According to Eusebius, then, John intended to treat the time before the imprisonment of the Baptist as the Synoptists treated the time after that event. We have already noted the element of truth in this observation. Of course it is not the only observation that needs to be made. Much of what John narrates occurred after the imprisonment of the Baptist.
According to Clement of Alexandria, of the close of the second century, who here reports what had been said by his predecessors in Alexandria, John, seeing that "bodily" matters had been treated by the Synoptists, supplemented their work by writing a "spiritual" Gospel. In this testimony also there is no doubt an element of truth. It is true that the Fourth Gospel reproduces certain profound elements in the teaching of Jesus which in the earlier Gospels appear only incidentally.
The oral tradition which forms the chief basis of the Synoptic Gospels was rooted deep in the earliest missionary activity of the Church. Especially, perhaps, in the Gospel of Mark, but also in Matthew and Luke, we have for the most part those facts about Jesus and those elements of his teaching which could appeal at once to simple-minded believers or to outsiders. The Gospel of John, on the other hand, drawing, like the others, from the rich store of Jesus' teaching and Jesus' person, has revealed yet deeper mysteries. In this profound book, we have the recollections of a beloved disciple, at first understood only imperfectly by the apostle himself, but rendered ever clearer by advancing experience, and firmly fixed by being often repeated in the author's oral instruction of the Church.
In the Library.—Davis, "Dictionary of the Bible," article on "John" (7): Purves, article on "John, Gospel according to St." M'Clymont, "The New Testament and Its Writers," pp. 33-40. Stevens and Burton, "A Harmony of the Gospels." Westcott, "The Gospel according to St. John: The Authorized Version with Introduction and Notes." "The Cambridge Bible for Schools": Plummer, "The Gospel According to St. John." Browning, "A Death in the Desert" (vol. iv, pp. 191-206 of the Riverside Edition). Zahn, "Introduction to the New Testament," vol. iii, pp. 174-355. The last-named work is intended primarily for those who have some knowledge of Greek, but can also be used by others.