half of the nineteenth century, has regarded the fourth Gospel as the direct testimony of the Apostle John, i.e. ever since the last quarter of the second century, and at that time there were many who bore distinct and emphatic "testimony" in its favour, as e.g., Theophilus of Antioch; the unknown author of the Muratorian fragment, and especially Irenæus. It will be enough if we dwell for a moment on that of this last named.

According to Professor (now Bishop) Lightfoot, Irenæus bears the most important testimony to the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel, testimony which should be received by us, since Irenæus, he tells us, was an excellent witness to a question of fact. We have already seen, however, that there are some who do not attach so great weight to this testimony as does Dr. Lightfoot.

Irenæus was doubtless a sincere man, who made the assertion in good faith, and his having made it may therefore be accepted as valid evidence that he truly believed the son of Zebedee was the author of the latest of our Canonical Gospels; yet before we rest on his authority, it might be wise to ask a question or two respecting the grounds of his belief.

Was it merely because the book commended itself to his conscience as true, that he concluded it must have been written by an apostle, and that that apostle, from the internal evidence, must have been John? And because it was necessary that the evangelists should number precisely four, that a messenger might

be sent on each of the four winds to the four quarters of the earth? We know that Irenæus was sufficiently credulous and uncritical to argue thus.

We admit he would be a sufficient witness to such a fact as that he had heard Polycarp, or some other elder of the previous generation, declare John to have been the author, if when he heard it he was of full age. But he does not affirm that even in his boyhood

he heard this stated.

Again, does Bishop Lightfoot always accept the testimony of Irenæus as to matters of fact? For “St. Irenæus assures us that all Christians possessed the power of working miracles; that they prophesied, cast out devils, healed the sick, and sometimes even raised the dead; that some who had been thus resuscitated lived for many years among them; and that it would be impossible to reckon the wonderful acts which were daily performed." So writes Mr. Lecky in vol. i. of his "History of European Morals."

Bishop Lightfoot may, if he can, believe all this on the authority of Irenæus, but we cannot follow him in his so doing, nor can we, (while so many weighty reasons present themselves against the Johannine authorship of any portion of the New Testament,) because of the assertion of that good. man, accept the fourth Gospel as from the pen of the Apostle John, notwithstanding that Irenæus, when a boy, listened to the aged Polycarp, who had in his youth been a disciple of a certain "John, the disciple of the Lord."

For Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, near Ephesus in Phrygia, a contemporary of Polycarp, also knew of a “John, the disciple of the Lord," and knew, moreover, that he was not the apostle, but John the Presbyter, the apostle having been long dead.

We need not, then, like Irenæus, make the mistake of supposing Polycarp to have ever seen or heard the Apostle John; and even if he had, though it might prove the great age of that apostle, which now rests on no sure ground, it would yet go a very little way as evidence that he was the author of the Gospel attributed to him.

Keim discusses this question of the two Johns at great length, devoting to it six or seven pages,* and concludes by saying, “We have in the foregoing discussion dismissed one of the two Johns" (that is, from the theatre of Asia Minor, and the time of the youth of Papias and of Polycarp), “and it remains to be seen whether any one will venture to resuscitate him, and to make fresh misuse of the text of Papias." +

Assuming it, then, as sufficiently proved that the

*"Jesus of Nazara," vol. i. pp. 214–221.

†This notable text of Papias is thus given in "Supernatural Religion," vol. i. p. 445: “If it happened that any one came who followed the Presbyters, I inquired minutely after the words of the Presbyters, what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas, or James, or what John, or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the Presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say, for I held that what was to be derived from books was not so profitable as that from the living and abiding voice." The two Johns here mentioned by Papias were confounded by Irenæus into one, but Eusebius knew that Papias spoke of two, and Keim gives many traces of two Johns as known to some of the ancients.

fourth Gospel was not written till after the first quarter of the second century, and therefore not by the Apostle John, we shall next try, if it be possible, to conceive the state of mind of the writer, as one who wrote in sincerity and truth.

There can be no doubt that the author was familiar with the prevalent philosophy of the East. He has indeed been termed the Apostle of Philosophy, and a philosophy that commends itself to the lovers of Plato.

We have seen that Professor Plumptre supposed him to have become acquainted through Apollos with some of the ideas of Philo the Alexandrian, and although we cannot be sure of the channel by which the Philonian notions reached our author, we may be allowed to assume that, in all probability, he was directly or indirectly to some extent influenced by them.*

Philo, as is well known, was a philosophic Jew of Alexandria, who flourished in the first century, and who, being imbued with Greek culture and the love of it, endeavoured to read the Hebrew Scriptures in a Platonic sense; and as the law, literally understood, but ill accorded with the sublime speculations of the

* Canon Kingsley was also emphatically of the same opinion. Thus :"One can hardly doubt, I should fancy, that many parts of St. John's Gospels and Epistles, whatever view we may take of them, if they are to be called anything, are to be called metaphysic and philosophic. And one can no more doubt that before writing them he had studied Philo, and was expanding Philo's thought in the direction which seemed fit to him, than we can doubt it of the earlier Neoplatonists." ("Historical Lectures and Essays," p. 70.)

Greek philosopher, Philo looked beneath the literal sense for a deeply hidden spiritual meaning adapted for his purpose, and thus was led to allegorize the Old Testament so as entirely to transform its purport and signification.

Many writers of the present generation have brought Philo prominently before their readers, in order to account for the wide-spreading Christology, which at length found a new and lasting expression in the fourth Gospel. If we look at a few of the phrases thus brought to our notice, we shall at once see the possibility, nay, the probability of the connection between Philo and the evolution of dogmatic Christianity.

According to De Pressensé, Philo affirms that, as God cannot come into direct contact with matter, he uses as media the ideas or powers which emanate from himself, and which form in combination "the World of the Word." "Philo ascribes to this Word the most eminent attributes, calls him the Son of God."*

The author of "Supernatural Religion" gives us many striking quotations from Philo respecting "the Eternal Logos." "The Word is the likeness of God, by which the universe was created." "And they who inquire what nourishes the soul. . . learn at last that it is the Word of God, and the Divine Reason. This is the heavenly nourishment to which the Holy Scripture refers . . . saying, 'Lo, I rain upon you bread from heaven.'" Philo represents the Word as