Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/367

 late emperor. Among these, John was doubtless included; for the decree was so comprehensive that he could hardly have been excluded from the benefit of its provisions; and to give this view the strongest confirmation, it is specified by the heathen historians of Rome, that this senatorial decree of general recall did not except even those who had been found guilty of religious offenses. Christian writers also, of a respectable antiquity, state distinctly that the apostle John was recalled from Patmos by this decree of Nerva. Some of the early ecclesiastical historians, indeed, have pretended that this persecution against the Christians was suspended by Domitian himself, on some occasion of repentance; but critical examination and a comparison of higher authorities, both sacred and profane, have disproved the notion. The data above-mentioned, therefore, fix the return of John from banishment, in the first year of Nerva, which, according to the most approved chronology, corresponds with A. D. 96. This date is useful also, in affording ground for a reasonable conjecture respecting the comparative age of John. He could not have been near as old as Jesus Christ, since the attainment of the age of ninety-six must imply an extreme of infirmity necessarily accompanying it, unless a miracle of most unparalleled character is supposed; and no one can venture to require belief in a pretended miracle, of which no sacred record bears testimony. If he was, on his return from Patmos, as well as during his residence there, able to produce writings of such power and such clear expression, as those which are generally attributed to these periods, it seems reasonable to suppose that he was many years younger than Jesus Christ. The common Christian era, also, fixing the birth of Christ some years too late, this circumstance will require a still larger subtraction from this number, for the age of John.

HIS GOSPEL.

The united testimony of early writers who allude to this matter, is that John wrote his gospel, long after the completion and circulation of the writings of the three first evangelists. Some early testimony on the subject dates from the end of the second century, and specifies that John, observing that in the other gospels, those things were copiously related which concern the humanity of Christ, wrote a spiritual gospel, at the earnest solicitations of his friends and disciples, to explain in more full detail, the divinity of Christ. This account is certainly accordant with what is observable of the structure and tendency of this gospel;