fact that he
says nothing of the institution of the Eucharist. Nor does he record
the command of Jesus to baptize. Are we to suppose that a writer who
has told us how "the Word was made flesh" so shrank from believing
material things to be connected with a spiritual efficacy that he
rejected the sacraments? Is it not more probable that among people who
were perfectly familiar with both Baptism and the Eucharist he
preferred to tell what Christ had said about being born again (iii.),
and about the assimilation of His life by the believer (vi.)? This
seems to us more reasonable. The fourth Gospel, though it has a
character and purpose of its own, and might even have been written if
there had been no other Gospel, yet was intended to supplement either
the Synoptic Gospels or else a body of teaching corresponding with that
contained in those Gospels.

The facts which St. John records in common with the Synoptists before
the Last Supper, the Passion, and the Resurrection are--the Baptism of
John (i. 26), the Feeding of the 5000 (vi. 10), the Walking on the Sea
(vi. 19), the Anointing at Bethany, with the action of Judas (xii. 1),
the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem (xii. 12). Even in connection with
these incidents St. John gives his additional details, and {32}
therefore the character of his work is here, as elsewhere, both
independent and supplemental.

It remains to ask whether any words used by St. John seem to show that
he borrowed expressions from the Synoptic Gospels.

The following passages may be noticed: John v. 8 f. (Mark ii. 11 f.),
vi. 7, 10, 19 f. (Mark vi. 37, 40, 49 f.), xii. 3, 5, 7 f. (Mark xiv.
3-6), xiii. 21 (Mark xiv. 18), xviii. 18, 17 (Mark xiv. 54, 69), xviii.
22 (Mark xiv. 65). For the quotation from Zechariah in xii. 15, cf.
Matt. xxi. 5. The words of our Lord in John xv. 18-xvi. 2 have been
compared with those in Matt. x. 17-22. Sometimes John has more points
of contact with Luke than with the other Synoptists; _e.g._ there is
the journey of Christ to Galilee before the death of John the Baptist,
the fact that the scourging of Christ by Pilate was intended to
restrain the Jews from demanding His death, and the visit of St. Peter
to the sepulchre. It has been thought that John xii. 3 is based upon
Luke vii. 38. The anointing of our Lord's _feet_ in both is certainly
remarkable. Sometimes John agrees with Matt. and Mark and not Luke, as
in recording the binding of Jesus, the crown of