John Drane - The Gospel of ST John PDF
John Drane - The Gospel of ST John PDF
John Drane - The Gospel of ST John PDF
Forthcoming
The Book ofJob: Why Do the Imtocent S'1ffer?
Introduced and Edited by Lawrence Boadt;
Foreword by Alice Thomas Ellis
Genesis: The Book if Beginnings
Introduced and Edited by Lawrence Boadt;
Foreword by Sara Maitland
The Psalms: Ancient Poetry if the Spirit
Introduced and Edited by Lawrence Boadt and F. F. Bruce;
Foreword by R. S. Thomas
Sayings if the Wise: The Legacy of King Solomon
Introduced and Edited by Lawrence Boadt;
Foreword by Libby Purves
Stories from the Old Testament: Volume I
Introduced and Edited by Lawrence Boadt;
Foreword by Monica Furlong
Stories from the Old Testament: Volume II
Introduced and Edited by Lawrence Boadt;
Foreword by Morris West
The New Testament Epistles: Early Christian Wisdom
Introduced and Edited by John Drane;
Foreword by Roger McGough
Revelation: The Apocalypse if StJohn
Introduced and Edited by John Drane;
Foreword by Richard Harries
·+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Acknowledgments 6
Foreword 7
Introduction 9
The text of 'The Gospel of Stjohn in literature' has been selected from
A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature, edited by David Lyle
Jeffrey, copyright © 1992 by permission of Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
The unabridged text of The Gospel of Stjohn ha~ been taken from the New
jerusalem Bible copyright © 1985 by permission of Danon, Longman and
Todd Ltd and Doubleday and Company Inc.
Margaret Avison, 'The Circuit', has been reproduced from Sunblue (1978),
published by Oxford University Press, Canada.
6
Foreword
7
FOREWORD
too frightened of public opinion to admit it. 'They put honour from
men before the honour that comes from God.'
If we recognize the scepticism of the modem world in these
reactions to Jesus, we can equally respond with faith to the unique
qualities of the extraordinary man portrayed by St John - his
compassion, his authority and his power over death. The cry 'Lazarus,
come fonh' Qohn 12:43) resounds down the ages, and will be heard
by all who can say with Lazarus' sister Manha: 'Yes, Lord, I believe
that you are the Christ, the Son of God' Qohn 11:27).
8
INTRODUCTION
There was a time, fifty or sixty years ago, when biblical scholars
regarded the Gospel of John as a 2nd-century theological
interpretation of the life of Jesus using the language and thought-
forms of Hellenistic philosophy. They thought of it as a kind of
extended sermon, with no real connection with reliable traditions
about Jesus as he actually lived and taught.
Recent developments, however, have shattered this picture of
.John's Gospel once and for all. Many competent scholars are now
prepared to regard it as an early, independent source of knowledge
about Jesus' life and teaching, and of equal value with the synoptic
gospels. We can trace thre.e main reasons for this radical change of
opinion: the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, commonly called
the Synoptics.
9
INTRODUCTION
indeed its author may well have written his work without any
knowledge of the writings of the other evangelists.
Closer examination of these stories found in all four gospels
shows that though there are similarities, there are also a number of
differences in John's account, and these differences are not the kind
that can easily be explained on theological grounds. John's variations
are in fact much easier to understand if we assume that he had access
to different reports of the incidentc; known also to the synoptic
writers. When this hypothesis is tested in detail, it can be seen not
only that John's account comes from a different source, but also that
there are a number of pieces of information in john which can be used
to supplement the accounts of the other gospels in such a way that
the whole story 'of Jesus' life and ministry becomes more
understandable.
For example, john reports that some of Jesus' disciples had
previously been followers of John " the Baptist. This helps to explain
the exact nature of the Baptist's wimess to Jesus in the Synoptics, and
especially the emphasis placed there on his role in 'preparing the way
of the Lord'. John's account also helps to identify what Jesus was
doing between his baptism and the arrest of John the Baptist. The
Synoptics report that Jesus began his ministry in Galilee after John's
arrest, and this is the only ministry recorded in the synoptic gospels.
But Matthew and Luke (Q) report that during his last visit to
Jerusalem, Jesus said of its inhabitants, 'How often would I have
gathered your children together ... ' (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34) -
which suggests Jesus had visited Jerusalem on previous occasions.
John reports just such an occasion, right at the beginning of jesus'
ministry, when he worked alongside John the Baptist in judea before
going back to Galilee when John was arrested.
John's Gospel illustrates and supplements the synoptic material
at a later point, when it records another visit by Jesus to jerusalem
some six months before his entry on Palm Sunday. john records how
jesus left Galilee and went to jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles
(September) and stayed there until the Feast of Dedication
(December). Then, because of growing hostility, he returned to the
area where john the Baptist had worked, and only made a brief visit
to Bethany when he heard that Lazarus had died. A little later, six days
10
INTRODUCTION
before the Passover (April) he returned for his final visit to Jerusalem.
This is the only one recorded in any detail in Mark, though the others
are perhaps implied by Mark's summary statement: 'he left [Galilee]
and went to the region of)udea and beyond the jordan'.
Many smaller details provided by John's Gospel also help to
explain and clarify some points in the synoptic narratives. There is, for
example, the feeding of the 5,000. At the end of the story in Mark,
jesus forces his disciples to escape on a boat while he stays behind to
dismiss the crowd. John's independent tradition fills in some of the
detail, explaining thatjesus took this action because the crowd were
eager to kidnap him and mal<e him their king. Similarly, the stories of
the Last Supper and of]esus' trials can be fully understood only in the
light of information contained in john's Gospel.
In view of evidence of this sort, it is now coming to be realized
that John's Gospel is a source in its own right. The information it
contains is independent of that in the synoptic gospels, but at many
crucial points john complements the other three.
11
INTRODUCTION
explains them for the benefit of his Greek readers. Even the meaning
of the word Messiah is given a careful explanation.
More significantly, there are also a number of points at which
the Greek of the gospel follows the rules of Aramaic grammar. An
instance of this occurs when john the Baptist says of]esus, 'I am not
wonhy that I should untie the thong of his sandals' Qohn 1:27).
Though the distinction is not made in our English versions, the other
gospels have a different, and correct, Greek expression, 'to untie'. But
the unusual form of the statement in john is a regular idiom of the
Aramaic language.
Then we also find jesus' sayings in john expressed in the typical
parallelism of Semitic poetry, and other sections of his teaching can be
retranslated into Aramaic to form completely realistic Aramaic poetry.
It is not likely that john is a direct translation of an Aramaic
document, though some have argued for this. But these facts do
suggest that the teaching in john has the same Palestinian background
as the material of the synoptic gospels; and the curious use of Aramaic
grammar in Greek writing may well suggest that Aramaic was the
author's native language.
Archaeological Discoveries
In addition to the internal evidence, there is also a considerable and
important body of evidence drawn from archaeology which makes the
old idea that John was a late Hellenistic gospel now untenable. Three
main pieces of evidence are imponant here.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown that the combination of
Greek and jewish ideas which we find in john was current not only in
Greek cities like Ephesus in the 2nd century AD, but also in Palestine
itself, in strict Jewish circles, in the pre-Christian era. Many phrases
familiar from john are also found in the scrolls. 'Doing the truth'
Qohn 3:21), 'walking in darkness' Qohn 12:35), 'sons of the light'
Oohn 12:36), 'the Spirit of truth' Qohn 14:17), and many more
expressions are as typical of the Qumran community as they are of
John's Gospel. Moreover, the contrasts made in john between light
and darkness, truth and error, are also typical of the Qumran texts.
12
INTRODUCTION
And in both places this dualism between light and darkness, truth
and error is an ethical dualism, in contrast to the metaphysical
emphasis of most Greek and Gnostic philosophies.
Another discovery, of equal importance, and made at about the
same time as the Dead Sea Scrolls, is the Coptic Gnostic library found
at Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt. Prior to the discovery of these
documents, Gnosticism was known mostly from the works of early
church historians and theologians who wrote books to refute it. From
their statements it was not too difficult to imagine that John's Gospel
could have been written in the 2nd century as a part of the battle
between Gnostic and 'orthodox' Christians. But direct access to the
writings of Gnostic teachers has shown that there is a vast difference
between the world of John's Gospel and the world of classical
Gnosticism.
Archaeological excavations in Jerusalem have also provided
evidence to illuminate the traditions of John's GospeL One of the
unusual features of this gospel is its proliferation of names and
descriptions of places. It was widely thought at one time that these
names were introduced either to serve as symbols for theological
messages, or to give the impression of authenticity in otherwise
fabricated accounts. But it is now clear that most of this geographical
information rests on real knowledge of the citty as it was before AD70.
In that year the Romans so completely destroyed Jerusalem that it
would have been impossible to observe the ruins later and imagine
what the city must have been like beforehand. Excavations in
Jerusalem have now shown that descriptions of the Pool of Bethesda,
for example, or 'the Pavement' where jesus met Pilate, are based on
intimate knowledge of the city as it was in th<e time of]esus.
13
INTRODUCTION
johns in connection with the gospel: the apostle, and a john who is
called 'the Elder'. There is also the fact that the gospel itself seems to
portray the 'beloved disciple' as a source of some of its information-
though it never makes dear who this person was. lrenaeus identified
the beloved disciple with john the apostle, but he could just as easily
be an ideal figure, symbolic of any true follower of Christ. He has even
been identified with Lazarus who is the only person of whom it is
consistently said that jesus loved him.
An attractive hypothesis that may explain the new facts now
coming to light about John is the idea that this gospel has gone
through two editions. We have already seen that apart from the
prologue the gospel seems to be a very Jewish book, but with the
prologue it takes on the appearance of a book more suited to the
Greek world. It is therefore possible that the prologue was added after
the completion of d1e original work, to commend the gospel to a new
readership.
This possibility is also supported by the odd connection
between chapters 20 and 21. The last verse of chapter 20 looks like
the logical conclusion of rhe book, but it is then followed by the post-
resurrection instructions of Jesus to Peter in chapter 21. This final
chapter could also have been added at the time when the book was
sent off to serve the needs of a new group of people, though its style
and language is so close to that of the rest of the gospel that it must
have been added by the same person.
It seems possible that the gospel was first written in Palestine,
to demonstrate that 'Jesus is the Christ'. The author may have had in
view sectarian jews influenced by ideas like those of the Qumran
community. Then, when the same teaching was seen to be relevant to
people elsewhere in the Roman Empire, the gospel was revised:
Jewish customs and expressions were explained, and the prologue
and epilogue added. The advice to church leaders in chapter 21
suggests that the final form of the gospel may then have been directed
to a jewish Christian congregation somewhere in the Hellenistic world
- perhaps, as church tradition says, in Ephesus.
The question of the date of the gospel is really wide open,
because we have no other evidence against which to set it. The church
Fathers imply that it was written by John the apostle at the end of a
14
INTRODUCTION
15
INTRODUCTION
Purpose
Structure
There is always an element of guesswork involved in trying to
understand how an ancient author organized a particular work. But
the gospel seems to have four main parts.
16
INTRODUCTION
The Epilogue (chapter 21): Here we find the seventh and final
'sign', the miraculous catching of fish by the disciples who had
already fished all night, but caught nothing. This leads onto the
recommissioning of Peter, and through him the other disciples, to take
the message of]esus out to the whole world- a mission that is rooted
in the presentation of jesus as Son of God and Messiah found in the
previous chapters of the gospel.
john Drane
18
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
IN LITERATlJRE
Major Characters
jesus Christ 42
John the Beloved Disciple 47
judas lscariot 49
Laz.arus of Bethany .53
Mary Magdalene 57
Mary, Mother of]esus 61
Nicodemus 68
Peter 71
Pontius Pilate 80
Thomas, Doubting 84
Woman of Samaria 86
Woman Taken in Adultery 88
19
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
20
THEMES AND IMAGES
21
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
less shows the 'Form Divine', 'the Divine Vision' (stanza 18): Blake's
Jesus is his fully realized visionary man. As Alfred Kazin remarks,
Blake heralds something of the 'heroic vitalism' which impels the
writings of Nietzsche and D.H. Lawrence (Introduction to The Portable
Blake, 1946, 23). Nietzsche's autobiography, Ecce Homo, pictures the
self-reliant divine man scornful of rational ethics and received values,
while Lawrence's novella The Man Who Died imagines a Christ more
vital if less heroic: 'the man' is grateful to 'Pilate and the high priests'
for reminding him of his humanity.
Sir john Seeley's mid-Victorian Ecce Homo: A Survey of the Life
and Work of]esus Christ presents 'rhe man' as the greatest exemplar of
moral virtue, whose teachings have been made insipid by the
materialism of a church wed to the state. Seeley's Ecce Homo neither
affirms nor denies Christ's divinity, but calls on the people of England
to imitate Christ and th~reby establish a republic of charity in which
Christians will be governed solely by the moral imperatives dictated
by the soul to each citizen. The problematic conjunction of church
and state is also at issue, though indirectly, in Matthew Arnold's The
Sick King in Bokhara', which seems to make use of the biblical Ecce
homo: 'In the King's path, behold, the man' (94). Caught between the
law and the spirit, duty and mercy, Arnold's king reluctantly
condemns 'the man', a self-confessed lawbreaker, and gives him an
opportunity to save himself, which the man refuses. The sick monarch
himself buries the conscientious lawbreaker.
Browning's The Ring and the Book incorporates an extended and
ingenious treatment of the Ecce homo theme. In book 8, Count Guido
Franceschini's lawyer figures his guilty client before the papal civil
court as the mocked Christ suffering in silence (657-59) and casts
him in the role of 'Samson in Gaza ... the antetype I 0£ Guido at
Rome' (638-39). Guido's testimony in book 5 shows him assuming
that posture for himself. Similarly and ironically, the prosecutor likens
his method of presenting Guido's wife and innocent victim to that of
a painter of sacred subjects. In 'Behold Pompilia' (9 .162), Juris Doctor
Johannes-Baptista Bottinius see..<> himself unveiling her Madonna-like
portrait before the court. Pope Innocent implicitly confirms the
verisimilitude of the prosecutor's rendering when he likens Guido to
Barabbas and so casts the convicted murderer in the role of an
22
TiiEMES AND IMAGES
Bethesda
The pool of Bethesda, m:ar Jerusalem's Sheep Gate, is mentioned only
in john 5:2, where it is described as the site of a miraculous healing
(5:2-16). The pool was surrounded by five ponicoes in which the
23
HIE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
sick waited for an angel to stir the water Qohn 5:3-4) and provide
healing for the first to step into it Here jesus healed a man who,
during his thirty-eight years of sickness, had never been helped into
the pool. Since this healing took place on a Sabbath, the religious jews
sought to killjesus (5:16).
Early English literature appropriates the place name in various
paraphrases of the Gospels, reflecting the variant spellings but
generally preferring the form 'Bethsaida' (Rushworth Gospel, West Saxon
Gospels, Lindisfarne). In the Cursor Mundi the Antichrist, it is
predicted, will be fostered in Bethesda (22101).
The typological interpretation of the Bethesda event was soon
seculariz.ed and led to frequent figurative uses which usually focused
on one pan of the narrative such as the troubling of the water, its
healing powers, or the sick man's coming too late. Wordsworth
compares Bethesda to the human heart, describing the poet's words as
Words that can soothe, more than they agitate;
Whose spirit, like the angel that went down
Into Bethesda's pool, with healing vinue,
lnfonns the fountain in the human breast
Which by the vi'iitation was disturbed. ('lines Suggested by a
Ponrait from the Pencil off Stone', l2 4-28)
24
THEMES AND IMAGES
25
THE GOSPEL Of STJOHN IN LITERATURE.
This pool that once the angels troubled does not move.
No angel stirs it now, no Saviour comes
With healing in His hands to raise the sick
And bid the lame man leap upon the ground.
Manfred Siebald
johannes Gutenberg Universitiit, Mainz. Gennaey
Bread of life
Bread is an extraordinarily rich symbol in the Bible, appearing as a
figure for providential gifts -- both physical and spiritual - as well as
gifts of human hospitality. The word can be metonymic for solid food
of any kind, but when referring to baking generally means wheat
bread. In the Old Testament sanctuary it is only in connection with
the jealousy offering that barley is even mentioned (Numbers 5:15).
