I. From the disappearance of the obscure heretics called

Alogi, in the later sub-apostolic age», until the end of the seven- teenth century, the autheuticity of St. John’s Gospel was not questioned. The earliest modern objections to it seem to have been put forward in this country, and to have been based on the assumption of a discrepancy between the narrative of St. John and those of the first three Gospels. These objections were combated by the learned Leclerc; and for well-nigh a century the point was thought to have been decided*. The brilliant reputation of Herder secured attention for his characteristic theory that St. John’s Gospel describes, not the historical, but an ideal Christ. Herder was followed by several German writers,
® Virg. Ain. xii. 764, 765.
» That the Alogi had no idea of a recent origin of St. John’s Gospel is clear from their ascribing it to Cerinthus. Dorner, Person Christi, i, p- 501, note. S. Epiph, Her, li.
° It ought perhaps to have been added that Evauson’s attack upon
St. John in 1792 was answered by Dr. Priestley, [ LEcT,
The ‘Probabilia’ of Bretschneder. 211
who accepted conclusions which he had implied, and who expressly rejected the authenticity of the fourth Gospel4. But these negative criticisms were met in turn by the arguments of Roman Catholic divines like Hug, and of critics who were by no means loyal even to Lutheran orthodoxy, such as Eichhorn and Kuinoel. By their labours the question was again held to have been set at rest in the higher regions of German scholarship and free-thinking. This second settlement was rudely disturbed by the publication of the famous ‘ Probabilia’ of Bretschueider, the learned superintendent of Gotha, in the year 1820° Lepro- ducing the arguments which had been advanced by the earlier negative speculation, and adding others of his own, Bretschneider rekindled the discussion. He exaggerated the contrast between the representation of our Lord’s Person“in St. John and that in the synoptists into a positive contradiction. Protestant Ger- many was then fascinated by the school of Schleiermacher, which, by the aid of a combination of «criticism and mysticism f, ‘was groping its way back towards the creeds of the Catholic Church. Schleiermacher, as is well known, not only accepted the Church-belief respecting the fourth Gospel, but he found in that Gospel the reason for his somewhat reckless estimate of the other three. The sharp controversy which followed resulted in Bretschneider’s retractation of his thesis, and the impression produced by this retractation was not violently interfered with until 1835, when Dr. Strauss shocked the conscience of all that was Christian in Europe by the publication of his first ‘Life of Jesus. Dr. Strauss’ position in respect of St. John’s Gospel was a purely negative one. He confined himself to asserting that St. John’s Gospel was not what the Church had always believed it to be, that it was not the work of the son of Zebedee. The school of Tiibingen aspired to supplement this negative criticism of Strauss by a positive hypothesis. St. John’s Gospel was held to represent a highly-developed stage of an orthodox gnosis, the growth of which presupposed the lapse of at least a century since the age of the Apostles. It was decided by the
4 Especially by Dr. Ammon, preacher and professor of theology at Erlangen and Dresden successively.
© Probabilia de Evangelii et Epistolarum Johannis Apostoli indole et origine. Lipsiw, 1820.
f See more especially Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre, and compare Pro- fessor Auberlen’s account of the process through which, at Tiibingen, he ‘was led back, among other things, mainly by Schleiermacher’s mysticism, so full of life and spirit, to the sanctuary of religion, and learnt to sit again at Τ᾿ feet of the Redeemer,’ On Divine Revelation, pref.
Vv P2
212 Theory of the later Tiibingen school.
leading writers of the school of Tiibingen, by Drs. Baur, Schwegler, and Zeller, that the fourth Gospel was not composed until after the year A.D. 160. And, although this opinion may have been slightly modified by later representatives of the Tiibingen school, such as Hilgenfeld; the general position, that the fourth Gospel was not written before the middle of the second century, is held by disciples of that school as one of its very fundamental tenets,
Here then it is necessary to enquire, what was the belief of the second century itself, as to the date and authenticity of St. John’s Gospel 8,
Now it is scarcely too much to assert that every decade of the second century furnishes its share of proof that the four Gospels as a whole, and St. John’s in particular, were to the Church of that age what they are to the Church of the present. Beginning at the end of the century, we may observe how general at that date was the reception of the four Gospels throughout the Catholic Church. Writing at Lyons, in the last decade of the century, St. Irenzeus discourses on various cosmical and spiritual analogies to the fourfold form of the Gospel narrative (εὐαγγέλιον τετράμορφον) in a strain of mystical reflection which implies that the co-ordinate authority of the four Gospels had been already long established». St. Ireneeus, it is well known, had sat at the feet of St. Polycarp, who was himself a disciple of St. John. St. Irenzeus, in his letter to the erring Florinus, records with reverent affection what Polycarp had told him of the lessons which he had personally learnt from John and the other disciples of Jesusi, Now is it barely probable that Ireneus should have
& For a recent and complete discussion of this subject see Prof. Westcott, St. John’s Gospel, Intr. pp. xxviii-xxxii, London, Murray. [1881.]
