1160 and 1209 that he held this position; but the date at which he lived and wrote cannot be more accurately determined. Up to the year 1139 he follows closely the history written by his predecessor, Prior Richard; thenceforward he is an independent though not a very valuable authority. He is best informed as to the events of the north country; his want of care, when he ventures farther afield, may be illustrated by the fact that he places in 1145 King Stephen’s siege of Oxford, which really occurred in 1142. Even for northern affairs his chronology is faulty; from 1140 onwards his dates are uniformly one year too late. Prior Richard is not the only author to whom John is indebted; he incorporates in the annal of 1138 two other narratives of the battle of the Standard, one in verse by the monk Serlo, another in prose by Abbot Ailred of Rievaux; and also a poem, by a Glasgow clerk, on the death of Sumerled of the Isles.

The one manuscript of John’s chronicle is a 13th century copy; MS. C. C. C. Cambridge, cxxxix. 8. The best edition is that of T. Arnold in Symeonis monachi opera, vol. ii. (Rolls Series, 1885). There is an English translation in J. Stevenson’s Church Historians of England, vol. iv. (London, 1856).

(H. W. C. D.)

JOHN OF IRELAND (Johannis de Irlandia), (fl. 1480), Scottish writer, perhaps of Lowland origin, was resident for thirty years in Paris and later a professor of theology. He was confessor to James IV. and also to Louis XI. of France, and was rector of Yarrow (de Foresta) when he completed, at Edinburgh, the work on which rests his sole claim as a vernacular writer. This book, preserved in MS. in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh (MS. 18, 2, 8), and labelled “Johannis de Irlandia opera theologica,” is a treatise in Scots on the wisdom and discipline necessary to a prince, especially intended for the use of the young James IV. The book is the earliest extant example of original Scots prose. It was still in MS. in 1910, but an edition was promised by the Scottish Text Society. In this book John refers to two other vernacular writings, one “of the commandementis and uthir thingis pretenand to the salvacioune of man,” the other, “of the tabill of confessioune.” No traces of these have been discovered. The author’s name appears on the registers of the university of Paris and on the rolls of the Scottish parliaments, and he is referred to by the Scottish historians, Leslie and Dempster.

See the notices in John Lyden’s Introduction to his edition of the Complaynt of Scotlande (1801), pp. 85 seq.; The Scottish Antiquary, xiii. 111-115 and xv. 1-14. Annotated extracts are given in Gregory Smith’s Specimens of Middle Scots (1902).

JOHN OF RAVENNA. Two distinct persons of this name, formerly confused and identified with a third (anonymous) Ravennese in Petrarch’s letters, lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century.

1. A young Ravennese born about 1347, who in 1364 went to live with Petrarch as secretary. In 1367 he set out to see the world and make a name for himself, returned in a state of destitution, but, growing restless again, left his employer for good in 1368. He is not mentioned again in Petrarch’s correspondence, unless a letter “to a certain wanderer” (vago cuidam), congratulating him on his arrival at Rome in 1373, is addressed to him.

2. Son of Conversanus (Conversinus, Convertinus). He is first heard of (Nov. 17, 1368) as appointed to the professorship of rhetoric at Florence, where he had for some time held the post of notary at the courts of justice. This differentiates him from (1). He entered (c. 1370) the service of the ducal house of Padua, the Carraras, in which he continued at least until 1404, although the whole of that period was not spent in Padua. From 1375 to 1379 he was a schoolmaster at Belluno, and was dismissed as too good for his post and not adapted for teaching boys. On the 22nd of March 1382, he was appointed professor of rhetoric at Padua. During the struggle between the Carraras and Viscontis, he spent five years at Udine (1387-1392). From 1395-1404 he was chancellor of Francis of Carrara, and is heard of for the last time in 1406 as living at Venice. His history of the Carraras, a tasteless production in barbarous Latin, says little for his literary capacity; but as a teacher he enjoyed a great reputation, amongst his pupils being Vittorino da Feltre and Guarino of Verona.

3. Malpaghini (De Malpaghinis), the most important. Born about 1356, he was a pupil of Petrarch from a very early age to 1374. On the 19th of September 1397 he was appointed professor of rhetoric and eloquence at Florence. On the 9th of June 1412, on the re-opening of the studio, which had been shut from 1405 to 1411 owing to the plague, his appointment was renewed for five years, before the expiration of which period he died (May 1417). Although Malpaghini left nothing behind him, he did much to encourage the study of Latin; among his pupils was Poggio Bracciolini.

The local documents and other authorities on the subject will be found in E. T. Klette, Beiträge zur Geschichte und Litteratur der italienischen Gelehrtenrenaissance, vol. i. (1888); see also G. Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums, who, however, identifies (1) and (2).

JOHN OF SALISBURY (c. 1115-1180), English author, diplomatist and bishop, was born at Salisbury between the years 1115 and 1120. Beyond the fact that he was of Saxon, not of Norman race, and applies to himself the cognomen of Parvus, “short,” or “small,” few details are known regarding his early life; but from his own statements it is gathered that he crossed to France about 1136, and began regular studies in Paris under Abelard, who had there for a brief period re-opened his famous school on Mont St Geneviève. After Abelard’s retirement, John carried on his studies under Alberich of Reims and Robert of Melun. From 1138 to 1140 he studied grammar and the classics under William of Conches and Richard l’Evêque, the disciples of Bernard of Chartres, though it is still a matter of controversy whether it was in Chartres or not (cf. A. Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres au moyen âge, 1895). Bernard’s teaching was distinguished partly by its pronounced Platonic tendency, partly by the stress laid upon literary study of the greater Latin writers; and the influence of the latter feature is noticeable in all John of Salisbury’s works. About 1140 he was at Paris studying theology under Gilbert de la Porrée, then under Robert Pullus and Simon of Poissy. In 1148 he resided at Moûtiers la Celle in the diocese of Troyes, with his friend Peter of Celle. He was present at the council of Reims, presided over by Pope Eugenius III., and was probably presented by Bernard of Clairvaux to Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, at whose court he settled, probably about 1150. Appointed secretary to Theobald, he was frequently sent on missions to the papal see. During this time he composed his greatest works, published almost certainly in 1159, the Policraticus, sive de nugis curialium et de vestigiis philosophorum and the Metalogicus, writings invaluable as storehouses of information regarding the matter and form of scholastic education, and remarkable for their cultivated style and humanist tendency. After the death of Theobald in 1161, John continued as secretary to Thomas Becket, and took an active part in the long disputes between that primate and his sovereign, Henry II. His letters throw light on the constitutional struggle then agitating the English world. With Becket he withdrew to France during the king’s displeasure; he returned with him in 1170, and was present at his assassination. In the following years, during which he continued in an influential situation in Canterbury, but at what precise date is unknown, he drew up the Life of Thomas Becket. In 1176 he was made bishop of Chartres, where he passed the remainder of his life. In 1179 he took an active part in the council of the Lateran. He died at or near Chartres on the 25th of October 1180.

