the thought of the Christian herald begins; and this thought in God is not merely an idea of the world, but of Himself (therefore θεὸς πρὸς τὸν θεόν), which he lays at the basis of everything, and only thus it becomes the idea of the world, a world which is to become the image of the eternal glory of God. How infinitely does this view of the world stand above so much that is called modern views of the world! On the other hand, we must not overlook how the Logos idea, as used by John, reveals itself as, in point of form, a foreign element borrowed from the theology of the time, which biblical thinkers received into the world of their revealed ideas. For the presupposition of that idea is that God in Himself is to be conceived as dwelling apart from the world in solitary state, and can only become creative and connected with the world by a medium which is to be distinguished from Him; but all John's ideas of God, light, life, love, already include in God's essence the self-revealing impulse, that is, they already contain the real substance of the Logos idea, and at the same time they formally exclude it as superfluous. Accordingly, the relation of God to the world is nowhere represented by John, apart from the passages i. 1-4, xii. 41, as brought about by the Logos, as it logically must be, but as throughout an immediate one. "My Father worketh hitherto," exclaims Jesus (John v. 17), "and I work." The Father "draweth men to the Son" (John vi. 44); the Father "teacheth all men " before they know the Son (John vi. 45); He "raises the dead" (John v. 21), etc. We see how little speculative this writer is; he borrows a single speculative idea, but, as already stated, he does so only as a help for his Christology; he takes it as a rudimentary basis of his theology and cosmology, but he does not carry it out. His simple biblical and religious thinking comes out even without this idea, which remains half foreign to him.

§ 6. THE WORLD

In the prologue of the Gospel, then, the Logos idea forms the bridge from God to the world. The word "world" has a threefold sense in John which we have in some measure side by side in the passage John i. 10; ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, καὶ ὁ

κόσμος δι αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ ὁ κόσμος αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω. First, ὁ κόσμος is the whole creation, as in xvii. 5 (πρὸ τοῦ τὸν Kóσμov eivai), and in this sense it is said with reference to the Logos: ὁ κόσμος δ ̓ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο. But κόσμος is much more frequently the human world in particular, as when Jesus says to Pilate, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth" (John xviii. 37), where the concept "world"-as frequently in the Gospel-touches on that of public life (cf. John xvii. 18). In this sense it is said (John i. 9, 10), that was the true light about to enter the world when the Baptist appeared; or it "was in the world," that is not; the Logos was in the creation, but Jesus was on the point of entering into the historical world, or was already present. With that, then, is connected the third sense in which "the world" designates. humanity in its opposition to God, as when it is said, they (my disciples) are not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John xvii. 16). That is the "world" which, according to John i. 10, knew not the Logos who appeared in it. The relation of God to the world must be more closely considered in these three stages. In the most general sense, as the universe, the world is God's work, it has originated through His real word (Gen. i. 1–3; John i. 3). That is to say, it is throughout the expression of the divine idea and the production of the divine will. The χωρὶς αὐτοῦ γέγονεν ovdè év, ò yéyovev does not formally and of necessity exclude the assumption of an eternal matter, since it might be said. that an eternal λn is not yeyovós; yet the author only meant to express what for him was self-evident, the biblical creation out of nothing, and it is mere caprice to substitute for it the contrary Philonic doctrine which he by no means indicates. But he did not suppose that the created world was at once the finished divine ideal, the perfected realisation of the thought of God determined on in the Logos; it is only the sketch, the foundation of this; it is left to be a growth, a history which stands under the control of the Logos, just as its creation. Therefore the prologue continues; ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν (or ἐστίν), καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων. That is, 1 The Tischendorf reading søtív is the more probable, as the recepta may be suspected of being a copy of the following: καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς.

God placed in the Logos the fulness of His life, His selfcommunication, which He intended for the world, in order to make it in the full sense of the word His kingdom, but which can only be really appropriated by a moral and reasonable process, by a history of the world (that is, humanity). And thus out of the wider sense of the Kooμos springs the narrower, that of the world of men; it is in humanity made after God's image, the reasonable moral creation, that the eternal thought of God can first be fully realised. Hence the disclosure of a reasonable and moral process of development is emphasised in the words: καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ȧveρóπov; the divine fulness of life placed in the Logos began its self-communication by way of revelation, by enlightening the reason and the conscience, and it does so till this moment. But the divine intention of love lying in this is not reached without more ado. The next words of the prologue set alongside of the fact of the continuous shining of divine light, the fact of an opposition to it in the world which rejects the divine enlightenment: καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. That the OKоTía appearing here cannot be a physico-metaphysical power, the dark power of matter, but only an ethico-historical one, is clear from the context, for it finds utterance, not in the setting up of the universe (ver. 3), but only in the province of humanity, introduced in ver. 4. It is sin, the contrast to the eternal goodness of the God whose nature is light, which is here introduced as a fact plainly opposed to God, as surely as light and darkness are mutually exclusive (cf. 1 John i. 5); and at the same time it is a fact so mighty that it hinders the penetration of the divine light into the world; "the darkness (that is, those ruled by it, those who are found in it) received it not," the same idea which Paul expresses (Rom. i. 18): ἀνθρώπων τὴν ἀληθείαν ἐν ἀδικίᾳ κατεχόντων. In virtue of this darkness which fills it, the world which remains the object of the eternal love (John iii. 16) becomes the sum of all ungodliness of which 1 John ii. 15, 16 can say: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is The difference of reading makes no essential difference in the idea, since in any case the Logos is conceived as an abiding bearer of the 【wn.