According to Numbers 6:15 it was the duty of a Nazarite after
expiration of his vow to make a presentation at the sanctuary of a
(wheat) bread offering. In the New Testament, however, it was barley
loaves from a little boy's lunch which Jesus used to feed the
multitudes (John 6:9); barley was less desirable, hence cheaper and
more often used by peasants.
The locus classicus for New Testament iconography of bread is
John 6, in which Jesus remonstrates with those who pursue him the
day after the miracle of the loaves and fishes, hoping for another free
meal, some alluding to the 'manna in the desen', the 'bread from
heaven' which they attribute to Moses. Jesus says rather, 'My Father
giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he
which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.' Still
confused, they· ask for 'this bread', imagining corporeal food, but
Jesus stanles them by saying, 'I am the bread of life; he that cometh
to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never
thirst' (John 6:31-35). St Augustine's commentary In Joannis
Evangeli.um sets the tone for Western tradition, which depends on an
opposition of the corporeal bread of the Old Covenant and the
spiritual bread of the New: They considered therefore the things
promised by Moses, and they considered the things promised by
26
THEMES AND IMAGES
Christ. The former promised a full belly on eanh, but of the meat
which perished; the latter promised not the meat which perishes but
that which endures unto eternal life' (25.12). To hunger after the
bread which Christ offers-· himself- is to express 'the hunger of the
inner man', and 'consequently, he that hungers after this bread,
hungers after righteousness- that righteousness which comes down,
however, from heaven, the righteousness that God gives, not that
which one works for on his own' (26.1). This notion appears to
underlie the double irony of Herbert's narrator jesus in The Sacrifice',
who says of his adversaries, 'They do wish me dead, I Who cannot
wish, except I give them bread' (6-·7).
Augustine had been led to make an analogy of the incarnation
-- the Word made flesh (26.10) - and the bread of the Eucharist.
Concerning the bread 'which comes down from heaven', he says:
'Manna signified this bread; God's altar signified this bread. Those
were sacraments. In the sign they were diverse; in the thing which
they signified they were alike' (26.12--20). The incarnational reference
is echoed in numerous medieval lyrics which, inspired also by an
Antonian iconography of the Virgin, makes her womb the oven in
which the bread of life was baked (e.g., a eucharistic hymn by james
Ryman [R. Greene, The Earo/ English Carols, no. 318] 'In virgyne Mary
this brede was bake, I Whenne Criste of her manhoode did take').
Herbert develops the same idea in a different fashion: 'I could believe
an lmpanation I At the rate of an incarnation, I If thou hadst died for
Bread' ('H. Communion', 25-28). Herbert's 'Prayer for after the
Sermon' in A Priest to the Temple may reflect a tendency after the
Reformation to identify eucharistic nourishment with the
nourishment of expounded Scriptures: 'Lord, thou hast fed us with
the bread of life' (290; ct: Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy
Bible, john 6:35ff.). A general conflation of all the spiritual senses as
opposed co the simple liternl 'staff of life' or 'daily bread' of the
paternoster (Matthew 6: 11) is common after the 19th century.
Carlyle, in Sartor Resartus, says: ~ second man I honour, and still
more highly: Him who is seen toiling for the spilitually indispensable;
not daily bread, but the bread of life' (3.4).
David L. jeffrey
Univrnil)' of Ottawa
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
Lamb of God
Lamb of God is one of the messianic titles of jesus, used of him by
john the Baptist (John 1:29-30). Throughout the book of
Revelation, Jesus is pictured as the Lamb (Revelation 5:6; 12:11;
13:8; 22:1). And in 1 Peter 1:19, the sacrifice of]esus is likened to
that of a lamb 'without spot or blemish'. The key Old Testament
materials lying behind this New Testament application are the
slaughtered lamb of the Exodus, whose blood smeared on the
doorpost spared the Israelites from the judgment inflicted upon the
Egyptians (Exodus 12:3-13), the sacrificial lambs used in Old
Testament worship, and also the lamb symbolism in Isaiah 53:6-7,
where the 'suffering servant' of the Lord is likened to a lamb
prepared for slaughter, whose vicarious sacrifice atones for the sins of
wayward 'sheep'.
Identification of jesus as both the lamb of God and suffering
servant receives frequent mention in the early church (see, e.g.,
1 Clement 16:7; Epistle of Barnabas 5:2). In early Christian
iconography the lamb pictured on the shoulders of Christ the good
shepherd symbolizes the lost and found soul, but can also signify
Christ himself as sacrificial victim. In the first quaner of the 8th
century the image of the lamb as a figura of Christ achieved even
greater prominence when Pope Sergi us made the Agnus Dei a pan of
the ordinary of the Mass: 'Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the
world, have mercy upon us.'
Traditional scriptural interpretation of the lamb is reflected in
the writings of St Thomas More (Confutation, 5.617G; Passion,
1.1296, where the reference is to Revelation 5:1, 13) and in Spenser's
Faerie Queene (1.1.5; 1.10.42; 1.10.57). The sacrificial character of
the lamb of God is noted in Henry Constable's '0 Gracious
Shepherd', where the blood of Christ on Calvary is 'lamb-like, offered
to the butcher's block'. Richard Crashaw's 'In the Holy Nativity of
Our Lord God' ends with a chorus 'To thee, dread Lamb! whose love
must keep I The Shepherds, more than they, the sheep.'
The lamb is a crucial image in the poetry of Blake. His Songs of
Innocence is introduced by a poem centring on 'a song about a Lamb'
which makes its hearers 'weep with joy' ('Piping down the valleys
28
THEMES AND IMAGES
wild'). In Blake's famous 'little Lamb, who made thee?' the answer
given in his second stanza is:
little Lamb I'll tell thee,
little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek &: he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
little Lamb God bless thee.
little Lamb God bless thee.
29
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE '
Ught
Light, the first creation of God ('Let there be light', Genesis 1:3), is
also one of the most imponant and complex symbols in the Bible.
Five principal uses of the symbol may be discerned from both Old
Testament and New Testament texts.
First, light is frequently used to symbolize God himself (Psalms
4:6; 27:1; james 1:17; l john 1:5), and, by extension, his heavenly
dwelling (Colossians 1:12; 1 Timothy 6:16; Revelation 22:5). God
covers himself with light as with a garment (Psalm 104:2), and his
'dwelling' or Shekinah (cf. 1 Chronicles 3:2lff.) is said to be in
splendoured light (cf. Sanhedrin 39a; Ber. 7a; Shabbat 22b; Numbers
Rabba 7.8).
Second, light can suggest moral goodness or holiness, in
contrast to moral darkness (Matthew 5:14; John 3:19-20; 12:36;
Ephesians 5:8). To 'walk in the light' is to obey God's word (l Samuel
2:5); his 'commandments enlighten the eyes' (Psalm 19:8). In
talmudic teaching, whenever and wherever God's law is closely
observed, a refulgence of the Shekinah spills over into the lives of his
people.
Third, light pictures salvation (Psalm 2 7: 1) and is linked
especially with the redemptive activity of Christ, 'the light of the
world' (Matthew 5: 16; Luke 2:32; john 1:1-9; 8: 12; 9:5). This light
is not achieved through human wisdom or special knowledge (or, in
Plato's analogy, by an ascent out of the cave of human ignorance) but
descends into human darkness, unbidden, and radically transforms it.
Light also symbolizes truth and understanding, as opposed to
error, ignorance, or folly (Psalm 119:105, 130; 2 Corinthians 4:6). In
eschatological contexts, it is related to justice (Psalm 37:6; Micah 7:9;
Zechariah 3:5).
30
THEMES AND IMAGES
31
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
characters who, Tiresias-like, alone 'see the light'. (An ironic treatment
of this theme occurs in Kipling's The Light that Failed.)
In numerous modem works a loss of belief in illumination
through God's law (Psalm 119:105) or Christ Qohn 1:4-5;
2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 5:14) occasions a felt need for
alternative 'light' for human vision (e.g., Virginia Woolf, To the
Lighthouse). With postmodern loss of confidence in the
Enlightenment era's supreme standard of reason, both gnostic
notions of higher light and neopagan attractions to darkness tend to
displace or syncretize biblical notions of the 'light of the world' (cf.
john 8:12; 9:5).
The biblical tradition extends, however, well beyond the
Enlightenment, sometimes self-consciously opposing rationalist or
gnostic usage. In the 18th century William Cowper's 'The Shining
Light', 'The Light and Glory of the Word', 'Sometimes a light
surprizes', and 'Light Shining out of Darkness' all bear wimess to
familiar biblical images; the latter hymn is an answer to those who
think that human reason is sufficient light for the proper
understanding of nature, concluding:
Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter
And he will make it plain.
For Cowper the rationalist's 'light' is itself clearly a gift of God, though
unrecognized as such:
Their fortitude and wisdom were a flame
Celestial, though they knew not whence it came,
Deriv' d from the same source of light and grace
That guides the Christian in his swifter race. ('Truth', 531-34)
32
THEMES AND IMAGES
Yet, to bring light into darkness Christ puts on 'the altar-animal form
I and livery of Man I to serve men under orders'; then, returning with
souls won from darkness, in freedom to God:
this circuit celebrates the Father of lights
who glorifies this Son and all that He
in glory sows
of Light. ('The Circ:uit')
David jones' reference in hi'> Anathemata to those 'that have the Lord
33
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
for your light' (1. 75) is an evocation of Psalm 2 7:1, especially its Latin
hymn setting (Dominus illuminatio mea) but more widely familiar in
the King james Version English of Handel's anthem, 'The Lord is my
light..
David L. jeffrey
University of Ottawa
Leland Ryken
Wheaton College
Thirst
That the land of the Hebrews was a 'dry and thirsty land' (Psalm 63: 1)
accounts for much of the concrete background for related imagery in
the Bible, especially where the typology of salvation and yearning for
God is concerned. just as God led his people through the wilderness,
giving them water from the rock (Exodus 17:6; cf. Deuteronomy
8:15; Psalms 78:15-16; 105:40-41; Isaiah 43:20), protecting them
from the perils of a barren land, so also he protects, refreshes, and
saves the parched souls who thirst after spiritual salvation. In the
analogy of the Psalmist, 'as the han pants after the water brooks, so
pants my soul after thee, 0 God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the
living God: when shall I come and appear before God?' (Psalm
42: 1-2). Hence in the New Testament 'Blessed are they who hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled' (Matthew 5:6);
as the Exodus people 'hungry and thirsty' were 'delivered out of their
distresses' by the Lord (Psalm 107:5), so 'he that believeth on me
shall neverthirst' Qohn 6:35; d. john 7:37; Revelation 7:16; 21:6-7).
Invitations by God to 'drink freely' are invitations to the fullness of life
and salvation which come in the context of a covenant relationship
with God (Isaiah 55:1-3), so that the rock from which flows living
water is explicitly identified in New Testament typology with Christ:
'And [our fathers] did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank
of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ'
(l Corinthians 10:4).
New Testament imagery of thirst is incomprehensible outside of
patterns established in Old Testament narrative and poetry, and the
weight of these associations lends force to three subsequendy
34
ntEMES AND IMAGES
35
THE GOSPEL OF ST.JOHN IN LITERATURE
voiced in the messianic Psalm 22. ForSt Augustine, that he was given
vinegar was emblematic of the degeneration of his people from 'the
wine of the patriarchs and prophets' (In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus,
119.4).
In medieval and Renaissance literature 'thirst' is often a figure
for carnal desire. Lovers like those in Deduit's garden drink from the
fountain whose waters are 'so sweet that there is no man who drinks
of it who does not drink more than he should' even though 'those
who go on drinking more burn with thirst than before ... Lechery so
stimulates them that they become hydroptic' (Guillaume de Lorris,
Part I) and Jean de Meun (Part 11), Romance of the Rose, translated by
Dahlberg, 5979-98). 'Foray thurst I', says Troilus oflove, 'the more
that ich it drynke' (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, 1.406). In the
same vein, the persona of Donne's 'St Lucy's Day' imagines the
whole earth to be 'hydroptic', so much does he long for his departed
love.
Sometimes, however, the thirst may be the 'new thirst' Dante
feels as he ascends the mount of Purgatory (Purgatorio, 18.3), the
'strong, sober thirst' Donne feels in 'La Corona' (1.12), or the thirst
of Adam for Raphael's divine instructions, which 'bring to their
sweetness no satiety' (Milton, Paradise Lost, 8.316).
In 18th- and 19th-century poetry the motif of spiritual thirst is
commonplace: in the minor Victorian poet and Catholic convert
Fredrick William Faber's 'The Shadow of the Rock', a weary pilgrim
is invited 'Cool water to take I Thy thirst to slake' in clear reference to
Exodus 17 and its attendant typologies. William Chatterton Dix's
'I Thirst' is a synthesis of relevant typologies:
Weary beside the well he sat;
Oh, who can tell butjesus knew the thirst
Which yet intenser grew, when on the cross
For him no kindly fountain burst?
36
THEMES AND IMAGES
Wedding at Cana
Only the Gospel of John (2:1-11) reports the incident of jesus'
miraculous turning of water into wine at a wedding feast in the
Galilean town of Cana. john locates the episode at the beginning of
Christ's ministry, just after the baptism and temptation and the calling
of the disciples, and just before the cleansing of the Temple (which
john alone of the evangelists places at the beginning of the ministry).
john notes at the end of the episode that this was the fhst of the
miracles or signs wrought by jesus (one of the seven mentioned in this
Gospel) and that he thereby 'manifested forth his glory; and his
disciples believed on him'. This helps to explain why the incident at
Cana, along with the visit of the Magi and the baptism of jesus, was
originally associated witth the ancient feast of Epiphany Qanuary 6); in
the Middle Ages Cana came to be celebrated by itself on the second
Sunday after Epiphany.
Critical commentary has always focused on the implications of
jesus' attendance at the wedding, the import of the exchange between
Jesus and his mother prior to the working of the miracle, and the
purpose and significance of the miracle itself. While there are no
explicit Old Testament allusions in the account, the miracle at Cana
37
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
38
THEMES AND IMAGES
39
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
In Browning's The Ring and the Book, Pompiha bitterly recalls how the
cynical priest who conspired to marry her off to his brother Guido
preached the doctrine of Cana to her:
Read here and there, made me say that and this,
And after, told me I was now a wife,
Honoured indeed, since Christ thus weds the Church,
And therefore turned he water into wine,
To show I should obey my spouse like Christ. (7.445-49)
But her experience quickly teaches her that things are otherwise:
'Nothing is changed however, wine is wine I And water only water in
our house' (7.474-75).
Treatments of and references to Cana continue to occur in
modem religious poetry, for example, in Edgar Lee Masters' 'The
Wedding Feast', which builds strongly on the exegetical tradition,
with references to Moses' striking water from a rock (stanza n.
Elisha's provision of oil for a widow (stanza 8), and the supplanting
of Old Testament signs with new spiritual doctrine (Selected Poems,
1925, 238-40). Sister Mary Edwin's collection of verse Water into
40
THEMES AND IMAGES
Wine (1928) utilizes the Cana theme not only in the Proem and title
poem but also in the poem 'Marriage in Galilee'.
The Cana miracle is also dealt with in Dorothy L. Sayers' radio
play 'A Certain Nobleman', one of the series The Man Born to Be King
(1943). Another pious modem paraphrase is Agnes Turnbull's short
story 'The Miracle of Cana' (from the collection Far Above Rubies,
reprinted in Cynthia Maus, Christ and the Fine Arts, 1938, 269-76). In
Emil Ludwig's Son of Man (1928), the miracle is treated as an illusion
effected by jesus' hypnotic powers.
Douglas' The Robe (1942) illustrates the struggle of modem
piety with the idea of miracles, introducing every conceivable
rationalistic explanation for Jesus' miracles through the reflections of
Marcellus, the Roman centurion. Regarding the miracle at Cana,
Marcellus at first explores the explanation that the water had been
poured into jars which had been used for storing wine, but eventually
rationalization shifts into allegorization reminiscent of Chrysostom, as
Marcellus comes to see that transformation of attitude and personality
is even more of a miracle than the changing of water into wine.
