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It adds to the importance of this Gospel, styled by Renan "the most beautiful book in the world," that about one-third of its contents is peculiar to itself,—consisting mainly of chapters ix. 51-xviii. 14, relating to the Saviour's last journey to Jerusalem.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN."

1. Authorship.

IT is a weighty and significant fact that until the close of the last century the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel was never seriously challenged. Epiphanius, indeed (380 A.D.), tells us of a very small party1 who had ascribed it to Cerinthus, a heretical contemporary of the Apostle John at Ephesus; but they seem to have had no other reason for rejecting it than their aversion to its teaching. During the present century no question has been the subject of more controversy; and scarcely any can be of more importance, considering its close bearing on the doctrinal aspects of Christianity, and especially on the divinity of Jesus Christ.2

1 Nicknamed by Epiphanius the Alogi ("AXoyo, irrational), as denying the Logos (Word or Reason) of John i. and Rev. xix. 13, the latter book being also rejected by them. A few such heretics are vaguely referred to by Irenæus. As Cerinthus lived at Ephesus in the end of the 1st century, the ascription of the Gospel to him in the next century by those who were opposed to its teaching is so far a refutation of Eaur's theory that it was written so late as about 170 A.D. As many other sects would have found it equally convenient, for doctrinal purposes, to call in question the authority of the Fourth Gospel, the fact that this course was so seldom resorted to shows how firmly established the Gospel was in the general estimation of the Church. To this we may add, that the absence of any reference in this Gospel to the subjects of controversy in the 2nd century is a strong confirmation of its apostolic origin.

2 The question was raised by Evanson in his Dissonance of the Evangelists in 1792; and the case against the Gospel was elaborately stated by Bretschneider in his Probabilia in 1820. This negative view has been maintained by Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Zeller, Schwegler, Volkmar, Keim, Scholten, Hilgenfeld-but with a growing tendency of recent years to push back the date to the early part of the 2nd century. In the progress of the controversy there has been a frequent shifting of ground on the part of those who deny the genuineness of the Gospelowing partly to the discovery of ancient documents which testify against them (e.g., Tatian's Diatessaron, and Hippolytus' Refutation of Heresies), partly to the collapse of some of their arguments (such as that relating to the Quartodeciman controversy, which has been proved by Schürer and others to rest on a misconception of the Paschal reckoning in the Eastern Church, and

To a large extent the question is overtaken by the line of evidence already indicated in connection with the Gospels as a whole (Chap. II. § 2). Although not quoted by name till late in the 2nd century,1 the external evidence for this Gospel is in some respects stronger than for any of the others. It is specially quoted by such early Gnostic writers as Basilides (125 A.D.), Valentinus (145 A.D., whose favourite phrases were borrowed from its opening verses), and Heracleon (a disciple of Valentinus), who wrote a commentary on it-being the first known commentary on any part of the New Testament.2 It has also to be borne in mind that John himself survived till near the close of the first century, so that a comparatively short interval was left between his death and the time when the four Gospels are known to have been universally accepted by the Church (185 A.D.). For this interval it so happens that, apart from the Gnostic testimony already adduced, we have a direct chain of testimony consisting of a very few strong and wellconnected links. At the lower end of the chain we have Irenæus, one of the most important witnesses to the general reception of the four Gospels towards the close of

that referring to the Saviour's occasional visits to Jerusalem, which they regarded as an invention of the Fourth Gospel but which have been shown to be in themselves probable and in keeping with many things incidentally mentioned in the Synoptics), and partly to the Christological consequences that have been seen to be involved in their acceptance of the Book of Revelation as the work of John,-which was originally part of the Tübingen creed. On the other side are ranged many eminent scholars, such as Meyer, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Luthardt, Godet, Westcott, Lightfoot, and Sanday.

1 By Theophilus in his Ad Autolycum, ii. 22; 180 A.D.

2 Exception has been taken to the argument from the alleged testimony of Basilides aud Valentinus on the ground that Hippolytus, who has preserved it for us in his Refutation of Heresies, does not distinguish between the statements of those teachers them

selves and of their followers. But in some cases this objection is quite untenable, e.g. vii. 22: And this, he says, is what is said in the Gospels: "There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man coming into the world," being an exact quotation of John i. 9. In this connection Matthew Arnold writes: "In general he (i.e. Hippolytus) uses the formula 'according to them' (Kar' avтOús) when he quotes from the school, and the formula, 'he says' (noi), when he gives the dicta of the master. And in this particular case he manifestly quotes the dicta of Basilides, and no one who had not a theory to serve would ever dream of doubting it. Basilides, therefore, about the year 125 of our era, had before him the Fourth Gospel." (God and the Bible, p. 268). From Hippolytus we also learn that this Gospel was known and used by heretical sects still earlier than Basilides, viz., the Ophites or Naasenes and the Peratae.

