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YALE UNIVERSITY
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THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

IS OUR FOURTH GOSPEL GENUINE?

AN ESSAY

REV. ASHER H. WILCOX,
Before the New London County Association of Congregational Ministers, at the Norwich Town Chapel,
March nth, 1902.

Printed by Vote of the Association.

NEW LONDON, CONN.:
Bingham Paper Box Company, Printers.
1902.

Me Divinity Lmrary
xNeiw Haven, Conn.

NOTE.
The following Essay was written to be read in a
circle of friends and Christian brethren, with no thought
of publication. It is printed — not published — at then-
request, on the ground that it might be of service to
them to have it in a convenient and accessible form.
For this mark of their esteem and confidence the
writer wishes to express his thanks and grateful appre
ciation.
A. H. W.

Is Our Fourth Gospel Genuine?
My contention in this essay is that our Fourth Gospel was not written by John,
the son of Zebedee,— a fisherman till near middle life,— an " unlearned and ignor
ant man," according to Acts 4:13. On the contrary, its author was profoundly
versed in the Alexandrian philosophy and a writer of much literary skill, accord
ing to a certain fashion of his day.
Though using a framework of real history on which to exhibit his thought,
his main object was not history but theology. Hence he was always indifferent,
— sometimes ignorant, — about historic details. His chief aim was to prove that
Jesus of Nazareth was the Divine Logos, and hence the true Light and Life of
the world. The gospel shows that its author was a man illuminated by the Holy
Ghost, and deeply appreciative of the true mind of Christ. Hence, though not
genuine, the gospel is authentic — filled, that is, with such Christian truth as the
beloved disciple would have sanctioned, and perhaps did, to some extent; though
this last is doubtful.
It will aid us in our inquiry if we begin by noticing that from A. D. 75 to A.
D. 175 the practice of gospel writing was as common as historical novel writing is
now. The sources of these gospels were the oral and written traditions which
were in circulation before the destruction of Jerusalem. Mark is said to have
based his gospel mainly on memoranda of Peter's preaching. The author of our
Matthew wrote in Greek, but drew much from the papyrus " Logia" of Matthew
the disciple, as well as from other sources. Luke expressly refers to " many "
who had written gospels which he thought he could improve upon. Papias,
c. 125 A. D., did not value any gospel-books much, but took great pains to
inquire what the disciples had said. Many of the Gnostics prepared gospels
according to their own notions. Marcion, in particular, finally rejected all the
gospels except " Luke,'' and this he mutilated and worked over into the gospel
according to Marcion, c. 140 A. D. So Basilides and Valentinus wrote gospel-
books of their own, and Justin Martyr's quotations, c. 150 A. D., show that he
used "gospels" unknown to us. His pupil, Tatian, c. 165 A. D., had no hesita
tion about making such selections from Matthew, Mark and Luke as suited him,
and fusing these with about 95 per cent, of our Fourth Gospel, calling the result
Diatessaron (The Gospel by Four). The Alogi, so called because they did not
^believe and did not like the Logos doctrine, promptly rejected the whole of the
• Fourth Gospel, c. 170 A. D., though they were orthodox in other respects. We
^still have a large number of these spurious gospels, either fragmentary or entire.
> Most of them deal chiefly either with the Nativity or the Crucifixion; e. g., there
were the Gospel of Peter, of James, of Thomas, of Cerinthus, of the Nazarenes,
of Pseudo-Matthew, the Arabic Gospel, the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
and many others.
Another fact to be borne in mind is the readiness with which these " gospels "
were at first accepted and used in the churches. And, not only books called
" gospels," but many other strange and half mystical writings. So keen a scholar
as Clement of Alexandria used the Acts of John, the Traditions of Matthias, and

