Now, the French exegete Henri Cazelles, drawing on studies by J. Colson, J. Winandy, and M.-E. Boismard, has shown in a sociological study of the Temple priesthood before its destruction ("Johannes") that such an identification is actually quite possible. The priests discharged their ministry on a rotating basis twice a year. The ministry itself lasted a week each time. After the completion of the ministry, the priest returned to his home, and it was not at all unusual for him also to exercise a profession to earn his livelihood. Furthermore, the Gospel makes clear that Zebedee was no simple fisherman, but employed several day laborers, which also explains why it was possible for his sons to leave him. "It is thus quite possible that Zebedee is a priest, but that at the same time he has his property in Galilee, while the fishing business on the lake helps him makes ends meet. He probably has a kind of pied-a-terre in or near the Jerusalem neighborhood where the Essenes lived" ("Johannes," p. 481). "The very meal during which this disciple rested on Jesus' breast took place in a room that in all probability was located in the Essene neighborhood of the city"--in the "pied-a-terre" of the priest Zebedee, who "lent the upper room to Jesus and the Twelve" (ibid., pp. 480, 481). Another observation Cazelles makes in his article is interesting in this connection: According to the Jewish custom, the host or, in his absence, as would have been the case here, "his firstborn son sat to the right of the guest, his head leaning on the latter's chest" (ibid., p. 480).
If in light of current scholarship, then, it is quite possible to see Zebedee's son John as the bystander who solemnly asserts his claim to be an eyewitness (cf. Jn 19:35) and thereby identifies himself as the true author of the Gospel, nevertheless, the complexity of the Gospel's redaction raises further questions.
The Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (d. ca. 338) gives us a piece of information that is important in this context. Eusebius tells us about a five-volume work of the bishop of Hierapolis, Papias, who died around 220. Papias mentions there that he had not known or seen the holy Apostles himself, but that he had received the teaching of the faith from people who had been close to the Apostles. He also speaks of others who were likewise disciples of the Lord, and he mentions the names Aristion and "Presbyter John." Now, the important point is that he distinguishes between the Apostle and Evangelist John, on one hand, and "Presbyter John," on the other. Although he had not personally known the former, he had met the latter (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica, III, 39).
This information is very remarkable indeed: When combined with related pieces of evidence, it suggests that in Ephesus there was something like a Johannine school, which traced its origins to Jesus' favorite disciple himself, but in which a certain "Presbyter John" presided as the ultimate authority. This "presbyter" John appears as the sender and author of the Second and Third Letters of John (in each case in the first verse of the first chapter) simply under the title "the presbyter" (without reference to the name John). He is evidently not the same as the Apostle, which means that here in the canonical text we encounter expressly the mysterious figure of the presbyter. He must have been closely connected with the Apostle; perhaps he had even been acquainted with Jesus himself. After the death of the Apostle, he was identified wholly as the bearer of the latter's heritage, and in the collective memory, the two figures were increasingly fused. At any rate, there seem to be grounds for ascribing to "Presbyter John" an essential role in the definitive shaping of the Gospel, though he must always have regarded himself as the trustee of the tradition he had received from the son of Zebedee.
I entirely concur with the conclusion that Peter Stuhlmacher has drawn from the above data. He holds "that the contents of the Gospel go back to the disciple whom Jesus (especially) loved. The presbyter understood himself as his transmitter and mouthpiece" (Biblische Theologie, II, p. 206). In a similar vein Stuhlmacher cites E. Ruckstuhl and P. Dschullnigg to the effect that "the author of the Gospel of John is, as it were, the literary executor of the favorite disciple" (ibid., p. 207).
With these observations, we have already taken a decisive step toward answering the question of the historical credibility of the Fourth Gospel. This Gospel ultimately goes back to an eyewitness, and even the actual redaction of the text was substantially the work of one of his closest followers within the living circle of his disciples.
Thinking along similar lines, Peter Stuhlmacher writes that there are grounds for the conjecture "that the Johannine school carried on the style of thinking and teaching that before Easter set the tone of Jesus' internal didactic discourses with Peter, James, and John (as well as with the whole group of the Twelve)...While the Synoptic tradition reflects the way in which the apostles and their disciples spoke about Jesus as they were teaching on Church missions or in Church communities, the Johannine circle took this instruction as the basis and premise for further thinking about, and discussion of, the mystery of revelation, of God's self-disclosure in 'the Son'" (Biblische Theologie, II, p. 207). Against this, though, it could be argued that according to the text of the Gospel itself, what we find are not so much internal didactic discourses but rather Jesus' dispute with the Temple aristocracy, in which we are given a kind of preview of his trial. In this context, the question "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mk 14:61), in its different forms, increasingly adopts center stage in the whole dispute, so that Jesus' claim to Sonship inevitably takes on more and more dramatic forms.
