Appendix A: External Evidence for the Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel

Appendix A: External Evidence for the Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel

Appendix A

External Evidence for the Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel

This appendix, originally transcribed from Lightfoot’s lecture notes, was first published in the posthumous volume titled Biblical Essays (London: Macmillan, 1904). The lecture-like nature of the material will be evident in what follows with the references to this academic term or that. This study was reprinted in 1979 by Baker Books, but has since passed out of print again. It presently appears on the Project Canterbury website (anglicanhistory.org) under the heading of Lightfoot’s name. However, as the website indicates, it is no longer in print. We are pleased that InterVarsity Press has once again made it available. (BW3)

The genuineness of St. John’s Gospel is the centre of the position of those who uphold the historical truth of the record of our Lord Jesus Christ given us in the New Testament. Hence the attacks of the opponents of revealed religion are concentrated upon it. So long however as it holds its ground, these assaults must inevitably prove ineffective. The assailants are of two kinds: (1) those who deny the miraculous element in Christianity—Rationalists, (2) those who deny the distinctive character of Christian doctrine—Unitarians. The Gospel confronts both. It relates the most stupendous miracle in the history of our Lord (short of the Incarnation and the Resurrection), the raising of Lazarus. Again, it enunciates in the most express terms the Divinity, the Deity, of our Lord. And yet at the same time it professes to have been written by the one man, of all others, who had the greatest opportunities of knowing the truth. The testimony of St. Paul might conceivably be set aside, as of one who was not an eye-witness. But here we have, not an ἐκτρώμα (1 Cor 15:8), not a personal disciple merely, not one of the Twelve only, but the one of the Twelve—the Apostle who leaned on his Master’s bosom, who stood by his Master’s cross, who entered his Master’s empty grave. If therefore the claim of this Gospel to be the work of John the son of Zebedee be true, if in other words the Fourth Gospel be genuine, the most formidable, not to say an insuperable, obstacle stands in the way of both classes of antagonists. Hence the persistence and the ingenuity of the attacks; and hence also the necessity of a thoroughness in the defence. No apology therefore is needed, if the subject should seem dry and uninviting.

And details too are necessary. For the nature of the proof is cumulative. Some points which I shall have to urge may seem weak. The allusions to the Gospel in many cases are uncertain or anonymous. But they must be taken pro tanto. To borrow a mechanical simile, evidence for the authenticity of a document is not like a chain, where the strength of the whole is the strength of its weakest link. It is like the supports of a building, where the strength is in the aggregate. One pillar may be weak, or may fall; but the superstructure will still remain, for each instance is independent of the others.

Consequently, considerable mental effort is necessary in order to keep in view all the elements of a cumulative proof. We are apt to concentrate our attention on that which is last, or that which is exceptional. If then the last argument stated is weak, or if anywhere there is one argument exceptionally weak, we may leap to the conclusion that the whole is weak. This is manifestly a false mode of arguing, and we must constantly be on our guard against its subtle influence.

Hence the necessity of keeping the whole in view. We shall be occupied during the present term with the external evidence. But the external evidence is not all. And in summing up in our own minds the results that we shall obtain, we must not forget what lies beyond—what will occupy us probably next term—the reinforcement of the internal evidence. For the present however we shall confine ourselves to the former. And we cannot help being struck at the outset by the inadequacy of treatment which the question has met with in the prolegomena of the majority of commentators. An allusion to Theophilus, to Irenaeus, to Eusebius, an apology, somewhat lame, for the silence of Papias, and the whole subject is briefly and summarily dismissed. Now the injury done to the cause of revealed truth by this method of treatment is very serious, and has resulted in an undue disparagement of the external evidence for the Fourth Gospel.

On this point I cannot do better than quote so temperate and judicious a writer as Mr. Sanday, who, in his introduction to his work on The Authorship and Historical Character of the Fourth Gospel, when stating his reasons for confining himself to the internal evidence, writes as follows:

Several reasons seem to make this limitation of treatment desirable. The subject of the external evidence has been pretty well fought out. The opposing parties are probably as near to an agreement as they ever will be. It will hardly be an unfair statement of the case for those who reject the Johannean authorship of the Gospel to say that the external evidence is compatible with that supposition. And on the other hand, we may equally say for those who accept the Johannean authorship, that the external evidence would not be sufficient alone to prove it. As it at present stands, the controversy may be regarded as drawn; and it is not likely that the position of parties will be materially altered (p. 3).

Now I hope to show that there is no deficiency of testimony (considering the nature of the subject), that on the contrary there is a vast body of evidence of various kinds, which cannot be set aside; that the result is a very powerful argument in favor of the genuineness; and that therefore, when we enter upon the question of internal evidence, we shall enter upon it with a very strong weight of evidence in support of St. John’s authorship, which can only be counterbalanced by powerful considerations on the other side.

But, before commencing the investigation, let us first see what is the nature of the antagonism with which we have to deal. The history of the controversy may be seen in Bleek, Beitrage zur Evangelien-Kritik (1846). Briefly stated, the position of affairs is this. The universal reception of the Gospel as the work of St. John (with the exception of an obscure sect, the Alogi) up to the close of the last century has been assailed since the early years of the present century by a series of writers, who unite in denying the Johannine authorship, and place the date somewhere in the middle or latter half of the second century.

I give the names of the principal exponents of the new view, with the dates which they respectively assign for the authorship :—Bretschneider, Probabilia de Evangelii et Epistolarum Joannis Apostoli indole et origine (Leipzig 1820). He expressed himself vaguely as to the date, but apparently placed it at the beginning or middle of the second century. After two years, in the preface to his Handbuch der Dogmatik (1822), he withdrew his conclusions, and declared his conviction that the Johannine authorship was finally established. Lutzelberger, Die kirchliche Tradition über den Apostel Johannes und seine Schriften in ihrer Grundlosigkeit nachgewiesen (Leipzig 1840). He considers that the Gospel was written near Edessa, about 135–140. Baur first expressed his views on the Johannine question in the Theologische Jahrbucher (Tübingen 1844). He fixes the date somewhere about 160–170, and this is the view of the older Tubingen School. Hilgenfeld, Das Evangelium und die Briefe Johannis nach ihrem Lehrbegriff (1849). He considers that the Fourth Gospel took its rise in the middle of the second century owing to the prevalence of the Valentinian Gnosis. Scholten, professor at Leyden, and head of the modern Dutch negative school, in his work entitled Het Evangelie naar Johannes (1864–6) places the writing of the Fourth Gospel in 150, but considers that it was interpolated subsequently. In a later work De oudste getuigenissen (1867) he throws the date back later still to 170. Tayler, J. J. An attempt to ascertain the character of the Fourth Gospel, especially in its relation to the Three First (London 1867). In reading this work we cannot fail to be struck with its evident sincerity; at the same time it exhibits singular deficiency in the enumeration of facts, and looseness in the treatment of them. Tayler’s conclusion is that the Fourth Gospel was written after 135 and before 163 (p. 151). And yet (p. 155) he suggests that ‘John the Presbyter’ is the author of the book—John the Presbyter, of whom we only know that he was a personal disciple of our Lord. Keim, Geschichte Jesu von Nazara (1867) ascribes the Fourth Gospel to the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98–117. Renan in the first edition of his Vie de Jesus (1863) considers that our Fourth Gospel is based upon the genuine work of St. John, but edited by his disciples at the end of the first century. M. Renan’s view has fluctuated in subsequent editions of his book. In reviewing this list of writers, we cannot fail to be struck with two facts: (1) the variety of their opinions; (2) their gradual retrogression from the extreme position taken up at first. The pressure of facts has compelled them to abandon one position after another, and to approximate more and more closely to the traditional view.

I. The Churches of Asia Minor. Unless we are prepared to reject without a hearing all the traditions of Christianity, we cannot refuse to believe that the latest years of the Apostle St. John were spent in the Roman province of Asia and chiefly in Ephesus its capital. This tradition is singularly full, consistent and well-authenticated. Here he gathered disciples about him, organized churches, appointed bishops and presbyters. A whole chorus of voices unite in bearing testimony to its truth. One who passed his earlier life in these parts and had heard his aged master, a disciple of St. John himself, recount his personal reminiscences of the great Apostle (i.e. Irenaeus); another, who held this very see of Ephesus and writing less than a century after the Apostle’s death was linked with the past by a chain of relatives all bishops in the Christian Church (Polycrates); a third who also flourished about the close of the century and numbered among his teachers an old man from this very district (Clement of Alexandria)—are the principal, because the most distinct, witnesses to a fact which is implied in several other notices of earlier or contemporary writers.

As to the time at which St. John left his original home and settled in this new abode no direct account is preserved; but a very probable conjecture may be hazarded. The impending fall of the Holy City was the signal for the dispersion of the followers of Christ. About this same time the three other great Apostles, St. Peter, St. Paul and St. James, died a martyr’s death; and on St. John, the last surviving of the four great pillars of the Church, devolved the work of developing the theology of the Gospel and completing the organisation of the Church. It was not unnatural that at such a crisis he should fix his residence in the centre of a large and growing Christian community, which had been planted by the Apostle of the Gentiles, and watered by the Apostle of the Circumcision. The missionary labours of St. Paul and St. Peter in Asia Minor were confirmed and extended by the prolonged residence of their younger contemporary. At all events such evidence as we possess is favorable to this view of the date of St. John’s settlement at Ephesus. Assuming that the Apocalypse is the work of the beloved Apostle, and accepting the view that assigns it to the close of Nero’s reign or thereabouts, we find him now for the first time in the immediate neighbourhood of Asia Minor and in direct communication with Ephesus and the neighbouring Churches.

St. John however was not alone. Whether drawn thither by the attraction of his presence or acting in pursuance of some common agreement, the few surviving personal disciples of the Lord would seem to have chosen Asia Minor as their permanent abode, or at all events as their recognised headquarters. Here at least we meet with the friend of St. John’s youth and perhaps his fellow-townsman, Andrew of Bethsaida, who with him had first listened to John the Baptist and with him also had been the earliest to recognise Jesus as the Christ. Here too we encounter Philip the Evangelist with his daughters, and perhaps also Philip of Bethsaida, the Apostle. Here also was settled the Apostle’s namesake, John the Presbyter, also a personal disciple of Jesus, and one Aristion, not otherwise known to us (see Papias l.c.), who likewise had heard the Lord. And possibly also other Apostles whose traditions Papias recorded, Matthew and Thomas and James, may have had some connection, temporary or permanent, with this district.

Thus surrounded by the surviving disciples of the Lord, by bishops and presbyters of his own appointment, and by the pupils who gathered about him and looked to him for instruction, St. John was the focus of a large and active society of believers. In this respect he holds a unique position among the great teachers of the new faith. St. Peter and St. Paul converted disciples and organized congregations; St. John alone was the centre of a school. His life prolonged till the close of the century, when the Church was firmly rooted and widely extended, combined with his fixed abode in the centre of an established community to give a certain definiteness to his personal influence which would be wanting to the wider labors of these strictly missionary preachers. Hence the notices of St. John have a more solid basis and claim greater attention than stories relating to the other Apostles.

This fact is significant for the preservation of a tradition, especially one so important as that of the authorship of the Gospel. But there is another point, which increases the value of the tradition itself, viz., the longevity of the principal witnesses. Of St. John himself we are told that he ‘lived to the times of Trajan.’ His pupil Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom A.D. 155 or 156 speaks of himself at the time of his death as having ‘served Christ fourscore and six years.’ The expression in the original may leave some doubt whether these eighty-six years should be reckoned from his birth or from his conversion, though the former would be the more natural interpretation. But in any case he must have been born not later than A.D. 70. And as Polycarp was the disciple of St. John, so Irenaeus was the disciple of Polycarp. Again, of Pothinus bishop of Lyons we are told (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v.1) that he was more than ninety years old when he suffered in the persecution of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons (A.D. 177). The date of his birth therefore cannot be later than A.D. 87. A later tradition makes him a native of Asia Minor; and this would be a highly probable supposition, even if unsupported by direct evidence. But whether an Asiatic Greek or not, he must have been a lad when St. John died. And Irenaeus was the successor of Pothinus in the see of Lyons. Thus one link only, and that a double one, connects the life of the traditional author of the Fourth Gospel with Irenaeus who preserves the tradition in writing; and two long lives, St. John and Polycarp, link the personal ministry of our Lord with the latter half of the second century.

Of the traditions of this school, Irenaeus, who had been educated in Asia Minor, though his later life was spent in Gaul, is the principal witness. He was a pupil of St. John’s personal disciple Polycarp, whom he mentions more than once. He set great store on these traditions as representing most truly the primitive teaching of the Church, and appeals to them again and again with confidence. On one occasion, writing to Florinus, whom he had known in youth as a fellow-pupil of Polycarp, but who in after years had taken up heretical views, he urges that these are not the doctrines delivered to him, by the Elders, who were before them, who also associated with the Apostles, and he appeals to his reminiscences of their common master in this language:

I distinctly remember (διαμνημονεύω) the incidents of that time better than events of recent occurrence; for the lessons received in childhood, growing with the growth of the soul, become identified with it; so that I can describe the very place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life (τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ βίου) and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people; and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate their words. And what were the accounts he had heard from them about the Lord, and about His miracles, and about His teaching, how Polycarp, as having received them from eyewitnesses of the life of the Word . . . used to give an account harmonizing on all points with the Scriptures. . . . To these (discourses) I used to listen at the time with attention by God’s mercy which was bestowed upon me, noting them down, not on paper, but in my heart; and by the grace of God, I constantly ruminate upon them faithfully (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v.20).

As regards this whole extract it will suffice to notice: (1) the opportunities of the witness, (2) the thoroughness of the evidence (‘harmonizing on all points with the Scripture’). In more than one passage also of his great work he refers to the ‘Church of Ephesus’ (Irenaeus v.33.4) or to the Elders who associated with John in Asia. It was not the object of Irenaeus to defend the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, for his Valentinian antagonists not only accepted it as genuine, but even set an exclusive value on it; and therefore any testimony to its authorship from the earlier school of Asia Minor which may be gathered from his writings is incidental. But any such testimony must have the highest value.