Basilides, who flourished at Alexandria about 125 A. D., certainly seems to
quote John 1 : 9 and 2 : 4, " The light which lighteth every man " and " Woman,
what have I to do with thee." (cf. Sanday. Inspiration, p. 308.) Of course this is
disputed, but hardly with success. Among many gospels known to Basilides is
one from Ephesus purporting to be " according to John." He thinks he can
make it support his Gnostic views. Far be it from him, then, to discriminate
between "according to John" and "by" John. Doubtless, he would say, it is
written by the Beloved Disciple. And this, which Basilides might say from inter
ested motives, others, both Gnostics and Orthodox, would say from carelessness.
Only a little later Valentinus, the most brilliant of all the Gnostics, becomes
prominent. He, too, originated in, or near, Alexandria but taught at Rome, was
excommunicated there for heresy, and probably died in Cyprus. It is stoutly
asserted that he, too, was acquainted with our Fourth Gospel.
But if Basilides and Valentinus really did make use of the Fourth Gospel
and did ascribe it to St. John, why is not their evidence conclusive? There are
two objections. First, they were interested parties, as has been seen. They
thought the Fourth Gospel lent some support to their theories. Hence, if a
tradition was floating in their time that this gospel was " according to John," they
would endorse and reiterate it.
Because of this eagerness for apostolic sanction, Basilides claimed that he
had been taught Christianity by Glaucias, a disciple of St. Luke, and Valentinus
that he had learned it from Theudades, a disciple of St. Paul. Such men, then,
would eagerly endorse any rumor that the Fourth Gospel was " according to
John," never inquiring closely, but adding without hesitation the assertion that
it was written by John, the Beloved Disciple.
The fact that Heracleon, a disciple of Valentinus, ascribed the Fourth Gospel
to John, wrote a commentary on it, perhaps not later than 165 A. D., tends to
confirm the above view. It had become a great book with the Gnostics. They
asserted that it was by the Apostle, praised it, studied it, wrote about it. Thus they
contributed greatly to the spread of the belief, which the Orthodox also wished
to cherish, and which became prevalent by 175 A. D.
2. We come now to the church fathers, Papias and Polycarp. We remark,
secondly, that their absolute silence about the Fourth Gospel, at the very time when
the Gnostics were making much of it is almost proof positive that it was not written
by the Beloved Disciple. They were a little earlier, but largely contemporary,
with Basilides and Valentinus. Papias was Bishop of Hierapolis, only about one
hundred miles from Ephesus. Irenseus says he was a pupil of St. John, but this
is probably one instance among many of Irenseus's carelessness. Papias himself
says : " I took pains to learn from the lips of anyone who had been a follower
of the Elders. I inquired for the words of tbe Elders, what Andrew or what
Peter said * * * or what John said." This certainly shows that Papias had never
himself heard John. By the " Elders" he evidently means those who had heard
John and Andrew and other Apostles. He was probably born not long before
St. John's death,— roughly estimating — about 85 or 90 A. D. Hence by 125
A. D. he would be of an age to be collecting materials for his writings, investiga
ting, inquiring of old men who had been hearers of John ; eagerly questioning, to
learn from such John's very words.

Now the point is this — though Papias quotes from Matthew and Mark —
though he takes pains to state that the Apocalypse was by John, he never even
mentions the Fourth Gospel ! Basilides and Valentinus, at this time, were
making much of it, but from Papias, a Christian bishop, only one hundred miles
from Ephesus, a professed inquirer for information about the words of John, not
one syllable about this Gospel I It is true that Eusebius reports that Papias used
the i st Epistle of John. Upon so frail a thread Harnack would hang the weighty
conclusion that, therefore, he must have known the Fourth Gospel also. It is
much more probable that Papias quoted some oral saying similar to one recorded
in ist John, and that Eusebius was thus misled. Those familiar with the difficulty
of proving that even Justin Martyr used our Fourth Gospel, though he seems to
quote it frequently, will hardly depend upon Eusebius here.
In any case one of two things is clear : Either Papias was not acquainted
with the Fourth Gospel, or else he knew that it was not written by the apostle.
I think the latter alternative is the true one. The book was in existence. It was
already used and heralded by the Gnostics as the work of John. But Papias, a
Christian bishop, having his Episcopal seat only about as far from Ephesus as
Norwich is from Andover, — perfectly informed about the Ephesian church
and its history, knew that this gospel was not the work of the Beloved Disciple.
Basilides, far away in Alexandria, or Valentinus in Rome or Cyprus, might
cunningly and plausibly claim that it was, but Papias knew that it was not. If it
had been written by John, an eyewitness of the life of Jesus, then Papias, willy
nilly, would have accepted the book and made much of it. But, because he had
special knowledge, having in all probability been often in Ephesus himself, that it
was not written by St. John, and because the book was not much to his taste, he
being as Eusebius asserts "a man of inferior (unphilosophical?) intellect,"
Papias felt free to ignore it.
3. The same line of reasoning applies with even greatei force to Polycarp.
He was born, probably, about twenty years before Papias, c. 69 A. D. We will
suppose that for once Irenaeus is correct, and that Polycarp was a pupil of
St. John at Ephesus. True, there is grave reason to doubt even this, but let us
concede it. Let us admit, too, that he grew up in the Christian circle there, com
posed of Andrew, Thomas, John, Aristion, and John the Elder. He left Ephesus
to become Bishop of Smyrna, fifty miles away. It is not impossible that John
was present at his installation and took part in it. Now, if John had written the
Fourth Gospel, who would have known the fact better than Polycarp — living the
earlier part of his life in Ephesus and the latter part at Smyrna, only about as far
away as New London from New Haven ? Who would have quoted this gospel
more frequently? — or boasted of it oftener? — this "spiritual gospel," this
"supplement" to the synoptic teaching, this marvellous book by his own beloved
friend and master.
Yet, though Polycarp quotes Paul often, Matthew and Mark some, and also
Peter, he quotes, or even alludes to, the Fourth Gospel — never 1 We still have a
letter which, it is said, he wrote to the church at Philippi. Yet in this he never
so much as hints at any gospel by or " according to " John ! Harnack urges that
Polycarp quotes from the Epistles of John. But in the passages adduced the
verbal coincidence is not close enough to make even this certain. If, however,

