The Fourth Gospel and Hellenistic ThoughtAuthor(s): R. McL. WilsonSource: Novum Testamentum, Vol. 1, Fasc. 3 (Jul., 1956), pp. 225-227Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1560290 .

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SHORT NOTES

THE FOURTH GOSPEL AND HELLENISTIC THOUGHT

It is pleasant for an author to see some notice taken of his modest contributions to the advancement of learning, but it is a somewhat humbling (though possibly salutary) experience to find one's article lumped together under the same rubric with the essay which it was intended to correct. Professor W. GROSSOUW in his article on the Fourth Gospel in the first number of this journal 1), notes a tendency in certain recent contributions to revert from the idea of a Jewish background for the Gospel to a stress on the Hellenistic; in support he refers to articles by A. W. ARGYLE and the present writer in The Expository Times 2).

Mr. ARGYLE had argued that to neglect the writings of Philo was to throw away a valuable clue to the understanding of the Gospel, a position to which no exception can be taken. Whatever our views may be on the question of PHILO'S importance as a philosopher, or on the precise significance of his attempt to inter- pret the Old Testament in terms of contemporary thought, there can be no doubt that he does reveal very clearly the thoughts and aspirations of the contemporary world. It is of course possible to make him too much the mirror of his times, but his writings do afford a valuable insight into contemporary ideas, and therefore are of importance for the understanding of a Gospel written in the same period, in a similar environment and with a similar general background.

To the present writer, however, it seemed that Mr. ARGYLE was inclined to go further, and postulate a relation of dependence on the part of the Evangelist. This is quite another matter, and it was against this view that the writer's article was composed. As C. H. DODD in particular has shown 3), there is much that is illu-

minating for the study of the Fourth Gospel not only in Philo but in Hermetism Gnosticism and Rabbinic literature, to say

1) Novum Testamentum I, 38. 2) Exp. Times LXIII, 385-6; LXV, 47 ff. (GROSSOUW'S second reference

is inexact). 3) The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge I953.

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SHORT NOTES

nothing of the 'Mandaean ghosts' which 'haunt the pages of WALTER BAUER and BULTMANN' 1); but this does not prove dependence.

W. F. ALBRIGHT, in the recent Dodd Festschrift 2), refers to a

paper by E. R. GOODENOUGH 3), who insisted that the Johannine Logos is more primitive than the Philonic and that both 'presu- mably go back to a common source in an early form of quasi- Gnostic Jewish thinking'. ALBRIGHT himself claims that there is at most only the faintest echo of the Philonic or Hellenistic Logos in the Gospel of John 4), and that a much closer approach is af- forded by the literature of the Dead Sea sect 5). In conversation with the present writer, Mr. T. E. POLLARD has observed that in Christian writers, outside of Alexandria, we find a Logos doctrine, but not trace of Philonic influence.

According to ALBRIGHT, 'perhaps the most important service of the Dead Sea Scrolls will be the demonstration which may be

brought from them that John, the Synoptics, St. Paul and various other books draw from a common reservoir of terminology and ideas which were well-known to the Essenes and presumably familiar also to other Jewish sects of the period' 6). Save that the evidence of the Scrolls now draws this 'reservoir' more clearly over to the Jewish side, this is exactly the position maintained in the writer's previous article 7). PHILO will then represent another branch from the same main trunk, and is still of value for the

understanding of the Gospel, or at least of its general background.

In regard to the question of Jewish or Hellenistic origin for the Gospel, reference may be made to BARRETT'S comment that

1) R. P. CASEY in The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology (Studies in Honour of C. H. Dodd), Cambridge I956, p. 55.

2) The Background of the N. T., p. I6I. 3) Journal of Biblical Literature LXIV, I45-82. 4) Op. cit., 169 n. 4. 5) Op. cit., 169. Cf. also F. M. BRAUN in Rev. Biblique. 6) Ibid. 7) Cf. C. K. BARRETT, The Gospel according to St. John, London 1955, 33:

'it is here less important to adduce detailed parallels between John and Philo (no literary relationship can, it seems, be proved) than to observe that the two authors were confronted by similar tasks. Both had minds well stocked with the fundamental ideas of Hellenistic religion, and both with this equipment did their best to set out in the most attractive way possible an originally Semitic faith. The most illuminating background of the fourth gospel is that of Hellenistic Judaism'. The Dead Sea Scrolls are here still left out of the reckoning.

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SHORT NOTES SHORT NOTES

Palestine itself was part of the Hellenistic world 1). DODD long ago observed that the old controversy over the Jewish or Hellenistic origin of certain early heresies loses much of its point when it is realised that Judaism and the highest pagan thought were already drawing together in the Hellenistic period 2). If the Gospel originated in Jewish circles and under Jewish influence, a question on which

divergence of opinion is still possible, it was none the less such as to commend itself to a wider public.