1. It can hardly be doubted that the Elders whom Irenaeus quotes, and quotes for the most part anonymously, belonged to this school. Of Polycarp and Papias, of whom the former is mentioned several times by him and the latter once casually, this is certain. I shall endeavor immediately to discriminate the several persons whom he thus quotes by the topics on which they write or speak; but, before doing so, one reference to such anonymous authority deserves attention, where Irenaeus refers not to individual opinion, but to the collective testimony of all the Elders who associated with St. John (Irenaeus ii.22). It relates to a question of chronology. His Valentinian adversaries laid great stress on the number ‘thirty.’ Their celestial hierarchy comprised thirty aeons, and they appealed to the thirty years’ duration of our Lord’s life. This computation of the Gospel chronology they derived from the notices in St. Luke, interpreted by themselves. At the commencement of His ministry, they contended, He was entering upon His thirtieth year, and His ministry itself lasted a twelvemonth, the ‘acceptable year of the Lord’ foretold by the Prophet. Irenaeus in reply expresses his ‘great astonishment’ that persons professing to understand the deep things of God should have overlooked the commonest facts of the Gospel narrative, and points to the three passovers recorded in St. John’s Gospel during the term of our Lord’s life (§3). Independently of the chronology of the Fourth Gospel, Irenaeus has an a priori reason why the Savior must have lived more than thirty years. He came to sanctify every time of life, infancy, childhood, youth, declining age. It was therefore necessary that He should have passed the turn of middle life. ‘From thirty to forty,’ he argues, ‘a man is reckoned young, but from his fortieth and fiftieth year he is already declining into older age, which was the case with our Lord when He taught, as the Gospel and all the Elders who associated with John the disciple of the Lord testify that John delivered his account. For he ‘remained with them’ . . . till the times of Trajan. Some of them saw not only John but other disciples also, and heard these very things from their own lips (ab ipsis), and bear testimony to such an account (de huiusmodi relatione)’ (§4). Irenaeus goes on to argue that the same may be inferred from the language of our Lord’s Jewish opponents, who asked, ‘Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?’ (John 8:57). This, he contends, is properly said to one who had already lived more than forty years, but had not yet reached his fiftieth year, though not far off his fiftieth year (§6).

On this passage three points are to be remarked. (1) The Valentinian chronology was derived from an obvious, though not a necessary, interpretation of the synoptic narrative, more especially of St. Luke (3:1, 23; 4:19) while, on the other hand, the Asiatic reckoning, which Irenaeus maintains, was, or might have been, founded on the Fourth Gospel, whereas it could not possibly have been suggested or elicited from the first three independently of the fourth, whether reconcilable with them or not. (2) Irenaeus does not commit the Elders of the Asiatic School to his own interpretation of the passage quoted from St. John’s Gospel, nor to his own view that our Lord was close upon fifty years old. He only asserts that the Gospel and the testimony of all the Elders together support the view that our Lord was past middle life; and the vagueness of his language at this point may suggest the inference that he had their testimony distinctly on his side as against the Valentinian chronology, but that it did not go beyond this; (3) So far as the chronology of the Asiatic School is known from other sources, the statement of Irenaeus is confirmed; for the Asiatic reckoning was distinctly based on the narrative of the Fourth Gospel. This is the case with the duration of our Lord’s ministry as given by Melito, and the time of the Crucifixion as given by Claudius Apollinaris, to both which writers I shall have to refer hereafter.

From this general notice of the Asiatic Elders I turn to the opinions of individuals belonging to this school, as reported by Irenaeus. As these opinions are given anonymously and scattered throughout his work, we can only separate one authority from another by considering the subject-matter and treatment. This criterion of course may be fallacious; and allowance must be made for the possibility of separating one authority into two or more, or again of counting two or more authorities as one. But the argument will not be materially affected by allowance made for errors which may occur on either side. Judging then by the subject-matter, I find that the following authorities are referred to: (1) A person quoted with great respect as ‘one better than us . . .’ [(i. praef. i.13.3), superior nobis (iii.17.4)], in another as ‘the divine old man and herald of the truth, the old man beloved of God’ (i.15.6). Anyone who will compare these references together cannot hesitate, I think, to see that they allude to one and the same person. He is a writer, as may be inferred both from the manner and from the subject of the references. His style is epigrammatic and telling, full of quaint metaphors and pointed sayings, and on one occasion he runs off into iambic verse which is more vigorous than rhythmical. The work which Irenaeus quotes is directed against heresies of the magico-gnostic school, and more especially against Marcus.

(2) An ‘Elder of a bygone generation’ (de antiquis presbyter), a ‘primitive character’ (iv.31.1), an ‘elder and disciple of the Apostles’ (iv.32.1), or, as he is elsewhere more precisely described, ‘an elder who had heard from those who had seen the Apostles and from those who had learnt’ [ab his qui didicerunt, i.e. from personal disciples of the Lord (iv.27.1)]. Irenaeus quotes at some length the opinion of this presbyter. From the form of quotation it appears that he is relating oral discourses (perhaps from his own lecture-notes), and not any written treatise of this elder (audivi a quodam presbytero. Huiusmodi quoque disputabat). The subject of these discourses is the relation of the two covenants, and the Elder defends the Old Testament Saints, describing the office of the patriarchs as witnesses of Christ.

(3) A single saying is quoted as from ‘one of the ancients’ (quidam ex veterihus ait), apparently from a written treatise, that God cursed not Adam but the earth in (or through) his works (iii.23.3).

(4) Irenaeus, in explaining the expression ‘sons of God,’ ‘sons of the devil,’ refers to a distinction made by one of these Elders. ‘A son, as also one before us said (dixit, or ‘has said’), is understood in two senses: one is a son according to nature, because he is born a son, another is reputed a son according to what he has been made, though there is a difference between the one who is born such, and the one who is made such’ (iv.41.2).

(5) Irenaeus twice refers to some writing or writings, in which the opinions of ‘the Elders, the disciples of the Apostles,’ on eschatological subjects are given. In one passage it is declared that the Old Testament saints have been transferred to Paradise and there await the coming of the Lord (v.5.1). The second, which is of considerable importance, runs as follows:

As the Elders say, then also shall they which have been deemed worthy of the abode in heaven go thither, while others shall enjoy ‘the delight of Paradise,’ and others again shall possess the brightness of the city (i.e. the New Jerusalem); for in every place the Savior shall be seen, according as they shall be worthy who see Him. (They say) moreover that this is the meaning of the distinction between the habitation of them that bring forth a hundred-fold, and them that bring forth sixty-fold, and them that bring forth thirty-fold; of whom the first shall be taken up into the heavens, and the second shall dwell in paradise, and the third shall inherit the city; and that therefore our Lord has said, ‘In My Father’s abode are many mansions’ (St. John 14:2); for all things are of God, Who giveth to all their appropriate dwelling, according as His Word saith that allotment is made unto all by the Father, according as each man is, or shall be, worthy. And this is the banqueting-table, at which those are seated who are called to the marriage and take part in the feast. The Elders, the disciples of the Apostles, say that this is the arrangement and disposal of them that are saved, and that they advance by such stages, and ascend through the Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father, the Son at length yielding His work to the Father, as it is said also by the Apostle, ‘For He must reign until He putteth all enemies under His feet,’ etc (v.36.1-2).

Of these five Elders (assuming them to be distinct persons) no coincidence with St. John’s Gospel can be traced in notices of the first and third. Of the first, indeed, though he is appealed to four times, only epigrammatic sentences against his heretical antagonists are adduced, and these naturally do not give room for any quotations from either the Old Testament or the New. The third is represented by a single short sentence relating to Adam’s transgression, which from its brevity admits of no such reference. The remaining three, the second, fourth and fifth, all present more or less distinct coincidences with St. John’s Gospel. Of the second Irenaeus reports that he was wont to say that the patriarchs and prophets gave thanks and gloried in our salvation, where there is an obscure parallel to our Lord’s words in the Fourth Gospel, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad’ (John 8:56). The fourth is adduced to explain an expression especially characteristic of St. John ‘sons of the devil.’ It is not certain indeed from the language of Irenaeus that this Elder actually used this expression; but it is at least more probable than not that the distinction, which Irenaeus quotes, was quoted by this father i.e. to explain the words ‘sons of the devil.’ I shall presently suggest a probable source from which this reference is taken. And, lastly, the fifth Elder distinctly quotes and explains a saying of our Lord peculiar to the Fourth Gospel (14:2). I shall have something to say shortly about the name of this Elder also. At present it is sufficient to remark two things: first, the form of the sentence shows that the quotation is given as part of the Elder’s own saying, and not of an after-comment of Irenaeus; and, secondly, as Irenaeus uses the present tense ‘the elders say’ and yet the persons referred to belonged to a past generation and were no longer living when he wrote, he must be quoting from some written record, and therefore we cannot suppose that he has unconsciously fused his own after-thought with the original saying. These references are anonymous. But Irenaeus likewise mentions by name two of these Asiatic Elders who had conversed with Apostles or personal disciples of the Lord, and of whom something is also known from other sources, Polycarp and Papias.

3. Of Polycarp and his reminiscences of St. John, as recounted by his own pupil Irenaeus, I have already spoken. It is worthwhile to observe in passing that in the single sentence in which he describes the conversation of Polycarp, he represents him as retelling lessons which he professed to have learnt ‘from eyewitnesses of the life of the Word . . .’ an expression characteristic of the writings of St. John and suggesting that Irenaeus’ recollections of Polycarp were intimately connected with those writings. Of the many letters which Polycarp himself wrote, as Irenaeus (in Eusebius Hist. Eccles. v. 20) tells us, ‘either to the neighboring Churches to confirm them, or to individual brethren, to admonish or encourage them,’ only one remains. The extant Epistle to the Philippians was written after the death of Ignatius, but so soon after that Polycarp had not yet heard the particulars. It may therefore be placed about the year A.D. 110. The Epistle is not long and contains very few direct references to the New Testament writings; but numerous passages, more or less exactly quoted, are embedded in it. For the most part they are taken from the Epistles, as more suited to the hortatory and didactic character of the letter, and the references to the Gospels are very few. With the Fourth Gospel no distinct coincidence is found; but Polycarp was evidently well acquainted with the First Epistle of St. John, for he writes (§7): ‘Every one that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is Antichrist’; and ‘whosoever confesseth not the testimony of the Cross, is of the devil’ (1 John 4:3, compare 2 John 7, and shortly after (§8)), ‘but He endured all for our sakes, that we might live through Him’ (1 John 4:9). It will be shown hereafter that this First Epistle was in all likelihood written at the same time with and attached to the Gospel. At present I will assume that it proceeds from the same author. There is a presumption therefore that the Gospel also was known to this writer. At all events, the quotations show that the writer of the Gospel flourished before Polycarp wrote. And he is cited by this father, in the same way in which our canonical writings, more especially the Epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter, are cited.

2. Papias of Hierapolis was a contemporary and a friend of Polycarp. Whether he was a personal disciple of the Apostle St. John, as asserted by Irenaeus, or only of a namesake of the Apostle, the presbyter John, as Eusebius supposes, I will not stop to enquire. It is certain that he lived in the confines of the apostolic age, that he was acquainted with the daughters of Philip, and that he conversed with two personal disciples of the Lord, Aristion and John. He wrote an ‘Exposition of our Lord’s Oracles’ in five books, which he illustrated by oral traditions. Its date is somewhat uncertain, but on the whole it would appear to have been written in his old age, towards the middle of the second century, not before 130 to 140. Of this work only the most meagre fragments remain; but it is distinctly stated by Eusebius, that he ‘made use of testimonies from the First (πρῶτερος) Epistle of John’ (Hist. Eccles. iii. 39). We cannot indeed assume from this notice that he mentioned the Apostle by name as the author, or that the quotations were given as quotations (for Eusebius uses this same expression of the quotations from St. Peter in Polycarp, where St. Peter is not so mentioned and the passages are indirectly quoted); but it is a fair inference from the procedure of Eusebius elsewhere that the passages were obvious quotations (otherwise he would not have noticed them), and that the coincidence was not so slight as to be accidental, but clearer than the quotation from St. John in Polycarp’s epistle, which Eusebius does not mention. In carrying over the evidence from the Epistle to the Gospel, the same remark will apply, as in Polycarp’s case.

But great stress has been laid on the silence of Eusebius, as though it were inconsistent with the supposition that Papias was acquainted with the Gospel. The historian quotes a few lines from Papias, preserving some traditions respecting the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark which he related on the authority of John the presbyter, but says nothing about the Fourth Gospel. And the negative argument appears stronger, when it is remembered that Eusebius elsewhere (Hist. Eccles. iii.39) declares his intention of extracting from early writers such notices as bear on the formation of the Canon.

Before accepting this hasty conclusion however, we must answer two preliminary questions, the one following from the other: (1) What is the practice of Eusebius elsewhere? Does he, or does he not, fulfill to the letter the intention thus expressed relative to the Canon? (2) If he does not, what principle of selection, if any, does he follow here or elsewhere in omitting or recording such notices?

To the first of these questions the answer is decisive. The Epistle of Clement besides many embedded quotations from St. Peter, St. James, and St. Paul, and a few from the Gospels and Acts, refers by name to St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians. Yet Eusebius says nothing of all this. He mentions only its coincidences with the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hist. Eccles. iii. 38). The Epistle of Polycarp again, besides the references to the Gospels mentioned above, is replete with the most obvious quotations from St. Paul, and in two passages refers to his Epistles by name (sec. 3, 11). But Eusebius omits all mention of these and simply says ‘he employs some testimonies from the First Epistle of Peter,’ not mentioning even the coincidences with St John’s First Epistle (Hist. Eccles. iv. 14). His account of Irenaeus is equally defective. Excepting one or two of the Catholic Epistles, Irenaeus, as is well known, quotes by name all the canonical books of the New Testament, and most of them repeatedly; yet Eusebius, after giving one passage containing an account of the origin of the four Gospels, and another referring to the Apocalypse, adds ‘he makes mention also of the First Epistle of John, adducing very many testimonies from it, and in like manner of the First Epistle of Peter’ (Hist. Eccles. v. 8). If Irenaeus had been known to us only from the account of Eusebius, it would doubtless have been inferred of him (as even cautious writers have drawn this inference respecting Papias), that he ignored or repudiated the Acts of the Apostles and all St. Paul’s Epistles.

