ST. JOHN THE CHRISTIAN

PHILOSOPHER

JOHN i. 9.

THE favorite and Biblical designation of the apostle John is that of the "disciple whom Jesus loved." The origin of this title is not known, and there is little in the New Testament to indicate that there was anything peculiar in the relations of Jesus and John to warrant John's bold and apparently thoroughly artless application of this title to himself. There were disputes often enough among the disciples as to the prominent places in the company, and the mother of John had craved the right and the left hand of Christ in his kingdom. But there was nothing strange in this request, and it might, with equal appropriateness, have come from any other member of the company that followed Christ. Spiritual conceptions of Christ's kingdom were as yet almost, if not quite, nonexistent. Christ's power and authority were allied, in the minds of the men with whom he was associated, with earthly authority and earthly splendor. The true mission of Christ was not apprehended, or, if apprehended, in such vague and indefinite terms as to be hardly useful in directing the spiritual energies of the disciples, left to themselves, in such a way as would make for the true work of Christ in the earth. Jesus does seem to have made special associates of three of his apostles, Peter, James and John; and we have the word of John that he was himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved." It may be remarked that John's frank assumption of this title himself may show that it was habitually employed by the disciples in some such way as we frequently hear a favorite child. spoken of as "the one whom mother loves." It is difficult

to believe that the apostle John would use such an expression if there were the slightest possibility of causing offense thereby. On the other hand, the New Testament contains nothing that warrants the special assumption of such a dignity by John. In this respect John's favorite title loses its significance in precisely the same way as Peter's assumption of the primacy of the apostolic college.

Jesus loved all his disciples. It is thoroughly inconsistent with the character of Christ that he should take on a mode of behavior toward any single disciple that would gain for him such a precedence as is indicated by the words "whom Jesus loved." If there had been, we may assume that it would have appeared in some way in the history of the early Church. But no such token appears. Nor is the thing reasonable in itself. Such a habit of regarding one disciple as more lovable and better loved than the others would have been the surest way of dampening the ardor and otherwise restraining the enthusiasm of the remaining disciples of Christ. This is hardly a fair thought about the Master, whose own attention was never to individual men, anyway, except as they marked the way to be followed in the salvation of mankind as a whole. Christ was not merely a leader and Saviour of individual men, excellent as these might be. He was the Saviour of the world, and individual men stood to him merely as emblems of the world which it was his mission to save. It is possible, however, that the relations between Jesus and John were of a nature which marked a greater fellowship of mental habit and life than was possible with the other members of his chosen band. Jesus was undoubtedly impressed with the mental attitudes which John habitually held toward himself and his words. He was, without doubt, greatly interested in the view of his own Person which John's mind should form and which he should proclaim to the world. John represented a type of mental life which was exceedingly rare among the Jews, and Jesus probably knew this also and desired to take the largest advantage possible of it. The philosophic habit among the Jews was exceedingly rare. Jewish ideas about religion

and God forbade the development of any great philosophic powers in the nation. This is seen in the fact that the speculative, philosophic habit is almost entirely absent from the Jewish literature, including the Old Testament. Whatever there is springs from non-Jewish sources. It was John who was destined to interpret the gospel to the non-Jewish mind on its speculative side. This of itself may have produced an unusual mental intimacy between John and his Master.

Hand in hand with the idea of a peculiar affection on the part of Jesus for John, and partly as a result from it, has come the idea that John was a quietist in religion, the representative of the moods of religion which are unconnected with the vigor and energy which we associate with others of the apostolic company. But such an idea is manifestly an error, as the mere reading of John's works proves. John had not the personal self-assertiveness of Peter, nor the demonstrative strength of Paul, but there was no bolder mind in the whole circle that Jesus gathered about him. It is John, be it remembered, who could on occasion rise even to the heights of personal aggressiveness, as when, in company with James, he wants to call down the fire from heaven on the offending Samaritans. But his boldness was not of the type that effects physical reforms directly. His courage was in the strong and unhesitating appropriation of the ideas of other nations and possibly other religions, certainly other philosophies, than those common or dominant among the Jews, and incorporating them into the faith and gospel of Jesus Christ. The true exhibitions of courage and energy are not always in the open field. There is a dash and movement of the cloister, and the cabinet as well. The true pioneers of human life are after all the pioneers of thought. The noblest heroism is the heroism of independent opinions. The reason why there was no clash on the subject of apostolic orthodoxy between St. Peter and St. John, as there was between St. Peter and St. Paul, is probably because Peter had absolutely no grasp whatever of the vastness of the spiritual reach and effect of St. John's opinions of Christ and the gospel. Philosophy Peter had absolutely none. To John the gospel was not