Raben Graves' novel King]esus (1946) presents the incident at
Cana as a moral demonstration by jesus which has subsequently
come to be distoned and interpreted precisely contrary to Jesus'
intent. What jesus did, as Graves tells it, was to command that the
jars of purification be filled with water, which he then drank, declaring
that to be the true wim: Adam drank in Eden: 'The master of
ceremonies followed his example and swore that never had he tasted
such good wine. He meant that he approved Jesus' message:
Cleanliness, that is to say "holiness before the lord", is better than
excessive drinking.' In substituting lustral water for wine, jesus was
also saying 'that Adam and Eve in the days of innocency abstained
from carnal love - of which the: emblem in the Song of Solomon is
wine' (293). More onhodox treatments of the Cana miracle abound
in the host of modem novelizations of the life of Christ.
George L. Scheper
Essex Community College and
john Hopkins University School of Continuing Stu4Y
41
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
Major Characters
jesus Christ
The name jesus comes from the Greek Iesous, the adaptation of the
Hebrew name ~hoshua (Aramaic ~shua), the name of the great hero of
the conquest of Canaan, familiar to Old Testament readers as joshua.
The term 'Christ' is adapted from the Greek Christos, which translates
the Hebrew mashiah (from which the term 'Messiah' is derived),
meaning 'anointed'. Christ is thus originally not a name but a tide
reflecting the early Christian conviction that jesus is the Messiah, the
'anointed one', who fulfils the hope for a God-sent saviour
The four Gospels of the New Testament are our major source of
information about jesus of Nazareth and the primary basis for the
picture of him which is accepted by traditional Christianity.
Commonly dated by scholars between AD65 and 95, they are also
recognized as embodying the jesus tradition of much earlier years.
With the rise of modem historicism, especially in the 19th century,
many strove to construct a somewhat detailed, chronologically
arranged life of jesus from the Gospels. A. Schweitzer's classic The
Quest of the Historical jesus traces the failure of this enterprise, and
New Testament scholars today recognize that the gospels Oike all
ancient biographical literature) were not written to provide a
chronological or developmental account of their subject but were
intended as collections of jesus tradition and interpretations of him
for the religious needs of 1st-century churches. Nevertheless, nearly
all New Testament scholars today are persuaded that, although a
detailed life of]esus cannot be written, the Gospels do provide a basis
for a more modest historical description of jesus' ministry and
message which accords with the standards of modem historical
criticism.
john Milton (1608-74) is perhaps the most important English
contributor to the literature about jesus Christ. In Paradise Lost
(published 1667) Milton assigns a significant pan of the process of
creation to God the Son. God the Father in effect withdraws, and the
Word, God the Son, shapes the universe from the unformed matter
42
MAJOR CHARACTERS
43
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
practises Christian socialism for the rest of his brief life, advocates
teetotalism, and causes a scandal by befriending a local prostitute
named Lena. By the age of 33, having alienated the town fathers and
the local liquor interests beyond reconciliation, he dies as the result of
being struck by a stone hurled at him by a grog-shop owner
nicknamed Judas. Both of these novels are characterized by rigorous
attention to the chronological sequence in the gospels, by their
undisguised moral earnestness, and by their obvious highlighting of
the biblical parallels.
Writers of this genre in the 20th century have been generally
more sophisticated. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
recounts the exodus-like wanderings of the poverty-stricken Joad
family, who leave the Oklahoma dust bowl with a horde of others like
them and set out for California in an old, dilapidated car. Set against
this Old Testament pattern is a secondary motif derived from the New
Testament, involving a leader with the same initials as Jesus Christ -
Jim Casy - and his twelve fellow migrants, the Joad family. Casy is a
former preacher who gradually moves from being an orthodox
revivalist Christian to being a believer in the essential sanctity of man.
While his religious thinking is slowly changing, Casy goes to prison to
protect Tom Joad. Shortly after his release, he is killed by one of a
group of antiunion men who hate his intentions. His attitude toward
his attackers is epitomized in the words 'You don't know what you're
a-doin', words which echo Jesus' appeal on the cross, 'Forgive them,
Father, they know not what they do.'
Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory (1940) has as its hero
a nameless whisky priest Shifty and alcoholic, he lives in the virtually
Marxist state of Tabasco in Mexico. His antagonist, the police
lieutenant, is a fanatical atheist; he has all the fervour about his beliefs
which the priest should have but lacks. The priest is ultimately
executed by the state; he gives up his life for the sake of the criminal
James Calver, a bank robber and murderer whose name suggests
Calvary. Peter's denial of Jesus is symbolized by Padre Jose, who
refuses to hear the whisky priest's confession, and Judas is
represented by the mestizo, who in effect causes the hero's arrest.
The jesus hero of Harold Kampf's When He Shall Appear (1953)
is Janek Lazar, a Russian Jew living in London, who practises faith
44
MAJOR CHARACTERS
45
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
46
MAJOR CHARACTERS
47
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
These and other elements of John's character and role are developed
in medievallegrnda, notably in the Franciscan Meditations on the Life of
Christ, of which Nicholas love's Mirrour of the Blessed Lyf of]esu Christ
(circa 1400) was a popular Middle English translation. The Calvary
scene lies behind jacopone da Todi's widely adapted poem Stabat
Mater, the commendation of Mary to John being popularized in
Middle English lyrics such as 'Maiden &: moder, cum&: se' and N-
Town, where it is amplified considerably as a three-way conversation
betweenjesus, Mary, and john (891-962).
In Dante's Commedia Peter, james, and john are representatives
of faith, hope, and charity respectively, and examine the pilgrim Dante
to assure that he understands the importance of these qualities
(Paradiso, 24-26).
David L. jeffrey
University of Ottawa
48
MAJOR CHARACTERS
judas Iscariot
judas Iscariot (perhaps 'Judah from the city of Keriyot' [in judea; see
joshua 15:25)) is first mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels; in each
instance he is identified as the betrayer of jesus, his name coming at
the end of a list of the apostles (Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:19; Luke
6: 16). In the Gospel of]ohn Judas is identified by jesus himself as 'a
devil' among the apostles (6:70-71). john also records that judas was
in charge of the common purse, from which he pilfered money
(12:1-6; 13:29). All four Gospels tell how Judas led a band of Roman
soldiers to arrest jesus. In the Synoptic accounts (Matthew 26:49;
Mark 14:45; Luke 22:47) he identifies jesus for the authorities by
kissing him; in John's Gospel Jesus declares himself (18:5). Only
Matthew mentions the thirty pieces of silver paid to Judas by the chief
priests for betraying his master (26: 15), and he alone recounts Judas'
'repentance' and suicide by hanging (27: 1-8). According to Acts
1: 16--20 Judas died, apparently unrepentant, having bought a plot of
land called 'Aceldama, that is to say, the field of blood' with his thiny
pieces of silver, where 'falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst,
and all his bowels gushed out'.
There are references by St lrenaeus, Tertullian, and
St Epiphanius to a no-longer-extant apocryphal Gospel of Judas in
which Judas was ponrayed as the enlightened secret agent of the
redeemer who by his 'treachery' foiled the evil designs of demonic
powers ('the Archons') to prevent the salvation of mankind.
According to the Fathers and later medieval exegetes, howeve1; Judas
was driven by avarice and betrayed Christ of his own free will. In spite
of his heinous crime he. might still have been saved were it not for his
desperate act of suicid•e. St jerome, for example, argues that 'judas
offended the Lord more by hanging himself than by betraying Him'
(Psalm 108; cf. also St Ambrose, De poenitentia, 2.4.27; St Augustine,
De civitate Dei, 1.17; St Gregory the Great, Moralia in lob, 11.12; and
the Venerable Bede, In l.ucam, 6.16). The association of the name and
character of the avaricious and traitorous 'Judas' with the name and
qualities of the 'Jew' is a medieval commonplace which has explicit
patristic authority. According to Jerome, 'The jews take their name,
not from that Judah who was a holy man, but from the betrayer. From
49
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
the former, we [i.e., Christians] are spiritual jews; from the traitor
come the carnal]ews' (Homily on Psalm 108).
Protestant exegesis of the judas narrative is for the most pan
continuous with medieval tradition. judas becomes a focus, however,
of the theological debate concerning free will. Erasmus believed that
judas was free to change his intention (De Libera Arbitrio, 2), but
Luther argued in rebuttal that judas' will was immutable (De Servo
Arbitrio, 1931, 1943, 1:323, 238; 5:200). Calvin states unequivocally
that judas was predestined to damnation (Institutes, 3.24.9), but
writes on the question of]udas' guilt: 'surely in judas' betrayal it will
be no more right, because God himself both willed that his son be
delivered up and delivered him up to death, to ascribe the guilt of the
crime to God than to transfer the credit for redemption to judas'.
Concerning judas' repentance he says, 'because [he] conceived of
God only as Avenger and judge ... [his] repentance was nothing but a
sort of entryway of hell' (Institutes, 1.18. 4 and 3.3. 4).
ln the Old English Elene, Cynewulf's poetic retelling of the
inventio crucis legend, the leader of the Jews and arch-antagonist of
Helena, mother of Constantine, is named judas. At first he misleads
Helena but then 'betrays' his people by revealing the whereabouts of
the True Cross and is convened. In a 13th-century variant of this story
in the Middle English metrical biblical narrative Cursor Mundi judas
appears as a prototype of Shylock, demanding a pound of flesh from
a goldsmith in Helena's circle who owes him money.
The Anglo-Norman Vcyage of St Brendan (circa 1121) includes
an elaborate account of the meeting between the saint and judas. The
biblical traitor describes in detail his torments in hell and explains that
he is granted respite on certain Sundays of the year as a reward for
small acts of charity he had performed. judas' piteous laments,
Brendan's grief, and the terrible torments which judas describes are
additions to the earlier Celtic and Latin versions of the judas episode
in the Brendan legend; the poet (Benedict of Gloucester?) has added
these and other details to evoke sympathy for judas, or at least to
convey a terrifYing object lesson by heightening the pathos of judas'
plight. This glimpse of the afterlife of judas is repeated in the Middle
English Brendan legend. The legendary life of judas - from his birth
and enfance to his eventual suicide, including the pseudo-Oedipal
50
MAJOR CHARACTERS
51
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
52
MAJOR CHARACTERS
Lazarus of Bethany
Lazarus, brother of Martha and Mary and friend of jesus, lived at
Bethany in judea and was resurrected by jesus after having been dead
53
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
for four days Qohn 11: 1-44). When the sisters notified jesus of
Lazarus' sickness, jesus waited two days, so that God might be
glorified by the miracle to happen (ll :40) and so that people's belief
in his divine mission might be strengthened (11 :15, 42). At the tomb,
jesus wept, and then, after praying, called Lazarus forth from death.
This miracle, seen by many scholars as the seventh and concluding
'sign' in the johannine 'book of signs' (chapters 1-12; see 12:37),
also marked the beginning of Christ's passion. Because many jews
came to believe in jesus as a result of the miracle (11 :45; 12: 11), the
chief priests conspired to put him (as well as Lazarus) to death.
In early English literature, Lazarus is featured in various lives of
Christ (e.g., The Stanzaic Life of Christ [MS BM Add 39996],
1586-1763). The anonymous Meditations on the Life and Passion of
Christ (Early English Text Society old series 158, 209-52) contain an
impressive rendering of the raising as a battle between Christ and
Satan. Christ's command 'Come out' is repeated over and over as a
'word ofbatayle'.
The miracle was dramatized in Latin by Hilarius - possibly an
Englishman - in the 12th century. Later versions, usually in
connection with the 'Conversion of St Mary Magdalen' (generally
assumed, in the Middle Ages, to be one and the same with Mary of
Bethany), are found in the Latin playbook of Fleury, France, and in
the Cannina Burana of Benediktbeuren, Getmany (in both Latin and
Middle High German). English versions begin with the closely
scriptural rendering of the miracle in the Chester cycle (1328), and
thereafter in the York, Wakefield, and Coventry cycles, all of which
adhere to the scriptural account. The Digby Play of Mary Magdalen
(1402), which includes a 'Resuscitation of Lazarus', reflects the
growth of extracanonical legend surrounding the persons of Lazarus
and Mary Magdalen (as does the Golden Legend).
In the 17th century Francis Quarles recurs to traditional
typology in his poem 'Why dost thou shade thy lovely face?' The poet
asks God to redeem him like Lazarus: 'If I am dead, Lord, set death's
prisoner free.' Milton, in his comments on bodily death, used john
ll: 13 to argue for the unorthodox view that in death the human soul
is not separated from one's body, but sleeps the sleep of death (De
Doctrina Christiana, 1.13). Blake makes symbolic use of the miracle in
54
Mf\JOR CHARACTERS
55
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
56
MAJOR CHARACTERS
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene, mentioned by Luke (8:2) as 'a certain woman which
had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities ... out of whom went
seven devils', is listed (Mark 15:40-41) among the women who
followed jesus and ministered to him. She was at the cross (Matthew
27:56; Mark 15:40; John 19:25) and watched Joseph of Arimathea
bury Jesus (Mark 15:42-47). On Easter morning she came with other
women to anoint Christ's body at the tomb; they were met by angels
and sent to tell the apostles of the resurrection (Matthew 27:61;
28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 23:55- 24:11; John 20:1--2). Mark
mentions that the risen Christ 'appeared to Mary Magdalene'
(16:9-11), an account amplified by John (20:11-18).
The Latin Fathers followed Tertullian (De pudicitia, 11.2) in
combining the account of Mary Magdalene 1.vith that of the sinner
who washed Christ's feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair
(Luke 7:37-50). Because there is another gospel account of an
anointing, this time of Christ's head by Mary of Bethany (Matthew
26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; john 12:1--8), the identities of Mary of
Bethany and Mary Magdalene could be readily merged, as they were
by St Gregory the Great (Homily, 25.1.10). This provided Mary
Magdalene with a sister and a brother (Martha and Lazarus), made
jesus a frequent visitor in her home, connected her with the
contemplative life because of Jesus' comment that she had chosen
57
THE GOSPEL Of STJOHN IN UTERATURE
'the better part' (Luke 10:38-42), and involved her in the story of the
raising of Lazarus Qohn 11).
Origen (in his commentary on Matthew) and the Greek Fathers
who followed him insisted on three separate Marys. Origen, however,
inadvenently promoted Magdalene as a symbol of erotic asceticism by
comparing the perfume of the anointing of Christ to the perfume of
the bride in his commentaries on the Song of Solomon (1:12-13).
St Bernard of Clairvaux, for example, preached eighty-six sermons on
the Song, allegorically identifYing the bride with the church, the soul,
the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene (Sermon, 7:6).
The controversy over the identification of the three Marys is
exceedingly complex, but the identification of Mary Magdalene with
Mary of Bethany and with the sinful woman of Luke 7 is the basis of
Western iconographical representation of Mary in hterature and an,
and it was never seriously challenged until jacques Lefevre attacked
the Magdalene cult in 1516.
The Reformation effectively ended the cult of the Magdalene
when Calvin separated the three Marys, devaluing Mary Magdalene as
a symbol of the contemplative life. Stripped of the Provenc;al
accretions, her story was Protestantized: Lewis Wager turns her story
into a play about justification by faith in The Life and Repentaunce of
Marie Magdalene (1567); a 1595 sermon by Nicholas Breton on john 20
uses Mary as an example of divine love, proper humility, and
repentance ('Marie Magdalen's Love, upon the 1\ventieth Chapter of
john'); in Good News for the Vilest of Men john Bunyan cites Mary
Magdalene as proof that true repentance brings forgiveness; Lancelot
Andrewes, in his 1620 Easter sermon on john 20, quotes Pseudo-
Origen and Augustine on her significance as an example of faith.
Mary remained a favourite saint of Catholics during the
Counter-Reforn1ation. Roben Southwell wrote 'Mary Magdalen's
Blush' about her shame for her sins and 'Mary Magdalen's Complaint
at Christes Death' (see also his prose treatise, Marie Magdalen's Funeral
Teares, 1591). The most famous English poem about her is Richard
Crashaw's 'Saint Mary Magdalene; or, the Weeper', full of extended
conceits, capturing the entire story of the anointing in the phrase
'What prince's wanton'est pride e'er could I Wash with silver, wipe
with gold?' Andrew Marvell is heavily influenced by Crashaw in his
58
MAJOR CHARACTERS
59
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
60
MAJOR CHARACTERS
Phipps, in his book Was .Jesus Married?, concludes that jesus married
Mary Magdalene.