h §t. Ireneus, adv. Her. iii. 11. 8: ἐξ ὧν φανερὸν, ὅτι 6 τῶν ἁπάντων τεχνίτης Λόγος, 6 καθήμενος ἐπὶ τῶν Χερουβὶμ καὶ συνέχων τὰ πάντα, φανερω- θεὶς τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, ἔδωκεν ἡμῖν τετράμορφον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, ἑνὶ δὲ πνεύματι συνεχόμενον... Καὶ γὰρ τὰ Χερουβὶμ τετραπρόσωπα' καὶ τὰ πρόσωπα αὐ- τῶν, εἰκόνες τῆς πραγματείας τοῦ Ὑἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ... Καὶ τὰ εὐαγγέλια οὖν τούτοις σύμφωνα, ἐν οἷς ἐγκαθέζεται Χριστός. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ κατὰ ᾿Ιωάννην, τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἡγεμονικὴν αὐτοῦ. . . « « καὶ ἔνδοξον γενεὰν διηγεῖται, λέγων" ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὃ Λόγος.
1 St. Irenzeus, fragment, vol. i. p. 822, ed. Stieren: εἶδον γάρ σε, παῖς dv ἔτι ἐν τῇ κάτω ᾿Ασίᾳ παρὰ τῷ Πολυκάρπῳ. λαμπρῶς πράττοντα ἐν TH βασιλικῇ αὐλῇ, καὶ πειρώμενον εὐδοκιμεῖν παρ᾽ αὐτῷ" μᾶλλον γὰρ τὰ τότε διαμνημονεύω τῶν ἔναγχος γινομένων" (ai γὰρ ἐκ παίδων μαθήσεις, συναύξουσαι τῇ ψυχῇ, ἑνοῦνται αὐτῇ) ὥστε με δύνασθαι εἰπεῖν καὶ τὸν τόπον, ἐν ᾧ καθεζόμενος διε- λέγετο 6 μακάριος Πολύκαρπος, καὶ τὰς προσόδους αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς εἰσόδους καὶ τὸν χαρακτῆρα τοῦ βίου καὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ἰδέαν καὶ τὰς διαλέξεις ἃς ἐποιεῖτο πρὸς τὸ πλῆθος, καὶ τὴν μετὰ ᾿Ιωάννονυ συναναστροφὴν ὡς ay ἐπ τὴν
LECT.
Saint Fohn’s Gospel in the Second Century. 213
imagined that a literary forgery, which is asserted to have been produced at a date when he was himself a boy of twelve or four- teen years of age, was actually the work of the Apostle Johns? At Carthage, about the same time, Tertullian wrote his great work against the heretic Marcion*. Tertullian brought to the discussion of critical questions great natural acuteness, which had been sharpened during his early life by his practice at the African bar. Tertullian distinguishes between the primary, or actually apostolical rank of St. Matthew and St. John, and the lower standing of St. Mark and St. Luke, as being apostolical men of a secondary degree!; but he treats all four as inspired writers of an authority beyond discussion™. Against Marcion’s mutilations of the sacred text Tertullian fearlessly appeals to the witness of the most ancient apostolical Churches. Tertullian’s famous canon runs thus: ‘Si constat id verius quod prius, id prius quod et ab initio, id ab initio quod ab apostolis, pariter ubique constabit, id esse ab apostolis traditum, quod apud eccle- sias apostolorum fuerit sacrosanctum 2.’ But what would have been the worth of this appeal if it could have been even suspected that the last Gospel was really written when Tertullian was a boy or even a young man? At Alexandria, almost contempo- raneously with Tertullian, St. Clement investigated the relation
τῶν λοιπῶν τῶν ἑωρακότων τὸν Κύριον, Kad ds ἀπεμνημόνευε τοὺς λόγους αὐὖ- ἡ χῶν" καὶ περὶ τοῦ Κυρίου τίνα ἦν ἃ wap’ ἐκείνων ἀκηκόει, καὶ περὶ τῶν δυνάμεων αὐτοῦ, καὶ περὶ τῆς διδασκαλίας, ws παρὰ τῶν αὐτοπτῶν τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ Λόγου παρειληφὼς ὁ Πολύκαρπος, ἀπήγγελλε πάντα σύμφωνα ταῖς γραφαῖς. Cf. Kus. Hist. Eccl. v. 20. St. Irenzeus succeeded St. Pothinus in the see of Lyons. Pothinus was martyred a.D. 177, and Ireneus died a.D. 202.
