and external evidences of the authenticity of each remain independently so conv;>cing.
That John, the author of the Apoc., called him- self a ' bond-slave of Jesus Christ,' and not an apostle, corresponds with the modesty of the writer of the Gospel, and with the very phrase of St. Paul in four of his Epistles. He classes himself among the 'prophets' of the XT, and does not dissociate himself from the apostles, some of whom were umloubteilly 'prophets,' and, since our Lord built His Church and kingdom (Mt 16") upon the petra of Peter's confession, it is not surprising that John should have seen the names of tbe twelve apostles upon the foundations of the new Jerusalem. The author declares that ' he bare witness to the word of God, and to the testi- mony of Jesus Cliri.st' (Rev 1'), which ranges him among the innermost circle of Christ's di-sciples. The 'John' canimt, by any ingenious theory, refer to anj' other personage of that name mentioned in NT. Further, the references to persecution, exile, Patmos, and an Ephesian residence, corre- spond with a whole cycle of tradition and citation which cannot be here given. It is true that Keim {Jesus of Nazara, Eng. tr. i. 143, 207) discounts the citations from Irenaeus (ii. 22. 5, iiL 23), Clem. Alex., Justin, Apollonius (Eus. HE v. 18), Jerome, Epiphanius, etc., thinking that a blunder of Irenajus is the jiarent of all the supposed testi- mony ; and Keim has been followed in this by Harnack and several other recent writers. But the arguments are unsatisfactory. On the othei hand, the external testimonies to the Apocalypse are in various ways confirmatory of apostolic origin and authority, while a clear mention of it in the Mur. Canon — together with that of Peter — assigns it a sure place in the reverence of the Chorch early in the 2nd cent.
The arguments of Dionvsius of Alexandria are based on fundamental dillerences between the Apocalypse and the Fourth tiospel.
(1) Dillerences of designation, such as that the author of the Apoc. calls himself 'John,' whereas the author of the Gospel withholds his name. This, as Salmon (Introd. to NT, 276) says, can be easily accounted for. The historical books of OT, with the exception of Neh, are all anonymous ; the same may be said of the Synoptic Gospels and Ac, while all the prophetic books, with the exception of Daniel (seech. 7), open with the name of the prophet himself. Now, the Apocalypse is distinctly pro- phetic, and its style and imagery are borrowed from that source. Dionysius did not reject it as uninspired, or as written by Cerinthus, or as hav- ing insutlieient external testimony. He said that he could not understand its meaning, though this was not his point of critical doubt ; but that ita great dissimilarity in language, style, theme, and tone from the Gospel convinced him, that as there might be many 'Johns' in Asia during the 1st cent., one of them may have been the author. Ha argued, further, that the resemblance between the Gospel and the first Eiiistle in phra.se, leading terms, and decisive teaching incre.ises the feeling of discrepancy between the Gospel and the Apoca- lypse, tin the hearsay that there were two tombs of 'John' at Ephesus, he raises the ghost of the shadowy ' Presbvter,' who has done such notable service in the jAecing together of 2nd cent, frag- ments. The position occupied by Dionysius in the middle of the 3rd century may have been unconsciously a<lopte<l by this wise and candid man, owing to the strong olijeition he entertained for the chiliasm which he found in the .Apocalvpso. Nevertheless, his hyiKithesis was comparatively disregnnled until the present century, when it was useil in a contrary sense by F. L. Baur and his followers, who recognized and empha.sizod the
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JOHN, GOSPEL OF
JOHN, GOSPEL OF
apostolic anthorship of the Apoc, to the entire repudiation of that of the Gospel, which was sup- posed to liave originated under dillerent conditions at the close of the 2nd cent. On the other band, LUcke, Ewald, Lutzclberger, Diisterdieok, de VVette, and Neander, holding the authenticity of the Gospel as proved, and accepting the hurden of the Dionj'sian argument, have resigned the authorship of the Apoc. to the ' Prcshyter,' to 'John the Divine,' to John Mark, or to any other who could bear the weight of the responsibility. Volkmar and Kenan pres.sed the Judaic aspects so strongly as to suppose that it wa-i, among other things, an early manifesto against the I'auline Churches and doctrine, under the pseudonym of Balaam or the Nicolaitans.
(2) The emphasis laid upon the Heb. and Hel. spirit of the two books respectively has been brought into strong relief by Vischer s Die Offcn- barutiq Jiihiinnis eine Ju'iUche Apokalijpse in christlicher Bearlicitiing, mit einem Nachivurt von Adotpk Hamack, ISSii ; see Schoen's Origine de r Apocnlypse, also Bousset's Commentary, and A. Meyer in Theol. Rundsvhnu, Nov. and Dec. 1897. Doubtless the Apocalyptic literature of the Hebrews, as seen in Dn, 2 Es, Enoch, must have been present to the mind of the author ; but that he or another re-edited a Jewish Apoc. is more than the precarious criticism which has prevailed of lat« can be said to have proved. Moreover, the links of connexion and the subtle resemblance between these two most wonderful testimonies to Christ have been too much slighted. The use of rare words and forms characterizing both docu- ments, the practically identical Christology, and a certain resemblance in structure, lead to the con- clusion that if John be indeed the author of the Apoc, then the author of the Gospel, notwith- standing its transparent differences, must have been his pupil and follower in the deepest motives and .ipint of his utterance. Again, the supposed oppositions of style are certainly balanced by interesting correspondences, the fancied solecisms can be shown to have analogous representations in classical Greek, and certain views of the OT and of the Person of Christ are almost, if not quite, peculiar to these two works. The impression there- fore grows upon many, that, notwithstanding the dicta of the Tiibingen school, the two books not only may, but must, have issued from the same mind. If this be the final word of the long con- troversy, the authenticity of the Apoc. becomes one of the strongest arguments for the apostolic origin of the Fourth Gospel.