616th ordinary GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD IN COMMITTEE ROOM B, THE CENTRAL HALL, 

 WESTMINSTER, ON MONDAY, MARCH Lst, 1920, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



The Chair was taken by the Rev. Prebendary 

 H. E. Fox, M.A. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read, confirmed and signed^ 



The Hon. Secretary announced the following elections : — Mr. Theodore 

 Roberts as a Member, and Mrs. A. H. Husbands, The Rev. Arthur T. 

 Dence, Mr. Smetham Lee, Mr. M. Gutteridge, Mr. Alfred Dixon, Lady 

 Borwick and Mr. Thomas Verrinder as Associates. 



The Chairman then called upon the Rev. Professor A. S. Geden, M.A., 

 D.D., to read his paper. 



SIMILE AND METAPHOR IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL. 

 By the Rev. Professor A. S. Geden, M.A., D.D. 



IN laying before you a few thoughts on a subject of the 

 very greatest interest and importance, it appears to 

 me to be unnecessary and irrelevant to discuss questions of 

 authorship or integrity or date, and I propose to leave these 

 and similar investigations on one side. They do not, I think, 

 from this point of view, which is not primarily historical but 

 exegetical and doctrinal, affect the argument and interpretation 

 of the text. I shall tacitly take it for granted that with the 

 possibility of slight additions, as ch. xxi. 24 f., the Gospel is the 

 expression of the mind and thought of one author, and that 

 author the Apostle St. John. If anyone dissents from this judg- 

 ment it does not appear to me that he will or need of necessity 

 reject the reading and suggestions that I venture to offer. These 

 I trust will be taken on their merits, independently of authorship. 

 They would, I think, be equally just if this treatise were tradition- 

 ally anonymous. I have little personal faith in a shadowy or 

 mythical presbyter John of Ephesus. At the same time, if I 

 may be allowed to say so, I would not be understood to imply or 

 plead ignorance of the difficulties of the view I have expressed. 

 They are sufficiently serious. They appear to me, however, to 

 be very considerably less than on any other hypothesis. 



