Note 92 — Chapter II

Footnote 92:

(return)

In the Ztschr. für Theol und Kirche, II. p. 189 ff. I have discussed the relation of the prologue of the fourth Gospel to the whole work and endeavoured to prove the following: "The prologue of the Gospel is not the key to its comprehension. It begins with a well-known great object, the Logos, re-adapts and transforms it—implicitly opposing false Christologies—in order to substitute for it Jesus Christ, the μονογενης θεος, or in order to unveil it as this Jesus Christ. The idea of the Logos is allowed to fall from the moment that this takes place." The author continues to narrate of Jesus only with the view of establishing the belief that he is the Messiah, the son of God. This faith has for its main article the recognition that Jesus is descended from God and from heaven; but the author is far from endeavouring to work out this recognition from cosmological, philosophical considerations. According to the Evangelist, Jesus proves himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, in virtue of his self-testimony, and because he has brought a full knowledge of God and of life—purely supernatural divine blessings (Cf. besides, and partly in opposition, Holtzmann, i.d. Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol. 1893). The author's peculiar world of theological ideas, is not, however, so entirely isolated in the early Christian literature as appears on the first impression. If, as is probable, the Ignatian Epistles are independent of the Gospel of John, further, the Supper prayer in the Didache, finally, certain mystic theological phrases in the Epistle of Barnabas, in the second epistle of Clement, and in Hermas, a complex of Theologoumena may be put together, which reaches back to the primitive period of the Church, and may be conceived as the general ground for the theology of John. This complex has on its side a close connection with the final development of the Jewish Hagiographic literature under Greek influence.