Lord and Saviour of the race. The difference between these scholars and the church tradition is not
fundamental, and admits of adjustment.
(3.) The Synoptists represent (in the main) the Christ of history, the fourth Gospel the ideal
Christ of faith and fiction. So Baur and the Tübingen school (Schwegler, Zeller, Köstlin, Hilgenfeld,
Volkmar, Holtzmann, , Hausrath, Schenkel, Mangold, Keim, Thoma), with their followers and
sympathizers in France (Nicolas, d’Eichthal, Renan, Réville, Sabatier), Holland (Scholten and the
Leyden school), and England (the anonymous author of "Supernatural Religion," Sam. Davidson,
Edwin A. Abbott). But these critics eliminate the miraculous even from the Synoptic Christ, at least
as far as possible, and approach the fourth hypothesis.
(4.) The Synoptic and Johannean Gospels are alike fictitious, and resolve themselves into
myths and legends or pious frauds. This is the position of the extreme left wing of modern criticism
represented chiefly by Strauss. It is the legitimate result of the denial of the supernatural and
miraculous, which is as inseparable from the Synoptic as it is from the Johannean Christ; but it is
also subversive of all history and cannot be seriously maintained in the face of overwhelming facts
and results. Hence there has been a considerable reaction among the radical critics in favor of a
more historical position. Keim’s, "History of Jesus of Nazara" is a very great advance upon Strauss’s
"Leben Jesu," though equally critical and more learned, and meets the orthodox view half way on
the ground of the Synoptic tradition, as represented in the Gospel of Matthew, which he dates back
to a.d. 66.
II. The Apocalyptic aspect of the Johannean problem belongs properly to the consideration
of the Apocalypse, but it has of late been inseparably interwoven with the Gospel question. It admits
likewise of four distinct views:
(1.) The fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse are both from the pen of the apostle John, but
separated by the nature of the subject, the condition of the writer, and an interval of at least twenty
or thirty years, to account for the striking differences of temper and style. When he met Paul at
Jerusalem, a.d. 50, he was one of the three "pillar-apostles" of Jewish Christianity (Gal. 2:9), but
probably less than forty years of age, remarkably silent with his reserved force, and sufficiently in
sympathy with Paul to give him the right hand of fellowship; when he wrote the Apocalypse,
between a.d. 68 and 70, he was not yet sixty, and when he wrote the Gospel he was over eighty
years of age. Moreover, the differences between the two books are more than counterbalanced by
an underlying harmony. This has been acknowledged even by the head of the Tübingen critics,
who calls the fourth Gospel an Apocalypse spiritualized or a transfiguration of the Apocalypse.^1084
(2.) John wrote the Gospel, but not the Apocalypse. Many critics of the moderate school
are disposed to surrender the Apocalypse and to assign it to the somewhat doubtful and mysterious
"Presbyter John," a contemporary of the Apostle John. So Schleiermacher, Lücke, Bleek, Neander,
Ewald, Düsterdieck, etc. If we are to choose between the two books, the Gospel has no doubt
stronger claims upon our acceptance.
(3.) John wrote the Apocalypse, but for this very reason he cannot have written the fourth
Gospel. So Baur, Renan, Davidson, Abbott, and nearly all the radical critics (except Keim).
(4.) The fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse are both spurious and the work of the Gnostic
Cerinthus (as the Alogi held), or of some anonymous forger. This view is so preposterous and
unsound that no critic of any reputation for learning and judgment dares to defend it.(^1084) See p. 419 sq., and my Companion to the Greek Testament, pp. 76 sqq.
A.D. 1-100.