sion to which the evangelist had come through reflection on the life and consciousness of Jesus, rather than like an attempt to give a dogmatic interpretation to his person, which will also exercise a molding influence upon his version of Jesus' life and words. I believe that the only way to understand the Fourth Gospel is to regard the Prologue as a preface, written after the rest of the Gospel was written, and intended to commend it to the Greek world. On the other hand, if the conception of pre-existence in the Gospel itself goes in definiteness beyond the thought of the Prologue, it certainly lags behind it in scope. In the Prologue, the Logos is the agency through which the world was created. It is clear that the Prologue is written with Gen., chap. 1, in view. It describes the New Creation, the coming into existence of the κόσμος. And it is not the conception of the creative activity of the Logos that determines the evangelist's conception of the person of Jesus, but vice versa. He reflects upon the miracles and the words and the life, and in the product of his reflection he sees an identification of the "Word" of Jewish religious thought, corresponding to the Logos of current Greek philosophy, with the life of which he speaks. It is impossible to assert that this creative activity of the Logos dominates the presentation of such a miracle as the Cana miracle, or the feeding of the five thousand, or the walking on the water, or the raising of Lazarus. Rather these suggested, and were not suggested by, the universal creative activity. So far as the idea of pre-existence is concerned, the pre-existence that is asserted of Jesus is the pre-existence of one who is more than Messiah, and yet not the pre-existence of a divine Logos, by which the worlds were made. In every case where pre-existence is asserted of Jesus, it is the pre-existence of the "Son," upon whom descended, "rested," the Spirit of Messiah in its completeness, and the "Son" is not merely the Messiah or Christ. The object of the Gospel is to prove that Jesus is the Christ. In this respect the thought of the pre-existent activity in the Gospel itself is less wide in scope than in the Prologue. 2. If, then, we are not to regard the pre-existence utterances of Jesus in the Gospel as really the product of the Logos conception in the Prologue, it is necessary to keep the other side of the question in view. In what sense is pre-existence regarded as an integral part of the consciousness of Jesus in this Gospel? I shall proceed to examine at some length one passage that I shall treat as typical of the thought of pre-existence generally, viz., 8:58. In order to understand this passage, it is necessary to go as far back as 5:51, in order to catch the drift of the whole. There Jesus is represented as saying, "If a man keep my word [λόγος], he shall not see death for ever." We note that the use of λόγος in the Gospel is distinct from that in the Prologue in certain important aspects. In the Gospel it seems to be used in a certain technical sense. In our Lord's use of Ps. 82, (8:35), ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ is the equipment necessary in order that the Rulers, of whom the psalm speaks, may worthily perform their office. They are those "to whom the word of the Lord came." Yet they did not keep that word, because they judged unrighteously. In consequence, "they shall die like men, and fall like one of the demons"" (5:7). In the Gospel, the λόγος is the intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father, which he not only had conferred upon him, but realized perfectly in his words and works. He is therefore able to mediate it perfectly to men. He gives this relationship to men, and if they keep it, they also shall live forever: "Because I live, ye shall live also" (14:19). In answer to this claim to mediate eternal life, the Jews assert that this must be presumption on his part or madness. If Jesus possesses this Logos himself, he must necessarily possess that which it confers, viz., life forever, and must have lived forever. He must also be greater than Abraham or the prophets. Jesus, in reply, accepts the inference, and says that this glory is not presumptuously claimed by him, but has been given him by the Father. This assurance is brought to him by his own knowledge of God, i.e., his own self-consciousness, that perfect correspondence with God, which is the realization of the Logos of God which he has kept (vs. 55). Then he goes on to claim that he is greater than Abraham, who "exulted,” ἵνα ἴδῃ τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ἐμήν, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐχάρη (vs. 56). The Jews emphasize the absurdity of this statement on the part of one who is "not yet Reading instead of שרים . * The conferring of the Logos-relationship on Jesus is the ground of his υἱότης, but that relationship as conferred upon men is described as the state of being τέκνα, 1 fifty years old," i.e., who has not yet attained to perfect manhood. The reference is to the idea that Messiah was to appear suddenly and mysteriously as a full-grown man. The reference is not meant to bring into prominence so much the question of age, as the question of his claim to Messiahship. Evidently the reading ἑώρακας has been substituted for the other ἑώρακέν σε (Nestle, Textual Criticism, 289), because the emphasis was thought to lie upon the fact that Jesus was not old enough to have seen Abraham. The absurdity to the Jews consists in the notion that Abraham is said to have seen one like the speaker, who had not yet attained to that perfection of manhood, associated with the Messiah. Jesus replies to this in the enigmatic words, πρὶν ̓Αβρ ̓ ἀὰμ γένεσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί. The words imply existence before Abraham, but in what sense has yet to be determined. Two questions emerge: (1) What is the significance of the saying that Abraham "exulted to see my day"? (2) The significance