[135] Cf. John vi. 36, 40. The word is applied by the angel to the disciples gazing on the Ascension, Acts i. 11. The Transfiguration may be here referred to. Such an incident as that in John vii. 37 attests a vivid delighted remembrance of the Saviour's very attitude.
[136] Luke xxiv. 39; John xx. 27.
[137] Gospel i. 1-14; 1 John i. 1; Apoc. i. 9.
[138] "He hath a name written which no one knoweth but He Himself,—and His name is called The Word of God" (Apoc. xix. 12, 13). Gibbons' adroit italics may here be noted. "The Logos, TAUGHT in the school of Alexandria BEFORE Christ 100—REVEALED to the Apostle St. John, Anno Domini, 97" (Decline and Fall, ch. xxi.). Just so very probably—though whether St. John ever read a page of Philo or Plato we have no means of knowing.
[139] The following table may be found useful:—
| THE WORD IN ST. JOHN IS OPPOSED. | ||
| (A) To the Gnostic Word, created and temporal | as | (A) Uncreated and Eternal. "In the beginning was the Word." |
| (B) To the Platonic Word, ideal and abstract | as | (B) Personal and Divine. "The Word was God." "He"—"His." |
| (C) To the Judaistic and Philonic Word—the type and idea of God in creation ... | as | (C) Creative and First Cause. "All things were made by Him." |
| (D) To the Dualistic Word— limitedly and partially instrumental in creation. | as | (D) Unique and Universally Creative. "Without Him was not anything made that hath been made." |
| (E) To the Doketic Word—impalpable and visionary | as | (E) Real and Permanent. "The Word became flesh." |
[140] Vie de Jesus, Int. 4.
[141] The appeal to the senses of seeing and hearing is a trait common to all the group of St. John's writings (John i. 14, xix. 35; 1 John i. 1, 2, iv. 14; Apoc. i. 2). The true reading (καγω Ιωαννης ὁ ακουων και βλεπων ταυτα. Apoc. xxi. 8, where hearing stands before seeing) is indicative of John's style.
[142] 1 John v. 6-12.
[143] That the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" are of high antiquity there can be no rational doubt. Tertullian writes: "But if those who read St. Paul's writings rashly use the example of Thecla, to give licence to women to teach and baptize publicly, let them know that a presbyter of Asia Minor, who put together that piece, crowning it with the authority of a Pauline title, convicted by his own confession of doing this from love of St. Paul, was deprived of his orders." (Tertullian, De Baptismo, xvii.) On which St. Jerome remarks—"We therefore relegate to the class of apocryphal writings, the περιοδος of Paul and Thecla, and the whole fable of the baptized lion. For how could it be that the sole real companion of the Apostle" (Luke) "while so well acquainted with the rest of the history, should have known nothing of this? And further, Tertullian, who touched so nearly upon those times, records that a certain presbyter in Asia Minor, convicted before John of being the author of that book, and confessing that as a σπουδαστης of the Apostle Paul he had done this from loving devotion to that great memory, was deposed from his ministry." (St. Hieron., de Script. Eccles., VII.) See the mass of authority for the antiquity of this document, which gives a considerable degree of probability to the statement about St. John, in Acta Apost. Apoc., Edit. Tischendorf.—Proleg. xxi., xxvi.