John

Notes on the Gospel According to St. John.

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NOTES ON THE GOSPEL

ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

In this book is set down the history of the Son of God dwelling among men; that,

I. Of the first days, where the apostle, premising the sum of the whole John 1:1-14 Mentions the testimony given by John, after the baptism of Christ, and the first calling of some of the apostles. Here is noted what fell out, The first day 15-28 The day after 29-34 The day after 35-42 The day after 43-52 The third day John 2:1-11 After this 12 II. Of the two years between, spent chiefly in journeys to and from Jerusalem,

A. The first journey, to the passover 13

a. Transactions in the city,

1. Zeal for his Father's house 14-22

2. The power and wisdom of Jesus 23-25

3. The instruction of Nicodemus John 3:1-21 b. His abode in Judea; the rest of John's testimony 22-36 c. His journey through Samaria (where he confers with the Samaritan woman) into Galilee, where he heals the nobleman's son John 4:1-54

B. The second journey to the feast of pentecost. Here may be observed transactions,

a. In the city, relating to the impotent man, healed at the pool of Bethesda John 5:1-47

b. In Galilee, before the second passover and after. Here we may note,

1. His feeding the five thousand John 6:1-14

2. Walking upon the sea 15-21

3. Discourse of himself, as the bread of life 22-59

4. Reproof of those who objected to it 60-65

5. Apostasy of many, and steadiness of the apostles 66-71

6. His continuance in Galilee John 7:1 C. The third journey, to the feast of tabernacles 2-13 Here may be observed transactions,

a. In the city,

i. In the middle and end of the feast 14-53 John 8:1 Where note,

1. The woman taken in adultery 2-12

2. Christ's preaching and vindicating his doctrine 13-30

3. His confuting the Jews and escape from them 31-59

4. His healing the man born blind John 9:1-7

5. Several discourses on that occasion 8-41

6. Christ the Door and the Shepherd of the sheep John 10:1-18

7. Different opinions concerning him 19-21

ii. At the feast of the dedication. here occur,

1. His disputes with the Jews John 10:22-38

2. His escaping their fury 39

b. Beyond Jordan 40-42

III. Of the last days, which were,

A. Before the great week, where we may note,

a. The two days spent out of Judea, while Lazarus was sick and died John 11:1-6

b. The journey into Judea; the raising of Lazarus; the advice of Caiaphas; Jesus's abode in Ephraim; the order given by his adversaries 7-57

c. The sixth day, before the passover; the supper at Bethany; the ointment poured on Jesus John 12:1-11

B. In the great week, wherein was the third passover, occur, a. On the three former days, his royal entry into the city; the desire of the Greeks; the obstinacy of the Jews; the testimony given to Jesus from heaven 12-50

b. On the fourth day, the washing the feet of the disciples; the discovery of the traitor, and his going out by night John 13:1-30 c. On the fifth day,

i. His discourse

1. Before the paschal supper 31 John 14:1-31

2. After it 15, and 16.

ii. His prayer John 17:1-26

iii. The beginning of his passion,

1. In the garden John 18:1-11

2. In Caiaphas's house 12-27

d. On the sixth day,

i. His passion under Pilate,

1. In the palace of Pilate 28 John 19:1-16

2. On the cross 17-30

ii. His death 30-37

iii. His burial 38-42

C. After the great week,

a. On the day of the resurrection John 20:1-25 b. Eight days after 26-31

c. After that

1. He appears to his disciples at the sea of Tiberias John 21:1-14

2. Orders Peter to feed his sheep and lambs 15-17

3. Foretells the manner of Peter's death, and checks his curiosity about St John 18-23

4. The conclusion 24, 25

Preface to the Gospel According to St. John. With a Short Accou

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PREFACE TO THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST.

JOHN. WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE.

JOHN, the writer of this Gospel, was the son of a fisherman named Zebedee, and his mother’s name was Salome. Compare Matthew 27:56, with Mark 15:40, and Mark 16:1. His father Zebedee was probably of Bethsaida, and with his sons James and John followed his occupation on the sea of Galilee. The call of these two brothers to the apostleship is related, Matthew 4:21, 22; Mark 1:19, 20; Luke 5:1-10. John is generally supposed to have been about 25 years of age when he began to follow our Lord.

Theophylact makes him one of the relatives of our Lord, and gives his genealogy thus: “Joseph, the husband of the blessed Mary, had seven children by a former wife, four sons and three daughters-Martha, (perhaps, says Dr. Lardner, it should be Mary,) Esther, and Salome, whose son John was; therefore Salome was reckoned out Lord’s sister, and John was his nephew.” If this relationship did exist, it may have been, at least in part, the reason of several things mentioned in the Gospels: as the petition of the two brothers for the two chief places in the kingdom of Christ; John’s being the beloved disciple and friend of Jesus, and being admitted to some familiarities denied to the rest, and possibly performing some offices about the person of his Master; and, finally, our Lord’s committing to him the care of his mother, as long as she should survive him. In a MS. of the Greek Testament in the Imperial Library of Vienna, numbered 34 in Lambecius’s Catalogue, there is a marginal note which agrees pretty much with the account given above by Theophylact: viz. “John the evangelist was cousin to our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh: for Joseph, the spouse of the God-bearing virgin, had four sons by his own wife, James, Simon, Jude, and Joses, and three daughters, Esther, and Thamar, and a third who, with her mother, was called Salome, who was given by Joseph in marriage to Zebedee: of her, Zebedee begot James, and John also the evangelist.” The writer of the MS. professes to have taken this account from the commentaries of St Sophronius.

This evangelist is supposed by some to have been the bridegroom at the marriage of Cana in Galilee: see John 2:1.

John was with our Lord in his transfiguration on the mount, Matthew 17:2; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28; during his agony in the garden, Matthew 26:37; Mark 14:33; and when he was crucified, John 19:26.

He saw our Lord expire upon the cross, and saw the soldier pierce his side with a spear, John 19:34, 35.

He was one of the first of the disciples that visited the sepulchre after the resurrection of Christ; and was present with the other disciples, when Jesus showed himself to them on the evening of the same day on which he arose; and likewise eight days after, John 20:19-29.

In conjunction with Peter, he cured a man who had been lame from his mother’s womb, for which he was cast into prison, Acts 3:1-10. He was afterwards sent to Samaria, to confer the Holy Ghost on those who had been converted there by Philip the deacon, Acts 8:5-25. St. Paul informs us, Galatians 2:9, that John was present at the council of Jerusalem, of which an account is given, Acts 15:4, &c. It is evident that John was present at most of the things related by him in his Gospel; and that he was an eye and ear witness of our Lord’s labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion; crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension he returned with the other apostles from mount Olivet to Jerusalem, and took part in all transactions previously to the day of pentecost: on which time, he, with the rest, partook of the mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit, by which he was eminently qualified for the place he afterwards held in the apostolic Church. Some of the ancients believed that he went into Parthia, and preached the Gospel there; and his first epistle has been sometimes cited under the name of the Epistle to the Parthians.

Irenæus, Eusebius, Origen, and others, assert that he was a long tune in Asia, continuing there till Trajan’s time, who succeeded Nerva, A.D. 98. And Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, A.D. 196, asserts that John was buried in that city. Jerome confirms this testimony, and says that John’s death happened in the 68th year after our Lord’s passion.

Tertullian and others say that Domitian having declared war against the Church of Christ, in the 15th year of his reign, A.D. 95, John was banished from Ephesus, and carried to Rome, where he was immersed in a cauldron of boiling oil, out of which however he escaped unhurt; and that afterwards he was banished to the isle of Patmos, in the Ægean Sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse. Domitian having been slain in A.D. 96, his successor Nerva recalled all the exiles who had been banished by his predecessor; and John is supposed to have returned the next year to Ephesus, being then about ninety years of age. He is thought to have been the only apostle who died a natural death, and to have lived upwards of 100 years. Some say, having completed 100 years, he died the day following. This Gospel is supposed by learned men to have been written about A.D. 68 or 70; by others, A.D. 86; and, by others, A.D. 97; but the most probable opinion is that it was written at Ephesus about the year 86.

