iv. Yet another alleged point in the testimony of Papias would be explained on this theory, and is not easily explained on the view which identifies the John who wrote the Gospel with the son of Zebedee. Since the publication of De Boor’s Fragment (Cod. Barocc. 142[[39]]) we have two authorities instead of one for the express statement that Papias in his second book asserted that both the sons of Zebedee were ‘slain by the Jews.’ When attention was first called to this statement, the tendency among scholars was to explain it away, to suppose that there had been some corruption of the text, or some confusion between John the Baptist and John the son of Zebedee. Of course there may have been something of the kind; and yet the statement is quite explicit as it stands, and one does not like emending away just the words that cause a difficulty. Hence there is an increasing tendency among scholars to regard the statement as having some real foundation. Schwartz, the editor of Eusebius, has lately put forth a monograph[[40]], the whole argument of which turns on the assumption that the statement is true. If it were true, the prediction of our Lord in Mark x. 38, 39, will have been literally fulfilled: both the sons of Zebedee will have suffered ‘red martyrdom,’ and not one red and one white. Wellhausen is among those who think that this was probably the case.
v. Now Schwartz assumes that if John perished by the sword like his brother James, he did so at the same time and at the hands of Herod Agrippa I, in the year 41. Of course he can only do this by throwing over the data in the Acts, which I do not think that he is warranted in doing. I have little doubt that the John who was still a pillar of the Church at the time referred to in Gal. ii. 9 was the son of Zebedee. But it is quite credible that he may have perished, if not at the same time as James the Elder, yet about the same time as James the Brother of the Lord, or in the troublous times which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem.
vi. If the younger son of Zebedee had died in this or some other way, there would be nothing to prevent us from supposing that the John who took up his abode at Ephesus was the beloved disciple. And it would really simplify the history, and make everything more compact, if we could suppose that the beloved disciple, and the John who wrote the Gospel and Epistles, and the John who appears to have called himself, and to have been called by others ‘the Presbyter,’ were one and the same person.
vii. It is a remarkable fact that some of our best authorities, while they leave no doubt as to the identification of the John who figured so conspicuously at Ephesus with the beloved disciple, abstain from expressions that would identify him with the son of Zebedee. Irenaeus most often calls him ‘the disciple of the Lord,’ which we remember is the very phrase used by Papias of the Presbyter. He also more than once describes him as having lain upon the breast of the Lord, but he nowhere (I believe) speaks of him as one of the Twelve or as the son of Zebedee. Polycrates uses the same designation, ‘John who lay upon the breast of the Lord’; and the Muratorian Fragment speaks of him as ‘one of the disciples’: but neither of these witnesses ever calls him an Apostle. Irenaeus, however, does perhaps hint at this title where he says that the Church at Ephesus, ‘having been founded by Paul, and John having resided among them until the time of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the Apostles’ (Eus. H. E. iii. 23. 4). Clement of Alexandria also and Tertullian unequivocally call John an Apostle.
viii. If these expressions had stood alone, there need be no great difficulty. We may be pretty sure that the beloved disciple, even if he had not been one of the original Twelve, would be called an Apostle in the wider sense, like St. Paul and St. Barnabas and James the Brother of the Lord. And it would be only natural that he should seem to step into the place of the older John (on the hypothesis of his martyrdom), just as James the Lord’s Brother in a manner stepped into the place of the older James.
It is worth while to bear in mind that the title ‘Apostle’ was used more freely in the early days of the Church than we are in the habit of using it. It was not till about the end of the second century that (except in the case of St. Paul and St. Barnabas and one or two others) it came to be as a rule narrowed down to the Twelve. In the earliest usage of all the word had its proper meaning of ‘one who is sent on a mission.’ But this usage was gradually lost sight of, and it took the place of the primitive μαθητής.
In view of this history of the terms, it will be understood how easily one who was in the position of the beloved disciple would come to be spoken of as an Apostle, and in time to be confused with the older Apostles who bore the same name. In such a process there would be no need, as Harnack does, to bring in the hypothesis of fraud; every step in the process would be really innocent and natural. Harnack of course gets into his difficulties by minimizing the designation ‘disciple of the Lord’ as applied to John the Presbyter, who is also John of Ephesus. One who stood to the Lord in the relation of the beloved disciple would have a right to the name Apostle which the Presbyter, as Harnack conceives him, would not.
ix. So far it would seem that a really strong case can be made out for distinguishing the Evangelist from the son of Zebedee and identifying him with the beloved disciple. My wish is not to make out a case either way, but to state the facts as impartially as I can. From this point of view, there seem to be two serious difficulties in the way of Delff’s hypothesis.
The first is that it puts asunder two sets of phenomena that we feel sure ought to be combined. We have seen that the Gospel represents the beloved disciple and St. Peter as close friends. And we have also seen that the other Gospels, the Acts and, we might add, the Epistle to the Galatians, represent St. Peter and St. John as constantly acting together. It may indeed just be said that this joint action is a sort of official relation, which is a different thing from the private friendship implied in the Gospel. And yet we cannot doubt that the more natural and obvious view would be to regard the later relation as the direct continuation of the earlier, and so to identify the beloved disciple with the leading Apostle. Delff’s theory would make two pairs, who would be too much the doubles of each other.
x. And another difficulty, or set of difficulties, turns round the statement of De Boor’s Fragment. It is certainly strange that this statement appears in no other early authority, and especially that no hint of it is found in Eusebius. I am not sure that this would weigh with me so much as it would with others, because I always discount the argument from silence, even where it is apparently strong, as it is in the present instance.