JOHN
THE
APOSTLE
as
a
boy
he
had
listened
to
'
the
blessed
Pblycarp,'
and
had
heard
'
the
accounts
which
he
gave
of
his
intercourse
with
John
and
with
the
others
who
had
seen
the
Lord.'
And
lest
his
memory
should
be
discredited,
he
tells
his
correspondent
that
he
remembers
the
events
of
that
early
time
more
clearly
than
those
of
recent
years;
'for
what
boys
learn,
growing
with
their
mind,
becomes
joined
with
it.'
It
is
incredible
that
a
writer
brought
so
near
to
the
very
person
of
John,
and
having
heard
his
words
through
only
one
intermediary,
should
have
been
entirely
in
error
concerning
his
ministry
in
Asia.
Polyc-rates,
again,
a
bishop
of
the
city
in
which
St.
John
had
long
resided
and
laboured,
wrote
of
his
ministry
there
after
an
interval
not
longer
than
that
which
separates
our
own
time
from
(say)
the
passing
of
the
Reform
Bill
of
1832
or
the
battle
of
Waterloo.
His
testimony
obviously
is
not
that
of
himself
alone,
it
must
represent
that
of
the
whole
Ephesian
Church;
and
what
Irenasus
remembered
as
a
boy
others
of
the
same
generation
must
have
remembered
according
to
their
opportunities
of
knowledge.
The
explicit
testimony
of
three
writers
Uke
Polycrates,
Irensus,
and
Clement
of
Alexandria
carries
with
it
the
implicit
testimony
of
a
whole
genera-tion
of
Christians
extending
over
a
very
wide
geographic
area.
The
silence
of
others
notwithstanding,
it
is
hardly'
credible
that
these
should
have
been
mistaken
on
a
matter
of
so
much
importance.
The
theory
that
confusion
had
arisen
between
John
the
Apostle
and
a
certain
'John
the
Elder'
is
discussed
in
a
subsequent
article
(see
p.
483),
but
it
would
seem
impossible
that
a
mistake
on
such
a
subject
could
be
made
in
the
minds
of
those
who
were
divided
from
the
events
themselves
by
so
narrow
an
interval
as
that
of
two,
or
at
most
three,
generations.
3.
Later
traditions.
—
It
is
only,
however,
as
regards
the
main
facts
of
history
that
the
testimony
of
the
2nd
cent,
may
be
thus
confidently
reUed
on.
Stories
of
doubtful
authenticity
would
gather
round
an
honoured
name
in
a
far
shorter
period
than
seventy
or
eighty
years.
Some
of
these
legends
may
well
be
true,
others
probably
contain
an
element
of
truth,
whilst
others
are
the
result
of
mistake
or
the
product
of
piousimagination.
They
are
valuable
chiefly
as
showing
the
directions
in
which
tradition
travelled,
and
we
need
not
draw
on
any
of
the
interesting
myths
of
later
days
in
order
to
form
a
judgment
on
the
person
and
character
of
John
the
Apostle,
especially
if
he
was
in
addition,
as
the
Church
has
so
long
believed,
St.
John
the
Evangehst.
A
near
kinsman
of
Jesus,
a
youth
in
his
early
disciple-ship,
eager
and
vehement
in
his
affection
and
at
first
full
of
ill-instructed
ambitions
and
still
undisciplined
zeal,
John
the
son
of
Zebedee
was
regarded
by
his
Master
with
a
peculiar
personal
tenderness,
and
was
fashioned
by
that
transforming
affection
into
an
Apostle
of
excep-tional
insight
and
spiritual
power.
Only
the
disciple
whom
Jesus
loved
could
become
the
Apostle
of
love.
Only
a
minute
and
delicate
personal
knowledge
of
Him
who
was
Son
of
Man
and
Son
of
God,
combined
with
a
sensitive
and
ardent
natural
temperament
and
the
spiritual
maturity
attained
by
long
experience
and
patient
brooding
meditation
on
what
he
had
seen
and
heard
long
before,
could
have
produced
such
a
picture
of
the
Saviour
of
the
world
as
is
presented
in
the
Fourth
Gospel.
The
very
silence
of
John
the
Apostle
in
the
narratives
of
the
Gospels
and
the
Acts
is
significant.
He
moved
in
the
innermost
circle
of
the
disciples,
yet
seldom
opened
his
lips.
His
recorded
utterances
could
all
be
compressed
into
a
few
lines.
Yet
he
ardently
loved
and
was
beloved
by
his
Master,
and
after
He
was
gone
it
was
given
to
the
beloved
disciple
to
'tarry'
rather
than
to
speak,
or
toil,
or
suffer,
so
that
at
the
last
he
might
write
that
which
should
move
a
world
and
live
in
the
hearts
of
untold
generations.
The
most
Christ-
Uke
of
the
Apostles
has
left
this
legacy
to
the
Church
—
that
without
him
it
could
not
have
adequately
known
its
Lord.
W.
T.