Jerome, in his comment on Gal. 6, says that John continued preaching when he was so enfeebled with old age that he was obliged to be carried into the assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long discourse, his custom was to say, in every meeting, My dear children, love one another! The holy virgin lived under his care till the day of her death, which is supposed to have taken place fifteen years after the crucifixion. John is usually painted holding a cup in his hand, with a serpent issuing from it: this took its rise from a relation by the spurious Procorus, who styles himself a disciple of St. John. Though the story is not worth relating, curiosity will naturally wish to be gratified with it. Some heretics had privately poisoned a cup of liquor, with which they presented him; but after he had prayed to God, and made the sign of the cross over it, the venom was expelled, in the form of a serpent!

Some of the first disciples of our Lord, misunderstanding the passage, John 21:22, 23, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? believed that John should never die. Several in the primitive Church were of the same opinion; and to this day his death is doubted by persons of the first repute for piety and morality. Where such doctors disagree, it would be thought presumption in me to attempt to decide; otherwise I should not have hesitated to say that, seventeen hundred years ago he went the way of all flesh, and, instead of a wandering lot in a miserable, perishing world, is now glorified in that heaven of which his writings prove he had so large an anticipation, both before and after the crucifixion of his Lord. Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. 24) treats particularly of the order of the Gospels, and especially of this evangelist: his observations are of considerable importance, and deserve a place here. Dr. Lardner has quoted him at large, WORKS, vol. iv. p. 224.

“Let us,” says he, “observe the writings of this apostle which are not contradicted by any. And first of all must be mentioned, as acknowledged of all, the Gospel according to him, well known to all the Churches under heaven. And that it has been justly placed by the ancients the fourth in order, and after the other three, may be made evident in this manner. Those admirable and truly Divine men, the apostles of Christ, eminently holy in their lives, and, as to their minds, adorned with every virtue, but rude in language, confiding in the Divine and miraculous power bestowed upon them by our Saviour, neither knew, nor attempted to deliver the doctrine of their Master with the artifice and eloquence of words. But using only the demonstration of the Divine Spirit, working with them, and the power of Christ performing by them many miracles, they spread the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven all over the world. Nor were they greatly concerned about the writing of books, being engaged in a more excellent ministry, which was above all human power. Insomuch that Paul, the most able of all in the furniture both of words and thoughts, has left nothing in writing, beside some very short (or a very few) epistles; although he was acquainted with innumerable mysteries, having been admitted to the sight and contemplation of things in the third heaven, and been caught up into the Divine Paradise, and there allowed to hear unspeakable words. Nor were the rest of our Saviour’s followers unacquainted with these things, as the seventy disciples, and many other beside the twelve apostles. Nevertheless, of all the disciples of our Lord, Matthew and John only have left us any memoirs: who too, as we have been informed, were compelled to write by a kind of necessity. For Matthew having first preached to the Hebrews, when he was about to go to other people, delivered to them in their own language the Gospel according to him, by that writing supplying the want of his presence with those whom he was then leaving. And when Mark and Luke had published the Gospels according to them, it is said that John, who all this while had preached by word of mouth, was at length induced to write for this reason. The three first written Gospels being now delivered to all men, and to John himself, it is said that he approved them, and confirmed the truth of their narration by his own testimony; saying there was only wanting a written account of the things done by Christ in the former part, and the beginning of his preaching. And certainly that observation is very true. For it is easy to perceive that the other three evangelists have recorded only the actions of our Saviour for one year after the imprisonment of John, as they themselves declare at the beginning of their history. For, after mentioning the forty days’ fast, and the succeeding temptation, Matthew shows the time of the commencement of his account in these words: When he had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed out of Judea into Galilee. In like manner, Mark: Now after that John, says he, was cast into prison, Jesus came into Galilee. And Luke, before he begins the account of the acts of Jesus, gives a like hint in this manner: that Herod added yet this, above all, that he shut up John in prison. For these reasons, as is said, the Apostle John was entreated to relate, in the Gospel according to him, the time omitted by the four evangelists, and the things done by our Saviour in that space, before the imprisonment of the Baptist; And they add, farther, that he himself hints as much, saying, This beginning of miracles did Jesus: as also in the history of the acts of Jesus he makes mention of the Baptist as still baptizing in Ænon, nigh unto Salem. And it is thought that he expressly declares as much, when he says, For John was not yet cast into prison. John, therefore, in the Gospel according to him, relates the things done by Christ while the Baptist was not yet cast into prison. But the other three evangelists relate the things that followed the Baptist’s confinement. Whoever attends to these things will not any longer think the evangelists disagree with each other, forasmuch as the Gospel according to John contains the first actions of Christ, while the others give the history of the following time. And for the same reason John has omitted the genealogy of our Saviour according to the flesh, it having been recorded before by Matthew and Luke; but he begins with his divinity, which had been reserved by the Holy Ghost for him, as the most excellent person.” The whole of this chapter, with the preceding and following, may be profitably consulted by the reader. See also Lardner, Works, vol. iv. 224, and vi. 156-222.

Besides the Gospel before us, John is generally reputed to have been the author of the three epistles which go under his name, and of the Apocalypse. The former certainly breathe the genuine spirit of this apostle; and are invaluable monuments of his spiritual knowledge and deep piety, as well as of his Divine inspiration: as the Gospel and Epistles prove him to have been an evangelist and apostle, his book of Revelations ranks him among the profoundest of the prophets.

Learned men are not wholly agreed about the language in which this Gospel was originally written. Some think St. John wrote it in his own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was afterwards translated, by rather an unskilful hand, into Greek. This opinion is not supported by strong arguments. That it was originally written in Greek is the general and most likely opinion.

What the design of St. John was, in writing this Gospel, has divided and perplexed many critics and learned divines. Some suppose that it was to refute the errors taught by one Cerinthus, who rose up at that time, and asserted that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was the real son of Joseph and Mary; that, at his baptism, the Christ, what we term the Divine nature, descended into him, in the form of a dove, by whose influence he worked all his miracles; and that, when he was about to suffer, this Christ, or Divine nature, departed from him, and left the man Jesus to suffer death. See Irenæus, advers. Hæreses.

Others suppose he wrote with the prime design of confuting the heresy of the Gnostics, a class of mongrels who derived their existence from Simon Magus, and who formed their system out of Heathenism, Judaism, and Christianity; and whose peculiar, involved, and obscure opinions cannot be all introduced in this place. It is enough to know that, concerning the person of our Lord, they held opinions similar to those of Cerinthus; and that they arrogated to themselves the highest degrees of knowledge and spirituality. They supposed that the Supreme Being had all things and beings included, in a certain seminal manner, in himself; and that out of Him they were produced. From God, or Bythos, the infinite Abyss, they derived a multitude of subaltern governors, called Æons; whom they divided into several classes, among which we may distinguish the following nine. πατηρ, Father; χαρις, Grace; μονογενης, First-begotten; αληθεια, Truth; λογος, Word; φως, Light; ζωη, Life; ανθρωπος, Man; and εκκλησια, Church; all these merging in what they termed πληρωμα, Fulness, or complete round of being and blessings: terms which are of frequent occurrence in John’s Gospel, and which some think he has introduced to fix their proper sense, and to rescue them from being abused by the Gnostics. But this is not very likely, as the Gnostics themselves appealed to St. John’s Gospel for a confirmation of their peculiar opinions, because of his frequent use of the above terms. These sentiments, therefore, do not appear to be tenable.