R. McL. WILSON

BARFUSS BUSSE TUN

Johannes der Taufer bekennt nach Matthius (iii II): Der nach mir kommt, ist starker als ich; ihm bin ich nicht gut genug, T& u7o8U mcTa p-aTaaroaL. Diese Version steht den synoptischen Parallelen sehr verschieden gegeniiber, was umso merkwiirdiger ist, als die Lesart des vierten Evangelisten mit den Berichten nach Markus und Lukas ausnahmsweise fast w6rtlich fibereinstimmt (Mc i 7 = Lc iii I6 = Jo i 27). Die Besonderheit des Matthius rechtfertigt die Annahme einer besonderen Absicht, und es sei mir gestattet, diese vermutliche Absicht hier wie folgt zu deuten:

Johannes der Taufer fordert Busse in den synoptischen Evan- gelien, deren erstes die Haltung der jiidischen Kirche spiegelt. Busse aber wurde und wird unter Juden seit jeher ohne Schuhe begangen 3). Zum Zeichen der Busse wiirde Johannes von seinen Tauflingen die Sandalen forder. Sie dem Kommenden hingegen wegzunehmen, ware er nicht gut genug (ocrTaraoct in der Bedeutung des Wegnehmens wie Jo xii 6; xx I3-I5) 4). Der Starkere ist dem

1) Op. cit., 32. 2) The Bible and the Greeks, London I935, 248 n. i. 3) Literarische Belege fur die jiidische fberlieferung der Barfiissigkeit als

Trauerzeichen und Bussritus waren etwa: 2 Sam xv 30; Ez xxiv 17, 23; Mi i 8; ,,aus Talmud und Midrasch" vgl. STRACK-BILLERBECK zu Mt x 10 in Bd. I, S. 569 und Exkurs zu Mt vi I6 ff. in Bd. 4, S. I05 (Ablegen der Sandalen).

4) SCHLATTER denkt bei BacrTacL an Aufheben und Wegtragen, an den Sklaven, der den ankommenden Herrn dadurch bedient, dass er ihm die Schuhe abnimmt, die er nur auf der Strasse, nicht im Hause tragt. WALTER BAUER zitiert in seinem W6rterbuch Mt iii I fur Ba(7aco, in der Bedeutung ,,forttragen, wegschaffen; Sandalen abnehmen = ausziehen". Doch geht es Mt iii i i, meiner Meinung nach, nicht um ein Abnehmen zu gelegentlicher Bequemlichkeit; es ginge dort vielmehr um ein Wegnehmen zu standiger Unbequemlichkeit, so dass ein Barfiisserorden der Johannesjiinger denkbar ware.

Palestine itself was part of the Hellenistic world 1). DODD long ago observed that the old controversy over the Jewish or Hellenistic origin of certain early heresies loses much of its point when it is realised that Judaism and the highest pagan thought were already drawing together in the Hellenistic period 2). If the Gospel originated in Jewish circles and under Jewish influence, a question on which

divergence of opinion is still possible, it was none the less such as to commend itself to a wider public.

R. McL. WILSON

BARFUSS BUSSE TUN

Johannes der Taufer bekennt nach Matthius (iii II): Der nach mir kommt, ist starker als ich; ihm bin ich nicht gut genug, T& u7o8U mcTa p-aTaaroaL. Diese Version steht den synoptischen Parallelen sehr verschieden gegeniiber, was umso merkwiirdiger ist, als die Lesart des vierten Evangelisten mit den Berichten nach Markus und Lukas ausnahmsweise fast w6rtlich fibereinstimmt (Mc i 7 = Lc iii I6 = Jo i 27). Die Besonderheit des Matthius rechtfertigt die Annahme einer besonderen Absicht, und es sei mir gestattet, diese vermutliche Absicht hier wie folgt zu deuten:

Johannes der Taufer fordert Busse in den synoptischen Evan- gelien, deren erstes die Haltung der jiidischen Kirche spiegelt. Busse aber wurde und wird unter Juden seit jeher ohne Schuhe begangen 3). Zum Zeichen der Busse wiirde Johannes von seinen Tauflingen die Sandalen forder. Sie dem Kommenden hingegen wegzunehmen, ware er nicht gut genug (ocrTaraoct in der Bedeutung des Wegnehmens wie Jo xii 6; xx I3-I5) 4). Der Starkere ist dem

1) Op. cit., 32. 2) The Bible and the Greeks, London I935, 248 n. i. 3) Literarische Belege fur die jiidische fberlieferung der Barfiissigkeit als

Trauerzeichen und Bussritus waren etwa: 2 Sam xv 30; Ez xxiv 17, 23; Mi i 8; ,,aus Talmud und Midrasch" vgl. STRACK-BILLERBECK zu Mt x 10 in Bd. I, S. 569 und Exkurs zu Mt vi I6 ff. in Bd. 4, S. I05 (Ablegen der Sandalen).

4) SCHLATTER denkt bei BacrTacL an Aufheben und Wegtragen, an den Sklaven, der den ankommenden Herrn dadurch bedient, dass er ihm die Schuhe abnimmt, die er nur auf der Strasse, nicht im Hause tragt. WALTER BAUER zitiert in seinem W6rterbuch Mt iii I fur Ba(7aco, in der Bedeutung ,,forttragen, wegschaffen; Sandalen abnehmen = ausziehen". Doch geht es Mt iii i i, meiner Meinung nach, nicht um ein Abnehmen zu gelegentlicher Bequemlichkeit; es ginge dort vielmehr um ein Wegnehmen zu standiger Unbequemlichkeit, so dass ein Barfiisserorden der Johannesjiinger denkbar ware.

227 227

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