Chapter 26 of 28

Appendix C: Lightfoot and German Scholarship on John’s Gospel

Appendix C: Lightfoot and German Scholarship on John’s Gospel

Notes

Quotations Regarding J. B. Lightfoot and His Work

F. J. A. Hort, “Lightfoot, Joseph Barber,” Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900 (London: Smith, Elder & Co), 33:239.

G. R. Eden and F. C. Macdonald, eds., Lightfoot of Durham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), p. 110.

Cited by Eden and Macdonald, Lightfoot of Durham, p. 13.

Foreword

C. K. Barrett, “Joseph Barber Lightfoot,” Durham University Journal 64 (1972): 193-204.

Professor Dunn edited this special edition of the journal, which includes articles by David M. Thompson on Lightfoot as a churchman, Martin Hengel on Lightfoot’s interaction with the Tübingen school on the Gospel of John and the second century, C. K. Barrett on Lightfoot as a biblical commentator, and James D. G. Dunn on the contributions of Lightfoot to church and academy.

G. R. Treloar, Lightfoot the Historian: The Nature and Role of History in the Life and Thought of J. B. Lightfoot, Wissenschafthche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.103 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).

B. N. Kaye and G. R. Treloar, “J. B. Lightfoot and New Testament Interpretation: An Unpublished Manuscript of 1855,” Durham University Journal 82 (1990): 160-75 (on 171-75).

There are a few other exceptions to this remark: (1) Three articles on Acts, which appear in the appendices to volume one of this series (Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary), were previously published in periodicals and dictionaries but have long since been out of print and are in the public domain, and (2) Lightfoot’s essays on the authenticity of the Gospel of John, examining both the external and internal evidence, were published, but not his exegesis of John. These essays were first published posthumously by Macmillan in 1893. Baker republished them in 1979 with a fresh introduction by Philip Edgecumbe Hughes under the title Biblical Essays.

Todd Still joined this ambitious project at the invitation of BW3 in early June 2013.

Lightfoot’s comments on these Pauline letters were published posthumously as Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul (London: Macmillan, 1895).

Editor's Introduction: J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator

William Sanday, “Bishop Lightfoot,” The Expositor 4 (1886): 13-29 (on 13). Sanday was also a Durhamite, most well known for producing the International Critical Commentary on Romans with Arthur Headlam.

Lightfoot’s successor (with one in between) as bishop of Durham.

He made this remark to J. R. Harmer. See G. R. Eden and F. C. Macdonald, eds., Lightfoot of Durham: Memorials and Appreciations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932), pp. 118-19. Apparently, Lightfoot also knew Arabic. It is a great pity that no proper biography has ever been written on Lightfoot. What we have in Lightfoot of Durham is some fond remembrances of the man by a few of the people who knew him. Only a portion of the volume discusses his academic work, and even then only very cursorily. Do see, however, pp. 105-22 and the brief discussions by H. E. Savage and Bishop J. R. Harmer (Lightfoot’s chaplain, secretary and proofreader for some years, before becoming a bishop himself). Note also the essays by the dean of Wells and the bishop of Gloucester (pp. 123-41). Notice that there are no scholars writing essays in this volume. This speaks volumes about Lightfoot’s work for and impact on the church. There is a nice anecdote about how as a boy at school, when someone asked how he was coming along with his German, the reply given from the school was: “Oh he’s mastered German, he’s moved on to Anglo-Saxon!”

If one wonders why someone like Lightfoot agreed to take a post like the episcopal seat in Durham after a thriving academic life in Cambridge and after having turned down becoming bishop of Litchfield, the answer in part is family connections. He had a great love for the “north” of England, as his mother was from Newcastle and his family on his father’s side was from Yorkshire. He saw it, in one sense, as returning to his ancestral home.

A tripos is an exam taken for the BA degree with honors at Cambridge University.

C. K. Barrett, “J. B. Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator,” Durham University Journal (1992): 53-70 (on 54).

F. J. A. Hort, “Lightfoot, Joseph Barber,” Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900 (London: Smith, Elder & Co), 33:232-40, on p. 233.

At an earlier point in time, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort were meant to write commentaries for the Smith’s Commentary series. Although this plan did not pan out, it is of present import to note that Lightfoot was supposed to have commented on Acts for this series.

It was Alexander Macmillan who suggested to Westcott the possibility of a Cambridge commentary on the entire New Testament. Westcott in turn enlisted Lightfoot and Hort for the project, to be based on the Westcott and Hort Greek text.

Until beginning this work on Lightfoot, I had not realized that the original attempt to have a Cambridge Bible Commentary on the whole New Testament had begun with this agreement, although it never came to full fruition. In the 1960s and ’70s, C. F. D. Moule, the relative of the successor of Lightfoot in the Durham episcopacy (H. G. C. Moule), revived the attempt to have a Cambridge Bible Commentary on the Greek New Testament, but it too was destined not to be completed. Indeed, it produced only a couple of notable volumes, C. E. B. Cranfield’s volume on Mark and Moule’s on Colossians and Philemon. This brings us to the turn of the twenty-first century when I, another Durham man, was named editor of the New Cambridge Bible Commentary series, along with my Asbury colleague Bill Arnold, who is the Old Testament editor. This third attempt has now produced volumes on both Old and New Testament books, but there is still much to be done, and more volumes are forthcoming. (BW3)

For example, he became absorbed in training ordinands for the Anglican ministry, in setting up the diocese of Newcastle and in paying for churches to be built.

Hort, “Lightfoot,” pp. 237-38.

John A. T. Robinson, “Joseph Barber Lightfoot” (Durham Cathedral Lecture, 1981), p. 13.

Stephen C. Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1961 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 57.

Hort, “Lightfoot,” p. 234.

Hort (“Lightfoot,” p. 237) says that Lightfoot’s library was divided between the divinity school at Cambridge and the University of Durham. What he does not tell us is what happened to his papers, letters and unpublished manuscripts. We now know that they stayed in Durham in a cupboard in the Monk’s Dormitory in the Cathedral close.

Barrett (“Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator,” p. 55) observes, “Three commentaries [i.e., Galatians, Philippians and Colossians] were published in Lightfoot’s lifetime. He left lecture notes, and other notes, on other epistles which doubtless he would have used in published work had he lived, and had his interest not become absorbed in what must be regarded as his greatest work, that on the text of 1 Clement and the Epistles of Ignatius (with 2 Clement and Polycarp thrown in for full measure)—not to mention his conscientious, time-consuming work as bishop of Durham.”

Robinson, “Lightfoot,” p. 13.

Ibid., p. 16.

Hort, “Lightfoot,” p. 239.

The only New Testament scholar I have ever met, studied with or talked to that was even close to Lightfoot in these skills was Bruce Metzger, with whom I studied the apostolic fathers in a summer course at Princeton. He too had a vast panoply of languages at his command as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek and early Christian literature. It appears he had a photographic memory, and one wonders whether Lightfoot did as well. Savage (Lightfoot of Durham, p. 110) seems to confirm this conjecture when he speaks of Lightfoot’s “remarkable accuracy of memory which enabled him to apply it readily. Page after page was written currente calamo with few or no books of reference at hand, and with only a ‘ver.’ here and there in the margin, where future verification was required.” (BW3)

Barrett, “Lightfoot as Biblical Commentator,” p. 57.

James D. G. Dunn, “Lightfoot in Retrospect,” Durham University Journal (1992): 71-94 (here 75-76), italics added for emphasis.

It is possible that he might be a bit miffed to see all this material published since it is incomplete. Lightfoot was nothing if not a perfectionist when it came to fully completing tasks to the best of his ability. The numerous little parenthetical notes to himself to verify a reference or the check marks in the manuscript indicating a reference verified testify to this scholarly habit. Nevertheless, this material, even though incomplete, is extremely valuable, as even a casual reading of what follows should demonstrate.

C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, rev. ed. (New York: Scribner’s, 1961), p. 5.

On which see the introductory material below. Some of that material first appeared in 1890 in a periodical called The Expositor just after Lightfoot’s death. It was then collected together with Lightfoot’s additional lecture notes on the subject and published by Macmillan of London in 1904 under the title Biblical Essays. Finally, it was reprinted in a volume of the same name by Baker Books in 1979. As the information at the website Project Canterbury makes clear, the material is out of print and in the public domain. We are pleased to reprint the materials here in their original form.

One of his favorite expressions or mottos was “the highest reason and the fullest faith.”

For a reprint edition of his work on the apostolic fathers, see J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, 5 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989).

The following is a note from Dr. Catherine Turner, the former librarian of Durham Cathedral Library. Her last act before retirement was to digitize all of the unpublished notes of Lightfoot found in these three volumes, last of all the Lightfoot notes on John. We owe her a great debt of gratitude. Here is her parting note, written on August 13, 2013:

The digital copies of these notes by J. B. Lightfoot were taken in the sequence in which they were stored in the bundles of his notes in the cathedral library.

These bundles were held together with brass fastenings, and had apparently not been separated for many years—by implication since Lightfoot himself had compiled them.

The pages are all numbered, in Lightfoot’s hand, but there are frequent jumps and omissions in the pagination. I have assumed that Lightfoot assembled these bundles from earlier sequences of notes to draw together his thoughts and analysis of the Gospel of St. John and did not repaginate the pages when he did so.

I have labelled the images so that they fall into the sequence they had in their fastened bundles in the Lightfoot archive, and I have added in brackets the page number if it does not match this pagination.

Introduction: External and Internal Evidences of the Authenticity and Genuineness of the Fourth Gospel

Reprinted from the Expositor of January–March, 1890.

In fact, Lightfoot’s long-lost lecture notes on John, which form the commentary proper below, give us some precise information on this point—the lectures are labeled Michaelmas Term 1848, and then this is crossed out and labeled 1868 in pencil, suggesting all the pencil additions and corrections come from the later delivery of the lectures on John. What this in turn means is that this introductory material was written and published after Lightfoot had been lecturing on the Fourth Gospel in Cambridge for some time. It appears to have been written first in 1871, with the additional preface from 1889, the year Lightfoot died.

Recent treatments of the Fourth Gospel have begun to consider again this possibility in one form or another after such an idea had been regularly dismissed for some decades. See, e.g., the commentaries by Keener, Lincoln, Witherington and the detailed work of Richard Bauckham in his monograph titled Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).

See Jn 1:1; Rev 19:13 respectively.

Lightfoot, of course, lived before the discovery of various Greek fragments of the Gospel of John, probably dating to the second century, particularly P52. This would have further supported his case about the dating of the Fourth Gospel. On the other hand, another piece of evidence brought to light by M. Oberweis (“Das Martyrium der Zebedaiden in Mk. 10.35-40 (Mt. 20.20-3) und Offb 11.3-13,” New Testament Studies 44 [1998]: 74-92) provides us with a reference to the possible early demise of John son of Zebedee, suffering a fate like his brother, who died in A.D. 44.

See the excursus below (pp. 109-11) at the end of John 1 on these matters.

He was, however, able to write a lengthy essay on the external evidence in more detail, which can be found in appendix A below.

“Bethsaida” or “Bethzatha” should probably be read in St. John 5:2 rather than “Bethesda.”

On which see pp. 76-78 in the commentary below.

See now the excursus by Lightfoot on this on pp. 120-21 below.

This transitional sentence is my own, based on numerous comments by Lightfoot elsewhere (see below, e.g., in appendix A), in order for what follows to comport with and fit with what has come before. (BW3)

Excursus: The Logos Doctrine

See Sporer, Jahrbuch der Hesch, pp. 292, 308.

See Etheridge, p. 230.