American poets have stressed her symbolic value. In Han
Crane's The Bridge the: woman is asked, 'Eve! Magdalene! or Mary,
you?' ('Southern Cross') and is later addressed as '0 Magdalene'
('National Winter Garden'); promiscuity and forgiveness are the
themes of Louis Simpson's poem 'The Man Who Married Magdalen'.
The erotic penitent reappears in Brother Antoninus' 'A Savagery of
Love', a canticle for the feast of St Mary Magdalene, demonstrating the
unresolved tension between the sacred and the profane which is at
the heart of the legend of Magdalene, 'the Venus in sackcloth' .
Margaret Hannay
Siena College
61
THE GOSPEL OF STjOHN IN LITERATURE
62
MAJOR CHARACfERS
63
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
Evensong), Protestant poets of the 16th and 17th centuries have less
to say about Mary. In all the religious poetry of George Herben, for
example, she is mentioned only in a two-line anagram 'Mary I Army':
'How well her name an Anny doth present I In whom the Lord of
Hosts did pitch his tent!' Milton's Mary is that of the canonical Bible.
In Paradise Regained Milton builds up a sense of her role in the
narrative by having her recount the chief events of her (canonical) life
since the annunciation, giving content to the scriptural notation 'And
Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her hean' (Paradise
Regained 2.60-108). But postbiblical doctrines of the Catholic
Church are all absent from his text.
The 18th century, with its tension-filled religious controversy
and general hostility to any suspicion of 'Papism' (Jesuit spirituality in
particular) made little in the way of additional contribution to the
literature. Even Catholic poets (e.g., Alexander Pope) eschew the
subject. If by the beginning of the 19th century there is a sea change,
it owes in pan to the same spirit of liberalism which agitated for the
Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829. Sir Walter Scott's 'Ave Maria!
Maiden mild!' in canto 3 of his Lady of the Lake, and William
Wordsworth's 'The Virgin' (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 2.25) are
celebrations of ideal human nature, though each makes an explicit
effon to recognize traditional Catholic teaching. In Wordsworth's
poem the immaculate conception is suggested:
Mother! Whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! Above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast. ..
64
MAJOR CHARACTERS
65
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
66
MAJOR CHARACTERS
repeatedly assures people that she has never 'gone all the way' with
anyone, is seduced and raped by a giant computet To escape the
persecution of the chancellor of the university, who, Herod-like,
wishes the child destroyed, Virginia takes him away to raise him,
disguised as a goat, on the college agricultural station (the goat is a
parody of the Lamb of God). Those modem retellings of Gospel
narrative that follow the Gospel fairly closely do least with their Mary
figures (e.g., B.P. Galdos, Nazarin, 1895; Antonio Fogazzaro, The
Saint, 1905; Elizabeth S. Phelps Ward, A Singular Life, 1895; Elizabeth
linton, joshua Davidson, 1872). It has been noted that for modem
fiction writers Mary 'is an awkward figure to deal with. If she is
present in a modem trnnsfiguration, then realism will not permit her
to be a virgin; but if she is not a virgin then she is no longer the
venerated object of cultic adorntion. It is much simpler to ignore her.
In the Marxist-oriented novels there is no mother figure at all'. Yet
faded memory, if not nostalgia, is a prerequisite for popular diabolical
parallels such as the cinematic Rosemary's Baby.
Perhaps the best traditional poem on Mary published in the
20th century (1918; written in the 1870s) remains Hopkins' 'Rosa
Mystica'. A poem expressing at once both evident devotion and great
restraint, it probes the mystery of a traditional element in her typology
and iconography (the 'rose' of the Song of Solomon) as a way of re-
establishing the meaning of the biblical Mary and her role in the
divine plan of salvation:
ls Mary the rose, then? Mary the tree?
But the blossom, the blossom there, who can it be? -
Who can her rose be? It could be but one:
Christ jesus, our lord, her God and her son.
In the gardens of God, in the daylight divine
Shew me thy son, mother, mother of mine.
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
Nicodemus
Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, 'a ruler of
the jews' whose profound if covert late-night conversation with Jesus
is a key narrative in the Gospel of]ohn (chapter 3). He also appears
on two further occasions. When jesus proclaimed himself in the
Temple to be the source of 'living water', Nicodemus intervened
against those Pharisees who wished to censure him, and was rebuffed
for doing so Qohn 7:50-52). He re-enters the narrative at the burial
of]esus Qohn 19:38-42) when, with joseph of Arimathea, another
member of the Sanhedrin who had become a supporter of Jesus, he
prepared the body for entombment in the sepulchre.
The first narrative represents the situation of thoughtful
religious jews, intent on the law but figuratively still 'in the dark'
concerning the nature of the spiritual 'kingdom' spoken of by Jesus.
Leaders such as Nicodemus yearned for a political messiah who would
deliver their people from Roman oppression; to many, Jesus' teaching
was therefore not only perplexing but suspect or even anathema.
Nicodemus nonetheless honoured Jesus with the title 'Rabbi' and
acknowledged him as a 'teacher sent from God' (3:2), inviting further
explanation of the 'kingdom within'. In his reply, jesus spoke of the
need for being 'born again of water and the Spirit' (3: 5), suggesting the
primary need for repentance and inward renewaL At first Nicodemus
did not understand jesus' figurative language: can one 'enter the second
time into his mother's womb, and be hom?' he asks incredulously. After
hearing Jesus speak of the difference between the invisible direction of
God's Spirit and the carnal motivations of the flesh (That which is born
of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel
not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again' (3:6-7), Nicodemus
exclaims in &ustration: 'How can these things be?' jesus chides him
gently for his literal-mindedness: 'An thou a master of Israel and
knowest not these things?' (3: l 0), thereby indicating the congruence of
his message (and metaphor) with that of the 'law and the prophets' in
which Nicodemus was in some sense expert.
The 4th-century Acta Pilati and the Descensus Christi ad infernos
were foundational to the creation of the so-called Gospel of
Nicodemus, widely popular by the 14th century for its narration of
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
nights, much more instructive than the Noctes Atticae -Attic nights',
and of Jesus' 'answer' he draws a general application:
This is a reproof (l) To those who undertake to teach others
and yet are ignorant and unskilful in the word of righteousness
themselves. (2) To those who spend their time in learning and
teaching notions and ceremonies in religion, niceties and
criticisms in the Scripture, and neglect that which is practical
and tends to reform the heart and life. (885)
Henry defends Nicodemus against the blame of some Christian
commentators (including Calvin) that Nicodemus yet 'retained his
place in the council and his vote among them', and observes rather
that Christ 'never said to him Follow me ... therefore it seems rather to
have been his wisdom not immediately to throw up his place'. Most
praiseworthy for Henry, however, is Nicodemus' later public defence
of]esus and equally visible participation in the burial of his body: 'Let
none justify the disguising of their faith by the example of Nicodemus,
unless, like him, they be ready upon the first occasion openly to
appear in the cause of Christ, though they stand alone in it; for so
Nicodemus did here, and ch. xix.39' (5.978).
Matthew Henry notwithstanding, Nicodemus seems to have
attracted little interest in 18th-century literature. In Dickens' Our
Mutual Friend there may be a recollection when at the return ofjohn
Harmon from the 'dead' Nicodemus Boffin wakes up and asks a series
of apt questions. A spate of 20th-century dramatizations reflect the
importance of John 3 in evangelical preaching, including Katherine
Lee Bates' Pharisees (1926), in which Nicodemus and a rabbi are the
chief characters; PE. Osgood's The Fears of Nicodemus (1928), a
dramatic sermon dialogue between Nicodemus and Joseph of
Arimathea; and Perry]. Stackhouse's The Disciple of the Night (1926),
also designed as an aid to preaching. The title poem of Edwin
Arlington Robinson's collection Nicodemus (1932) features a dramatic
dialogue between Nicodemus and Caiaphas, at whose bidding
Nicodemus has evidently interviewed Jesus secretly. The poem is
about fear of the unknown, and 'flawed complacency'. When
Caiaphas finds that Nicodemus has been swayed by 'the carpenter' he
is gently -- but also menacingly -- reproving, refusing Nicodemus'
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MAJOR CHARACTERS
request that he join his colleague, 'but once, to see and hear him,
Caiaphas'. Sholem Asch's novel The Nazarene (1939) alternates
between the 1st and 20th centuries in its view of the life of Yeshua;
Nicodemon figures prominently as a faithful rabbi. Perhaps the most
penetrating modem literary representation is that of the American
poet Howard Nemerov, which amplifies the questions of Nicodemus
artfully; in the final section of his poem 'Nicodemus', Nemerov shows
dose familiarity with the exposition of St Augustine to his
catechumens (In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus, especially 11.7-13) a
millennium and a half earlier, but represents Nicodemus' final
response to jesus' invitation to the new birth in terms rather of a
request to reiterate the exodus deliverance and the covenant promise
to Abraham.
David L. Jeffrey
University of Ottawa
Peter
St Peter, foremost among the disciples and, with St Paul, most
prominent of the aposdes after Pentecost, is one of the most colourful
and complex of New 'li~stament characters. He has traditionally been
credited with two contributions to the New Testament canon, the
Epistles of 1 and 2 Pet,er. Because he is so often a foil for jesus, the
signal events of his life closely parallel the main events in the ministry
and proclamation of]esus. After the ascension, as leader of the young
church in jerusalem, later at Antioch, and then in Rome, he fulfilled
the role assigned to him by jesus as a foundation for the church.
Roman bishops have been chief among bishops in the Western
church since Linus, Anencletus, and Clement I, Peter's first
successms in Rome, although the tide 'Pope' (Greek pappas; Latin
papa) did not come to be associated exclusively with the Roman
bishop until after the 5th century.
Born in Bethsaida (probably at the north end of Lake
Gennesaret), the town also of St Philip, Peter was a brother of
StAndrew. Their father's name wasjonah (Matthew 16:7;john 1:42)
- the notion that Bar-jona means 'anarchist' or 'zealot' is fictional.
After Peter's marriage he settled in Capemaum, where he was living in
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
the home of his mother-in-law (Matthew 8: 14; Mark l :30; Luke 4:38)
at the beginning of the public ministry of jesus. According to St
Clement of Alexandria (Stromatcis, 3.6), he had children, and that his
wife accompanied him on at least some of his missionary tours is
suggested by the fact that she was known at Corinth (1 Corinthians
9:5). Clement indicates that at some later point she, like her husband,
suffered martyrdom (Stromatcis, 7.9). While in Capemaum Peter plied
his trade as a fisherman, and owned his own boat (Luke 5: l-11). He
and Andrew had been attracted there to the penitential preaching of
john the Baptist Qohn 1:40-42).
The statement in Acts 4:13 that Peter and john were 'unlearned
and ignorant men' probably ought not to be taken too extremely; the
phrase may mean merely that they lacked recourse to rabbinical
training in the Torah and its interpretation. On the other hand, Peter
is always presented in the New Testament as rough and ready, earnest
yet volatile, desirous of spiritual good yet neither disciplined in his
thought nor meditative.
Several of the key narratives concerning Peter in all four Gospels
underline Peter's human fallibility, but the most emphatic
representation of his weaknesses comes in Mark's account (which has
been thought to derive directly from Peter's own recollections as
related to the author). Like john and the other Synoptics, Mark ranks
Peter as first of the disciples and chief spokesperson for the Twelve,
but he also singles him out for blame at critical points in the narrative.
It is Peter who leads the group to jesus and tries to press on him the
role of popular teacher (1:35-37). At Caesarea Philippi (8:27-33)
jesus hears Peter's confession that he is the Messiah with some
reserve, and when Peter rebukes jesus for saying that 'the Son of man
must suffer many things, and be rejected ... and be killed, and after
three days rise again', jesus reprimands Peter in tum, saying, 'Get thee
behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God,
but the things that be of men' (8:33). At the transfiguration Peter's
suggestion that three 'tabernacles' be set up to honour Moses, Elijah,
and jesus appears to have been an utterance of nervous foolishness,
the narrative adding, 'For he wist not what to say, for they were sore
afraid' (9:6). He is singled out for reproach for falling asleep while he
should be praying in Gethsemane (14: 3 7), and his famous three
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MAJOR CHARACTERS
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
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MAJOR CHARAO"ERS
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THE GOSPEL 01' STJOHN IN UTERATURE
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MAJOR CHARACTERS
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
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MAJOR CHARACTERS
The two epistles of Peter are frequently referred to, with l Peter 4:8
('For charity shall cover the multitude of sins') being among the most
common recollections. Blake repeatedly alludes to this verse in The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and it became a Puritan and Victorian
commonplace. Gaskell cites it typically in respect to benevolence in
'The Squire's Story', and in Walden Thoreau's benevolent person will
exhibit goodness which 'must not be a panial and transitory act, but
a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is
unconscious. This is a charity which hides a multitude of sins'
('Economy'). In another of the familiar passages found in 1 Peter the
writer exhorts the other elders to 'Feed the flock of God which is
among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but
willingly; not for filthy luc~re, but of a ready mind. Neither as being
lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock' (l Peter
5: 1-3).
Readers of Chaucer's Canterbury Tt2les will recognize that this
passage (assisted with commentaries from St Gregory the Great and
probably WycliO found its way into the description of the good
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
This way of viewing the relation of person and office in the clergy,
urged by Peter (1 Peter 5:3), is in English tradition supported
vigorously in exegesis and commentary (e.g., Sedulius Scotus, Aelfric,
Fitzralph, Vv)rdil Langland, Chaucer) and may in some way account
for the relative diminishment of Peter himself in Englishliterature. The
good pastor he became, despite his frailty, and which he calls for in
this epistle, became a literary type (Langland's Piers, Chaucer's
Parson, Herbert's Parson, Fielding's Parson Adams, etc.) and at its
best an 'ensaumple' of something greater than Peter himself.
David L. Jeffrey
University of Ottawa
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate ruled from AD26 to 36 as the fifth Roman governor of
judea, Samaria, and ldumaea.
His involvement in the passion of]esus Christ is recorded in the
Gospels (Matthew27; Mark 15; Luke 23;john 18:29-19:22,31, 38),
the Acts (3:13; 4:27; 13:28), and 1 Timothy (6:13). The evangelists
(especially john and Luke) de-emphasize Pilate's responsibility for
Christ's death, instead stressing the involvement of the jews and their
leaders. Only Matthew mentions the dream of Pilate's wife and the
handwashing scene (Matthew 27:19, 24). Luke writes that Pilate
handed jesus over to Herod, who sent him back (Luke 23:7-12).
john reports Pilate's question 'What is truth?' as well as the
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MAJOR CHARACTERS
statements 'Behold the man!' and 'Behold your King!' Qohn 18:38;
19:5, 14). All four evangelists concur that Piliate originally intended to
set jesus free, but, prompted by the crowd, rdeased Barabbas and had
Jesus crucified.
Pilate has been extensively treated as a literary figure both in
medieval and modem times. He appears in at least twenty-six
European Passion plays, including all of the English cycles. The
English often portray him as a braggart, whose pompous rhetoric
produces a comical effect. In the Towneley cycle, however, Pilate is
consistently depicted <IS a vicious tyrant. The Towneley 'Play of the
Talents' has Pilate gamble, along with Jesus' executioners, for his
seamless garment. Although Pilate loses the game, he nevertheless
acquires the robe through threats and manipulation. When
perlormed, the role of Pilate was evidently spoken in a 'loud
magisterial voice' or a less than magisterial roar - as reflected in
Chaucer's 'in Pilates voys he gan to erie' (Miller's Tale, Prologue
1.3124).
The scene in which Pilate, in an act of self-vindication, 'washes
his hands' of responsibility for Jesus' fate (see Deuteronomy 21:6-7;
cf. Stoephasius, 8, note 4) became a favourite literary moti( (There are
also paintings by Duccio, Honthorst, Rembrandt, Turner, and others.)
