Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/275

* JOHN. 249 JOHN. has seen has testified, and his testimony is true . . . in order that ye may believe;'' and in the appendix (xxi. 24) we find a brief notice by another hand, that "this is the disciple who testifieth [present participle] of these things and who wrote [aorist participle] these things." It appears, then, that the work claims to be derived cither wholly or in part from written records of an eye-witness. From the last citation it is evident that the claim is that the disciple men- tioned in the immediately preceding section (xxi. 15 sqq.), i.e. the disciple whom .Jesus loved, is the witness and recorder referred to. That is, the Gospel proper, which closes with xx. 31, and the additional narrative of xxi. 1-23, were derived from the written and oral testimony of this dis- ciple. Who was this disciple? While we find that he is nowhere named in the Gospel, we do find this remarkable peculiarity — that a certain prominent disciple, about whom the writer knows a great deal and with the details of whose life he is very familiar, is often referred to. but never bj" name. Ihh disciple, with his brother, was one of the first to attach himself to .Jesus (i. 35 sqq.), having previously been a disciple of .John the Baptist. He became the most loved by .Jesus of all His followers, had the place of honor at the Supper, was a witness of His Passion, and was intrusted by Jesus with the care of His mother. But. though so prominent, he is always spoken of as 'that other disciple,' 'the disciple whom .Jesus loved.' or by a similar expression. Yet the writer is not thus reticent about other persons. In fact, he delights in detailed mention of names of persons and places. We know from the Synoptic lecord that the three disciples who stand closest to Jesus were Peter, .James, and John. How is it, then, that the two brothers, .James and .John, are never named in the fourth Gospel, while the names of other disciples are freely used ? It is evident that 'that other disciple' means either James or John, and since James suffered martyr- dom quite early (Acts xii. 1, 2). the only person whose known history satisfies all the conditions of the problem is John, son of Zebedee. disciple and Apostle, one of the 'pillars' of the early Church (cf. Gal. ii. 9). Such then is the evi- dence and claim of the Gospel itself, that, either altogether or to a large extent, it is derived from the written record of the Apostle John. Turning now from the Gospel to the records of the early Church, the facts are these: Writers of the period 170-200 show great familiarity with the Gospel, quoting it frequently and often speak- ing of John the Apostle as the author. In addi- tion to this there are several explicit statements of importance. Irenaeus (c. 130-200), whose early home was in Asia Minor, declares that it was by John the Apostle, who spent his last years in Ephesus and there wrote the Gospel to counteract the teachings of Cerinthus (Adv. Ewr. ii. 22. 5; iii. 1, 1: iii. 4 and xi. 1). (See Cerix- THts.) Polycrates. a bishop of Ephesus. in a letter to Victor of Rome. c.lOO, speaks of .John, 'who reclined on the breast of the Lord.' as buried in Ephesus. Polycarp (born or converted about A.D. 69. martyred 155). Bishop of Smyrna, was known to Irenaeus, who as a youth heard him tell of his intercourse with .John and others who had seen .Jesus (Euseb., Hint. Eccles.. v. 20). In such statements we have the testimony of personal experiences carrying tis back to John himself. Justin Martyr, writing c.l50, who had already spent some time in Ephesus, uses the Gospel as one of the Apostolic memoirs, but says nothing about it in particular. Evidence for the existence and use of the Gospel before .Justin is not entirely lacking, though not altogether certain. It is likely that it was known to Ignatius of Antioeh (c.110-115), to the writer of the Epistle to Bar- nabas (c.125) and to the earlj- Gnostic Basilides (c.125). External evidence then quite clearly points to the existence of the Gospel soon after A.D. 100, assigns it to John, and indicates Ephesus as the place where it was written. It must be admitted, however, that this evidence is not alto- gether satisfactory. Papias of Hieropolis in Asia Minor (c.70-140), author of a work contain- ing early Christian traditions from which Euse- bius has given extracts, speaks apparently of a certain .John the Elder, in distinction from John the Apostle, also a disciple of Jesus, as a promi- nent Christian in Asia Minor. Furthermore, Ignatius, in his letters to Asia ilinor Christians, does not mention .John the Apostle as influential in Asia, nor does Polycarp, in his epistle that has come down to tis. Tliis silence is surprising, especialh' in view of Irenoeus's statement that Polycarp loved to talk about .John, yet it does not seem to be sufficient to overthrow the strong positive evidence mentioned above. The general bearing of the evidence of the Gospel itself, coupled with the exlernal testimony, is therefore to the effect that the fourth Gospel was written by the Apostle John, late in life, at Ephesus in Asia Minor. Nevertheless, by some modem critics this view is pronounced untenable. The more important leasons for such an opinion are: (1) The charac- ter of the teachings in the fourth Gospel and the representation there given of Jesus' life and words are, on the one hand, so different from what we have in the first three Gospels, and, on the other hand, fit in so well with the doctrinal developments of the first half of the second cen- tury, that it seems necessary, apart from the question of authorship, to consider it a product of early second-century thought. Such a position practically necessitates giving up the .Johannine authorship. (2) The evident use made of the Synoptic Gospels by the fourth does not accord with Apostolic authorship of the latter. (3) The vagueness in the recorded tradition of Asia ^Minor makes it possible that it was .John 'the Elder,' rather than John the Apostle, who worked there, and that soon after his death, by an easy con- fusion, much of his activity was ascribed to .John the Apostle, who may not have lived in Ephesus at all. (4) Certain particulars in the history of Christianity in Asia Jlinor. especially the appeal of Polycarp to the authority of .John in the Quar- todeciman controversy, which is said to contra- dict the statements in the Gospel, show that early in the second century the Gospel was not recog- nized in that region as of Apostolic origin. The two latter of these arguments rest on such uncertain grounds that much weight should not be attached to them. The Quartodeeiman contro- versy in its early stages was concerned with the question of the proper time to begin the observ- ance of Easter, the Christian Passover, and did not touch the question of the particular day of the month when .Jesus ate the last supper. Polycarp claimed that John had taught them to celebrate the Passover regularly on the 14th of Xisan, the usual .Jewish day. Even if, with many, we should hold that the fourth Gospel places the last sup-