Sporer, pp. 312, 313.

See Sporer, Philo, p. 10.

The date is uncertain, see Ewald, iv. p. 297.

See the article by Westcott in Smith’s Dictionary, p. 781.

See the quotations from him in Ritter and Priester.

See in Westcott, p. 141.

The Prologue and the Preparation; the Word and the Witness (John 1)

See Westcott, Canon, p. 218.

See Ewald, Johann. Schrift. I, p. 13; Gesch. v, p. 9; vii, p. 152.

See however Ewald, Geni (?) v, p. 192; vii, p. 400.

See 1 Cor 15:22.

Not a few Italian painters pair John the Baptist with John the Evangelist. They include Agnolo Gaddi (1350–1396), Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), Domenico Ghirlandio (1449–1494), Defendente Ferrari (d. ca. 1540), Dosso Dossi (1490–1542) and Guido Reni (1575–1642). The pair also appears in works by Hans Memling (1430–1494), Juan de Joanes (1475–1545) and El Greco (1541–1614).

See Scrivener’s Introd. p. 125; Origen, Op. III p. 671sq. See also the Gospel of the Hebrews, and Nickles (?) Evang. Apoc. p. 43, 417.

I.e., 1 Cor 3:22; 9:5; Gal 2:9.

On Nathanael cf. Gretch. (?) Ursprach. Theolog. 1868, p. 248.

The Beginning of the Signs of the Messianic Times (John 2)

An allusion to Is 55:8.

See Lk 11:15.

While Lightfoot is certainly right about the word “Caphar” = village, it seems clear at this juncture that “naum” = Nahum, the village of Nahum the prophet.

Nicodemus and the New Birth (John 3)

See Jn 8:39; cf. Mt 3:9; Lk 3:8.

Bread on Earth, Bread from Heaven (John 6)

From time to time in the manuscript, Lightfoot makes a parenthetical note to himself to double- check an assertion he makes.

Here, as elsewhere, Lightfoot does not mean “strange”; rather, he employs peculiar to mean “distinctive, unique.”

Jesus the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7)

See his discussion of the internal evidence in the introduction above (pp. 41-76).

What follows is illegible, but the drift of it seems to be as I have reconstructed in square brackets. (BW3)

The Good Shepherd and His Lost Sheep (John 10)

By “tempers” here Lightfoot means temperaments, not emotional volatility or the lack thereof.

The Raising of Lazarus and the Plotting of the Foes (John 11)

It is notable that Lightfoot passes over v. 3 in silence even though it is the only place in the Fourth Gospel where a personal name is given to “the one whom Jesus loved.”

See J. B. Lightfoot, The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary, ed. Ben Witherington III and Todd D. Still, assisted by Jeanette M. Hagen, The Lightfoot Legacy Set 1 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), p. 78.

Appendix A: External Evidence for the Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel

Papias in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 39; Irenaeus ii. 22. 5, Fragm. 2 (p. 822 Stieren) etc; Polycrates in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 24; Apollonius in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 18; Clement of Alex. Quis div. salv. 42 (p. 958); cf. Can. Mur. (p. 17 ed. Tregelles), Tertullian, adv. Marc. iv. 5, Praescr. Haer. 32; Ancient Syriac Documents, pp. 32, 34 (ed. Cureton). The variety of the sources of these quotations—Gaul, Asia Minor, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, Syria—is worth noticing.

One of his teachers was an Ionian Greek (Strom. i.1 sec. 11, p. 322). See below.

On the relation of the Apostles to the Ephesian Church see Theodore of Mopsuestia, praef. in Epist. ad Ephesos.

If the Apocalypse be conceded, the testimony is decisive. And as opponents with very few exceptions (Scholten is one) allow the genuineness, and indeed use it against the Gospel, it may be urged.

See the account in Anc. Syr. Documents, p. 25.

Canon. Mur. (revelatum Andreae ex apostolic), p. 17 ed. Tregelles, Anc. Syr. Documents, pp. 32, 34.

Papias in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 39; Polycrates in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 31; Caius in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 31; cf. Clement Alex. in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 30.

See my Colossians, p. 45sq.

Irenaeus ii.22.5; Clement Alex. Quis div. salv. 42 (p. 958); Canon Mur. l.c. (condiscipulis et episcopis suis); Epiphanius li.6 (pp. 427-28).

Irenaeus ii. 22.5. The date of Trajan’s accession is A.D. 98. According to the Chronicon Paschale St. John survived until A.D. 104; see Clinton, Fast. Rom. I, p. 87.

On the question of the date of Polycarp’s martyrdom, see my Apostolic Fathers (Part ii.), vol. i, pp. 646sq. [2nd ed.].

Mart. Polyc. 9. See the note on this passage in Apostolic Fathers (Part ii.), vol. iii, p. 379 (cf. Irenaeus iii.3.4).

See the references in Tillemont, Memoires, p. 343.

There was doubtless a tendency to exaggeration in this matter e.g. in the Christian Essene sources, where the age of Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem, is given as 120 years. But the instances in the text are thoroughly substantiated, and can easily be paralleled. Thus three Lord Chancellors since the Reform Bill (Brougham, Lyndhurst and St. Leonards) have lived to be 90. The longevity of the most distinguished German professors has been remarkable. Boeckh died at eighty-one, Humboldt at eighty-nine, Ranke (and Dollinger) at ninety. For the great age of the Jewish rabbi Hillel see Etheridge, Jerus. and Tiber, p. 33. The simple life of the early Christians had probably a great deal to do with this; see Southey, e.g. in Life of Wesley ii. pp. 273sq., 284 (1858), and compare Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 8. 10, who states that the Essenes often lived to a great age.

On the chronology of the Valentinians, whom Irenaeus here opposes, see Epiphanius, Haer. li. 20 (p. 450).

St. John is our authority for the chronology of our Lord’s ministry. In the Synoptic Gospels it is highly probable that the sequence of events is not strictly chronological, but that in places incidents are grouped according to subject and treatment. But still, though the Synoptic Gospels are consistent with a more lengthened ministry, they do not suggest it, and thus the argument given above, that a knowledge by the Elders of the Fourth may be assumed, is justified.

The argument from John 8:57 is clearly Irenaeus’ own, and is not justified by the passage itself. And this suggests the probability that much besides is his. We cannot safely assume that the a priori argument is taken from the Elders, or that the term of years was extended by them beyond forty. Irenaeus classes together evangelium et omnes seniores. It is a legitimate assumption that the testimony of the Elders went as far as the evangelium and no further.

It may be interesting to consider what was the term of our Lord’s life. The chief data are as follows: (a) Matt 2:16, 22—the death of Herod, which occurred March 4 B.C., see Clinton, Fast. Hell, sub anno. Thus the Nativity might have taken place in the year 5 B.C. or 6 B.C. (b) Luke 3:1, 23—our Lord’s Baptism, and the commencement of His ministry, stated to have been ‘in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar’ when our Lord was ‘about thirty years old (ὡσεὶ ἐτῶν τριάκοντα).’ As Sept. A.D. 28 was the beginning of the fifteenth year of Tiberius, our Lord would be 32 or 33 years old, which does not conflict with St Luke’s statement, (c) Matt 27:2—the Passion under Pontius Pilate. We learn from Josephus, Ant. xviii. 4. 3 that Pilate was sent to Rome by Vitellius to answer charges made against him, and that before he arrived Tiberius had died, and Gaius (Caligula) had succeeded. Now Tiberius died March A.D. 37. Therefore the Passover of the Passion might have been as late as Easter A.D. 36, but could not be later. Thus it is possible that our Lord did live to be over forty years of age; for we have no right to assume that St. John gives all the Passovers that occurred during the ministry. On the whole, however, a ministry of not more than three or four years seems the more probable view.

See below. For the references to Melito and Claudius Apollinaris see Routh, Reliq. Sacr. i. pp. 124, 160.

The references in Irenaeus to the five Elders are as follows : (1) Iren. i. praef. i.13.3; i.15.6; ill. 17. 4 (written . . . dixit); (2) iv.27.1sq.; iv.30.1sq., iv.31.1; iv.32.1; v.17.4 (oral: audivi, dicebat, reficiebat nos et dicebat, disputabat . . . ); (3) iii.23.3 (written ait); (4) iv.41.2 (doubtful: dixit . . . ); (5) v.5.1; v.36.1-2 (written . . . ).

See John 8:44, 1 John 3:8, 10; cf. Acts 8:10. The expression is peculiar to St. John among the Evangelists.

We might be tempted to translate the passage ‘from the eyewitnesses of the Word of Life’ (cf. 1 John 1:1), but the Greek order makes this impossible. Moreover the phrase αὐτόπται τοῦ λόγου, occurs in Luke 1:2. On the other hand the rendering ‘from the eyewitnesses the life (the earthly career) of the Word’ would require τοῦ βίου for τῆς ζωῆς. Possibly there is an accidental transposition in the text of Irenaeus; cf. Ign. Polyc. 5. But it matters little for our immediate purpose. The personal use of ὁ λόγος is Johannine in either case. The Syriac translator has ‘those who saw with their eyes the living Word.’

On the genuineness of Polycarp’s Epistle see my Apostolic Fathers (Part II.), I. p. 578sq. (ed. 2).

Irenaeus speaks of Papias as a hearer of John (v.33.4). On the other hand Eusebius, who mentions this statement of Ireneaus remarks, ‘Yet Papias himself, in the preface to his discourses certainly does not declare that he himself was a hearer and an eyewitness of the holy Apostles, but he shows, by the language which he uses, that he received the matters of the faith from those who were his friends’ (Hist. Eccles. iii.39). It is, however, not stated by Irenaeus that he derived his knowledge from this preface, and from his frequent intercourse with Polycarp, Irenaeus doubtless had sources of information that were closed to Eusebius. Still Eusebius may have been right (see Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 142sq.).

But even this rule he fails to observe strictly e.g. we know that Papias commented on the Apocalypse, yet in his account of Papias Eusebius, does not mention the Apocalypse at all.

But why should he mention St. Matthew and St. Mark, without St. John? The answer is probably as follows. Papias related curious facts of the two former. These are retailed. If Papias simply quoted the Gospel of St. John (whether he mentioned St. John’s name or not) or if he only related what was known to everyone, there is no reason why Eusebius should state it. Early references to a Gospel that was universally acknowledged had no interest for anyone, unless they contained some curious or important fact. If we are at a loss to say why Eusebius singled out 1 Peter and 1 John in the case of Papias, we are equally at a loss to say why he should single out 1 Peter in the case of Polycarp, except on the theory given above.

It is curious that Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. v. 8), describing the work of the Elder, whom Irenaeus quotes, calls it ἐξηγήσεἰς θεῖον γραφῶν unconsciously an expression almost identical with the title of Papias’ work.

The extract is preserved in Maximus Confessor’s scholia to the work of Dionysius Areopagiticus, de eccles. hierarch. c.2 and is given in Routh, Reliq. Sac. I, p. 8, Fragm. 2.

Papias in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii.29. Andrew, Peter and Philip are mentioned together in St. John’s Gospel as belonging to the same place (John 1:44). Of Philip nothing is recorded except in the Fourth Gospel. The last remark applies also to Thomas.

Eusebius l.c. Comp. John 5:33; 8:32; 14:6.

The story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) may also be an extract from Papias’ work. It is certain that it is an interpolation where it stands. It is wanting in all Greek mss. before the sixth century; it was originally absent from all the oldest versions—Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, Gothic. It is not referred to, as part of St. John’s Gospel, before the latter half of the fourth century. It is expressed in language quite foreign to St. John’s style, and it interrupts the tenor of his narrative. Eusebius tells us that Papias ‘relates also another story concerning a woman accused of many sins before the Lord’ and adds that it is ‘contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews.’ It may very well be an illustration given by Papias of our Lord’s saying in John 8:15, ‘I judge no man.’ See Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 203.