merely a life, but a philosophy of life also. And his problem was the explaining of the philosophy of life which was expressed in the terms of the gospel life of Jesus Christ. This conception of itself was a bold one in the mind of a Jew trained in the habits of thought and in the precepts of Jewish exclusiveness as John was. It marks John as a radical of the most pronounced type. It was not personally self-assertive nor ecclesiastically aggressive; but it was intellectually continental and human, as contrasted with the provincial and insular modes of Jewish thought.

If the key-word of St. Paul's life-work is freedom, and that of St. Peter's is authority, that of St. John's may be set down as illumination. He is the apostle of light, that is, of the light of the mind. John has more to say, directly and indirectly, of the thoughts of Christ than all the other writers of the New Testament together. He penetrates more deeply into the springs of the Christian teaching. He is more anxious about the reasons that lay at the roots of Christ's own mind. He shows a deeper understanding of the selfconsciousness of Jesus than any of his contemporaries. He tried to see the gospel from the standpoint of Christ's own experience. He sought to bring the world-ideas of Jesus naturally into harmony and relationship with the Jewish expectations of the Messiah. He endeavored to point out that the Jews' Messiah was also the world-Christ. And, as is by that fact at once seen, this was a question of a human and world philosophy quite as much as it was the proclamation of a faith. There was another reason for all this which lay in the nature and rearing of St. John himself. St. John represents in many ways what may be called the urban view of Christ and his work. It was the view of a man who had relationships and interests at the center of the nation's life. This was true of John even more than it was of St. Paul. St. Paul feels impelled to boast that he is a citizen of no mean city. St. John has the calm urban view of a native Jerusalemite. There is no need of announcing that he is a city There is no need of making it clear that he is taking the view of a Jew whose interests and traditions are those of

man.

an assured social and intellectual position. This appears in John's writings themselves. It is for this reason, too, that the Jerusalem ministry of Jesus has for him the deepest interest. It is for this reason, likewise, that he pays more attention to the discourses of Christ, and less to the events that induced. the discourses. His doctrine of the logos, the Word, made the ideas of the gospel of infinitely more importance than the mere local clothing in which those ideas might appear.

It is at this point that an interesting contrast appears between the point of view of St. Paul and that of St. John. Paul's interests at the capital were those of a theologian, and hence we have a Pauline theology. It is hardly a right designation to speak of a Johannine theology. It is more proper to speak of a Johannine philosophy of religion or Christianity. Where Paul enters into the primary principles of theology, John discusses the necessary elements of religious thought, utterly without reference to their theological interest and bearing. Paul has a definite theory of Christology. John's Christology is that of a speculative mystic who has found the key to the thought-life of the world. Paul's identification. with Christ was the heroic assumption of the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. St. John's identification with Christ was the fellowship of a common thought about God and about the salvation of the world. Where St. Peter is ecclesiastical, John is cosmopolitan. Where Paul is theological, John is metaphysical. Where Paul finds his energies expanding in the problem of God's dealings with man and his activities in the world, John is finding his rest in the being of God and the eternal nature of the divine character. Paul gives the outlines of God's personality, and points out the representative character of Christ as revealing the God whom he has portrayed. John feels after the necessary elements of God's nature and accepts Christ as having them. What Paul discovers by argument and inference, John discovers by feeling and the characteristics of reality. Throughout, St. John is a philosopher who has become Christianized and to whom Christ is the center of thought and the satisfying symbol of rest and peace with God. It is in this fact, that John shows