Gospel, and totally unlike the general style
of the discourses in the Synoptics. [107:1] The Fourth Gospel shows us
that such words as these, almost unique in the Synoptics, are not the
only words uttered in a style so different from the usual teaching of
our Lord--that at times, when He was on the theme of His relations to
His Father, He adopted other diction more suited to the nature of the
deeper truths He was enunciating.

Then take the second assertion:--

"One [system] expressed in wonderfully terse, clear, brief sayings
and parables, the other in long, involved, and diffuse discourses."

Again:--

"The description which Justin gives of the manner of teaching of
Jesus excludes the idea that he knew the Fourth Gospel. 'Brief and
concise were the sentences uttered by Him, for He was no Sophist,
but His word was the power of God.' (Apol. I. 14) No one could for a
moment assert that this description applies to the long and
artificial discourses of the Fourth Gospel, whilst, on the other
hand, it eminently describes the style of teaching with which we are
acquainted in the Synoptics, with which the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, in all its forms, was so closely allied." (Vol. ii. p. 315)

Now I assert, and the reader can with very little trouble verify the
truth of the assertion, that the mode of our Lord's teaching, as set
forth in St. John, is more terse, axiomatic, and sententious--more in
accordance with these words of Justin, "brief and concise were the
sentences uttered by Him," than it appears in the Synoptics.

To advert for a moment to the mere length of the discourses. The Sermon
on the Mount is considerably longer than the longest discourse in St.
John's Gospel (viz., that occupying chapters xiv., xv., xvi.). This is
the only unbroken discourse of any length in this Gospel. The others,
viz., those with Nicodemus, with the woman at Sychem, with the Jews in
the Temple, and the one in the Synagogue at Capernaum, are much shorter
than many in the Synoptics, and none of them are continuous discourses,
but rather conversations. And, with respect to the composition, those in
St. John are mainly made up of short, terse, axiomatic deliverances just
such as Justin describes.

Take, for instance, the sentences in the sixth chapter:--

"I am the bread of life."

"He that believeth on me hath everlasting life."

"I am that bread of life."

"This