The hypothesis which ascribes the Gospel to this John the Presbyter has taken different forms, some more and some less favourable to the historical truth and authority of the Gospel.
From a conservative point of view the most attractive form of the hypothesis is that put forward by the late Dr. Hugo Delff, of Husum, in Hanover[[6]], to some extent adapted and defended by Bousset in his commentary on the Apocalypse, and by one or two others. The theory is that the beloved disciple was not of the number of the Twelve, but that he was a native of Jerusalem, of a priestly family of wealth and standing. We are expressly told that he was ‘known to[[7]]’ the high priest (John xviii. 15); and he seems to have had special information as to what went on at meetings of the Sanhedrin (vii. 45-52, xi. 47-53, xii. 10 ff.). These facts are further connected with the statement by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, towards the end of the second century, that the John who lay upon the breast of the Lord ‘became, or acted as, priest and wore the frontlet of gold’ (Eus. H. E. v. 24. 2 ff.). This John is claimed as one of the ‘great lights’ of the Churches of Asia.
The theory opens up interesting vistas, the discussion of which must, however, be reserved. It is consistent with the attribution of a high degree of authenticity to the Gospel. At the same time it ought to be said that Delff himself regarded certain portions of our present Gospel—more particularly those relating to the Galilean ministry—as interpolations.
Without going all the way with Delff, and without raising the question as to the identity of the beloved disciple, other writers who have inclined towards a middle position took the view that the Gospel was the work of John the Presbyter, whom some of them regarded as a disciple of John the Apostle. At the head of this group would stand Harnack and Schürer, who have examined the external evidence very closely. The assigning of the Gospel to John the Presbyter, or to some unnamed disciple of the Apostle, was indeed the key to the compromise offered by those who came nearest to the traditional position at the end of the eighties and in the early nineties.
One of the very best of these attempts is by Professor von Dobschütz, of Jena, in his brightly written Probleme des apostolischen Zeitalters[[8]] (Leipzig, 1904), to which reference has been made. Dr. von Dobschütz goes with Delff (whom he does not mention) so far as to describe the fourth Evangelist as a native of Jerusalem, and to identify him with John of Ephesus. He does not, however (at least explicitly), identify him with the beloved disciple; and he treats him as rather the figure behind the author, than the actual author, of the Gospel. He also, I cannot but think, makes the mistake of questioning the unity of the Gospel. Probably, if we had his views in full—which as yet we have not—they would come under the next head, and not under that of which we are now speaking.
In Great Britain a theory similar to Harnack’s has found expression in Dr. James Moffatt’s Historical New Testament (Edinburgh, 1901), and in other quarters. In America, it is represented by Professor McGiffert, and, more or less nearly, by Professor Bacon. Of the latter I hope to say a word presently; the former, if I might hazard the opinion, has not yet said his last word on the Fourth Gospel. While I recognize in what he has written many sound and true observations, there seem to be two strains in his thought which are not as yet fully harmonized.
Even Professor Harnack, whose influence is greatest, has not, I venture to think, been quite consistent in the view that he has taken. The Gospel may be assigned to the Presbyter or to some other disciple, and yet have different degrees of value ascribed to it as a historical document. In this respect it seems to me that Dr. Harnack has rather blown hot and cold: in his Chronologie d. altchristlichen Litteratur he blew hot; in his more recent lectures (E. Tr. What is Christianity? p. 19 f.), and, if I am not mistaken, on Monday last he blew cold[[9]]. A good deal turns on the description of John the Presbyter by Papias. In the text of the extract as it stands both John the Presbyter and Aristion are called ‘disciples of the Lord.’ There is some tendency among critical writers to get rid of these words as a gloss; if they are retained, they may be taken in a stricter or a laxer sense; but if they really cover a relation such as that of the ‘beloved disciple,’ there could not be a better guarantee of authenticity.
However this may be—and the subject is one of which I hope to speak in more detail—in any case it must be somewhere within the limits marked out by Delff on the one hand, and Harnack with his allies and followers on the other, or else by means of the theories that I am just about to mention, that an understanding must be reached between the two sides, if that understanding is at all to take the form of compromise.
3. Partition Theories.
Where two or more persons are concerned in the composition of a book, the relation between them may be through a written document, or it may be oral. Hitherto we have been going upon the latter assumption: the mediating theories that we have been considering, so far as they were mediating, have treated the writer of the Gospel, whatever his name, as a disciple or associate of St. John the Apostle; and the information derived from him is supposed to have come by way of personal intercourse. But it is quite conceivable that St. John may have set down something on paper, and that some later Christian—disciple or not—took this and worked it up into our present Gospel. Accordingly, various attempts have been made at different times to mark off a Gospel within the Gospel, an original authentic document derived from a first-hand authority—either the Apostle or the Presbyter—and certain added material incorporated in the Gospel as we now have it. Many of these attempts are obsolete and do not need discussion. It has already been mentioned that Delff—without any clear necessity even from his own point of view—cuts out more particularly the Galilean passages and some others with them as interpolations. These additions to the Gospel he regards as the work of the author of chap. xxi[[10]]. But the most systematic and important experiments in this direction are those of Dr. Wendt and Dr. Briggs.