John’s writings enable us to understand with much completeness the literary and scientific position of the 12th century. His views imply a cultivated intelligence well versed in practical affairs, opposing to the extremes of both nominalism and realism a practical common sense. His doctrine is a kind of utilitarianism, with a strong leaning on the speculative side to the modified literary scepticism of Cicero, for whom he had unbounded admiration. He was a humanist before the Renaissance, surpassing all other representatives of the school of Chartres in his knowledge of the Latin classics, as in the purity of his style, which was evidently moulded on that of Cicero. Of Greek writers he appears to have known nothing at first hand, and very little in translations. The Timaeus of Plato in the Latin version of Chalcidius was known to him as to his contemporaries and predecessors, and probably he had access to translations of the Phaedo and Meno. Of Aristotle he possessed the whole of the Organon in Latin; he is, indeed, the first of the medieval writers of note to whom the whole was known. Of other Aristotelian writings he appears to have known nothing.

The collected editions of the works are by J. A. Giles (5 vols., Oxford, 1848), and by Migne, in the Patrologiae cursus, vol. 199: neither accurate. The Policraticus was edited with notes and introductions by C. C. I. Webb, Ioannis Saresberiensis episcopi Carnotensis Policratici (Oxford, 1909), 2 vols. The most complete study of John of Salisbury is the monograph by C. Schaarschmidt, Johannes Sarisberiensis nach Leben und Studien, Schriften und Philosophie, 1862, which is a model of accurate and complete workmanship. See also the article in the Dict. Nat. Biog.

JOHN (1290-c. 1320), surnamed the Parricide, and called also John of Swabia, was a son of Rudolph II. count of Habsburg and Agnes daughter of Ottakar II. king of Bohemia, and consequently a grandson of the German king Rudolph I. Having passed his early days at the Bohemian court, when he came of age he demanded a portion of the family estates from his uncle, the German king Albert I. His wishes were not gratified, and with three companions he formed a plan to murder the king. On the 1st of May 1308 Albert in crossing the river Reuss at Windisch became separated from his attendants, and was at once attacked and killed by the four conspirators. John escaped the vengeance of Albert’s sons, and was afterwards found in a monastery at Pisa, where in 1313 he is said to have been visited by the emperor Henry VII., who had placed him under the ban. From this time he vanishes from history. The character of John is used by Schiller in his play Wilhelm Tell.

JOHN, THE EPISTLES OF. The so-called epistles of John, in the Bible, are not epistles in the strict sense of the term, for the first is a homily, and encyclical or pastoral (as has been recognized since the days of Bretschneider and Michaelis), while the other two are brief notes or letters. Nor are they John’s, if John means the son of Zebedee. The latter conclusion depends upon the particular hypothesis adopted with regard to the general Johannine problem, yet even when it is held that John the apostle (q.v.) survived to old age in Ephesus, the second and third epistles may be fairly ascribed (with Erasmus, Grotius, Credner, Bretschneider, Reuss, &c.) to John the presbyter1, as several circles in the early church held (“Opinio a plerisque tradita,” Jerome: De vir. ill. 18). An apostle indeed might call himself a presbyter (cf. 1 Pet. v. 1). But these notes imply no apostolic claim on the part of the author, and, although their author is anonymous, the likelihood is that their composition by the great Asiatic presbyter John led afterwards to their incorporation in the “instrumentum” of John the apostle’s writings, when the prestige of the latter had obscured the former. All hypotheses as to their pseudonymity or composition by different hands may be dismissed. They would never have floated down the stream of tradition except on the support of some primitive authority. If this was not connected with John the apostle the only feasible alternative is to think of John the presbyter, for Papias refers to the latter in precisely this fashion (Euseb. H. E. iii. 39, 15; καὶ τοῦτο ὁ π. ἔλεγε).

The period of all three lies somewhere within the last decade of the 1st century and the first decade of the 2nd. No evidence is available to determine in what precise order they were written, but it will be convenient to take the two smaller notes before the larger. The so-called Second Epistle of John is one of the excommunicating notes occasionally despatched by early Christian leaders to a community (cf. 2 Cor. v. 9). The presbyter or elder warns a Christian community, figuratively addressed as “the elect lady” (cf. 13 with 1 Pet. i. 1; v, 13; also the plural of 6, 8, 10 and 13), against some itinerant (cf. Didache xi. 1-2) teachers who were promulgating advanced Docetic views (7) upon the person of Christ. The note is merely designed to serve (12) until the writer arrives in person. He sends greetings to his correspondents from some community in which he is residing at present (13), and with which they had evidently some connexion.

The note was familiar to Irenaeus2 who twice (i. 16, 3, iii. 16, 8) cites 10-11, once quoting it from the first epistle by mistake, but no tradition has preserved the name of the community in question, and all opinions on the matter are guess-work. The reference to “all who know the truth” (ver. 1) is, of course, to be taken relatively (cf. Rev. ii. 23); it does not necessarily imply a centre like Antioch or Rome (Chapman). Whiston thought of Philadelphia, and probably it must have been one of the Asiatic churches.

The so-called Third Epistle of John belongs to the ἐπίστολαι συστάτικαι (2 Cor. iii. 1) of the early church, like Rom. xvi. It is a private note addressed by the presbyter to a certain Gaius, a member of the same community or house-church (9) as that to which 2 John is written. A local errorist, Diotrephes (9-10) had repudiated the authority of the writer and his party, threatening even to excommunicate Gaius and others from the church (cf. Abbott’s Diatessarica, § 2258). With this opponent the writer promises (10) to deal sharply in person before very long. Meantime (14) he despatches the present note, in hearty appreciation of his correspondent’s attitude and character.

The allusion in 9 (ἔγραψα) refers in all likelihood to the “second” epistle (so Ewald, Wolf, Salmon, &c.). In order to avoid the suggestion that it implied a lost epistle, ἂν was inserted at an early stage in the textual history of the note. If ἐκκλήσιας could be read in 12, Demetrius would be a presbyter; in any case, he is not to be identified with Demas (Chapman), nor is there any reason to suppose (with Harnack)3 that the note of 9 was written to, and suppressed by, him. What the presbyter is afraid of is not so much that his note would not be read (Ewald, Harnack), as that it would not be acted upon.

These notes, written originally on small sheets of papyrus, reveal the anonymous presbyter travelling (so Clem. Alex. Quis dives salv. xlii.) in his circuit or diocese of churches, and writing occasional pastoral letters, in which he speaks not only in his own name but in that of a coterie of like-minded Christians.4 It is otherwise with the brochure or manifesto known as the “first epistle.” This was written neither at the request of its readers nor to meet any definite local emergency, but on the initiative of its author (i. 4) who was evidently concerned about the effect produced upon the Church in general by certain contemporary phases of semi-gnostic teaching. The polemic is directed against a dualism which developed theoretically into docetic views of Christ’s person (ii. 22, iv. 2, &c.), and practically into libertinism (ii. 4, &c.).5 It is natural to think, primarily, of the churches in Asia Minor as the circle addressed, but all indications of date or place are absent, except those which may be inferred from its inner connexion with the Fourth Gospel.

