Evidence from quota- tions. Papias. 820 GOSPELS very ditterent in language, and even somewhat dilfcrent in ' thought and substance, from the teaching of the apostle himself; and a spiritual doctrine, taught in the Ephesian church, and based upon three or four traditions atlirmed by the aged apostle, such as the tradition of blood and water, might, even in the lifetime of the apostle, become known, within a limited district, as the Gospel according to the apostle John. llow ditferent, in language if not in substance, may be a pupil’s record of a master's teaching may be perceived from Pl-.1to’s and .'enophon’s records of the teaching of Socrates. But in any case, whatever may be the authorship of the book, it must be admitted to be, [ronnrn GOSPEL. other hand, a passage of the Fourth Gospel (xiv. 2) is quoted by lrenzeus (.‘l(]l'. Ila'r., V. xxxvi. 2) in connexion, not with John the apostle, but with “elders,” and possibly as part of the doctrine communicated to Papias by the “ elders ” (“ the context makes it at least highly probable that the passage was quoted from Papias’s ‘ Exposition,’ ” 'estcott, Iutrotl. to the Gospel of St John). But, if this be so, 13.6., if a passage of the Fourth Gospel was communi- cated to Papias, not necessarily by John the apostle, but by “elders,” then it follows that among the “elders” who communicated it to him may have been John the “elder.” Although this is, in great measure, conjectural, so far as we have gone, in the highest degree improbable yet, even as a possibility, it becomes deserving of atten- that John the apostle wrote the Fourth Gospel with his own hand at the age of ninety or nearly a hundred, in the same way in which he wrote the Apocalypse at the age of sixty or seventy or eighty. 1L'vi(l€m'e from Quotations-.—-But we pass now to the evi- dence of the early fathers. Theophilus and Irenzeus are the first to quote John by name, but earlier writers, who do not . mention his name, quote words contained in the Fourth Gospel. We will take Papias first. He tells us (see above, 1). 816) that he used to inquire about the (licta of Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any other disciples of the Lord, and also about the sayings of Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord. The order of names is remarkable, and it has been most ingeniously inferred (Lightfoot, Contemp. 13c-22., Oct. 1875) that John is placed, out of his order of precedence, along with Matthew, because the last two had left written Gospels; moreover the order of the first three, “Andrew, Peter, Philip,” quite unlike the synoptic order, is the order in Jo. i. 40-43, which suggests that Papias was aware at all events of the story of the calling of the apostles con- tained in the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel. We are also told by Eusebius that Papias “ used testimonies ” from the 1st Epistle of John. This is, of course, no proof that Papias quoted the Epistle with J ohn’s name (for quotations of New Testament documents with the name of the author are not common in the earliest writings of the church) ; b11t it may be inferred that he regarded the 1st Epistle of John as an authoritative document; and the Epistle is so closely connected with the Gospel that-, if the apostle John is proved to be the author of the "one, it must follow that he is the author of the other also. But it is important to note that Papias recognized two Johns, both of whom were “disciples of the Lorc ;” and Eusebius tells us that Papias quoted certain traditions of the non- apostolic J ohn, distinguishing him as “the elder,”—“ the elder used to say,” &c. N ow Iren2eus—who speaks highly of Papias, describing him (wrongly) as a “ hearer of John ” (the apostle),—q11otes Papias as one of “the elders who saw John the disciple of the Lord,” and who remembered how he (John) had repeated to them certain teachings of tion, when placed in juxtaposition with the certainty men- tioned above ; (1) it is possible that a saying in the Fourth Gospel was communicated to Papias, not by John the apostle but by John the elder; (2) it is certain that the only passage quoted from Papias as coming from John (the apostle) is not to be found in the Fourth Gospel and in no way resembles the style or thought of the Fourth Gospel. Again, the 2d and 3d Epistles of John, ' which have the name of the author inserted, are written, not in the name of John the apostle, but in the name of “the elder,” and they were so doubtfully regarded (per- ' haps on that account) by the church that Eusebius places the Lord Jesus, to the effect that “the days will come in _ which vines shall grow, having each 10,000 branches, and in each branch 10,000 twigs, and in each twig 10,000 shoots, and in every shoot 10,000 clusters, and in every cluster 10,000 grapes, and every grape when pressed will give ‘.25 measures of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me,’’’ «he. (.lpostolz'c Fatima, Clark’s trans. p. 443). The question therof~ -re arise-:, Which John is here meant? seems certain from the context that Ircnzeus meant the famous John, the apostle: yet he calls him nothing but “disciple,” and the tradition imputed to John (though not out of accorzl perhaps with the imagery of the Apocalypse) is quite unlike anything that we find in the Gospel or 1st Epistle c1llc.l by John's name. On the It' 5 Jesus had leaned at snppr:r.° them among the “impeached (dvrcxcyépcva) writings,” while Origen speaks of them as only possibly genuine, and Jerome attributes them not to John the apostle but to John the elder. Yet Ircnzeus quotes this 2d “im- peached ” Epistle, not as the work of John the elder, but (twice) as the work of “John the disciple of the Lord.” Evidently there is here, if not confusion, at least a danger of confusion, and one cause of confusion can be immedi- ately indicated. Papias tells us that both John the apostle and John the elder were “disciples of the Lord.” Now, for some reason or other, Irenaaus, though he quotes Matthew as “the apostle” (Adv. Ilm-., III. ix. 1) and a speech of Peter as spoken by “ the apostle ” (lb. xii. 1), appears not to quote the Fourth Gospel except as written by John “ the disciple of the Lord,” or simply “John ” (10. xi. 1, 2, 3, 7). It cannot indeed be assumed that Ircnzeus is here (unconsciously) referring to John the elder, a11d not to John the apostle. On the contrary, the more probable explanation is, that John the apostle was himself called by preference John “ the disciple of the Lord,” as being “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” 1 Nevertheless it remains an unfortunate fact that Irenzeus and Theophilus, who are the first to quote John by name, give us no means of ascertaining whether they refer to John the apostle or J olm the elder, both of whom are described by Papias as being “disciples of the Lord.” In this state of confusion we are naturally led to suspect that possibly the two Johns mentioned by Papias (neither of whom, as we have shown above, was probably known to Papias himself) may have really been one; and this suspicion is confirmed by the testimony of Jerome, who informs us that though two tombs were shown in his time at Ephesus, one as the tomb of John the apostle, and the other as the tomb of John the elder, yet some considered the two persons to be identical ; “nonn11lli putant duas memorias ejusdem Joannis evan- gelistze esse ” (J crome, quoted by Kirchhofcr, p. 159). We have not evidence to prove this theory, but neither have we evidence to disprove it; aml we must therefore leave the question who was the author of the Fourth G ospcl _1 Compare I"ra_r;men[s, iii., “John the disciple of the Lord and the other apostles with whom he was conversant.” Hippolytus doubles the title ((Jhrist and A-nticIm'st, ch. 36), “Tell me, blessed John, apostle and disciple of the Lord." In speaking of the author of the Apocalypse, Ircnaeus(.t:l1'. IImr., IV. xx. 11) describes him not only
as the “disciple of the Lord" but also as the disciple “ upon whom