it were so, then Polycarp's silence about the Gospel would be even more amaz
ing, as the former would naturally suggest the latter, so abounding in thoughts
suitable for the edification of the Philippians, (cp. Bleek, Einleitung, p. 234). It is
certain, too, that the Fourth Gospel was in existence long before Polycarp died
<c. 155 A. D.). How then explain his silence about it? Just as we did Papias's.
Polycarp knew the Gospel, and knew that it was not by John. He knew that it
was written by some speculative thinker who had been a pupil of John, a
pupil with whom, perhaps, Polycarp had been personally acquainted, but whose
representation of Christian doctrine he did not quite understand or like. Still,
because the book was written by a pupil of John, because it was highly valued by
some of the Elders of the church at Ephesus, Polycarp would not oppose it. He
simply ignored it, as Papias did. They had enough to do in their own sees. They
were practical rather than speculative theologians. They would not meddle with
affairs at Ephesus nor with the subtleties of the doctrine of the Logos. They felt
about this book much as many divines feel now about McGiffert's " History of
Christianity in the Apostolic Age," or Bacon's " Introduction to the New Testa
ment," *'. c, the less said about it the better.
4. But we have not done with Polycarp yet. It may be thought that he
fails to refer to the Fourth Gospel because, so far as we know, he had no special
occasion to do this. It remains, therefore, to show that he feels free to ignore it
in a controversy, where it flatly contradicts the view which he asserted. In the
discussion between Polycarp and Anicetus, Bishop (or " Pope " ) of Rome, con
cerning the celebration of Easter, Polycarp affirmed that the Asia Minor churches
"guided by a more ancient tradition supposed that they ought to keep the 14th
day of the moon as a festival of the passover of salvation," and — here is the sur
prising thing — not only did he appeal to this ancient tradition and usage of the
Asia Minor churches, but to the practice of John himself, his former teacher. That
is, during John's activity in Asia Minor, from c. 75 — 100 A. D., it was his custom,
according to Polycarp, his friend, pupil, and ecclesiastical neighbor, to com
memorate the Last Supper on the 14th of the month at the time of the paschal
supper. But according to the Fourth Gospel the last supper of Jesus was on the
evening before the paschal supper — the evening of the 13th of the month. If,
therefore, John wrote the Fourth Gospel, he wrote contrary to his own practice.
Would he do such a thing as that ? Would he for a period of twenty-five years
commemorate the Last Supper at a time when it did not occur, according to his
book? No, he did not write the book. The clincher of this argument is that
neither Polycarp nor Anicetus take any notice of the Fourth Gospel in their
discussion. Polycarp is at no pains to explain why it contradicts his view, nor does
Anicetus quote it against him. Yet both must have known the book by this time.
This visit of Polycarp to Rome was c. A. D. 153. Not many years later Heracleon
wrote his commentary on this Gospel, and Tatian incorporated a great part of it
with portions of Matthew, Mark and Luke in his Diatessaron. There is only one
explanation of the silence of Polycarp and Anicetus. Both knew the book and
knew that it was not written by St. John, and they knew that it was not written as
history but theology.
The conclusion, then, from the external evidence, is that the Fourth Gospel
was published as early as no or 115 A. D. If Basilides used it about 125 A. D.,