It is surprising that Martin Hengel, from whom we have learned so much about the historical rooting of the Gospel in the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem--and so in the real context of Jesus' life--nonetheless offers an astonishingly negative, or (to put it more gently) extremely cautious, judgment of the historical character of the text. He says: "The Fourth Gospel is not a completely free 'Jesus poem'...Here we must distinguish between those traits which are historically plausible and others which remain chiefly suppositions. An inability to prove the historicity of something does not mean that it is pure unhistorical fiction. Certainly the evangelist is not narrating historical, banal recollections of the past but the rigorously interpretative spirit-paraclete leading into truth, which has the last word throughout the work" (p. 132). This raises an objection: What does this contrast mean? What makes historical recollection banal? Is the truth of what is recollected important or not? And what sort of truth can the Paraclete guide into if he leaves behind the historical because it is too banal?
The diagnosis of the exegete Ingo Broer reveals even more sharply the problem with these sorts of contrasts: "The Gospel of John thus stands before us as a literary work that bears witness to faith and is intended to strengthen faith, and not as a historical account" (Einleitung, p. 197). What faith does it "testify" to if, so to speak, it has left history behind? How does it strengthen faith if it presents itself as a historical testimony--and does so quite emphatically--but then does not report history? I think that we are dealing here with a false concept of the historical, as well as with a false concept of faith and of the Paraclete. A faith that discards history in this manner really turns into "Gnosticism." It leaves flesh, incarnation--just what true history is--behind.
If "historical" is understood to mean that the discourses of Jesus transmitted to us have to be something like a recorded transcript in order to be acknowledged as "historically" authentic, then the discourses of John's Gospel are not "historical." But the fact that they make no claim to literal accuracy of this sort by no means implies that they are merely "Jesus poems" that the members of the Johannine school gradually put together, claiming to be acting under the guidance of the Paraclete. What the Gospel is really claiming is that it has correctly rendered the substance of the discourses, of Jesus' self-attestation in the great Jerusalem disputes, so that the readers really do encounter the decisive content of this message and, therein, the authentic figure of Jesus.
We can take a further step toward defining more precisely the particular sort of historicity that is present in the Fourth Gospel if we attend to the mutual ordering of t
he various elements that Hengel regards as decisive for the composition of the text. Hengel begins by naming four of the essential elements of this Gospel: "the theological concern of the author...his personal recollections...church tradition and with them historical reality." Astonishingly, Hengel says that the Evangelist "altered, indeed we might even say violated" this history. Finally, as we have just seen, it is not "the recollections of the past but the rigorously interpretative spirit-paraclete leading into truth which has the last word" (The Johannine Question, p. 132).
Given the way that Hengel juxtaposes, and in a certain respect contraposes, these five elements, they cannot be brought into any meaningful synthesis. For how is the Paraclete supposed to have the last word if the Evangelist has already violated the actual history? What sort of relation is there between the redactional concern of the Evangelist, his personal message, and Church tradition? Is redactional concern more decisive than recollection, so that in its name reality may be violated? What, then, establishes the legitimacy of this redactional concern? How does it interact with the Paraclete?
I think that the five elements listed by Hengel are indeed the essential forces that shaped the composition of the Gospel, but they have to be seen in a different mutual relation, and the individual elements have to be differently understood.
First of all, the second and fourth elements--personal recollection and historical reality--form a pair. Together they constitute what the Fathers of the Church call the factum historicum that determines the literal sense of the text: the exterior side of the event, which the Evangelist knows partly from personal recollection and partly from Church tradition (no doubt he was familiar with the Synoptic Gospels in one or another version). His intention is to act as a "witness" reporting the things that happened. No one has emphasized this particular dimension of what actually happened--the "flesh" of history--to such an extent as John. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us" (1 Jn 1:1f.).
These two factors--historical reality and recollection--lead by their inner dynamic, however, to the third and fifth elements that Hengel lists: Church tradition and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For, on one hand, the author of the Fourth Gospel gives a very personal accent to his own remembrance, as we see from his observation at the end of the Crucifixion scene (cf. Jn 19:35); on the other hand, it is never a merely private remembering, but a remembering in and with the "we" of the Church: "that which...we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands." With John, the subject who remembers is always the "we"--he remembers in and with the community of the disciples, in and with the Church. However much the author stands out as an individual witness, the remembering subject that speaks here is always the "we" of the community of disciples, the "we" of the Church. Because the personal recollection that provides the foundation of the Gospel is purified and deepened by being inserted into the memory of the Church, it does indeed transcend the banal recollection of facts.
There are three important passages in his Gospel where John uses the word remember and so gives us the key to understanding what he means by "memory." In John's account of the cleansing of the Temple, we read: "His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for thy house will consume me' [Ps 69:10]" (Jn 2:17). The event that is taking place calls to mind a passage of Scripture and so the event becomes intelligible at a level beyond the merely factual. Memory sheds light on the sense of the act, which then acquires a deeper meaning. It appears as an act in which Logos is present, an act that comes from the Logos and leads into it. The link connecting Jesus' acting and suffering with God's word comes into view, and so the mystery of Jesus himself becomes intelligible.
In the account of the cleansing of the Temple there then follows Jesus' prophecy that he will raise up the destroyed Temple again in three days. The Evangelist then comments: "When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken" (Jn 2:22). The Resurrection evokes remembrance, and remembrance in light of the Resurrection brings out the sense of this hitherto puzzling saying and reconnects it to the overall context of Scripture. The unity of Logos and act is the goal at which the Gospel is aiming.