In his Faerie Queene (2.7.61-62) Spenser depicts Pilate as a wretch in
Cocytus who washes his hands incessantly, trying in vain to rid
himself of his guilt. Shakespeare uses the handwashing motif three
times. In Richard 2, 4.1.239-42 the dethroned king condemns his
adversaries, equating [heir sin to that of Pilate. In Richard 3,
1.4.270-71, the Second Murderer expresses his futile desire to wash
the guilt from his hands. likewise in Macbeth, 5.1.26-66, Lady
Macbeth is unable to wash Duncan's blood from her hands. Similarly,
in a modem context, A.nlmr Miller's The Crucible (1953) has john
Proctor shout at the Reverend Hale: 'Pontius Pilate! God will not let
you wash your hands of this!'
Pilate's question about the nature of truth Qohn 18:38) has
been echoed by English writers such as Francis Bacon, William Blake,
and Aldous Huxley. Bacon begins his first E'.ssay, 'Of Truth', with
"'What is Truth?" said jesting Pilate ... ' -words which become the
motto for Huxley's jesting Pilate: The Diary of a journey (1928). Blake
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
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MI\IOR CHARACTERS
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
Thomas, Doubting
St Thomas, who was not present at jesus' first post-resurrection
appearance to his gathered disciples, was incredulous at the claims
of the others to have seen the risen Christ and protested, 'Except I
shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into
the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not
believe' Qohn 20: 19-25). Eight days later, as the disciples were
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
Woman of Samaria
The story of jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well
and his offering her a 'well of water springing up into everlasting life'
Qohn 4:4-42) is one of the more complex narratives in the ministry
sections of the Gospels. It involves cultural conflict (Samaritans vs.
jews), sex role issues (a woman married five times who meets and
recognizes jesus), an episode in the education of the disciples, and
highly symbolic language ('water of life' and the end of 'spiritual
thirst'). The story bears a typological relationship with several Genesis
narratives and constitutes one of the famous dialogues in John's
Gospel (e.g., 3:1-5, Nicodemus; 6:25-59; 8:12-59, crowds;
11:17-44, Martha and Mary). Narratively, the story functions to show
jesus as the promised Messiah, who fulfils jewish hopes of
redemption and who also comes to bring redemption to all peoples.
The setting of the conversation is reminiscent of betrothal stories
which occur at wells-- stories of Rebecca (Genesis 24:10-14), Rachel
(Genesis 29:1-12), and the daughters of the priest of Midian (Exodus
2:15-21). 'Uving waters' (a wordplay on a Semitic expression for
flowing water) has a rich Old Testament background as a symbol for
divine, life-giving activity (e.g., jeremiah 2: 13; Ezekiel 47:9; Zechariah
14:8). Water is such a symbol elsewhere in john also (e.g., 7:37;
19:34). In medieval and Renaissance exegetical writing the typology of
the waters of life is linked to the fountain of Eden (Genesis 2: 10-14),
the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-29), the rock of Horeb
(Exodus 17:6), and the sealed fountain (Song of Solomon 4: 12). In
sacramental terms it is associated with the grace of the baptismal waters
and, in conjunction with the rock of Horeb, it is also associated with the
blood which flowed from Christ's side. In eschatological terms it
prefigures the pure river of water (Revelation 22: l).
Extracanonical legends give the Samaritan woman the name
St Photine and record that she preached the gospel, was imprisoned for
three years, and died for her faith in Carthage. In another apocryphal
narrative she is said to have been martyred in Rome after converting the
daughter of Nero and 100 of her retinue. Her feast day is March 20.
Perhaps the best-known use of the story in medieval literature
is the reference made to the Samaritan woman by the Wife of Bath in
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MAjOR CHARACTERS
the prologue to her tale. She justifies her own robust sexuality by
boasting that she, too, has had five husbandc;. She claims not to know
what jesus meant by the remark that the 'sixth man' she has now is
not her husband. D.W Robertson has argued that the Samaritan
woman, who achieves sublime wisdom, provides an ironic contrast
with the Wife, who cannot understand Christ's words and is therefore
a 'literary personification of rampant "femininity" or carnality, and her
exegesis is, in consequence, rigorously carnal and literal' (A Preface to
Chaucer, 1962, 318-22). She pretentiously challenges Christ's
teaching of the spirit, favouring the Old Law, where 'God bad us for
to wexe and multiplye; I That gentil text kan I wel understonde'
(Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, 3.28-29).
The typological reading of the well in Samaria as the well of life
and a symbol of baptism and regeneration was popular through the
16th and 17th centuries. Edmund Spenser uses the well of life with
its rejuvenative connotations in The Faerie Queene (1.2.43 and
1.11.29). Among the metaphysical poets, Herbert, Vaughan, and
Traheme employed the imagery of redeeming waters. Vaughan makes
explicit reference to the Samaritan woman's visit to jacob's Well in
'The Search', but unlike her he does not find his answers in
experience. In 'Religion', in which Vaughan employs the typology of
the closed fountain of Song of Solomon 4:12, he describes religion as
a 'tainted sink. .. like that Samaritans dead we:ll' (Silex Sdntillans).
Edward Taylor's meditations bring together his desire for spiritual
awareness with his preparations for the Lord's Suppet He joins the
Samaritan's experience at: the well with the typology from Genesis, 'the
Well of living Water and Tree of life', to which h.e adds the sacramental
dimension, 'Lord bath mee in this Well of life' (preparatory Meditations,
2.47). Christopher Smart includes the story in his verse paraphrases,
The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour jesus Ch1itst (1768). He adheres
closely to the biblical account, emphasizing Christ's knowledge of the
woman's marital history ;md her ac;tonishment at his prophetic vision.
He draws no conclusions about her past life, the immorality of
successive marriages, and the problem of her current status but rather
uses the episode to reveal Christ's marvellous omniscience. In Emily
Dickinson's 'I know where Wells grow-' the poet grapples with the
idea of spiritual thirst: 'I read in an Old fashioned Book I That !Wple
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
"thirst no more"-' But she finds that her thirst is better satisfied by 'a
litde Well - like Mine - I Dearer to understand'.
Edmond Rostand's biblical drama The Woman of Samaria, first
performed in 1897, reflects on the ancient significance of the well and
the Jewish-Samaritan conflict as it opens with the phantoms of
Abraham, Isaac, and jacob. The revolutionary rhetoric of a young
Samaritan sustains the political concerns of the story. Photine,
Rostand's heroine, approaches Christ at the well, singing songs of love
from the Song of Solomon. These songs continue through the play,
though they gain symbolic meaning as her own awareness deepens
from carnal to spiritual knowledge. Rostand makes litde of Photine's
moral history, though he does add the character of Azriel, Photine's
sixth man, who is astonished when this illiterate woman learns to
expound Scripture like an ecstatic preacher. The play includes
pageantry and Photine's exuberant singing. Even the otherwise crusty
disciples eventually join in the celebration of love.
Faye Pauli Whitaker
Iowa State: University
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MAJOR CHARACTERS
Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and
sin no more' (8:9-12).
When Chaucer has Alisoun of The Miller's Tale put off Absolon
the amorous deacon while she commits adultery with Nicholas the
student, he gives her the words 'Go fonh thy wey, or I wol caste a
ston' (1.3712), a transparent and crude rev1ersal of Christ's words to
the adulterous woman which underscores Alisoun' s wilful culpability.
Chaucer's Parson in his sermon is unstinting in his condemnation of
~vowtrie', which he says is set between theft and homicide in the
Decalogue, 'for it is the gretteste theft that may be, for it is thefte of
body and of soule./ And it is lyk to homycide, for it kerveth atwo and
breketh atwo hem that first were maked o flessh. And therfore, by the
olde lawe of God, they sholde be slayn.' But, he adds,
natheless, by the lawe of jhesu Crist, that is lawe of pitee,
when he seyde to the womman that was founden in
avowtrie, and sholde han been slayn with stones ... 'Go',
quod ]ht>su Crist, 'and have namoore wyl to do synne.' ...
Soothly the vengeaunce of Avowtrie is awarded to the peynes
of helle, but if so be that it be destourbed [prevented! by
penitence. (886-90)
In Shakespeare's Measurefor Measure, a man is 'taken in adultery' -
actually fornication -- and by the Puritan 'protector' Angelo
condemned to death despite his sister's pleas for mercy, so as not to
'make a scarecrow ofthe law' (2.1.1). In Angelo's words (2.1.27-31):
You may not so extenuate his offence
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
When Isabella's pleas for mercy for her brother result only in Angelo's
lustful proposition that she trade her honour for her brother's life, and
that villainy in tum is, with other breaches, uncovered, the accuser
here too is robbed of his appeal to justice and must depend upon
mercy. Because 'grace is grace, despite of all controversy' (1.2.25-27),
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN UTERATURE
he too then receives mercy when the lesson is learned and repentance
ensues.
In literature since the 18th century there has been a tendency
to apply the text as an appeal for toleration as much as for mercy. In
his preface to Adonai's Shelley compares the accusers in the narrative
to the critics he feels have hastened Keats to an early grave: 'Against
what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary
prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! You, one of
the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of
the workmanship of God.' William Morris, in News from Nowhere,
takes this application one step further, claiming that in Utopia legal
penalties are bound to be mild: 'Paying a severe legal penalty, the
wrongdoer can "go and sin again" with comfon ... Remember jesus
had got the legal penalty remitted before he said "Go and sin no
more."' When Miss Prism's erstwhile maternity (hence adultery) is
revealed to her in the third act of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of
Being Earnest, she recoils 'in indignant astonishment': 'Mr Wonhing!
I am unmarried!' to which jack replies, 'Unmarried! I do not deny that
is a serious blow. But after all, who has the right to cast a stone against
the one who has suffered? Cannot repentance wipe out the act of
folly? Why should there be one law for men, and another for women?'
David L. jeffrey
Univusio/ of Ottawa
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN IN LITERATURE
92
PROLOGUE
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
94
Part One
The Light Revealed
This was the witness of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and
Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?' He declared, he did
not deny but declared, 'I am not the Christ.' So they asked, 'Then are
you Elijah?' He replied, 'I am not.' 'Are you the Prophet?' He
answered, 'No.' So they said to him, 'Who are you? We must take
back an answer to those who sent us. What have you to say about
yourself?' So he said, 'lam, as Isaiah prophesied:
A voice of one that cries in the desen:
'Prepare a way for the Lord.
Make his paths straight!'
Now those who had been sent were Pharisees, and they put this
question to him, 'Why are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, and
not Elijah, and not the Prophet?' John answered them, 'I baptise with
water; but standing among you - unknown to you - is the one who
is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandal.'
This happened at Bethany; on the far side of the Jordan, where John
was baptizing.
The next day, he saw Jesus coming towards him and said,
'Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
It was of him that I said, "Behind me comes one who has passed
ahead of me because he existed before me." I did not know him
myself, and yet my purpose in coming to baptize with water was so
that he might be revealed to Israel.' And John declared, 'I saw the
Spirit come down on him like a dove from heaven and rest on him. I
did not know him myself, but he who sent me to baptize with water
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
had said to me, "The man on whom you see the Spirit come down
and rest is the one who is to baptize with the Holy Spirit." I have seen
and I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.'
The next day as john stood there again with two of his disciples, jesus
went past, and john looked towards him and said, 'Look, there is the
lamb of God.' And the two disciples heard what he said and followed
jesus. jesus turned round, saw them following and said, 'What do
you want?' They answered, 'Rabbi' - which means Teacher - 'where
do you live?' He replied, 'Come and see'; so they went and saw where
he lived, and stayed with him that day. It was about the tenth hour.
One of these two who became followers of jesus after hearing
what john had said was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. The first
thing Andrew did was to find his brother and say to him, 'We have
found the Messiah' -which means the Christ - and he took Simon to
jesus. jesus looked at him and said, 'You are Simon son of]ohn; you
are to be called Cephas' - which means Rock.
The next day, after jesus had decided to leave for Galilee, he met
Philip and said, 'Follow me.' Philip came from the same town,
Bethsaida, as Andrew and Peter.
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, 'We have found him of
whom Moses in the Law and the prophets wrote, jesus son of]oseph,
from Nazareth.' Nathanael said to him, 'From Nazareth? Can anything
good come from that place?' Philip replied, 'Come and see.' When
jesus saw Nathanael coming he said of him, 'There, truly, is an
Israelite in whom there is no deception.' Nathanael asked, 'How do
you know me?' jesus replied, 'Before Philip came to call you, I saw
you under the fig tree.' Nathanael answered, 'Rabbi, you are the Son
of God, you are the king of Israel.' jesus replied, 'You believe that just
because I said: I saw you under the fig tree. You are going to see
greater things than that.' And then he added, 'In all truth I tell you,
you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and
descending over the Son of man.'
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P.I\RT ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Gahlee. The mother
of]esus was there, and jesus and his disciples had also been invited.
And they ran out of wine, since the wine provided for the feast had all
been used, and the mother of]esus said to him, 'They have no wine.'
jesus said, 'Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not
come yet.' His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tells you.'
There were six stone water jars standing there, meant for the ablutions
that are customary among the jews: each cou.ld hold twenty or thirty
gallons. jesus said to the servants, 'Fill the jars with water,' and they
filled them to the brim. Then he said to them, 'Draw some out now
and take it to the president of the feast.' They did this; the president
tasted the water, and it had turned into wine. Having no idea where it
came from - though the servants who had drawn the water knew -
the president of the feast called the bridegroom and said, 'Everyone
serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well
wined; but you have kept the best wine rill now.'
This was the first of .Jesus' signs: it was at Cana in Gahlee. He
revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
After this he went down to Capemaum with his mother and his
brothers and his di..c;ciples, but they stayed there only a few days.
When the time of the jewish Passover was near jesus went up
to jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and
sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a
whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and
cattle as well, scattered !the money changers' coins, knocked their
t.ables over and said to the dove sellers, 'Take all this out of here and
stop using my Father's house as a market.' Then his disciples
remembered the words of scripture: 'I am eaten up with zeal for your
house.' The jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us
97
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
that you should act like this?' jesus answered, 'Destroy this Temple,
and in three days I will raise it up.' The jews replied, 'It has taken
forty-six years to build this Temple: are you going to raise it up again
in three days?' But he was speaking of the Temple that was his body,
and when jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he
had said this, and they believed the scripture and what he had said.
During his stay in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover many
believed in his name when they saw the signs that he did, but jesus
knew all people and did not trust himself to them; he never needed
evidence about anyone; he could tell what someone had within.
There was one of the Pharisees called Nicodemus, a leader of the jews,
who came to jesus by night and said, 'Rabbi, we know that you have
come from God as a teacher; for no one could perform the signs that
you do unless God were with him.' jesus answered:
In all truth I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God
without being born from above.
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lf'ART ONE: lliE LIGHT REVEALED
'How is that possible?' asked Nicodemus. jesus replied, 'You are the
Teacher of Israel, and you do not know these things!
In all truth I tell you,
we speak only about what we know
and witness only to what we have seen
and yet you people: reject our evidence.
If you do not believe me
when I speak to you about earthly things,
how will you believe me
when I speak to you about heavenly things?
No one has gone: up to heaven
except the one who came down from heaven,
the Son of man;
as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert,
so must the Son of man be lifted up
so that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
For this is how God loved the world:
he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have etemallife.
For God sent his Son into the world
not to judge the world,
but so that through him the world might be saved.
No one who believes in him will be judged;
but whoever does not believe is judged already,
because that person does not believe
in the Name of God's only Son.
And the judgment is this:
though the light has come into the world
people have preferred
darkness to the light
because their deeds were t.'vil.
And indeed, everybody who does wrong
hates the light and avoids it,
to prevent his actions from being shown up;
but whoever does the truth
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
After this, Jesus went with his disciples into the Judean countryside
and stayed with them there and baptized. John also was baptizing at
Aenon near Salim, where there was plenty of water, and people were
going there and were being baptized. For John had not yet been put
in prison.
Now a discussion arose between some of]ohn's disciples and a
Jew about purification, so they went to John and said, 'Rabbi, the man
who was with you on the far side of the Jordan, the man to whom you
bore witness, is baptizing now, and everyone is going to him.' John
replied:
No one can have anything
except what is given him from heaven.
'You yourselves can bear me out. I said, "I am not the Christ; I am the
one who has been sent to go in from of him."'