as far from Ephesus as Alexandria, it had already been in the hands of a few, ten
or fifteen years at least. That it was written at Ephesus is likely, because all the
traditions point thither as the place of its composition. But, had it been written
by St. John himself, it is simply impossible that Papias and Polycarp should not
have made free and frequent use of it ; which they certainly did not. Of course,
defenders of the Johannine authorship may insist that these two bishops did quote
this gospel often, but that their quotations have not come down to us. So, some
future scribe might say that St. John frequently attended the meetings of this
Association, but, unfortunately, the records of his visits were lost. We must
reason from what we know, not from what we can fancy. In both the cases sup
posed, what we know makes it probable, well nigh to certainty, that such quota
tions and such visits never had existence, except in the imagination of such as
would like to believe in them. .,
But how, it will be asked, could a book, ignored by such men as Papias and •
Polycarp, become generally accepted by 175 A. D. ? The main answer is the •
same as in the case of all N. T. books : it won on its merits. Fortunately, there
have always been in the church not only the prosaic and practical minds but also
the speculative and philosophical. We have seen how the book appealed to such
among the Gnostics, and how from interest they welcomed it as the work of the ¦
Apostle. So, in orthodox circles, such a book would appeal to this same class of
minds. These would rightly see, also, that it lent no real support to Gnosticism ; .
that even its careless historical frame-work contained some traditions which must : ¦
have come from an eye-witness, and that its exposition of the Logos, the Mind of
Christ, surpassed all others. Such men would not greatly care whether it was
written " by " John or " according to John." They would prize the book for ;
itself. They would read from it, preach from it, and pray from it, and the sub- ,|
stance of the book would make its own appeal, as it has in every age. Hence .\
this Gospel found admirers not only at first among the Elders at Ephesus, who .
knew that it was not written by John, but in every church, as it always will.
Hence it is no wonder that in three-quarters of a century it had secured the
approval of the general Christian consciousness and taken its place as one of the. .
four great versions of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth.
II. Let us turn now to the internal evidence — to that which is found in the
character of the book itself.
The attempt is sometimes made to discredit internal evidence as too much
dependent on the prejudices of the inquirer. Yet we rely on it confidently in all ,;
affairs of life. By it we know oak from pine, wool from cotton, a sermon by ,,
Beecher from one by Talmadge ; one portion of the Homeric poems from other : .
portions by various poets, though all have been welded together and ascribed to .'.
one Homer. In considering the internal evidence concerning the Fourth Gospel, time.,
compels me to pass by many strong arguments against the Johannine authorship ,.,
with bare mention. Such are: 1, small mistakes about Palestinian geography •
("Bethany beyond Jordan"), history ("high priest that year"), and ceremonial 1
law (" defiled "), which John could not have made ; 2, the frequent references to, , 1
"the Jews," "your law," "your father the devil," as though they were foreigners
to the writer; 3, the good Greek, better than Paul's, though he was born pf ,