It will then be seen that the mere silence of Eusebius justifies no such inference. And, when we come to enquire the grounds on which he has omitted or recorded notices, I think it is impossible altogether to acquit him of a certain carelessness or caprice. Yet, so far as he is guided by any principle, it appears to be this. The four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the thirteen Epistles of St. Paul were universally allowed as canonical. He therefore records no references to, or quotations from, these, except such as contain some interesting traditions respecting their origin or history, as e.g. in Papias the account of the Hebrew original of St. Matthew or the Petrine authority of St. Mark. On the other hand the authority of the Apocalypse and of the Epistle to the Hebrews was doubted; and the limits of the Catholic Epistles also (e.g. how many Epistles of St. John or St. Peter should be received) were an open question. On these points therefore he is more full; and, though the First Epistle of St. John and the First Epistle of St. Peter were not themselves questioned, yet their relation to the others leads him to note where they are quoted as authoritative. There is no reason therefore to suppose that, though Papias might have quoted the Gospel of St. John a score of times, Eusebius would have cared to note the fact, unless the notices contained some interesting particulars respecting its origin and history. And in his account of Papias there is less completeness than usual in repeating the traditions of his author. The five books of the Expositions were largely interspersed with such traditions, which it would have been tedious to reproduce in full. The millennarian views of Papias were repulsive to Eusebius; and the historian’s impatience is very evident when he is dealing with this author. He mentions the fact that Papias records ‘other narratives of the aforesaid Aristion of our Lord’s discourses, and also traditions of the Elder John’ which he does not repeat, and he contents himself with ‘referring . . . the studious readers’ to the book itself, professing to give what the exigencies of the case demand and nothing more on this head (Hist. Eccles. iii.39).

But there is also positive evidence very strong, though not absolutely conclusive, that Papias did quote from this Gospel. I have already mentioned the reference in the Asiatic Elder cited by Irenaeus to our Lord saying ‘In My Father’s house are many mansions.’ If anyone will take the pains to read with care from the thirty-third to the thirty-sixth chapter of the fifth book of Irenaeus continuously, he can hardly fail (I think) to arrive at the conclusion that the Elder in question is none other than Papias. In the thirty-third chapter he gives a passage from Papias, and in the thirty-fifth comes this passage from ‘the Elders,’ with which we are immediately concerned. That they are taken from the same book, appears in the highest degree probable from the following considerations. (1) Both passages treat of the future kingdom of Christ, and both regard it from the same point of view, as a visible and external kingdom, in which the enjoyments are enjoyments of the senses. (2) The subject is continuous, the matter which intervenes between the two quotations extending over some pages but all having reference to the same topic. (3) The authority in the first quotation is ‘the Elders who saw John the disciple of the Lord’ (33§3); in the second ‘the Elders’ (36§1) simply, at the end ‘the Elders, the disciples of the Apostles’ (36§2). At the close of the first quotation Irenaeus adds, ‘But these things Papias also . . . testifies in writing in the fourth of his books, for there are five books composed by him.’ Papias therefore reports the statements of these Elders as we know from Eusebius that he did on several occasions, and there is no difficulty about the authority in the first passage. But in the second passage Irenaeus fails to explain whom he meant by ‘the Elders,’ unless they are the same who have been mentioned shortly before. Only on this supposition is the reference plain. (4) I have pointed out before that the manner of quotation obliges us to suppose that Irenaeus refers to a written document, and not a mere oral tradition. This limits the possibilities of the case: for (so far as we know) Polycarp and Papias are the only writers who could satisfy the description. (5) The tenor of the passage accords entirely with the known subject of Papias’ work, as described by its title Expositions of Oracles of the Lord. We have here one of these explanations.

It seems fairly probable too, that not only our fifth Elder, but the fourth also, must be identified with Papias. His explanation of ‘sonship’ would be framed to explain our Lord’s words addressed to the Jews: ‘ye are of your father the devil.’ Gnostic dualists would interpret these words to mean that the old covenant was directly opposed to the new, and was the work of the evil principle. To meet this argument the Elder makes the distinction between sons by nature and sons by habit. In the latter sense only the Jews were sons of the devil. The explanation at all events is a close parallel to an extant fragment of Papias, where he explains that ‘those who practiced a godly innocence were called children’ by the early Christians.

Lastly, in the few lines which Eusebius quotes from the preface of Papias, it is worth observing, first, that the names which he places at the head of the list of authorities are those of the Apostles known to us from the Fourth Gospel and from this alone, Andrew, Philip, Thomas and secondly, that he speaks of ‘the truth itself’ meaning our Lord, in accordance with the characteristic phraseology of this Gospel.

But indeed, though the evidence is late and confused, we are not without direct testimony that Papias was acquainted with this Gospel. ‘The Gospel of John was revealed (manifestatum) and given to the Churches,’ says an old Latin argument to this Gospel, ‘by John while he still remained in the body as one named Papias, of Hierapolis, a beloved disciple of John, related in his five books (or in his fifth book) of Expositions.’ If the corruption of the context and the uncertainty of the source of the statement forbid us to lay much stress upon it, we are nevertheless not justified in setting it aside as wholly valueless.

4. About the year 165 Polycarp suffered martyrdom at a very advanced age. An account of the death of Polycarp is extant in the Letter of Christians at Smyrna addressed to a neighboring Church at the time. In this document the brethren draw a parallel between the sufferings of their martyred friend and the Passion of the Lord, which is suggested to them by some remarkable coincidences. ‘Nearly all the incidents which happened before his death,’ it is said at the outset, ‘came to pass, that the Lord from heaven might exhibit to us a martyrdom after the pattern of the Gospel; for Polycarp remained that he might be betrayed, just as the Lord did’ (§1). This account is the earliest instance of the type of hagiology that sees the sufferings of Christ visibly reflected and imaged in detail in the servants of Christ, of which in the middle ages the lives of the great monastic founders St. Francis and St. Dominic, of Anselm and of Becket, are an example, and which has been unconsciously reproduced in more or less distinct lineaments in the biographies of the Wesleyan heroes in very recent times. This idea of literal conformity to the sufferings of Christ runs through the letter. Some of the coincidences are really striking, but in other cases the parallelism is more or less artificial. The name of the convicting magistrate is Herod (§6); the time of the martyrdom is the passover, ‘the great Sabbath’ (§21); Polycarp’s conviction is obtained by a confession elicited by torture from a youth in his employ, and thus he is ‘betrayed by them of his own household’ (§6); he is put upon an ass and so carried before the magistrate, and of course this is a parallel to the triumphal entry at Jerusalem (§8); his pursuers come on horseback and in arms as ‘against a robber’ (§7); when he is apprehended, he prays, ‘The will of God be done’ (§7), and so forth.

Most of these incidents have their parallels in the circumstances of the Passion as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, or recorded by these in common with St. John. This is natural; for they refer mainly to external incidents, in which the Synoptic account is rich. But there are one or two exceptions. Thus we are told, at the crisis of Polycarp’s trial, that a voice came from heaven, ‘Be strong and play the man, Polycarp.’ ‘And the speaker no one saw, but the voice those of our company that were present heard’ (§9). This corresponds to the voice that St. John records as speaking from heaven to our Lord, and as imperfectly apprehended by the bystanders (John 12:28, 29). In §§5, 12 a change of circumstances brings with it the fulfilment of his prophecy as to the manner of his death (cf. John 12:33; 18:32). Again we are told, when the fire would not consume the body of the Saint, his persecutors ‘ordered an executioner (confector) to go up to him and thrust a dagger into him. And when he had done this, there came forth a dove and a quantity of blood, so that it extinguished the fire; and all the multitude marvelled that there was so great a difference between the unbelievers and the elect’ (§16). The parallel to the incident recorded in St. John’s account (19:34) of the crucifixion alone is obvious; and just as the Evangelist lays stress on his own presence as an eyewitness of the scenes (19:35) so also have these hagiologers done; ‘We saw a great marvel,’ they say, ‘we to whom it was given to see; and we were preserved that we might relate it to the rest’ (§15). And, lastly, as St. John emphasizes the fact that everything was fulfilled in the death of Jesus (19:28, 30), so also they declare of Polycarp that ‘every word which he uttered out of his mouth hath been, and shall be, accomplished’ (§16). To these facts it should be added that the dying prayer of Polycarp contains one or two coincidences with the characteristic phraseology of the Fourth Gospel, as ‘the resurrection of life,’ ‘the true God’ (§14; cf. John 5:29; 17:3).

5. Of all the Asiatic school, exclusive of its great Gallic representative, Melito of Sardis appears to have been the ablest. He possessed some slight knowledge at least of Oriental tongues; he had travelled to the East to obtain certain information about the Old Testament canon; he was at once learned, thoughtful and eloquent. He moreover won deep respect by his ascetic earnest­ness. His writings were very various, embracing alike questions of speculative theology, of scriptural exegesis, of practical duty, of ecclesiastical order. Those works, of whose date any record is preserved, appear to have been written between the years 165–175. When Polycrates of Ephesus wrote in the last decade of the century he was no longer living; and it may perhaps be inferred, from the language there used of him that his death was not very recent. These facts will fix his epoch approximately. Though he is not likely to have conversed with St. John or other personal disciples of the Lord, he belonged to the generation immediately following, and must have had large opportunities of intercourse with men like Polycarp and Papias; for he was a flourishing and apparently an influential and prolific writer about the time of their death.

Of his numerous works only a few fragments remain; but these are quite sufficient to attest the influence of the Fourth Gospel on his teaching and language. It has been already mentioned that the chronology of the Savior’s life, adopted in the Asiatic School, was derived from this Gospel. Of this fact Melito is an illustration. Of our Lord he thus writes: ‘Being at the same time both perfect God and perfect Man, He convinced us of His two natures, of His Godhead through His miracles in the three years after His baptism, and of His manhood in the thirty years which passed before His baptism.’ If the thirty years before the baptism are taken from St. Luke, the three years after the baptism cannot be derived from any other canonical Gospel but St. John.

The largest extant fragment is taken from his apology to M. Antoninus. In a treatise of this kind direct quotation is not usual; and accordingly we find no passage of either the Old or the New Testament cited in Melito’s work. But the language and ideas are throughout colored by the influence of the Fourth Gospel. ‘Neither can any sight see Him, nor any thought comprehend Him, nor any word express Him’ (p. xxxix). ‘Behold a light is given to us all, that in it we may see. They dare to make an image of God, Whom they have not seen’ (p. xl). ‘What is God? He that is Truth, and His Word is Truth’ (p. lxv; cf. John 17:17). ‘What then is Truth?’ (cf. John 18:38). ‘If then a man adoreth that which is made by hands, he adoreth not the Truth nor the Word of Truth. But I have many things to say concerning this matter’ (p. xlv; cf. John 8:26; 16:12). ‘Wherefore I give thee counsel, that thou know thyself and know God’ (p. xlvii; cf. John 17:3). ‘Worship Him with thy whole heart; then will He grant thee to know His will’ (p. xlvii; cf. John 7:17). ‘To know God is Truth’ (p. xlix). ‘To know the true God’ (ib.; cf. John 17:3). ‘The word of Truth reproacheth thee’ (p. l). ‘If thou canst not know God, at least think that He is’ (p. li). ‘It is impossible for a mutable creature to see the immutable’ (p. lii; cf. John 1:18; 1 John 4:12). ‘Then shall they who know not God, vanish away’ (p. lii). ‘According as thou shalt have known God here, so will He know thee there’ (p. liii). ‘We worship the only God, Who is before all and above all; and we worship also His Christ, being God the Word from eternity’ (p. lvi).

In like manner in one of the homiletic fragments which remain he speaks of our Lord as the ‘Word of God and begotten before the light, the Creator with the Father the fashioner of man; all things in all, the Son in the Father, God in God, King unto all eternity’ (p. lix); and in another using the images of St John he says: ‘He appeared as a lamb, but He abode as a shepherd. He wanted food, in so far as He was man, yet He ceaseth not, in so far as He is God, to give food wherewith He feedeth the world’ (p. lvii1).

6. Claudius Apollinaris was a contemporary of Melito; the two being coupled together by Eusebius, Jerome and others. He was a successor, if not the immediate successor, of Papias, as bishop of Hierapolis. The ascertainable dates of his life are: (1) He presented an apology to M. Antoninus, who died in A.D. 180. (2) He mentioned the incident of the thundering legion, which occurred A.D. 174. (3) Eusebius in his Chronicle seems to place his accession to the episcopate A.D. 171. (4) He is no longer living in the last decade of the century, when Serapion alludes to him (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 19).

Of several works known to have been written by this father, the scanty fragments which remain occupy something less than half an octavo page. They contain however two or three undeniable references to the narrative of the Fourth Gospel. Thus Claudius speaks of our Lord as ‘pierced in His holy side’ and ‘pouring forth from His side the two purifying elements, water and blood, word and spirit’ (Routh Reliq. Sac. I. p. 160; cf. John 19:34). Thus too, he says, that the 14th was the true Passover of the Lord, the day on which He suffered, finding fault with those who maintain He ate the Paschal lamb with His disciples on the 14th and was crucified on the 15th, on the ground that ‘according to their view the Gospels appear to be at variance.’ Thus he himself takes the Fourth Gospel as the chronological standard, and interprets the others by it; and here again, as in the case of Melito, we have a confirmation of the statement of Irenaeus, that the reckoning of the Asiatic School was founded thereupon or accorded therewith. It is only necessary to add that his allusions to the Gospels seem to imply that they had long been received as authoritative, but that the discussions on the Paschal question had at length awakened criticism, and started difficulties in harmonizing them which hitherto had not been perceived.

