tion in the resurrection (Luke xiv. 14) or in the future world (xx. 35), and fellowship with the exalted Christ (xxi. 36), are confined to the believers or the righteous (comp. § 99, b). (d) The importance, which in the writings of Luke is laid. on the activity of the Spirit, seems to be quite Pauline. It is more strongly stated even of Jesus than in the oldest tradition (§ 18), that He acted and spoke in the power of the Spirit (Luke iv. 14, 18; Acts i. 2), as is also the fulness of the Spirit given to His forerunner (Luke i. 15, 17) and to those who prophesied of Him (i. 41, 67, ii. 25, 27) specially emphasized. In Jesus' speech, the promise xi. 13 is referred specially to prayer for the Holy Spirit, and the word about blaspheming the Spirit is referred to the Spirit speaking in the apostles (xii. 10-12). But, above all, it is repeatedly recorded how the Risen One had assured the disciples of the Spirit promised by His Father (Luke xxiv. 49), as the power from on high with which they should be clothed (Acts i. 4, 5, 8, xi. 16). The promise was fulfilled at Pente 7 With this is connected the change on the saying, Luke xii. 5 (comp. Matt. x. 28, and therewith § 34, d, footnote 8), by which the idea is expressly excluded that the godless will be thrown body and soul into hell. All the more striking is it if, Acts xxiv. 15, a resurrection of the just and of the unjust is spoken of,- —a statement which can be taken only in the sense of the Apocalypse (§ 132, b). Quite Pauline is the idea of a direct fellowship with Christ, to whom believers come at death (Luke xxiii. 43; Acts vii. 59; comp. § 96, d). But the μa in the latter passage is as little as in xvii. 16, xix. 21, the higher Christian spiritual life in the sense of § 86, b; and since Luke does not at all know the Pauline idea of the ráp, and indicates but the early Christian psychological ideas, then only the human spiritual life is to be thought of even in xviii. 25, xx. 22, although there it is evidently guided by the Holy Spirit. 8 This is made prominent even in the first Gospel, if the command to baptize (Matt. xxviii. 19), which the exalted Christ gave to His disciples when He appeared to them, means that they are to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Moreover, it can scarcely be thereby originally intended to give a wider baptismal formula in contradistinction to that of the first apostles (§ 41, a, footnote 1). Rather along with the reference to Him who is confessed as the Son of the Father, i.e. as the Messiah, the reference to the Spirit is only made prominent, as participation in the Spirit is promised in baptism. 9 It is clear from Luke xxiv. 49, Acts i. 8, that the Spirit, just as by Paul (§ 84, a, footnote 4), is thought of as a divine power (comp. Luke iv. 14), as elsewhere also this power seems to be connected with the Spirit (Luke i. 17; Acts x. 38), or to be but another term for it (Luke i. 35, v. 17; Acts iv. 33, vi. 8). cost in the first place, where, as the principle of the gifts of grace, He wrought that speaking with other tongues, which is described by Luke as miraculous speech (ii. 4-11), as later the speaking with tongues and prophesying for the first converted Gentiles (x. 44-46) and for the converted disciples of John (xix. 6). As now the Holy Spirit speaks in Old Testament prophecy (i. 16, iv. 25, xxviii. 25), so also does He in New Testament preaching (vii. 51), which is indeed a word of God, according to note b, as was the former. In conformity with Christ's promise (Luke xii. 12), the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit for their defence before the Sanhedrim (Acts iv. 8); but so, too, were all believers equipped by repeated outpourings of the Spirit for bold preaching in the presence of threatening persecution (iv. 31; comp. ix. 31, xiii. 52). The Spirit strengthens faith in them (vi. 5, xi. 24), and communicates the wisdom to them (vi. 3, 10), which they require for preaching. He also gives to them the manifold special indications as to what they have to do for the discharge of their missionary calling (viii. 29, 39, x. 19, xi. 12, xiii. 2, 4, xvi. 6, 7), or for the advance of the life of the Church (xx. 28; comp. xv. 28, v. 3, 9). But here, too, he appears (comp. § 135, d) as the organ of prophecy in the narrower sense (xi. 28, xiii. 9, xx. 23, xxi. 4, 11; comp. vii. 55); but never, on the other hand, in the specific Pauline sense as the principle of the new spiritual life. Here, therefore, it is also clear that Luke, in spite of all allusions to Paulinism, has not reproduced the specific peculiarity of the Pauline method of doctrine.10 10 If from this we see how difficult it was even for the immediate disciples of the apostle to comprehend the peculiarity of his doctrine in its essential points, for the same thing the Epistle of the Romish Clement furnishes a second highly instructive example, then this is of great importance for the criticism of the Pastoral Epistles, in which the fundamental type of Paul's method of doctrine is preserved so thoroughly pure and full (comp. § 108). PART FIFTH. THE JOHANNEAN THEOLOGY. INTRODUCTION. § 140. The Sources of the Johannean Theology. THE sources of the Johannean theology are the Fourth Gospel and the three Epistles of John (a). The Biblicaltheological realization of the Gospel is by no means conditioned by the denial of its historical trustworthiness (b). A sharp distinction between the substance of Jesus' speeches proceeding from a true remembrance, and their Johannean conception and setting, is neither possible nor necessary (c). Yet Biblical theology has in many ways to separate in detail between what John expressly gives as the doctrines of the Master, and what has been drawn therefrom by individual independent doctrinal conception (d). (a) From the sources of the Johannean theology, as it is to be