. 8. Adv. Her. iii. 1, St. Irenzeus was probably born about A.D. 140.
« Tertullian was born at Carthage about a.D. 160, Cave places his con- version to Christianity at a.D. 185, and his lapse into the Montanist heresy at A.D. 199. Dr. Pusey (Libr. of Fathers) makes his conversion later, A.D. 195, and his secession from the Church a.D. 201.
1 Adv. Marc. iv. 6. a: ‘Constituimus imprimis evangelicum instru- mentum apostolos auctores habere, quibus hoc munus evangelii promul- gandi ab Ipso Domino sit impositum. Si et apostolicos, non tamen solos, sed cum apostolis et post apostolos, quoniam. predicatio discipulorum suspecta fieri posset de glorie studio, si non adsistat illi auctoritas magis- trorum, immo Christi, que magistros apostolos fecit. Denique nobis fidem ex apostolis Joannes et Mattheus insinuant, ex apostolicis Lucas et Marcus instaurant.’
m Adv. Mare. iv. 6. 5: ‘Eadem auctoritas ecclesiarum apostolicarum ceteris quoque patrocinabitur Evangeliis, que proinde per illas et secun- dum illas habemus, Joannis dico et Matthzi, licet et Marcus quod edidit Petri affirmetur, cujus interpres Marcus. Nam et Luce digestum Paulo adscribere solent. Capit magistrorum videri que discipuli promulyarint.’
Ὁ Adv. Marcion. iv. 5.
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214 Wéetness borne to Saint Fohn’s Gospel
of the synoptic Gospels to St. John 9, and he terms the latter the εὐαγγέλιον πνευματικόν», It is unnecessary to say that the intellectual atmosphere of that famous Greeco-Egyptian school would not have been favourable to any serious countenance of a really suspected document. At Rome St. John’s Gospel was certainly received as being the work of that Apostle in the year 170. ‘This is clear from the so-termed Muratorian fragment 4; and if in receiving it the Roman Church had been under a delu- sion so fundamental as is implied by the Tiibingen hypothesis, St. John’s own pupil Polycarp might have been expected to have corrected his Roman brethren when he came to Rome in the year 163°. In the farther East, St. John’s Gospel had already been translated as a matter of course into the Peschito Syriac version’, It had been translated in Africa into the Latin Versio Italat. At or soon after the middle of the century two works
ο Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, 5th ed. p. 119. See this writer’s remarks on St.Clement’s antecedents and position in the Church, ibid. pp. 343, 344. St. Clement lived from about 165 to 220. He flourished as a Christian Father under Severus and Caracalla, 193-220.
P Eus, Hist. Eccl. vi. 14, condensing Clement’s account, says, τὸν μέντοι ᾿Ιωάννην ἔσχατον συνιδόντα ὅτι τὰ σωματικὰ ἐν τοῖς εὐαγγελίοις δεδήλωται; προτραπέντα ὑπὸ τῶν γνωρίμων, Πνεύματι θεοφορηθέντα, πνευματικὸν ποιῆσαι εὐαγγέλιον.
4 Westcott on the Canon, p. 214, The Muratorian fragment claims to have been written by a contemporary of Pius I., who probably ruled the Roman Church from about A.D. 142 to 157. ‘Pastorem vero nuperrimé * temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Hermas conscripsit, sedente cathedra urbis Rome ecclesiz Pio episcopo fratre ejus.’ Cf. Hilgenfeld, Der Kanon und die Kritik des N. T., p. 39, sqq.
τ St. Polycarp’s martyrdom has been lately fixed in A.D. 155-6. Lightfoot, Cont. Rev. 1875, p. 838. But cf. Wordsworth’s Ch. Hist. to Coun. of Nic., p- 161, note. [1881.]
