The Christian Faith Under Modern Searchlights

by William Hallock Johnson

The questions of the authorship and the historicity of the Fourth Gospel are closely bound together. If the Gospel is a theological romance intended to give currency to the conceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy, it is clear that its authorship cannot be ascribed to one of the disciples of Jesus. On the other hand, if it was written by one of the Apostolic band, it must certainly, whether reliable or not in its details, contain a wealth of historical reminiscence which will enrich our knowledge of the personality, the words and the deeds of Christ.

It is an interesting fact that a strong defense of the Apostolic authorship of the Gospel has been made, in the present generation and in the one which preceded it, by writers whose theological position would incline them to an opposite conclusion.[291] The strength of the evidence for Johannine authorship lies in the testimony which it receives from all parts of the early church, whether divisions be made on geographical or theological lines, and in the links of connection which bind the witnesses to the alleged scene of John's labours and to the Apostle himself.

If it be objected that John, as a Galilean fisherman and an unlettered man, could not have produced a work so profound in thought and so polished in Greek composition, the objection may be compared with that which is raised against the authorship of the plays which go under the name of Shakespeare. Andrew Lang remarks with irony upon the surprising belief that "a young man from a little country town, and later an actor, could possibly possess Shakespeare's vast treasures of general information, or Latin enough to have read the Roman classics."[292]

The external evidence for Johannine authorship is strong and, with the exception of the obscure sect of the "Alogi,"[293] is uniform. It is "sufficient," and there can be little doubt that it would be efficient in producing general belief except for the theological interests involved. Objections to the Apostolic authorship from the side of the external evidence are based (1) upon supposed indications that John was martyred with James at Jerusalem and never lived in Ephesus at all, and (2) upon the statement of Papias, interpreted to mean that two men by the name of John lived in Ephesus. (1) The evidence upon the first point is confessedly late and confused. It is contained in the statements of Georgios Hamartolos, a ninth-century writer, and in the so-called "De Boor Fragment," purporting to contain an extract from a fifth-century writer, Philip of Side. The former says that Nerva, "having recalled John from the island, dismissed him to live in Ephesus. Then, being the only survivor of the twelve disciples, and having composed the Gospel according to him, he has been deemed worthy of martyrdom. For Papias, the Bishop of Hierapolis, having been an eye-witness of him, says in the second book of the 'Oracles of the Lord,' that he was slain by the Jews, having, as is clear, with his brother James, fulfilled the prediction of Christ concerning him, and his own confession and assent in regard to this." He adds that the learned Origen, in his commentary on Matthew, "affirms that John μεμαρτύρηκεν [memartyrêken] (has borne witness, or suffered martyrdom), intimating that he had learned this from the successors of the Apostles."[294] But Origen, in his comment on Matthew xx. 23, says that "the king of the Romans, as tradition teaches, condemned John, witnessing for the truth, to the island of Patmos." If Georgios Hamartolos thus incorrectly refers to Origen as a witness to the martyrdom of John, less weight attaches to his professed reproduction of the statement of Papias.

The "De Boor Fragment" contains the statement that "Papias, in the second book, says that John the Divine and James his brother were slain by the Jews."[295] This supports the statement of the ninth-century writer in regard to the second book of Papias, but the evidence, whether for the martyrdom of John by the Jews, or for the fact that John was put to death at the same time with his brother James, as is sometimes inferred, is exceedingly slight. Paul (Gal. ii. 9) speaks of John at a time usually identified with the Council at Jerusalem (Acts xv.), although Ramsay would identify it with Acts xi. 30, thus placing it immediately before the death of James (Acts xii. 2). The statement of Georgios that John lived in Ephesus at the time of Nerva also negatives this supposition. Of the slightly attested view that John was martyred at an early date, Dr. Dawson Walker remarks: "It is difficult to think that this latter hypothesis would have met with so great favour if it had not been such an effective instrument in excluding St. John from any possibility of being the writer of the Fourth Gospel."[296] The statements that John was put to death by the Jews may possibly be an inference from the prophecy, "The cup that I drink ye shall drink, etc." (Mark x. 39).

(2) A mediating theory, based upon the well-known statement of Papias[297] in which a "presbyter" John may, with much probability, be distinguished from the Apostle of that name, does not deny the influence of the Apostle upon the construction of the Fourth Gospel, while its ultimate authorship is assigned to the "presbyter" John. The hypothesis of the two Johns rests upon the statement of Papias' fragment as interpreted by Eusebius; but Eusebius, while suggesting that the "presbyter" might have written the Apocalypse, indicates no doubt of the Apostolic authorship of the Gospel and the First Epistle. The possibility that there were two Johns, who were both in some sense disciples of the Lord (as Papias describes the "presbyter"), who both lived in Asia Minor, and who were both more or less concerned in the writing of the Fourth Gospel, cannot be denied. But it is also possible that Papias has been misinterpreted, and that, when he described the "presbyter" John, the disciple of the Lord, he had only the Apostle John in mind. In this case we should be freed from the necessity, involved in the theory of authorship we are considering, of supposing that the Apostle had a mysterious alter ego of the same name, who was with him alike in Palestine and in Asia Minor, shared in a degree his authority and published the substance of his teaching, and so completely merged his personality in that of the Apostle that in the Gospel record no trace of a separate "presbyter" can be found, and there is no mention of the name of either John.

The First Epistle, supposed to be a sort of supplement to the Gospel, is of importance in its bearing upon the question of authorship. As a recent writer says: "The persistent note of authority which is overheard, rather than heard, in the Epistles is the more impressive because it is only implied. St. John assumes that his authority is unquestioned and unquestionable by those Asians who are loyal to the Christian tradition. When we compare his letters with those of his younger contemporaries, we conclude that it was unquestionably because he was an Apostle."[298]

Another mediating position, adopted by those who do not accept the full Apostolic authorship, is found in a theory of partition, which assigns a portion of the Gospel to the Apostle. The artistic unity of the Gospel and the qualities of style which distinguish it from other writings present a grave difficulty to any theory of partition. As a sort of half-way house it will scarcely be permanently tenable. Of Spitta's analysis, which assigns a part of the Gospel to the Apostle, it has been objected by a critic of more radical sympathies that such an admission places him outside the limits of scientific criticism.[299]

The stronghold of the evidence alike for and against the Johannine authorship is to be found in the facts of the Gospel itself. On the one hand a powerful argument, such as that which has been developed by Lightfoot and Westcott, can be drawn to show that the author of the Gospel must have been a Jew, a Jew of Palestine, a disciple of Jesus, one of the inner circle of disciples, and in fact none other than the "beloved disciple" himself. The internal facts of the Gospel are used in a different way by others to show that the Fourth Gospel differs so radically in scene, in the style of its discourses, and indeed in its entire portrait of Jesus, that it cannot be accepted as historical, or as the work of one of the disciples.