presented in this section, the Apocalypse is entirely excluded. There remain for us, therefore, only the Gospel and 1 Its author was distinct from him from whom the Gospel and the Epistles came; his doctrinal views and method were in many ways different. Thus far will criticism ever be in the right, even should it turn out that it is the same Apostle John who, in the at least two decenniums which he had survived the fall of Jerusalem, epochs full of importance in the development of the Church, by the inclusion of Greek Gentile Christians, had in many ways become so different. Even for the decision of this critical question, Biblical theology, while it points steadily in its representation to what is related in the older doctrinal ideas, but sets forth at the same time the doctrinal peculiarities of the Gospel and of the Epistles in these complete particulars, will be able to be fruitful, inasmuch as it will be clear from it whether the points of contact for the doctrinal development here presented are to be found in the Apocalypse or not. the Epistles, the time of whose composition cannot be fixed with complete certainty, both of which, however, become more intelligible the farther they are pushed back towards the end of the first century. In this fixing of the time, which is vouched for by external testimony for the Gospel, as also by undeniable traces of personal knowledge in it, Biblical theology has more interest than in the question, whether the Gospel came direct from the apostle, or, by which many problems connected with it seem to be more easily solved, only arose from communications by him. But since the testimony of the Gospel itself, which at this time, and in its preponderatingly indirect way, can be no literary invention, excludes the latter supposition, we believe the direct apostolicity of it must be firmly maintained. That the Gospel and the Epistles proceed from the same hand must be regarded as made out. It has no doubt been attempted to ascribe the second and third Epistles to a different author from the first (comp. Ebrard in Olshausen's bibl. Comment. vi. 4, Königsberg 1859; and, on the other hand, Weiss' theol. Literaturblatt, 1880, Nr. 18); but the grounds needful to make this valid can as little hinder us from classing them with the first, as the little which the second in particular contains of doctrinal matter agrees thoroughly, confessedly, with that of the first both in substance and expression. The Gospel even and the first Epistle were no doubt assigned by the Tübingen school to different authors. But, from the striking agreement of both writings in doctrinal terms and contents, the one must have intentionally copied the other, and the dispute on this point carried on between Baur (theol. Jahrb. 1848, 3) and Hilgenfeld (das Evangelium u. die Briefe Johannis, Halle 1849), as to which was the original, shows sufficiently that neither of them in any very evident way bears the marks of an imitation (comp. Grimm, Stud. u. Krit. 1847, 1; 1849, 2). (b) The Biblical theological realization of the Fourth Gospel appears only in the first place then unquestionable, if with the Tübingen school it is ascribed to a Gentile Christian of the second century, who has given in it no real history, but a literary redaction of the synoptical tradition, freely moulded according to his doctrinal point of view, mixed with quite independent invention, and in the speeches of Christ essentially only the development of his own theology (comp. Baur, kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, Tübingen 1847). If, on the other hand, the author is held to be the Apostle John, and the contents of the Gospel to be an essentially trustworthy historical representation, then its value as an original writing for Johannean theology seems to be very narrowly limited, while only the Prologue of the Gospel and individual incidental expressions, in which the author comes forward in a self-reflecting way, can be held as valid expressions of that theology. But, according to the analogy of § 114, c, the doctrinal point of view becoming specially prominent in John, remains in any case of standard significance for the doctrinal views of the author, from which point of view the materials dealt with by him are selected, grouped, and presented. But even the speeches of Christ in the Gospel may, even if they are conceived to be verbally authentic, not be excluded from being sources for the Johannean theology, since an imperfect representation of it must remain, unless we go back to the living words of the Lord in the recollection of the apostle, from which their education had resulted, to assure the full understanding of which, and to develop their depths, must always have been for the disciples the most important task. (c) If the evangelist passes directly at times from communicating the words of Jesus to explanations of his own (iii. 19–21), or joins utterances of Jesus independently with a whole, which has for him the value of his own reflections, it is clear from this, that he was conscious to himself that he had reproduced the speeches of Jesus not in verbal accuracy, but by a free reproduction conformable to the laws of memory, which must, moreover, at any rate be assumed, considering the length of time after which he wrote all down. That this now really took place, is confirmed by the undeniable uniformity between the doctrinal terms and the development of thought in the Epistles, and the speeches and dialogues in the Gospel. But we therewith lose any certain rule for a 2 The common expedient, that the beloved disciple had most completely appropriated the manner of the Master's thoughts and doctrines, is wrecked on the undeniable fact of the difference, which appears so sharply both in form and contents, which Christ's speeches show in the synoptical Gospels, resting as |