The argument is contained in a Vatican ms. of the ninth century first published by Cardinal Thomasius (Op. I. p. 344).

The MS. has in exotericis, id est, in extremis quinque libris. Overbeck in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. f. Wissensch. Theol. X. p. 68sq. (1867), contends that someone had forged five additional works in the name of Papias, and had entitled them Exoterica, attaching them to the genuine books. Hilgenfeld adopts this view. But it is simpler to suppose that exegeticis should be read for exotericis, and extemis (a gloss on exotericis) for extremis. The passage then presents no difficulties. (See Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 210sq.)

The expression itself is probably from Deut 31:7, 23; Josh 1:6, 7, 9.

The parallel is not affected by the question whether the words περιστερά καί are genuine or not.

Perhaps too the closing words of §16 are a reminiscence of John 19:30—‘It is finished.’

See Polycrates in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 24.

His treatise On the Paschal Festival, he himself tells us, was written while Sergius Paulus was proconsul of Asia (A.D. 164–166; see Waddington’s Fastes des Provinces Asiatiques, p. 731 in Le Bas and Waddington’s Voyage Archiologique etc.). Again we are informed that he addressed his Apology to M. Antoninus (A.D. 161–180). From an extant fragment we learn that L. Verus, the colleague of M. Antoninus was no longer living: this places the date after the spring of A.D. 169.

Quoted by Anastatius of Sinai (Migne, Pat. Graec. xxxix. p. 228sq.).

The references are to Pitra’s Spicileg. Solesm. I.

The fragment is extant in a Syriac version; it is given in Pitra’s Spicileg. II. p. lixsq., in Cureton’s Spicileg. Syr. p. 53sq., and in Otto Corp. Apol. Christ, p. 420.

There is an Armenian extract (Spicileg. Solesm. i. p. 4) which give this passage with some alterations and a different commencement, assigning it to Irenaeus. There is also a Syriac abridgment of the Armenian. It is probable that Irenaeus introduced this passage from Melito either anonymously or otherwise, into one of his writings. Another Armenian fragment (Spicileg. Solesm. i. p. 1), gives as Irenaeus what is really an extract. (See Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 232sq., 236sq.)

Cf. John 1:36; 10:1sq. The so-called Clavis of Melito may contain a residuum of genuine matter, but as the amount of this is not ascertainable with any degree of certainty, its evidence must be left out of the question.

See Clinton, Fast. Rom I, p. 167.

Eusebius, Chron. and Jerome place the accession of Serapion to the episcopate in the eleventh year of Commodus, i.e. A.D. 190–91 (Clinton, I, p. 187) and he died apparently about A.D. 203 (Clement of Alex. in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. vi.11), though Eusebius himself says A.D. 212. See Clinton I, p. 211.

Polycrates in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 24 offers the very expression which occurs in John 13:25. Comp. Irenaeus iii.1 where this resemblance is important, when coupled with the fact that Irenaeus and Polycrates were allied on the question of the Paschal controversy.

Eleutherus is mentioned as still living (Iren. iii.3.3). On the other hand, a reference occurs to Theodotion’s version of the LXX (iii.21.1), and Theodotion’s version is stated not to have been published until the reign of Commodus (A.D. 182–190). But Epiphanius, our authority for Theodotion’s date, is guilty of such starthng confusions in the passage (De mens. et pond. 16, 17) that his trustworthiness is much discredited. (See Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 260.)

Magn. 12, Eph. 5. In Eph. 5 the quote may have been taken direct from Prov 3:34, but the substitution of θεός, for κύριος inclines me to suppose that Ignatius got it through 1 Pet 5:5 or James 4:6. The same substitution is found in Clement, Rom. 30. The following are the most striking coincidences in the Ignatian Epistles (1) with the Gospel [of Matthew]: Ephes. 14 (cf. Matt 12:33); Smyrn. 1 (of our Lord’s baptism; cf. Matt 3:15) Smyrn. 6 (cf. Matt 19:12); Polyc. 2 (cf. Matt 10:16); (2) with the Pauline Epistles: Eph. 10 (cf. Col 1:23), Eph. 16 (cf. 1 Cor 6:9); and Eph. 18 (cf. 1 Cor 1:20); Rom. 5 (cf. 1 Cor 4:4); Polyc. 5 (cf. Eph 5:29).

The silence of Ignatius respecting St. John has been urged on the other side, especially in Rom. 4 where, it is contended, the introduction of the names of St. Peter and St. Paul makes the omission of St. John’s name more remarkable. But there is a good reason for this omission. Ignatius is addressing the Roman Church, and therefore appeals to the two Apostles to whose precepts that Church had listened. Again in Eph. 12, where St Paul is again mentioned, reference has been already made in the previous section to other Apostles with whom the Ephesian Church was in harmony. Moreover, Ignatius singles out St. Paul on account of the parallel to himself. The Ephesian converts had sheltered St. Paul as he passed through; and now passing through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom. Besides these two passages, no Apostle is mentioned by name in the Ignatian Epistles, except St. Peter in Smyrn. 3, where there is a reference to an incident in our Lord’s life.

The four books of commentarii, extant in Latin and ascribed to Theophilus, cannot represent the genuine work alluded to by Jerome. The theology is evidently post-Nicene; passages are found nearly word for word in St. Ambrose (i. §120, p. 295, ed. Otto; cf. Ambrose Comm. in Luc. iii. §2) in Cyprian (i. §153, p. 301; cf. Cyprian, Epist. Iviii. §5), and in Jerome (i. §4, p. 280; cf. Jerome, Comm. in Matt. i. Op. vii. p. 12); and the work is evidently not a translation from the Greek, but originally written in Latin, see e.g. i. p. 283: ‘apex autem; quatuor literas habens per evangelium in quadruplex testamentum indicat novum.’

The Apology opens as follows: ‘To the Emperor Titus Ælius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Cæsar, and to his son Verissimus the Philosopher, and to Lucius the Philosopher, the natural son of Cæsar, and the adopted son of Pius, a lover of learning, and to the sacred Senate, with the whole People of the Romans.’ Over and above the question of date involved, it is unnatural to describe Antoninus’ title in a descending scale from Imperator to Caesar.

See Dialog. §120.

Dialog. §1.

Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv. 15; Chron. Pasch. 481sq. (ed. Bonn).

Epiphanius (391 a; ii. p. 411 ed. Dindorf) makes Justin thirty years at the time of his martyrdom, which he places at the time of Rusticus. The name Rusticus is too common at this period to give us much assistance, and the text of Epiphanius is so corrupt that we may without hesitation read ‘Antiniou’ for ‘Adrianou’ in this passage, especially as a few lines lower down Epiphanius speaks of Tatian as setting up his heretical school about the twelfth year of Antoninus. He had already described Tatian as a contemporary of Justin who lapsed into heresy after Justin’s death.

Compare the treatment of this incident in Dial. §94.

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. i.1.11 (p. 322) mentions an ‘Assyrian’ as one of his earlier teachers, and the identification of this Assyrian with Tatian is highly probable; see below.

On the whole subject of Tatian see Essays on Supernatural Religion p. 272sq.

[The discovery and publication in 1888 by Ciasca of Tatian’s Diatessaron in an Arabic version has set at rest forever the question whether Tatian knew the Fourth Gospel. The Diatessaron is, as its name implies, a harmony of the four Gospels; and as Dr. Lightfoot had surmised, it consists of our four canonical Gospels, and commences with the opening words of St. John’s Gospel.] This note, and the previous citations of Essays on Supernatural Religion in earlier notes we owe to Professor Hort, who in July of 1893 went over Lightfoot’s notes for this and several other lectures and prepared them for publication by Macmillan. The last edition of the volume of Biblical Essays, which includes this essay, appeared in 1904. There is something of an irony in Hort’s adding references to Essays on Supernatural Religion to this lengthy essay; Lightfoot spent no little time deconstructing in print the many errors and critical misjudgments in that volume. It is unlikely that Lightfoot would have approved of these additions.

Jerome, Vir. Ill. 36; Ep. 70 (p. 428) states that he was sent to India by Demetrius (bishop of Alexandria 189–231). But Eusebius (l.c.) represents him as head of the catechetical school ten years before the accession of Demetrius. We must conclude that Jerome places the visit to India too late.

The Stromateis was written A.D. 194 or 195 under Severus. Clement’s other extant works are earlier. He enumerates his teachers as follows, by giving the country in which he was their pupil: (1) in Greece, ‘the Ionian’; (2) in Magna Graecia, (a) one from Coelo-Syria, (b) another from Egypt; (3) in the East, (a) one from Assyria, (b) another, in Palestine, a Hebrew; (4) in Alexandria, the last and greatest, i.e. Pantaenus. I am inclined to identify ‘the Ionian’ with Melito.

E.g. the story of St John and the young robber (Quis div. salv. 42, p. 958) quoted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii. 23.

Strom. iii. 13, p. 553.

Cited in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. vi. 14.

In his book of the Paschal Festival, Clement makes the 14th the day of the crucifixion (Fragm. p. 1017; ed. Potter), thus following out the tradition of the Asiatic school. Of this work only two short fragments survive, but Eusebius informs us (Hist. Eccles. vi.13) that in it he mentioned ‘the traditions which he had heard from the elders.’ This is another indirect link with the School of St. John.

See Lücke, p. 78. His Commentary on St. John was written about the year 222. In it he controverts Heracleon.

Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, p. 88 (ed. 4), places it c. A.D. 117, Bunsen Hippolytus i. p. 170, A.D. 135. I am inclined to date it somewhat later. The Diognetus addressed is not improbably the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, and the reference to ‘a King sending his son as a King’ (§7), as illustrating the Incarnation, may very well have been suggested by the adoption of M. Aurelius by Antoninus Pius in A.D. 147. On the other hand the simplicity of the theological teaching will not allow us to bring the date down much later.

See Dodwell, Dissert. In Irenaeus.

The βάθεια εἰρήνη (§2) is only applicable to the years 176–178 in the reign of M. Aurelius. This peace intervened between the insurrection of Avidius Crassus and the outbreak of the Marcomannic War. On the other hand to place the Apology after the outbreak of the persecution of the Christians of Vienna and Lyons (A.D. 177) raises a difficulty. Athenagoras declares (§35) that no slaves had ever accused their Christian masters of the infamous crimes attributed to them. This statement ceased to be true after the commencement of the persecution in question.

‘Sedente cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio episcopo fratre eius’ Can. Murator. p. 58sq. (ed. Tregelles).

Vis. i.1, unless indeed he is assuming a fictitious character. His mention of Arcadia (Sim. ix.) makes it probable that he came originally from Southern Greece.

The word is θύρα in St. John, πύλη in Hermas; but the passage in St. John is loosely quoted at least three times by the early heretics given in Hippolytus with πύλη instead of θύρα, and so also in the Clementine Homilies, see below.

There is however an obscure allusion to some (quidam ex nostris) who refuse to allow the public reading of the Apocalypse of Peter, as though implying that the majority accepted this work as canonical.

‘Romanis autem ordine (?ordinem) scripturarum sed et principium earum esse Christum intimans prolixius scripsit, de quibus singulis necesse est a nobis disputari.’

For speculations as to Arsinous and Miltiades see Bunsen, Anal. Anten. I. p. 134 sq., and Credner, Canon, p. 82.

‘Quibus tamen interfuit et ita posuit.’

