3. The death of the Apostle John.
De Boor’s Fragment is more precise in its assertion, ‘Papias, in his second book, says that John the divine (ὁ θεολόγος) and James his brother were slain by the Jews.’ ‘John the divine’ is naturally questioned; it is defended by Schwartz, but may quite well be due to the fragmentist. The main arguments against the statement are the silence of the early writers, especially Eusebius, and the possibility of confusion between John the Baptist and John the Apostle, or between red martyrdom and white. No doubt this is one of the better examples of the argument from silence, and no doubt we must reckon with the possibility of mistake. Still I do not feel that the statement altogether loses its force. I said something about it in Lecture III; I will at present only add that supposing it were true, the language of Papias about the two Johns can be explained more satisfactorily.