® On the difficulty of fixing the exact date of the Peschito version see Westcott, Canon of New Testament, pp. 236-243. Referring (1) to the Syriac tradition of its Apostolic origin at Edessa, repeated by Gregory Bar Hebreeus; (2) to the necessary existence of an early Syriac version, implied in the controversial writings of Bardesanes; (3) to the quotations of Hegesippus from the Syriac, related by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iv. 22) ; (4) to the antiquity of the language of the Peschito as compared with that of St. Ephrem, and the high authority in which this version was held by that Father; (5) to the liturgical and general use of it by heretical as well as orthodox Syrians ; and (6) to the early translations made from it ;—Dr. Westcott concludes that in the absence of more copious critical resources which might serve to determine the date of this version on philological grounds, ‘there is no sufficient reason to desert the opinion which has ob- tained the sanction of the most competent scholars, that its formation is to be fixed within the first half of the second century.’ (p. 243.) That it was complete then in A. Ὁ. 150-160, we may assume without risk of serious error.
* This version must have been made before A.D. 170. ‘How much more
[ LECT.
by Catholics of the Second Century, 215
were published which implied that the four Gospels had long been received as of undoubted authority: I refer to the Harmo- nies of Theophilus", Bishop of Antioch, and of Tatian¥, the hete- rodox pupil of St. Justin Martyr. St. John is quoted by either writer independently, in the work which was addressed by Theo- philus to Autolycus ¥, and in the Apology of Tatian*. When, about the year 170, Apollinaris of Hierapolis points out the bearings of the différent evangelical narratives upon the Quarto- deciman controversy, his argument implies a familiarity with St. John. Apollinaris refers to the piercing of our Lord’s Side Y, and Polycrates of Ephesus speaks of John as the disciple who lay on the bosom of Jesus% Here we see that the last Gospel must have been read and heard in the Christian Churches with a care which dwells upon its distinctive peculiarities. It is surely inconceivable that a work of such primary claim to speak on the question of highest interest for Christian believers could have been forged, widely circulated, and immediately received by Africans, by Romans, by Gauls, by Syrians, as a work of an Apostle who had passed to his rest some sixty years before. And, if the evidence before us ended here, we might fairly infer that, considering the difficulties of communication between Churches in the sub-apostolic age, and the various elements of moral and intellectual caution, which, as notably in the case of
ancient it really is cannot yet be discovered. Not only is the character of the version itself a proof of its extreme age, but the mutual relation of dif- ferent parts of it shew that it was made originally by different hands; and if so, it is natural to conjecture that it was coeval with the introduction of Christianity into Africa, and the result of the spontaneous effort of African Christians.” (Westcott on the Canon of the New Testament, p. 258.) Dr. Westcott shews from Tertullian (Adv. Prax. c. 5) that at the end of the century the Latin translation of St. John’s Gospel had been so generally circulated in Africa, as to have moulded the popular theological dialect. (Ibid. p. 251.)
u At latest Theophilus was bishop from A.D. 168 to 180. St. Jerome says: ‘Theophilus... quatuor evangelistarum in unum opus dicta com- pingens, ingenii sui nobis monumenta dimisit,’ Epist. 121 (al. 151) ad Algas. c. 6.
νυ Eus. Hist, Eccl. iv. 29; Theodoret, Her, Fab, i, 20; Westcott, Canon, pp. 322, 323, sqq. The recent discovery of the Commentary of St. Ephrem Syrus on Tatian’s Diatessaron adds to the evidential importance of that work [1884].
w Ad Autol. ii. 31, p. 174, ed. Wolf. Cf. St. John i. 1, 3. Theophilus is the first writer who quotes St. John by name.
x Orat. contr. Grec. c. 4 (St. John iv. 24); 6. 5 (Ibid. i. 1); 6. 13 (Ibid. i. 5); δ: 19 (Ibid. i. 3).
¥ Chron. Pasch. p. 14; cf. St. John xix. 34; Routh, i. 160, sq.; Westcott, Canon, p. 228 and note I.
2 Apud Eus, ν. 24. Cf. St. John xiii, 23, xxi. 20.
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216 Witness borne to Saint Fohn’s Gospel
the Epistle to the Hebrews, were likely to delay the cecumenical reception of a canonical book, St. John’s Gospel must have been in existence at the beginning of the second century.