Irenaeus always calls John ‘the disciple of the Lord.’

See Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, p. 211 (ed. 4).

The plural is here probably used to describe one epistle. This is not uncommon, cf. the Epistle of Polycarp (§3); Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. vi. 1; vi. 43; Joseph. Ant. xii. 4.10; and in classical writers Thucydides i. 132; iv. 50; viii. 51; Polybius v. 43. 5 etc. It is common in the LXX. Cf. Esth 3:14; 1 Macc 5:14, etc. See my Philippians, p. 140sq.

There is evidently a lacuna in the MS. hereabouts, for the First Epistle of St. Peter is not mentioned.

‘Superscripti Iohannis duas (l. duae) in catholica (l. catholicis) habentur.’ The two Epistles meant are probably the Second and Third Epistles, the first being considered as a kind of prologue to the Gospel, detached from the shorter pair, and treated with the Gospel.

In Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iii.39.

Tayler, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 57, 77, 87.

Romans, 2 Corinthians, Galatians once only, 1 Timothy twice.

The quotations are as follows: John 1:1 (by name), 1-3 (by name), 10, 14, 18, 20, 29 (twice, once by name), 30; 2:19; 3:6, 13 (twice by name), 31; 4:34; 5:25 (twice) 36; 6:27, 35, 45; 8:12; 10:18, 30; 11:35, 52; 14:6, 8sq., 12; 16:28; 19:14, 37; 20:1, 17.

The passage quoted is probably verse 3. Notice however the variation ‘quod audivimus et contrectavimus’ for ‘quod vidimus et audivimus.’

St. Matthew and St. Luke have Αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν. St. John alone αἰτεῖτε, καὶ λήμψεσθε.

The allusion to ‘cheese’ in §4 can, I think, hardly be taken to show that the writer or the martyrs were Artotyrites.

Natale tunc Getae Caesaris §7.

The limits of date for the composition are the death of Callistus A.D. 220, of whom an account is given (Haer. ix. 11sq.), and Hippolytus’ own death, which took place somewhere between A.D. 235 and 238 (Liber Pontificalis i. pp. 64, 145, Duchesne).

Our chief authorities for the life of Basilides are Clement, l.c. (he is contending that the Catholic Church is older than the sects); Irenaeus i.24.3sq.; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv. 7; Epiph. Haer. xxiv. 1. (p. 68 e); Theodoret, H.F. i.2.9.

See Agrippa Castor in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv.7.

See Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, p. 290, ed. 4.

Irenaeus iii.4.3.

Clement Alex. Strom. vii.17, p. 898.

de praescr. 381: ‘si Valentinus integro instrumento uti videtur, non callidiore ingenio quam Marcion manus intulit veritati.’ Cf. de carn Chr. 19; Iren. iii.14.4.

Πλήρωμα, ζωὴ, φῶς, σκοτίᾳ, λόγος, ἀληθεία μονογενής are Valentinian terms, and so is παράκλητος.

For his date see Hilgenfeld Zeitschr. x. p. 75, and Westcott, Canon, p. 299 sq. ed. 4.

He is also quoted by Clem. Alex. Strom. iv. 73, p. 595.

On the Clementine Literature see my Galatians, pp. 327sq; 340sq. and Dissertations, pp. 83sq; 98sq.

Clement. Hom. xix §22; cf. John 9:2, 3.

For the various dates assigned to this work see my Galatians, p. 320 (Dissertations, p. 76). It is directly named by Origen (Hom. in Jos. xv.6) and probably was known to Tertullian (c. Marc. v.1; Scorpiace 13) and (as I believe) even earlier to Irenaeus (Fragm. 17, p. 836sq., Stieren). Had it been written after the suppression of the Barcochba’s rebellion, it is next to impossible that no mention should have been made of an event so important to the Judaizing Christians as the second destruction of Jerusalem by Hadrian.

See a similar argument used against these same persons by Epiphanius (li.32, p. 106, ed. Oehler).

The alternative correction of Lücke (p. 65) nolunt for volunt seems to interfere with the sense.

Considerable light is thrown on Irenaeus’ attitude upon this matter the letter of the Galilean Churches to the Asiatic Churches quoted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v.3 on this very subject Montanism. The letter is an attempt at mediation; it was written avowedly εἰρήνης ἔνεκεν, and it was penned by the martyrs ‘while yet in bonds’ to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia. At the same time the martyrs sent Irenaeus then a presbyter, as their delegate with letters of recommendation to Eleutherus, bishop of Rome (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v.4) for the sake of conferring with him on this same question. Irenaeus therefore is not a strong Montanist. He mentions the pseudo-prophetae in another passage (Haer. iv.33.6) with, again, a probable reference to Montanism.

The common source underlying the works of Epiphanius, Philastrius and the pseudo-Tertullian on heresies is an interesting problem, which cannot be entered upon here.

See Bright, Church History, (1860), p. 52 who gives instances from Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v.23, vi.41, vii.10, 31.

See Bright l.c. and Cotelier, Patr. Apost. I. p. 543.

Two additional sources of testimony have been omitted in the above account, viz. that (1) of heathen writers, (2) of Apocryphal documents. In the former class, Celsus (c. A.D. 150) treats the Gospel of St. John as a record considered authoritative by the the Christians (Origen, c. Celsum i.67, ii.18, x.24). He speaks of Christians calling our Lord αὐτολόγον (c. Celsum ii.31), he refers to our Lord sitting thirsty by Jacob’s well (c. Celsum i.70; cf. John 4:6), and to the piercing of His side and the result (c. Celsum ii.36; cf. John 19:34). Therefore we conclude that by the middle of the second century this Gospel was so well known amongst Christians that Celsus could appeal to it as an accredited witness. Again Lucian (c. A.D. 165–170), in his account of Peregrinus Proteus (§11), gives indications of acquaintanceship with the Fourth Evangelist (see Zahn, Ignatius, p. 593), and so does Amelius in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. xi.19. The last-named was a disciple of Plotinus, and flourished c. A.D. 250. Prominent in the latter class are the Acta Pilati (given in Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha), which form the first sixteen chapters of the Evangelium Nicodemi, and appear not only in Greek but in Coptic and in Latin. This is a very early work, and in its Latin form exists in a Vienna palimpsest of the 5th or 6th century. There is little doubt that it is the composition referred to by Justin Martyr (Apol. i.35, 48) and Tertullian (Apologeticus 21), for it answers in all particulars to the books described by these writers. Apocryphal Gospels are notoriously liable to interpolations; we cannot therefore lay much stress upon the evidence in this case, but as the document stands, with whatever uncertainty hanging over it, the incidents are again and again taken from St. John’s Gospel. Lastly the Sibyllist lends her voice to the general attestation. The eighth book of the Oracula Sibyllina is the work of a Christian who wrote during the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138–161). Speaking of the resurrection, the poet declares that those shall rise with the risen Lord ‘who have washed away their former sins in the waters of the eternal fount having been born again from above. For the Lord will exhibit Himself first to His own, in bodily shape as He was before, and will show them His hands and His feet and the marks printed upon His limbs, four in number, east and west, south and north’ (Orac. Sib. viii.316 sq.; cf. John 3:3; 20:20).

Appendix B: More Internal Evidence for the Authenticity and Genuineness of St. John’s Gospel

See Roberts, Dissertations on Gospels, whose view however is perhaps somewhat exaggerated.

The incident given in John 12:20-22, relating to his friends and the fellow townsmen Andrew and Philip is strictly in accordance with probabilities. It is a significant fact that they both bear Greek names.

These calculations are based upon Luthardt, Das Johanneische Evangelium, I, p. 27 (1852).

See Luthardt, I, p.31sq.

Quoted by Luthardt, I, p. 28.

This strange lack of particles, which seem to us indispensable to express our simplest thoughts, is illustrated likewise by Coptic.

Winer, Grammar of New Testament Greek, p. 33 (Moulton’s translation).

See the references in Wilkii, Clavis New Testament (ed. Grimm, 1868, s. v. καί p. 215).

Quoted in Lücke, Commentar uber das Evangelium des Johannes (1840), i. p. 172.

Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, p. 28. Mr. Sanday says ‘The Greek is purer than that of the Synoptists. If purer in one sense, yet it is more Hebraic.’

My investigation was made before I saw Bleek’s Beitrage, and it agrees almost entirely with his results (p. 244sq). I have derived much help from Turpie, The Old Testament in the New (1868).

See Keim iii. p. 560; Buxtorf p. 217sq.; Levy II. p. 401.

See Assemani, Bibl. Orient. I. pp. 100, 318; Cureton’s Syriac Gospels, p. 1; Anc. Syr. Documents, p. 32.

Boeckh C. I. G. 2643 notes the use of the word Λιθόστρωτον, here.

See Levy, i. p. 123; Lücke; Hengstenberg ad loc; Keim iii. p. 365.

By Hilgenfeld.

By Baur and Scholten.

The words are omitted in א*, in most Latin mss., in the Syriac, Sahidic, and Gothic versions, and by Cyril, Chrysostom, and Augustine.

See Ewald, Jahrb. Der Bibl. Wissenschaft, ix.43.

See Josephus, Ant. xviii.1.6.

See the article Herodians in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible and compare Keim, I, p. 244sq.

Messiah as foretold and expected, Cambridge (1862).

This identification is a commonplace in patristic writers. See Tertullian, adv. Marcion, iv.22; Apost. Const. v.20; Clem. Recogn. i.43; Origen, in Johan. vi. 4; Eusebius, Demonstr. Evang. i.7, p. 26 sq. (ed. Paris 1628).

See Sanday, p. 146, Gfrorer, pp. 203, 307; Wettstein and Lightfoot on John 4:27.

The Gemarists (Hieros. Berachoth fol. 5.1) alleged that the Messiah had been born at Bethlehem a good while before their own times but had been snatched away. The same idea is found in Midrash Sair fol. 1, 16. 4 (on Canticles ii.9). ‘Caprea apparet et occultatur, apparet et occultatur. Sic redemptor primus (Moses) apparuit et fuit occultatus, et tandem apparuit iterum. . . . Sic redemptor posterior (Messias) revelabitur iis atque iterum abscondetur ab iis. . . . In fine quadraginta quinque dierum revelabitur iterum iis et descendere faciet pro iis manna.’

See these various speculations given in Gfrorer, pp. 252sq., 296, 315-317. The passages referred to by the multitude were probably Is 9:6; Dan 7:13, 14, and the Targums on these texts will repay study.

E.g. by the author of The Jesus of History (1869).

Recogn. ii.7, ‘Simon hic . . . gente Samaraeus . . . gloriae ac jactantiae supra omne genus hominum cupidus ita ut excelsam virtutem . . . credi se velit et Christum putari’ (cf. Hom. ii.22). Recogn. i.54 ‘magistrum suum (i.e. Dositheum) velut Christum praedicarunt’; cf. Origen, c. Celsus i.57 (i.372).

For the later communications with the Samaritans held by Scaliger, Ludolf, and de Sacy, see Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, p. 148. Petermann likewise, who resided two months at Nablus, gives the results of his visit and investigations in Herzog’s Real-Encyklop. xiii. p. 372sq.

See the story told in Lightfoot, from Echah Babbathi, fol. 66.2, Hor. Heb. ii. p. 534, of Rabbi Joshua.

John Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. 11. pp. 78, 543.

See the instances given by John Lightfoot, n. p. 78sq., and cf. First Aram. Idiom. §15.

See my Galatians, p. 197 (ed. 6).

This notice illustrates John 4:4 compared with Luke 9:51sq.