The plan of the brochure is unstudied and unpremeditated, resembling a series of variations upon one or two favourite themes rather than a carefully constructed melody. Fellowship (κοινωνία) with God and man is its dominant note. After defining the essence of Christian κοινονία (i. 1-3),6 the writer passes on to its conditions (i. 5-ii. 17), under the antithesis of light and darkness. These conditions are twofold: (a) a sense of sin, which leads Christians to a sense of forgiveness7 through Jesus Christ, (b) and obedience to the supreme law of brotherly love (cf. Ignat. Ad Smyrn. 6). If these conditions are unfulfilled, moral darkness is the issue, a darkness which spells ruin to the soul. This prompts the writer to explain the dangers of κοινωνία (ii. 18-29), under the antithesis of truth and falsehood, the immediate peril being a novel heretical view of the person of Christ. The characteristics of the fellowship are then developed (iii. 1-12), as sinlessness and brotherly love, under the antithesis of children of God (cf. ii. 29, “born of Him”) and children of the devil. This brotherly love bulks so largely in the writer’s mind that he proceeds to enlarge upon its main elements of confidence towards God (iii. 13-24), moral discernment (iv. 1-6), and assurance of union with God (iv. 7-21), all these being bound up with a true faith in Jesus as the Christ (v. 1-12).8 A brief epilogue gives what is for the most part a summary (v. 13-21) of the leading ideas of the homily.9

Disjointed as the cause of the argument may seem, a close scrutiny of the context often reveals a subtle connexion between paragraphs which at first sight appear unlinked. Thus the idea of the κόσμος passing away (ii. 17) suggests the following sentences upon the nearness of the παρούσια (ii. 18 seq.), whose signs are carefully noted in order to reassure believers, and whose moral demands are underlined (ii. 28, iii. 3). Within this paragraph10 even the abrupt mention of the χρίσμα has its genetical place (ii. 20). The heretical ἀντίχριστοι, it is implied, have no χρίσμα from God; Christians have (note the emphasis on ὑμεῖς), owing to their union with the true Χρίστος. Again, the genetic relation of iii. 4 seq. to what precedes becomes evident when we consider that the norm of Christian purity (iii. 3) is the keeping of the divine commandments, or conduct resembling Christ’s on earth (iii. 3-ii. 4-6), so that the Gnostic11 breach of this law not only puts a man out of touch with Christ (iii. 6 seq.), but defeats the very end of Christ’s work, i.e. the abolition of sin (iii. 8). Thus iii. 7-10 resumes and completes the idea of ii. 29; the Gnostic is shown to be out of touch with the righteous God, partly because he will not share the brotherly love which is the expression of the righteousness, and partly because his claims to sinlessness render God’s righteous forgiveness (i. 9) superfluous. Similarly the mention of the Spirit (iii. 24) opens naturally into a discussion of the decisive test for the false claims of the heretics or gnostic illuminati to spiritual powers and gifts (iv. 1 seq.); and, as this test of the genuine Spirit of God is the confession of Jesus Christ as really human and incarnate, the writer, on returning (in iv. 17 seq.) to his cardinal idea of brotherly love, expresses it in view of the incarnate Son (iv. 9), whose mission furnishes the proof of God’s love as well as the example and the energy of man’s (iv. 10 seq.). The same conception of the real humanity of Jesus Christ as essential to faith’s being and well-being is worked out in the following paragraph (v. 1-12), while the allusion to eternal life (v. 11-12) leads to the closing recapitulation (v. 13-21) of the homily’s leading ideas under this special category.

The curious idea, mentioned by Augustine (Quaest. evang. ii. 39), that the writing was addressed ad Parthos, has been literally taken by several Latin fathers and later writers (e.g. Grotius, Paulus, Hammond), but this title probably was a corruption of ad sparsos (Wetstein, Wegschneider) or of πρὸς παρθένους (Whiston: the Christians addressed as virgin, i.e. free from heresy), if not of παρθένος, as applied in early tradition to John the apostle. The circle for which the homily was meant was probably, in the first instance, that of the Fourth Gospel, but it is impossible to determine whether the epistle preceded or followed the larger treatise. The division of opinion on this point (cf. J. Moffat, Historical New Testament, 1901, p. 534) is serious, but the evidence for either position is purely subjective. There are sufficient peculiarities of style and conception12 to justify provisionally some hesitation on the matter of the authorship. The epistle may have been written by a different author, or, from a more popular standpoint, by the author of the gospel, possibly (as some critics hold) by the author of John xxi. But res lubrica, opinio incerta.

It is unsafe to lay much stress upon the apparent reminiscence of iv. 2-3 (or of 2 John 7) in Polycarp, ad Phil. 7 reading ἐληλυθότα instead of ἑληλυθέναι), though, if a literary filiation is assumed, the probability is that Polycarp is quoting from the epistle, not vice versa (as Volkmar contends, in his Ursprung d. unseren Evglien 47 seq.). But Papias is said by Eusebius (H. E. iii. 39) to have used ἡ Ἰωάννου προτέρα (= ἡ Ἰωάννου πρώτη, v. 8?), i.e. the anonymous tract, which, by the time of Eusebius, had come to be known as 1 John, and we have no reason to suspect or reject this statement, particularly as Justin Martyr, another Asiatic writer, furnishes clear echoes of the epistle (Dial. 123). The tract must have been in circulation throughout Asia Minor at any rate before the end of the first quarter of the 2nd century.13 The terminus a quo is approximately the period of the Fourth Gospel’s composition, but there is no valid evidence to indicate the priority of either, even upon the hypothesis that both came from the same pen. The aim of each is too special to warrant the conclusion that the epistle was intended to accompany or to introduce the gospel.