But the evidence does not desert us at this point. Through Tatian we ascend into the earlier portion of the century as represented by St. Justin Martyr. It is remarkable that St. Justin’s second Apology, written in 161, contains fewer allusions to the Gospels than the earlier Apology written in 1384, and than the intermediate composition of this Father, his Dialogue with the Jew Trypho. Now passing by recent theories respecting a Gospel of the Hebrews or a Gospel of Peter, by which an, endeavour has been made to weaken St. Justin’s witness to the synoptic Evangelists, let us observe that his testimony to St. John is particularly distinct. Justin’s emphatic reference of the doctrine of the Logos to our Lord», not to mention his quotation of John the Baptist’s reply to the mes- sengers of the Jews¢, and of our Saviour’s language about the new birth4, makes his knowledge of St. John’s Gospel much more than ἃ probability®. Among the great Apostolic fathers, St. Ignatius alludes to St. John in his Letter to the Romansf, and St. Polycarp quotes the Apostle’s first Epistle’. In these sub-apostolic writings there are large districts of thought and expression, of a type unmistakeably Johannean}, which, like
® So Gieseler. ii. 3. § 50.
> Cf. Tischendorf, Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst? p. 16: ‘Die Uebertragung des Logos auf Christus, von der uns keine Spur weder in der Synoptikern noch in den altesten Parallelschriften derselben vorliegt, an mehreren Stellen Justins von Johannes abzuleiten ist.’
© Ibid, Dialog. cum Tryph. 88. .Cf. St. John i, 20.
qa Apolog. ie Or: καὶ γὰρ ὁ Χριστὸς εἶπεν" Av μὴ ἀναγεννηθῆτε, οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθητε εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν" Ὅτι δὲ καὶ ἀδύνατον εἰς τὰς μήτρας τῶν τεκουσῶν τοὺς ἅπαξ γενομένους ἐμβῆναι φανερὸν πᾶσίν ἐστι. Cf. Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, p. 151.
9 Cf. however Westcott (Canon of the New Testament, p. 145) on the improbability of St. John’s being quoted in apologetic writings addressed to Jews and heathen. St. Justin nevertheless does ‘exhibit types of lan- guage and doctrine which, if not immediately drawn from St.John (why not?), yet mark the presence of his influence and the recognition of his authority.’ Westcott, Ibid. Besides the passages already alluded to, St. Justin appears to refer to St. John xii. 49 in Dialog. cuin Tryph. c. 56; to St. John i. 13 in Dialog. c. 63; to St. John vii. 12 in Dialog. ὁ. 69; to St. John i. 12 in Dialog. c. 123. Cf. Liicke, Comm. Ev. Joh. p. 34, sqq. Comp. Tregelles, Canon Muratorianus, p. 73.
{ St. Ign. ad Rom.c. 7. Cf. St. John vi. 32, 48, 53, xvi. 11.
8 Ep. ad Phil.c. 7. Cf. 1 St. John iv. 3.
h Cf. St. Barn. Ep. v. vi. xii. (cf. St. John iii. 14); Herm. Past. Simil. ix. 12 (cf. Ibid. x. 7, 9, xiv. 6); Si. Iygnat. ad Philad. 7 (cf. ore 8);
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by Catholics of the Second Century. 217
St. Justin’s doctrine of the Logos, witness no less powerfully to the existence of St. John’s writings than direct citations. The Tiibingen writers lay emphasis upon the fact that in the short fragment of Papias which we possess, nothing is said about St. John’s Gospeli, But at least we have no evidence that Papias did not speak of it in that larger part of his writings which has been lost; and if his silence is a valid argument against the fourth Gospel, it is equally available against the Gospel of St. Luke, and even against each one of those four Epistles which the Tiibingen writers themselves recognise as the work of St. Paul J.
The testimony of the Catholic Church during this century is supplemented by that of the contemporary heretics. St. Irenzeus has pointed out how the system of the celebrated Gnostic,
ad Tral 8 (cf. Ibid. vi. 51); ad Magnes, 7 (cf. Ibid. xii. 49, x. 30, xiv. 11); ad Rom. 7 (cf. Ibid. vi. 32).
