The meaning of πιστεύειν and γινώσκειν in some Johannine writings.

Reflecting on the nature of Christian experience, Jean Mouroux remarks that “the

problem of the Prima Joannis can be said to be the problem of the Christian experience.

The theme underlying the whole of the epistle is in fact the communion of Christians

with God… [and] that this communion is something which…we must therefore grasp by

means of that mysterious knowledge which comes from faith and love.”1Von Balthasar

notes that “In John, faith and knowledge are…intimately and inseparably intertwined…

both aspects can, therefore, simply be placed alongside each other.”2But can they really?

Here is the problem: in a number of places John speaks of faith and knowledge referring

to the same object. For example: “We believe and know that you are the holy one of

God” (Jn 6.69); “If you do not want to believe me, then believe the works, that you may

know…that the father is in me and I am in the Father.” (Jn 10: 38); “We have known and

have believed the love which God has for us.” (1 Jn 4.16). What is this “mysterious

knowledge which comes from faith”? And what does John mean when he speaks of

believing and knowing the same object?

Aquinas holds that “it is impossible that one and the same thing should be believed and

seen by the same person. Hence it is equally impossible for one and the same thing to be

an object of science [i.e. knowledge] and of belief for the same person.”3In this essay I

would like to examine some of the issues which would be pertinent to gaining greater

understanding of “to know” and “to believe” in Johannine literature, but I doubt that it

will be possible to say with certainty exactly what John meant. I will attempt to indicate

ways which may furnish (albeit inadequate) responses to the problem rather than

necessarily to draw any positive conclusion.4

1 Jean Mouroux “The Christian Experience” p. 1592 Hans Urs Von Balthasar “The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics” Volume I p. 1343 Summa Theologica, II IIae art. I Q5 The argument here points to the previous question too. 4 I am aware that there are scholars who do not consider this to be a problem at all e.g. Raymond Brown in “The Gospel of St John”, who writes that “these two verbs are virtually synonymous” (p. 298). This seems to show something of a lack of curiosity. Even if they are synonymous, why does John employ a synonym here? Further, Brown could be accused of failing to heed the words of St Paul that “all scripture is…profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16); presumably every word of scripture has some kind of relevance.

In trying to understand what the concepts “believe” and “know” mean in St John’s

writings is it necessary to understand what St John himself took “believe” and “know” to

mean? In other words is St John’s own understanding of the meaning of “believe” and

“know” the meaning we are to attach to the concepts that are connected with his use of

these words? On the one hand we are told that “rightly to understand what the Sacred

author wanted to affirm in his work, due attention must be paid both to the customary and

characteristic patterns of perception, speech and narrative which prevailed in the age of

the sacred writer”5but also that “no less attention must be devoted to the context and unity

of the whole of scripture, taking into account the Tradition of the Church and the analogy

of faith”.6 So we will begin by analyzing the meaning of the concepts “believe” and

“know” in the Old Testament and then examine the contemporary situation of St John.

Subsequently we will see how Tradition in the Fathers has interpreted these words and

then examine the work of contemporary exegetes. From this we may find some “strands”

of a potential solution to the apparent disparity. I will concentrate mainly on Jn. 6:69-

