similarity, maintains at the same time a real dissimilarity, for which he accounts in the manner just quoted. The language, Ewald admits, agrees fully in many rare nuances with that of the rest of the Gospel, but he does not take the trouble to prove the decided dissimilarities which, he asserts, likewise exist. A less difference than that which he finds might, he thinks, be explained by the interval which had elapsed between the writing of the work and of the supplement, but "the wonderful similarity, in the midst of even greater dissimilarity, of the whole tone and particularly of the style of the composition is not thereby accounted for. This, therefore, leads us," he continues, "to the opinion: The Apostle made use, for writing down his words, of the hand and even of the skill of a trusted friend who later, on his own authority (fur sich allein), wrote the supplement. The great similarity, as well as dissimilarity, of the style of both parts in this way becomes intelligible: the trusted friend (probably a Presbyter in Ephesus) adopted much of the language and mode of expression of the youthful old Apostle, without, however, where he wrote more in his own person, being carefully solicitous of imitating them. But even through this contrast, and the definite declaration in v. 24, the Apostolical origin of the book itself becomes all the more clearly apparent; and thus the supplement proves from the most diverse sides how certainly this Gospel was written by the trusted disciple."(1) Elsewhere, Ewald more clearly explains the share in the work which he assigns to the Apostle's disciple: "The proposition that the Apostle composed in a unique way our likewise unique Gospel is to be understood only with the
important limitation upon which I have always laid so much stress: for John himself did not compose this work quite so directly as Paul did most of his Epistles, but the young friend who wrote it down from his lips, and who, in the later appendix, chapter xxi., comes forward in the most open way, without desiring in the slightest to conceal his separate identity, does his work at other times somewhat freely, in that he never introduces the narrator speaking of himself and his participation in the events with 'I' or 'we' but only indirectly indicates his presence at such events and, towards the end, in preference refers to him, from his altogether peculiar relation to Christ, as 'the disciple whom the Lord loved,' so that, in one passage, in regard to an important historical testimony (xix. 35), he even speaks of him as of a third person." Ewald then maintains that the agreement between the Gospel and the Epistles, and more especially the first, which he affirms, without vouchsafing a word of evidence, to have been written down by a different hand, proves that we have substantially only the Apostle's very peculiar composition, and that his friend as much as possible gave his own words.(1)
It is obvious from this elaborate explanation, which we need scarcely say is composed of mere assumptions, that, in order to connect the Apostle John with the Gospel, Ewald is obliged to assign him a very peculiar position in regard to it: he recognizes that some of the characteristics of the work exclude the supposition that the Apostle could himself have written the Gospel, so he represents him as dictating it, and his Secretary as taking considerable liberties with the composition as he writes it
down, and even as introducing references of his own; as, for instance, in the passage to which he refers, where, in regard to the statement that at the Crucifixion a soldier pierced the side of the already dead Jesus and that forthwith there came out blood and water (xix. 35), it is said: "And he that saw it hath borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye may believe."(1) It is perfectly clear that the writer refers to the testimony of another person(2)—the friend who is writing down the narrative, says Herr Ewald, refers to the Apostle who is actually dictating it. Again, in the last chapter, as elsewhere throughout the work, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who is the author, is spoken of in the third person, and also in verse 24: "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things" [———]. This, according to Ewald, is the same secretary, now writing in his own person. The similarity between this declaration and the appeal to the testimony of another person in xix. 35, is certainly complete, and there can be no doubt that both proceed from the same pen; but beyond the assertion of Herr Ewald there is not the slightest evidence that a secretary wrote the Gospel from the dictation of another, and ventured to interrupt the narrative by such a reference to testimony, which, upon the supposition that the
Apostle John was known as the actual author, is singularly out of place. If John wrote the Gospel, why should he appeal in utterly vague terms to his own testimony, and upon such a point, when the mere fact that he himself wrote the statement was the most direct testimony in itself? An author who composed a work which he desired to ascribe to a "disciple whom Jesus loved" might have made such a reference as xix. 35, in his anxiety to support such an affirmation, without supposing that he had really compromised his design, and might have naturally added such a statement as that in the last two verses, but nothing but the foregone conclusion that the Apostle John was the real author could have suggested such an explanation of these passages. It is throughout assumed by Ewald and others, that John wrote in the first instance, at least, specially for a narrow circle of friends, and the proof of this is considered to be the statement of the object with which it was written: "that ye may believe,"(l) &c., a phrase, we may remark, which is identical with that of the very verse (xix. 35) with which the secretary is supposed to have had so much to do. It is very remarkable, upon this hypothesis, that in xix. 35, it is considered necessary even for this narrow circle, who knew the Apostle so well, to make such an appeal, as well as to attach at its close (xxi. 24), for the benefit of the world in general as Ewald will have it, a certificate of the trustworthiness of the GospeL
Upon no hypothesis which supposes the Apostle John the author of the fourth Gospel is such an explanation credible. That the Apostle himself could have written of himself the words in xix. 35 is impossible. After