7. Polycrates of Ephesus closes the list of authorities belonging to the Asiatic School. In the last decade of the second century he writes to Victor, Bishop of Rome (A.D. 190–202), on the Paschal question: and having occasion to mention the practice of St. John describes him in the language of the Fourth Gospel, as the disciple that ‘reclined on the bosom of the Lord.’ Nothing like this occurs in the other Gospels. It must be borne in mind also that Polycrates states that seven of his relatives before him had been bishops; that he carefully observes their traditions; and that he has ‘gone diligently through every holy scripture’ (Polycrates in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 24).

8. But to complete the evidence, before passing away from the Asiatic Church to her Gallic colony, let me direct attention to one fact. Montanism, which took its rise about or soon after the middle of the second century, was strictly an offspring of the Christianity of Asia Minor. As might have been expected, the two main props on which it relied for support were the two great writings ascribed to the Apostle St. John. As its picture of the earthly metropolis of Christ’s kingdom, the New Jerusalem, was drawn from the Apocalypse, so also the prophetic mission of its founder was held to be the realization of the promise recorded in the Fourth Gospel of the Paraclete, who should lead the faithful into all truth. On this subject I shall have more to say when I come to discuss the extreme view, into which the more extravagant opponents of Montanism were driven, of rejecting the writings of St. John wholly.

II. The Churches of Gaul. Intimately connected with the Churches of Asia Minor were the Christian brotherhoods established in the south of Gaul. The close alliance existing between these communities as early as the middle of the second century of the Christian era is a striking testimony to the power of the new faith in cementing the bonds of union between far-distant peoples. As, centuries before, the districts of Gaul lying on the seashore and along the banks of the Rhone had been civilised by colonists from the Greek peoples of Asia Minor, so now it would appear that these regions were indebted to the same country for the higher knowledge of the Gospel. However this may be, the intercourse between the two Churches during the second century was close and uninterrupted. More than one instance is recorded in which they corresponded with each other on matters of common or individual interest. On one occasion the Christians of Vienne and Lyons write to their brethren in Phrygia and Asia, giving them an account of the last hours of the martyrs who had suffered under M. Aurelius, and among these are mentioned at least two who were Asiatics by birth, Alexander, a physician from Phrygia (§13), and Attains of Pergamum (§17). On another, the Gallican brotherhoods write to the same communities to express their opinion on the recent heresies of Montanus, Alcibiades, Theodotus, and others, an opinion which Eusebius describes as ‘circumspect and most orthodox’ (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. v. 3). This opinion was appended, he tells us, to a collection of letters written severally by the martyrs from their prisons, and addressed to the brethren in Phrygia and Asia (Eusebius l.c.).

Though all these documents were known to Eusebius, he has only preserved fragments (though very considerable fragments) of the first mentioned (Hist. Eccles. v. 1). Its date is fixed as A.D. 177. In this letter the Gospel of St. John is once distinctly quoted (§4), ‘So was fulfilled the saying of our Lord, ‘The time shall come, in which every one that killeth you shall think to do service to God’ (John 16:2), while elsewhere its language is indirectly borrowed. Thus one of the martyrs is described as ‘having the Comforter in himself, the Spirit, which he showed in the fullness . . . of love, having been well-pleased to lay down even his own life in defense of the brethren (§3; cf. John 16:26; 15:13): for he was and is indeed a genuine disciple of Christ, following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth’ (ib.; Rev 14:4); and another as being ‘sprinkled and strengthened from the heavenly fountain of the water of life, that goeth forth from the body . . . of Christ’ (§22; cf. John 4:14; 7:38).

The persecution which was fatal to these martyrs placed Irenaeus in the vacant see of Lyons. His testimony is important, not only because a close connection existed between the Churches of Gaul and Asia generally, but because he was himself by birth and education an Asiatic. It is important also for another reason. He was directly connected with the Apostolic age by two remarkable instances of longevity. Polycarp, his early instructor in his Asiatic home, declared himself to have been ‘eighty-six years in the Lord’ at the time of his martyrdom. Pothinus, his immediate predecessor in the see of Lyons, his late abode, was close upon ninety when he too died under the hands of the persecutor. Polycarp was a disciple of St. John, and is said to have been placed by him in the see of Smyrna. Pothinus was a growing boy when the Apostle died, and it seems probable (though of this there is no direct evidence) that he, like his successor at Lyons, was of Asiatic birth and parentage. Irenaeus, as we have seen, lays great stress on the teaching of the former, which he professes to follow implicitly; and we may suppose with much probability that among the anonymous presbyters whose authority he quotes as having associated with the Apostles and their immediate successors the latter held a prominent place. We are therefore greatly interested in enquiring what language Irenaeus holds with respect to the Fourth Gospel.

The answer is decisive. He not only mentions or quotes it many times, as the work of the beloved disciple, but gives many particulars respecting it. He states in one place that it was written at Ephesus (iii.1.1), in another that its object was to counteract the heresies of the Nicolaitans and Cerinthians (iii.11.1). He uses it freely (quoting it between 70 and 80 times), not only to establish his own position, but also to confute his Gnostic opponents. To them and to him alike, as to the universal Church, it is a recognised authority. In short, a Fourth Gospel is to Irenaeus not only a historical fact, but a foreordained necessity. He ransacks heaven and earth for reasons why the evangelical record should thus be foursquared. In analogies from the physical world, in types from Old Testament prophecy, in the successive developments of God’s revelation to men, he finds evidence that this number alone is consonant with the Divine order of things (iii.11.8).

The extant work of Irenaeus on heresies, from which these references are taken, was written during the episcopate of Eleutherus who held the see of Rome from about A.D. 175 to A.D. 190. The exact date is of little or no importance. The point to be kept in view is this; that in youth he had lived in familiar intercourse with Polycarp, and had heard his aged master speak again and again of the Apostle St. John, that he professed to have a very vivid remembrance of those early days, and that on every occasion he appealed to the traditions of the Asiatic School as authoritative in matters of Christian faith and history.

Of his honesty and good faith I think no reasonable doubt can be entertained. Eager partisanship may occasionally have blinded his judgment as to the value of the evidence before him. Close and searching criticism was not the characteristic either of his age or of his class. A tradition may here and there have been confused or exaggerated in the course of transmission; a metaphor translated into a fact; a categorical statement substituted for an individual opinion; an early date replaced by a later or conversely. Let all reasonable allowance be made for these possibilities. The fact still remains, that he firmly believed himself, and received as the tradition of St. John’s personal disciples, that the Fourth Gospel was written by none other than the beloved Apostle himself. On this point he does not betray a shadow of a misgiving.

On reviewing the evidence of the Asiatic school, which thus culminates in Irenaeus, we cannot fail to be struck with the solidarity of the body through which it is transmitted. Polycarp and Papias, Melito and Claudius Apollinaris, Polycrates and Irenaeus, the martyrs of Asia and the martyrs of Gaul, are not isolated individuals, nor is church-membership their only bond of union; but within the Church itself they belong to a more or less compact community, of which the members are in constant mutual intercourse, and consult and advise each other on very diverse matters of interest. This fact is a strong safeguard for the continuity of transmission where a tradition so important is concerned, but in the case before us the disputes of the age and country afford an additional security. As soon as we bring the original theory of the Tübingen school, which dated the Fourth Gospel about A.D. 170, or even the modified hypothesis of some recent antagonists, which places it close upon the middle of the second century, face to face with these controversies, we at once see what enormous improbabilities are involved in either supposition. The forgery (for professing, as it evidently does, to emanate from the beloved disciple, the Fourth Gospel must be called by this hard name, unless it be genuine), the forgery is almost contemporary with, or even subsequent to, the rise of Montanism and the first outburst of the Quartodeciman controversy. It has a very direct bearing on Montanism, for it supplies a basis for the prophetic theory of this sect; and yet it is received by Catholics and Montanists alike. It raises questions connected with the celebration of Easter (though it does not touch the main subject of dispute); and yet it is accepted without misgiving equally by the Quartodecimans and their opponents. Yet, if the hypothesis were true, that it first saw the light during the lifetime of the very generation which was most actively engaged in both these controversies, must we not believe that its authenticity would have been most fiercely contested, and that the clearest traces of this contest would have been stamped on the extant literature of the period?

III. The Church of Antioch.

1. From the Churches of Asia Minor and their Gallic colonies it is natural to turn to the neighbouring and allied Church of Antioch; and here the apostolical father Ignatius first claims attention. His testimony is the more important, because he is historically connected with the two principal Churches in which the influence of St. John prevailed, Ephesus and Smyrna. The genuine Epistles of Ignatius were written A.D. 110, very few years after the probable date of St. John’s Gospel. They are brief, abrupt and epigrammatic, being chiefly occupied with personal explanations and instructions. An aged disciple on his way to martyrdom writes a few hurried lines to the Christian congregations with whom he has been brought into contact on his journey. Though they reflect the teaching, and in many places echo the language, of the New Testament—especially of St. Paul—the letters contain only two direct quotations, as such, from Holy Scripture.

Under these circumstances it is sufficient if we are able to trace the influence of the Fourth Gospel in individual thoughts and phrases. Nor are such traces wanting. When in his Epistle to the Philadelphians Ignatius writes (§7), ‘The Spirit is not deceived, being from God; for it knoweth whence it cometh and whither it goeth . . . and it searcheth out the hidden things’ we recognise at once our Lord’s description of the Spirit in His conversation with Nicodemus as related in John 3:8. Other reminiscences, not so obvious but equally real, of Johannine language are traceable elsewhere. Thus the sentence, ‘The prince of this world is abolished’ (Trall. 4) is an echo, almost a repetition, of our Lord’s language (John 7:31; 16:11). Again, the contrast of the ‘corruptible food’ with the ‘bread of God, which is the flesh of Christ and the draught of His blood’ (Rom. 7), is an adaptation of the characteristic discourse related in the sixth chapter of the same Gospel. So too in other passages he echoes the same expressions, ‘the flesh of the Lord,’ ‘the blood of Jesus Christ’ (Trall. 8; cf Philad. 4), ‘the bread of God’ (Eph. 5). And elsewhere the coincidences with St. John are equally patent; ‘we ought so to receive him (the bishop), as Him that sent him’ (Eph. 6; cf. John 13:20); ‘where the shepherd is, there follow ye, as sheep, for many fair-seeming wolves make captive those that run the race of God’ (Philad. 2; cf. John 10:4, 12); ‘to Him alone (Christ) are committed the hidden things of God, He Himself being the door of the Father’ (Philad. 9; cf. John 10:7); ‘Jesus Christ, His Son, Who is His Word, coming forth from silence. Who in all things pleased Him that sent Him’ (Magn. 8; cf. John 6:38).

2. Following the succession of the Antiochene bishops we arrive at Theophilus—the sixth bishop according to Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iv. 20), the seventh according to Jerome (Ep. ad Algas. quaest. 6), who commences his list of Antiochene bishops with St. Peter. In his extant Apologia ad Autolycum, an undoubtedly genuine work, Theophilus quotes the beginning of the Fourth Gospel and mentions St. John as its author. The passage runs as follows: ‘Whence the Holy Scriptures and all the inspired men (πνευματοφόροι) teach us, one of whom, John, says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,” showing that at the first God was alone, and the Word in Him. Then he says, “And the Word was God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made” ’ (ad Autol. ii.22). This direct and precise reference is the more conspicuous, because it is the solitary instance in which Theophilus quotes directly and by name any book of the New Testament. To this undoubted quotation should be added the following coincidences: ‘How can one fail to notice the pangs which women suffer in child-bearing, and after that they forget their trouble?’ (ad Autol. ii.23; cf. John 16:21); ‘A corn of wheat, or of the other seeds, when it is cast into the earth, first dieth and is dissolved, then it riseth and becometh an ear . . .’ (ad Autol. i.13). Here the language of Theophilus combines expressions in John 12:24 and 1 Cor 15:36, 37. Lastly, in ad Autol. i.14 occurs the following expression, ‘Do not therefore disbelieve, but believe,’ a reminiscence of John 20:27, ‘Be not faithless, but believing.’

The date of these notices may be fixed with tolerable accuracy. Eusebius in his Chronicon gives A.D. 177 as the year of Theophilus’s death. But it is almost certain that he has antedated the event by six or more years at the lowest computation. For in his Apology, Theophilus mentions the death of M. Aurelius, and he carries his chronological calculations down to this epoch (iii.28). These calculations indeed are confessedly taken from Chryseros ‘the nomenclator’ (ii.27), a freedman of Aurelius, who stopped at this point; but as the object of Theophilus is to calculate the age of the world at the time when he writes, it is a tolerably safe conclusion that the third book, in which these calculations occur, must date not long after the death of the Stoic emperor, i.e. not long after A.D. 180. The three books were written and despatched separately, so that the first and second, in which the quotations are found, may be placed a little earlier than the third book. Besides the direct evidence which the Apologia ad Autolycum supplies to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Theophilus is in another way an indirect witness to the wide acceptance of four Gospels in the Canon of the New Testament. Jerome speaks in more than one passage of a work of Theophilus, now lost, which he calls his ‘commentaries.’ In one reference indeed he appears to throw doubt upon the authenticity of this work. Speaking of Theophilus in Vir. Illustr. 25 he says, ‘I have read commentaries written in his name on the Gospel and on the Proverbs of Solomon, which in my opinion do not appear to agree with the elegance and style of the volumes mentioned above’ (i.e. the ad Autolycum and other works). But elsewhere he quotes the work without the slightest misgiving. In the preface to his own commentary on St. Matthew’s Gospel (in Matth. Praef. Op. vii. p. 7) he confesses ‘to have read many years before the commentaries on Matthew . . . of Theophilus, bishop of the city of Antioch.’ In his Epistle to Algasia (Ep. cxxi. Op. I. p. 866), written in A.D. 407, he throws further light upon the character of this lost writing. He speaks of it as a harmony of the four Gospels and as a lasting monument of the writer’s genius (‘Theophilus . . . qui quattuor Evangelistarum in imum opus dicta compingens ingenii sui nobis monumenta dimisit’). It is needless to point out the importance and significance of a harmony of the four Gospels constructed in the second century, in its relation to the genuineness of St. John’s Gospel, and to the Diatessaron of Tatian.

