Epistles of John - The Preterist Archive

XXIV
ST JOHN THE APOSTLE, AND HIS WRITINGS.
Thus the life, work, and writings of St John form one compact,
organic, independent, and harmonious unity. And this
congruity forms an evidence for the
genuineness of the three
great writings of St John, more powerful and convincing than
any analytical criticism could furnish. Not that external evidences
are wanting to establish the age and genuineness of
these writings : no book in all antiquity is so abundantly vouched
as these documents are.
The testimonies in favour of the genuineness of the Gospel
and the First Epistle are very decided. As the author describes
himself as an eyewitness of the life of Jesus (ch. i. 14, comp.
1 John i. 1), there could remain only the choice between genuineness
and laborious conscious deception. If it is added, that the
author everywhere seems designedly to avoid mentioning the
sons of Zebedee (ch. i. 35 and 42, xiii. 23, xviii. 15, xix. 26,
xx. 2);— that he invariably calls himself "the disciple whom
the Lord loved" (that he thereby means one of the three
favoured disciples, is plain from John xiii. 23, xix. 26 ; that he
means, not Peter, but one of the sons of Zebedee, from John
xx. 2 ;
that the son of Zebedee who wrote the Gospel could not
have been James, from Acts xii.
2) ;— that, while he always
carefully distinguishes the two Judases (ch. xii. 4, xiii. 26,
xiv. 22), and always gives Thomas his surname (ch. ii. 26, xx.
24, xxi. 2), yet, on the other hand, he always called the Baptist
only 'Icodvvris :— all these are things to be explained only by
the fact that the Apostle John was himself the writer.
With this direct declaration of the Gospel itself is connected
a strong, unbroken chain of external testimonies. In an age
when it was not customary to quote the New-Testament writings
with a statement of their authors and subjects, we find a
large mass of reminiscences from St John, and allusions to
him. When Ignatius (Philad. 7) abruptly says concerning
the " Spirit of God r" olBev yap nrodev ep^erat teal irov VTrdyei,
his words can be understood only as referred to St John's figure
of the Holy Ghost as wind.
In the same abrupt manner, with
the same evident allusion to the figures and sayings of the
Evangelist John, whom he supposes to be well known and
familiar to his readers, he elsewhere (Philad. 9 ; Rom. 7) calls
Christ " the Door of the Father," the " Bread from heaven."
Polycarp (Phil. 7) quotes expressly and literally the passage