Literature.—The most adequate modern editions of the three epistles are by Westcott (3rd ed., 1892), H. J. Holtzmann (Hand-Commentar zum N. T., 3rd ed., 1908), B. Weiss (in Meyer, 6th ed., 1900), Baljon (1904) and J. E. Belser (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1906). Briefer English notes are furnished by W. Alexander (Speaker’s Commentary, 1881), W. H. Bennett (Century Bible, 1901) and H. P. Forbes (Internat. Handbooks to New Testament, vol. iv. 1907), while Plummer has a concise edition of the Greek text (in The Cambridge Greek Testament, 1886). Huther’s edition (in Meyer, 1880) has been translated into English (Edinburgh, 1882), like Rothe’s (1878) invaluable commentary on the first epistle (cf. Expository Times, vols. iii. v.). Otto Baumgarten’s popular edition in Die Schriften des N. T. (1907) is, like that of Forbes, written from practically the same standpoint as Holtzmann’s. The earlier commentaries of Alford (2nd ed., 1862), C. A. Wolf (2nd ed., 1885), Ewald (Die Joh. Briefe übersetzt und erklaert, Göttingen, 1861-1862), and Lücke (3rd ed., revised by Bertheau, 1856) still repay the reader, and among previous editions those of W. Whiston (Comm. on St John’s Three Catholic Epistles, 1719) and de Wette (1837, &c.) contain material of real exegetical interest. Special editions of the first epistle have been published by John Cotton (London, 1655), Neander (1851; Eng. trans. New York, 1853), E. Haupt (1869; Eng. trans. 1879), Lias (1887) and C. Watson (1891, expository) among others. Special studies by F. H. Kern (De epistolae Joh. consilio, Tübingen, 1830), Erdmann (Primae Joh. epistolae argumentum, nexus et consilium, Berlin, 1855), C. E. Luthardt (De primae Joannis epistolae compositione, 1860), J. Stockmeyer (Die Structur des ersten Joh. Briefes, Basel, 1873) and, most elaborately, by H. J. Holtzmann (Jahrb. für protest. Theologie, 1881, pp. 690 seq.; 1882, pp. 128 seq., 316 seq., 460 seq.). To the monographs already noted in the course of this article may be added the essays by Wiesinger (Studien und Kritiken, 1899, pp. 575 seq.) and Wohlenberg (“Glossen zum ersten Johannisbrief,” Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1902, pp. 233 seq., 632 seq.). On 2 John there are special commentaries and studies by Ritmeier (De electa domina, 1706), C. A. Kriegele (De κυρία Johannis, 1758), Carpzov (Theolog. exegetica, pp. 105-208), H. G. B. Müller (Comment. in secundam epistolam Joannis, 1783), C. Klug (De authentia, &c., 1823), J. Rendel Harris (Expositor, 6th series, 1901, pp. 194 seq.), W. M. Ramsay (ibid., pp. 354 seq.) and Gibbins (ibid., 1902, pp. 228-236), while, in addition to Hermann’s Comment, in Joan. ep. III. (1778), P. L. Gachon (Authenticité de la deuxième et troisième épîtres de Jean, 1851), Poggel (Der zweite und dritte Briefe d. Apostel Johannis, 1896), and Chapman (Journal of Theological Studies, 1904, “The Historical Setting of the Second and the Third Epistles of St John”), have discussed both of the minor epistles together. General studies of all three are furnished by H. J. Holtzmann in Schenkel’s Bibel-Lexicon, iii. 342-352, Sabatier (Encyclop. des sciences religieuses, vii. 177 seq.), S. Cox (The Private Letters of St Paul and St John, 1867), Farrar (Early Days of Christianity, chs. xxxi., xxxiv. seq.), Gloag (Introduction to Catholic Epistles, 1887, pp. 256-350), S. D. F. Salmond in Hasting’s Dict. Bible (vol. ii), G. H. Gilbert (The First Interpreters of Jesus, 1901, pp. 301-332), and V. Bartlet (The Apostolic Age, 1900, pp. 418 seq.; from a more advanced critical position by Cone (The Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations, 1893, pp. 320-327), P. W. Schmiedel (Ency. Bib., 2556-2562, also in a pamphlet, Evangelium, Briefe, und Offenbarung des Johannes, 1906; Eng. trans. 1908), J. Réville (Le Quatrième Evangile, 1901, pp. 49 seq.) and Pfleiderer (Das Urchristentum, 2nd ed., 1902, pp. 390 seq.). The problem of the epistles is discussed incidentally by many writers on the Fourth Gospel, as well as by writers on New Testament introduction like Zahn, Jacquier, Barth and Belser, on the Conservative side, and Hilgenfeld, Jülicher and von Soden on the Liberal. On the older Syriac version of 2 and 3 John, see Gwynn’s article in Hermathena (1890), pp. 281 seq. On the general reception of the three epistles in the early Church, Zahn’s paragraphs (in his Geschichte d. N. T. Kanons, i. 209 seq., 374 seq., 905 seq.; ii. 48 seq., 88 seq.) are the most adequate.

(J. Mt.)

1 So Selwyn, Christian Prophets (pp. 133-145), Harnack, Heinrici (Das Urchristenthum, 1902, pp. 129 seq.), and von Soden (History of Early Christian Literature, pp. 445-446), after Renan (L’Église chrétienne, pp. 78 seq.). Von Dobschütz (Christian Life in the Primitive Church, pp. 218 seq.) and R. Knopf (Das nachapost. Zeitalter, 1905, pp. 32 seq., &c.) are among the most recent critics who ascribe all three epistles to the presbyter.

2 On the early allusions to these brief notes, cf. Gregory: The Canon and Text of the New Testament (1907), pp. 131, 190 seq., Westcott’s Canon of the New Testament, pp. 218 seq., 355, 357, 366, &c., and Leipoldt’s Geschichte d. neut. Kanons (1907), i. pp. 66 seq., 78 seq., 99 seq., 151 seq., 192 seq., 232 seq.

3 In his ingenious study (Texte und Untersuchungen, xv. 3), whose main contention is adopted by von Dobschütz and Knopf. On this view (for criticism see Belser in the Tübing. Quartalschrift, 1897, pp. 150 seq., Krüger in Zeitschrift für die wiss. Theologie, 1898, pp. 307-311, and Hilgenfeld: ibid. 316-320), Diotrephes was voicing a successful protest of the local monarchical bishops against the older itinerant authorities (cf. Schmiedel, Ency. Bib., 3146-3147). As Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (Hermes, 1898, pp. 529 seq.) points out, there is a close connexion between ver. 11 and ver. 10. The same writer argues that, as the substitution of ἀγαπήτος for φίλτατος (ver. 1) “ist Schönrednerei und nicht vom besten Geschmacke,” the writer adds ὅν ἐγὼ ἀγαπῶ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ.

4 This is the force of the ἡμεῖς in 3 John 9-10 (cf. 1 John iv. 6, 14) “The truth” (3 John 3-5) seems to mean a life answering to the apostolic standard thus enforced and exemplified.

5 Several of these traits were reproduced in the teaching of Cerinthus, others may have been directly Jewish or Jewish Christian. The opposition to the Messianic rôle of Jesus had varied adherents. The denial of the Virgin-birth, which also formed part of the system of Cerinthus, was met by anticipation in the stories of Matthew and Luke, which pushed back the reception of the spirit from the baptism to the birth, but the Johannine school evidently preferred to answer this heresy by developing the theory of the Logos, with its implicate of pre-existence.

6 On the vexed question whether the language of this paragraph is purely spiritual or includes a realistic reference, cf. G. E. Findlay (Expositor, 1893, pp. 97 seq.), and Dr E. A. Abbott’s recent study in Diatessarica, §§ 1615-1620. The writer is controverting the Docetic heresy, and at the same time keeping up the line of communications with the apostolic base.

7 The universal range (ii. 2) ascribed to the redeeming work of Christ is directed against Gnostic dualism and the Ebionitic narrowing of salvation to Israel; only ἡμεῖς here denotes Christians in general, not Jewish Christians. On the answer to the Gnostic pride of perfectionism (i. 8), cf. Epict. iv. 12, 19. The emphasis on “you all” (ii. 20) hints at the Gnostic aristocratic system of degrees among believers, which naturally tended to break up brotherly love (cf. 1 Cor. viii. 1 seq.). The Gnostics also held that a spiritual seed (cf. iii. 9) was implanted in man, as the germ of his higher development into the divine life; for the Valentinian idea cf. Iren. Adv. Haer. i. 64, and Tertull. De anima, 11 [haeretici] “nescio quod spiritale semen infulciunt animae”. Cf. the general discussions by Häring in Theologische Abhandlungen C. von Weizsäcker gewidmet (1892), pp. 188 seq., and Zahn in Wanderungen durch Schrift u. Geschichte (1892), pp. 3-74.

8 Cf. Denney, The Death of Christ (1902), pp. 269-281. The polemical reference to Cerinthus is specially clear at this point. The death of Jesus was not that of a phantom, nor was his ministry from the baptism to the crucifixion that of a heavenly aeon which suffered nothing: such is the writer’s contention. “In every case the historical is asserted, but care is taken that it shall not be materialized: a primacy is given to the spiritual.... Except through the historical, there is no Christianity at all, but neither is there any Christianity till the historical has been spiritually comprehended.” The well-known interpolation of the three heavenly witnesses (v. 7) has now been proved by Karl Künstle (Das Comma Johanneum, 1905) to have originally come from the pen of the 4th century Spaniard, Priscillian, who himself denied all distinctions of person in the Godhead.