Professor Michaelis has espoused the opinion, that it was written against the Gnostics and Sabians, and has advanced several arguments in its favour; the chief of which are the following.

“The plan which St. John adopted, to confute the tenets of the Gnostics and the Sabians, was first to deliver a set of aphorisms, as counterpositions to these tenets; and then to relate such speeches and miracles of Christ as confirmed the truth of what he had advanced. We must not suppose that the confutation of the Gnostic and Sabian errors is confined to the fourteen first verses of St. John’s Gospel; for, in the first place, it is evident that many of Christ’s speeches which occur in the following part of the Gospel, were selected by the evangelist with a view of proving the positions laid down in these fourteen verses; and, secondly, the positions themselves are not proofs, but merely declarations made by the evangelist. It is true that for us Christians, who acknowledge the Divine authority of St. John, his bare word is sufficient; but as the apostle had to combat with adversaries who made no such acknowledgment, the only method of convincing them was to support his assertion by the authority of Christ himself. “Some of the Gnostics placed the ‘WORD’ above all the other Æons, and next to the Supreme Being: but Cerinthus placed the ‘Only begotten’ first, and then the ‘WORD.’ Now St. John lays down the following positions:- “1. The Word and the Only begotten are not different, but the same person, John 1:14. ‘We beheld his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father.’ This is a strong position against the Gnostics, who usually ascribed all the Divine qualities to the Only begotten. The proofs of this position are: the testimony of John the Baptist, John 1:18, 34; 3:35, 36; the conversation of Christ with Nicodemus, John 3:16, 18, in which Christ calls himself the only begotten Son; the speech delivered by Christ to the Jews, John 5:17-47; and other passages, in which he calls God his Father.

“2. The Word was never made, but existed from the beginning, John 1:1. The Gnostics granted that the Word existed before the creation; but they did not admit that the Word existed from all eternity. The Supreme Being, according to their tenets, and, according to Cerinthus, the only begotten Son likewise, as also the matter from which the world was formed, were prior in existence to the Word. This notion is contradicted by St. John, who asserts that the Word existed from all eternity. As a proof of this position may be alleged perhaps what Christ says, John 8:58. “3. The Word was in the beginning with God, John 1:1, 2. The Gnostics must have maintained a contrary doctrine, or St. John, in confuting their tenets, would not have thought it necessary to advance this position, since God is omnipresent, and therefore all things are present with him.

“4. The Word was God, John 1:1. The expression, GOD, must be here taken in its highest sense or this position will contain nothing contrary to the doctrine of the Gnostics. For they admitted that the Word was an Æon, and therefore a deity in the lower sense of the word. The proofs of this position are contained in the 5th, 10th, (ver. 30,) and 14th (ver. 7, 11) chapters. {John 5:1ff; John 10:30; John 14:7, 11} “5. The Word was the creator of all things, John 1:3, 10. This is one of St. John’s principal positions against the Gnostics, who asserted that the world was made by a malevolent being. The assertion, that the Word was the creator of the world, is equivalent to the assertion, that he was GOD in the highest possible sense. In whatever form or manner we may think of God, the notion of Creator is inseparable from the notion of Supreme Being. We argue from the creation to the CREATOR; and this very argument is one proof of the existence of God.

“6. In the Word was life, John 1:4. The Gnostics, who considered the different attributes or operations of the Almighty, not as so many separate energies, but as so many separate persons, considered Life as a distinct Æon from the Word. Without this Æon, the world, they said, would be in a state of torpor; and hence they called it not only Life, but the Mother of the living; from this Æon, therefore, might be expected the resurrection of the dead and eternal life. The proofs of this position are in John 3:15, 21; the whole of the sixth, and the greatest part of the eighth chapter, as also John 14:6, 9, 19. But no part of St. John’s Gospel is a more complete proof of this position than his full and circumstantial account of the resurrection of Lazarus, which the other evangelists had omitted.”-See more in Michaelis’s Introduction to the New Testament. And, for a general account of the LOGOS, see John 1, at the end. See Clarke “John 1:51”.

Though it is likely that the Gnostics held all these strange doctrines, and that many parts in John’s Gospel may be successfully quoted against them, yet I must own I think the evangelist had a more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies. It is more likely that he wrote for the express purpose of giving the Jews, his countrymen, proper notions of the Messiah and his kingdom; and to prove that Jesus, who had lately appeared among them, was this CHRIST. His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive, object, and design, in writing this Gospel: These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life through his name, John 20:31. This is a design as noble as it is simple; and every way highly becoming the wisdom and goodness of God.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.

-Usherian years of the World, 3999-4033.

-Alexandrian years of the World, 5497-5531.

-Antiochian years of the World, 5487-5621.

-Constantinopolitan Æra of the World, 5503-5537.

-Rabbinical years of the World, 3754-3788.

-Years of the Julian Period, 4708-4742.

-Æra of the Seleucide, 307-341.

-From B.C. 5, to A.D. 29.

-From An. Olymp. CXCIII. 3, to CCII. 1.

-Years of the building of Rome, 748-782.

-Years of the Julian Æra, 41-75.

-Years of the Cæsarean Æra of Antioch, 44-78.

-Years of the Spanish Æra, 34-68.

-Years of the Paschal Cycle, or Dionysian Period, 529-31. -Years of the Christian Lunar Cycle, or Golden Number, 15-11. -Years of the Rabbinical Lunar Cycle, 12-8.

-Years of the Solar Cycle, 4-10.

-From the 25th year of the reign of the Emperor Augustus to the 18th of that of Tiberius.

N. B. As it was impossible to ascertain the precise dates of several transactions recorded in this Gospel, I have constructed the above Chronology in all the Æras which it includes, so as to comprehend the whole of our Lord’s life on earth, from his conception to his ascension, which is generally allowed to comprise the space of 34 years, Therefore, 34, added to the first date in any of the above Æras, gives the second date; e.g. Usherian year of the world, 3099+34=4033, and so of the rest.

Gospel of Saint John.

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GOSPEL OF SAINT JOHN.