It is the bridegroom who has the bride;
and yet the bridegroom's friend,
who stands there and listens to him,
is filled with joy at the bridegroom's voice.
This is the joy I feel, and it is complete.
He must grow greater,
I must grow less.
He who comes from above
is above all others;
he who is of the earth
is earthly himself and speaks in an earthly way.
He who comes from heaven
bears witness to the things he has seen and heard,
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PART ONE: n!E UGHT REVEALED
When Jesus heard that the Pharisees had found out that he was
making and baptizing more disciples than john- though in fact it was
his disciples who baptized, not jesus himself- he left judea and went
back to Galilee. He had to pass through Samaria. On the way he came
to the Samaritan town called Sychar near the land that Jacob gave to
his son joseph. Jacob's well was there and jesus, tired by the journey,
sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan
woman came to draw water, jesus said to her, 'Give me something to
drink.' His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The
Samaritan woman said to him, 'You are a jew. How is it that you ask
me, a Samaritan, for something to drink?' -Jews, of course, do not
associate with Samaritans. jesus replied to her:
If you only knew what God is offering
and who it is that is saying to you,
'Give me somethilng to drink,'
you would have been the one to ask,
and he would have given you living water.
'You have no bucket, sir,' she answered, 'and the well is deep: how do
you get this living water'? Are you a greater man than our father jacob,
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
who gave us this well and drank from it himself with his sons and his
cattle?' Jesus replied:
Whoever drinks this water
will be thirsty again;
but no one who drinks the water that I shall give
will ever be thirsty again:
the water that I shall give
will become a spring of water within, welling up for eternal life.
'Sir,' said the woman, 'give me some of that water, so that I may never
be thirsty or come here again to draw water.' 'Go and call your
husband,' said jesus to her, 'and come back here.' The woman
answered, 'I have no husband.' Jesus said to her, 'You are right to say,
"I have no husband"; for although you have had five, the one you now
have is not your husband. You spoke the truth there.' 'I see you are a
prophet, sir,' said the woman. 'Our fathers worshipped on this
mountain, though you say that Jerusalem is the place where one
ought to worship.' Jesus said:
Believe me, woman, the hour is coming
when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
You worship what you do not know;
we worship what we do know;
for salvation comes from the Jews.
But the hour is coming - indeed is already here -
when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit
and truth:
that is the kind of worshipper
the Father seeks.
God is spirit,
and those who worship
must worship in spirit and truth.
The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah - that is, Christ - is
coming; and when he comes he will explain everything.' Jesus said,
'That is who I am, l who speak to you.'
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PART ONE: TiiE UGHT REVF..ALED
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
When the two days were over Jesus left for Galilee. He himself had
declared that a prophet is not honoured in his own home town. On
his arrival the Galileans received him well, having seen all that he had
done atJerusalem during the festival which they too had attended.
He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the
water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son was ill at
Capemaum; hearing that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he
went and asked him to come and cure his son, as he was at the point
of death. Jesus said to him, 'Unless you see signs and ponents you
will not believe!' 'Sir,' answered the official, 'come down before my
child dies.' 'Go home,' said Jesus, 'your son will live.' The man
believed what Jesus had said and went on his way home; and while
he was still on the way his servants met him with the news that his
boy was alive. He asked them when the boy had begun to recover.
They replied, 'The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.' The
father realized that this was exactly the time when Jesus had said,
'Your son will live'; and he and all his household believed.
This new sign, the second, Jesus performed on his return from
Judea to Galilee.
After this there was a Jewish festival, and jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem next to the Sheep Pool there is a pool called
Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five porticos; and under these were
crowds of sick people, blind, lame, paralysed [waiting for the water to
move; for at intervals the angel of the Lord came down into the pool,
and the water was disturbed, and the first person to enter the water
after this disturbance was cured of any ailment from which he was
suffering.) One man there had an illness which had lasted thiny-eight
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PART ONE: THE LIGHT REVEALED
years, and when jesus saw him lying there and knew he had been in
that condition for a long time, he said, 'Do you want to be well again?'
'Sir,' replied the sick man. 'I have no one to put me into the pool
when the water is disturbed; and while I am still on the way, someone
else gets down there before me.' jesus said, 'Get up, pick up your
sleeping-mat and walk around.' The man was cured at once, and he
picked up his mat and started to walk around.
Now that day happened to be the Sabbath, so the jews said to
the man who had been cured, 'It is the Sabbath; you are not allowed
to carry your sleeping-mat.' He replied, 'But the man who cured me
told me, "Pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around."' They asked,
'Who is the man who said to you, "Pick up your sleeping-mat and
walk around"?' The man had no idea who it was, since jesus had
disappeared, as the place was crowded. After a while jesus met him in
the Temple and said, 'Now you are well again, do not sin any more,
or something worse may happen to you.' The man went back and told
the Jews that it was jesus who had cured him. It was because he did
things like this on the Sabbath that the jews began to harass jesus. His
answer to them was, 'My Father still goes on working, and I am at
work, too.' But that only made the jews even more intent on killing
him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he spoke of
God as his own Father and so made himself God's equal.
To this jesus replied:
In all truth I tell you,
by himself the Son can do nothing;
he can do only what he sees the Father doing:
and whatever the Father does the Son does too.
For the Father loves the Son
and shows him ev,erything he himself does,
and he will show him even greater things than these,
works that will astonish you.
Thus, as the Father mises the dead and gives them life,
so the Son gives life to anyone he chooses;
for the Father judges no one;
he has entrusted all judgment to the Son,
so that all may honour the Son
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
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PART ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
107
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
After this, jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee- or of Tiberias - and a large
crowd followed him, impressed by the signs he had done in curing
the sick. jesus climbed the hillside and sat down there with his
disciples. The time of the jewish Passover was near.
Looking up, jesus saw the crowds approaching and said to
Philip, 'Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?' He
said this only to put Philip to the test; he himself knew exactly what
he was going to do. Philip answered, 'Two hundred denarii would not
buy enough to give them a litde piece each.' One of his disciples,
Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said, 'Here is a small boy with five
barley loaves and two fish; but what is that among so many?' jesus
said to them, 'Make the people sit down.' There was plenty of grass
there, and as many as five thousand men sat down. Then jesus took
the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were
sitting there; he then did the same with the fish, distributing as much
as they wanted. When they had eaten enough he said to the disciples,
'Pick up the pieces left over, so that nothing is wasted.' So they picked
them up and filled twelve large baskets with scraps left over from the
meal of five barley loaves. Seeing the sign that he had done, the people
said, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.'
jesus, as he realized they were about to come and take him by force
and make him king, fled back to the hills alone.
That evening the disciples went down to the shore of the sea and got
into a boat to make for Capemaum on the other side of the sea. It was
getting dark by now and jesus had still not rejoined them. The wind
was strong, and the sea was getting rough. They had rowed three or
four miles when they saw jesus walking on the sea and coming
towards the boat. They were afraid, but he said, 'It's me. Don't be
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PART ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
afraid.' They were ready to take him into the boat, and immediately it
reached the shore at the place they were making for.
Next day, the crowd that had stayed on the other side saw that only
one boat had been there, and that jesus had not got into the boat with
his disciples, but that the disciples had set off by themselves. Other
boats, however, had ]pUt in from Tiberias, near the place where the
bread had been eaten. When the people saw that neither jesus nor his
disciples were there, they got into those boats and crossed to
Capemaum to look for Je.sus. When they found him on the other side,
they said to him, 'Rabbi, when did you come here?' .Jesus answered:
In all truth I telll you,
you are looking for me
not because you have seen the signs
but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat.
Do not work for food that goes bad,
but work for food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of man will give you,
for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.
Then they said to him, 'What must we do if we are to carry out God's
work?' Jesus gave them this answer, 'This is carrying out God's work:
you must believe in the: one he has sent.' So they said, 'What sign will
you yourself do, the sight of which will make us believe in you? What
work will you do? Our fathers ate manna in the desert; as scripture
says: "He gave them bread from heaven to eat."'
Jesus answered them:
In all truth I tell you,
it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven,
it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven,
the true bread;
for the bread of God
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
'Sir,' they said, 'give us that bread always.' jesus answered them:
I am the bread of life.
No one who comes to me will ever hunger;
no one who believes in me will ever thirst.
But, as I have told you,
you can see me and still you do not believe.
Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me;
I will certainly not reject anyone who comes to me,
because I have come from heaven,
not to do my own will,
but to do the will of him who sent me.
Now the will of him who sent me
is that I should lose nothing
of all that he has given to me,
but that I should raise it up on the last day.
It is my Father's will
that whoever sees the Son and believes in him
should have eternal life,
and that I should raise that person up on the last day.
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1'.4.R'f ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
Then the Jews started arguing among themselves, 'How can this man
give us his flesh to eat?' Jesus replied to them:
In all truth l tell you,
if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man
and drink his blood,
you have no life i.n you.
Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood
has eternal life,
and I shall raise that person up on the last day.
For my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
lives in me
and l live in that person.
As the living Father sent me
and I draw life from the Father,
so whoever eats me will also draw life from me.
This is the bread which has come down from heaven;
it is not like the bread our ancestors ate:
they are dead,
but anyone who e:ats this bread will live for ever.
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
'But there are some of you who do not believe.' For jesus knew from
the outset who did not believe and who was to betray him. He went
on, 'This is why I told you that no one could come to me except by
the gift of the Father.' After this, many of his disciples went away and
accompanied him no more.
Then jesus said to the Twelve, 'What about you, do you want
to go away too?' Simon Peter answered, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we have come to
know that you are the Holy One of God.' jesus replied to them, 'Did
I not choose the Twelve of you? Yet one of you is a devil.' He meant
judas son of Simon Iscariot, since this was the man, one of the Twelve,
who was to betray him.
After this jesus travelled round Galilee; he could not travel round
judea, because the jews were seeking to kill him.
As the jewish feast of Shelters drew near, his brothers said to
him, 'Leave this place and go to judea, so that your disciples, too, can
see the works you are doing; no one who wants to be publicly known
acts in secret; if this is what you are doing, you should reveal yourself
to the world.' Not even his brothers had faith in him. jesus answered,
'For me the right time has not come yet, but for you any time is the
right time. The world cannot hate you, but it does hate me, because
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PART ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
I give evidence that its ways are evil. Go up to the festival yourselves:
I am not going to this festival, because for me the time is not ripe yet.'
Having said that, he stayed behind in Galilee.
However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went up
as well, not publicly but secretly. At the festival the jews were on the
look-out for him: 'Where is he?' they said. There was a great deal of
talk about him in the crowds. Some said, 'He is a good man'; others,
'No, he is leading th1e people astray.' Yet no one spoke about him
openly, for fear of the Jews.
When the festival was half over, Jesus went to the Temple and
began to teach. The Jews were astonished and said, 'How did he learn
to read? He has not been educated.' jesus answered them:
My teaching is not from myself:
it comes from the one who sent me;
anyone who is prepared to do his will,
will know whether my teaching is from God
or whether I spe:ak on my own account.
When someone speaks on his own account,
he is seeking honour for himself;
but when he is seeking the honour of the person who sent him,
then he is true
and altogether without dishonesty.
Did not Moses g~ve you the Law?
And yet not one of you keeps the Law!
'Why do you want to ~ill me?' The crowd replied, 'You are mad! Who
w.mtc; to kill you?' Jesus answered, 'One work I did, and you are all
amazed at it. Moses ordered you to practise circumcision - not that it
began with him, it goes back to the patriarchs - and you circumcize
on the Sabbath. Now if someone can be circumcized on the Sabbath
so that the Law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me
for making someone completely healthy on a Sabbath? Do not keep
judging according to appearances; let your judgment be according to
what is right.'
Meanwhile some of the people of]erusalem were saying, 'Isn't
this the man they want to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
they have nothing to say to him! Can it be true the authorities have
recognized that he is the Christ? Yet we all know where he comes
from, but when the Christ appears no one will know where he comes
from.'
Then, as jesus was teaching in the Temple, he cried out:
You know me and you know where I came from.
Yet I have not come of my own accord:
but he who sent me is true;
You do not know him,
but I know him
because I have my being from him
and it was he who sent me.
They wanted to arrest him then, but because his hour had not yet
come no one laid a hand on him.
There were many people in the crowds, however, who believed
in him; they were saying, 'When the Christ comes, will he give more
signs than this man has?' Hearing that talk like this about him was
spreading among the people, the Pharisees sent the Temple guards to
arrest him.
Then jesus said:
For a shon time I am with you still;
then I shall go back to the one who sent me.
You will look for me and will not find me;
where I am
you cannot come.
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PAin ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
On the last day, the great day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried out:
Let anyone who is thirsty come to me!
Let anyone who believes in me come and drink!
1\s scripture says, "From his hean shall flow streams of living water."'
He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him
were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet because Jesus had not
yet been glorified.
Some of the crowd who had been listening said, 'He is indeed
the prophet,' and some said, 'He is the Christ,' but others said,
'Would the Christ come from Galilee? Does not scripture say that the
Christ must be descended from David and come from Bethlehem, the
village where David was?' So the people could not agree about him.
Some wanted to arrest him, but no one actually laid a hand on him.
The guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who
said to them, 'Why haven't you brought him?' The guards replied,
'No one has ever spoken like this man.' 'So,' the Pharisees answered,
'you, too, have been led astray? Have any of the authorities come to
believe in him? Any of the Pharisees? This rabble knows nothing about
the Law - they are damned.' One of them, Nicodemus - the same
man who had come to Jf'.sus earlier- said to them, 'But surely our
Law does not allow us to pass judgment on anyone without first
giving him a hearing and discovering what he is doing?' To this they
answered, 'Are you a Galilean too? Go into the matter, and see for
yourself: prophets do not arise in Galilee.'
They all went home, and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
At this the Pharisees said to him, 'You are testifying on your own
behalf; your testimony is not true.' jesus replied:
Even though I am testifying on my own behalf,
my testimony is still true,
because I know
where I have come from and where I am going;
but you do not know
where I come from or where I am going.
You judge by human standards;
I judge no one,
but if I judge,
my judgment will be true,
because I am not alone:
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PART ONE: THE UGHT llEVEALED
So the jews said to one another, 'Is he going to kill himself, that he
says, "Where I am going, you cannot come?"' jesus went on:
You are from below;
I am from above.
You are of this world;
l am not of this world.
I have told you abready: You will die in your sins.
Yes, if you do not believe that I am He,
you will die in your sins.
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
They did not recognize that he was talking to them about the Father.
So Jesus said:
When you have lifted up the Son of man,
then you will know that I am He
and that I do nothing of my own accord.
What I say
is what the Father has taught me;
he who sent me is with me,
and has not left me to myself,
for I always do what pleases him.
They answered, 'We are descended from Abraham and we have never
been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean, "You will be set free?'"
jesus replied:
In all truth I tell you,
everyone who commits sin is a slave.
Now a slave has no permanent standing in the household,
but a son belongs to it for ever.
So if the Son sets you free,
you will indeed be free.
I know that you are descended from Abraham;
but you want to kill me
because my word finds no place in you.
What I speak of
is what I have seen at my Father's side,
and you too put into action
the lesson~ you have learnt from your father.
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J!ART ONE: THE LIGHT REVEALED
They replied, 'We were not born illegitimate, the only father we have
is God.' jesus answered:
If God were your father, you would love me,
since I have my origin in God and have: come from him;
I did not come of my own accord,
but he sent me.
Why do you not understand what I say?
Because you cannot bear to listen to my words.
You are from your father, the devil,
and you prefer to do
what your father wants.
He was a murderer from the stan;
he was never grounded in the truth;
there is no truth in him at all.
When he lies
he is speaking true to his nature,
because he is a liar, and the father of lies.
But it is because I speak the truth
that you do not believe me.
Can any of you convict me of sin?
If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me?
Whoever comes from God
listens to the words of God;
the reason why you do not listen
is that you are not from God.
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
The Jews replied, 'Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan
and possessed by a devil?' jesus answered:
l am not possessed;
but I honour my Father,
and you deny me honour.
I do not seek my own glory;
there is someone who does seek it and is the judge of it.
In all truth I tell you,
whoever keeps my word
will never see death.
