The New Testament conception of history goes back to that of the Old Testament; and this differs from the Greek conception of history. There are, of course, no such differences at primitive stages among all peoples. In the Orient as well as in Greece historical writing begins with chronological enumerations of important events and deeds of rulers and so on; and at the same time with myths and legends in poetical form and with stories. Real historical narrative arises when the stage of chronicle, myth and legend is left behind, and when a course of history begins to be presented as a unity, by the observation of the connexion of events and through reflection on the powers moving the course of events. That occurs when a people experiences the historical processes by which it is shaped into a nation or state.

I hope that no apology is necessary for the choice of a subject so closely akin to that of the Presidential Address by Professor William Manson last year.1 It was in fact that address which inspired the present paper. If any further justification is necessary for reverting to this theme I would remind you that a presidential address is by use and wont exempt from criticism, so that last year there was no opportunity for the discussion of a subject which should surely invite lively debate. Moreover, though Dr Manson in his address made occasional reference to Paul's thought, he deliberately confined himself in the main to the ‘Spiritual Background of the Work of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels’. Such promising exploration deserves to be followed up, for it is only with Paul that this background is filled in, in all its tremendous cosmic grandeur. As Dr Manson put it, the spirit world in Paul's thought ‘has taken on new dimensions and acquired a cosmic range and character’. Or again, whereas last year we were meeting the demonic powers ‘in the form of malignant and ghoulish beings, on the earth-level of popular demonic belief’, this year we are confronted by Paul's ‘grandiose hierarchy of cosmic spirits’. But my best justification is the sheer importance of this subject for the understanding of Paul's thought. As Professor J. S. Stewart has remarked in a notable article in the Scottish Journal of Theology (vol. IV, no. 3), we shall never get inside the mind of Paul until we take seriously what has in fact been ‘a neglected emphasis in New Testament Theology’, and cease to treat ‘as secondary and extraneous elements in the primitive Christian proclamation what in fact are integral and basic components of the Gospel’.

Bishop Butler, in the Advertisement to the first edition of his Analogy of Religion, says with reference to the subject of his book: ‘It is come to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry, but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious.’ It is with a similar awareness that I am going against the tide of general opinion that I embark upon my present theme, and I could only wish that the similarity which I presume to claim between myself and that acute and learned bishop went further than that. For this paper is designed, in the fond and partial judgement which every parent has for his offspring, to contribute to a reopening of the question of the historical truth of some of the narrative portions of the Fourth Gospel. Such a subject may well appear not only exhausted but (a far graver condemnation) old-fashioned, so as to be no longer ‘so much as a subject of inquiry’. This is why I wish I shared the robust confidence of Bishop Butler in the soundness of his thesis, and could go on to say with him, ‘On the contrary, thus much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured, as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a case, that there is nothing in it. There is, I think, strong evidence of its truth; but it is certain no one can, upon principles of reason, be satisfied of the contrary.’ For my own part, I make no claim to proof, but nevertheless hope that I may at least put forward some considerations such as to induce some who are of the contrary opinion to reconsider the questions I shall put before you.

It was in 1923 that Professor Plooy directed inquiry on the text of the Diatessaron into new channels. He pointed to the value of the various forms of Het Leven van Jezus in medieval Dutch MSS. and proved conclusively that here we have an offshoot of Tatian's Diatessaron. He thereby made it plausible that its origin goes back to a Syriac form.1