Davison.
JOHN,
GOSPEL
OF
JOHN,
GOSPEL
OF.—
Introductarv.—
The
Fourth
Gospel
is
unique
among
the
books
of
the
NT.
In
its
combination
of
minute
historical
detail
with
lofty
spiritual
teaching,
in
its
testimony
to
the
Person
and
work
of
the
Lord
Jesus
Christ,
and
in
the
preparation
it
makes
for
the
foundations
of
Christian
doctrine,
it
stands
alone.
Its
influence
upon
the
thought
and
Ufe
of
the
Christian
Church
has
been
proportionately
deep
and
far-reaching.
It
is
no
disparagement
of
other
inspired
Scriptures
to
say
that
no
other
book
of
the
Bible
has
left
such
a
mark
at
the
same
time
upon
the
prof
oundest
Christian
thinkers,
and
upon
simple-minded
beUevers
at
large.
A
decision
as
to
its
cnaracter,
authenticity,
and
trustworthiness
is
cardinal
to
the
Christian
religion.
In
many
cases
authorsnip
is
a
matter
of
comparatively
secondary
importance
in
the
interpretation
of
a
document,
and
in
the
determination
of
its
significance;
in
this
instance
it
is
vital.
That
statement
is
quite
consistent
with
two
other
important
considerations.
(1)
We
are
not
dependent
on
the
Fourth
Gospel
for
the
facts
on
which
Christianity
is
based,
or
for
the
fundamental
doctrines
of
the
Person
and
work
of
Christ.
The
Synoptic
Gospels
and
St.
Paul's
Epistles
are
more
than
su£Bcient
to
establish
the
basis
of
the
Christian
faith,
which
on
any
hypothesis
must
have
spread
over
a
large
part
of
the
Roman
Empire
before
this
book
was
written.
(2)
On
any
theory
of
authorship,
the
document
in
question
is
of
great
sig-nifloance
and
value
in
the
history
of
the
Church.
Those
who
do
not
accept
it
as
a
'
Gospel
'
have
still
to
reckon
with
the
fact
of
its
composition,
and
to
take
account
of
its
presence
in
and
Influence
upon
the
Church
of
the
2nd
century.
But
when
these
allowances
have
been
made,
it
is
clearly
a
matter
of
the
very
first
importance
whether
the
Fourth
Gospel
is,
on
the
one
hand,
the
work
of
an
eye-witness,
belonging
to
the
innermost
circle
of
Jesus'
disciples,
who
after
a
long
interval
wrote
a
trustworthy
record
of
what
he
had
heard
and
seen,
interpreted
through
the
mellowing
medium
of
half
a
century
of
Christian
experience
and
service;
or,
on
the
other,
a
treatise
of
speculative
theology
cast
into
the
form
of
an
imaginative
biography
of
Jesus,
dating
from
the
second
or
third
decade
of
the
2nd
cent.,
and
testifying
only
to
the
form
which
the
new
reUgion
was
taking
under
the
widely
altered
circumstances
of
a
rapidly
developing
Church.
Such
a
question
as
this
is
not
of
secondary
but
of
primary
importance
at
any
time,
and
the
critical
controversies
of
recent
years
make
a
decision
upon
it
to
be
crucial.
It
is
impossible
here
to
survey
the
history
of
criticism,
but
it
is
desirable
to
say
a
few
words
upon
it.
According
to
a
universally
accepted
tradition,
extending
from
the
third
quarter
of
the
2nd
cent,
to
the
beginning
of
the
19th,
John
the
Apostle,
the
son
of
Zebedee,
was
held
to
be
the
author
of
the
Gospel,
the
three
Epistles
that
went
by
his
name,
and
the
Apocalypse.
This
tradition,
so
far
as
the
Gospel
was
concerned,
was
un-broken
and
almost
unchallenged,
the
one
exception
being
formed
by
an
obscure
and
doubtful
sect,
or
class
of
unbelievers,
called
Alogl
by
Epiphanius,
who
attrib-uted
the
Gospel
and
the
Apocalypse
to
CerinthusI
From
the
beginning
of
the
19th
cent.,
however,
and
especially
after
the
publication
of
Bretschneider's
Pro-babilia
in
1820,
an
almost
incessant
conflict
has
been
waged
between
the
traditional
belief
and
hypotheses
which
in
more
or
less
modified
form
attribute
the
Gospel
to
an
Ephesian
elder
or
an
Alexandrian
Christian
philos-opher
belonging
to
the
first
half
of
the
2nd
century.
Baur
of
Tubingen,
in
whose
theories
of
doctrinal
develop-ment
this
document
held
an
important
place,
fixed
its
date
about
a.d.
170,
but
this
view
has
long
been
given
up
as
untenable.
Keim,
who
argued
strongly
against
the
Johannine
authorship,
at
first
adopted
the
date
A.D.
100-115,
but
afterwards
regarded
a.d.
130
as
more
probable.
During
the
last
fifty
years
the