The jews said, 'Now we know that you are possessed. Abraham is
dead, and the prophets are dead, and yet you say, "Whoever keeps my
word will never know the taste of death." Are you greater than our
father Abraham, who is dead? The prophets are dead too. Who are
you claiming to be?' jesus answered:
If I were to seek my own glory
my glory would be worth nothing;
in fact, my glory is conferred by the Father,
by the one of whom you say, 'He is our God,'
although you do not know him.
But I know him,
and ifl were to say, 'l do not know him,'
I should be a liar, as you yourselves are.
But I do know him, and I keep his word.
Your father Abraham rejoiced
to think that he would see my Day;
he saw it and was glad.
The Jews then said, 'You are not fifty yet, and you have seen
Abraham!' jesus replied:
In all truth I tell you,
before Abraham ever was,
I am.
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I'ARJ ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
At this they picked up stones to throw at hilm; but jesus hid himself
and left the Temple.
As he went along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. His
disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that
he should have been born blind?' 'Neither he~ nor his parents sinned,'
jesus answered, 'he was born blind so that the works of God might
be revealed in him.'
As long as day lasts
we must carry out the work of the one who sent me;
the night will soon be here when no one can work.
As long as I am in the world
I am the light of the world.
Having said this, he spat on the ground, made a paste with the spitde,
put this over the eyes of the blind man, and said to him, 'Go and wash
in the Pool of Siloam' (the name means 'one who has been sent'). So
he went off and washed and came back able to see.
His neighbours and the people who used to see him before (for
he was a beggar) said, 'Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?'
Some said, 'Yes, it is the: same one.' Others said, 'No, but he looks just
like him.' The man himself said, 'Yes, I am the one.' So they said to
him, 'Then how is it that your eyes were opened?' He answered, 'The
man called jesus made a paste, daubed my eyes with it and said to
me, "Go off and wash at Siloam"; so I went, and when I washed I
gained my sight.' They asked, 'Where is he?' He answered, 'I don't
know.'
They brought to r.he Pharisees the man who had been blind. It
had been a Sabbath day when jesus made the paste and opened the
man's eyes, so when the Pharisees asked him how he had gained his
sight, he said, 'He put a paste on my eyes, and I washed, and I can
see.' Then some of the Pharisees said, 'That man cannot be from God:
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
he does not keep the Sabbath.' Others said, 'How can a sinner
produce signs like this?' And there was division among them. So they
spoke to the blind man again, 'What have you to say about him
yourself, now that he has opened your eyes?' The man answered, 'He
is a prophet. '
However, the jews would not believe that the man had been
blind without first sending for the parents of the man who had gained
his sight and asking them, 'Is this man really the son of yours who you
say was born blind? If so, how is it that he is now able to see?' His
parents answered, 'We know he is our son and we know he was born
blind, but how he can see, we don't know, nor who opened his eyes.
Ask him. He is old enough: let him speak for himself.' His parents
spoke like this out of fear of the jews, who had already agreed to ban
from the synagogue anyone who should acknowledge jesus as the
Christ. This was why his parents said, 'He is old enough; ask him.'
So the jews sent for the man again and said to him, 'Give glory
to God! We are satisfied that this man is a sinnet' The man answered,
'Whether he is a sinner I don't know; all I know is that I was blind and
now I can see.' They said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he
open your eyes?' He replied, 'I have told you once and you wouldn't
listen. Why do you want to hear it all again? Do you want to become
his disciples yourselves?' At this they hurled abuse at him, 'It is you
who are his disciple, we are disciples of Moses: we know that God
spoke to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know where he comes
from.' The man replied, 'That is just what is so amazing! You don't
know where he comes from and he has opened my eyes! We know that
God doesn't listen to sinners, but God does listen to people who are
devout and do his will. Ever since the world began it is unheard of for
anyone to open the eyes of someone born blind; if this man were not
from God, he wouldn't have been able to do anything.' They retoned,
'Are you trying to teach us, and you a sinner through and through ever
since you were born!' And they ejected him.
jesus heard they had ejected him, and when he found him he
said to him, 'Do you believe in the Son of man?' 'Sir,' the man replied,
'tell me who he is so that I may believe in him.' jesus said, 'You have
seen him; he is speaking to you.' The man said, 'Lord, I believe,' and
worshipped him.
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Jesus said:
It is for judgment
that I have come into this world,
so that those wid10ut sight may see
and those with sighlt may become blind.
Hearing this, some Pharisees who were present said to him, 'So we are
blind, are we?' Jesus replied:
If you were blind,
you would not be guilty,
but since you say, 'We can see,'
your guilt remains.
'In all truth I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold
through the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a
bandit. He who enters dh.rough the gate is the shepherd of the flock;
the gatekeeper lets him in, the sheep hear his voice, one by one he
calls his own sheep and leads them out. When he has brought out all
those that are his, he got>.s ahead of them, and the sheep follow
because they know his voice. They will never follow a stranger; but
will run away from him because they do not recognize the voice of
strangers.'
Jesus told them this parable but they failed to understand what
he was saying to them.
So Jesus spoke to them again:
In all truth I tell you,
I am the gate of the sheepfold.
All who have come before me
are thieves and bandits,
but the sheep took no notice of them.
I am the gate.
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PART ONE: TifE UGHT REVEAlED
These words caused a fresh division among the Jews. Many said, 'He
is possessed, he is raving; why do you listen to him?' Others said,
These are not the words of a man possessed by a devil: could a devil
open the eyes of the blind?'
It was the time of the feast of Dedication in Jerusalem. It was
winter, and jesus was in the Temple walking up and down in the
Panico of Solomon. The Jews gathered round him and said, 'How
much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the
Christ, tell us openly.' jesus replied:
I have told you, but you do not believe.
The works I do in my Father's name are my witness;
but you do not believe,
because you are no sheep of mine.
The sheep that bdong to me listen to my voice;
I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life;
they will never be lost
and no one will ever steal them from my hand.
The Father, for what he has given me, is greater than anyone,
and no one can steal anything from the Father's hand.
The Father and I are one.
The jews fetched stones to stone him, so Jesus said to them, 'I have
shown you many good works from my Father; for which of these are
you stoning me?' The Jews answered him, 'We are stoning you, not
for doing a good work, but for blasphemy; though you are only a man,
you claim to be God.' Jesus answered:
Is it not written in your Law:
'li said, you are gods?'
So it uses the word 'gods'
of those people to whom the word of God was addressed
- and scripture cannot be set aside.
Yet to someone whom the Father has consecrated
and sent into the world you say,
'You are blaspheming'
because I said, 'I am Son of God.'
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They again wanted to arrest him then, but he eluded their clutches.
He went back again to the far side of the jordan to the district
where john had been baptizing at first and he stayed there. Many
people who came to him said, 'john gave no signs, but all he said
about this man was tme'; and many of them believed in him.
There was a man named Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and
her sister, Martha, and he was ill. It was the same Mary, the sister of
the sick man Lazarus, who anointed the Lord with ointment and
wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent this message to jesus,
'Lord, the man you love is ill.' On receiving the message, Jesus said,
'This sickness will not end in death, but it is for God's glory so that
through it the Son of God may be glorified.'
jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he
heard that he was ill he stayed where he was for two more days before
saying to the disciples, 'Let us go back to Judea.' The disciples said,
'Rabbi, it is not long since the jews were trying to stone you; are you
going back there again?' Jesus replied:
Are there not twelve hours in the day?
No one who walks in the daytime stumbles,
having the light of this world to see by;
anyone who walks around at night stumbles,
having no light as a guide.
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PART ONE: THE UGHT REVEALED
He said that and then added, 'Our friend Lazarus is at rest; I am going
to wake him.' The disciples said to him, 'Lord, if he is at rest he will
be saved.' Jesus was speaking of the death of Lazarus, but they
thought that by 'rest' he meant 'sleep'; so Jesus put it plainly, 'Lazarus
is dead; and for your sake I am glad I was not there because now you
will believe. But let us go to him.' Then Thomas - known as the Twin
- said to the other disciples, 'Let us also go to die with him.'
On arriving, Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for
four days already. Bethany is only about two miles from Jerusalem,
and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about
their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to
meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to Jesus,
'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died, but
even now I know that God will grant whatever you ask of him.' Jesus
said to her, 'Your brother will1ise again.' Martha said, 'I know he will
rise again at the resurrection on the last day.' Jesus said:
I am the resurrection.
Anyone who believes in me, even though that person dies,
will live,
and whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Do you believe d1is'?
'Yes, Lord,' she said, 'I believe that you are the: Christ, the Son of God,
the one who was to come into this world.'
When she had said this, she went and called her sister Mary,
saying in a low voice, The Master is here and wants to see you.'
Hearing this, Mary got up quickly and went to him. Jesus had not yet
come into the village; he was still at the place where Martha had met
him. When the Jews who were in the house comforting Mary saw her
get up so quickly and go out, they followed her, thinking that she was
going to the tomb to WE~ep there.
Mary went to Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw
herself at his feet, saying, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother
would not have died.' Ar. the sight of her tears, and those of the Jews
who had come with her, Jesus was gready distressed, and with a
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THE GOSPEL OF STjOHN
profound sigh he said, 'Where have you put him?' They said, 'Lord,
come and see.' Jesus wept; and the Jews said, 'See how much he
loved him!' But there were some who remarked, 'He opened the eyes
of the blind man. Could he not have prevented this man's death?'
Sighing again, Jesus reached the tomb: it was a cave with a stone to
close the opening. Jesus said, 'Take the stone away.' Martha, the dead
man's sister, said to him, 'Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth
day since he died.' Jesus replied, 'Have I not told you that if you
believe you will see the glory of God?' So they took the stone away.
Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and said:
Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer.
I myself knew that you hear me always,
but I speak
for the sake of all these who are standing around me,
so that they may believe it was you who sent me.
When he had said this, he cried in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!'
The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of
material, and a cloth over his face. Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him,
let him go free.'
Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen
what he did, believed in him, but some of them went to the Pharisees
to tell them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and Pharisees
called a meeting. 'Here is this man working all these signs,' they said,
'and what action are we taking? If we let him go on in this way
everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and
suppress the Holy Place and our nation.' One of them, Caiaphas, the
high priest that year, said, 'You do not seem to have grasped the
situation at all; you fail to see that it is to your advantage that one man
should die for the people, rather than that the whole nation should
perish.'
He did not speak in his own person, but as high priest of that
year he was prophesying that Jesus was to die for the nation- and not
for the nation only, but also to gather together into one the scattered
children of God. From that day onwards they were determined to kill
him. So Jesus no longer went about openly among the Jews, but left
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IPART ONE: TiiE UGHT REVEALED
the district for a town called Ephraim, in the country bordering on the
desert, and stayed there with his disciples.
The jewish Passover was drawing near, and many of the country
people who had gone up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify
themselves were looking out lor jesus, saying to one another as they
stood about in the Temple, 'What do you think? Will he come to the
festival or not?' The chief priests and Pharisees had by now given their
orders: anyone who knew where he was must inform them so that
they could arrest him.
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Part Two
The Darkness Defeated
Six days before the Passover, jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus
was, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him
there; Manha waited on them and Lazarus was among those at table.
Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with
it anointed the feet of]esus, wiping them with her hair; the house was
filled with the scent of the ointment. Then judas Iscariot - one of his
disciples, the man who was to betray him -- said, 'Why was this
ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to
the poor?' He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but
because he was a thief; he was in charge of the common fund and
used to help himself to the contents. So jesus said, 'Leave her alone;
let her keep it for the day of my burial. You have the poor with you
always, you will not always have me.'
Meanwhile a large number of]ews heard that he was there and
came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he
had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill
Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews
were leaving them and believing in Jesus.
The next day the great crowd of people who had come up for the
festival heard that jesus was on his way to jerusalem. They took
branches of palm and went out to receive him, shouting:
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PART 1WO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
Hosanna!
Blessed is he who is coming in the name of the Lord,
the king of Israel.
At first his disciples did not understand this, but later, after jesus had
been glorified, they remembered that this had been written about him
and that this was what had happened to him. The crowd who had
been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him
from the dead kept bearing witness to it; this was another reason why
the crowd came out to receive him: they had heard that he had given
this sign. Then the Pharisees said to one another, 'You see, you are
making no progress; look, the whole world has gone after him!'
Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some
Greeks. These approached Philip, who came from Bethsaida in
Galilee, and put this request to him, 'Sir, we should like to see jesus.'
Philip went to tell Andrew, and Andrew and Philip together went to
tell jesus.
jesus replied to d1em:
Now the hour has come
for the Son of man to be glorified.
In all truth I tell you,
unless a wheat grain falls into the eanh and dies,
it remains only a single grain;
but if it dies
it yields a rich harvest.
Anyone who loves his life loses it;
anyone who hates his life in this world
will keep it for etemallife.
Whoever serves me, must follow me,
and my servant wiH be with me wherever I am.
If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him.
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A voice came from heaven, 'I have glorified it, and I will again glorify
it.'
The crowd standing by, who heard this, said it was a clap of
thunder; others said, 'It was an angel speaking to him.' Jesus
answered, 'It was not for my sake that this voice came, but for yours.'
Now sentence is being passed on this world;
now the prince of this world is to be driven out.
And when I am lifted up from the earth,
I shall draw all people to mysel£
Having said this, Jesus left them and was hidden from their sight.
Though they had been present when he gave so many signs,
they did not believe in him; this was to fulfil the words of the prophet
Isaiah:
Lord, who has given credence to what they have heard from us,
and who has seen in it a revelation of the Lord's arm?
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PART twO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
Isaiah said this because he saw his glory, and his words referred to
jesus.
And yet there were many who did be:lieve in him, even among
the leading men, but they did not admit it, because of the Pharisees
and for fear of being banned from the synagogue: they put human
glory before God's glory.
jesus declared publicly:
Whoever believes in me
believes not in me
but in the one who sent me,
and whoever sees me,
sees the one who sent me.
I have come into the world as light,
to prevent anyone who believes in me
from staying in the dark any more.
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them faithfully,
it is not I who shall judge such a person,
since I have come not to judge the world,
but to save the world:
anyone who rejects me and refuses my words
has his judge already:
the word itself that I have spoken
will be his judge on the last day.
For I have not spoken of my own accord;
but the Father who sent me
commanded me what to say and what to speak,
and I know that his commands mean eternal life.
And therefore what the Father has told me
is what I speak.
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THE GOSPEL Of STJOHN
Before the festival of the Passover, jesus, knowing that his hour had
come to pass from this world to the Father, having loved those who
were his in the world, loved them to the end.
They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the
mind of judas lscariot son of Simon, to betray him. jesus knew that
the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come
from God and was returning to God, and he got up from table,
removed his outer garments and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his
waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the
disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, 'Lord, are you going
to wash my feet?' jesus answered, 'At the moment you do not know
what I am doing, but later you will understand.' 'Never!' said Peter,
'You shall never wao;h my feet.' jesus replied, 'If I do not wash you,
you can have no share with me.' Simon Peter said, 'Well then, Lord,
not only my feet, but my hands and my head ao; well!' jesus said, 'No
one who has had a bath needs washing, such a person is clean all
over. You too are clean, though not all of you are.' He knew who was
going to betray him, and that was why he said, 'though not all of you
are'.
When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments
again he went back to the table. 'Do you understand', he said, 'what
I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am.
If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash
each other's feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy
what I have done to you.'
In all truth I tell you,
no servant is greater than his master,
no messenger is greater than the one who sent him.
'Now that you know this, blessed are you if you behave accordingly. I
am not speaking about all of you: I know the ones I have chosen; but
what scripture say.s must be fulfilled:'
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PART lWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
Having said this, jesus was deeply disturbed and declared, 'In all truth
I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.' The disciples looked at
each other, wondering whom he meant. The disciple Jesus loved was
reclining next to jesus; Simon Peter signed to him and said, ~k who
it is he means,' so leaning back close to jesus' chest he said, 'Who is
it, Lord?' jesus answered, 'It is the one to whom I give the piece of
bread that I dip in the dish.' And when he had dipped the piece of
bread he gave it to judas son of Simon lscariot. At that instant, after
judas had taken the bread, Satan entered him. jesus then said, 'What
you are going to do, do quickly.' None of the others at table
understood why he said this. Since Judas had charge of the common
fund, some of them thought jesus was telling him, 'Buy what we need
for the festival,' or telling him to give something to the poor. As soon
as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out. It was night.