although other verses will be examined as necessary.5 Dei Verbum 126 Dei Verbum 12 There is something problematic here. We are told that we must pay “due attention to the customary and characteristic patterns of perception and speech” which seems to suggest that we must try to get at what words and concepts mean for the author. But it presumably can be the case that the understanding of words and concepts for the author misses the content which God entrusts to the words, which meaning (as in the case of some prophecy) only becomes clear with the passing of time, the development of the canon of Scripture, Tradition etc. To quote Edith Stein “must the inspired person who is the instrument of a divine revelation be aware of the fact?...It is not impossible that someone utter a revelation without realizing it…without being aware that he is speaking in God’s name or feeling supported by God’s Spirit in what he says and how he says it. He may think that he is only voicing his own insight and in words of his own choosing.” (Edith Stein “Knowledge and Faith” p. 103) Stein goes on to quote the example of Caiphas in John 11:49. Here the true significance of the words uttered by Caiphas is not arrived at by reflection on what the words could possibly have meant to him. The words take on their true character when understood from their place in the “overall work of [the history of] salvation”. Could we say the same sort of thing about John’s use of the words “believe” and “know” i.e. that their meaning becomes clear(er) only as Tradition explicates them? The question of intention is important here. The sacred author might intend to convey the understanding ‘X’; whereas the meaning God intends is ‘Y’. But both intended meanings belong to the same set of words. Again, if the meaning that God intends to convey is not the same meaning that the sacred author has in mind to intend, how valuable is the examination of the author’s “customary and characteristic patterns of perception and speech”? Pope Benedict XVI deals with the issue of the usefulness and limitations of the “historical-critical method” in the foreword to “Jesus of Nazareth.” The difficulty is that the historical-critical method “must…treat the biblical words that it investigates as human words. On painstaking reflection it can intuit something of the ‘deeper value’ the word contains…But its specific object is the human word as human.” (Jesus of Nazareth, p. xvii). The historical- critical method, or any other method of literary analysis of Scripture can never exhaust the fullest meaning of the Word because in Scripture the “word transcends the moment in which it is spoken.” All this is by way of arguing that the search for the meaning of “believe” and “know” in Johannine writings can in no way be limited to literary analysis or historical method- rather, aspects of the meaning could also potentially be found in the way Tradition (perhaps particularly the Fathers) has understood and proposed it.

In this essay there is not enough space to rehearse the arguments surrounding the

authorship of the Johannine literature. I will simply accept the view of “the ancients…

[who] regarded the son of Zebedee as author.”7 However that may be, “a large number of

scholars are coming to agree that the principal background for Johannine thought was the

Palestinian Judaism of Jesus’ time.”8Given this, and also the claim that “John reflects

even more clearly than the Synoptic Gospels the great currents of OT thought”9, for

obvious reasons it is worthwhile examining what significance “believe” and “know” had

in the Old Testament.

“The [Hebrew] verb yd ‘to perceive, know’ manifests a rather broad semantic scope in its

OT usage.”10If John was familiar with the verb yd in the Old Testament he may have

realized that it is used to indicate a wide variety of possible cognitive experiences, over

and above the primary meaning i.e. “the sensory awareness of objects and circumstances

in one’s environment.”11We consider two usages here as being particularly interesting for

our purpose:

a) There is a sense in which yd indicates “perception…sparked by a ‘sign’ (Exod

7:3-5; 8:18; 10:2; 31:13; Deut 4:34-35…) ‘by’ which something is

perceived.”12This usage (and the places in which we find it i.e. the story of Moses

and the Exodus) is extremely interesting as Brown points out: “the whole story of

Moses and of the Exodus is a very dominant motif…some scholars have even

suggested that the whole organization of the Fourth Gospel was patterned on

Exodus.”13Leaving this last claim aside, we can say that “a very important factor

in the Johannine concept of the ‘sign’ was the use of ‘sign’ for Moses’

miracles.”14Here we might find some threads of a possible solution. If John is

familiar with the use of yd in the Exodus story he will be aware that, for example,

the Egyptians knew that YWHW was Lord by his signs15and yet did not ‘believe’

-in the sense of some interior moral assent to YHWH. It is possible to know a sign

7 W. Leonard “The Gospel of St John” in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture 776 d8 Raymond Brown, “The Gospel According to John (i- xii)” p.LIX9 Raymond Brown, “The Gospel According to John (i- xii)” p. LX10 Jenni, Westermann “Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament” Volume 2 p. 51111 Jenni, Westermann “Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament” Volume 2 p. 51112 Jenni, Westermann “Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament” Volume 2 p. 51213 Raymond Brown, “The Gospel According to John (i- xii)” p. LX14 Raymond Brown, “The Gospel According to John (i- xii)” p. LX15 Ex 7: 3-5

but to withhold assent16- as in the Exodus case. If we grant this the Johannine “we

know and we believe”17 is no longer a redundancy but rather an important

clarification of the consequence for the reader (i.e. belief) of knowledge of God

and his signs, particularly his preeminent “sign”- Christ.18

b) There are passages in the Old Testament in which “ yd refers to an intensive

involvement with an object that exceeds the simple cognitive relationship in the

sense of ‘to be concerned with’…this meaning should also be attributed to yd with

a personal object…or familiarity with a person’s character, so that one

understands the person and his/ her behaviour (1 Sam 10:11; 2 Sam 3:25;

