882
JOHN, APOSTLE
JOHN, APOSTLE
quia et revenL Don a levibos hominibus id audi- vimus ' *).
These are the fraCTnentary materials out of which is built the idea of the beloved ai)ostle prevalent throughout the Church. They form a consistent picture, of a character that is vehement and tenacious, but has been moulded in its later days by the spirit of love. The story of the journey after the robber is quite consistent with that of the refusal to be under the siiiiie roof with Cerinlhus the heretic. And both are iiarallel to scenes in the Gospels and Acts ascribed to St. John.
{d) The difficulties that have been raised about the whole question of St. John's sojourn at Ephesus do not arise from any inconsistency in the story itself, but from consid.eratioDs of a ditl'erent order altogether. They are part of the whole question of the authorship of the writings ascribed to St. John. If the authorities upon which the Epliesian tradition depends are accepted as trustworthy, it will be difficult to explain wliy and how the account of the origin of the Gospel wliich seems to have been part of the Eiihesian tradition can be set aside. It is not part of our subject to consider the question of the authorship of the Gospel, further than is necessary in order to estimate the evidence for the tradition, but the points now to be raised would be scarcely intelligible apart from this explanation. See, further, next article.
The real point at issue is comparatively small. Irenseus, who became bishop of Lyons in South Gaul after the persecution of A.D. 177, writes a letter to Floriiius, a presbyter of the church of Rome who has fallen into heresy. A fragment of this letter is preserved by Eusebius (HE v. xx.). In it Irenoeus appeals to Florinus to contrast the doctrines he has accepted with those which he once learnt at the feet of Polyearp, who himself claimed to be the pupil of the Apostle John. Irenieus refers to a former time when he, as a boy (irah (ri eiv), saw Florinus, tlien in distinguished position at court (Xo^tirpiis TrparrovTa in Ty ^aaAiKji oi/Xj), with Polyearp. Now Polyearp was martyred, at the age of eighty-six (Mart. Polyc. § 8), on Feb. 23, 155.t Tims he must have been born (unless the phrase in Mart. Polyc. refers to his conversion and not his birth) in A.D. 69. If St. John really lived till the time of Trajan, i.e. till about A.D. 100, there is no reason why Polyearp should not have known him.
This tradition has been assailed on variona grounds. It has been asserted that there is no real indication of Johaunine influence in the writers who date from Ephesus and its neighbour- hood ; more especially that Ignatius when %vriting to the Ephesians in the year 115 makes no allusion to St. John's presence there, though lie does mention St. Paul (Ign. Eph. ch. xii.), and shows signs of tlie influence of the letter 'to the Ephesians.' This argument is used by Keim (Jesus of Nazara, Eng. tr. vol. i. p. 211 IT.), but its value is greatly impaired by the authority of subsequent critics. The researches of Paul Ewald (Das Hauntproblem der Evangelienfrage), of H. Wendt (Lchre Jesu), and especially of von der Goltz ('Ignatius von Antiochien,' in Texte und Untersuchungen, xii. 3), tend to show the presence in the region required,
• The tradition which has bo profoundly influenced art, that 8t. John drank poison without being affected by it, occurs in Isidore ot Seville, De ortu et obitu Sanct</rum, ch. Ixxii. ; and in Acta Johannu, c. 9, ed. Bousset, 1898. It is also alluded to in the .SoMvjuiet, falsely ascribed to Aupistine, ch. xxii. The pre- sent writer has failed to trace the ori;rin of the tradition, if It be a tradition, which Browning has followed in A Death in the Deiert.
t This seems to be the most likely date : an alternative is Feb. 22, 166. See Lightfoot, Ignatius and Poli/carp, i. pp. 826-722 ; C. n. Turner, ' On the day and year of St. Polyoarp's Martyrdom," In Sludia JlMica, Oxford, vol. ii. pp. 105-155 ; and aajnack, Chronologie, Bd. i. pp. 834-350, and reff.
and in the Ignatian Epistles in particular, of that tj'peof teaching which is associated with St. John's name. This line of argument may therefore b« left out of account.
Another and much more impressive method ol criticism is that pursued by Harnack in his Chronologie der Altchri-stlic/ien Literalur bis Etisebius, Bd. i. pp. 320-340, 056-680. It will have been noticed already that the hinge of the whole case is the relation of Irenieus and Polyearp. If it seemed likdj' that this relation was less close than is generally supposed, no doubt the evidence of I'olycarp to the presence of St. John in Epliesus might be seriously weakened. This is the central point of Hamack's argument. He lays emphasis on the youth of Irena?us (Trats In (J>), and the casual character of his relation with Polyearp. There is no evidence, he maintains, that Irenajus was in any strict sense a pui)il of Polyearp ; he merely heard him preach, like any other member of his congrega- tion. It is, therefore, not improbable that he confused the Apostle John with the John quoted by Polyearp, this other John being really the Pres- byter John — a person whose existence is affirmed by Papias. To this Presbyter Jolin, Harnack assigns the Fourth Gosjjel. It is difficult to avoid the conviction that Harnack is greatly minimizing the significance of the passage from t^e letter of Irenceus to Florinus. It is true that we <lo not know exactly the age of Irennaus at the beginning of his episcopate, and that the year of his birth cannot be fixed within very narrow limits. It is true that we cannot be certain of the date of the scene in tj Kdra 'A<rl(f to which Irenteus refers. It is true that Trais (ti Hii/ suggests that Irena;u8 refers to a time when he was from 12-17 or 18 years old.* But (1) the tone of the letter, especially the refer- ence to the psychology of memory, seems to imply an advanced age ; it is usually between 60 and 70 or later that the memory begins to fail for more recent events ; and (2) Harnack greatly under- rates the fulness of the knowledge which Irenaeus claims. If it be true that the words do not imply any direct and personal relation with Polyearp, they do seem to imply a careftil and continuous observation of Polycarp's habits both in act and word, t Indeed it is difficult to know what words would convey an account of a continued and care- fully treasured experience, if these do not. And it is hardly conceivable that an experience such as b described should have passed, and yet that Iren.-eus, with all his keenness of observation, should have failed to discover whether Polyearp was talking of John the Apostle or not. Again, the Twelve were a perfectly recognizable and dis- tinct body from a very early time in the Church, and Polycarp's discourses must have been more than usually confused if Ihey left his intelligent hearers uncertain on a fundamental point such as this. It is an even more extravagant hypothesis that Polyearp himself was confused. People ■vvill always estimate such a question as this somewhat ditt'erently, so that it will be impossible to claim that the significance of Irenaeus' words is certain beyond all possibility of discussion. At the same time, the interpretation here given seems the most