A most instructive letter is that which he sent to his brother Heinrich on January 30, 1926,7 in which he told him about the lectures but said that unfortunately he was only at ch. 6 and would not finish by a long way.8 He found it a most remarkable book. Often the whole room seemed to go round when he considered the ramifications of this chapter and found astonishing things that previous exegesis had missed. He thought it an advantage of theologians over philosophers that their studies are subject to canonical texts of this kind. He had no taste for the Johannine question or the answers to it. He constantly had his father’s exposition by him.9 His father thought it important that the son of Zebedee was the author, and if this was true, then the historical scandal was all the more unheard-of. It was odd that twenty or thirty years before this time people had not found it so, viewing it as settling rather than unsettling simply that an eyewitness had supposedly written all this. Barth did not know who it was, but he never ceased to be surprised at the fact.
In 1933, a year before his suspension, he was astonished to be asked to repeat the course at Bonn. This was due to a last-minute decision made on April 28 along with his colleague and neighbor, the New Testament scholar K. L. Schmidt, who, as Barth told the General Superintendent Stoltenhoff, had been forced to seek an academic permit for the semester, and had only just received permission to ask for the permit, as Barth told Karl Stoevesandt the next day. So in addition to his lectures on the history of Protestant theology, Barth offered the course on John, teaching fourteen hours a week in all.10 As he also told his brother Peter in a letter dated May 18, 1933, in addition he had two seminars in systematics and a homiletics class with 150 students,11 so that he was giving instruction in four disciplines. He also mentioned his venture in practical theology to Heinrich Scholz in a letter dated May 24, 1933. The description that Charlotte von Kirschbaum gave Thurneysen supplies the background of Barth’s activity; he was on a powderkeg (or in the lions’ den?). She expressed amazement that his course thus far had been so smooth and that efforts from outside (e.g., by the German Christians) had not hurt his good relations with the students. Every morning, after Schleiermacher, he gave his very important lectures on John to a large and attentive audience; members of the Stahlhelm and Nazis sat there in their uniforms (their caps on the walls), listening and taking notes. They were there in more or less equal numbers in the Calvin seminar and homiletics class as well, and heard things that really had very little to do with the Third Reich. From a letter of Charlotte von Kirschbaum to Barth’s mother we gather that he repeated unaltered the 1929 lectures on the history of theology, since he had no time to rewrite them, especially as he had to correct and dictate those on John’s Gospel.
II
The 1925/1926 lectures—Text A in this edition—are extant in a manuscript which Barth corrected and extensively revised in 1933 for Charlotte von Kirschbaum to type. The typescript—Text B—is the basis of the present volume. Differences that are more than stylistic are noted. Where A obviously makes better sense, it becomes the main text and B is given in the note. At times there might be slips in typing (as on p. 153). In the few instances of syntactical error or imperfection, the editor has emended the text, in which case the original is in the note, or he has supplied what is missing in brackets (as on p. 134). When appropriate, parts of quotations left out by Barth, or additions to quotations that he had made, are also in brackets (cf. p. 14 and p. 37).
The editor has added the biblical references in brackets. At times he has put more general allusions in footnotes (e.g., p. 140 and p. 146). Barth himself supplied all the other references. The editor has retained his common practice of putting these in parentheses when they are not part of the text.12 He has used ff. instead of Barth’s f., however, where there are more than two verses. Barth’s distinctive spelling has also been retained even when it is not in the typescript, but the punctuation has been brought into line with the rules adopted for the Gesamtausgabe.
In the footnotes—there are none in A or B—the editor has documented the differences between the two editions and supplied missing references for quotations. In the main the works used by Barth (and still in his library) are cited. The notes show where he drew on secondary sources. Only rarely (p. 128 n. 188) does the editor point to other works.
In A Barth makes rich use of underlining. Little of this is reproduced in B, and the editor has done some selective italicizing in accordance with Barth’s normal practice. To make for easier reading the editor has introduced breaks in what are often very long paragraphs. The dates of the lectures are indicated in the margin.13 When not supplied in the typescript they are put in brackets; markings in the typescript offer the necessary guidance.
Thanks are due to Hinrich Stoevesandt and his wife for their unselfish, critical, and very helpful assistance in preparing this edition and compiling the Index of Subjects. Hannelotte Reiffen of Bonn rendered good service in deciphering manuscript A in relation to B. The Hermeneutical Institute of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of the University of Tübingen helped to make the Greek parts of the typescript legible for the compositor.
Bad Neuheim, October 31, 1976
Walther Fürst
It must have been in February of 416 that Augustine, bishop of Hippo, began his famous 124 tractates on John’s Gospel.1 We might commence our own study of the same subject by a brief consideration of the thoughts with which the church father opens his treatment. In relation to John 1:1–5 he asks how his hearers are to understand, and how he is to state and explain what is written, when over both of them stands the judgment that the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God [1 Cor. 2:14]. There is need to appeal for the assistance of grace. They must all understand what they can, and he must say what he can. For who can say it as it is? “I dare to say, brethren, that perhaps not even John himself has said it as it is, but only as he could, for a man has here spoken about God, a man enlightened by God, but still a man. (Quia de Deo homo dixit et quidem inspiratus a Deo sed tamen homo.) Because enlightened, he has said something; if he had not been enlightened, he could have said nothing; but because he is an enlightened man, he has not said it all as it is, but only said it as a man can say it.”2 Ps. 71:3 of the Latin Bible may be adduced here: Suscipiant montes pacem populo tuo et colles iustitiam [= Eng. Ps. 72:3]. There are mountains and hills in relation to what we receive from God, i.e., greater and smaller souls. The former are enlightened by wisdom, receive peace, and impart it to the latter that these may live by their faith. From the mountains it is said to the church: Peace be with you. One of these high mountains who received peace on behalf of the hills (the rest of us) was John the Evangelist. But even as a high mountain John is still one of those of whom it is said that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into any human heart [1 Cor. 2:9]. If wisdom came into the heart of John, then it was only insofar as he was not a man but had begun to be an angel, i.e., one who proclaims God, only insofar as God called him and he mounted with his heart above all created things and met the Word by whom all things were created. But not to be a man in this sense, to be instead one who is called to proclaim God, presupposes that he is first known and acknowledged precisely in his humanity. In relation to the Evangelist, then, we have to recall not only: “I lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help” [Ps. 121:1] (although in truth he stands high and holy among all the mountains which have received peace for the people of God), but also the continuation of Ps. 121: “My help is from the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth” [v. 2]. Hence “lift up your eyes to this mountain, i.e., the Evangelist.”3 But “do not lift up your eyes to this mountain in such a way that you think you must set your hope on a man.”4 “The mountains receive only what they pass on to us; it is to the place from which they themselves receive it that we are to direct our hope5 (unde et montes accipiunt, ibi spes nostra ponenda est).” “If we lift our eyes to the scriptures because these are given to us by men, we lift our eyes