THE author of this gospel, JOHN, the apostle and evangelist, was a native of Bethsaida, in Galilee, and the son of Zebedee and Salome, as appears by comparing Matthew 27:56, with Mark 15:40, and 16:1. He was younger brother of James the Greater, or Elder, (there being two apostles of that name,) with whom he exercised the trade of a fisherman, on the sea of Galilee. These brothers were among the first that became Christ’s disciples, being called the same day that Peter and Andrew were chosen to that honour. John is supposed to have been about twenty-five years of age when he began to follow Christ, by whom he was peculiarly loved, and honoured with his most intimate confidence, being chosen, with his brother and Peter, exclusive of the rest, to be a witness of the raising of Jairus’s daughter, of Christ’s transfiguration, and of his agony in the garden. And he and his brother James, on account of their zeal in their Master’s service, and their fervent manner of preaching, were distinguished by the title of Boanerges, or sons of thunder. He was the only apostle who followed Christ to Calvary, and stood under the cross when he was crucified; and to him Jesus left the care of his mother, to whom, in pursuance of the trust thus reposed in him, he showed all the testimonies of the profoundest veneration and respect, granting her, after the death of her husband Joseph, all the accommodations his house afforded, John 19:27. He saw our Lord expire on the cross, and the soldier pierce his side with a spear, John 19:34, 45; and was one of the first of the apostles who visited the sepulchre after Christ’s resurrection; and the first of them, it seems, that believed he was risen, John 20:8. He was present when Christ showed himself to the disciples on the day he rose, and likewise eight days after, John 20:19-29; as also when Jesus appeared as a stranger to some of them, at the sea of Tiberias; and was the first that discovered, and gave notice to the others, that the person appearing was the Lord. After Christ’s ascension, he continued with the other apostles at Jerusalem, and took part with them in all their transactions, till the day of pentecost, when, with all the others, he was endowed with the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, and was thereby fully qualified for the important offices for which God designed him. He, in conjunction with Peter, with whom it appears he had contracted a very intimate friendship, had the honour of being made the instrument of working the first miracle after the day of pentecost, namely, of curing, in a moment, a man who had been lame from his birth; and the still greater honour of suffering imprisonment for Christ and his gospel, before any of the other apostles were called to give that proof of their faith in him, and attachment to his cause, Acts 3:1-10. We find him afterward sent with Peter to Samaria, in order that through their prayers, and the laying on of their hands, the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost might be conferred on some who had been converted there by the preaching of Philip the deacon, Acts 8:5-25. And some years after this, he is mentioned by St. Paul, (Galatians 2.,) as one of the members of that council which was held at Jerusalem, to consider whether the observation of the ceremonial law should be required of the Gentile converts, Acts 15. From all which things it appears, that he was well qualified to give to the church and the world an authentic and accurate history of the life, doctrine, and miracles of Christ; having been an eye and ear witness of most or of all the facts which it was of importance he should relate. It is thought, that after the events referred to above, he continued in or near Judea till the time approached for the accomplishment of Christ’s predictions respecting the destruction of Jerusalem and the dissolution of the Jewish state; when, according to Irenæus, Eusebius, Origen, and others, he went into Asia, that being his peculiar province by allotment, where he founded the churches of Smyrna, Thyatira, Pergamos, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. His principal place of residence, however, was Ephesus, of which he was bishop; though Paul had planted a church there long before, and constituted Timothy the bishop thereof. Soon after he had settled affairs to his satisfaction in Asia Minor, he is supposed to have removed thence more eastward, and to have preached the gospel among the Parthians; to whom, as some imagine, his first epistle was anciently inscribed. After John had been thus employed in his apostolical function for some years, the persecution of the cruel Domitian took place, in the 15th year of his reign, A.D. 95, in which so eminent a minister of Christ as John could not fail of being a sufferer. He was, accordingly, represented to the emperor as a professed atheist, and a public subverter of the established religion of the empire; whereupon, by his imperial orders, the proconsul of Asia sent John bound to Rome, where he met with the most barbarous and inhuman treatment. He was cast into a caldron of boiling or burning oil; but was as miraculously preserved from being injured thereby, as Shadrach and his companions had been, long before, from being hurt by the flames of a fiery furnace. The stupid and obdurate Domitian, regardless of the miracle, still persecuted this holy man, and banished him into the island of Patmos, in the Archipelago, where, toward the latter end of the emperor’s reign, he wrote the Apocalypse. Domitian being slain in A.D. 96, Nerva, his successor, by an especial edict recalled him, and several others, from their state of exile; in consequence of which he returned to Ephesus, being then about ninety years of age. Here, it is said, he wrote his gospel, but whether before he was sent into exile, or after his return from it, is not quite certain. The general current of ancient writers, however, assure us, that he wrote it at an advanced time of life; though some learned moderns are of a different opinion, supposing it was written before the destruction of Jerusalem. “The question,” as Mr. Scott observes, “is perhaps rather a matter of curiosity than importance. Yet certainly several passages become far more interesting, by supposing that it was written long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the martyrdom of the other apostles. This evangelist alone mentions Peter as the apostle who smote the high-priest’s servant, and Malchus as the name of that servant. Now it is obvious to conclude, that he disclosed what the others had purposely concealed; because Peter was, at the time when he wrote, out of the reach of all his enemies. He alone records the resurrection of Lazarus; a miracle so stupendous and notorious, that one can hardly account for the other evangelists passing it over in silence, unless by supposing that, inasmuch as the Jews had consulted to put Lazarus also, as well as Christ, to death, the publicly recording of it by the evangelists, while the Jewish priests and rulers possessed authority, might needlessly have exasperated them, and exposed Lazarus and his sisters to much hatred, and even to imminent danger; and that the first Christians, knowing this, judged it proper in their public writings to observe a profound silence on this subject, till Jerusalem was destroyed, and Lazarus deceased, when the whole was circumstantially related. The other evangelists record our Lord’s predictions concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the dispersion of the Jews; but this writer is entirely silent in respect of them. Nor can a more satisfactory account of this be given, than by supposing that many of the predicted events had by that time received their accomplishment.” In addition to these arguments, which certainly are of considerable weight, some have observed that it is probable St. John could not have interpreted the words of Christ, which he has recorded John 21:18: “Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shalt gird thee,” concerning the manner of St. Peter’s death, if his gospel had been written before the crucifixion of that apostle; because, before that time, the words were ambiguous. Now this limits the writing of it to the year 69, a year expressly specified by an ancient writer. Others give it a much later date, some even so late as A.D. 97.

But at what time soever it was written, it is probable that it was undertaken in consequence of the entreaties of the Christian people and pastors of Ephesus, and other parts of Asia Minor, where John had his residence in the latter part of his life; and if so, Dr. Campbell thinks it must have been toward the close of the first century when it first appeared in the church. It was, doubtless, published before the beginning of the second; for we find evident references to it, though without naming the author, in some epistles of Ignatius, written about that time, the authenticity of which is strenuously maintained by Bishop Pearson, and other critics of name. There are also in Justin Martyr both references to this gospel, and quotations from it, though without naming the author. Tatian used it, along with the others, in composing the Diatessaron. It is scarcely necessary to mention the notice that is taken of it in the epistle of the churches of Vienne and Lyons, or by Irenæus, who names all the evangelists, specifying something peculiar to every one of them whereby he may be distinguished from the rest. To these may be added, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and the whole current of succeeding ecclesiastical writers.

If we may believe Irenæus, (Advers. Hæres., lib. 3. cap. 11,) this gospel was written with a view to “extirpate the errors sown in the minds of men by Cerinthus, and, some time before, by those called Nicolaitans;” in opposition to which errors, “he acquaints us, that there is one God, who made all things by his Word; and not, as they say, one who is the Creator of the world, and another who is the Father of the Lord; one the Son of the Creator, and another the Christ from the super-celestial abodes, who descended upon Jesus the Son of the Creator, but remained impassible, and afterward flew back into his own pleroma or fulness.” Again: “This disciple, therefore, willing at once to cut off these errors, and establish a rule of truth in the church, declares, that there is one God Almighty, who by his Word made all things, visible and invisible; and that by the same Word, by which God finished the work of creation, he bestowed salvation upon men, who inhabit the creation. With this doctrine he ushers in his gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’” &c. “This testimony,” says Dr. Campbell, “is of great antiquity, having been given in less than a century after the publication of the gospel.” Clement of Alexandria, who wrote not long after Irenæus, has, as we learn from Eusebius, (lib. 3. cap. 24,) added some particulars, as what, in his opinion, together with the entreaties of the Asiatic churches, contributed not a little to induce John to compose his gospel. The first he mentions is, that the evangelists who had preceded him, had taken little notice of our Lord’s teaching and actions, soon after the commencement of his ministry, and before the imprisonment of John the Baptist. One consideration, therefore, which induced him, though late, to publish a gospel, was, to supply what seemed to have been omitted by those who had gone before him. For this reason he avoided, as much as possible, recurring to those passages of our Lord’s history of which the preceding evangelists had given an account. There was no occasion, therefore, for him to give the genealogy of our Saviour’s flesh, as the historian expresses it, which had been done by Matthew and Luke before him. The same Eusebius says in another place, (lib. 6. cap. 14,) quoting Clement, “John, who is the last of the evangelists, having seen that in the three former gospels corporeal things had been explained, and being urged by his acquaintance, and inspired of God, composed a spiritual gospel.” Thus, it appears to have been a very early tradition in the church, that this gospel was composed, not only to supply what had not been fully communicated in the former gospels, but also to serve for refuting the errors of Cerinthus and the Gnostics.