{ Meyer, Evan, Johann. Einl. p.14: ‘Dass das Fragment des Papias das Evangel, Joh, nicht erwiihnt, kann nichts verschlagen, da es iiber- haupt keine schriftlichen Quellen, aus welchen er seine Nachrichten geschopft habe, auffiihrt, vielmehr das Verfahren des Papias dahin bestimmt, dass er bei den Apostelschiilern die Aussagen der Apostel erkundet habe, und dessen ausdricklichen Grundsatz ausspricht: οὐ yap τὰ ἐκ τῶν βιβλίων τοσοῦτον με ὠφελεῖν ὑπελάμβανον, ὅσον τὰ Tapa ζώσης φωνῆς καὶ μενούσης. Papias wirft hier die damals vorhandenen evangelischen Schriften (τῶν βιβλίων) deren eine Menge war (Luk. i. 1) alle ohne Auswahl zusammen, und wie er das Evangel. Matthei und das des Marcus mit darunter begriffen hat, welche beide er spiiter besonders erwiahnt, so kann er auch das Evangel. Joh. mit bei τῶν βιβλίων gemeint haben, da Papias einen Begriff von kanonischen Evangelienals solchen offenbar noch nicht hat (vergl. Credn. Beitr. i. p. 23), und diese auszuzeichnen nicht veranlasst ist. Wenn aber weiterhin Eusebius noch zwei Aussagen des Papias tiber die Evangelien des Mark. und Matthius anfiihrt, so wird damit unser Evangelium nicht ausgeschlossen, welches Papias in anderen Theilen seines Buchs erwahnt haben kann, sondern jene beiden Aussagen werden nur deshalb bemerklich gemacht, weil sie tiber die Hntstehung jener Evangelien etwas Absonder- liches, besonders Merkwiirdiges enthalten, wie auch das als besonders bemerkenswerth von Eusebius angefiihrt wird, dass Papias aus zwei epi- stolischen Schriften (1 Joh. u. 1 Petr.) Zeugnisse gebrauche, und eine Erzihlung habe, welche sich im Hebriier-Evangel. finde.’ Cf. also Westcott, Canon, pp. 76, 77 note 1. Papias is stated by Eusebius (iii. 39) to have quoted St. John’s First Epistle. This he could hardly have done, without acknowledging St. John’s Gospel.
J The newly discovered διδαχὴ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων (ed. Bryennios, Constantinople, 1883) appears to be a product of the Judaising party when almost separating from the Church at the close of the first century. In this document no less than twenty references to St. Matthew’s Gospel occur, and six to St. Luke’s, but there is not a single quotation from the writings of St. Paul; c. 4 and Eph. vi. 5, 9, and c. 3 and 1 Thess. v. 22 being mere coincidences. That it should contain no reference to St. John is only LE its general character would lead us to expect, [1884.]
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218 Witness borne to Saint Fohn’s Gospel
Valentinus, was mainly based upon a perversion of St. John’s Gospel Κι This assertion is borne out by that remarkable work, the Philosophumena of St. Hippolytus, which, as we in Oxford well remember, was discovered some few years since at Mount Athos!, Of the pupils of Valentinus, Ptolemeus quotes from the prologue of St. John’s Gospel in his extant letter to Flora πὶ, Heracleon, another pupil, wrote a considerable commentary upon St. John®, Heracleon lived about 150; Valentinus was a contemporary of Marcion, who was teaching at Rome about 140. Marcion had originally admitted the claims of St. John’s Gospel, and only denied them when, for the particular purposes of his heresy, he endeavoured at a later time to demonstrate an opposition between St. Paul ahd St. John®. Basilides taught at Alexandria under Adrian, apparently about the year 120. Basilides is known to have written twenty-four books on the Gospel P; but if it cannot be certainly affirmed that any of these hooks were commentaries on St. John, it is certain from St. Hippolytus that Basilides appealed to texts of St. John
¥ St. Ireneens (Wer. iii. rr. 7) lays down the general position: ‘Tanta est circa Evangel'a hec firmitas, ut et ipsi heretici testimonium reddant eis, et ex ipsis egrediens unusquisque eorum conetur suam confirmare doctrinam,’ After illustrating this from the cases of the Ebionites, Marcion, and the Cerinthians, he proceeds, ‘ Hi autem quia Valentino sunt, eo [sc. evangelio] qued est secundum Johannem plenissimé utentes, ad ostensionem conjuga- tionum suarum ; ex ipso detegentur nihil recté dicentes.’ ‘Die Valentinian- ische Gnosis (says Meyer) mit ihren Aeonen, Syzygien u. 8. w. verhilt sich zum Prolog des Joh. wie das ktinstlich Gemachte und Ausgesponnene zuin Einfachen und Schépferischen.’ (Einl. in Joh. p. 12, note.) For an illus- tration cf. St. Iren. adv. Her. i. 8. 5.