17:8).”19If this sense of yd had any bearing on John’s use of “know” we might

speculate that he employed it to demonstrate personal familiarity with Christ

(which is attested in 19:35 for example) which extends to understanding the core

of his character even to the extent of perceiving his glory ( 1:14).

Passing now to examine the Old Testament concept of “to believe”, in Hebrew

he’men. This word “expresses both recognition of the objective relation of object to

reality and also recognition of the subjective relation of the believing subject to the

object.”20This definition seems to have some commonality with second usage of yd

which we examined above. The (intense) relational aspect between knower and

known and believer and believed presents itself again here. Thus he’men implies “a

corresponding relation to the matter [of belief] (Gn 45:26; Ex 4:1; 1K 10:7)…

[he’men] gives prominence to the total basic attitude of ‘to trust.’”21

16 This can happen in different ways: a) I know the sign in itself but do not realize that it is a sign- this could happen if I am unfamiliar with the rules of combat. I see a white flag- and that is all I see. I am unaware of any sign value attaching to it..; b) I can know the sign in itself, know that it is a sign but be uncertain as to what it signifies e.g. a road sign in a foreign country which I know to be a sign but do not realize what it means c) I can know the sign and know its meaning but choose not to obey it e.g. I do not stop my car at the red light.17 For the moment I am not attaching any importance to the verb order which differs between for example 6: 69 and 1 Jn 4: 16. 18 C.f. the discussion of “yada” and “pistis” in section 4 of “John, the Gospel of” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume III p.92719 Jenni, Westermann “Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament” Volume 2 p. 51420 Kittel “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. VI” p. 18621 Kittel “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. VI” p. 186-7

Analysis of these two words might give us some insight into potential meanings at

least for John 6:69 (and possibly for the other verses we selected although they are

more complicated for reasons we shall see later.) Peter’s confession of faith in 6: 69

“we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God” could

be interpreted in this light as representing some progression of psychological states.

Beginning with “we have believed” we could say that this represents a fundamental

attitude or disposition of trust between the disciple and Christ, in a way not dissimilar

to the Hebrew concept of he’men. Knowledge follows, plausibly indicating

“perception of a sign by which something is perceived” and an intense familiarity

with the person of Christ leading to acknowledgement of Christ as “the Holy One of

God.”

With regard to the slightly more complicated verses, John 10:38 and 1 John 4:16 we

can apply some of these findings too, although the hypothesis regarding a kind of

progression on the part of the subject is harder to maintain. John 10:38 reads “…even

though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand

that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Here Jesus is suggesting changing the

epistemological object. If it is impossible for the Jews to “believe” him (in the sense

of he’men implying an attitude of trust and relationship between subject and object)

when he claims to be the Son of God, they ought to “believe” the “works”- which will

lead to “knowledge” (and surely the sense of yd indicating “perception sparked by a

sign” applies here) in the sense of “an intensive involvement” and “familiarity”

allowing recognition that “the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

1 John 4:16 reads “So we know and believe the love God has for us.” At first sight

this is a more abstract object- it is not at all clear that John here is referring to any

kind of personification of the love of God. The relevance of yd as we described its

sense earlier is maintained here because the context of this passage is a discussion of

those things by which we know (c.f. 4:6 “by this...”; 6:13 “by this…”). Clearly this is

knowledge had by means of something as we described it earlier. Again the sense of

he’men indicating an intense relationship can be postulated in this passage.

To sum up, examination of words and concepts of the Hebrew Old Testament has

revealed possible sources of aid in understanding the text of John.22 The

epistemological problem which we adverted to with St Thomas is mitigated if an

understanding grounded in some kind of gradation of relationship is understood to be

implied by John’s use of πιστεύειν and γινώσκειν.