“It deserves our particular attention, that the whole strain of the writing [of this gospel] shows it must have been published at a time, and in a country, the people whereof, in general, knew very little of the Jewish rites and manners. Thus those who in the other gospels are called simply ‘the people,’ or ‘the multitude,’ are here denominated ‘the Jews,’ a method which would not have been natural in their own land, or even in the neighbourhood, where the nation itself, and its peculiarities, were perfectly well known. As it was customary in the East, both with Jews and others, to use proper names independently significant, which, when they went abroad, were translated into the language of the country, this author, that there might be no mistake of the persons meant, was careful, when the Greek name had any currency, to mention both names, Syriac and Greek. Thus, ‘Cephas, which denoteth the same as Peter,’ John 1:43; ‘Thomas, that is, Didymus,’ John 11:16. The same may be said of some titles in current use, ‘Rabbi, which is, being interpreted, Master,’ John 1:38; ‘Messiah, which is, the Christ,’ John 1:41. In like manner, when there is occasion to mention any of the religious ceremonies used in Judea, as their ‘purifications,’ or their ‘festivals,’ it is almost invariably signified that the ceremony, or custom spoken of, is Jewish. Thus the water-pots are said to be placed for the Jewish rites of cleansing, chap. 2:6. The passover is once and again (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55) denominated the ‘Jewish passover,’ a phrase used only by this evangelist; and even any other religious feast is called (John 5:1; 7:2) by him, εορτη των Ιουδαιων, ‘a Jewish festival.’ This style runs through the whole. The writer everywhere speaks as to people who knew little or nothing about the Jews: see John 4:9, 45.

“Though simplicity of manner is common to all our Lord’s

historians, there are evident differences in the simplicity of one compared with that of another. One thing very remarkable in John’s style is, an attempt to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of the readers, by employing, in the expression of them, both an affirmative proposition and a negative. Thus, John 1:20, ‘He acknowledged, and denied not, but acknowledged.’

Repetitions, pleonasms, and tautologies, are also very frequent in this gospel: see John 1. l, 2, 7, 8.

“Hebraisms are to be found in all the evangelists; though it may be remarked, that some abound more with one sort of Hebraism, and others with another. A Hebrew idiom, very frequent with this writer, is the repetition or introduction of the personal pronoun, in cases where it is perfectly redundant. See verses 33 and 27 in the original. The introduction of any incident with the phrase, καιεγενετο, generally rendered in the common translation, ‘And it came to pass,’ though common in the other gospels, never occurs in this. The introduction of either facts or observations, by the adverb behold, is much rarer in this gospel than in the rest. But in the change of the tenses, so frequent with the Hebrews, John abounds more than any other of our Lord’s biographers. He is peculiar in the application of some names, as of ο Λογος, ‘The Word,’ and ο μονογενης, ‘The only begotten,’ to the Lord Jesus Christ; and of ο Παρακλητος, ‘The Monitor,’ or, as some render it, ‘The Advocate,’ and others, ‘The Comforter,’ to the Holy Ghost. He is peculiar also in some modes of expression which, though inconsiderable in themselves, it may not be improper to suggest in passing. Such is his reduplication of the affirmative adverb, αμην, verily; for he always says, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you.’ It is never used but singly by the rest.”

“The style and character of St. John,” says Mr. Blackwall, in his Sacred Classics, “is grave and simple, short and perspicuous. As to his language, it is plain and sometimes low, but he reaches to the very heaven of heavens in the sublimity of his notions. The venerable plainness, the majestic gravity, and beautiful simplicity of this writer, will always, by men of judgment, be valued above all the pomp of artificial eloquence, and gaudy ornaments of sophistry, and the declamatory style. This glorious gospel completes the evangelical history, and enriches it with several most heavenly discourses and miracles of the world’s Saviour, not recorded by any of the three divine writers before him. The first five chapters give an account of his works of wonder before the Baptist’s imprisonment. He enlarges upon the eternal existence of our Saviour, and gives us a most edifying and delightful account of his conversation for many days upon earth, with his apostles and select disciples, after his victorious and triumphant resurrection.”

“Here,” says Dr. Campbell, “we have also the true sources of Christian consolation under persecution, and the strongest motives to faith, patience, constancy, and mutual love, in every situation wherein Providence may place us. From the incidents here related, we may learn many excellent lessons of modesty, humanity, humility, and kind attention to the concerns of others. Nor does any one of those incidents appear to be more fraught with instruction than the charge of his mother, which our blessed Lord, at that critical time when he hung in agony upon the cross, consigned to his beloved disciple, John 19:25, &c. Though the passage is very brief, and destitute of all artful colouring, nothing can impress more strongly on the feeling heart his respectful tenderness for a worthy parent, and his unalterable affection for a faithful friend. Upon the whole, the language employed in conveying the sentiments is no more than the repository, the case. Let not its homeliness discourage any one from examining its valuable contents. The treasure itself is heavenly, even the unsearchable riches of Christ, which the apostle observes, (2 Corinthians 4:7,) to be committed ‘to earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may,’ to the conviction of all the sober-minded, ‘be of God, and not of men.’ “The Apostle John, by the concurrent testimony of all Christian antiquity, after suffering persecution for the cause of Christ, lived to a very great age; and having survived all the other apostles, died a natural death, at Ephesus, in Asia Minor, in the reign of the Emperor Trajan.”

Conclusion of the Gospels

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CONCLUSION OF THE GOSPELS.

THUS endeth the History of the Life of Christ; a life, the greatest and best that ever was led by man, or ever was the subject of any history. The human character of Jesus, as it results from the accounts which the evangelists have given of him, (for they have not formally drawn it,) is entirely different from that of all other men whatsoever. For whereas they have the selfish passions deeply rooted in their breasts, and are wont to be more or less influenced by them in most of their actions, Jesus was so entirely free from them, that the narrowest scrutiny cannot furnish one single action in the whole course of his life, wherein he consulted his own honour or interest. The glory of God and happiness of mankind were what he had only at heart. And while his cotemporaries followed, some one kind of occupation, and some another, Jesus had no other business but that of promoting these great ends of living. He went about doing good. He did not wait till he was solicited, but sought opportunities of conferring benefits on such as stood in need of them, and always reckoned it more blessed to give than to receive; in which respect he differed exceedingly from the rest of mankind, and was much more like to God than man. In the next place, whereas it is common, even for persons of the most exalted faculties, on the one hand, to be elated with success and applause, and on the other, to be dejected with great disappointments, it was not so with Jesus. He was never more courageous than when he met with the greatest opposition and the worst treatment, nor more humble than when men fell down and worshipped him. He came into the world inspired with the grandest purpose that ever was or will be formed, even that of saving, not a single nation only, but the whole world; and in the execution of it went through the heaviest train of labours that ever was sustained, and that with a constancy of resolution on which no disadvantageous impression could be made by any accident whatever; calumny, threatenings, opposition, with the other evils befalling him, served only to quicken his endeavours in this glorious enterprise, which he pursued unweariedly till he finished it by his death. In the third place, whereas most men are prone to retaliate the injuries that are done them, and all seem to take a satisfaction in complaining of the injuries of those who oppress them, the whole of Christ’s behaviour breathed nothing but meekness, patience, and forgiveness, even to his bitterest enemies, and in the midst of extreme sufferings. The words, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, uttered by him when his enemies were nailing him to the cross, fitly express the temper which he maintained through the whole course of his life, even when assaulted by the heaviest provocations. The truth is, on no occasion did he ever signify the least resentment by speech or action, nor indeed any emotion of mind whatever, except such as flowed from piety and charity, consequently such only as expressed the deepest concern for the welfare of mankind. To conclude, the greatest and best men have had failings which darkened the lustre of their virtues, and showed them to have been men. This was the case with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Job, Solomon, Paul, and the other eminent men celebrated in history. The same thing may be said of all the greatest geniuses in the heathen world, who undertook to instruct and inform mankind; for, omitting the narrowness of their knowledge, and the obscurity with which they spake upon the most important subjects, there was not one of them who did not fall into some gross error or other, which dishonoured his character as a teacher. The accounts we have in history of the most renowned sages of antiquity, and the writings of the philosophers still remaining, are proofs of this. It was otherwise with Jesus in every respect. For he was superior to all the men that ever lived, both in the sublimity of his doctrine, and in the purity of his manners. He was holy, harmless, and separate from sinners. Whether you consider him as a teacher or a man, he did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. His whole life was perfectly free from spot or weakness, at the same time that it was remarkable for the greatest and most extensive exercises of virtue.

