840 through love. G-O SP1‘) L S Only in two points does the thought seem I but of will; and that the bond of unity is not sight work- [rot 1:1 11 oosrist. to suggest the influence of Philo; "and in both of these I ing through material presence in material light, but Love _working through spiritual sight or the spirit of truth, Philo is rather corrected than followed. l’hilo says (Giants, 7) that it is impossible that the Spirit of God should rem-ain for ever in the soul (though it may for a time) because of our inseparable connexion with the flesh ; he adds (in language which is at least liable to the interpre- tation of asceticism) that, as Moses fixed his tent outside the camp, so those who would have the Divine Spirit as a permanent. t.enant of their souls must put off all the things of creation; the safest course being to contemplate God, not even through the uttered word, but without utterance, as absolute, indivisible existence (£6. 11, 1:2) ; with the mass of mankind the Spirit remains only for a moment, nor would it ever have visited them but to convict (8Le)<'y§aL) them of choosing what is disgraceful instead of what is good (£12. 5).1 The Fourth Gospel emphasizes no less the work of the Spirit in “ convicting ” (ékéyxeiv) the world of sin ; but it is also careful to say that the gift of the Spirit shall be permanent, “not as the world giveth give I unto you ” (xiv. 27), and that the disciples are to remain i11 Jesus, while nevertheless not taken out of the world (xvii. 15). The Saviour is no more in the world, and the (lisciples are in the world (xvii. 11); yet He will not pray that they should be removed from the world, but only that they should be delivered from the evil (ver. 15). The discourse concludes with the prayer that all future believers may be knit together into one great body, which shall be in the Father and the Son, while at the same time the Father and the Son are in it (ver. 21, 23); an(l the last words of all, after innumerable periphrastic metaphors to describe the promised presence of Christ with His disciples, recur at last to the plain expression of His presence, “ and I in you”-——not greatly differing from the promise in the First Gospel (Mat. xxviii. 20), “ I am with you always.” 2 There is doubtless a purpose in this accumulation of -obviously inconsistent statements of the local. relations be- tween the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the Church: “I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” “ Ye in Me, and I in you;” “I go unto the Father,” “The Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name ;” “The Comforter whom I will send unto you from the Father ;” “I came forth from the Father, and am come into the wor1d;”—-—the intention being to prevent the mind of the reader from attaching any importance to more local relations between the Three Persons, and to force him to form spiritual conceptions instead of local by showing that the most opposite local relations may be sinmltaneously pre- dicated. Thus contradiction after contradiction leads the reader at last to pierce beneath the literal integumcnts to the spiritual truth concealed below them; an(l, aided by the bold analogy (xvii. 21) derived from human 11nity (“that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us”), we are led at last to discern that the unity is not that of place, 1 Comp. Philo, Quad Deus Immulalu'Zis, 26: “When the high priest, conviction, like a pure ray of light," flashes on our minds, we realize our pollution; and thus conviction may be said, as it were, to pollute our former imaginary and self-satisfied righteousness. 3 There is an attractive symmetry in the supposition of Canon Westcott (Iutrocl. to St John's Gospel), that these discourses (xiii., xiv., xv.), in which alone is any mention made of “commandments," are intended to be a kind of Sermon in the Chamber, corresponding to the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount sets f'ortb the new law of Christ ; the Sermon in the Chamber vivifics the new law with the new Spirit. This supposition exactly ('m‘1‘('sponds with the “spiritnal" (Mnratorian fragment) motive of the Gospel; and the esoteric nature of the doctrine is not inconsistent with the statements which are said to be mainly “based on direct knowledge of P:lplaS'.~'. book ” (westcott, Canon, p. 76'-, that l'.'Ipi.'1s, “ :1 dear (lislfililli at" John,” wrote five books entitle-l "exoterica. " «l-‘or “ ('.‘(0itl'i1':l ” implv "e J:.L'l'li:2.., ‘ independently of material presence. And so, after all, the evangelist leads his reader to see that the coming of the Paracletc (like all things else in his Gospel) is accord- ing to law; “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you” (xvi. 7); “The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (vii. 39). Not until the dead has passed away from 11s does the “ idea of his life ” creep into our minds— “ Apparcllcd in more precious habit, More moving-delicate and full of life Than when He lived indeed ;" and the Eternal Word, who subjected Himself to the laws of human nature in birth and life, may be supposed without irreverence to have subjected Himself to, or perhaps rather we should say to have availed Himself of, the same laws of human nature which regulate }od’s ordinance of death. The crucifixion having been considered above, we pass to the narrative of the resurrection. imply that Jesus manifested Himself to the disciples in Galilee; Luke mentions none but manifestations in J udaea ; the Fourth Gospel mentions manifestations in both places. Compared with Matthew and Luke, the Fourth Gospel may be said to handle the subject more familiarly, taking the resurrection, so to speak, 1nore as a matter of course, and representing Jesus as moving in a more human fashion among His disciples after He had risen from the grave, helping them in their fishing, holding long con- versations with them, and, in a word, renewing almost without a break the intercourse of the days before the cruci- fixion. In Matthew, the Christ after death appears once, upon a mountain, doubtfully discerned by some, and emits one final message, sending His disciples to evangelize the world, and promising them His perpetual presence. In Luke the risen Christ “vanishes,” causes fear and terror to His disciples, and is supposed to be a “spirit” till He eats food in their presence; finally He is “parted from them.” In John, the ascension, though alluded to, is not described; and everything else that might give the manifestation a phantasmal character is studionsly kept in the background. No mention is made of the angel who descends (Mat. xxviii. 2) from heaven to roll away the stone from the sepulchre, terrifying the keepers of the grave, and bidding the women “fear not.” It is rather assumed that, by His own unaided strength, Christ burst the bars of the grave, and after leisurely laying aside the grave-clothes, and the “napkin in a place by itself” (John xx. 7), went forth to converse with His disciples. It is true that the Fourth (lospel does not attempt to conceal the fact that the manifestations of J csus were more than once not recognized by His disciples at first ; but, in the cases of non-recognition, it is suggested (as in Luke), not that the manifestation was faint or shadowy (as seemingly in Mat. xxviii. 17, “And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him; but some doubted”), but that they mistook Him for a stranger (xx. 14; xxi. 4). That Jesus ate in the presence of His dis- ciples is not stated, nor can it be said to be implied ; but Ilis familiar presence at the meal of the disciples (xxi. 13) suggests a real presence almost as effectively as the narrative of the eating of the fish and honeycomb in Luke. Addi- tional conviction is also obtained by taking one of the apostles, Thomas, as a type of resolute scepticism, refusing to believe unless he touches the body of the risen Saviour, and by describing how even such scepticism as this was con- verted into certainty. Moreover, as the water and the blood were visibly given by Jesus on the cross, so—~lest the giving up of the breath on the cross should be a scarcely suffici- ently noticeable type of the gift of the holy breath or Spirit— The tion.
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