See Josephus, Bell. Jud. iii.3.2; cf. Vit. 17. Many of the false Messiahs were Galileans, e.g. Judas the Galilean (see Acts 5:3).

Polybius xi.23. Schweighauser in his note (ad loc.) contends that σπεῖρα here means manipulis and that the term cohors is applied to the complement of three maniples, but Livy in the parallel passage (xxviii.14) has temis peditum cohortibus, and the expression καλεῖται shows that he is merely giving the Latin equivalent (κοορτις) for the Greek expression. A little later on (xi.33.1) Polybius has again κοορτις = σπεῖρα where Casaubon has struck out the last four words, though they occur in all the manuscripts. Suidas (s.v.) states that χιλίαρχοι came into office at Rome three hundred and fifteen years after the foundation of the city. This coincides with the institution of military tribunes with consular power at the and the close of the Decemvirate.

On the other hand, though ‘the band’ is mentioned by the Synoptists (Matt 27:27; Mark 15:16) at a later stage in the proceedings, the definite article, as used in the Fourth Evangelist, is more decisive.

When Cumanus was procurator the insolent conduct of a Roman soldier at the Passover resulted in a riot (Bell. Jud. l.c., cf. Ant. xx.5.3) in which ten thousand (Bell. Jud. l.c., twenty thousand) Jews perished. For the disturbances at the great festivals see Bell. Jud. i.4.3. Whiston instances the cautious procedure of the chief priests (Matt. 26:5) as evidence to these disturbances.

Acts 21:31sq., where again the same technical terms are used with the definite article. This account, like that in the Fourth Gospel, is probably the narrative of an eyewitness.

‘De singulis centuriis quarterni equites et quarterni pedites excubitum noctibus faciunt,’ Vegetius, de re military iii.8; cf. Philo, Flacc. 13, II, p. 533; Polybius vi.33.

See Plautus, Asinar. ii.4.68; Suetonius, Paen. Aug. 67; Tib. 44, passages quoted with iv.2.64; Seneca, de Ira iii.32; Suetonius, others by Lipsius, de Cruce ii.14.

The A.V. has taken unwarrantable liberties with ἀπέστειλεν in John 18:24. It should be ‘sent him’ not ‘had sent.’ The events are related in strict chronological order.

E.g. Matt 26:3, 57 compared with Acts 4:6.

Keim’s attempt (iii. p. 322) to set this episode of Annas aside is quite futile.

Jesus the son of Gamaliel appointed in place of Jesus the son of Damnaeus (Ant. xx.9.4).

It is evident that the references in vv. 13, 24 are to Caiaphas, those in vv. 19, 22 to Annas, while vv. 15, 16 may be considered doubtful. On the other hand Mr. Sanday (p. 245) considers the title to apply to Caiaphas throughout, a view which compels him to regard the aorist ἀπέστειλεν in v. 24 as a pluperfect.

For the popular idea that the high-priest had a sort of inspiration (John 11:51, ‘And this spake he not of himself, but being high-priest that year prophesied’) comp. Josephus, Bell. Jud. iii.8.3, and Philo, de Creat. Princ. §8 (II. p. 367). Other minor references which show St. John’s acquaintance with Jewish rites and customs are (1) 8:17, the necessity for two witnesses (cf. Deut 17:6; 19:15, Matt 18:16; 2 Cor 13:1; Heb 10:28; 1 John 5:7sq.); (2) 8:44, the allusion to Cain (cf. 1 John 3:12); the argument appealed to certain ideas prominent at the time which would not have occurred to any writer of a later date; (3) 4:27, talking with a woman, on which see above; (4) 2:6, the purificatory rites on see Lightfoot, ad loc.; (5) marriage customs, especially ‘the friend of the bridegroom’ (3:29), a metaphor instinct with meaning, but it is only when we enter into the Jewish practice that this meaning comes out; (6) funeral ceremonies, especially the form of the grave (11:38, 41), and the mode in both passages of burial (12:7; 19:39, 40; 20:1, 5, 7, 11), on which last point compare, Tacitus Ann. xvi.6, where we read of Poppaea, a Jewish proselyte, ‘corpus non igni abolitum, ut Romanus mos; sed regum externorum consuetudine differtum odoribus conditur.’ Most of these passages are well illustrated from rabbinical sources in John Lightfoot’s Horae Hebraicae.

See Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, s. v.

Buxtorf, Syn. Jud. xvi. p. 327, gives a certain prominence to it in his description of the modern Jewish celebrations of the tabernacles; see too Groddeke in Ugol. xviii. p. 534.

Jos. Ant. iii.10.4, and Philo, Septen. §24, p. 298 M.

Succah iv.4 (hymnus et gaudium octo dies), iv.9 (omnes octo dies) v.6 (octavo die redibant ad sortes); cf. Gem. Hieros. in Ugol. xviii. p. 492.

On the ceremonies of the eighth day see esp. Ewald, Alterth. i. p. 404. The people broke up their tents and repaired to the Temple. As the dwelling in tents symbolized the wilderness life itself a deliverance from bondage, so the eighth day would be taken to signify the end of their wanderings when they settled in the land of promise.

Philo, Septen. §24, not as read in the ordinary texts, but as given in Tisch. Philonea.

This was apparently the case (Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. on Mark 15:42).

Herod’s restoration of the Temple was so complete that it is unlikely that in the second century a distinction would have been preserved between what was and what was not included in it.

In the hall called Gazzith (John Lightfoot, I. p. 2005).

Jerome, Hier. de situ et nom. (Op. iii. p. 182 ed. Vallarsi) knowing the locality better, says ‘quae vocabatur προβατικῇ.’ The curious red colour of the waters to which Eusebius draws attention is mentioned by the Bordeaux Pilgrims in their description: ‘Interius vero civitatis sunt piscinae geraellares, quinque portions habentes, quae appellantur Betsaida. Ibi aegri multorum annorum sanabautur: aquam autem habent eae piscinae in modum coccini turbatam’ (quoted by Wesseling, Itineraria [1735], p. 589).

It was connected by an underground passage with the pool of Siloam.

Textual criticism compels us to omit the words ἐκδεχομένων . . . νοσήματι (vv. 3, 4), which are found in the Textus Receptus.

Isaiah 8:6 has simply הַשִּׁלֹחַ מֵי, and the LXX simply has ‘the waters of Siloam.’

Epiphanius, Haer. xxxv.3 rightly connects the two passages. After quoting Isaiah 8:6 he adds ‘for the waters of Siloam are the teachings of the Sent One.’ So the ps.-Basil on Isaiah 8:6 (Basil, Op. I, p. 536A).

B, C, L with the bulk of the Greek manuscripts and the Gothic Version, have τῶν Κέδρων; A, Δ, S, the Vulgate, and certain manuscripts (c, (e) f, g) of the Old Latin, the Peshitto and the Philoxenian Syriac, and the Armenian have τοῦ Κέδρων.

A good instance of the application of this test is the celebrated passage 1 Tim 3:16, where Ὃς is to be preferred as accounting for both the variants Θεός and ὁ.

In Ps 82:10, א, A, B read ἐν τῷ χειμάρρῳ Κεισών (A has Κισσών anarthrous), but some inferior manuscripts have τών Κισσών.

See Josephus, Bell. Jud. vi.10.1; Philo, quod omn. prob. 12.11, p. 467; cf. §13, p. 459; and Fragm. 11, p. 632 (ed. Mangey). The same tendency is to be seen in English in the forms Charterhouse, Barmouth, etc.

No inference can be drawn as to the date of the composition of the Gospel from the use of the imperfect tense. The Evangelist sometimes uses the imperfect (18:1; 19:41, 42), sometimes the present (5:2), occasionally both tenses together (4:6, 9). Similarly St. Luke uses the imperfect (Luke 4:29), and we may compare Kinglake’s Crimea, iii. pp. 38, 117, 118, 122, 286, which is unquestionably the narrative of one who was an eyewitness of the events he relates, and who writes not half a century later, but within a very few years of the occurrences.

Cana is named several times by Josephus (Vit. 16; Bell. Jud. i.17.5, Ant. xiii.15.1), but the references do not throw much light on its position. The traditional site is Kefr Kenna, about four miles northeast of Nazareth, and this identification is as old as S. Willibald in the eighth century. Robinson however prefers a village, Kana el-Jelil, some five miles further north, and the spelling of the name (with a Koph instead of a Caph) is more closely allied to the representative in the Curetonian and Peshitto Katna, though the t is not represented.

The city of Tiberias also occurs (6:23). As it was built by Herod Antipas (Jos. Ant. xviii.2.3; Bell. Jud. ii.9.1), it could hardly have given its name to the lake as early as the date of our Lord’s ministry. The designation however ‘sea of Tiberias’ is found in Josephus (Bell. Jud. iii.3.6), before St John wrote his Gospel.

It is noticeable that in the Codex Alexandrinus Ἐφραίμ is the LXX rendering of the other Ophrah the birth-place of Gideon, in Judges 8:27; 9:5. Eusebius, Onom. s.v. says ‘now the village is called greater Ephraim’; cf. Jerome, Opus III. p. 203, who repeats the same statement. But if Mr Robinson’s identification is correct, the Ephraim of St. John is the Aphra of Eusebius’ Onom. s.v.

By Paulus and Bolten; see Lücke, I, p. 394.

This is the view of Dr. Caspari, quoted by Sanday, p. 45.

In Mark 8:22 there is a well-supported variant Βηθανιάν for Βηθσαϊδάν, which may contain some underlying foundation of fact pointing to a Bethany in the northeast of Galilee.

A. Sabatier, Essai sur les sources de la vie de Jesus (1866), p. 34.

The Synoptists are perhaps designedly vague (Matt 26:51, εἷς τῶν μετὰ Ἰησοῦ; Mark 14:47, τις τῶν παρεστηκότων; Luke 22:50, εἷς τις ἐξ αὐτῶν). The name of the servant Malchus is also given by St. John.

The corresponding notice in St. Luke 23:38 is an interpolation.

Hort adds the note: ‘The characters of Martha and Mary are given in the first Essay (p. 37sq.); they are Mary and of Thomas are given above therefore omitted here.’ They can be found in the preceding Appendix.

M. Renan accepts the latter criticism, but supposes this last chapter to be a later addition by some other hand, in which amends are made to St. Peter. But the internal evidence of style proves chap. 21 (though probably a postscript) to have been written by the author of chaps. 1–20 (see the additional note at the end of this essay).

The scorn is lost in the form in which the question appears in St. Matthew (27:22). Though here again the climax of contempt is found in St. John’s version, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ See above.

An early tradition identified him with the disciple who requested that he might first go and bury his father (Clement Alex. Strom. iii. 4. 25, p. 522). This would be in keeping with Philip’s hesitating faith.

‘Cohortantibus condiscipulis et episcopis suis dixit [lohannes] Conieiunate mihi hodie triduum, et quid cuique fuerit revelatum alterutrum nobis enarremus. Eadem nocte revelatum Andreae ex apostolis ut recognescentibus cunctis lohannes suo no- mine cuncta describeret.’ Canon Murator. p. 33 (ed. Tregelles).

As Hort points out at this juncture, there was originally a third part to this essay, which is now found in the earlier discussion about John being the author of this Gospel. On the whole Hort leaves the essays as he found them.

‘Ipsa quoque clausula evangelii propter quid consignat haec scripta, nisi ut credatis, inquit, lesum Christum filium Dei?’ Tertullian, adv. Prax. 25. He refers however in three places to the twenty-first chapter (see Ronsch p. 290).