Such was the person who is the subject of the evangelical history. If the reader, by viewing his life, doctrine, and miracles, as they are here presented to him in the gospels, has obtained a clearer notion of these things than before; if he feels himself touched with the character of Jesus in general, or with any of his sermons and actions in particular, thus simply delineated in writings whose principal charms are the beauties of truth; — above all, if Christ’s dying so generously for men strikes him with admiration, or fills him with joy, in the assurance or prospect of that pardon which is thereby purchased for the world, — let him seriously consider with himself what improvement he ought to make of the divine goodness.

Jesus, by his death, has set open the gates of immortality to men; and by his word, Spirit, and example, graciously offers to make them meet for, and conduct them into, the inheritance of the saints in light. Wherefore, being born under the dispensation of his gospel, we have, from our earliest years, enjoyed the best means of acquiring wisdom, holiness, and happiness, the lineaments of the image of God. We have been called to aspire after an exaltation to the nature and felicity of God, set before mortal eyes in the man Jesus Christ, to fire us with the noblest ambition. His gospel teaches us that we are made for eternity; and that our present life is to our after existence, what childhood is to man’s estate. But, as in childhood, many things are to be learned, many hardships to be endured, many habits to be acquired, and that by a tedious course of exercises, which in themselves, though painful, and, it may be, useless to the child, yet are necessary to fit him for the business and enjoyments of manhood: just so, while we remain in this infancy of human life, things are to be learned, hardships to be endured, and a conformity to God, and a participation of the divine nature to be attained, to fit us for the employments and pleasures of our riper existence above. Our Father, ever mindful of us, sent down Jesus, the express image of his own person, to initiate us into, and carry us through, this course of education for eternity. Inflamed, therefore, with the love of immortality and its joys, let us submit ourselves to our heavenly Teacher, and learn of him those graces which alone can make life pleasant, death desirable, and fill eternity with ecstatic joys. See Macknight.

The Gospel According to St. John.

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THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

ST. JOHN.

JOHN the Evangelist was the younger brother of James, and son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida. Both the brothers, when called by Jesus, left their nets and followed him, and that shortly after his baptism, when they received the special promise of being made “fishers of men.” At the time our Lord completed the number of the twelve apostles, it is noted by Mark, that he gave these brothers the surname of Boanerges, the sons of thunder. Such was his good pleasure, but no doubt with special regard to their zeal and vocal powers. Of zeal, when less instructed, they gave some proof when they asked whether they might not, like Elijah, invoke fire to fall from heaven on the disobedient Samaritans. 2 Kings 1:5-12. Luke 9:54.

John is repeatedly called the “beloved disciple” of Jesus, adopted as a son in the gospel, and beloved because of his amiable qualities. Besides the period of labours under the eye of Christ in common with others, he was one of the three that saw the transfiguration of the Lord on the mount; one of the four who heard the prophecies on mount Olivet, Mark 13:3; one of the two sent to prepare the passover; one of the three near the Lord in the garden, at the time of his agony; and to this disciple the Saviour gave his mother in charge, while he hung on the cross. After our Saviour’s ascension to heaven, John twice sustained imprisonment in Jerusalem, and boldly, with Peter, confessed the truth before the council. He accompanied Peter also to Samaria, when many in that city were converted to the faith, and gifts of the Holy Ghost were conferred by the imposition of hands. At what time John left Judea, and became the chief instrument in the conversion and formation of the seven churches in the great cities of Asia minor, no record is come down to us. But we are told that the apostles did not leave Jerusalem, and all the six provinces occupied by the jews, which are understood as associated with the capital; yet some exceptions must be made to this, as we find Peter and Mark at Rome about the tenth year of our Lord. We may therefore conclude that it was about the twelfth year when John entered on his northern sphere of labours, where his ministry was crowned with wide and permanent success, for all those churches are called the children of John. Johannis alumnas ecclesias.

When the holy apostles left their country in obedience to the Lord, for the conversion of the gentiles, it cannot be doubted that each apostle had his books and gospels with him. This no writer has denied. St. Paul enjoins Timothy to bring “the books, but especially the parchments,” which had been engrossed for public reading. 2 Timothy 4:13. Mark had with him in Rome the gospel of St. Matthew, which he has closely followed, as all agree. John had, it would seem, the gospel of the Nazarenes, a work generally used by the christians in Judea, for that gospel contains the story of the woman taken in adultery, as in John 8:3. Now, of the many gospels then extant by apostolic men, and prior to the writing of Luke, chap. 1:2, 3, can it be supposed that John was without a gospel of his own, and that he would not prefer his own, being an eye and ear witness, and a bosom friend of the Lord from the very first. The contrary supposition would involve an absurdity altogether incredible; neither could he keep it from the churches, with whom he spent the meridian of his days. By consequence, what the fathers say concerning the writing of his gospel after the other three canonized books, must be understood of the giving up of his copy to be engrossed for public reading in all the churches. And it does not appear that he altered any thing at that time, except the preface contained in the first fourteen verses, the better to rebut the errors of the age. The insinuation of the Arians, that he wrote his gospel in dotage; and the conjectures of modern “rational christians,” that he wrote it, verba gratiâ, after he was dead, are the emanations of a philosophy ever hostile to revelation.

The work itself contains internal proof that it was written before the year 70, when the siege of Jerusalem was commenced. In John 5:2 he says, “Now there IS at Jerusalem, by the sheep-market, a pool, called in the Hebrew tongue, Bethesda, having five porches.” We know for certainty that the Roman soldiers dug up the foundations of the city in search of treasures. Had John written almost forty years after the fall of the city, he would have used the preterite tense of the verb, and said, Now there was at Jerusalem, &c.

Irenæus was a native of Smyrna, the seat of one of the seven churches nourished by St. John. He was a disciple of Polycarp, and flourished not long after the death of the apostles, as is stated by St. Augustine, Contra Julian. 50. 1. c. 3. Irenæus was a scientific man, extensively acquainted with Greek and Roman literature. He was presbyter of Lyons; and after the martyrdom of the bishop, he succeeded in the see of that great city, where he also was martyred before the year 179.

In his third book against Heretics, c. 11, speaking of the Cerinthians, the Ebionites, and other heretics, he says that this disciple (John) being desirous to extirpate error at a stroke, and establish in the church the pillar of truth, declares the Unity of Almighty God, who by his Word made all things, whether visible or invisible. Colossians 1:16. That by the same Word, by whom he finished the creation, he bestowed salvation on men who inhabit the creation. Conformably to these views the evangelist thus commences his gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Eusebius says that John for a long time governed the churches of Asia in peace, possibly for forty years. In the year 95 John was arrested, and sent a prisoner to Rome. He was afterwards condemned and sent to the mines in the isle of Patmos; but the emperor who condemned him being slain, he returned to Ephesus, then the capital of Asia minor, where he died in the third year of Trajan, and was buried in that city, being more than ninety years of age.