Greek speaking Jews and had been a student in his youth; 4, the literary style,
abstract, abstruse, artificial, yet fresh and vigorous, such as no very old man would
write; and, 5, the apocryphal sound of many minor incidents, e. g. that a band
of Roman soldiers fell to the ground (Chamai) in Gethsemane at the mere ap
pearance of Jesus, that 100 lbs. of ointment was brought by Nicodemus to embalm
the body— enough to embalm a dozen,— and that he passed through closed doors,
a text very dear to modern spiritualists. The more we dwell upon any one of the
above five arguments, the more difficult it becomes to regard the book as written
by the Apostle John, or as history merely. And this, not as is sometimes falsely
charged, because supernatural events are recorded, but because of the way in
which they are narrated.
There are, however, six other facts of internal evidence which demand a
more prolonged consideration.
1. We begin with the fact that the Fourth Gospel flatly contradicts the other
three. It contradicts them about the hour of the Crucifixion. In Matt. 27:45,
the Crucifixion is over, Jesus is hanging on the cross and has been mocked by
those passing by, and then, at noon, "the sixth hour," the darkness begins. So
in Lk. 23:44; and Mk. 15: 23 expressly says "It was 'the third hour,'" i.e., 9
o'clock, "and they crucified him." But in Jn. 19:19, Pilate does not ascend the
Judgment Seat at Gabbatha until noon, "the sixth hour." Is it said this is a mere
detail? But it is significant. Would Matthew and Peter, in our Mark, forget that
the Crucifixion was not until noon? Would Luke, who culled from the narratives
of " many " be mistaken here ? Is it likely in itself that the Crucifixion would be
postponed until the middle of the day? The overwhelming probability is that
these three gospels are correct and the fourth inaccurate about the hour of the
Crucifixion. But would the Beloved Disciple, of all others, forget or falsify on
such a point ? No. He never wrote it.
Again, tbe Fourth Gospel contradicts the other gospels about the time of the
Last Supper. Mt. 26 : 20 says : "They made ready the passover." Mk. 14: 16
says : " They made ready the passover." In Lk. 22 : 1 5, Jesus at the table says:
"With desire I have desired to eat this passover." But the Fourth Gospel, con
trary to all this, says, 13:1, that Jesus ate the Last Supper " before the feast of the
passover." So in 18: 28, it says that the next morning the Jews would not enter
Pilate's palace, " that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover."
Now this is surprising. According to the Synoptics the passover was taten the
night before ; according to the Fourth Gospel the time for the passover had not yet
arrived. Volumes have been written to harmonize this square contradiction, but
the best of even conservative scholars now confess that it is impossible. But,
again, would not the Beloved Disciple know whether his Lord was arrested before
or after the passover? Would he, of all men, be mistaken here? It has been
said that the Fourth Gospel is historically correct on this point and the others
wrong. But is not this a desperate resort? Should we not hesitate so to invali
date the first three gospels merely to make the Johannine authorship of the
Fourth more probable ? Alford enumerates six of the most plausible attempts at
harmony which have been made but gives them all up as failures, (cf. Alford
Comm. Matt. 26: 17.). The true explanation of the contradiction is that John did
not write the Fourth Gospel. It was written by some one not very familiar with

the minutiae of the Jewish law, else he would have known that the Jews could
entef Pilate's palace and still eat the passover, in the evening, undefiled. John,
a Palestinian Jew, could never have made such a mistake, nor squarely contra
dicted Matthew, Peter and Luke. He never wrote it.
2. Secondly, the writer of the Fourth Gospel shows by his familiarity with
the Alexandrian and Gnostic Philosophy that he was not the unlearned Son of
Zebedee. While it is true that the author was not a Gnostic himself, except in
the good sense of having "a theoretical insight into divine things," it is by no
means impossible that he may have been a professed Gnostic before he learned
at Ephesus, the higher truth as it is in Christ. How, else, shall we account for his
strange utterances about "the light" and "the darkness." The text, "He came
unto His own and His own received Him not," usually referred to the Jewish peo
ple, finds fuller explanation in the Gnostic doctrine of a previous sojourn of
Christ "in the darkness" and of those whom he then made partially "his own"
(Ta idia.). So of the Alexandrian philosophy. We have here a writer who knows it like
his alphabet. Every title, every phrase which he applies to Jesus as Logos can
be found in Philo. This writer had long studied Philo, and so, when he learned
about Jesus it dawned upon him that the Logos, of Philo, had been incarnate in
Jesus of Nazareth and he writes the Fourth Gospel to prove it. Is this the work
of an "ignorant (uneducated?) and unlearned man" in extreme old age?
3. We can easily understand now, thirdly, why the Discourses of Jesus in the
Fourth Gospel, so different from those in the Synoptics, imply a very different
author from that stern, Palestinian John, who would have called down fire from
heaven to consume a village of inhospitable Samaritans.
In the Synoptics the great theme of Jesus' preaching is " The Kingdom of
God." It is "at hand," it is "like a treasure," "a merchantman seeking goodly
pearls," a "net." He tells of its progress, its signs, its completion, the conditions
of its membership. And then, the tremendous end — the Son of Man coming in
the clouds, the angels with great trumpet sounds "gathering the elect from the four
winds," and the " Depart ye cursed " — " Come ye blessed of my Father."
But in the Fourth Gospel Jesus does not talk on such subjects at all. He
discourses about Himself, as the Life, Light, Way, Truth, Resurrection, Revealer
of God. " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." He dwells much upon
the relations between Himself and the Father. " My Father is greater than I."
"I go to My Father." "As My Father hath taught Me I speak these things."
"I seek not My own but the will of My Father." "Therefore doth My Father
love Me." " I and My Father are one." The reason of these utterances is plain.
They are but variations of the writer's great theme, viz: Jesus of Nazareth was
the Logos. How different, too, are his farewell discourses from those in the Synoptics.
"The Father is with Me." "I have overcome the world." "O Father, glorify
Thou Me with Thine own self." "I pray for them * * * which Thou hast
given Me." "Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall
believe on Me." " That they may be one even as we are one." How far removed
is all this from the clouds, the trumpets, the flying angels, the gathered nations,
the awful throne, the stern denouncement, the triumphant welcome of the

