The Fourth Gospel Yesterday and Today

In this paper a comparative study will be made of the work of four Johannine interpreters who are widely separated both in time and in theological approach: Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), Luther’s irenic associate, rightly designated the preceptor of Germany ; Aegidius Hunnius (1550-1603), an uncompromising representative of early Lutheran confessional orthodoxy; Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855-1938), one of the greatest Roman Catholic Biblical scholars of the twentieth century; and Charles Kingsley Barrett, an English Methodist, who since 1958 has served as professor of divinity at Durham University, and who is the author of a highly reputed commentary on the Greek text of the Fourth Gospel