After his return from the mines, and as one given from the dead, the bishop of Asia would have his final sanction to his gospel, which was no doubt already in their hands and fully known, else why should they ask for his sanction. Thus by his book of revelation, and the final touch of his hand to the gospel, he closed the canon of the christian scriptures. As the final evangelist, he has written what Clement calls “the spiritual gospel,” and he became so sublimely elevated by a daring temerity, more happy than presumptuous, as to attain an approach even to the Word of God himself. Of the style of St. John, though we allow its simplicity, which with many would be accounted its first beauty, and in fact an imitation of his Lord; and though we find a few Syriac phrases, yet it possesses beauties peculiar to itself. He wrote in a language he had acquired, and Dionysius of Alexandria has left us a eulogy on the purity of his Greek. This author is bold to affirm, that in argument, and in the structure of his sentences, there is nothing vulgar: no solicisms in his words, nor feebleness of expression, for God had endowed him with wisdom and science from above. St. John has indeed been accused of omitting, in many instances, the Greek article, and where it seemed essential to the sense. This objection will apply to the LXX, and in numberless places; and in the Gothic of Ulphilas, the article is very sparingly used. Two of the evangelists often do the same, as in Matthew 4:3, 5. Mark 1:1. As the name of God occurs in those passages as the source of deity, it was not thought essential. Dr. George Campbell, in his preface to the gospel of St. John, is quite of a different opinion in regard of the style. He calls it, “The work of an illiterate Jew. The whole strain of the writing shows, that it must have been published at a time and in a country the people whereof in general knew very little of the jewish rites and manners. Thus, those who in the other gospels are called the people, and the multitude, are here denominated jews, a method which could not be natural in their own land, or even in the neighbourhood, where the nation itself and its peculiarities were perfectly known.”

In reply, we say that John wrote chiefly for the churches of Asia, to whom the word Jew was strictly proper, and any other term would have been less happy and natural. After the fall of Samaria, the nations used no other word for that nation, as in the book of Esther. Pilate asked in Jerusalem, “Am I a Jew?” St. Paul uses the word forty times; and in Josephus, the word is of constant occurrence. Confident I am, the doctor has no ground to support the severity of his strictures.

As our new translators of the holy scriptures eat bread at the Redeemer’s table, and sup with the holy apostles, they should not become so intoxicated with philosophy, and contemptuous of revelation, as to attack the whole weight of antiquity. Dr. Campbell is however unique in attacking St. John for using the word Jew.

John the Evangelist.

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JOHN

JOHN THE EVANGELIST.

John was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and was probably born at Bethsaida, (by interpretation Fishville,) at the northern end of Lake Gennesaret. That his parents were respectable in rank, and easy in their pecuniary circumstances, is inferred from the fact that John was acquainted with the high priest, that his father employed hired workmen in his fishery, and that John was able to provide for the mother of Jesus at his own house, probably in Jerusalem. He is indeed called in the Acts of the Apostles unlettered; but that simply signifies that he was not a professional man; that he was neither priest, nor scribe, but an ordinary layman. His father, Zebedee, probably died before John’s apostolate. His mother, Salome, appears to have been a woman of piety, who became attached to Jesus, not without high Messianic hopes, and lived within the circle of the Christian Church after the resurrection of Christ.

The first great point of John’s life was his becoming, we know not by what means, a disciple of the Baptist. The tradition, however, is found in some early writers that Zebedee was an uncle of the Baptist, and therefore the Baptist and the Evangelist were cousins. However this be, this discipleship attests the early religious tendencies of John, and doubtless inspired his heart with an expectation of a Messiah near.

The next great turn of John’s life, and its most important crisis, was his acquaintance with Jesus. To this, indeed, he was led by his discipleship under the Baptist. The deep interest with which at the latest period of his life he remembered his first introduction to Jesus, is shown by the fresh and minute narrative he gives of it in the first chapter of his Gospel. On the banks of the Jordan, afar from his Galilean home, he is standing; and he listens while the Baptist gives his testimony to the MESSIAH, freshly arrived from the scene of temptation, and at once and forever he receives the testimony. He is forthwith accepted by Jesus as his disciple, with a few others, as the rudiments of his future apostolic college. After the miraculous draft of fishes he was especially called to be, not only a disciple, but a teacher, a fisher of men. At the complete inauguration of the college, followed by the sermon on the Mount, John is incorporated into that body. He is repeatedly named as one of the elect three, Peter, James, and John. This James was his elder brother, and it is remarkable that these brothers were the first and last of the apostolic martyrs.

John was distinguished at once by the simplicity of his character and the ardour of his affections. And those affections had a double side: one of deep love for Jesus and his Gospel, and the other of intense antagonism of heart for all opposed to Christ. Hence, while, on the one side, he was the disciple whom Jesus loved, and who leaned upon the Saviour’s bosom, on the other, he would have called down fire upon the Samaritans who rejected Jesus, and was significantly named a “son of thunder.” And thus we see how, in the closing period of his life, he could, within a single brief period, write those Epistles which are redolent with the deepest spirit of love, and yet record the visions of his Apocalypse in language of the most terrible sublimity. Those who say that the author of the Gospel and Epistles could not have been the author of the Apocalypse, are but poor pretenders in the science of human character.

The next great turn in John’s life was his departure for the East to take Apostolic charge of the Churches planted by Paul in Asia Minor. This probably took place soon after the death of Paul, and would bring us to about A.D. 63 or 66. During his residence in Asia Minor he was banished by one of the Roman Emperors to Patmos, an island in the AEgean sea. Here he wrote the Apocalypse; according to Irenaeus, under the reign of the Emperor Domitian. A narrative is given by Tertullian, that John was cast into a vessel of boiling oil, and delivered from death therefrom by a miracle before he was banished to Patmos. But as this sort of capital punishment was never practised by the Romans, scholars generally reject the story. According to Polycrates, the successor of John as Bishop of Ephesus, John died a martyr to the faith. His life extended to the close of the first century of the Christian era. According to Jerome, he was a hundred years old.

Two or three anecdotes are related, which may illustrate the opposite sides of John’s affectional nature.

While at Ephesus, John, learning that the heretic Cerinthus was within the same bathing-house as himself, rushed rapidly out, lest the building should fall upon the head of both. There was a great lesson in this vehement action. The inspired apostle knew that he was standing at the fountain head of Christian truth, whence it was of most momentous importance to our world, that the stream should flow to future ages in perfect purity. To him, the heaven-sent guardian of that truth, no criminal could be, rightly and truly considered, more deeply criminal than the errorist, who would corrupt the fountain and send a stream of fatal falsehood to that great future.

John in one of his apostolic tours found a newly converted young man, whom with deep-loving interest he committed as a precious deposit to the very special charge of the pastor, and departed home. A while after, John revisited that Church, and upon re-demanding the sacred deposit, he was sorrowfully told that the youth had gradually apostatized, and had become a highland robber chieftain. “To what a keeper have I trusted my brother’s soul!” exclaimed the indignant apostle. Mounting horse, he speeds to the hills; and taking means to be captured by the robbers, is brought to their chief. With words of exquisite pathos he melts the outlaw’s heart, and leads him from his robber clan back to the fold of Christ. Such was the power of holy love. Finally, the beautiful impression made by this apostle on the memory of the primitive Church is evinced by one delightful tradition given by Jerome. In extreme age, such was his bodily weakness that he was carried by the strong arms of the young men to the religious meetings. When at last he became unable, even there, to preach, he constantly repeated the words, “Little children, love one another.” Such were the opposite sides of John’s heart. For antichrist in all its forms he had a holy opposition; for the image of Jesus, wherever seen, a bottomless depth of love.

AUTHENTICITY OF JOHN’S GOSPEL.