not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."

§ 7. SIN AND DEVIL

We may ask as to the nature and origin of this darkness which rules the world. The first Epistle especially gives hints about the nature of sin. It seems that this Epistle had to do with a weakened notion of sin on the part of its readers, and that in presence of relaxed efforts in Christian life, the freedom of the Christian from the law was misunderstood and abused. For the apostle (v. 17) emphasises not only that every ȧdixía, every offence against God's moral order, is also aμapría, but he traces back the idea of sin directly to ἀνομία: πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, καὶ τὴν ἀνομίαν ποιεῖ, καὶ ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ávouía (iii. 4).1 Hence sin has its being in moral disorder, in the transgression of the divine law, the essential content of which, as is again and again emphasised, is the love of God. and of the brethren. As a special form of ȧvouía, the apostle first of all brings into prominence the lust of the world, and especially in those palpable manifestations of it which the surrounding heathen world presented: "lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life," that is, unchastity, covetousness, and luxury. And of these manifestations of forgetfulness of God, he speaks the stern words of 1 John ii. 15, 16: "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him"; that is, whoever in this way attaches himself to the evil conditions and customs of the ungodly society, in him there is no room for the love of God. But these are to him neither the only nor the worst manifestations of sin. Behind the sins of sensuality lurks a deeper principle of selfishness, and this has other and distincter forms in which it shows itself, such as lying and hatred. In them the full hostility of sin to God is first made clear; God is the God of truth, of honesty and

1 We should, perhaps, if avopia was a catchword abused by the readers, rather expect the reverse proposition, that every dvouía is also aparía. But the conception before us corresponds to the tendency of John, which we see also elsewhere, to fight perverse things indirectly rather than directly.

fidelity; but sin is deceitful. God is the God of love, and as such the dispenser of life; but sin hates, and thus it is in disposition a murderer. If, therefore, the nature of God is light, the nature of sin is darkness, darkening reason and conscience; and if the nature of God is life, the nature of sin is "death," that is, destruction of body and soul (cf. 1 John i. 5, 6, ii. 8-11, 21, 22, 27, iii. 13, 15). In pursuance of this hostility of sin to God the apostle seems to come to its origin, to trace it back, viz. to the devil: o Totov тηv áμaρтíav, èk Toû diaßóλov éσtív (1 John iii. 8). He traces back lying and hatred especially to the devil, the liar and murderer from the beginning (John viii. 44), while sins of sensuality are designated in the passage quoted above as being only ẻ TOû κόσμου. When he now says of the devil that he ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς ȧμaρтável (iii. 8), and for that reason designates the doer of sin, especially the servants of deceit and hatred, as "of the devil," that manifestly rests on the history of the fall, in which the serpent, that is, according to the later Jewish conception, the devil (Rev. xii. 9), makes the beginning of sin by seducing man with lies, and delivering him into the hands of death. But John does not go beyond this biblical allusion; he asserts no original evil being, for the an' apxis cannot be referred to the beginning of the devil, but only to the beginning of human history. He does not relate to us any myth of an original good angel, who became a devil through a fall before that of man. He makes no attempt to explain to us how it has happened that the world created by God through the Logos, notwithstanding the continuous divine government, "lies at present wholly in the wicked one" (1 John v. 19). The devil to him is simply a fact, as sin is a fact; he is the Tveûμa Tês wλávŋs, who, according to 1 John iv. 6, confronts the veûμa τns àλη0εías in the world, the spirit of selfishness, of hatred, and of deceit, the uniform principle of destruction which exists in the world, and possesses such great power in it that it can and must be described as ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου (John xii. 31, xvi. 11). That the apostle has conceived this evil spirit of the world, whose existence and power no ethical thinker can deny, as a person, was natural to him, but in no way binds us. But the idea of Satan here gives no further explanation of the origin of evil than that it is