Synoptics. The writer who ascribes such discourses to Jesus is no sententious,
fiery hater of Samaritans. John the Disciple was stern, laconic, impetuous.
Paul found him, Gal. 2:9, conservative, intensely Jewish, preferring like James,
" to go to the circumcision." But the author of the Fourth Gospel is not only
liberal— even the Greeks in his view come to Jesus (12 :2i) ; he is positively anti-
conservative, anti-Jewish. He is so inclined to Gentile views of the Logos, that,
as we saw, he postulates them as the basis of his book.
But, it is said, the John of Paul, in Galatians, might have become softened
and liberalized by extreme old age and long residence at Ephesus. He might
have developed, even, into the patient, gentle, philosophic, liberal writer of the
Fourth Gospel. To which the reply is: There is not a scrap of evidence that
any such change did take place in John. It is merely an inference from the false
assumption that he became the writer of the Fourth Gospel and therefore must
have changed. The traditions about his gentleness in old age are not reliable.
That of the Young Robber is first found in Irenaeus. That of his constantly re
peating, "Little children love one another," first occurs in Jerome, three hundred
years after John. In brief, the more we study the Discourses ascribed to Jesus
in the Fourth Gospel, the more it will appear impossible that they were written
out by a Palestinian Jew, an "unlearned" man, who in all the authentic notices
we have of him was conservative, stern, and intensely Jewish in thought and
feeling. 4. We notice, fourthly, that the artificial construction of the Fourth Gospel
implies a highly educated and literary author.
The subject matter is arranged again and again in groups of three. There
are three general divisions of the book, viz : The Galilean Ministry, The Judean
Ministry, The Cruxifixion and its results. Each of these is subdivided into three
heads, viz : The Galilean Ministry into a, The Prologue; b, Before John's im
prisonment ; c, The actual work in Galilee. The Judean Ministry is described
under a, Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles; b, His contentions with the leaders at
Jerusalem ; c, From the Feast of Dedication to the close of His public ministry.
The Crucifixion Period is treated under a, The Farewell Discourses ; b, Death
and Burial ; c , Resurrection and ensuing events. This tripartite arrangement is
still more elaborate. The Prologue begins with three propositions: "In the
beginning was the Logos; and the Logos was with God; and the Logos was
God." Three days Jesus spent with the Baptist, three times he is in Galilee,
three times he journeys to Judea. Three Passovers and three other Feasts fall
within his ministry, three mighty works he does in the Judean field and three in
the Galilean. Three divisions are expressly made of the Discourse on the last
day of Tabernacles. There are three disclosures of the Traitor, three times Jesus
is condemned, three times Pilate attempts to save him. Three utterances are
spoken from the Cross, after three days — Jewish reckoning — he rises from the
dead, and he appears three times to his disciples. Indeed this arrangement by
threes is even more extended, but I forbear. Are we still to believe that this is
the work of an uneducated fisherman nearly one hundred years old ? Is it not
rather the work of a practiced writer who was an adept in a certain literary
fashion of his day ?
5. As a part of the internal evidence we notice, fifthly, that the Miracles,

