[233] Matt. 14. 13; Mark 6. 31; Luke 9. 10; John 6. 4.
The objection, then, as to the connection of the Fourth Gospel with the other three must be put aside. It was plainly meant to supplement them; and it shows not a different Christ, either in language or character, but merely a different aspect of the same Christ, while the slight discrepancies, especially when combined with the undesigned coincidences, rather support its genuineness.
(3.) Its connection with the Book of Revelation.
We pass on now to the other argument. The Book of Revelation is generally admitted to be the work of St. John, and it is ascribed to him by Justin Martyr.[234] Its date is usually fixed at A.D. 68; though many critics prefer A.D. 95, which is the date given by Irenæus.
[234] Dial., 81.
Yet it is said it cannot be by the same writer as the Fourth Gospel because the Greek is so different, that of the Revelation being very abrupt, with numerous faults of grammar, while the Gospel is in good Greek. Therefore it is urged that a Galilean fisherman like St. John, though he might have been sufficiently educated to have written the former, as his father was well off and kept servants, and he himself was a friend of the High Priest,[235] could scarcely have written the latter. Various explanations have been given of this. Perhaps the best is that the Revelation was written by St. John himself, since he is not likely to have had friends in Patmos; and that when writing the Gospel he had the assistance of a Greek disciple.
[235] Mark 1. 20; John 18. 15.
On the other side, it must be remembered that though the two books are different in language, they are the same in their teaching; for the great doctrine of the Fourth Gospel, that of the Divinity of Christ, is asserted almost as plainly in the Revelation. And even the striking expression that Christ is the Logos, or Word, occurs in both books, though it is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, except in one of St. John's Epistles.[236] And the same may be said of another striking expression, that Christ is the Lamb, which also occurs in the Gospel and Revelation, though not elsewhere in the New Testament.[237] This similarity in doctrine is indeed so marked that it strongly suggests the same authorship; and if so, it makes it practically certain that the Fourth Gospel was written by St. John.
[236] John 1. 1; 1 John 1. 1; Rev. 19. 13.
[237] John 1. 29, 36; Rev. 6. 1; 14. 1.