The word remember occurs once again, this time in the description of the events of Palm Sunday. John recounts that Jesus found a young ass and sat down on it: "As it is written, 'Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on an ass's colt!'" (Jn 12:14-15; cf. Zach 9:9). The Evangelist then observes: "His disciples did not understand this at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that this had been written of him and had been done to him" (Jn 12:16). Once again an event is reported that at first seems simply factual. And once again the Evangelist tells us that after the Resurrection the disciples' eyes were opened and they were able to understand what had happened. Now they "remember." A scriptural text that had previously meant nothing to them now becomes intelligible, in the sense foreseen by God, which gives the external action its meaning.
The Resurrection teaches us a new way of seeing; it uncovers the connection between the words of the Prophets and the destiny of Jesus. It evokes "remembrance," that is, it makes it possible to enter into the interiority of the events, into the intrinsic coherence of God's speaking and acting.
By means of these texts the Evangelist himself gives us the decisive indications as to how his Gospel is composed and what sort of vision lies behind it. It rests upon the remembering of the disciple, which, however, is a co-remembering in the "we" of the Church. This remembering is an understanding under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; by remembering, the believer enters into the depth of the event and sees what could not be seen on an immediate and merely superficial level. But in so doing he does not move away from the reality; rather, he comes to know it more deeply and thus sees the truth concealed in the outward act. The remembering of the Church is the context where what the Lord prophesied to his followers at the Last Supper actually happens: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come" (Jn 16:13).
What John says in his Gospel about how remembering becomes understanding and the path "into all the truth" comes very close to what Luke recounts about remembering on the part of Jesus' mother. In three passages of the infancy narrative Luke depicts this process of "remembering" for us. The first passage occurs in the account of the annunciation of Jesus' conception by the Archangel Gabriel. There Luke tells us that Mary took fright at the angel's greeting and entered into an interior "dialogue" about what the greeting might mean. The most important passages figure in the account of the adoration of the shepherds. The Evangelist comments: "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Lk 2:19). At the conclusion of the narrative of the twelve-year-old Jesus we read once again: "His mother kept all these things in her heart" (Lk 2:51). Mary's memory is first of all a retention of the events in remembrance, but it is more than that: It is an interior conversation with all that has happened. Thanks to this conversation, she penetrates into the interior dimension, she sees the events in their interconnectedness, and she learns to understand them.
It is on just this sort of "recollection" that the Gospel of John is based, even as the Gospel takes the concept of memory to a new depth by conceiving it as the memory of the "we" of the disciples, of the Church. This remembering is no mere psychological or intellectual process; it is a pneumatic event[i.e., an event imbued with the Pneuma, or the Holy Spirit]. The Church's remembering is not merely a private affair; it transcends the sphere of our own human understanding and knowing. It is a
being-led by the Holy Spirit, who shows us the connectedness of Scripture, the connection between word and reality, and, in doing that, leads us "into all the truth."
This also has some fundamental implications for the concept of inspiration. The Gospel emerges from human remembering and presupposes the communion of those who remember, in this case very concretely the school of John and, before that, the community of disciples. But because the author thinks and writes with the memory of the Church, the "we" to which he belongs opens beyond the personal and is guided in its depths by the Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of truth. In this sense, the Gospel itself opens up a path of understanding, which always remains bound to the scriptural word, and yet from generation to generation can lead, and is meant to lead, ever anew into the depth of all the truth.
This means that the Gospel of John, because it is a "pneumatic Gospel," does not simply transmit a stenographic transcript of Jesus' words and ways; it escorts us, in virtue of understanding-through-remembering, beyond the external into the depth of words and events that come from God and lead back to him. As such, the Gospel is "remembering," which means that it remains faithful to what really happened and is not a "Jesus poem," not a violation of the historical events. Rather, it truly shows us who Jesus was, and thereby it shows us someone who not only was, but is; who can always say "I am" in the present tense. "Before Abraham was, I am" (Jn 8:58). It shows us the real Jesus, and we can confidently make use of it as a source of information about him.
Before we turn to the great Johannine figurative discourses, two further general observations about the distinctive character of John's Gospel may be helpful. Whereas Bultmann thought the Fourth Gospel was rooted in Gnosticism and was therefore alien to the soil of the Old Testament and of Judaism, recent scholarship has given us a new and clearer appreciation of the fact that John stands squarely on the foundation of the Old Testament. "Moses...wrote of me" (Jn 5:46), Jesus says to his adversaries. But already at the beginning--when John recounts the calling of the disciples--Philip had said to Nathanael: "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote" (Jn 1:45). Providing an explanation and a basis for this claim is ultimately the aim of Jesus' discourses. He does not break the Torah, but brings its whole meaning to light and wholly fulfills it. But the connection between Jesus and Moses appears most prominently, one might say programmatically, at the end of the prologue; this passage gives us the key to understanding the Fourth Gospel: "And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (Jn 1:16-18).
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