determined the evangelist’s choice of material, and, as the gospel is an argument, he does not hesitate to mingle his own comments with his report of Jesus’ words, for example (iii. 16-21, 30-36; xii. 37-43).  The book is characterized by a vividness of detail which indicates a clear memory of personal experience.  While it is evident that the author has the most exalted conception of the nature of his Lord, this seems to have been the result of loving meditation on a friend who had early won the mastery over his heart and life, and who through long years of contemplation had forced upon his disciple’s mind the conviction of his transcendent nature.  The book discloses a profoundly objective attitude; the Christ whom John portrays is not the creature of his speculations, but the Master who has entered into his experience as a living influence and has compelled recognition of his significance.  The Son of God is for John the human Jesus who, though named at the outset the Word—­the Logos,—­is the Word who was made flesh, that men through him might become the sons of God.

32.  The contrast which the Gospel of John presents to the other three concerns not only the teaching of Jesus, but the scene of his ministry and its historic development as well.  Whatever may be the final judgment concerning the fourth gospel, it is manifestly constructed as a simple collection of incidents following each other in what was meant to appear a chronological sequence.  It has been seen that the biographical framework of the first three gospels is principally Mark’s report of Peter’s narrative.  Now it is a fact that in portions of Matthew and Luke, derived elsewhere than from Mark, there are various allusions most easily understood if it be assumed that Jesus visited Jerusalem before his appearance there at the end of his ministry.  Such, for instance, are the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke x. 25-37), the story of the visit to Mary and Martha (Luke x. 38-42), and the lamentation of Jesus over Jerusalem (Luke xiii. 34, 35; Matt, xxiii. 37-39).  All three gospels, moreover, agree in attributing to emissaries from Jerusalem much of the hostility manifested against Jesus in his Galilean ministry (Luke v. 17; Mark iii. 22; Matt. xv. 1; Mark vii. 1), and presuppose such an acquaintance of Jesus with households in and near Jerusalem as is not easy to explain if he never visited Judea before his passion (Mark xi. 2, 3; xiv. 14; xv. 43 and parallels; compare especially Matt, xxvii. 57; John xix. 38).  These all suggest that the narrative of Mark does not tell the whole story, a conclusion quite in accordance with the account of his work given by Papias.  It has been assumed that Peter was a Galilean, a man of family living in Capernaum.  It is not impossible that on some of the earlier visits of Jesus to Jerusalem he did not accompany his Master, and in reporting the things which he knew he naturally confined himself to his own experiences.  If this can explain the predominance of Galilean incidents in the ministry as depicted in Mark, it will explain the predominance of Galilee in the first three gospels, and the contradiction between John and the three is reduced to a divergence between two accounts of Jesus’ ministry written from two different points of view.