12

recorded in the Fourth Gospel indicate an author very different from John, the
Son of Zebedee.
Their artificial grouping, just three great Signs in Galilee and three in Judea,
has already been noted. These six great miracles, formally set forth as Signs
(2:11) are to be distinguished from the minor miracles casually mentioned. The
three at Galilee are : The Wine at Cana, The Nobleman's Son at Capernaum,
and The Loaves and Fishes by Tiberias. The three in Judea are: The Man
with the Infirmity at the Bethesda Pool, The Man Blind from his birth, at Jerusa
lem, and The Raising of Lazarus at Bethany.
The first thing which strikes us in studying these miracles, is that they are
enhanced; they are designedly made to surpass those which had been recorded
or related elsewhere, e. g. In the Synoptics, Jesus heals the sick, but in John
5 : S. a man who had lain under his infirmity eight and thirty years. In the
Synoptics, a blind man is healed, but in the Fourth Gospel he is blind from his
birth. In the Synoptics, Jesus walks over a part of Lake Tiberias ; in the Fourth
Gospel He walks across it (6:21). The daughter of Jairus and the widow's son,
in the Synoptics, are raised the day they died, but in " John," Lazarus is not
raised until the fourth day after. According to Jewish belief, the soul lingers
about the body three days after death, to return if possible, but on the fourth day
it takes its final flight. This explains the delay of Jesus, at which we used to
wonder so much in childhood,— two whole days before he would respond to the
agonized appeal of Martha and Mary. The author will enhance the greatness of
the miracle and thus show that Jesus was indeed the Logos, the mighty Con
queror of Death.
No satisfactory explanation has ever been given of the fact that the Synoptics
never refer to this greatest of all the miracles. Both Matthew and Peter were
present. When Jesus was leaving His hiding place for Bethany to raise Lazarus,
" Thomas said unto his fellow-disciples, ' Let us also go that we may die with
Him' " (n : 16.). Moreover we read that " a multitude" stood around the grave
(11 :42.). Yet neither from Matthew or Peter, in our Mark or in his epistle, or
from any other source, does it appear that the writers of our Synoptic gospels ever
heard a syllable about this most stupendous performance.
Again, we notice that the miracles in the Fourth Gospel are not only enhanced,
but they are symbolical. So true is this, that they seem almost to be invented
expressly to illustrate special truths, e. g. The man born blind is restored and
Jesus says, " I am the Light of the World." Five thousand are fed and the lesson
is thereby enforced that Jesus is "that bread which came down from Heaven."
The thirty-eight years' infirmity of the man at Bethesda may have illustrated the
thirty-eight years of the Jewish people in the Wilderness ; the Centurion's, son,
the spiritually diseased Jewish nation of honorable ancestry whom Christ only
could spiritually heal ; the water at Cana turned to wine, pale and tasteless
Judaism transformed by Jesus— because he was the Logos — into the vitalizing wine
of the New Dispensation. Thus we are led up to the crowning symbol of all, the ¦
Raising of Lazarus. It does not precede but follows the abstract statement of
the doctrine it is to illustrate. " I am the resurrection and the life. He that
believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth.' and
believeth on Me, shall never die. Believest thou this ?" * * * "And when he had
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thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. He that was dead
came forth bound hand and foot, with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about
with a napkin. Jesus saith *** Loose him and let him go"!! (n: 43> 44)-
Does this still seem to any one with the least spark of literary perception, like the
prosaic writing of an uneducated man who labored hard as a fisherman until he
was more than thirty years old? Do we not rather recognize again the profound
thinker and skilled literary artist who would set forth Jesus in His Miracles, as
well as in His Discourses, as the Divine Logos, the Light of the world, the Bread
from Heaven, the Resurrection and the Life of sinful men ?
5. But we must hasten. Under the head of internal evidence we notice,
finally, that the book itself shows, by certain statements in its closing chapters, that
it was not written by the Beloved Disciple.
Chap. 19: 35, says: "He that hath seen, hath borne witness * * * and he
knoweth that he saith true." Half a century's debate has shown that the writer
of this text does not refer to himself, but to St. John, still living, perhaps, at
Ephesus. So refined a writer as the author of the Fourth Gospel, would be too
modest to refer to himself repeatedly as " the beloved disciple." Imagine one of
Pres. Hopkins' students, the one best capable of appreciating him, interlarding