Having examined St John’s literary antecedents we pass now to a brief attempt to

examine the historical circumstances in which he wrote. Above we tried to take

account of “the deep roots which John has in Jewish ground”23and now we will try

not to “overlook the fact that it opens out to the Hellenistic world…”24John’s stated

purpose in writing his Gospel was “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the

Son of God, and that by believing you may hive life in his name.” (Jn. 20:31). This is

a rather broad expression and does not exclude two ideas which we will examine,

namely “the view that John was combating Gnosticism”25, and “the theory that John

was presenting a Hellenized Christianity.”26

Briefly put, the first view considers that “the particular form of Gnosticism which

John is claimed to be combating is Docetism which maintained that Christ could

never have been contaminated by the world which was essentially evil. This meant

that Christ did not really become flesh.”27I will try to show a possible reason for

John’s use of πιστεύειν and γινώσκειν stemming from this.28

To trace the lineage of the idea of Docetism, one must return to Heraclitus and

Parmenides via Plato. It was during Plato’s first phase that he “divided the realm of

philosophy in two, and handed over the intelligible universe of the Ideas to

22 Aidan Nichols points out the importance of Hebrew concepts in the formation of the Gospels by saying that “the culture of Jesus’ Palestine was in some ways highly literate and literary because of the paramount role that the Hebrew Bible played within it…” (Nichols: “The Shape of Catholic Theology” p. 166). If this is true, the relevance of examining the Hebrew concepts foreshadowing Gospel ideas seems proved.23 Rudolf Schnackenburg “The Gospel According to St John: Volume I” p. 13524 Rudolf Schnackenburg “The Gospel According to St John: Volume I” p. 13525 Donald Guthrie “New Testament Introduction” p. 28926 Donald Guthrie “New Testament Introduction” p. 29127 Donald Guthrie “New Testament Introduction” p. 28928 My argument will by implication reject the suggestion that John “belonged to a circle devoted to early Christian Gnostic mysticism… [proof of which is] alleged to be found in the writer’s emphasis…on the importance of the act of ‘knowing’ in the religious life.” (Guthrie p. 289- 90) For my argument- and indeed in the Gospel as a whole- the use and emphasis on the idea of ‘believing’ is far greater than that of ‘knowing’.

Parmenides, and the perceptible universe of the senses to Heraclitus.”29Plato taught

that true knowledge could only be had of non-sensible things. It is in book VI of the

Republic that we find the famous ‘divided line’ analogy, designed to illustrate the

possibilities of a metaphysically based epistemology. In essence the mental luggage

we all carry around can be divided into two categories i.e. ‘knowledge’ (episteme)

and ‘opinion’ (doxa). These two categories are each further divided. ‘Knowledge is

found to contain both Intelligence (noesis) and mathematical reasoning (dianoia)

while ‘opinion’ is divided between ‘Belief’ (pistis) and ‘Illusion’ (eikasia).

Noesis is the most perfect form of knowledge possible30, because it corresponds to the

Ideal Forms. Pistis refers to physical things. For Plato, knowledge becomes

increasingly less secure the greater its’ root in the material world. Ultimately, it is this

Platonic division of the universe into physical and non-physical which lies at the root

of Docetism and other dualistic heresies.

If John was writing to combat Docetism, his inclusion of the verb ‘we believe’ in Jn.

6: 69 and 1 Jn. 4.16 can serve the purpose of emphasizing the physicality of Jesus

Christ, because in Platonic and neo- Platonic thought only physical things are

susceptible of belief. Purely spiritual things can be the object of knowledge but not of

belief. The Docetist would reject the possibility of belief in Christ, who never having

really become flesh can only be ‘known’. Hence John’s insistence on the double

formula of ‘we know’ and ‘we believe’.