IV. The Churches of Palestine.

Contemporaneously with the Ignatian Epistles and the treatise of Theophilus, we have the evidence of writers in the neighboring region of Palestine.

1. The date of the writings of Justin Martyr is of some importance. The two Apologies were written in the reign of Antoninus Pius, i.e. between July, 138 and March, 161. If we can trust the present text, the first (the longer) Apology was composed before M. Aurelius became Caesar, i.e. before A.D. 140. Against this early date, however, it is urged (1) that L. Verus, who is there styled ἐραστής παιδείας; was only ten years old at this time; (2) that Justin (Apol. i.46) speaks of our Lord as born 150 years before; (3) that Marcion is mentioned as already influential (Apol. i. 26). I do not think that much stress can be laid on these arguments. The expression ἐραστής παιδείας was a very fit one to apply to an imperial boy, who was, or was presumed to be, studious and intelligent, and to whom owing to his youth no other compliment could be paid. As regards the question of the chronology of our Lord’s life, if Justin followed the ordinary computation (which is probably the case), he would place the Crucifixion in A.D. 29; and, allowing about thirty-three years for the interval between the Nativity and the Crucifixion, Justin’s 150 years would bring the date of the work to A.D. 146. The third objection, the allusion to Marcion, is more difficult to meet, but the dates of his life are very uncertain. Happily, however, we can escape these difficulties altogether. By a very plausible emendation (see Hort in the Journal of Philology, iii., 1857, pp. 163, 165), which reads Καί Καίσαρι for Καίσαρι Καί in the opening words of the Apology, M. Aurelius has already become Caesar before the date of the work. If we accept this conjecture, the passage itself affords no posterior limit except the martyrdom of Justin, and the death of Antoninus Pius in A.D. 161. The second Apology is a sort of appendix or postscript to the first, written at the same time or soon after.

The Dialogue with Trypho was written after the longer Apology to which it contains a clear allusion and therefore probably after both Apologies. It is represented as held at Ephesus, where Justin had stayed (Eusebius Hist. Eccles. iv.18). Justin’s testimony therefore becomes in some sense the testimony of the Asiatic school. The time of the Dialogue is stated to be during the war of Barcochba A.D. 132–135, i.e. when Polycarp and Papias were scarcely advanced beyond middle age, and while Melito and Apollinaris were yet young men. From the allusion to the first Apology given above, it is evident that if we accept the later date for the Apology, the dialogue cannot have been published until several years after it actually took place.

Eusebius and others after him place Justin’s martyrdom in the reign of M. Aurelius, and the Paschal Chronicle fixes it at A.D. 165. On the other hand, Epiphanius apparently and others place it in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and, as far as we can judge, before A.D. 150. If we adopt with Hort A.D. 149 as the date, and leave time for the Dialogue, we may place the extant works of our author between A.D. 145–149.

We now turn to the evidence which Justin affords as to the Fourth Gospel. He does not quote it by name, but he shows more than one striking coincidence with its language. Thus speaking of the sacrament of baptism he says (Apol. I.61), ‘For Christ also said, “Unless ye be born again (ἀναγεγεννήθητε), ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, for that it is quite impossible for those that are once born to enter into their mother’s womb is manifest to all” (cf. John 3:3-5).’ If any doubt could be entertained whence this saying was derived, it will appear from a passage in the chapter immediately preceding (§60) that the Fourth Gospel was present to his mind. Applying the incident of the brazen serpent as an image of the Crucifixion, he reports Moses as erecting the serpent and saying, ‘If ye look on this image . . . and believe, ye shall be saved in Him.’ This is a very wide departure from the account in Numbers (21:7-9), where there is nothing about a type or about the necessity of belief; but the writer obviously had in his mind John 3:14, 15, ‘as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him . . . should have eternal life.’ Again, in the sixth chapter of the same Apology, Justin says: ‘The prophetic spirit we reverence and worship, honouring (it) in reason and in truth,’ where we are reminded of John 4:24. Speaking of the holy eucharist, ‘We have been (or were) taught (ἐδιδάχθημεν),’ he writes (§66), ‘that the bread and wine are both the flesh and the blood of that Jesus Who became flesh,’ an expression founded upon John 6:54. ‘For,’ he adds, ‘the Apostles, in the memoirs left by them, which are called Gospels, have recorded that it was so enjoined on them’ etc. This passage alone however would be far from conclusive. It can only be taken to strengthen a position already established. One other coincidence from the same work will suffice. Speaking of the prophecy in Isaiah of the miraculous conception of the Messiah, Justin remarks that God by the Spirit of prophecy foretold what was incredible, ‘so that, when it came to pass, it might not be disbelieved, but might be believed from its having been foretold’ (Apol. I.33), where we are at once reminded of John 14:29.

Turning now to the Dialogue with Trypho we find numerous expressions, which cannot well be explained except on the supposition that Justin had the Fourth Gospel before him. Our Lord is described as ‘the only spotless and righteous light, that was sent from God to men’ (Dial. 17; cf. John 1:9); He is the ‘only-begotten of the Father of the universe, His Word and Power sprung in a special way from Him, as we have learnt from the memoirs’ (Dial. 105; cf. John 1:14). An allusion to the imagery of Genesis xlix.11 is explained of Christ because ‘His blood sprung not of man’s seed, but of the will of God’ (Dial. 63; cf. John i.13). We are informed (Dial. 69) that the Jews ‘dared to call Him a magician and a deceiver of the people (λαοπλάνον),’ where the last word seems to have been suggested by John 7:12, ‘Nay, but He deceiveth the people.’ Speaking of himself and of his brother Christians, Justin says, ‘We are called, and are, the true children of God, who keep His commandments’ (Dial. 123; cf. John 1:12; 1 John 3:1, 2); ‘to us it is given both to hear, and to be with, and to be saved through this Christ, and to know all the things of the Father’ (Dial. 121; cf. John 14:7); ‘who are instructed in all the truth’ (Dial. 39; cf. John 16:13). ‘He that knoweth not Him (i.e. Christ), knoweth not the counsel of God, and he that insulteth and hateth Him, manifestly hateth and insulteth Him that sent Him; and if any man believeth not on Him, he believeth not the preaching of the prophets, who announced the glad tidings of Him, and preached them unto all’ (Dial. 136, a reminiscence of John 5:23, 45, 46). Again, in the description of John the Baptist given in Dial. 88, an account which is chiefly taken from the Synoptic Gospels, unmistakeable proofs are given of Justin’s acquaintance with the Fourth Gospel also. Thus the repudiation of the Baptist’s own claim to the Messiah­ship is closely associated with the announcement of the presence of the ‘one stronger,’ whose shoes John proclaims himself unworthy to bear, in a way which presupposes Justin’s knowledge of John 1:19-27. Lastly, in Dial. 57 occurs an expression which reminds us very forcibly of John 6:31, ‘Of the manna, on which your fathers were nourished in the wilderness, the Scripture saith, that they ate angels’ food.’

A work of Justin earlier than any extant is his treatise against Marcion. A few lines of this lost work are preserved in Irenaeus (iv.6.2). The passage is very short, not more than half a dozen lines, and does not give much scope for quotations from the New Testament, but in it occurs an expression suggested by St. John, ‘The only-begotten Son came to us, gathering up His own creation in Himself.’ The latter part of the clause is based on Eph 1:10, the former on John 1:18.

2. We now turn from the master to the scholar, from Justin Martyr to Tatian. The facts of Tatian’s life are soon told. An Assyrian by birth, as he himself distinctly says, and a heathen, he exercised the profession of a sophist, in which capacity he travelled far and wide. His mind was first turned towards Christianity by reading the Scriptures, which impressed him greatly. He was converted, and became a disciple of Justin Martyr, doubtless at Rome, and after the death of his master appears to have remained some time in the metropolis teaching. Subsequently he left Rome, and seems to have spent the remainder of his life in the East, more especially in Syria and the neighboring countries. After Justin’s death—how soon after we do not know—his opinions underwent a change. He separated himself from the Church, and espoused views closely allied to those of the Encratites. When Irenaeus wrote his first book, Tatian was no longer living, as may be inferred from the language of this father (Iren. i.28.1); and this book must have been written before A.D. 190, and may have been written as early as A.D. 178. On the whole, we shall perhaps not be far wrong if we place the period of his literary activity at about A.D. 155–170.

Of several writings of Tatian mentioned by the ancients, only one has come down to us, his Address to the Greeks, a work composed before Tatian’s separation from the Church, apparently not long after the death of Justin. This Oratio ad Graecos is an Apology, addressed to Gentiles. We do not therefore expect to find in it quotations from the sacred books, with which Gentile readers would as a matter of course have no acquaintance, and to which they would attribute no authority. But the following passages place beyond the reach of any reasonable doubt what was at least an a priori presumption, that the pupil of Justin knew and accepted the Fourth Gospel, to which his master’s extant writings have been shown to give testimony.

§4. ‘God is a Spirit’ (cf. John 4:24).

§13. ‘And this then is the saying, “The darkness comprehendeth not the light” ’ (cf. John 1:5).

§19. ‘Follow ye the only God. All things have been made by Him, and apart from Him hath been made no thing’ (cf. John 1:3).

These passages are conclusive, for they are characteristic passages of the Fourth Gospel. There are other coincidences with Johannine language, such as §5 ‘God was in the beginning,’ which, taken by themselves, cannot be pressed, but in the light of the extracts given above are probably derived from the same source.

V. The Church of Alexandria.

1. In all probability, the Epistle of Barnabas is to be considered the earliest piece of extant Christian literature, outside the Canon, which emanates from Alexandria. Whoever is its author—and it is noticeable that he nowhere claims to be the Apostle Barnabas—in his general style and his interpretation of the Old Testament, he represents Alexandrian thought. He gives us moreover a picture of feuds between Jews and Christians, which is in keeping with what we know from other sources of the character of the population of that great city. For reasons which cannot be entered into here, but which bear upon the interpretation of a passage in §4, I am inclined to place the date of the Epistle in the reign of Vespasian, after that Emperor’s association with himself of his sons Titus and Domitian in the supreme power (A.D. 70–79). In this case, it was written before the Fourth Gospel; we must therefore look elsewhere for the evidence of which we are in search. We shall find, if I mistake not, that the earliest quotations from the Fourth Gospel (and these very important) which proceed from Alexandria, are contained in the works of Gnostic writers, such as Basilides, Valentinus etc.; and these will be considered later on. At present we will confine ourselves to orthodox writings.

With one possible exception there is no orthodox literature extant which comes from the Alexandrian Church between the Epistle of Barnabas and the writings of Clement of Alexandria. That exception is the latter part (§§11, 12) of the Epistle to Diognetus. In our solitary authority for this epistle, the Strassburg MS., now no longer extant, the beginning of one treatise and the conclusion of another have been accidentally attached together so as to form in appearance one work. The writer of the latter part is clearly an Alexandrian, and indulges in the allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament which are characteristic of that school. He calls himself ‘a disciple of the Apostles and a teacher of the Gentiles.’ The whole tone of thought of the fragment is second-century. These indications appear to point to Pantaenus, the master of Clement, and the Apostle of the Indies (c. A.D. 180–210), as the author of the treatise. The account given of him in Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. v. 10) would seem to imply that his journey to India preceded his appointment as head of the Catechetical school of Alexandria; and Anastatius of Sinai speaks of him as one of those early exegetes, who understood all the narrative of the Hexaemeron as referring to Christ and the Church, a view which harmonizes in a remarkable degree with the allegorical interpretation of the garden of Eden preserved in this fragment.

The influence of St. John is very manifest in this treatise, though there is no direct quotation from his Gospel. The Word who is called ‘the Life’ (§12; cf. John 1:4), ‘who was from the beginning’ (§11 cf. John 1:2), ‘through whom the Father is glorified’ (§12; cf. John 13:31; 14:13), ‘has revealed Himself to His disciples’ (§11; cf. John 2:11). These and other coincidences with the Fourth Gospel, occurring in a fragment which occupies less than two octavo pages, are sufficient to indicate that the writer’s mind was imbued with Johannine teaching and phraseology.

2. Clement of Alexandria in his Stromateis (i.1.11) describes one of his instructors in Greece as ‘the Ionian’ and places him first on the list of his teachers, as though he were the earliest. Thus he is connected with Asia Minor, and probably with the school of St. John. Consequently his testimony is of great importance for our purpose. To Clement we owe several traditions of St. John. He speaks of a certain statement as ‘not occurring in the four Gospels handed down to us but only in the Gospel according to the Egyptians,’ thus showing that in his time the number of the Gospels was definitely fixed at four. In another passage he appeals to the tradition of the presbyters of a former generation as to the order in which the Gospels were written, saying that after the other Gospels had been written, ‘John, last of all, observing that the external (bodily) facts (τά σωματικά) had been set forth in the existing Gospels, at the urgent request of his friends and by the divine guidance of the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel (πνευματικόν . . . εὐαγγέλιον).’ The value of this tradition may be great or it may be small; but his whole language bears testimony to the fact that the Gospel of St. John had long been recognised as authoritative, and that traditions had grown up about it.

3. Origen was born in A.D. 185, and began to teach at eighteen. Of him it is sufficient to say that he wrote a commentary on St. John’s Gospel, and that he betrays no knowledge that the authenticity of the Gospel had ever been called in question.

VI. The Churches of Greece and Macedonia.

1. The extant remains belonging to this branch of the Church in the second century are very slight indeed. In the few lines of Dionysius of Corinth that survive, no quotation could have been introduced naturally. Perhaps however the Epistle to Diognetus §§1-10 may belong to this Church. It certainly shows evidence of Hellenic culture both in diction and matter. This however is a very slight presumption in favor of its ascription to Greece proper; and I only include it here because some place must be found for a document which is undoubtedly very early, and cannot well be assigned to a later date than the middle of the second century. The Epistle is full of indications of the influence of St. John’s writings. ‘Christians dwell in the world but are not of the world’ (§6; cf. John 17:11, 14, 16). The doctrine of the Word is drawn out fully in §7. He is described as ‘the artificer and creator of the universe, by Whom God made the heavens, by Whom He enclosed the sea in its proper bounds’ (cf. John 1:3; Heb 1:2); ‘God sent Him as saving . . . He sent Him as loving and not as judging’ (cf. John 3:17). In a later passage (§10), in language which is an echo of John 3:16, we are told, ‘For God loved men . . . to whom He sent His only-begotten Son, to whom He promised the kingdom in heaven and will give it to those that love Him’ (cf. 1 John 4:9). ‘How then,’ the writer goes on, ‘shalt thou (worthily) love Him, that before loved thee so’ (cf. 1 John 4:10, 11)?