The Evangelist is fond of marking his characters by some striking circumstance which serves as a label. Examples are the designation of Nicodemus (19:39; 7:50 from 3:2), and of Caiaphas (18:14 from 11:49). From a different spirit and with a different aim Carlyle exhibits the same tendency.

Against such indications of identity of authorship, the objections commonly alleged (e.g. by Lücke) are powerless, e.g. the use of new expressions, as ἐφανέρωσεν δὲ οὕτως (v. 1), ἐξετάσαι (v. 12). Any writing or portion of a writing might be set aside on the same grounds. Thus, to take 20:30, μὲν οὖν is a hapax legomena in St. John, so is βιβλίον so is ἐνώπιον. Indeed the first and third phrases are rather characteristic of St. Luke; but the endeavor to press such arguments would justly be scouted as fatal to all fair criticism. The chronological difficulty of τοῦτο ἤδη τρίτον (v. 14) remains unaffected by the question of authorship.

Dr. Gwynn kindly supplies (Oct. 4, 1892) the following information respecting this manuscript: ‘I think there is no room for doubt that Cod. 63 has lost a leaf (or more) at the end, and that it when complete contained John xxi. 25. At first sight, one might be led to form an opposite opinion. For the last page of the ms., as it now is, is the last of a complete quaternion, and in it the text ends οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀληθὴς ἐστίν ἡ μαρ/τυρία αὐτοῦ (the last ten letters being arranged in the middle of a new line). The final stop looks like a colon, but may be a period; and one might suppose that the scribe’s reason for placing τυρία αὐτοῦ thus, was because his text was at an end. But on looking through the ms. one would find this supposition to be unfounded. It frequently happens that he ends a page with an incomplete line, longer or shorter, not ranging with the previous lines, either at its beginning or its end. Comparing the place with the ends of the three preceding Gospels, one finds a small bit of negative evidence. Each of them has, after its last word, the marks : These do not appear after τυρία αὐτοῦ. None of them has any subscription, or even Τελος subjoined. So much for the text; but when we look at the surrounding scholia all doubt is removed. The ms. has in every page a body of continuous scholia, some half-dozen lines in the top margin, a pretty long column (in continuation) all down the outer margin, and six or eight more lines at the foot. As the scholia proceed, the scribe denotes change of subject commented on, by a numeral letter (sometimes), and always by beginning the new matter with a capital letter, in red. The last two lines of these are pure scholia and here you will observe: (1) that the scholium breaks off in the middle of a sentence, showing that there ought to be another leaf; (2) that this broken scholium referred to verse 25, as is proved by the word ὑπερβολικός and an equivalent phrase to the ἄλλα πολλά of St. John in 21:25. These facts seem to settle the question.’ Compare Scrivener, Collatio Cod. Sinait. p. lix; C. E. Gregory’s prolegomena to Tischendorf, N. T. (ed. 8), p. 479.

Appendix C: Lightfoot and German Scholarship on John’s Gospel

This essay was first presented at Durham University in 1989 at the centenary celebration of Lightfoot’s passing. It was then published in the Durham University Journal in a 1992 special edition. In addition to this article by Hengel, that volume included essays by C. K. Barrett and J. D. G. Dunn on Lightfoot as a New Testament scholar. Whereas the Hengel article appears here, the essays by Barrett and Dunn appear as appendices in volume three of this set. This reprinting is done with the kind permission of Durham University.

I wish to thank John Bowden for the translation and Roland Dienes for typing the article into the computer and help in the redaction of the footnotes. In the second revision I was helped by Jorg Frey.

V. S. Soloviev, Kurze Erzahlung vom Antichrist, translated and explained by Ludolf Muller, Munich 1951, 56, 96f. n. 68.

H. Harris, David Friedrich Strauss and his Theology, Cambridge, 1976, 66.

O. Chadwick, The Victorian Church. Part 1: 1829–1859, London, 1971, rpr. 1987, 532; for the influence of German criticism on the Anglo-Saxon world, see op cit. Part 2: 1860–1901, London 1972 (rpr. 1987), pp. 68-70; 99-100; cf. further S. Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861–1961, London 1964, pp. 29-60; V. A. Dodd, ‘Strauss’ English Propagandists and the politics of Unitarianism, 1841-45,’ Church History, 50 (1981), pp. 415-35.

I received this anecdote from my teacher Otto Bauernfeind; he had received it from his teacher E. von der Goltz, and von der Goltz had received it from his grandfather who had been a student of Baur in Tübingen. Remarkably, not only Baur but Lightfoot was compared with the Antichrist. See below.

A very instructive recent contribution on Lightfoot is the essay of G. R. Treloar, ‘J.B. Lightfoot and St. Paul 1854–65: A Study of Intentions and Method,’ in Lucas; Review of the Evangelical History Association, Sydney vol. 7 (December, 1989), pp. 5-34; On Bishop Lightfoot and the German critics see also B. N. Kaye, ‘Lightfoot and Baur on Early Christianity,’ Novum Testamentum 26 (1984), pp. 193-224; C. K. Barrett, ‘Quomodo Historia Conscribenda Sit,’ New Testament Studies 28 (1982), pp. 303-320; R. Morgan, ‘Non Angh sed Angeli: Some Anglican Reactions to German Gospel Criticism,’ in S. Sykes and D. Holmes (eds) New Studies in Theology I (London, 1980), pp. 1-30; idem, ‘Historical Criticism and Christology: England and Germany,’ Studies in Theological Diplomacy, Frankfurt on Main, 1982 pp. 80-112; J. S. Andrews, ‘German Influence on Religious Life in the Victorian Era,’ English Quarterly, 44 (1972), pp. 213-233; see further below on Lightfoot and his works. Cf. L. W. Bernard, ‘Bishop Lightfoot and the Apostolic Fathers,’ Church Quarterly Review, 161 (1960), 423-35; C. K. Barrett, ‘Joseph Barber Lightfoot,’ Durham University Journal 64/3 (1972), pp. 193-20; P. H. Richards, ‘J. B. Lightfoot as a Biblical Interpreter,’ Interpretation 8 (1954), pp. 50-62; J. A. T. Robinson, ‘Joseph Barber Lightfoot,’ Durham Cathedral Lecture, 1981; H. E. Savage, ‘Bishop Lightfoot’s Influence: His Trust in Young Men,’ Durham University Journal 77/1 (1984), pp. 1-6; Except for the ‘sole very inadequate,’ so the verdict J. A. T. Robinson The Priority of John (London, 1985, p. xi n. 14) biographical collection edited by G. R. Eden and F. C. Macdonald, Lightfoot of Durham (Cambridge, 1932), and an unpublished dissertation (D. J. Wilson, The Life of J.B. Lightfoot, 1829[sic]–1889) with special reference to the training of the ministry, Ph.D. Edinburgh, 1956, there is no comprehensive biographical study on Lightfoot. So the comprehensive study announced by G. R. Treloar in the article mentioned above is deeply demanded. [Unfortunately, as valuable as Treloar’s study on Lightfoot as a historian is, it is neither a comprehensive study nor a biography on Lightfoot. (BW3)]

It should be noted, that the very pages of this John volume prove that Lightfoot had read these scholars, with the possible exception of Volkmar, as they are all cited, or alluded to, in one place or another in Lightfoot’s commentary on John. (BW3)

J. A. Robinson, ‘The Theological Influence of Bishop Lightfoot,’ in Lightfoot of Durham, pp. 123-35. The quotations are on p. 135 and 124. [It can now be said that this is something of an exaggeration. He mentions plenty of commentators, including German ones (Meyer is one of his favorites), both in his articles being published here, and in the previously unpublished commentaries themselves. (BW3)].

F. C. Baur, Vorlesungen uber neutestamenthche Theologie, ed. F. F. Baur, Leipzig, 1864, reprinted with an Introduction by W. G. Kummel, Darmstadt, 1973, p. 351.

Ibid., p. 401.

On F. C. Baur, cf. K. Scholder, Theologische Realenzyclopadie 5 (1980), pp. 352-359; F. W. Graf in H. Fries, G. Kretschmar eds. Klassiker der Theologie II München, 1983, pp. 89-110, 411-414 (bibliography); P. Hodgson, The Formation of Historical Theology. A Study of Ferdinand Christian Baur, N.Y. 1966; on the Tübingen School see H. Harris, The Tübingen School, (Oxford, 1975), U. Kopf, ‘Theologische Wissenschaft und Frommigkeit im Konflikt: Ferdinand Christian Baur und seine Schuler,’ Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 11 (1988), pp. 169-77.

See the previous note. Cf. the Introduction of Kümmel, p. xxv.

See Gotthold, Muller, Identitat und Immanenz, Zur Genese der Theologie von David Friedrich Strauss, BSHST 10, Zürich 1968, p. 187 = F. C. Baur, ‘Symbolik und Mythologie oder die Naturreligion des Alterthums,’ I, Stuttgart, 1824, XI.

See e.g. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, I (London, 1890, rpr. Hildesheim and New York, 1973), p. 8: ‘They (= Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp) are the proper link between the canonical Scriptures and the Church Fathers who succeeded them.’ Cf. also pp. 55-55.353f.

The subtitle was Eine kirchen- and dogmengeschichliche Monographie, Bonn, 1857, first edition 1850.

J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, London, 1890, rpr. 1902, p. 295 n. 2.

But Lightfoot’s method also had its limits, for his commentaries were primarily historical and philological. See the comment of Hort, ‘in some ways the most acute thinker of the three’ (C. K. Barrett, Westcott as Commentator. The Bishop Lightfoot Memorial Lecture, 1958, Cambridge 1959, p. 6), in letters to his friend John Ellerton. On the other hand see the positive remarks of Westcott concerning Lightfoot’s Galatian Commentary in A. Westcott, Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, vol. 1, London 1903, p. 289 (see also p. 294 concerning Philippians, and p. 432 concerning Colossians).

A. V. Harnack, Theologische Litertuarzeitung, 15 (1890), cols. 297-301; 207f. in a review of E. Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, Oxford 1889.

Ed. by W. R. Nicholl, Third Series, Vol. II 1885, London 1885, pp. 401-414, 401 in the review of ‘Bishop Lightfoot’s “Ignatius and Polykarp”’ (= The Apostolic Fathers II, 1-3, London 1885).

Preface to the First Edition, The Apostolic Fathers, II, 1 op. cit. (n. 10), IX.

J. B. Lightfoot, St. Clement of Rome (= The Apostolic Fathers I, 1-2), London 1890. The second volume Ignatius and Polycarp (= The Apostolic Fathers II, 1-3), had been published in 1885 and came out in a second edition as soon as 1889.

A. Schwegler, (ed.) Clementi Romani quae feruntur homiliae . . . Stuttgart, 1847; idem (ed.); Eusebii Pamphili Historiae Ecclesiasticae Libri X, Tubingen 1852, Cf. for the later edition the negative verdict on Schwegler’s text critical work by Eduard Schwartz (GCS, Eusebius Werke II/3 Leipzig 1909, XLVf.). On Schwegler cf. the biographical sketch by E. Akerknecht, ‘Albert Schwegler, Historiker und Philosoph,’ in Schwabische Lebensbilder IV, Stuttgart 1948, pp. 312-40 (lit).

Cf. J. A. Robinson, op. cit.; A. C. Headlam, ‘Bishop Lightfoot’s Place as a Historian,’ in Lightfoot of Durham, op. cit., pp. 136-45. S. Neill op. cit. p. 55 writes on Zahn and Lightfoot: ‘They had identified the precise point at which the Tübingen theories were most open to attack; if the attack were successful here, the champions of the Tübingen theories would have no power to defend themselves elsewhere. The theories had been killed stone-dead.’ The point to which Neill refers is the dating of the writings of Clement and Ignatius.