1 Cf, Refut. Her. vi. 35, init., for Valentinus’ use of St. John x. 8.
τὰ Apud St. Epiph. adv. Her. lib. i. tom. i, Her. 33; Ptol. ad Flor. Cf. St. John i. 3; also Stieren’s St. Ireneus, vol. i. p. 924.
Ὁ Fragments of Heracleon’s Commentary on St. John, collected from Origen, are published at the end of the first vol. of Stieren’s edition of St. Ireneus, pp. 938-971. St. John iv. is chiefly illustrated by these remains of the great Valentinian commentator. Two points strike one on perusal of them: (1) that before Heracleon’s time St. John’s Gospel must have ac- quired, even among heretics, the highest authority ; (2) that Heracleon has continually to resort to interpretations so forced (as on St. John i. 3, i. 18, ii. 17; cited by Westcott, Canon, p. 306, note) as ‘to prove sufficiently that St. John’s Gospel was no Gnostic work.’
ο Tertullian, adv. Marcion. iv. 3; De Carne Christi, 6. 2; quoted by Tischendorf, Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst? pp. 25, 26.
P Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iv. 7. 7: εἰς μὲν Td εὐαγγέλιον τέσσαρα πρὸς τοῖς εἴκοσι σύνταξαι βίβλια. Was this a Commentary on the Evangelists, or a Life of Christ in the sense of Basilides, or a Dissertation on the Import of Christ’s Life? The phrase is indecisive.
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by Fleretics of the Second Century. 219
in favour of his system. Before Basilides, in the two first decades of the century, we find Ophitic Gnostics, the Naase- nians', and the Perate 8, appealing to passages in St. John’s Gospel, which was thus already, we may say in the year 110, a recognised authority among sects external to the Catholic Church.
It may further be observed that the whole doctrine of the Paraclete in the heresy of Montanus is a manifest perversion of the treatise on that subject in St. John’s Gospel, the wide reception of which it accordingly presupposest. The Alogi, who were heretical opponents of Montanism, rejected St. John’s Gospel for dogmatic reasons, which are really confirmatory of the general tradition in its favour". Nor may we forget Celsus, the keen and satirical opponent of the Christian faith, who wrote, even according to Dr. Hilgenfeld, between 160 and 170, but more probably, as is held by other authorities, as early as 150. Celsus professes very ostentatiously to confine himself to the writings of the disciples of Jesus¥; but he refers to St. John’s Gospel in a manner which would be utterly incon- ceivable if that book had been in his day a lately completed, or indeed a hardly completed forgery Y. :
This evidence might be largely reinforced from other quarters?,
4 Refut. Her. vii. 22, where Basilides uses St. John i. 9, ii. 4. That Basilides, not his disciples, makes the citation, see Sanday, Gospels in Second Century, pp. 298-301.
τ Refut. Her. v. 6 sqq., 8 (St. John i. 3, 4); ©. 9 (Ibid. iv. 21, and iv. 10): quoted by Tischendorf.
8 Ibid. v. 12 sqq., 16 (St. John iii. 17, i. 1-4); ¢. 17 (Ibid. viii. 44).
* See however Meyer, Einl. in Joh. p. 13, for the opinion that Montanism originally grew out of belief in the Parousia of our Lord. Baur, Christenthum, p. 213. The Paraclete of Montanus was doubtless very different from the Paraclete of St. John’s Gospel. Still St. John’s Gospel must have furnished the name; and it is probable that the idea of the Montanistic Paraclete is originally due to the same source, although by a rapid development, con- tortion, or perversion, the Divine Gift announced by our Lord had been ex- changed for Its heretical caricature. The rejection of the promise of the Paraclete alluded to by St. Irenzeus (adv. Heer, iii. 11. 9) proceeded not from Montanists, but from opponents to Montanism, who erroneously identified the teaching of St. John’s Gospel with that heresy.
« St. Epiph. Her. li. 3. Cf. Pressensé, Jésus-Christ, p. 227.
® Origen, contr. Celsum, ii. 74. :
Υ Ibid. i. 67; cf. St. John ii. 18. Contr. Celsum, ii. 31, 36, 55; cf. St. John xx. 27.