The theory that John was presenting a Hellenized Christianity runs like this: “the

Gospel is regarded as addressed to the contemporary Greek non- Christian world to

persuade them to adopt Christianity, and to do this the life of Christ is expressed in

religious terms which would be readily intelligible to them.”31The main exponent of

this idea is C. H. Dodd. Regarding knowledge of God, Dodd writes that “after our

study of Philo, the Hermetica, and Gnosticism, we need only recall that the evangelist

is putting his teaching in line with a religious tendency dominant in his time over a

wide area.”32 For Dodd the confession of 6:69 reveals that “the content of knowledge

29 Anthony Kenny “A New History of Western Philosophy: Volume I” p. 205 Heraclitus held that all was in motion, Parmenides that nothing was in motion.30 In fact in this period Plato considers noesis to be the only form of knowledge.31 Donald Guthrie “New Testament Introduction” p. 29132 C. H. Dodd “The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel” p. 151

is the unique status of Christ Himself, which is an equivalent for knowledge of

God.”33In other words those who have “attained a knowledge of Christ… [have] the

real vision of God.”34 The point for Dodd is the similarity with other religious

notions; “it is clear that the evangelist is here working with a conception of

‘knowledge of God’…which is close to that held by Hellenistic mystics.”35This may

or may not be the case but we can note in passing that this theory is considerably less

fruitful for an understanding of our problem than the anti- Docetist idea, and that in

fact “in spite of all the amassing of Hellenistic parallels, it is still possible for the

gospel to be read intelligibly against an essentially Jewish background.”36The fact of

this possibility makes it very difficult to distinguish which –if any- elements of the

Gospel are to be read as from the Hellenistic- syncretistic religious world and which

refer to Judaism. Hence we cannot pursue this line any further in attempting to clarify

John’s own understanding of ‘πιστεύειν’ and ‘γινώσκειν’.

We will continue to execute our plan by turning from the personal ambit of John in

order to investigate the attempts which have been made to interpret and explain these

texts. We turn first of all to the tradition of the Church, the Fathers. 37

St Augustine treats the relationship between ‘we believe’ and ‘we know’ thus: “‘and

we have believed and have known.’ Not have known and believed, but ‘believed and

known.’ For we believed in order to know; for if we wanted to know first, and then to

believe, we should not be able either to know or to believe.”38 Clearly for Augustine

there is a difference between knowledge and belief in this passage from John. Belief

stands in function of knowledge as a necessary prerequisite.39 Unfortunately it is not

clear quite what he means in saying this, and the surrounding context of the homily

does not help. Nevertheless we can see here some idea of a progression implied by

the movement from belief to knowledge. Also we can see that the act of believing is

given a value in itself higher than the act of knowing. This is because faith “is more

33 C. H. Dodd “The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel” p. 16834 C. H. Dodd “The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel” p. 16735 C. H. Dodd “The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel” p. 167- 836 Donald Guthrie “New Testament Introduction” p. 29337 C.f. Catechism of the Catholic Church 113. 38 St Augustine “Homilies on the Gospel of John”39 Whilst this may be philosophically tenable, and may be true for this particular verse, it can be argued that it does not hold good as an explanation of the relationship between faith and knowledge throughout John. There are in fact cases where the verb order is reversed. E.g. 1 Jn. 4:16, Jn. 16:30 I address this later.

certain than all human knowledge because it is founded on the very word of God who

cannot lie.”40The object of faith is per se of a qualitatively higher and more

intelligible order because ultimately it is God; but the act of faith, the ‘we believe’ is

also an ontologically superior act of the intellect than any form of purely natural

knowing because “faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him.”41Taken

in this sense, in a formula such as Jn. 6:69, belief is not a more shadowy and dubious

intellectual operation than knowledge; rather the exact opposite is true. We can read

Augustine’s comment on this passage as suggesting different objects (or one object

taken under different aspects) for the ‘we believe’ and the ‘we know’. In this case,

Augustine confirms for us the fact that “the possible extent of our knowledge during

our pilgrimage on earth is fixed…what we can attain through knowledge and through

faith is likewise fixed. As a rule, only that is a matter of faith which is withheld from

our earthly knowledge in principle.”42So, ‘to know’ is to a set of intelligibles (A), as

‘to believe’ is to a set of intelligibles (B).

