having stated so much that is much more surprising and contradictory to all experience without reference to any witness, it would indeed have been strange had he here appealed to himself as to a separate individual, and on the other hand it is quite inadmissible to assume that a Mend to whom he is dictating should interrupt the narrative to introduce a passage so inappropriate to the work, and so unnecessary for any circle acquainted with the Apostolic author. If, as Ewald argues, the peculiarities of his style of composition were so well known that it was unnecessary for the writer more clearly to designate himself either for the first readers or for the Christian world, the passages we are discussing are all the more inappropriate. That any guarantee of the truth of the Gospel should have been thought desirable for readers who knew the work is to be composed by the Apostle John, and who believed him to be "the disciple whom Jesus loved," is inconceivable, and that any anonymous and quite indirect testimony to its genuineness should either have been considered necessary or of any value is still more incredible. It is impossible that nameless Presbyters of Ephesus could venture to accredit a Gospel written by the Apostle John; and any intended attestation must have taken the simple and direct course of stating that the work had been composed by the Apostle. The peculiarities we are discussing seem to us explicable only upon the supposition that the unknown writer of the Gospel desired that it should be understood to be written by a certain disciple whom Jesus loved, but did not choose distinctly to name him or directly to make such an affirmation.
It is, we assert, impossible that an Apostle who composed a history of the life and teaching of Jesus could
have failed to attach his name, naturally and simply, as testimony of the trustworthiness of his statements, and of his fitness as an eye-witness to compose such a record. As the writer of the fourth Gospel does not state his name, Herr Ewald ascribes the omission to the "incomparable modesty and delicacy of feeling" of the Apostle John. We must further briefly examine the validity of this explanation. It is universally admitted, and by Ewald himself, that although the writer does not directly name himself, he very clearly indicates that he is "the other disciple" and "the disciple whom Jesus loved." We must affirm that such a mode of indicating himself is incomparably less modest than the simple statement of his name, and it is indeed a glorification of himself beyond anything in the Apocalypse. But not only is the explanation thus discredited but, in comparing the details of the Gospel with those of the Synoptics, we find still more certainly how little modesty had to do with the suppression of his name. In the Synoptics a very marked precedence of the rest of the disciples is ascribed to the Apostle Peter; and the sons of Zebedee are represented in all of them as holding a subordinate place. This representation is confirmed by the Pauline Epistles and by tradition. In the fourth Gospel, a very different account is given, and the author studiously elevates the Apostle John,—that is to say, according to the theory that he is the writer of the Gospel, himself,—in every way above the Apostle Peter. Apart from the general pre-eminence claimed for himself in the very name of "the disciple whom Jesus loved," we have seen that he deprives Peter in his own favour of the honour of being the first of the disciples who was called; he suppresses the account of the circumstances under which
that Apostle was named Peter, and gives another and trifling version of the incident, reporting elsewhere indeed in a very subdued and modified form, and without the commendation of the Master, the recognition of the divinity of Jesus, which in the first Gospel is the cause of his change of name.(1) He is the intimate friend of the Master, and even Peter has to beg him to ask at the Supper who was the betrayer. He describes himself as the friend of the High Priest, and while Peter is excluded, he not only is able to enter into his palace, but he is the means of introducing Peter. The denial of Peter is given without mitigation, but his bitter repentance is not mentioned. He it is who is singled out by the dying Jesus and entrusted with the charge of his mother. He outruns Peter in their race to the Sepulchre, and in the final appearance of Jesus (xxi. 15) the more important position is assigned to the disciple whom Jesus loved. It is, therefore, absurd to speak of the incomparable modesty of the writer, who, if he does not give his name, not only clearly indicates himself, but throughout assumes a pre-eminence which is not supported by the authority of the Synoptics and other writings, but is heard of alone from his own narrative.
Ewald argues that chapter xxi. must have been written, and the Gospel as we have it, therefore, have been completed, before the death of the Apostle John. He considers the supplement to have been added specially to contradict the report regarding John (xxi. 23). "The supplement must have been written whilst John still lived," he asserts, "for only before his death was it worth while to contradict such a false hope; and if his death had actually taken place, the result itself would
have already refuted so erroneous an interpretation of the words of Christ, and it would then have been much more appropriate to explain afresh the sense of the words 'till I come.' Moreover, there is no reference here to the death as having already occurred, although a small addition to that effect in ver. 24 would have been so easy. But if we were to suppose that John had long been dead when this was written, the whole rectification as it is given would be utterly without sense."(1) On the contrary, we affirm that the whole history of the first two centuries renders it certain that the Apostle was already dead, and that the explanation was not a rectification of false hopes during his lifetime, but an explanation of the failure of expectations which had already taken place, and probably excited some scandal. We know how the early Church looked for the immediate coming of the glorified Christ, and how such hopes sustained persecuted Christians in their sorrow and suffering. This is very clearly expressed in 1 Thess. iv. 15—18, where the expectation of the second coming within the lifetime of the writer and readers of the Epistle is confidently stated, and elsewhere, and even in 1 John ii. 18, the belief that the "last times" had arrived is expressed. The history of the Apocalypse in relation to the Canon illustrates the case. So long as the belief in the early consummation of all things continued strong, the Apocalypse was the favourite writing of the early Church, but when time went on, and the second coming of Christ did not take place, the opinion of Christendom regarding the work changed, and disappointment, as well as the desire to explain the non-fulfilment of prophecies upon which so much hope had been based, led many to reject the Apocalypse