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
Simon Peter said, 'lord, where are you going?' Jesus replied, 'Now
you cannot follow me where I am going, but later you shall follow
me.' Peter said to him, 'Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down
my life for you.' 'Lay down your life for me?' answered Jesus. 'In all
truth I tell you, before the cock crows you will have disowned me
three times.'
Thomas said, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can
we know the way?' .Jesus said:
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PART 1WO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and then we shall be satisfied.'
jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you
still do not know me?
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,
so how can you say, 'Show us the Fathd?
Do you not believe
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
What I say to you I do not speak of my own accord:
it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his works.
You must believe me when I say
that I am in the Father and the Father i'> in me;
or at least believe it on the evidence of these works.
In all truth I tell you,
whoever believes in me
will perform the same works as I do myself,
and will perform even greater works,
because I am going to the Father.
Whatever you ask in my name l will do,
so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask me anything in my name,
I will do it.
If you love me you will keep my commandments.
I shall ask the Father,
and he will give you another Paraclete
to be with you for ~:ver,
the Spirit of truth
whom the world ca1n never accept
since it neither sees nor knows him;
but you know him,
because he is with you, he is in you.
I shall not leave you orphans;
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
Judas - not Judas lscariot - said to him, 'Lord, what has happened,
that you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?' Jesus
replied:
Anyone who loves me will keep my word,
and my Pather will love him,
and we shall come to him
and make a home in him.
Anyone who does not love me does not keep my words.
And the word that you hear is not my own:
it is the word of the Father who sent me.
I have said these things to you
while still with you;
but the Paradete, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything
and remind you of all I have said to you.
Peace I bequeath to you,
my own peace I give you,
a peace which the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.
You heard me say:
I am going away and shall return.
If you loved me you would be glad that I am going to
the Father,
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PART TWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
If you remain in me
and my words remain in you,
you may ask for whatever you please
and you will get it.
It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit
and be my disciples.
I have loved you
just as the Father has loved me.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments
you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this
so that my own joy may be in you
and your joy be complete.
This is my commandment:
love one another,
as I have loved you.
No one can have greater love
than to lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends,
if you do what I command you.
I shall no longer call you servants,
because a servant does not know
the master's business;
I call you friends,
because I have made known to you
everything I have learnt from my Father:
You did not choose me,
no, I chose you;
and I commissioned you
to go out and to bear fruit,
fruit that will last;
so that the Father will give you
anything you ask him in my name.
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PART twO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
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PART lWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
Then some of his disciples said to one anothet; 'What does he mean,
"In a short time you will no longer see me, and then a short time later
you will see me again," and, "I am going to the Father"? What is this
"shon time"? We don't know what he means.' jesus knew that they
wanted to question him, so he said, 'You are asking one another what
I meant by saying, "In a short time you will no longer see me, and
then a shon time later you will see me again.""
In all truth I tell you,
you will be weeping and wailing
while the world will rejoice;
you will be sorrowful,
but your sorrow will tum to joy.
A woman in childbirth suffers,
because her time has come;
but when she has given binh to the child she forgets the
suffering
in her joy that a human being has been born into the world.
So it is with you: you are sad now,
but I shall see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy,
and that joy no one shall t.ake from you.
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His disciples said, 'Now you are speaking plainly and not using veiled
language. Now we see that you know everything and need not wait
for questions to be put into words; because of this we believe that you
came from God.' jesus answered them:
Do you believe at last?
Listen; the time will come - indeed it has come already -
when you are going to be scattered, each going his own way
and leaving me alone.
And yet I am not alone,
because the Father is with me.
I have told you all this
so that you may find peace in me.
In the world you will have hardship,
but be courageous:
I have conquered the world.
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PART TWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said:
Father, the hour hiJS come:
glorify your Son
so that your Son may glorify you;
so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity,
he may give etemallife to all those you have entrusted to him.
And etemallife is this:
to know you,
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
I have glorified you on earth
by finishing the work
that you gave me to do.
Now, Father, glorify me
with that glory I had with you
before ever the world existed.
I have revealed your name
to those whom you took from the wodd to give me.
They were yours and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
Now at last they have recognized
that all you have given me comes from you
for I have given them
the teaching you gave to me,
and they have indeed accepted it
and know for certain that I came from you,
and have believed that it was you who sent me.
It is for them that: I pray.
I am not praying for the world
but for those you have given me,
because they belong to you.
All I have is yours
and all you have is mine,
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PART TWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
Father;
I want those you have given me
to be with me where I am,
so that they may always see my glory
which you have given me
because you loved me
before the foundation of the world.
Father, Upright One,
the world has not known you,
but I have known you,
and these have l01own
that you have sem me.
I have made your name lmown to them
and will continue to make it known,
so that the love with which you loved me may be in them,
and so that I may be in them.
After he had said all this, jesus left with his disciples and crossed the
Kidron valley where there was a garden into which he went with his
disciples. judas the traitor knew the place also, since jesus had often
met his disciples there, so judas brought the cohort to this place
together with guards sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees, all
with lanterns and torches and weapons. Knowing everything that was
to happen to him, jesus came forward and said, 'Who are you looking
for?' They answered, Jesus the Nazarene.' He said, 'i am he.' Now
judas the traitor was standing among them. When jesus said to them,
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THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
'I am he,' they moved back and fell on the ground. He asked them a
second time, 'Who are you looking for?' They said, Jesus the
Nazarene.' Jesus replied, 'I have told you that I am he. lf I am the one
you are looking for, let these others go.' This was to fulfil the words
he had spoken, 'Not one of those you gave me have I lost.'
Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high
priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant's name was
Malchus. jesus said to Peter, 'Put your sword back in its scabbard; am
I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?'
The cohort and its tribune and the Jewish guards seized Jesus
and bound him. They took him first to Annas, because Annas was the
father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. It was
Caiaphas who had counselled the jews, 'It is better for one man to die
for the people.'
PETER'S DENIAL
John 18:1.5-27
Simon Peter, with another disciple, followed Jesus. This disciple, who
was known to the high priest, went with Jesus into the high priest's
palace, but Peter stayed outside the door. So the other disciple, the
one known to the high prir.st, went out, spoke to the door-keeper and
brought Peter in. The girl on duty at the door said to Peter, 'Aren't you
another of that man's disciples?' He answered, 'I am not.' Now it was
cold, and the servants and guards had lit a charcoal fire and were
standing there warming themselves; so Peter stood there too, warming
himself with the others.
The high priest questioned jesus about his disciples and his
teaching. jesus answered, 'I have spoken openly for all the world to
hear; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the Temple where
all the Jews meet together; I have said nothing in secret. Why ask me?
Ask my hearers what I taught; they know what I said.' At these words,
one of the guards standing by gave Jesus a slap in the face, saying, 'Is
that the way you answer the high priest?' Jesus replied, 'If there is
some offence in what I said, point it out; but if not, why do you strike
me?' Then Annas sent him, bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.
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PART TWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
They then led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium. It
was now morning. They did not go into the Praetorium themselves to
avoid becoming defiled and unable to eat the Passover So Pilate came
outside to them and said, 'What charge do you bring against this
man?' They replied, 'If he were not a criminal, we should not have
handed him over to you.' Pilate said, Take him yourselves, and try
him by your own Law.' The Jews answered, 'We are not allowed to
put anyone to death.' This was to fulfil the words Jesus had spoken
indicating the way he was going to die.
So Pilate went back into the Praetorium and called Jesus to him
and asked him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' Jesus replied, 'Do you
ask this of your own accord, or have others said it to you about me?'
Pilate answered, 'Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief
priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?' Jesus
replied, 'Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of
this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being
surrendered to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not belong here.'
Pilate said, 'So, then you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'It is you who
say that I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this,
to bear witness to the trmh; and all who are on the side of truth listen
to my voice.' Truth?' said Pilate. 'What is that?' And so saying he
went out again to the Jews and said, 'I find no case against him. But
according to a custom of yours I should release one prisoner at the
Passover; would you like me, then, to release for you the king of the
Jews?' At this they shouted, 'Not this man,' they said, 'but Barabbas'
Barabbas was a bandit.
Pilate then had Jesus taken away and scourged; and after this,
149
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
the soldiers twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on his head
and dressed him in a purple robe. They kept coming up to him and
saying, 'Hail, king of the jews!' and slapping him in the face.
Pilate came outside again and said to them, 'Look, I am going
to bring him out to you to let you see that I find no case against him.'
jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
Pilate said, 'Here is the man.' When they saw him, the chief priests
and the guards shouted, 'Crucify him! Crucify him!' Pilate said, 'Take
him yourselves and crucify him: I find no case against him.' The jews
replied, 'We have a Law, and according to that Law he ought to be
put to death, because he has claimed to be Son of God.'
When Pilate heard them say this his fears increased. Re-entering
the Praetorium, he said to jesus, 'Where do you come from?' But
jesus made no answer. Pilate then said to him, 'Are you refusing to
speak to me? Surely you know I have power to release you and I have
power to crucify you?' jesus replied, 'You would have no power over
me at all if it had not been given you from above; that is why the one
who handed me over to you has the greater guilt.'
From that moment Pilate was anxious to set him free, but the
jews shouted, 'If you set him free you are no friend of Caesar's;
anyone who makes himself king is defying Caesar.' Hearing these
words, Pilate had jesus brought out, and seated him on the chair of
judgment at a place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. It was
the Day of Preparation, about the sixth hoUJ.: 'Here is your king,' said
Pilate to the jews. But they shouted, 'Away with him, away with him,
crucify him.' Pilate said, 'Shall I crucify your king?' The chief priests
answered, 'We have no king except Caesar.'
THE CRUCIFIXION
john 19:16-30
150
PART TWO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
'jesus the Nazarene, King of the jews'. This notice was read by many
of the jews, because the place where jesus was crucified was near the
city, and the writing was in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. So the jewish
chief priests said to Pilate, 'You should not write "King of the jews",
but that the man said, "I am King of the Jews".' Pilate answered,
'What I have written, ll have written.'
When the soldiers had finished crucifying Jesus they took his
clothing and divided it into four shares, one for each soldier. His
undergarment was seamless, woven in one piece from neck to hem; so
they said to one another, 'Instead of tearing it, let's throw dice to decide
who is to have it.' In this way the words of scripture were fulfilled:
They divide my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothes.
A jar full of sour wine stood there; so, putting a sponge soaked in the
wine on a hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. After Jesus had
taken the wine he said, 'It is fulfilled'; and bowing his head he gave
up his spirit.
THE ENTOMBMENT
john 19:31-42
151
THE GOSPEL OF 51 JOHN
bodies taken away. Consequently the soldiers came and broke the legs
of the first man who had been crucified with him and then of the
other. When they came to jesus, they saw he was already dead, and
so instead of breaking his legs one of the soldiers pierced his side with
a lance; and immediately there came out blood and watet This is the
evidence of one who saw it ·-· true evidence, and he knows that what
he says is true - and he give...:; it so that you may believe as well.
Because all this happened to fulfil the words of scripture:
Not one bone of his will be broken;
THE RESURRECTION
John 20
It was very early on the first day of the week and still dark, when Mary
of Magdala came to the tomb. She saw that the stone had been moved
away from the tomb and came running to Simon Peter and the other
disciple, the one whom jesus loved. 'They have taken the Lord out of
the tomb,' she said, 'and we don't know where they have put him.'
So Peter set out with the other disciple to go to the tomb. They
ran together, but the other disciple, running faster than Peter, reached
152
PART "!WO: THE DARKNESS DEFEATED
the tomb first; he bent down and saw the linen cloths lying on the
ground, but did not go in. Simon Peter, following him, also came up,
went into the tomb, saw the linen cloths lying on the ground and also
the doth that had been over his head; this was not with the linen
cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple who
had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed. 1111
this moment they had still not understood the scripture, that he must
rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.
But Mary was standing outside near the tomb, weeping. Then,
as she wept, she stooped to look inside, and saw two angels in white
sitting where the body of]esus had been, one at the head, the other
at the feet. They said, 'Woman, why are you weeping"?' 'They have
taken my Lord away,' she replied, 'and I don't know where they have
put him.' As she said this she turned round and saw Jesus standing
there, though she did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her,
'Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?' Supposing
him to be the gardener, she said, 'Sir, if you have taken him away, tell
me where you have put him, and I will go and remove him.' Jesus
said, 'Mary!' She turned round then and said to him in Hebrew,
'Rabbuni!' --which means Master. jesus said to her, 'Do not cling to
me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to the
brothers, and tell them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.' So Mary of Magdala told the disciples, 'I
have seen the Lord,' and that he had said these things to her.
In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the
doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the
jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, 'Peace be
with you,' and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his
side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said
to d1em again, 'Peace be with you.'
As the Father sent me,
so am I sending you.
153
THE GOSPEL OF STJOHN
Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with
them when jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, 'We have
seen the Lord,' but he answered, 'Unless I can see the holes that the
nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they
made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.'
Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was
with them. The doors were closed, but jesus came in and stood
among them. 'Peace be with you,' he said. Then he spoke to Thomas,
'Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand;
put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.'
Thomas replied, 'My Lord and my God!' jesus said to him:
You believe because you can see me.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
There were many other signs that jesus worked in the sight of the
disciples, but they are not recorded in this book. These are recorded
so that you may believe that jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that believing this you may have life through his name.
Later on, Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples. It was by the
Sea of Tiberias, and it happened like this: Simon Peter, Thomas called
the Twin, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee and
two more of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said, 'I'm going
fishing.' They replied, 'We'll come with you.' They went out and got
into the boat but caught nothing that night.
When it was already light, there stood jesus on the shore,
though the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Jesus called out,
154
PART TWO: THE DARKNESS DEFFATED
155
THE GOSPEL Of STJOHN
156
Index of Primary Sources
Absire, Alain 56 Bunyan, John 58, 77, 78·'
Aelfric 80 Burgess, Anthony 47, 53, 83
Aelred of Rievaulx 48 Butler, Samuel 25
Ambrose, St 49 Byron, Lord 40, 60, 78
Andrewes, Lancelot 58 Caillois, Roger 83
Anselm of Canterbury .20 Caine, Hall 23
Antoninus, Brother 61 Calvin, John 50, 58, 63, 69, 70,
Aquinas, St Thomas 63 76, 77
Arnold, Matthew 22, 53 Camus, Alben 30
Asch, Sholem 71, 83 Carlyle, Thomas 2 7
Augustine, St 26, 27, 36, 49, Caswall, Edward 65
58, 69, 71 Chaucer, Geoffrey 36, 38, 4 7,
Avison, Margaret 33 51, 63, 79, 80, 81, 87, 89
Bacon, Francis 81 Chesterton, G.K 63
Barth, John 45, 66 Clark, Glenn 46
Bates, Katherine Lee 70 Clement of Alexandria, St 72
Bede, The Venerable ·49 Clough, A.H. 24
Benedict of Gloucester 50 Coleridge, Mary 64
Bentley, Eric 83 Coloma, Luis 83
Bernard of Clairvaux, St 58 Conrad, Joseph 23, 82
Bishop, John Peale 60 Constable, Henry .28
Blake, Wilham 21, 22, 28, 29, Cony, Carlos Heitor 83
31,54, 55, 59, 79, 81 Cowper, William 32, 82
Blunt, Hugh 60 Crane, Han 61
Bontemps, Arna 25 Crashaw, :Richard 21, 28, 31,
Breton, Nicholas 58 39, 58, 76
BnJn1e, Richard 59 Csokor, Franz Theodor 83
Bronte, Emily 52 Cynewulf 50
BnJnte, Charlotte 24, 25 da Todi, Jacopone 48
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 55 Dante Alighieri 31, 36, 48, 51
Browning, Robert 22, 40, 55, 60 de Lorris, Guillaume 36
Bruckberger, Leopold 60 de Meun, jean 36
Buchanan, Robert 53 De Quincey, Thomas 78
Bulgakov, Mikhail 84 de Voragine, jacobus 51
157
INDEX OF PRIMARY SOURCES
158
INDEX OF PRIMARY SOURCES
159
INDEX OF PRIMARY SOURCES
160