the second century. Born in Asia Minor, where John spent the last twenty or thirty years of his life, he became Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, which had a close ecclesiastical connection with his native land. Early in life he was brought into familiar contact with Polycarp (born 70 A.D.), a disciple of the Apostle John, who was for more than forty years Bishop of Smyrna, and was martyred 155 A.D. Among other allusions which he makes to Polycarp, he says, in a letter to his friend Florinus (177 A.D.), “I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And whatsoever things he had heard from them about the Lord and about His miracles, Polycarp, as having received them from eyewitnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures."

It is beyond dispute that this Irenæus accepted the fourth Gospel as a genuine work of the Apostle John. Is it credible that he would have done so, if it had not been acknowledged by his teacher Polycarp, who had been a disciple of John? And if it was accepted by Polycarp as a genuine writing, notwithstanding its marked dissimilarity to the other Gospels, what better evidence could we have that John was really its author, and that it was accepted as his, from the very first, by the leaders of the Church in Asia Minor? 1

1 This argument is further strengthened by the fact that not a few quotations from this Gospel are found in the writings of Justin Martyr, who wrote before the middle of the 2nd century, and was well acquainted with the teaching of the Church in Asia Minor, his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew having taken place in Ephesus. Among other apparent quotations from this Gospel, Justin has the following: (1) Referring to Baptism, he says (Apol. i. 61): "For

Christ also said, Except ye be born again, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven ("Av un åvayevνηθῆτε, οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθητε εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν). But that it is impossible for those who have once been born to enter into the wombs of those who brought them forth, is manifest to all" (John iii. 3-5, cf. Matt. xviii. 3). That the want of verbal accuracy in this quotation should not be held to invalidate its testimony is

The following are the principal facts in John's life, and the circumstances under which he is said to have written his Gospel :

The younger son of Zebedee, a Galilæan fisherman who was in a position to have "hired servants," "1 he was a follower of the Baptist before joining Christ's fellowship.2 To his mother Salome, supposed by some to be the sister of the Virgin Mary, who was one of the most devoted followers of Jesus, he and his brother James seem to have been indebted for much of their enthusiasm. They were surnamed by Jesus "Boanerges" (sons of thunder),5 in allusion to the latent fervour and vehemence of their nature, of which we are not without tokens. During Christ's trial and crucifixion John was a close and deeplyinterested observer, receiving a charge from his dying Master to act the part of a son to the bereaved Mary,7

shown by Dr Ezra Abbot, who men-
tions (The Fourth Gospel, p. 35) that of
nine quotations which Jeremy Taylor
makes from this same passage (ver. 5)
not one agrees exactly with the English
version, and only two of them agree
with one another. (2) He frequently
refers to Jesus as the Logos
"made
flesh" or "having become man." (3)
He calls Him "the only begotten to the
Father apparently on the authority
of "the memoirs" (Dial. c. 105, cf.
John i. 14). (4) He attributes to the
Baptist the words, "I am not the
Christ, but the voice of one crying,"
which are found only in the Fourth
Gospel, i. 20, 23.

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1 Mark i. 19, 20.

2 By inference from John i., especially vers. 35-42; (quoted p. 70, note 1); x. 40, 41, &c.

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3 John xix. 25: "But there were standing by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene; cf. Mark xv. 40, "And there were also women beholding from afar; among whom were both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome.'

4 Matt. xx. 20-24: "Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee with her sons, worshipping him, and asking a certain thing of him. And he Isaid unto her, What wouldest thou? She saith unto him, Command that these

my two sons may sit, one on thy right hand, and one on thy left hand, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? They say unto him, We are able.

5 Mark iii. 17.

6 Luke ix. 49-55: "And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us. But Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against you is for you. And

they (Samaritans) did not receive him, because his face was as though he were going to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume them? But he turned, and rebuked them."

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7 John xviii. 15, 16: "And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and SO did another disciple. Now that disciple was known unto the high priest, and entered in with Jesus into the court of the high priest," &c. xix. 25-27: When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold, thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold, thy mother! And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home."

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