some account of that great teacher's philosophy with the phrase, " And I was his
favorite pupil." That the Beloved Disciple was still alive, however, when the
Fourth Gospel was written, is a fair, though not necessary inference from the
words " And He knoweth." That is, the present tense probably has its natural
significance. Chap. 20: 30, 31, says: "Many other signs did Jesus *** but these are
written that ye may believe * * * and have life." The demonstration is finished.
The miracles recorded prove that Jesus Christ was the Logos, to believe in whom
is "eternal life." The original Gospel ended here. Upon this, scholars are
generally agreed. Even Zahn, the champion of the conservatives, asserts it.
Chap. 2 ist is, therefore, an Appendix. It is written by another than the
author of the Gospel. That author, as well as St. John, was probably dead when
this Appendix was written. Its main feature is its explanation that Jesus never
said that John should not die. Its last verse is a feeble echo of the last verse of
the 20th chapter. An author who could write the Fourth Gospel would not thus
weakly repeat himself. And when he adds " I suppose that the world itself would
not contain the books that should be written," if all the acts of Jesus were re
corded, we may be sure that we are dealing with a very different mind from the
great Defender of the thesis that Jesus was the Logos, " the only-begotten of the
Father." Comparatively little stress, therefore, can be laid upon the words, 21: 24,
" This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things and wrote these things."
The writer of this Appendix seems to mean that the Beloved Disciple " beareth
witness of these things." But that he is already dead is clear from the explanation
just preceding—" Jesus said not * * * that He should not die." He also seems to
say that he " wrote these things." But what things ? The entire preceding Gospel ?
Or only certain historical fragments contained in that Gospel ? That St. John may
have jotted down certain memoranda, and that these had been seen by the Elders
of the Ephesian church, is not impossible. The "we," in " we know that his
witness is true," may refer to these Elders. But, as before remarked, all this is
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highly problematical, both because the writer of this Appendix is unknown ; and
because it is evident from his repetition of 20: 31, and his opinion about the
quantity of books necessary to contain a record of all the Acts of Jesus, that his
testimony might not be scrupulously exact.
We find, then, in these closing chapters, evidence of three contributors :
ist, "He that hath seen" (19: 35); 2nd, the cultivated Christian student,— the
main Author, who thus refers to St. John ; and 3rd, the Reviser, who wrote the
Appendix, probably some years after the death of the Author of the Gospel. He
not only wrote the 21st Chapter but introduced new matter into the body of the
Gospel, notably the story of The Woman taken in Adultery. Traces of his hand
may be found all through the book (Bacon, Intr. p. 273, n.).
Thus our Fourth Gospel gradually assumed its present form. In and around
Ephesus it was known as not written by John, but by one of his school. Ignored
by prosaic and practical minds, like Papias and Polycarp, it was valued by those
of a more philosophic cast. Probably by 1 10 or 1 15 A. D. the Reviser prepared it
for publication and added the Appendix. By 125 A. D. it had made its way as
far as Alexandria, at least, and been welcomed and misused by the Gnostics.
By 150 A. D. many honestly believed it the work of St. John. About 165 A. D.
Tatian embodied most of it in his Diatessaron. By 175 A. D. uncritical writers,
like Irenaeus, took it for granted that "according to John" meant the same as by
John the Beloved Disciple. This mistake arose the more readily because he had
once been the venerated head of the church at Ephesus, where the book orig
inated. But, if not St. John, who was the main Author? Who was the gifted thinker
at Ephesus who could produce, even with the instruction of St. John, a gospel so
different from, and in some respects, so superior to all others ? Many now think
he was John the Elder. Harnack would say, " The Gospel of John the Elder,
according to John, the son of Zebedee,"
It is time to remember, however, that we simply do not know. Some man,
probably a Hellenistic Jew, completely emancipated from Palestinian prejudices,
of rare natural gifts, who had studied much, who had perhaps cherished for a
time the Gnostic or Manichaean philosophy, came to Ephesus, heard, possibly,
the Beloved Disciple in extreme old age, learned from him, or his pupils, some
facts about Jesus not given by the Synoptics — learned the superiority of Chris
tianity, embraced it with his whole soul, and wrote the Fourth Gospel to expound
his conception of Jesus as indeed the Messiah, the Divine Logos, the Unique and
Eternal Son of God.

IS