Relationships of a more subtle kind may be found when John is compared with the Synoptic Gospels. (1) The relation of Jesus to His mother is the same in both. Compare Luke ii. 49, "Knew ye not that I must be in the things of my Father"; and John ii. 4, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" The relation with His brethren is also the same, their right to influence Him not being admitted. (2) The causes of opposition are differently described, but are the same in principle. In both Mark ii. and John v., the charges against Him are those of blasphemy and Sabbath breaking, and in both cases are made in connection with the miracle of healing. His defense of His action in healing on the Sabbath day is the same in principle but different in detail. In both there is an _à fortiori_ argument: "How much then is a man of more value than a sheep!" (Matt. xii. 12); "If a man receive circumcision on the Sabbath ... are ye wroth with me because I made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath?" (John vii. 23). In both cases His action is defended by reference to His unique position, in the one case in His relation to God, "My Father worketh hitherto" (John v. 17); and in the other case in His relation to men, "The Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark ii. 28). (3) The relation of Jesus to various classes of people as described by John is remarkably different in detail, but wonderfully similar in essence, when compared with the Synoptic record. In each with entire difference of scene and circumstance He meets with a woman that was a sinner, but the essentials of penitence and the public expression of gratitude are similar in both (Luke vii. 37 f.; John iv. 7 f.). No narratives could be more independent of each other than those of the conversation with Nicodemus in John iii., and with the rich young ruler in Mark x., yet in both cases the attitude of Jesus towards an influential and upright and religious man was the same. In spite of difference in language also, the words to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again" (John iii. 7), do not differ in their radical demands from the words addressed to the ruler, "One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast and come, follow me" (Mark x. 21). The comparison might be continued indefinitely, but only to show that the picture of Jesus and of His relation to the Father, and to His disciples, to publicans and sinners, to the Pharisees, to women, and to the human race as Saviour and Judge, is so different in John that it cannot be due merely to the influence of the Synoptic tradition, and yet so identical in substance that it cannot possibly, with any regard for literary probabilities, have been the free invention of the writer.