9 On the “sin to death” (v. 16) cf. Jubilees xxi. 22, xxvi. 34 with Karl’s Johann. Studien (1898), i. 97 seq. and M. Goguel’s La Notion johannique de l’esprit (1902), pp. 147-153, for the general theology of the epistle. The conceptions of light and life are best handled by Grill in his Untersuchungen über die Entstehung des vierten Evgliums (1902), pp. 301 seq., 312 seq.

10 In Preuschen’s Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft (1907), pp. 1-8, von Dobschütz tries to show that the present text of ii. 28-iii. 12 indicates a revision or rearrangement of an earlier text. Cludius (Uransichten des Christentums, Altona, 1808) had already conjectured that a Gnostic editor must have worked over a Jewish Christian document.

11 Dr Alois Wurm’s attempt (Die Irrlehrer im ersten Johannesbriefe, 1903) to read the references to errorists solely in the light of Jewish Christianity ignores or underrates several of the data. He is supported on the whole by Clemen, in Preuschen’s Zeitschrift (1905), pp. 271-281. There is certainly an anti-Jewish touch, e.g. in the claim of iii. 1 (note the emphatic ἡμῖν), when one recollects the saying of Aqiba (Aboth iii. 12) and Philo’s remark, καὶ γὰρ εἰ μήπω ἴκανοι θεοῦ παῖδες νομίζεσθαι γεγόναμεν, ἀλλά τοι τῆς ἀειδοῦς εἰκόνος αὐτοῦ, λόγου τοῦ ἱερωτ άτου θεοῦ γὰρ εἰκὼν λόγος ὁ πρεσβύτατος (De conf. ling. 28). But the antithesis of John and Cerinthus, unlike that of Paul and Cerinthus (Epiph. Haer. xxviii.), is too well based in the tradition of the early Church to be dismissed as a later dogmatic reflection, and the internal evidence of this manifesto corroborates it clearly.

12 “The style is not flowing and articulated; the sentences come like minute-guns, as they would drop from a natural Hebrew. The writer moves, indeed, amidst that order of religious ideas which meets us in the Fourth Gospel, and which was that of the Greek world wherein he found himself. He moves amongst these new ideas, however, not with the practised felicity of the evangelist, but with something of helplessness, although the depth and serene beauty of his spirit give to all he says an infinite impressiveness and charm” (M. Arnold; God and the Bible, ch. vi.).

13 By the end of the 2nd century it appears to have been fairly well-known, to judge from Origen, Irenaeus (iii. 16, 8), and Clement of Alexandria (Stran. ii. 15, 66). In the Muratorian canon, which mentions two epistles of John, it seems to be reckoned (cf. Kuhn, Das Murat. Fragment, pp. 58 f.) as an appendix or sequel to the Fourth Gospel. The apparent traces of its use in Ignatius (cf. Smyrn. vi. 2 = 1 John iii. 17; Smyrn. vii = 1 John iii. 14, and Eph. xviii. = 1 John v. 6) seem too insecure, of themselves, to warrant any hypothesis of filiation.

JOHN, GOSPEL OF ST, the fourth and latest of the Gospels, in the Bible, and, next to that of St Mark, the shortest. The present article will first describe its general structure and more obvious contents; compare it with the Synoptic Gospels; and draw out its leading characteristics and final object. It will then apply the tests thus gained to the narratives special to this Gospel; and point out the book’s special difficulties and limits, and its abiding appeal and greatness. And it will finally consider the questions of its origin and authorship.

Analysis of Contents.—The book’s chief break is at xiii. 1, the solemn introduction to the feet-washing: all up to here reports Jesus’ signs and apologetic or polemical discourses to the outer world; hence onwards it pictures the manifestation of His glory to the inner circle of His disciples. These two parts contain three sections each.

1. (i.) Introduces the whole work (i. 1-ii. 11). (a) The prologue, i. 1-18. The Logos existed before creation and time; was with the very God and was God; and all things were made through Him. For in this Logos is Life, and this Life is a Light which, though shining in darkness, cannot be suppressed by it. This true Light became flesh and tabernacled amongst us; and we beheld His glory, as of an Only-Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John the Baptist testified concerning Him, the Logos-Light and Logos-Life incarnate; but this Logos alone, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared the very God. (b) The four days’ work (i. 19-51). On the first three days John declares that he is not the Christ, proclaims Jesus to be the Christ, and sends his own disciples away to Jesus. On the fourth day, Jesus Himself calls Philip and Nathanael. (c) The seventh day’s first manifestation of the Incarnate Light’s glory (ii. 1-11 ); Jesus at Cana turns water into wine.

(ii.) Records the manifestations of the Light’s and Life’s glory and power to friend and foe (ii. 22-vi. 71). (d) Solemn inauguration of the Messianic ministry (ii. 12-iii. 21): cleansing of the Temple and prophecy of His resurrection; discourse to Nicodemus on baptismal regeneration. (e) Three scenes in Judea, Samaria, Galilee respectively (iii. 32-iv. 54): the Baptist’s second testimony; Jesus’ discourse with the woman at the well concerning the spiritual, universal character of the new religion; and cure of the ruler’s son, the reward of faith in the simple word of Jesus. (f) Manifestation of Jesus as the vivifying Life-Logos and its contradiction in Judea, v.: the paralytic’s cure. (g) Manifestation of Jesus as the heaven-descended living Bread and its contradiction in Galilee, vi.: multiplication of the loaves; walking on the waters; and His discourse on the holy Eucharist.

(iii.) Acute conflict between the New Light and the old darkness (vii.-xii). (h) Self-manifestation of the Logos-Light in the Temple (vii. 1-x. 39). Journey to the feast of tabernacles; invitation to the soul athirst to come to Him (the fountain of Life) and drink, and proclamation of Himself as the Light of the world; cure of the man born blind; allegory of the good shepherd. The allegory continued at the feast of the dedication. They strive to stone or to take Him. (i) The Logos-Life brings Lazarus to life; effects of the act (x. 40-xii. 50). Jesus withdraws beyond Jordan, and then comes to Bethany, His friend Lazarus being buried three days; proclaims Himself the Resurrection and the Life; and calls Lazarus back to life. Some who saw it report the act to the Pharisees; the Sanhedrim meets, Caiaphas declares that one man must die for the people, and henceforward they ceaselessly plan His death. Jesus withdraws to the Judaean desert, but soon returns, six days before Passover, to Bethany; Mary anoints Him, a crowd comes to see Him and Lazarus, and the hierarchs then plan the killing of Lazarus also. Next morning He rides into Jerusalem on an ass’s colt. Certain Greeks desire to see Him: He declares the hour of His glorification to have come: “Now My soul is troubled.... Father, save Me from this hour. But for this have I come unto this hour: Father, glorify Thy Name.” A voice answers, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again”: some think that an angel spoke; but Jesus explains that this voice was not for His sake but for theirs. When lifted up from earth, He will draw all men to Himself; they are to believe in Him, the Light. The writer’s concluding reflection: the small success of Jesus’ activity among the Jews. Once again He cries: “I am come a Light into the world, that whoso believeth in Me should not abide in darkness.”