2. That Athenagoras should be considered a representative of the Church of Greece is evident from the heading of extant Apology, in which he describes himself as an ‘Athenian.’ Thus the account of him given by Philippus Sidetes and preserved by Nicephorus Callistus which makes him the first leader of the Catechetical school at Alexandria, must be inaccurate. But Philip of Side, who lived in the fifth century and was ordained deacon by Chrysostom, was a notoriously pretentious and careless writer. For instance, in his short account of Athenagoras he makes Pantaenus the pupil of Clement, and asserts that Athenagoras’ Apology was addressed to Hadrian and Antoninus, whereas its title shows it to have been dedicated to the emperors Aurelius and Commodus, and therefore written after Commodus was associated in the government (autumn of A.D. 176). From other indications it seems possible to fix the date more precisely between the end of A.D. 176 and the end of A.D. 177.

The absence of all appeal to Holy Scripture, which is characteristic of apologies addressed to the heathen, is noticeable in Athenagoras also. But this does not prevent him from exhibiting correspondences with the thought and teaching of the Fourth Gospel. Thus God the Father ‘hath made all things by the Word that proceedeth from Him’ (§4; cf. John 1:3). Again, ‘the Son of God is (the) Word of the Father in form and in energy; for of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one, the Son being in the Father, and the Father in the Son’ (§10; cf. John 1:3; 17:21sq.). ‘To know God and the Word that proceedeth from Him, what is the union of the Son with the Father, what the communion (κοινωνία) of the Father with the Son’ is the Christian’s life (§12; cf. John 17:3). The later Church of Greece proper is almost a blank as regards any literary activity.

VII. The Church of Rome.

The genuine Epistle of Clement has been assigned with great probability to A.D. 95 or 96, during the reign of Domitian, when St. John was still in banishment in the island of Patmos. It was almost certainly composed before St. John wrote his Gospel. Accordingly, in this, the first contribution to Christian extra-canonical literature which emanated from Rome, no quotation from the Fourth Gospel is possible.

1. We therefore pass on to the Shepherd of Hermas, the author of which is described in the Muratorian Canon, in a well-known passage, to have composed his work during the episcopate of his brother Pius (c. A.D. 141–156) in Rome. It is the earliest Christian allegory, written probably by a slave and is noticeable for its lack of quotations from Holy Scripture. This applies not merely to the New Testament but to the Old Testament likewise. There are numerous passages which recall the language of the psalms and prophetical books in the one case, and of the Synoptic Gospels and Epistles—especially the Epistle of St. James—in the other, but the coincidences are embedded in the narrative itself, and have to be carefully disentangled from it. The only quotation which is avowedly such is taken from an apocryphal work, the book of Eldad and Modad (Vis. ii.3). In spite however of this characteristic feature, the treatise contains indications that the author was influenced by the writings of St. John. The very title The Shepherd recalls the parable of the Good Shepherd in John 10, and the sixth Similitude is an elaboration of the metaphor employed in that parable. The same chapter in the Fourth Gospel affords a more remarkable coincidence. In the ninth Similitude the Son of God is called ‘the Gate’ and it is added that ‘no man can enter into the kingdom of God otherwise than through the name of His Son Who is beloved by Him’ (Sim. ix.12; cf. John 10:9; 14:6). In the same section the Son of God is said to be ‘begotten prior to all His Creation, so that He became His Father’s adviser in His Creation.’ These correspondences occurring together seem to indicate the influence of the Fourth Gospel. Elsewhere St. John’s teaching on ‘the Truth’ underlies Hermas’ words as in Mand. iii., ‘Love the truth, and let nothing but truth proceed out of your mouth . . . and thus shall the Lord, Who dwelleth in thee, be glorified, for the Lord is true in every word, and with Him is no lie,’ a clear allusion to 1 John 2:27. Lastly, another passage recalls expressions in John 10:18, the Son ‘having Himself cleansed the sins of His people, showed them the paths of life, giving them the law which He received from His Father’ (Sim. v.6).

2. The reasons for assigning the Muratorian Canon to Rome are briefly as follows: (1) the mention of urbs, implying that the writer was familiar with Rome and probably wrote at Rome; (2) the translation of the work into Latin and its preservation in the Western Church; (3) the fact that the Canon which it presents is substantially the Canon of the Western Church; (4) the knowledge which the writer displays of the Roman authorship of the Pastor of Hermas; (5) the prominent position assigned to the Epistle to the Romans, which he explains more fully than usual, promising an exposition of the Epistle itself. I will not discuss the question of the authorship of this interesting fragment. It has been assigned to Gaius, the Roman presbyter, to Hegesippus, to Hippolytus. It was obviously written in Greek originally, and Greek was for the first two centuries the language of the Roman Church. The data for ascertaining the age of the writing are two: (1) the notice of an event occurring in the episcopate of Pius (A.D. 141–156) as having taken place ‘nuperrime temporibus nostris’; (2) the mention in a passage manifestly corrupt of Arsinous, Valentinus, Miltiades, Basilides and the founder of the Montanists. We have thus the inferior and the superior limits within which the work is to be assigned; and, though the problem presents considerable difficulties, we may provisionally place the date at A.D. 170 or thereabouts.

The fragment opens with an account of the Four Gospels. It is mutilated at the beginning, and the description of St. Matthew’s Gospel is wanting. This is the case too with the notice of St. Mark’s Gospel, which is lost all but the conclusion of the last sentence—‘at which however he was present and so he set them down.’ But the account given of St. Luke throws light upon the writer’s meaning. St. Luke, he tells us, was a physician who after the Ascension became a follower of St. Paul and compiled his Gospel in his own name. ‘But neither did he (nec ipse, i.e. any more than St. Mark) see the Lord in the flesh,’ that is to say, he was not an eyewitness. ‘He wrote from hearsay (ex opinione).’ The writer then continues, ‘The Fourth Gospel is (the work) of John one of the (personal) disciples (of Christ) (ex discipulis).’ This expression is significant. St. John’s position is here contrasted with that of St. Mark and St. Luke, who were not eyewitnesses. The word μαθητής implies a personal disciple of the Lord, and it is so used in Papias and Irenaeus. Moreover in this place it is peculiarly appropriate, inasmuch as St. John uses this expression of himself (John 18:15-16; 19:26-27; 21:20, 23-24); and his example doubtless fixed the usage of the Asiatic School. A little lower down, after quoting 1 John 1:1, he draws attention to the fact that St. John ‘not only claimed to have seen and heard’ the Lord (read non solum visorem se esse et auditorem), ‘but to have written all the marvels of the Lord in order (sed et scriptorem omnium mirabilium Domini per ordinem profitetur).’ This statement is emphatic. As distinct from the arrangement of events in the second and third (perhaps also in the first) Gospel, the eyewitness is declared to preserve the true chronology.

The references to the writings of St. John in the Muratorian Canon are full and explicit. (1) The circumstances under which the Gospel was written are first described; (2) incidentally the opening words in the first Epistle are quoted, ‘What wonder then if John so boldly puts forward each statement in his Epistle (in epistolis suis) also saying of himself, “What we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things we have written unto you” ’; (3) The mention of the number of St. Paul’s Epistles introduces an allusion to the Apocalypse, ‘for John likewise in the Apocalypse, although he writes to seven Churches, yet speaks to all’; (4) Next the Catholic Epistles are discussed, and we are told that ‘two Epistles of the before-mentioned John are considered canonical’; (5) lastly, the Apocalypse is mentioned again in conjunction with the Apocalypse of St. Peter, and an unqualified testimony is given to its acceptance in the Church. Thus there is a continuous chain of notices, and the absence of the faintest hint to the contrary renders it unquestionable that the same John is meant from beginning to end as the author of the Gospel, of the First Epistle, of the two shorter Epistles, and of the Apocalypse.

But is not the account of the Gospels in this fragment founded upon Papias? And if so, what account did Papias give? We have found that the Muratorian writer lays stress on the secondary character of St. Mark’s account, with apparent reference to his chronology. Papias also informs us concerning St. Mark, that, though strictly accurate, he ‘did not write in order (οὐ μέντοι τάξει), for he was not himself a hearer or follower of the Lord.’ Again, we notice that the Muratorian writer quotes from the First Epistle of St. John in evidence. Papias likewise does the same. We are not told with what object Papias adduced this testimony from the Epistles; but it is at least a plausible hypothesis that he had the same end in view as the Muratorian writer. May it not then be inferred with some degree of probability that the writer of the Muratorian Canon borrowed in some degree from Papias? The use of the term ex discipulis seems to point to such a source of information.

3. It might have been unnecessary to carry the history of the Canon in the Roman Church further; but doubts have been thrown of the view of Hippolytus upon this question. It has been maintained that he shows no knowledge of the Gospel as the work of St. John. It would indeed have been marvellous if Hippolytus, the pupil of Irenaeus, and the friend of Origen, both of whom bear such unmistakeable testimony to the reception of the Fourth Gospel, had entertained any doubts on this subject. But the answer to the objection is evident: (1) When Hippolytus expounds his own views, he is addressing heathens. He therefore does not appeal to any Scripture, because it would not carry authority with his hearers. (2) It is perfectly evident when he refers to the quotations from St. John in Gnostic writings that he and they alike received as authoritative the documents which are quoted. (3) He does not mention by name St. Matthew or St. Luke. He mentions St. Peter and St. James indeed, but without any connection with their writings in the New Testament. The only Pauline Epistles which he connects with the name of St. Paul are Romans, 2 Corinthians, 1 Timothy and perhaps Galatians though he quotes these and most of the other Epistles of St. Paul repeatedly. In the work against Noetus (§§12, 14, 15 etc.) and in a fragment preserved by Lagarde (p. 52) he distinctly quotes the Fourth Gospel and attributes it to ‘John, the beloved disciple.’ (4) Among the list of works ascribed to him on his statue is a ‘Defence of the Gospel and Apocalypse of St John.’ The work is lost, but there is reason to suppose that it was known to, and used by, Epiphanius. These reasons seem to me amply to justify our claim to reckon Hippolytus among the witnesses for the Johannine authorship. Hippolytus is the last and most famous representative of the Greek Church of Rome. Henceforward Rome becomes the focus of Latin Christendom.

VIII. The Churches of Africa.

Meanwhile Latin Christianity has had its headquarters in Africa and especially at Carthage. And it is here that we must seek the opinion of the early Latin Church on the question of the Canon. The Roman Church, Greek in nation and Latin in soil, was the natural link between Greek and Latin Christendom. Carthage and Africa were converted from Rome. The Canon of the African Church therefore may be supposed, in all the more important points, to reproduce the Canon of the Church of Rome.

1. Tertullian is the first known writer of the African Church; as to his own individual opinion on the authority of the Fourth Gospel no doubt can be entertained. He quotes it some two hundred times or more without the slightest misgiving. It is more important to trace the evidence, which his language affords, to the traditional testimony to its use. Thus in his treatise against Marcion (iv.2.5), after mentioning the four Evangelists together by name, he appeals to the Churches founded by St John and the succession of bishops derived from St. John, as evidence for the reception of the Gospels by the Catholic Church. Making all allowance for his rhetoric, such an appeal cannot be considered unmeaning. Of the Gospel of St. John especially he speaks (adv. Prax. §5) as though it had long worked itself into the phraseology and the teaching of Christianity.

2. Another document, contemporary with, or rather earlier than, Tertullian, the Acts of Martyrdom of SS. Perpetua and Felicitas (Ruinart, p. 80sq.) shows what a deep hold the writings of St. John had taken on the African Church at this time. At the outset, we meet in the preface with two obvious coincidences with Johannine phraseology. The courage of the martyrs is instanced as a proof of the power of God, ‘Who worketh always the works which He hath promised, for a testimony to them that believe not, for a support to them that believe’ (quae repromisit non credentibus in testimonium, credentibus in beneficium, a reference to John 10:38). The passage then proceeds, ‘accordingly in our case too, that which we have heard and handled declare we unto you also, brothers and sons, that ye also may . . . recount the glory of God (et nos itaque quod audivimus et contrectavimus annuntiamus et vobis, fratres et filioli, ut et vos . . . rememoremini gloriae Domini),’ an expression based upon the opening words of St. John’s First Epistle. Less stress can be laid on the fact that in her vision Perpetua sees (§4) sitting in the midst of a garden ‘hominem canum in habitu Pastoris,’ for this favorite idea of Christ as the Good Shepherd may have been derived from the Pastor of Hermas, though its original source was doubtless John x. But towards the close of the document occurs an allusion to the Fourth Gospel, which is interesting because it is not apparent on the surface. The only direct quotation from the New Testament found in this martyrology runs as follows: ‘But He who had said, “Ask and ye shall receive” (qui dixerat Petite et accipietis), gave (to the martyrs) at their prayer that form of death which each had desired’ (§19). Now, though the passage quoted occurs in three of the four Gospels (Matt 7:7; Luke 11:9; John 16:24), yet the exact form in which it is couched shows that it was derived, not from the Synoptic narrative, but from the Fourth Gospel. In short, with the exception of the Apocalypse (e.g. especially §12), there are no such coincidences with any other part of the New Testament as are afforded to the language of the Fourth Evangelist.

The Montanist, or rather Montanizing tendencies of this martyrology bear testimony to its early date. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that it was contemporary with the events which it records. Tertullian refers to the document in his de anima §55, and the date usually assigned to this treatise is c. A.D. 208. The date of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua and her companions is fixed by a reference in the martyrology itself to the birthday of Geta Caesar, thus placing it between A.D. 198, when Geta became Caesar, and A.D. 209, when he was created Augustus. It is highly probable that the actual year was A.D. 202, during the persecution of Severus.