Now we can try to solve Aquinas’ difficulty, namely the alleged impossibility of

something being an object of belief and of knowledge at the same time and in the

same respect. We can say:

(1), Jesus is the one in whom inheres the sets of intelligibles A and B.

(2), We say ‘believe’ to indicate our correspondence with B

(3), We say ‘know’ to indicate our correspondence with A.

Thus we see that ‘know’ and ‘believe’ do correspond to the same object but under

different aspects, because as shown in (1), both A and B belong to the one person,

Jesus.

According to Augustine,

(4), (2) is a prerequisite for (3)

And the truth of this is born out in the Gospels: many people can be grouped in (3),

i.e. they ‘know’ Jesus insofar as natural reason shows him to be a man from such and

such a place with such and such physical characteristics etc.43 But they do not

progress to (2), because the procession only occurs from (2) to (3). And in fact, those 40 CCC 15741 CCC 15342 Edith Stein “Knowledge and Faith” p. 1343 C.f. Jn. 6:42

who remain on the level of ‘knowing’ thus indicated (we could say ‘knowing of’ as

we make a distinction in ordinary speech between ‘knowing of’ a person and

‘knowing’ a person to show a lack of intimate personal knowledge) do not know

Jesus in the true sense of knowing something, i.e. grasping its essential core. Only

those in (2) who grasp the essential core of Jesus’ identity can truly be said to be in

(3). And this because faith is both an essentially and a qualitatively different act of the

intellect from its exercise in natural reason- much more certain and more profound.

And this idea seems to have been borne out in our earlier comments about the

Hebrew yd signifying an intensive relation with the object known.

It seems that here we have come some way to solving the initial difficulty that

Aquinas proposed. We have done this by distinguishing Jesus as bearer of A and

Jesus as bearer of B. In other words we have taken John to be referring to different

aspects of Jesus as he applies different verbs.

So much for the assistance given by the tradition of the Church. We must pass now (if

only for the sake of completeness) to the gloss of modern exegetes. Have modern

methods of Biblical criticism been applied to this issue and if so, with what results?

Firstly we put aside Raymond Brown. As we mentioned earlier he does not suspect a

problem here at all. He deals with 6:69 firstly by rendering it “we believe and are

convinced”44before admitting that the second verb is “literally ‘know’.”45He excuses

himself by saying that the “two verbs [i.e. believe and know] are virtually

synonymous”46; but surely it would be of interest if suddenly the author starts

employing ‘virtual’ redundancies? In any case, other commentators see more of note

in this passage.

C. K. Barrett makes the interesting point already mentioned that “several times

πιστεύειν stands first; but it cannot be assumed that faith is the beginning of a process

of which knowledge is the end since the reverse order is also found.”47At first sight

this seems to create problems for what we had Augustine claim above- i.e. precisely

that belief leads to knowledge. But his argument did not depend strictly on the verb

order in the passage, but rather on the meaning of each verb. Thus it is possible that a 44 Raymond Brown “The Gospel according to John” p. 29845 Raymond Brown “The Gospel according to John” p. 29846 Raymond Brown “The Gospel according to John” p. 29847 C.K. Barrett “The Gospel according to John” p. 307

reverse verb order does not invalidate his argument. Barrett is closer to our reading

when he says that “faith…includes the dependence of the created being upon the

Creator; it is something which man as such can never outgrow.”48This is made further

evident because “while Jesus is said to know God (7:29; 8:55; 10:15) he is never said

to believe in him.”49This seems to be a proof that for John there is a real distinction

between knowledge and faith- contrary to Brown and others.

D. A. Carson says that “knowledge in the fourth Gospel is frequently personal (it is

knowledge of God and if Jesus Christ that constitutes eternal life, 17:3), but no less

frequently propositional (as here: the disciples know that Jesus is such and

such).”50We want to be wary of introducing a false dichotomy here between person

and propositions. In fact the propositions in 6:69 can be construed as personal

because they belong to the person of Jesus. The fact of the ότι clause does not make

for a reading which sets up proposition against personal knowledge, because as we

said above, we are dealing here with knowledge which has as its prerequisite faith-

obviously faith in the person of Jesus Christ, from which knowledge (including

propositional knowledge) proceeds. Therefore even propositional knowledge remains

deeply attached to the person of Jesus.

