In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the question of ‘history’ in the Fourth Gospel, an interest exemplified in such books as A. J. B. Higgins's The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel and C. H. Dodd's Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel.1 The serious insistence of these studies on the historical element in the Gospel brings a much needed correction of the tendency to regard nearly everything in it as purely symbolic. On the request of the Greeks to see Jesus (John 12.20ff) Bultmann comments that the fact that the request is conveyed to Jesus by Philip and Andrew ‘must also have symbolic meaning’.2 And the tendency to close the door on inquiry into the historical element is illustrated by the word ‘only’ in G. H. C. Macgregor's comment: ‘The Greeks are brought on the stage only as a cue for Jesus' great discourse upon the necessity of his death and the universal salvation which will result from it.’3

The aim of this paper is to contribute, if possible, a little towards the understanding of the Book of Ecclesiastes, or The Preacher, and to illuminate something of the contemporary significance of its contents. The paper is prompted too by a feeling of dissatisfaction at the negativity with which much of modern writing on Ecclesiastes is tinged, and by the conviction that if Koheleth, the Preacher, is once granted a sympathy of interpretation, and the forcefulness and novelty of his expression are recognised, his message can be seen to be apposite and telling.1

The events of the Exodus, in which the Passover occupied a central and dominant place, were one of the most deeply rooted of all Israel's traditions. The Passover itself lay at the very heart of the covenant concept and forms the basis of the Heilsgeschichte which records the redemptive acts of God for His people Israel. In later Judaism it became overlaid with eschatological ideas, especially those associated with a Messianic deliverance for the people of God, as God's saving act in the past became the prefigurement of an even greater saving act in the future. The Passover night was thus a night of joy for all Israel, the night on which Israel's future redemption, effected through the Messiah, would be revealed. The early Christians, however, believed that this Messianic deliverance had already appeared in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and consequently, in Preiss' expression,‘the totality of the events of the Exodus centering on the Passover’ together with its associated ideas occupied a dominant position in Christian soteriological thought in the New Testament period, especially as Jesus Himself had instituted the eucharist in a distinctly Paschal setting. We may trace, as has been done in recent years, the idea of the Exodus complex of events running as a constant theme through the New Testament writings, and Jesus is pictured both as a second Moses leading His people forth from a bondage far greater than the slavery of a human despot, from the thraldom of sin and death, and as the Antitype of the very Passover sacrifice itself, through which the redemption of the New Israel was effected.

Healing is a neglected aspect of Christian Theology, but it has an important and essential place in the gospels. The four gospels, however, differ in the proportion of space they allow to the record of healing, and in the number of healing acts they record. The difference is most marked in the case of the Gospel according to John as can be seen from the following figures.

In the course of his extremely valuable and stimulating study, ‘Diakonia: Today's Task’, Dr Hans Christoph von Hase draws attention to the explicit reference to the Church's diaconal responsibility contained in the 1948 Constitution of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, Article 15 of which declares: The Evangelische Kirche in Germany and member churches are called to proclaim Christ's love in word and deed. This love obliges all members of the Church to undertake service and takes form in a special way in the Diaconate of the Church. In accordance with this the Church's diaconalmissionary activities are part of its very being and life.