Volume 1 and 2 1874, Volume 3 1874, see Owen Chadwick, op. cit. Part 2, p. 70f.

Hengel’s translator seems to have erred here. He surely means objection not object. (BW3)

C. K. Barrett op. cit. p. 309. The argument is repeated by B. N. Kaye, op. cit., p. 198. But I am convinced that Lightfoot and his friends saw the importance of Baur’s work right from the beginning. For instance, in the first volume of the Journal for Classical and Sacred Philology, which appeared in four volumes during 1854–59 (rpr. Amsterdam, 1970) founded and edited by Lightfoot among others, appeared a review of Baur’s ‘Das Christenthum und die christhche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte,’ by Westcott. He speaks about Baur’s book as an ‘authoritative statement of the critical school of which he is the founder and ablest representative’ (p. 281). Also noteworthy is the fact that the Theologische Jahrbucher which were edited by Baur and Zeller, had always been registered under the title Baur’s Theologische Jahrbucher, which since the journals were listed in alphabetical order, were the first in this list of journals.

Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion, reprinted from the Contemporary Review (London, 1891 2nd ed.) 1889 (1st ed.), p. 12. The first part appeared in December 1874 and the last in May 1877. Though from the beginning intended for publishing in a permanent form, the author hadn’t enough time for it until 1889, cf. H. W. Watkins, The Quarterly Review (no. 351) vol. 176, 1893, p. 86f. The intended completion with notes was never realized. This drawback had been attacked by John Owen in his review in the Academy (No. 913 from 2nd November 1889, pp. 280-82). About the original articles he comments: Lightfoot ‘succeeded in pointing out various shortcomings, both in textual scholarship and of critical inference, which certainly implied both inadequate equipment and an animus wholly irreconcilable with impartial and trustworthy investigation.’ But questionable for him was the unchanged reprint because ‘the author of Supernatural Religion had in subsequent editions of his book modified so largely many of the passages inculpated in the bishop’s essays that their criticism was already out of date. Dr. Lightfoot seems herein to have forgotten the first canon of controversial writing, which requires that the controverted matter to be taken from the very latest form’ (p. 281).

Ibid. (Essays), p. 251, cf. 101.

Galatians, op. cit. p. 295, n.1.

Op. cit. p. 133, cf. 128.

G. R. Eden, ‘A Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge,’ (24, November, 1929), Lightfoot of Durham, op. cit, p. 154. On B. F. Westcott, cf. A. Westcott, op. cit., C. K. Barrett op. cit. H. Chadwick, The Vindication of Christianity in Westcott’s Thought, Cambridge, 1961. O. Chadwick, Westcott and the University, Cambridge, 1963. D. L. Edwards, ‘Lightfoot and Westcott,’ in Leaders of the Church of England 1828–1944, London 1971, pp. 207-222 and comprehensively F. Olofsson Christus Redemptor et Consummator. A Study of in the Theology of B. F. Westcott, ­Uppsala, 1979. On Hort cf. A. C. Hort, ed. The Life and Letters of F. J. A. Hort, 2 vols. London, 1896. Th. B. Strong, ‘Dr. Hort’s Life and Works,’ Journal of Theological Studies 1 (1900), pp. 270-386. E. G. Rupp, Hort and the Cambridge Tradition, Cambridge, 1970; M. E. Glasswell, in ­Theologische Realenzyclopaedie 15, pp. 584-86, and comprehensively the recent monograph of G. A. Patrick, F. J. A. Hort, Eminent Victorian, Sheffield, 1988.

Apostolic Fathers II/1 op. cit, p. xv.

He writes, ‘If the ecclesiastical terrorism of past ages has lost its power, we shall in the interests of truth, be justly jealous of allowing an academic terrorism to usurp its place.’ Ibid., p. xi.

Ibid., XI/XII. Cf. also the similar verdict in his Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion, op. cit, p. 64.

H. W. Watkins, op. cit., pp. 73-105; pp. 84f.

F. J. A. Hort art. ‘Lightfoot, Joseph Barber,’ in Dictionary of National Biography ed. by S. Lee vol. xxxiiii (London, 1893), pp. 232-40; here p. 238.

Op. cit. Preface to the First Edition 1865, XI cf. p. 295 n.1.

Having done my own research on this topic I can agree with my friend Prof. Bammel who wrote me in a letter on the 31st of July, 1989: ‘Baur is das Lebensproblem für L[ightfoot] gewesen (wie Schweitzer für Dodd).’ Generally, I feel confirmed by the study of G. R. Treloar op. cit.

Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion, op. cit. p. 82. The article was first published in 1875 under the title ‘The Ignatian Epistles.’

F. C. Baur, Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi, Sein Leben und Wirken, seine Briefe und seine Lehre. Eine Beitrag zu einer kritschen Geschichte des Urchristentums, Stuttgart, 1845, pp. 471ff. cf. J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, London and Cambridge, 1868, p. 168; Apostolic Fathers, I.

G. Volkmar, ‘Ueber Clemens von Rom an die nachste Folgezeit, mit besonderer Beziehung auf den Philipper- und Barnabas Brief, so wie auf das buch Judith,’ Theologischer Jahrbuch 15, (1856), pp. 287-369; ‘Ueber Euodia, Euodius, und Anaclet,’ Theologischer Jahrbuch 16 (1857), pp. 147-51. Lightfoot referred to this in Apostolic Fathers, I,I op. cit. p. 346; cf. also F. C. Baur, Lehrbuch der christhchen Dogmengeschichte, Leipzig, 1867 (rpr. Darmstadt, 1974), p. 82; Vorlesungen, op. cit. p. 41ff.; Das Christenthum und die christhche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte, Tübingen, 1860 (rpr. with an introduction by U. Wickert, Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt 1966 as Vol. 3 of F.C. Baur, Ausgewalte Wirke in Einzelausgaben ed. by K. Scholder, p. 134 n. 2 reference to Volkmar). A. Schwegler, Das nachapostelische Zeitalter in den Hauptmomentum seiner Entewicklung II, Tübingen, 1846 (rpr. Graz, 1977), pp. 125-33. In his view the name of Clement is a mere cipher (‘Tendenzbegriff’) ‘Er bezeichnet immer und ueberall die Tendenz der Vermittlung zwischen Judenchristen und Heidenchristen zum Behufe der Verwirklichung einer katholischen Kirche’ (p. 130).

Apostolic Fathers I, I op cit., p. 356f.

Ibid., p. 357.

Ibid., p. 357f. ‘(Volkmari) sententiam . . . Baurio placuisse semper admiratus sum.’

Cf. M. Markovich, ed. ‘Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium,’ PTS 25, Berlin (1986), pp. 5f.

See now L. Leloir, ‘Ephrem de Nisibi Commentaire de l’Evangile, concordant ou Diastesseron,’ Sources chretienne 121, Paris 1966, pp. 25ff., cf. also pp. 22f.

Ed. by A. R. M. Dressel, Clementis Romani quae feruntur Homiliae viginti nunc primum integrae, Textum ad Codicem Ottobonianum constituit, Göttingen 1853, rpr. in Migne, PG. 2, Paris 1866, cols. 19-468.

Hom XIX 22, 6 cites John 9.2f. (B. Rehm ed.) Die Pseudoklementinen I, Homilien: GCS 42, Berlin 1953, p. 265. Cf. also Hom XI 26.3 Quotation of John 3:5 (ibid., p. 167). Without convincing arguments, G. Volkmar contested always that the above mentioned passages were quotations from the Gospel of John, see his ‘Ein neue endecktes Zeugniss fur das Johannes-Evangelium,’ Thelogische Jahrbucher 13, 1854, pp. 446-62.

On the Gospel of John in the 2nd century see now M. Hengel, The Johannine Question, London and Philadelphia 1989, pp. 1-23.

See B. N. Kaye, op. cit.

B. Rehm/F. Pascke eds. Die Pseudoklementinen II, Rekognitionen in Rufins Ubersetzung, GCS 51 Berlin 1965, IX ff. In his preface the editor describes the way the Lightfoot manuscript, which eventually formed one of the sources of the GCS edition, passed through several hands.

Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion op. cit., p. 251, originally ‘Churches of Gaul,’ August 1876. Cf. also above.

J. B. Lightfoot, Biblical Essays (London, 1901 2nd ed.), p. 10. In the article entitled ‘Internal Evidence for the Authenticity and Genuineness of St. John’s Gospel,’ originally published in The Expositor, 1890.

Ibid.

M. Arnold, Essays in Criticism, London and Cambridge, 1865, p. 57 quoted by Lightfoot in his Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion, op. cit, p. 24.

Ibid.

F. C. Baur, Paulus, op. cit., p. 458ff.

Ibid., p. 470.

Lightfoot, Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion, op. cit., p. 24f.

Ibid., p. 25 n.1.

The careful reader of these three volumes will see that this statement is no longer quite true. Strauss does come up for mention in this now published material. Largely, however, it is true. Lightfoot knew Strauss’s work, but practiced benign neglect when it came to mentioning it. Perhaps a distinction should be made between what he allowed to be published in his lifetime and what he said in lectures at Cambridge, which is the source of the bulk of this freshly unveiled Lightfoot material in these three volumes. (BW3)

A. F. Hort, op. cit. I, p. 187: ‘Lightfoot continued: “. . . above all, that which daily more strongly appears to me to lie at the root of all social problems, the relation of the sexes, will be the prominent subjects of unbelief.” ’

It is far from clear that the essay Hengel is referring to here is in fact the one he wrote for the Norrisian prize. See appendix C: “Lessons of History from the Cradle of Christianity” in volume 3 of this series. (BW3)

J. B. Lightfoot, ‘On Strauss and Christian Origins: An Unpublished Manuscript,’ ed. and Introduced by B. N. Kaye, The Durham University Journal, 79, 1987, pp. 165-200, here p. 200. In their introduction the editors state: ‘The reply to Strauss was the first sign of an active interest in the Apostolic Fathers, the outcome of which thirty years later was again partly intended as a control on the effects of speculative critical theories on the New Testament writings, especially the Gospels. . . . The main issue, and the method for dealing with it, has been discerned at the outset, and was developed with much greater learning and conviction over the next thirty-five years. To the recognized influence of Baur and the Tübingen School, on the direction and character of Lightfoot’s scholarship must now be added that of D. F. Strauss.’

See the essay by Barrett in the appendices of vol. 3 in the Lightfoot Legacy.

Originally they all wanted to participate in the Bible Commentary projected by William Smith. In this former plan Lightfoot had to comment on Acts, Westcott on Daniel and most of the Apocrypha and Hort on the Gospels, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus. As in 1859 the Smith Commentary had not really gotten off the ground (and was finally abandoned in 1863), the publisher A. MacMillan initiated this commentary only on the New Testament. See Barrett’s article in volume 3 of Lightfoot Legacy and the correspondence between the three friends. A. F. Hort, op. cit., I, p. 396, 417-24; A. Westcott, op. cit., I, pp. 204-08. Concerning the internal problems mentioned above cf. especially the letter, which Hort wrote to Lightfoot on 1st May 1860: ‘If your idea is to have an uniform commentary, which shall demonstrate that the final results of accurate and honest criticism do not disturb ‘orthodox’ assumptions, you are quite right not to admit a coadjustor who cannot feel certain of having equally good luck. . . . At the same time, as far as I can see at present, I should shrink from transferring myself to other books of the New Testament in your scheme on the ground that you could not trust me with the Gospels . . . and I could not work freely at any book of the New Testament if I were under obligations to produce results of a predetermined color.’ And a little later in the same letter ‘If you make a decided conviction of the absolute infallibility of the New Testament practically a sine qua non for co-operation, I fear I could not join you, even if you were willing to forget your fears about the origins of the Gospels’ (I, pp. 418-20). Here the limitations of Lightfoot were obvious (see below). But that he entrusted Hort with the Synoptics and Acts in spite of his doubts, may demonstrate that his attitude was not that kind of narrowness, that was widespread in the Anglican orthodoxy of his day. He ‘did not censure’ see below.