2. The Logos-Christ’s manifestation of His life and love to His disciples, during the last supper, the passion, the risen life (xiii.-xx.).

(iv.) The Last Supper (xiii.-xvii.) (j) Solemn washing of the disciples’ feet; the beloved disciple; designates the traitor; Judas goes forth, it is night (xiii. 1-30). (k) Last discourses, first series (xiii. 31-xiv. 31): the new commandment, the other helper; “Arise, let us go hence.” Second series (xv. 1-xvi. 33): allegory of the true vine; “Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friend”; the world’s hatred; the spirit of truth shall lead them into all truth; “I came forth from the Father and am come into the world, again I leave the world and go to the Father”; “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (l) The high-priestly prayer (xvii). “Father, glorify Thy Son ... with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was ... that to as many as Thou hast given Him, He should give eternal life.” “I pray for them, I pray not for the world. I pray also for them that shall believe in Me through their word, that they may be all one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee.”

(v.) The Passion (xviii.-xix.). (m) In the garden: the Roman soldiers come to apprehend Him, fall back upon the ground at His declaration “I am He.” Peter and Malchus. (n) Before Annas at night and Caiaphas at dawn; Peter’s denials (xviii. 12-27). (o) Before Pilate (xviii. 28-40). Jesus declares, “My kingdom is not of this world. I have come into the world that I may bear witness to the truth: everyone that is of the truth, heareth My voice”; Pilate asks sceptically “What is truth?” and the crowd prefers Barabbas. (p) The true king presented to the people as a mock-king; His rejection by the Jews and abandonment to them (xix. 1-16). (q) Jesus carries His cross to Golgotha, and is crucified there between two others; the cross’s title and Pilate’s refusal to alter it (xix. 17-22). (r) The soldiers cast lots upon His garments and seamless tunic; His mother with two faithful women and the beloved disciple at the cross’s foot; His commendation of His mother and the disciple to each other; His last two sayings in deliberate accomplishment of scripture “I thirst,” “It is accomplished.” He gives up the spirit; His bones remain unbroken; and from His spear-lanced side blood and water issue (xix. 23-37). (s) The two nobles, Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, bind the dead body in a winding sheet with one hundred pounds of precious spices, and place it in a new monument in a near garden, since the sabbath is at hand.

(vi.) The risen Jesus, Lord and God (xx.). (t) At early dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen, finding the stone rolled away from the monument, runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple that the Lord’s body has been removed. Peter and the other disciple run to the grave; the latter, arriving first, enters only after Peter has gone in and noted the empty grave-clothes—enters and believes. After their departure, Mary sees two angels where His body had lain and turning away beholds Jesus standing, yet recognizes Him only when He addresses her. He bids her “Do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended”; but to tell His brethren “I ascend to My Father and to your Father, to My God and to your God.” And she does so. (u) Second apparition (xx. 19-23). Later on the same day, the doors being shut, Jesus appears amongst His disciples, shows them His (pierced) hands and side, and solemnly commissions and endows them for the apostolate by the words, “As the Father hath sent Me, so I send you,” and by breathing upon them saying “Receive the Holy Spirit: whose sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose sins ye retain, they are retained.” (v) Third apparition and culminating saying; conclusion of entire book (xx. 24-31). Thomas, who had been absent, doubts the resurrection; Jesus comes and submits to the doubter’s tests. Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God”; but Jesus declares “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” “Now Jesus,” concludes the writer, “did many other signs, ... but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in His name.”

The above analysis is rough, since even distantly placed sections, indeed the two parts themselves, are interrelated by delicate complex references on and back. And it omits the account of the adulteress (vii. 53-viii. 11): (a valuable report of an actual occurrence which probably belonged to some primitive document otherwise incorporated by the Synoptists), because it is quite un-Johannine in vocabulary, style and character, intercepts the Gospel’s thread wherever placed, and is absent from its best MSS. It also omits xxi. This chapter’s first two stages contain an important early historical document of Synoptic type: Jesus’ apparition to seven disciples by the Lake of Galilee and the miraculous draught of fishes; and Peter’s threefold confession and Jesus’ threefold commission to him. And its third stage, Jesus’ prophecies to Peter and to the beloved disciple concerning their future, and the declaration “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them, and we know that his testimony is true,” is doubtless written by the redactor of the previous two stages. This writer imitates, but is different from, the great author of the first twenty chapters.

Comparison with the Synoptists.—The following are the most obvious differences between the original book and the Synoptists. John has a metaphysical prologue; Matthew and Luke have historical prologues; and Mark is without any prologue. The earthly scene is here Judea, indeed Jerusalem, with but five breaks (vi. 1-vii. 10) is the only long one; whilst over two-thirds of each Synoptist deal with Galilee or Samaria. The ministry here lasts about three and a half years (it begins some months before the first Passover, ii. 13; the feast of v. 1 is probably a second; the third occurs vi. 4; and on the fourth, xi. 55, He dies): whilst the Synoptists have but the one Passover of His death, after barely a year of ministry. Here Jesus’ teaching contains no parables and but three allegories, the Synoptists present it as parabolic through and through. Here not one exorcism occurs; in the Synoptists the exorcisms are as prominent as the cures and the preaching, John has, besides the passion, seven accounts in common with the Synoptists: the Baptist and Jesus, (i. 19-34); cleansing of the Temple (ii. 13-16); cure of the centurion’s (ruler’s) servant (son) (iv. 46-54); multiplication of the loaves (vi. 1-13); walking upon the water (vi. 16-21); anointing at Bethany, (xii. 1-8); entry into Jerusalem (xii. 12-16): all unique occurrences. In the first, John describes how the Baptist, on Jesus’ approach, cries “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world”; and how he says “I saw the spirit descending upon Him, and I bore witness that this is the Son of God.” But the Synoptists, especially Mark, give the slow steps in even the apostles’ realization of Jesus’ Messianic character; only at Caesarea Philippi Simon alone, for the first time, clearly discerns it, Jesus declaring that His Father has revealed it to Him, and yet Simon is still scandalized at the thought of a suffering Messiah (Mark viii. 28-34). Only some two weeks before the end is He proclaimed Messiah at Jericho (x. 46-48); then in Jerusalem, five days before dying for this upon the cross (xi. 1-10, xv. 37). As to the Baptist, in all three Synoptists, he baptizes Jesus, and in Mark i. 10, 11 it is Jesus who sees the Spirit descending upon Himself on His emerging from beneath the water, and it is to Himself that God’s voice is addressed; in John, Jesus’ baptism is ignored, only the Spirit remains hovering above Him, as a sign for the Baptist’s instruction. And in Matt. xi. 2-6, the Baptist, several months after the Jordan scene, sends from his prison to ascertain if Jesus is indeed the Messiah; in John, the Baptist remains at large so as again (iii. 22-36) to proclaim Jesus’ heavenly provenance. The cleansing of the Temple occurs in the Synoptists four days before His death, and instantly determines the hierarchs to seek His destruction (Mark xi. 15-18); John puts it three years back, as an appropriate frontispiece to His complete claims and work.

