Of one peculiarly distinctive feature we have still to speak. Where the reader has special need of an interpreter to attest and interpret a specially vital fact, such as the scenes of the night of the betrayal, or the reality of Jesus' propitiatory death (denied by the Doketists), or the beginning of the resurrection faith, Peter's testimony is supplemented and transcended by that of a hitherto unknown figure, who anticipates all that Peter only slowly attains. This is the mysterious, unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" (xiii. 23 ff.; xviii. 15 f.; xix. 25-37; xx. 1-10; _cf._ Gal. xx. 20), a Paul present in the spirit, to see things with the eye of spiritual insight. There is no transfiguration-scene and no prayer of Gethsemane in this Gospel--Transfiguration is needless where the glory shines uninterrupted through the whole career. Prayer itself is impossible where oneness with the God-head makes difference of thought or purpose inconceivable. Hence the prayers of Jesus are often only "for the sake of those that stand by" (xi. 41 f.). The same is true of the Voice from heaven at the scene which takes the place of Transfiguration and Gethsemane in one (xii. 27-33). Jesus will not ask for deliverance from that hour, because he had sought it from the beginning. His prayer is "Father, glorify thy name." The Voice, which some take to be an angel speaking to him (_cf._ Luke ix. 35; xxii. 43) is for the sake of the bystanders. The Voice at his baptism likewise is not addressed to him (the incarnate Logos does not need a revelation of his own identity) but to the Baptist. So again and again Synoptic scenes are retouched and new scenes are added in a way to present a consistent picture of the "tabernacling" of the pre-existent Son of God in human flesh. As we review the whole, and ask ourselves, What is the occasion of this strange new presentation of the evangelic message? we begin to realize how indispensable is the key which the evangelist has himself hung before the door. Many and complex are the problems which confront us as we move through this heaped-up tangle of anecdote, dialogue, and allegory. There is room for the keenest scrutiny of criticism to determine, if possible, when, and how, and from what sources these meditations were put together. But nothing that critical insight, analysis, and comparison can furnish avails so much to throw real light upon the work as what the evangelist himself has done, by setting forth in a prologue (i. 1-18) the fundamental principles of his conception.