IX. The Churches of Syria.

There is no early Syrian writer of importance until Bardesanes. He flourished at the close of the second century, or at the beginning of the third century, according as we consider the Emperor Antoninus mentioned in connection with him (Epiph. i.477 A, Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv.20, Jerome Vir. Ill. etc.) to have been M. Aurelius or Caracalla. Bardesanes was a voluminous writer, but of the various works assigned to him only one has survived, The Book of the Laws of Countries, which was discovered by Cureton among the Nitrian MSS., and published by him in his Spicilegium Syriacum in 1855. When examined, however, this treatise appears to have emanated from the disciples of Bardesanes rather than from Bardesanes himself, and its date is too late to be of assistance in determining the tradition of the Syrian Church on the question of the Fourth Gospel. Among the ancient Syriac documents discovered by Cureton in 1848 and published in 1864, is one entitled The Doctrine of the Apostles, in which Simon Peter is represented (Cureton l.c. p. 25) as quoting the promise of the Comforter in the language of John 14:26; and in another document. The Doctrine of Simon Cephas, the same quotation in a shorter form is again put into St. Peter’s mouth (Cureton l.c. p. 36). But here again, the value of this evidence is lessened by the uncertainty of the date which is to be assigned to these ancient documents.

X. The Testimony of Heretical Writers.

We now pass from the evidence of orthodox writers to the testimony of heretics, and when we begin to look into it we are surprised at its extent and at its early date. The numerous controversies which the early fathers held with the multiform systems to which Christianity gave rise, has resulted in our possessing, embedded in the works of the defenders of the faith, large extracts from the writers who assailed it. This mine of unorthodox literature has been largely increased by the acquisition in recent years of Hippolytus’ great work the Refutation of All Heresies. From this newly-discovered work I shall draw the greater part of the evidence which I hope to bring before you. The evidence itself I shall state as briefly as I can. We will begin with the Gnostics.

A. The Gnostics.

1. Simon Magus is credited with a work called The Great Revelation of which Hippolytus has preserved considerable extracts (Refut. vi.9-18). There is however reason to believe that the treatise was mainly written by his disciples. In a quotation from this book given by Hippolytus (l.c. vi.9), where man is described as ‘born of blood,’ some have found an allusion to John 1:13 (ἐξ αἱμάτων). This seems to me very doubtful. Indeed the book was probably composed somewhere about the close of the first century, perhaps before the Gospel of St. John was written, or at least circulated.

2. The Ophites or Naassenes. This was a very early sect, almost pre-Christian in its origin, which broke up into several distinct branches, as it adopted diverse extraneous elements. But its assimilative character makes it next to impossible for us to separate the more ancient features of its teaching from the more recent developments. Thus we have no means of ascertaining the exact date of the writings quoted by Hippolytus. But Hippolytus himself composed his Refutation some time early in the third century, and he intimates that when he wrote the Ophite system was already on the wane. There is good reason therefore for assigning an early period in the second century for the document which he had before him. It abounds with quotations from the Fourth Gospel. I will not weary you by detailing them at length, but will content myself with giving the references to the Gospel and to the pages in Duncker and Schneidewin’s edition (1859) of the Refutatio, merely premising that the quotations are clear and explicit.

John 1:3

Refutatio

1:9

v. 9 (p. 172)

3:5

v. 8 (p. 162)

4:6

v. 7 (p. 148)

4:10, 14

v. 9 (p. 172)

4:21

v. 9 (p. 166)

5:37

v. 8 (p. 154)

6:44

v. 8 (p. 158)

6:53

v. 8 (p. 152)

8:21

v. 8 (p. 154)

10:9

v. 8 (p. 156)

13:33

v. 8 (p. 152)

There are also undoubted allusions to the marriage of Cana in Galilee (John 2:1-11; cf. Refut. v. 8 p. 152) and to the man born blind (John 9:1; cf. Refut. v. 9, p. 172), which are evidently taken from the same source. And this list might be enlarged without difficulty.

3. The distinction between the Peratae and the Naassenes is not very clearly defined, and the two bodies seem to have held many tenets in common; but Hippolytus treats them as separate sects, and it is evident therefore that he considered the Peratae, as a body, to have a real and independent existence. I tabulate as before the obvious quotations from the Fourth Gospel, which occur in the account of them taken by Hippolytus from one of their own documents.

John 1:1-4

Refutatio

3:14

v. 16 (p. 192)

3:17

v. 12 (p. 178)

8:44

v. 17 (p. 196)

10:7

v. 17 (p. 198)

4. We pass on to another Ophite sect, which is treated next in order in the Refutatio—the Sethiani. As far as we can judge from the extracts which Hippolytus gives us, the formularies of this sect do not indulge in scriptural phraseology to any great extent. But here again we meet with traces of the use of St. John’s language, e.g. Refut. v. 19 (p. 206), where the Logos is said to have ‘drunk the cup of the living water which springeth up,’ an expression which recalls John 4:10, 14; and Refut. v. 21 (p. 212), where true believers are spoken of as those ‘who are born again of the Spirit, not of the flesh,’ words which remind us of John 3:6.

5. Justinus, whom Hippolytus quotes as another Ophite heresiarch, elaborated a system which combined heathen mythology and the book of Genesis into a fantastic theory of the universe. The Book of Baruch, from which Hippolytus quotes, presents few correspondences with the New Testament, but the same coincidence is found with John 4:10, 14, which we have noticed already; and Jesus, as he leaves his body on the cross, says to his mother Eden, ‘Woman, thou hast to the full thy son’ words which, though with a wholly different application, betray an acquaintance with John 19:26.

6. The evidence which the Ophite system affords can be supplemented from the Pistis Sophia, one of the few remains of the old Gnostic literature which have come down to us. This work is preserved in a Coptic version. It is in four books, the fourth probably by a different author, and containing a simpler form of teaching than the other three. The date usually assigned to the composition is the middle of the third century. I give from Petermann’s edition the correspondences which it presents with the Fourth Gospel.

John 1:20

Pistis Sophia

7:33

p. 11

7:35

p. 11

14:3

p. 145

15:15

p. 145

15:19

pp. 8, 145

17:14, 16

pp. 8, 145

17:23

p. 145

17:25

pp. 120, 175

The Johannine expression ‘Verily, verily’ (ἀμήν, ἀμήν) occurs very frequently (pp. 23, 55, 117, 197) in this treatise.

7. Basilides, Gnostic teacher of Alexandria, flourished in the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117–138). He professed to have been instructed by Glaucias, a follower of St. Peter. Clement of Alexandria, to whom we owe this information (Strom. vii.17, p. 898), classes him in a loose way with those heretics ‘who arose about the times of Hadrian, and who reached until the period of the elder Antoninus.’ Though Clement was interested in placing his date as low as possible, there is no serious difference of opinion in this respect. Within a few years the limit must lie. Now Hippolytus gives an abstract of a work, or portion of a work, by Basilides; and in it one or two passages of St. John are quoted and gnostically explained: ‘And this,’ says he, ‘is what is called in the Gospels, “That was the true light that lighteth every man who cometh (or coming) into the world” ’ (cf. Refut. vii.22, p. 360; cf. John 1:9). And again: ‘But that everything,’ says he, ‘has its own proper times the Savior states explicitly, saying, “My time is not yet come” ’ (Refut. vii.27, p. 376; cf. John 2:4). It is said, however, that these quotations are taken not from Basilides himself, but from some other Basilidean writer. But what are the facts? The general form in which the quotations are introduced—the word φησίν—cannot be urged as an argument one way or the other; for the expression is often used impersonally, and may mean ‘he says’ or ‘they say.’ The question must be decided by an examination of the passages themselves. Hippolytus begins by stating (p. 356, 1.64), that Basilides and Isidore his son and disciple declare that Matthew delivered to them certain secret truths which he had heard from the Savior. Then follows a series of quotations, extending over many pages and ushered in (p. 356, 1.69) by φησίν. This connecting particle is repeated again and again, but it links together a continuous argument from which it is patent that Hippolytus is quoting some one book and some one representative of the school. When he comments on the statements made, he occasionally speaks of his opponents in the plurals but the narrative quoted exhibits more than once the writer’s personality, e.g. ‘I do not admit,’ says he (with φησίν, p. 356, 1.79); ‘By willed, I mean,’ says he (with φησι p. 358, 1.97), clearly showing that the writer was a single individual who delivered his opinions with authority. Who then was this writer? The answer is obvious. None other than Basilides himself. No other name is mentioned by Hippolytus. After the first introduction Isidore is tacitly dropped, and Basilides is treated as the solitary antagonist. But it may be contended that this was a later work written by a disciple in the name of Basilides. To this contention we may reply: (1) that no such work was ever heard of; (2) that Basilides differed herein from other heresiarchs, as Simon Magus for example, in that his followers had no interest in forging documents in his name. For unlike the Ophites and the Valentinians, the Basilideans were not a large and spreading sect. They soon dwindled away, leaving by a natural selection the Ophites and Valentinians masters of the Gnostic field. On the other hand, the abstract which Hippolytus gives shows the influence of a master mind. Now it is known that Basilides wrote twenty-four books upon the Gospel—a work which is quoted by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iv.12.83sq., p. 599sq.) and which therefore was very likely to be in the hands of Hippolytus. And part of the abstract in Hippolytus is taken up with explaining what is meant by the term ‘the Gospel’; while the whole is closed with the significant sentence, ‘These then are the fables which Basilides utters, who taught throughout Egypt, and such were the fruits which he produced who was instructed in so great wisdom’ (p. 378, 1.40 sq.). And then Basilides is dismissed, and Hippolytus goes on to combat his contemporary Saturninus (Refut. vii.27, p. 378, l.40sq.). The extreme probability therefore that we have in the Refutation the very words of Basilides himself falls little short of demonstration; and thus we have a passage from St. John quoted, as contained ‘in the Gospels,’ by one outside the Church who ranks in antiquity between Clement of Rome and Polycarp.

8. Valentinus came to Rome, we are told, in the episcopate of Hyginus (A.D. 138–141) and was in his full vigour in the episcopate of Pius (c. A.D. 141–156). He professed to have received his instruction from Theodas, a disciple of St Paul. Tertullian informs us that he adopted the Canon of the New Testament complete, and the fact that the whole phraseology of the Valentinian system is built upon the opening verses of St. John’s Gospel is conclusive evidence that he recognised our Fourth Evangelist. Indeed, we have Irenaeus’ authority (iii.11.7) for saying that the Valentinians especially affected the Gospel of St John. But the matter is set at rest once for all by a distinct quotation from St John (10:8) which Hippolytus records of him (Refut. vi.35, p. 284, 1.77sq.).

9. The Valentinians were divided into two schools: (1) Western and (2) Eastern (Hipp. Refut. vi.35, p. 286). Of the Western Valentinians the most noticeable names are Heracleon, Ptolemaeus and Marcus. Now Heracleon wrote a commentary on St. John, which is quoted frequently by Origen. Origen informs us that Heracleon was reported to have been a familiar friend of Valentinus (Comm. in John. Tom. ii. §8). The rise of commentaries shows an advanced stage in the history of the text of the Fourth Gospel. Ptolemaeus, like Heracleon, was a direct disciple of Valentinus. His letter to his sister Flora is preserved in Epiphanius (Haer. xxxiii.3, p. 216 sq.); and in it John 1:3 is quoted (§3) as the statement of ὁ ἀπόστολος. Again, in Irenaeus i.8.2 a Valentinian writer quotes John 12:27, and a little later on (§5) follows a direct quotation from the same or another writer, commencing, ‘John the disciple of the Lord,’ and explaining from a Valentinian standpoint the prologue of the Fourth Gospel. From the clause added at the end of the section in the Latin version (et Ptolemaeus quidem etc.) it appears that the anonymous writer was Ptolemaeus. Marcus himself must have been of early date, inasmuch as ‘the Elder who lived before’ Irenaeus wrote against him (Iren. i.15.6). From the account which Irenaeus preserves of him, he appears to have used our Four Gospels, and the extracts from his teaching which survive in the works of this father contain an illustration of the mystical number ten, founded on a reference to the appearance of our Lord after His resurrection ‘when Thomas was not present’ (Iren. i.18.3; cf. John 20:24).

It is doubtful whether Marcus should be included among the Western, and not rather among the Eastern Valentinians. Our information as regards these last is very scanty, but a ray of light is thrown upon them by a collection of extracts appended to the works of Clement of Alexandria and according to Bunsen (Analect Antenic. p. 203) taken from the first book of the Hypotyposeis. The collection is entitled From the Teachings of Theodotus. It abounds in quotations from the Fourth Gospel, explained in a Valentinian sense. I tabulate the most striking, giving the pages from Potter’s edition of Clement:

John 1:1

Clem. Alex. §§6, 18, pp. 968, 973

1:3

§45, p. 979

1:4

§§6, 18, pp. 968, 973

1:9

§41, p. 979

1:14, 18

§6, p. 968

2:16

§9, p. 969

3:8

§17, p. 972

4:4

§17, p. 972

8:12

§35, p. 978

8:56

§18, p. 973

10:7

§26, p. 975

11:25

§6, p. 968

14:6

§6, p. 968

10. Marcion elaborated his system about A.D. 150. At first he accepted all the Four Gospels (Tertullian, de carne Chr. §§2, 3), but afterwards he became ‘ultra-Pauline,’ rejecting all but mutilations of the writings of St. Luke and St. Paul. The ground on which he would reject the authority of the three ‘pillar Apostles’ (Gal 2:9) is evident from Tertullian (adv. Marcion. v.3), who tells us that he appealed to St. Paul’s references in the Epistle to the Galatians to certain false apostles who had perverted the Gospel of Christ, and especially to St. Peter, as not walking uprightly after the truth of the Gospel. Thus he would consider them plunged in the blackness of intellectual darkness and incapable of imparting any teaching to a Gnostic like himself, while his condemnation of the Fourth Gospel would be pointed by the consideration that St. John was an Apostle of the circumcision. His silence therefore with respect to the Fourth Gospel becomes an argument in favour of its genuineness; had Marcion quoted it with approval, the fact would have been, so far as it went, evidence against the Johannine authorship. Apelles, his disciple, was certainly aware of its existence, for he tells us (in Hippol. Refut. vii.38, p. 410) that after His resurrection our Lord showed His disciples ‘the marks of the nails and in/of His side,’ an incident which is mentioned by St. John alone (20:25).