The passion-narratives reveal the following main differences. John omits, at the last supper, its central point, the great historic act of the holy eucharist, carefully given by the Synoptists and St Paul, having provided a highly doctrinal equivalent in the discourse on the living bread, here spoken by Jesus in Capernaum over a year before the passion (vi. 4), the day after the multiplication of the loaves. This transference is doubtless connected with the change in the relations between the time of the Passover meal and that of His death: in the Synoptists, the Thursday evening’s supper is a true Passover meal, the lamb had been slain that afternoon and Jesus dies some twenty-four hours later; in John, the supper is not a Passover-meal, the Passover is celebrated on Friday, and Jesus, proclaimed here from the first, the Lamb of God, dies whilst the paschal lambs, His prototypes, are being slain. The scene in the garden is without the agony of Gethsemane; a faint echo of this historic anguish appears in the scene with the Greeks four days earlier, and even that peaceful appeal to, and answer of, the Father occurs only for His followers’ sakes. In the garden Jesus here Himself goes forth to meet His captors, and these fall back upon the ground, on His revealing Himself as Jesus of Nazareth. The long scenes with Pilate culminate in the great sayings concerning His kingdom not being of this world and the object of this His coming being to bear witness to the truth, thus explaining how, though affirming kingship (Mark xv. 2) He could be innocent. In John He does not declare Himself Messiah before the Jewish Sanhedrin (Mark xiv. 61) but declares Himself supermundane regal witness to the truth before the Roman governor. The scene on Calvary differs as follows: In the Synoptists the soldiers divide His garments among them, casting lots (Mark xv. 24); in John they make four parts of them and cast lots concerning His seamless tunic, thus fulfilling the text, “They divided My garments among them and upon My vesture they cast lots”: the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, which twice describes one fact, being taken as witnessing to two, and the tunic doubtless symbolizing the unity of the Church, as in Philo the high priest’s seamless robe symbolizes the indivisible unity of the universe, expressive of the Logos (De ebrietate, xxi.). In the Synoptists, of His followers only women—the careful, seemingly exhaustive lists do not include His mother—remain, looking on “from afar” (Mark xv. 40); in John, His mother stands with the two other Marys and the beloved disciple beneath the cross, and “from that hour the disciple took her unto his own (house),” while in the older literature His mother does not appear in Jerusalem till just before Pentecost, and with “His brethren” (Acts i. 14). And John alone tells how the bones of the dead body remained unbroken, fulfilling the ordinance as to the paschal lamb (Exod. xii. 46) and how blood and water flow from His spear-pierced side: thus the Lamb “taketh away the sins of the world” by shedding His blood which “cleanseth us from every sin”; and “He cometh by water and blood,” historically at His baptism and crucifixion, and mystically to each faithful soul in baptism and the eucharist. The story of the risen Christ (xx.) shows dependence on and contrast to the Synoptic accounts. Its two halves have each a negative and a positive scene. The empty grave (1-10) and the apparition to the Magdalen (11-18) together correspond to the message brought by the women (Matt. xxviii. 1-10); and the apparition to the ten joyously believing apostles (19-23) and then to the sadly doubting Thomas (24-29) together correspond to Luke xxiv. 36-43, where the eleven apostles jointly receive one visit from the risen One, and both doubt and believe, mourn and rejoice.

The Johannine discourses reveal differences from the Synoptists so profound as to be admitted by all. Here Jesus, the Baptist and the writer speak so much alike that it is sometimes impossible to say where each speaker begins and ends: e.g. in iii. 27-30, 31-36. The speeches dwell upon Jesus’ person and work, as we shall find, with a didactic directness, philosophical terminology and denunciatory exclusiveness unmatched in the Synoptist sayings. “This is eternal life, that they may know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (xvii. 3), is part of the high-priestly prayer; yet Père Calmes, with the papal censor’s approbation, says, “It seems to us impossible not to admit that we have here dogmatic developments explicable rather by the evangelist’s habits of mind than by the actual words of Jesus.” “I have told you of earthly things and you believe not; how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?” (iii. 12), and “Ye are from beneath, I am from above” (viii. 23), give us a Plato-(Philo-) like upper, “true” world, and a lower, delusive world. “Ye shall die in your sins” (viii. 21); “ye are from your father the devil” (viii. 44); “I am the door of the sheep, all they that came before Me are thieves and robbers,” (x. 7, 8); “they have no excuse for their sin” (xv. 22)—contrast strongly with the yearning over Jerusalem: “The blood of Abel the just” and “the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias” (Matt. xxiii. 35-37; and “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” Luke xxiii. 34). And whilst the Synoptist speeches and actions stand in loose and natural relation to each other, the Johannine deeds so closely illustrate the sayings that each set everywhere supplements the other: the history itself here tends to become one long allegory. So with the woman at the well and “the living water”; the multiplication of the loaves and “the living Bread”; “I am the Light of the world” and the blind man’s cure; “I am the Resurrection and the Life” and the raising of Lazarus; indeed even with the Temple-cleansing and the prophecy as to His resurrection, Nicodemus’s night visit and “men loved the darkness rather than the light,” the cure of the inoperative paralytic and “My Father and I work hitherto,” the walking phantom-like upon the waters (John vi. 15-21; Mark vi. 49), and the declaration concerning the eucharist, “the spirit it is that quickeneth” (John vi. 63). Only some sixteen Synoptic sayings reappear here; but we are given some great new sayings full of the Synoptic spirit.

Characteristics and Object.—The book’s character results from the continuous operation of four great tendencies. There is everywhere a readiness to handle traditional, largely historical, materials with a sovereign freedom, controlled and limited by doctrinal convictions and devotional experiences alone. There is everywhere the mystic’s deep love for double, even treble meanings: e.g. the “again” in iii. 2, means, literally, “from the beginning,” to be physically born again; morally, to become as a little child; mystically, “from heaven, God,” to be spiritually renewed. “Judgment” (κρίσις), in the popular sense, condemnation, a future act; in the mystical sense, discrimination, a present fact. There is everywhere the influence of certain central ideas, partly identical with, but largely developments of, those less reflectively operative in the Synoptists. Thus six great terms are characteristic of, or even special to, this Gospel. “The Only-Begotten” is most nearly reached by St Paul’s term “His own Son.” The “Word,” or “Logos,” is a term derived from Heracleitus of Ephesus and the Stoics, through the Alexandrian Jew Philo, but conceived here throughout as definitely personal. “The Light of the World” the Jesus-Logos here proclaims Himself to be; in the Synoptists He only declares His disciples to be such. “The Paraclete,” as in Philo, is a “helper,” “intercessor”; but in Philo he is the intelligible universe, whilst here He is a self-conscious Spirit. “Truth,” “the truth,” “to know,” have here a prominence and significance far beyond their Synoptic or even their Pauline use. And above all stand the uses of “Life,” “Eternal Life.” The living ever-working Father (vi. 57; v. 17) has a Logos in whom is Life (i. 4), an ever-working Son (v. 17), who declares Himself “the living Bread,” “the Resurrection and the Life,” “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (vi. 51; xi. 25; xiv. 16): so that Father and Son quicken whom they will (v. 21); the Father’s commandment is life everlasting, and Jesus’ words are spirit and life (xii. 50; vi. 63, 68). The term, already Synoptic, takes over here most of the connotations of the “Kingdom of God,” the standing Synoptic expression, which appears here only in iii. 3-5; xviii. 36. Note that the term “the Logos” is peculiar to the Apocalypse (xix. 13), and the prologue here; but that, as Light and Life, the Logos-conception is present throughout the book. And thus there is everywhere a striving to contemplate history sub specie aeternitatis and to englobe the successiveness of man in the simultaneity of God.

