teaching (Matt. 7:28, 29; Mark 1:22; 6:2; Luke 4:32; John 7:46). He addressed not only his own
generation, but through it all ages and classes of men. No wonder that his hearers often misunderstood
him. The Synoptists give examples of such misunderstanding as well as John (comp. Mark 8:16).
But who will set limits to his power and paedagogic wisdom in the matter and form of his teaching?
Must he not necessarily have varied his style when he addressed the common people in Galilee, as
in the Synoptists, and the educated, proud, hierarchy of Jerusalem, as in John? Or when he spoke
on the mountain, inviting the multitude to the Messianic Kingdom at the opening of his ministry,
and when he took farewell from his disciples in the chamber, in view of the great sacrifice? Socrates
appears very different in Xenophon and in Plato, yet we can see him in both. But here is a far greater
than Socrates.^1054
(2) John’s mind, at a period when it was most pliable and plastic, had been so conformed
to the mind of Christ that his own thoughts and words faithfully reflected the teaching of his Master.
If there ever was spiritual sympathy and congeniality between two minds, it was between Jesus
and the disciple whom he loved and whom he intrusted with the care of his mother. John stood
nearer to his Lord than any Christian or any of the Synoptists. "Why should not John have been
formed upon the model of Jesus rather than the Jesus of his Gospel be the reflected image of himself?
Surely it may be left to all candid minds to say whether, to adopt only the lowest supposition, the
creative intellect of Jesus was not far more likely to mould His disciple to a conformity with itself,
than the receptive spirit of the disciple to give birth by its own efforts to that conception of a
Redeemer which so infinitely surpasses the loftiest image of man’s own creation."^1055
(3) John reproduced the discourses from the fulness of the spirit of Christ that dwelt in him,
and therefore without any departure from the ideas. The whole gospel history assumes that Christ
did not finish, but only began his work while on earth, that he carries it on in heaven through his
chosen organs, to whom he promised mouth and wisdom (Luke 21:15; Matt. 10:19) and his constant
presence (Matt. 19:20; 28:20). The disciples became more and more convinced of the superhuman
character of Christ by the irresistible logic of fact and thought. His earthly life appeared to them
as a transient state of humiliation which was preceded by a pre-existent state of glory with the
Father, as it was followed by a permanent state of glory after the resurrection and ascension to
heaven. He withheld from them "many things" because they could not bear them before his
glorification (John 16:12). "What I do," he said to Peter, "thou knowest not now, but thou shalt
come to know hereafter" (13:7). Some of his deepest sayings, which they had at first misunderstood,
were illuminated by the resurrection (2:22; 12:16), and then by the outpouring of the Spirit, who
took things out of the fulness of Christ and declared them to the disciples (16:13, 14). Hence the
farewell discourses are so full of the Promises of the Spirit of truth who would glorify Christ in
their hearts. Under such guidance we may be perfectly sure of the substantial faithfulness of John’s
record.(^1054) Hase (Geschichte Jesu, p. 61) makes some striking remarks on this parallel: "Der Sokrates des Xenophon ist ein anderer
als der des Plato, jeder hat diejenige Seite aufgefasst, die ihm die nächst und liebste war; erst aus beider. Darstellungen erkennen
wir den rechten Sokrates. Xenophons anschauliche Einfachheit trägt das volle Gepräge der Wahrheit dessen, was er erzählt.
Dennoch dieser Sokrates, der sich im engen Kreise sittlicher und politischer Vorstellungen herumdreht, ist nicht der ganze
Sokrates, der weiseste in Griechenland, der die grosse Revolution in den Geistem seines Volks hervorgerufen hat. Dagegen der
platonische Sokrates sich weit mehr zum Schöpfer der neuen Periods griechischer Philosophie eignet und darnach aussieht, als
habe er die Weisheit vom Himmel zur Erde gebracht, der attische Logos."
(^1055) Milligan and Moulton, in their excellent Commentary on John, Introd., p. xxxiii.
A.D. 1-100.