11. The Docetae doubted the reality of the Incarnation, saying that our Lord’s humanity was an appearance and nothing more. Their language was founded upon St. John’s phraseology—λόγος, μονογενής, πλήρωμα occurring constantly in their formularies (Hipp. Refut. viii.9, 10, pp. 416, 418, 420). John 3:5, 6 is adduced in support of their opinions in a Docetic document given us by Hippolytus (Refut. viii.10, p. 422).

12. The Judaizing Christians in the primitive Church separated off into two main divisions, according to the view that they adopted of the obligation of the Mosaic Law. The Nazarenes, while recognizing the binding nature of the law upon themselves, were in the main orthodox. On the other hand the Ebionites considered the old dispensation permanent and for everyone, and repudiated the authority and Apostleship of St Paul. In considering the testimony which these two early Judaizing sects afford to the Fourth Gospel, we are fortunate in being able to appeal at first hand to extant works emanating from representatives of both schools of thought.

The Clementine Homilies represent the views of Gnostic Ebionism. The exact date of the work is uncertain, but it may be placed with confidence between A.D. 100–180. I am myself inclined to fix it at c. A.D. 150. Formerly our knowledge of the treatise was derived from a manuscript mutilated at the end, and some alleged correspondences with the Fourth Gospel, which it contained, were hotly disputed by the Tubingen school, who made this document the keystone of their elaborate theory of the alleged antagonism between St. Paul and St. Peter in the early Church. In 1853, however, Dressel published the missing conclusion from a Vatican MS., and it was found to contain an obvious allusion to the story of the man born blind. From that time the acquaintance of the Clementine writer with the Fourth Gospel has not been denied. Though this passage in the 19th homily is decisive, it may be of interest to give other coincidences from the earlier portions of this work; e.g. Clem. Hom. iii.25 ‘He was a murderer and a liar’ (cf. John 8:44); Clem. Hom. iii.52 ‘I am the gate (πύλη) of life, he that entereth through me entereth into life’ (cf. John 10:27); ib. ‘My sheep hear my voice’ (cf. John 10:9); Clem. Hom. xi.26 ‘Verily I say unto you, except ye be born again of living water in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (cf. John 3:5).

The book entitled The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is a product of a Nazarene, as the Clementine Homilies of Ebionite, Judaism. It was written after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, and probably before the rebellion of Barcochba (A.D. 132–135). It professes to be a prophecy of the Messiah, and it could not therefore without loss of dramatic propriety quote from the evangelical record, but it contains many expressions which are characteristic of the Fourth Gospel, as μονογενής (Test. Benj. 9), ‘lamb of God’ (Test. Jos. 19; Benj. 3), ‘the Savior of the world’ (Test. Levi 14; Benj. 3; only in John 4:42 and 1 John 4:14 in the New Testament), ‘the gate into life for all flesh’ (Test. Jud. 24). Other longer sentences are apparently due to the same source; thus Test. Levi 14 ‘the light of the world given unto you which enlightens all mankind’ (cf. John 1:9; 8:12); ib. § ‘he himself makes judgments of truth upon the earth’ (cf. John 5:27); ‘then Abraham rejoiced’ (cf. John 8:56); Test. Jud. 20 ‘the Spirit of truth witnesses to all . . .’ (cf. John 15:26); Test. Benj. 9 ‘he shall be lifted up upon the cross, and is ascending from earth to heaven’ (cf. John 3:13, 14; 6:62).

Hitherto the voice of antiquity, whether uttered by the early fathers of the Church or by those who stood outside her pale, has been unanimous, as far as we can follow it, in testifying to the genuineness and authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. To this universal tradition, however, there is one exception, and one only, and we will conclude our examination of the external evidence by a consideration of this solitary exception to the chorus of universal attestation.

After speaking of Marcion’s mutilation of the Canon, Irenaeus (iii.11, 9) goes on to mention others also, who, in order that they may frustrate the gift of the Spirit, do not admit that type of Church teaching (illam speciem), which is in accordance with St. John’s Gospel, in which the Lord promised that He would send the Paraclete; but at one and the same time reject both the Gospel and the spirit of prophecy. ‘Unhappy men in very truth, who desire false prophets to exist (pseudo-prophetae—read pseudo-prophetas—quidem esse volunt), but yet banish from the Church the grace of prophecy. . . . Accordingly they ought not to acknowledge the Apostle Paul either . . . because he testifies to men and women prophesying in the Church’ (a reference to 1 Cor 11:4, 5).

Now from Irenaeus’ argument, of which I have given only a part, it is clear: (1) that these objectors repudiate the Gospel of St. John, because it contains a special promise of spiritual gifts; (2) that they confess the existence of false prophets, and yet deny the existence of a true prophecy; (3) hence, Irenaeus argues, they are as unreasonable as those who refuse to associate with the brethren for fear there should be hypocrites among them; (4) on this ground they ought not only to reject the Gospel of St. John, but also the Epistles of St. Paul, for St. Paul has spoken very emphatically about spiritual gifts, and recognises both men and women as prophesying in the Church. Irenaeus goes on in the next chapter to show at great length that there is a Spirit.

It is evident therefore that the persons spoken of are strong anti-­Montanists; they took offence at the claims of the Montanists to spiritual gifts, more especially at the prophesyings of women. We must therefore read pseudo-prophetas in the passage given above. For Montanism was spiritualism considered as a reaction against formalism and intellectualism. The Montanists laid great stress upon the writings of St. John, especially the Apocalypse, hence these opponents of Montanism cut the knot by denying the authority of the Fourth Gospel. And they did more than this. Irenaeus speaks only of their rejection of the Gospel of St John. He is dwelling only on the Gospels; and therefore he would naturally not say anything about their position with respect to other canonical books. It appears however from other sources that they rejected also the Apocalypse. For Epiphanius (who wrote after A.D. 350) describes a sect of heretics, whom he dubs ἀλόγοι, or irrationalists. It is a play on the word, for they rejected the testimony of John, who taught the doctrine of the Logos. He says, ‘I put upon them this nickname; from henceforth they shall be so called, and therefore, my beloved, let us give them this name’ (Epiph. Haer. li.3). He seems to have succeeded in affixing this opprobrious title upon them, for Augustine so calls them afterwards (Haer. 30, Oehler i. p. 202). Of these Alogi, Epiphanius relates that they sprang up after the Cataphrygians, and he evidently considers that they originated in the same neighborhood (l.c. esp. §33). He begins by describing them (§1) as ‘material,’ ‘sensual,’ in their views, and as gainsaying the Holy Spirit and the wonderful sequence of the Gospels (§16). He closes a full account of them with a passage commencing (§35) ‘And these not receiving the Holy Spirit are convicted by the Spirit etc.’ Thus his account begins and ends with an allusion to their attitude towards the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and his expressions are meaningless unless he is describing an anti-Spiritualist, anti-Montanist movement. We may therefore take it for granted that Irenaeus and Epiphanius are referring to one and the same body of people. Epiphanius goes on to say that they rejected the Gospel and the Apocalypse, and attributed these writings to Cerinthus. He supposes that they also rejected the Epistles of St. John likewise, ‘for these,’ he says, ‘agree in character with the Gospel and the Apocalypse’ (§34), but he evidently knows nothing definite about this last point.

In every other respect the Alogi seem to have been orthodox (Epiph. li.1.4; Compare Praedestinatrus Haer. i.30 ‘omnia nobiscum sapient’ Oehler I. p. 243). It does not appear that they rejected the doctrine of St John’s Gospel. The silence of Epiphanius on this point is speaking. Certainly this energetic champion of orthodoxy does not detect any mark of Ebionism in them. They may, however, have repudiated the Johannine form under which the Divinity of our Lord was taught, though even this is doubtful.

Very similar is the brief notice of the Alogi in Philastrius (Oehler I. p. 61). He mentions those who reject both the Gospel and the Apocalypse; but he seems to restrict to the Apocalypse their attribution of the authorship to Cerinthus. And this was perhaps really the case. For Dionysius of Alexandria (Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. vii.25; comp. iii.28) speaks of some before him who attributed this book to Cerinthus and the Cerinthians, because they thought that they saw in it a gross and material picture of an earthly kingdom of Christ. This ascription would suit very well the fragment of Gaius written against the Montanists and preserved in Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. iii.28), and it is possible that Dionysius alludes to Gaius; but it is strange that, if this was the view of Gaius, Eusebius should not have told us so distinctly. Certainly Theodoret interpreted it differently (Haer. Fab. ii.3; see Routh E. S. ii.139).

But whence did Epiphanius draw his information? We can make a shrewd guess. Hippolytus of Portus wrote a book Concerning the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse. This fact is recorded on his statue (Fabricius Hippol. pp. 36sq., Bunsen Hippol. I. p. 460). That this book was known in the East appears from the Catalogue of Ebed-Jesu (Assemani Bibl. Or. III. p. 15), where it occurs in the list of Hippolytus’ works as Apologia pro Apocalypsi et Evangelio Ioannis Apostoli et Evangelistae. It is probable also that this is the same work of which the title is given by other writers, e.g. de Apocalypsi (Jerome Vir. Ill. 61), περί ἀποκάλυψεως (Andreas of Caesarea in Apocal. Synops.; Syncellus, Chron. p. 674 ed. Bonn). At all events, Epiphanius is borrowing largely from some earlier writer. Here then and elsewhere Epiphanius may have consulted Hippolytus. Now twice in the immediate context (li. §§6, 7) is an allusion to a Merinthus who is mentioned side by side with Cerinthus; and from another passage (Epiph. Haer. xxviii, 8, p. 1150) it is clear that Epi­phanius was uncertain whether they were not after all one and the same person. The passage is interesting. ‘Whether the same Cerinthus was afterwards called Merinthus, or there was a separate person by name Merinthus, a fellow-worker of his, is known to God (alone).’ Now Merinthos means a ‘noose,’ and was doubtless, as Fabricius shrewdly suggested (Cod. Apoc. N. T. 344), nothing more nor less than an opprobrious nickname given by an earlier writer, whose work was in Epiphanius’ hands, and who may have written thus ‘Cerinthus, or had we not better say Merinthus,’ and in this way misled his copyist. Such pleasantries were by no means uncommon as applied to antagonists. Thus Democritus is called by Epicurus Lenocritus (Zeller Stoics iii.1 p. 429), Photinus of Pirmium in the Macrostich Skotinus, ‘Manes’ by Eusebius and others Maneis. This habit of playing upon names is quite characteristic of Hippolytus. Thus in his treatise against Noetus, he turns his antagonist’s name to ridicule, (c. Noet. 8), and in his Refutation, when dealing with the Docetae, he plays upon the words δοκεῖν ‘to seem’ and δοκός ‘a beam,’ contending that they are so named (Hippolytus Refut. viii.11), not because they ‘seemed to be of importance’ (Gal 2:6), but because of ‘the beam in their eye’ (Matt vii.3). For these reasons we are tempted to infer that, though Epiphanius claims for himself the invention of the term Alogi, he may have borrowed the name and the account which he gives from his more fanciful predecessor.

In looking back over the subject which has been occupying us, we cannot fail to be struck with the variety and the fullness of the evidence which has been adduced. Within the Catholic Church that evidence springs in the first instance direct from the fountain-head, the band of disciples which in Asia Minor gathered round the person of the aged Apostle of Love. From Polycarp and Papias it is handed down to the next link in the chain in Irenaeus, the great scholar and traveller, whose life is associated with three distinct and important Churches—Churches in constant intercommunication—Asia Minor, Rome, and Gaul. These three great centres we are able to test by independent extant documents, the Apology of Theophilus, Muratorian Canon, the Letter of the Gallican Churches, and we find an unhesitating response to our enquiry. We pass over to other Churches of the East, to Palestine and Alexandria, to Greece and Macedonia, with equally satisfactory results. We cross the Mediterranean southwards to Carthage, and the earliest extant writings of the Latin Church of Africa show unmistakeable acquaintance with St. John. And now we take a new departure. We leave the apologists and fathers of the orthodox Church, and we turn to the representatives of those multifarious heresies whose rank growth seemed likely to stifle the infant Church of the second century. And here we are startled at once by the variety and the unanimity of the evidence presented. Differing in almost every other particular, heterodoxy unites in bearing testimony to St. John’s Gospel. Gnosticism, the outcome of Gentile license of speculation and practice, Ebionism, the offspring of Judaizing tendencies, Montanism, the expression of spiritual excitement—they all presuppose, and to some extent build upon, the Fourth Gospel. Fresh discoveries, which have added considerably to our stock of heretical treatises, have only served to give new weight and force to this testimony. Making every allowance for the possibility that in some cases zealous disciples may have interpolated documents already existing, or have perpetrated forgeries in their masters’ names, yet more than enough of unorthodox literature can be tested to throw back the date of the general acceptance outside the Church of St. John’s Gospel as genuine to a very early period in the second century. The solitary exception to this chorus of attestation is found to proceed from an insignificant sect, which, having a special doctrine to inculcate, seeks to effect its end by impugning the documents which strike at the root of its theory. When we pass to the consideration of heathen writers in the opponents of Christianity, or of Apocryphal literature, the supplementary evidence which we are able to collect, though necessarily scanty, still bears out the results to which our previous investigations have already pointed us.

Lastly, so far from considering that the general subject is in any way exhausted, we rise from our review with the consciousness that it has been most inadequately treated, and with the confident persuasion, that a little more patient investigation bestowed on the literature of the first two centuries of the Christian era, as it has come down to us, would enable us to add very materially indeed to the weight of external evidence which with fresh force from year to year tends to the conviction that this most divine of all divine books was indeed the work of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ [1867–1872.]

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