Narratives Peculiar to John.—Of his seven great symbolical, doctrinally interpreted “signs,” John shares three, the cure of the ruler’s son, the multiplication of the loaves, the walking on the waters, with the Synoptists: yet here the first is transformed almost beyond recognition; and the two others only typify and prepare the eucharistic discourse. Of the four purely Johannine signs, two—the cures of the paralytic (v. 1-16), and of the man born blind (ix. 1-34)—are, admittedly, profoundly symbolical. In the first case, the man’s physical and spiritual lethargy are closely interconnected and strongly contrasted with the ever-active God and His Logos. In the second case there is also the closest parallel between physical blindness cured, and spiritual darkness dispelled, by the Logos-Light as described in the accompanying discourse. Both narratives are doubtless based upon actual occurrences—the cures narrated in Mark ii., iii., viii., x. and scenes witnessed by the writer in later times; yet here they do but picture our Lord’s spiritual work in the human soul achieved throughout Christian history. We cannot well claim more than these three kinds of reality for the first and the last signs, the miracle at Cana and the resurrection of Lazarus.

For the marriage-feast sign yields throughout an allegorical meaning. Water stands in this Gospel for what is still but symbol; thus the water-pots serve here the external Jewish ablutions—old bottles which the “new wine” of the Gospel is to burst (Mark ii. 22). Wine is the blood of the new covenant, and He will drink the fruit of the vine new in the Kingdom of God (Mark xiv. 23-25); the vineyard where He Himself is the true Vine (Mark xii. 1; John xv. 1). And “the kingdom of heaven is like to a marriage-feast” (Matt. xxii. 2); Jesus is the Bridegroom (Mark ii. 19); “the marriage of the Lamb has come” (Rev. xix. 7). “They have no wine”: the hopelessness of the old conditions is announced here by the true Israel, the Messiah’s spiritual mother, the same “woman” who in Rev. xii. 2, 5 “brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations.” Cardinal Newman admits that the latter woman “represents the church, this is the real or direct sense”; yet as her man-child is certainly the Messiah, this church must be the faithful Jewish church. Thus also the “woman” at the wedding and beneath the cross stands primarily for the faithful Old Testament community, corresponding to the beloved disciple, the typical New Testament follower of her Son, the Messiah: in each case the devotional accommodation to His earthly mother is equally ancient and legitimate. He answers her “My hour is not yet come,” i.e. in the symbolic story, the moment for working the miracle; in the symbolized reality, the hour of His death, condition for the spirit’s advent; and “what is there between Me and thee?” i.e. “My motives spring no more from the old religion,” words devoid of difficulty, if spoken thus by the Eternal Logos to the passing Jewish church. The transformation is soon afterwards accomplished, but in symbol only; the “hour” of the full sense is still over three years off. Already Philo says “the Logos is the master of the spiritual drinking-feast,” and “let Melchisedeck”—the Logos—“in lieu of water offer wine to souls and inebriate them” (De somn. ii. 37; Legg. all. iii. 26). But in John this symbolism figures a great historic fact, the joyous freshness of Jesus’ ministerial beginnings, as indicated in the sayings of the Bridegroom and of the new wine, a freshness typical of Jesus’ ceaseless renovation of souls.

The raising of Lazarus, in appearance a massive, definitely localized historical fact, requires a similar interpretation, unless we would, in favour of the direct historicity of a story peculiar to a profoundly allegorical treatise, ruin the historical trustworthiness of the largely historical Synoptists in precisely their most complete and verisimilar part. For especially in Mark, the passing through Jericho, the entry into Jerusalem, the Temple-cleansing and its immediate effect upon the hierarchs, their next day’s interrogatory, “By what authority doest thou these things?” i.e. the cleansing (x. 46-xi. 33), are all closely interdependent and lead at once to His discussions with His Jerusalem opponents (xii. xiii.), and to the anointing, last supper, and passion (xiv. xv). John’s last and greatest symbolic sign replaces those historic motives, since here it is the raising of Lazarus which determines the hierarchs to kill Jesus (xi. 46-52), and occasions the crowds which accompany and meet Him on His entry (xii. 9-19). The intrinsic improbabilities of the narrative, if taken as direct history, are also great: Jesus’ deliberate delay of two days to secure His friend’s dying, and His rejoicing at the death, since thus He can revivify His friend and bring His disciples to believe in Himself as the Life; His deliberate weeping over the death which He has thus let happen, yet His anger at the similar tears of Lazarus’s other friends; and His praying, as He tells the Father in the prayer itself, simply to edify the bystanders: all point to a doctrinal allegory. Indeed the climax of the whole account is already reached in Jesus’ great saying: “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me ... shall not die for ever,” and in Martha’s answer: “I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who hast come into the world” (xi. 26, 27); the sign which follows is but the pictorial representation of this abiding truth. The materials for the allegory will have been certain Old Testament narratives, but especially the Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ raisings of Jairus’s daughter and of the widow’s son (Mark v.; Luke vii.). Mary and Martha are admittedly identical with the sisters in Luke x. 38-42; and already some Greek fathers connect the Lazarus of this allegory with the Lazarus of the parable (Luke xvi. 19-31). In the parable Lazarus returns not to earth, since Abraham foresees that the rich man’s brethren would disbelieve even if one rose from the dead; in the corresponding allegory, Lazarus does actually return to life, and the Jews believe so little as to determine upon killing the very Life Himself.

Special Difficulties and Special Greatness.—The difficulties, limitations and temporary means special to the book are closely connected with its ready appeal and abiding power; let us take both sets of things together, in three couples of interrelated price and gift.

The book’s method and form are pervadingly allegorical; its instinct and aim are profoundly mystical. Now from Philo to Origen we have a long Hellenistic, Jewish and Christian application of that all-embracing allegorism, where one thing stands for another and where no factual details resist resolution into a symbol of religious ideas and forces. Thus Philo had, in his life of Moses, allegorized the Pentateuchal narratives so as to represent him as mediator, saviour, intercessor of his people, the one great organ of revelation, and the soul’s guide from the false lower world into the upper true one. The Fourth Gospel is the noblest instance of this kind of literature, of which the truth depends not on the factual accuracy of the symbolizing appearances but on the truth of the ideas and experiences thus symbolized. And Origen is still full of spontaneous sympathy with its pervading allegorism. But this method has lost its attraction; the Synoptists, with their rarer and slighter pragmatic rearrangements and their greater closeness to our Lord’s actual words, deeds, experiences, environment, now come home to us as indefinitely richer in content and stimulative appeal. Yet mysticism persists, as the intuitive and emotional apprehension of the most specifically religious of all truths, viz. the already full, operative existence of eternal beauty, truth and goodness, of infinite Personality and Spirit independently of our action, and not, as in ethics, the simple possibility and obligation for ourselves to produce such-like things. And of this elemental mode of apprehension and root-truth, the Johannine Gospel is the greatest literary document and incentive extant: its ultimate aim and deepest content retain all their potency.