Cf. J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers II, 1, p. 657.

F. C. Baur, Die Ignatianischen Briefe und ihr neueste Kritiker. Eine Streitschrift gegen Herrn Bunsen, (Tübingen, 1848). Lightfoot refers to this dispute in his Apostolic Fathers, II, 1, p. 283. The attacked book of Chr. J. Bunsen was Die drei achten und die vier unachten Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochen. Hamburg, 1847.

See Hengel, op. cit. pp. 14f. Cf. also ‘The Titles of the Gospels and the Gospel of Mark,’ in my Studies in the Gospel of Mark, (London, 1985), pp. 71, 167 n.45.

Cf. M. Hengel, op. cit., pp. 80f; 133.

Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, op. cit., II, 1, pp. 604.

Cf. M. Hengel, op. cit., p. 15f; 153f. ns. 93-95.

Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion, op. cit., p. 95, originally ‘Polycarp of Smyrna,’ May 1875.

Ibid., p. 96.

The relevant material is collected in the first chapter of my The Johannine Question, op. cit.

Cf. Owen Chadwick, op. cit. pp. 112-121 and pp. 237-49. The quotation is from p. 115.

Ibid., pp. 545-49.

Ibid., p.550f.

Cf. the letter of Westcott from December 1847, where he wrote about Hampden (A. Westcott op. cit., I 94f.): ‘I thought myself that he was greviously in error, but yesterday I read over the selections from his writings which his adversaries made, and in them I found systematically expressed the very strains of thought which I have been endeavoring to trace out for the last two or three years. If he be condemned, what will become of me? I believe he holds the truth; if he be condemned, I cannot see how I shall ever enter the Church.’ And then turning on to the older friend of Hampden, Matthew Arnold, he remarks: ‘If he were a heretic, I should be satisfied to be one too.’ Concerning Maurice, held in high esteem by Hort, cf. his letter to Westcott from 29th June 1852, where he defends Maurice against his friend: ‘that I regard him as a man to be valued and loved, far more than admired and glorified.’ A. F. Hort, op. cit. I p. 223. Concerning Colenso his opinion is quite different cf. Ibid., p. 473.

Cf. O. Chadwick op. cit. I, 407. On Davidson, see S. Davidson, Autobiography (ed. A. J. Davidson), London 1899, and shortly R. Bayne, ‘Davidson, Samuel (1806–1899)’ in the Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement vol. II, ed. S. Lee, London, 1901, pp. 115f.

Essays and Reviews, ed. by H. B. Wilson, London 1860. For the debate on Essays and Reviews cf. O. Chadwick op. cit. II, 75ff. The contributors were H. B. Wilson himself, R. Williams, B. Powell, M. Pattison, C. W. Goodwin, F. Temple, and B. Jowett.

Cf. A. Westcott, op. cit., I, pp. 212-16. His son wrote the activities of his father in this affair: ‘He was most anxious that Lightfoot and Hort should join with him in preparing a reply to the controverted volume. For his own part, he felt this to be so important that he would gladly lay aside all other work that he might be free to point out some via media’ (p. 212). In a letter from 25th February 1861 Westcott confessed: ‘It would be impossible to find opinions more opposed to my own than those of the Essayists, and for this very reason, I am most anxious to see the error calmly and clearly pointed out, and not merely shrieked at. As far as I have seen, those who have written against the Essayists have been profoundly ignorant of the elements of the difficulties out of which the Essays have sprung’ (p. 215). Cf. also A. F. Hort op. cit., I, pp. 436-45. Hort saw their own position between the Essayists and the ‘mere orthodox assertion’ (p. 436f.). He drafted a ‘Declaration’ in which he wanted to protest against ‘the violent and indiscriminate agitation’ directed against Essays and Reviews. He saw that ‘suppression of free criticism must ultimately be injurious to the cause of truth and religion’ (p. 439). Hort based his engagement in this controversy because in his eyes the Essayists ‘represent the cause of freedom of thought and criticism’ (p. 440). The planned mediating volume should be edited under the title ‘Revelation and History.’ In a letter Hort described the whole planned arrangement: ‘Lightfoot takes “the preparation for the Gospel,” i.e. the stages of Jewish history, the work of the different nations of antiquity, and the special calling of Israel. Westcott takes “the witness of God in His Son,” in short, the Incarnation as an historical revelation of God, especially with reference to miracles. I am to take the development of doctrine out of revelation, including the progress within the NT and going on to the epochs of Church History since the close of the Canon, especially since the growth of a Scripture and of its use’ (p. 442). Unfortunately, Lightfoot retired from the plan, so that his article about the ‘praeparatio evangelica’ never came into being.

B. Jowett, ‘On the Interpretation of Scripture,’ in Essays and Reviews, 337f., 377f. Cf. G. R. Treloar, op. cit., p. 13f. On Jowett cf. J. Barr, ‘Jowett and the Reading of the Bible Like any other Book,’ Horizons in Biblical Theology, 4-5 (1982/83), pp. 1-44. On Jowett as philologist see H. Lloyd-Jones, Blood for the Ghosts. Classical Influences in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, London, 1982, pp. 16-19. Lightfoot had critically reviewed Jowett’s Commentary on St. Paul in his Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology.

‘Lightfoot was among the few who did not censure, and to that extent identified himself with the liberals’ (G. R. Treloar, op. cit.). On Lightfoot’s position towards the doctrine of inspiration, cf. Ibid., pp. 9-11: ‘Lightfoot defined inspiration as “a moral and spiritual power” which “does not transmute its agents but molds them.”’ (p. 9, citing Lightfoot’s Biblical Essays, p. 226).

Lecture Manuscript on Acts I–VIII, cited by G. R. Treloar, op. cit., p. 11. Compare the description of the manuscript Ibid., p. 25, n. 25. And see below.

The Churchman (7 September 1865), pp. 1070-71, cited by G. R. Treloar, op. cit., p. 21.

For the attack against Lightfoot, E. B. Elliott, ‘Prophetic Articles in Smith’s Bible Dictionary,’ The Christian Observer, March 1846, pp. 214-18, in reference to J. B. Lightfoot, ‘Thessalonians, Second Epistle to the,’ in William Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. III, 1863, pp. 1482-84; Cf. G. R. Treloar, op. cit. p. 21. Edward Bishop Elliott (1793–1875), was the Evangelical vicar of St. Mark’s Church, Brighton, he wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse, and he expected the Millenium at the end of the nineteenth century. Cf. Dictionary of National Biography XVII (ed. L. Steven), London 1889, p. 268, and E. R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, British and American Millenarianism, 1800–1930 (Grand Rapids: Michigan, 1978), pp. 82ff.

R. W. Mackay, The Tübingen School and its Antecedents, Covent Garden and Edinburgh, 1863 pp. X-XL.

J. J. Tayler, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel; especially in its Relationship to the Three First, London and Edinburgh, 1867.

The author was W. R. Cassels, cf. O. Chadwick, op. cit., II, p. 20f. with n. 1.

R. Morgan, Historical Criticism and Christology, p. 86.

O. Pfleiderer, Die Entwicklung des protestantischen Theologie seit Kant und in Grossbritannien seit 1825, Freiburg i. Br. 1891, p. 483.

Samuel Davidson, An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, I, London, 2nd ed. 1882, pp. V-VI in the Preface to the second edition.

Ibid., p. V. Davidson wrote about a reactionary spirit towards the Tübingen school.

Of course Lightfoot knew Davidson’s Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (in its first edition of 1848/49) very well. He cited it with critical comment in his essay on ‘The Mission of Titus to the Corinthians,’ published in 1855 = Biblical Essays, op. cit., pp. 271-84, see p. 275 n.1.

S. Davidson, op. cit. II, p. 390, 417. He refers to Hilgenfeld as an ‘indefatigable scholar’ (vol. I, V), but he did not appreciate Davidson to the same degree. I came to see this during my year’s study at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, where I borrowed Davidson’s NT-Introduction from the library of the Kirchliche Hochschule in Berlin. The copy I used was given and personally dedicated by the author to Hilgenfeld, who obviously never had used the book; the pages were not yet cut open.

Ibid., II, p. 328.

W. G. Kummel, in his comprehensive history of research, (Das Neue Testament Geschichte der Erforschung seiner Problem, 1970 2nd ed.; English translation, The New Testament. The History of the Investigation of its Problems, London, 1973), does not mention Davidson with a work. Besides Lightfoot, Westcott, and Hort he refers only to two other British scholars of the 19th century: Hatch who died the same year as Lightfoot (1835–89), and Streeter (1874–1937). Even such great scholars as Swete (1835–1917), Burkitt (1864–1935), Conybeare and Sanday (1843–1920) remain unmentioned. It seems as if British New Testament scholarship up to World War I was a terra incognita in Germany.

Cf. Hengel, op. cit., p. 104f; 130f.

Biblical Essays, op. cit., pp. 190ff. The article is printed from lecture notes with the same title as the article cited above ‘Internal Evidence for the Authenticity and Genuineness of St. John’s Gospel.’

Robert Morgan, Historical Criticism and Christology, p. 87. A good deal of Lightfoot’s pupils kept his conservative views on the authenticity and authorship of the Fourth Gospel; so the Archdeacon of Durham H. W. Watkins in his study Modern Criticism Considered in Relation to the Fourth Gospel, London and New York, 1890; J. Armitage Robinson, who republished his book on The Historical Character of St. John’s Gospel, London and New York, 1908, in 1929, where he reproduced (pp. 7-11) a Cambridge lecture of 1901 from ‘The Study of the Gospels,’ London 1902, pp. 126ff. with the comment: ‘After the interval of twenty seven years, I have no desire to speak otherwise today.’ Similar views were still held by A. C. Headlam, The Fourth Gospel as History, Oxford and New York, 1948.

F. D. E. Schleiermacher, Das Leben Jesu, Vorlesungen an der Universitat zu Berlin, im Jahr, 1832. Aus Schleiermacher’s handschrifthcher Nachlasse und Nachschriften seiner zuhorer hereausgegeben von K.A. Rutenik = F. Schleiermacher, Samthche Werke, 1 Abth. 6 Bd. Berlin, 1864. Strauss had already become acquainted with the Schleiermacher lecture through a student’s lecture notes during his Berlin visit in 1831/32. The verdict of A. Schweitzer is to be found in Von Reimarus zu Wrede, Eine Geschichte der Lens-Jesu-Forschung, (Tubingen, 1906), p. 61; the second edition came out in 1913 under the new title: Geschichte der Lebens-Jesu-Forschung, also Tubingen (since that time many reprints). English Edition—The Quest for the Historical Jesus.

Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, op. cit. ‘External Evidence for the Authenticity and Genuineness of St. John’s Gospel,’ pp. 123-93; Additional Notes pp. 194-98. [See the introduction and the first appendix to this volume. (BW3)]

Ibid., p. 43 in the reprint of the article from The Expositor, quoted in n. 50. Cf. Lightfoot of Durham, op. cit., p. 185; J. A. T. Robinson, Joseph Barber Lightfoot, op. cit., p. 19.

In Lightfoot of Durham, op. cit., p. 15.

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