The authenticity of John’s Gospel was never questioned (save by the ancient but short-lived and insignificant sect of Alogi) until the last century. And even since, no sceptic has ever denied its existence, as John’s Gospel, in the second half of the century after John’s death. The only doubt or debate, therefore, covers the first half of that century, and the proofs within that period are abundant.

1. John’s conspicuous position in the powerful Church of the great city of Ephesus, one of the SEVEN CHURCHES addressed by his Apocalypse, renders the successful forging of a Gospel under his name soon after his death incredible. 2. Justin Martyr, whose life, in a region not far from Ephesus, covers that first half-century, testifies that the Gospels were read as Scripture in all Christian Churches from Sabbath to Sabbath; and one of these Gospels by him included was John’s Gospel. Now it is impossible that John’s own Seven Churches could have been so deceived as to have unanimously so received and read a Gospel forged in the name of their own great apostle. 3. The bishops of each of those Churches, as the earliest ecclesiastical writers abundantly testify, could be enumerated by name in ascending line up to John’s own day; when the first one was, in some cases, by him ordained. These, together with their Churches, verified the apostolic books; which were thereupon deposited in their archives, and publicly read as inspired Scripture in their Sabbath service. Through these lines of pastoral succession the great writers and doctors of the Church, at the close of that century, appealed to the authentic copies of the apostolic documents sacredly preserved in the leading apostolic Churches. It was in this way, in this first primitive apostolic age, that the NEW TESTAMENT CANON was formed; and not by any late decree of popes or councils. And in this way the authenticity of the Gospels, and most, if not all, the Epistles, has ever stood above all rational question. 4. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, one of John’s “Seven Churches,” himself a hearer and disciple of John, and probably by John ordained bishop, in his brief Epistle, still extant, quotes John’s Gospel. 5. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, whose life covers this half century, uses expressions which none but a reader of John’s Gospel would be likely to use. 6. Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, contemporary though the junior of John, quotes his first Epistle, which is the proper appendix to the Gospel, written in a profoundly similar style and spirit, and evidently refers to the Gospel in its very first sentence. 7. Valentinus, as we are informed by the historian Eusebius, accepted all the books of the New Testament; but John’s Gospel was his favorite; and Valentinus was a junior contemporary of John in the same region of country. 8. Heracleon, a pupil of Valentinus, wrote a Commentary on John. 9. The followers of Valentinus, in the same age, are quoted by Irenaeus (who lived in the next century) as saying, “John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to describe the origin of all things,… says, In the beginning was the Word,” etc. These are not all the proofs that this Gospel came from John; but did space allow us to unfold them at length, they would be still more amply conclusive. The authenticity of this Gospel can scarce be honestly questioned.

CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN’S GOSPEL.

John, unlike the other three Evangelists, records not the common oral Gospel, (see page 5,) but his own personal recollections. And he is very emphatic on this point in several passages; interposing his own personal veracity, as being individually present at the transaction, and not possibly mistaken. He leaves no space or time for the growing of legends, stories, or myths. He was on the spot; he saw; he knows; and you must either impeach or believe him. Hence all maintainers of the so-called mythical or legendary theories of the origin of the Gospels are obliged, with no creditable success, to invalidate John.

John purposes to exhibit Jesus in his transcendent exaltation of character; in the highest, the supreme phase of his nature, as the WORD. Other Evangelists begin with and dwell mostly within the humanity of Jesus, but transiently darting up to the height of his perfect divinity. John depicts the supreme Divinity walking among men, and struggling to make his rays penetrate their darkened understandings. It is Deity reigning in, and in spite of, its humiliations. It was nearly this to which Clement of Alexandria alluded when he said: “John, last of all, perceiving that the more corporeal truths were revealed in the [previous] Gospels, being persuaded by his acquaintances, and divinely influenced by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.”

From his own sensitive and elevated temperament, from the Grecian culture in the midst of which he wrote, and from the transcendent aspect of the Lord’s nature which it was his mission to present, John omits many of the simpler and more humiliating points of our Lord’s earthly condition. He omits all detail of his birth and childhood; and commences with his pre-existence as the eternal Word. He furnishes no human genealogy. Though he fully asserts the existence both of Satan and demoniacs, he omits the temptation; and gives not a single instance of the casting out of demons, a sort of miracle, mostly confined, doubtless, both in fact and in notoriety, to the period and country of our Lord’s birth and life. He does not, like the other Evangelists, dwell on the immense profusion of the Lord’s miracles, but selects the sacred number seven;* each one of which either contains a symbolical import, or serves as a text upon which a high discourse of the Lord is suspended, or both. Although our Lord’s discourses in this Gospel are richly suffused with the symbolical spirit upon which the parable is founded, yet he gives not a single instance of the simple parable itself. Hence, too, he dwells slightly on the more corporeal and Jewish form of the “kingdom of God,” and the personal advent of the bodily Son of man to judgment. He omits the Passover form of the last supper; and passing over the humiliation of Gethsemane, takes care to show that our Lord’s submission to death was imperial and voluntary. It is obvious that in all this John contradicts not the revelations of the previous Evangelists, but enlarges them with rich expansions. Yet all these expansions are expressed in brief by the previous Evangelists; and, earlier than most of the Gospels, St. Paul, with a fulness that the assailants of John are anxious to forget, expresses in his own style expansions as transcendent as John himself. So that John’s enlargements are no later growth of Christian doctrines. It is also obvious that John writes not so much “a brief biography of Jesus,” as a doctrinal narrative describing and illustrating his divinity in humanity.

[* 1, Water made wine; 2, Nobleman’s son healed; 3, Impotent man restored; 4, Feeding the five thousand; 5, Walking on the sea; 6, Giving sight to the blind; 7, Raising of Lazarus.]

The style and spirit of John’s writings possess peculiarities differencing them from any other specimens in all literature, sacred or profane. There is a sameness which pervades his Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse, yet a difference in each from the other. The most remarkable phenomenon in his Gospel is, that whether Jesus, the Baptist, or our John himself is speaker, the style is remarkably the same. Hence, it has been boldly inferred that John is the real and sole author of the discourses he puts in the mouth of both. There is also a round of terms, most of which occur indeed in the other Scriptures, but are of very emphatic and frequent use in his Gospel. Such terms are, light, life, testimony, glorify, only-begotten. The solution of these facts may appear from the following considerations. The character and style of the Lord Jesus himself were, as we may say, many-sided. He had many different styles and strains of discourse. With one of these styles of thought and spirit the spirit of John was deeply in unison. Discourses of that strain were so congenial to his temperament as to fill his heart, and indelibly impress his memory; to model his mind, and to form his vocabulary and style. That class of discourses he selects for his Gospel. So in a far lower degree we have often seen some eminent preacher stamp his own style upon a whole train of pupils. But never was this impression so powerfully imparted as in this supreme instance. The impress of the Lord’s style of discourse reigns through all that John in his Gospel writes. Glimpses, however, of the same spirit appear in the other Gospels. But so entirely is John’s style formed by his Master’s influence, that when he proceeds to give the general substance of the Baptist’s testimony, in a free version, the style is eminently both John-like and Jesus-like. That style appears in all its deepest intensity in the discourses of Jesus; and yet we are obliged to believe that of those divine discourses the pen of John vainly struggles to give the full, deep, continuous flow. They are but spirited indications of what the Lord really and fully discoursed; giving us conceptions that they shadowed truths higher than we can fully conceive. But from these discourses, as sources, the same spirit breathes through the whole Gospel; mostly in the Baptist’s testimony; less in John’s own narrative style; and least of all in the dialogue, where it sometimes nearly disappears. The dialogues are eminently dramatic, natural, and strikingly characteristic of the particular speakers. The conclusion is, not that John makes Jesus talk in his own style, but that Jesus has breathed a style into the entirety of John.