This idea of the personal nature of knowledge seems to become clearer when we read

Leon Morris’ gloss: “the verbs ‘have believed’ and ‘know’ are both in their perfect

tense and this should be given its full force. ‘We have come to a place of faith and

continue there. We have entered into knowledge and retain it.’…Peter stresses

Christ’s place and person.51”Hence we are not speaking here of disembodied

propositions but a faith that brings us into the knowledge (i.e. the core of the

substance of the object) of Jesus himself.

Again what we said in our comments on Augustine’s reading of this verse seems

borne out by Haenchen’s commentary: “for [John], the one who believes really

knows God, who remains closed, inaccessible, unrecognized to the one who lacks

faith. But this knowing is not concurrence in some mathematical, logical proposition.

48 C.K. Barrett “The Gospel according to John” p. 30749 C.K. Barrett “The Gospel according to John” p. 30750 D.A. Carson “The Gospel according to John” p.30351 Leon Morris “The Gospel according to John” p. 390

It is rather faith: the surrender of the whole man to the one who is known.”52This idea

of the involvement of the whole person in the act of knowing seems quite akin to the

Hebrew notion of yd we described earlier.

Additionally this reading of knowledge is sustained by Schnackenberg who points out

that “the Johannine γινώσκειν is different in degree and kind from theoretical

knowledge, and includes notably personal association (10: 14-15), [and] communion

with Christ and God (cf. 17:3).”53

Having attempted to open four avenues to solve the problem of believing and

knowing the same object, and more generally of exploring the difference between

these two concepts in certain passages of John, we are now in a position both to sum

up what we have found and to indicate places where further exploration may prove

fruitful.

Firstly we discovered that the Hebrew Old Testament concept of yd alerted us to the

possibility that John might be using a concept familiar to him to delineate a particular

kind of personal knowledge- necessarily involving an intense relationship with the

object known. This became something of a motif which we returned to in our

discussion of Augustine’s homily and of the views of some modern commentators.

This would probably be an area of fruitful research, although it is slightly problematic

in that it assumes that John was aware of this concept in the Old Testament which can

never be more than probable.

Next we speculated on John’s situation in history. We found that an understanding of

the terms ‘to believe’ and ‘to know’ corresponded to certain elements of Platonic

vocabulary. We put forward an argument to explain the use of both words with Jesus

as object based on the assumption that John was combating Docetism. Obviously this

stands or falls on whether John had such an intention- this will probably remain

unknown to us. Less fruitful was our attempt to place John as being in dialogue or

competition with Hellenistic religions. Certainty cannot be achieved here at all,

because the same texts are open to variant readings- i.e. they can be seen as reflecting

a Jewish background or a Hellenistic influence.

52 Ernst Haenchen “John I” p. 30753 Rudolf Schnackenberg “The Gospel according to John: Volume II” p.76

St Augustine’s commentary proved a useful interpretative tool- but clearly it remains

only that. Nevertheless his readings, taken in conjunction with the glosses of the

modern exegetes did reveal that ‘to know’ in John often has a higher meaning

because rooted in the personal revelation- faith.

And so Jean Mouroux’s “mysterious knowledge which comes from faith” is seen to

be summed up as “communion with Christ and God” as Schnackenberg puts it. And

as such this is knowledge in its most eminent sense, than which there can be no

higher certitude.

Bibliography of Works Cited

“The Anchor Bible Dictionary Volume III”

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C. K. Barrett “The Gospel According to John”

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D.A. Carson “The Gospel According to John”

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Strathfield 1994

“A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture” Ed Dom Bernard Orchard, Nelson and

Sons, London, 1953

C.H. Dodd “The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel”

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Leon Morris “The Gospel According to John”

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1991

Plato “Republic” tr. Desmond Lee, Penguin, London, 1987

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2007

Rudolf Schnackenberg “The According to St John: Volume I”

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