οἱ ἐγὼ εἰμί. Is bare existence predicated? or is there an ellipsis after εἰμί ? Let us take these questions in order. (1) What is meant by "my day"? We may understand the passage as meaning that Abraham exulted to see, in spiritual prevision, the day of Jesus' appearance upon earth. It is difficult to find the source of the idea directly in the Old Testament narrative. In Gen., chap. 21, a son is promised to Abraham, and through that son a posterity in which all nations of the earth "shall bless themselves." Abraham is represented as "laughing" when the birth of Isaac is promised, and the exulting of Abraham in the Johannine passage is usually applied directly to this laughter. Loisy, Le Quatrième Evangile, p. 581, regards the event referred to in 8:56 as a prophetic vision connected with the birth of Isaac, "soit prise en ellemême, soit complétée en quelque façon, comme figure, par la scène du sacrifice" (Gen. 22:1-18). Apart from the difficulty that nothing is said of a vision to Abraham at this stage, except in so far as the promise and its acceptance is such, another objection to this view is that the "laughter" in Genesis is ambiguously regarded. Sarah is represented as laughing out of incredulity in 18:12 ff., and out of I.e., invoke for themselves a blessing similar to that of the Hebrew people. * This is due of course to the presence of different sources. joy in 21:6; while Abraham is represented as laughing also in 17:17, but only incredulously, as vs. 18 shows. He is not represented at all as laughing joyously unless such laughter is implied in 21:6, where Sarah says, "Everyone will laugh with me." Even here a probable alternative translation is proposed. Instead of "with me" it is proposed to translate "at me." It is therefore difficult to suppose that ἠγαλλιάσατο refers to the meaning of the name Isaac. In addition, it may be suggested that the mood described in "exulted" denotes a somewhat stronger emotion than merely joyful laughter. Also the laughter spoken of in Gen. 21:6 is not in the text connected with any messianic expectation, but is simply the joy of the barren woman who is promised a child, granting that her laughter is interpreted as joyous. At this point we meet with a phenomenon which, as will be seen, is elsewhere characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, viz., that its thought more than once seems to imply a subsequent tradition imposed upon the thought of the Old Testament canonical books. Here, evidently some form of the Genesis tradition is before the evangelist, in which Abraham's laughter is interpreted as ἀγαλλίασις, in view of the coming of Messiah. Philo (De mutatione nominum, 29 f.) compares the "laughing" of Abraham to the "laughing" of the day in anticipation of the early dawn: and playing on the meaning of the name of Isaac, who was not yet born, he declares that Abraham "so to speak, laughed before laughter existed, as the soul, through hope, rejoices before joy, and delights before delight." He interprets Abraham's falling on his face (Gen. 17:17) as "an act of adoration and an excess of divine ecstasy." In the Book of Jubilees (135-105 в.с. [Charles]), frequent mention is made of Abraham's "rejoicing" or "being glad," in connection with the revelations made to him. This book consists largely of a revision and retelling of Genesis, and in it everything is removed that could shock the feelings of the Pharisees. We may here give some quotations from the book. "We [the angels] went our way and announced to Sara what we had said to him [Abraham], and they both had very great joy. And he built here an altar to God, who had delivered him, and who had made him to rejoice in the Cf. Abbott, Johannine Grammar, 2097, 2688-89. land where he had been a stranger" (16:19, 20). The book represents Abraham as instituting the Feast of Tabernacles at this time. "He offered praise, and rejoiced, and named the name of this Feast a Feast of God, the Joy of the Good pleasure of the most High God." Again, on his deathbed, Isaac is represented as sending to him by the hand of Jacob a thank-offering, and after he has partaken of it Abraham offers prayer. "I thank thee humbly, My God, that thou hast allowed me to see this day My God, may thy goodness and thy peace be upon thy servant, and upon the seed of his sons that he may be to thee a chosen people, and an heritage out of all the peoples of the earth from now on, and unto all the days of the races of the earth to all eternity" (22:7-9). .... It is clear that we have here traces of a later tradition in which Abraham's laughter is represented without offense as implying joy in believing, and not incredulity. The thought in 8:56 is evidently based on some such tradition. The idea is that Abraham exults in the days of his flesh, with the result that he sees the day of the Messiah. We have still further to explain τὴν ἡμέραν τὴν ἐμήν. Α Valentinian quotation of 8:56 from Clement of Alexandria (973) is given by Abbott (Johannine Grammar, 2689, 0), which stops at τ. ἡμερ. τ. ἐμήν, and continues, τὴν ἐν σαρκὶ παρουσίαν. ὅθεν ἀναστὰς ὁ κύριος εὐηγγελίσατο τοὺς δικαίους τοὺς ἐν τῇ ἀναπαύσει καὶ μετέστησεν αὐτούς. The reference is apparently to Abraham in Hades waiting to be liberated by the Savior. Also in an eschatological passage in Jub. 23:30-31, it is said: "Then will God save his servants, and they will be exalted, and shall behold deep peace, and will drive away their enemies, and the righteous will behold and give thanks, and rejoice to all eternity in joy. their bones will rest in the earth, and their spirit will have much joy, and they will know that it is God who holds judgment, and exercises grace upon hundreds and thousands, and upon all who love him." .. And We may therefore regard the vision of "my day" as also a vision given to Abraham in his after-existence. This is the reference in εἶδεν. A great probability that this thought underlies the passage consists in the fact that the continued existence of Abraham, not |