* E.g. the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, Eus. v. 1, which quotes St. John xvi. aas an utterance of our Lord Himself. Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christianis, 10: οἵ, St. John i, 1-11, xvii, 21-23. The Clementine Homilies, xix. 22; cf. St.John ix. 2, 3, iii. 52, x. 9, 27. Recognitions, a ef, St. John iii. 3-5, ii. 48, v. 23. Ibid. v.12; οἵ, St. John viii, 34. v
220 The Fourth Gospel certainly Saint Fohn's.
and especially by an examination of that mass of apocryphal literature which belongs to the earlier half of the second century, and the relation of which to St. John’s Gospel has lately been very clearly exhibited by an accomplished scholar*. But we are already in a position to admit that the facts before us force back the date of St. John’s Gospel within the lines of the first century», And when this is done the question of its authenticity is practically decided. It is irrational to suppose that a forgery claiming the name and authority of the beloved disciple could have been written and circulated beneath his very eyes, and while the Church was still illuminated by his oral teaching. Arbitrary theories about the time which is thought necessary to develope an idea cannot rightly be held to counter- balance such a solid block of historical evidence as we have been considering. This evidence shews that, long before the year 160, St. John’s Gospel was received throughout orthodox and heretical Christendom, and that its recognition may be traced up to the Apostolic age itself. Ewald shall supply the words with which to close the foregoing considerations. ‘Those who since the first discussion of this question have been really con- versant with it, never could have had and never have had a moment’s doubt. As the attack on St. John has become fiercer and fiercer, the truth during the last ten or twelve years has been more and more solidly established, error has been pursued into its last hiding-places, and at this moment the facts before us are such that no man who does not will knowingly to choose error and to reject truth, can dare to say that the fourth Gospel is not the work of the Apostle John¢’
® Tischendorf, Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst? p. 35, sqq. That the Acta Pilati in particular were composed at the beginning of the second century, appears certain from the public appeal to them which St. Justin makes in his Apology to the Roman Emperor. The Acta Pilati ‘presuppose not only the synoptists, but particularly and necessarily the Gospel of St. John. It is not that we meet with a passaye here and there quoted from that Gospel. If that were the case we might suspect later interpolation. The whole history of the condemnation of Jesus is based essentially upon St. John’s narrative; while in the accounts of the Cruci- fixion and the Resurrection, it is rather certain passages of the synoptists which are particularly suggested.’
Ὁ Pressensé, Jésus-Christ, p. 232. ‘Rien n’est plus vain que de vouloir faire sortir du mouvement des idées au second sidcle l’Evangile, qui a pré- cisément donné le branle ἃ ce mouvement, et le. domine aprés l’avoir enfanté.’
© Review of Renan’s Vie de Jésus, in the Gottingen Scientific Journal, § Aug. 1863; quoted by Gratry, Jésus-Christ, p. 119. δ
[ Lect.
(1) Lé ἐς supplementary to the first three. 221
Certainly Ewald here expresses himself with vehemence. Some among yourselves may possibly be disposed to complain of him as being too dogmatic. For it may be that you have made impatience of certainty a part of your creed; and you may hold that a certain measure of cautious doubt on all sub- jects is inseparable from true intellectual culture. You may urge in particular that the weight of external testimony in favour of St. John’s Gospel does not silence the difficulties which arise upon an examination of its contents. You point to the use of a mystical and metaphysical terminology, to the repetition of abstract expressions, such as Word, Life, Light, Truth, Para- clete. You remark that St. John’s Gospel exhibits the Life of our Lord under an entirely new aspect. Not to dwell im- moderately upon points of detail, you insist that the plan of our Lord’s life, the main scenes of His ministry, all His exhibitions of miraculous power save two, the form and matter of His dis- courses, nay, the very attitude and moral physiognomy of His opponents, are so represented in this Gospel as to interfere with your belief in its Apostolical origin.
But are not these peculiarities of the Gospel explained when we consider the purpose with which it was written ?
1. St. John’s Gospel is in the first place an historical sup- plement. It was designed to chronicle discourses and events which had been omitted in the narratives of the three preceding Evangelists. Christian antiquity attests this design with re- markable unanimity4, It is altogether arbitrary to assert that if St. John had seen the works of earlier Evangelists he would have alluded to them; and that if he had intended to supply the omissions of their narratives he would have formally an- - nounced his intention of doing soe. It is sufficient to observe that the literary conventionalities of modern Europe were not those of the sacred writers, whether of the Synagogue f or of the Church. An inspired writer does his work without the self- consciousness of a modern composer; he is not necessarily careful to define his exact place in literature, his precise obliga- tions to, or his presumed improvements upon, the labours of his
4 See especially the remarkable passage in Eus. Hist. Eccl. iii. 24, St. Epiph. Heer. ii. 51.
9 These arguments of Liicke are noticed by Bp. Wordsworth, New Test.