eelings of either
party. Hence his avoidance of all those disputed questions which
disturbed the church during the first quarter of the second century. The
genealogy of Jesus is omitted; this being offensive to Gentile
Christians, and even to some of the more liberal Judaizers. The
supernatural birth of Jesus is omitted, this being offensive to the
Ebonitish (extreme Jewish) and some of the Gnostic Christians. For every
Judaizing feature that is sacrificed, a universal one is also
sacrificed. Hard words against the Jews are left out, but with equal
care, hard words about the Gentiles.[457:1]

We now come to the fourth, and last gospel, that "_according to John_,"
which was not written until many years after that "according to
Matthew."

"It is impossible to pass from the Synoptic[457:2] Gospels," says Canon
Westcott, "to the fourth, without feeling that the transition involves
the passage from one world of thought to another. No familiarity with
the general teachings of the Gospels, no wide conception of the
character of the Saviour, is sufficient to destroy the contrast which
exists in form and spirit between the earlier and later narratives."

The discrepancies between the fourth and the Synoptic Gospels are
numerous. If Jesus was the _man_ of Matthew's Gospel, he was not the
_mysterious being_ of the fourth. If his ministry was only _one_ year
long, it was not _three_. If he made but _one_ journey to Jerusalem, he
did not make _many_. If his method of teaching was that of the
Synoptics, it was not that of the fourth Gospel. If he was the _Jew_ of
Matthew, he was not the _Anti-Jew_ of John.[457:3]

Everywhere in John we come upon a more developed stage of Christianity
than in the Synoptics. The scene, the atmosphere, is different. In the
Synoptics Judaism, the Temple, the Law and the Messianic Kingdom are
omnipresent. In John they are remote and vague. In Matthew Jesus is
always yearning for _his own_ nation. In John he has no other sentiment
for it than _hate and scorn_. In Matthew the sanction of the Prophets is
his great credential. In John his dignity can tolerate no previous
approximation.

"Do we ask," says Francis Tiffany, "who wrote this wondrous Gospel?
Mysterious its origin, as that wind of which its author speaks, which
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof and canst
not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. As with the Great Unknown
of the book of Job, the Great Unknown of