V. Characteristics. — 1. As to matter, the peculiarities of John's Gospel more especially consist in the four fol- lowing doctrines: (1.) The mystical relation of the Son to the Father. (2.) That of the Redeemer to believers. (3.) The aimouncement of the Holy Ghost as the Com- forter. (4.) The peculiar importance ascribed to love. Yet these peculiarities are not confined to this Gospel. Although there can be shown in the writings of the oth- er evangelists some isolated dicta of the Lord which seem to bear the impress of John, it can also be shown that they contain thoughts not originating with that disciple, but with the Lord himself. INIatthew (xi, 27) speaks of the relation of the Son to the Father so en- tirely in the style of John that persons not sufficiently versed in Holy Writ are apt to search for this passage in the Gospel of John. The mystical union of the Son with believers is expressed in ^Matt. xxviii, 20. The promise of the effusion of the Holy Ghost in order to perfect the disciples is found in Luke xxiv, 49. The doctrine of Paul with respect to love, in 1 Cor. xiii, en- tirely resembles what, according to John, Christ taught on the same subject. Paul here deserves our particular attention. In the writings of Paul are found Christian truths which have their points of coalescence only in John, viz., that Christ is the image of the invisible God, by whom all things are created (Col. i, 1."), IG). Paul considers the Spirit of God in the Church the spiritual Christ, as Jesus himself does (John xiv, IG), frequently using the words tlvai iv XpiaT(i).
2. As to form, there is something peculiar in the evan- gelist's manner of writing. His language betrays traces of that Hebraistic character which belongs generally to
the N.-T. writers, and the author shows his Jewish de- scent by various incidental indications; but he Avrites purer (Jreek than most of the others, antl his freedom from Judaic narrowness is so marked that some have founded on this an argument against the genuineness - of the book, forgetting that the experiences of the apos- tle in liis more advanced years would materially tend to correct the prejudices and party leanings of his earlier career. The apostle's style is marked by ease, simplic- ity, and vividness; his sentences are linked together rather by inner affinity in the thoughts than by out- ward forms of composition or dialectic concatenation — they move on one after the other, generally with the help of an ovv, sometimes of a koi, and occasionally of a 8e, and favorite terms or phrases are repeated without re- gard to rhetorical art. The author wrote evidently for Hellenistic readers, but he makes no attempt at Greek elegance, or that wisdom of words which with many in his day constituted the perfection of Greek art. One of the pecidiarities of John is that, in speaking of the adversaries of Jesus, he alwaj^s calls them oi 'lovSalot. The simplicity of John's character is also evinced by the repetition of certain leading thoughts, reproduced in the same Avords both in tlie (iospel and in the Epistles, such as i.tapTvpia,testiiiwnt/ ; S6^a,fjlo7->/; dXi]6eia,tniih ; (pioc, light; okotoc, darkness; ^oi*/ aiwvioc, eternal life; jxi- viii', to abide, — Kitto. See Kaiser, De speciali Joan. Grammatica, etc. (Erlang. 1842) ; Westcott, Introd. to Stud?/ of the Gospels, ch. v.
VI. Place of Writing. — Ephesus and Patmos are the two places mentioned by early writers, and the weight I of evidence seems to preponderate in favor of Ephesus. ' Irenffius (iii, 1 ; also ajnid Euseb. //. E. v, 8) states that John published his Gospel whilst he dwelt in Ephesus of Asia. Jerome (P?-o/. in Matt.) states that John was in Asia when he complied with the request of the bish- ops of Asia and others to write more profoundly con- I cerning the divinity of Christ. Theodore of Mopsuestia j {Prol. in Joannem) relates that John was living at Eph- I esus when he was moved by his disciples to write his I Gospel.
The evidence in favor of Patmos comes from two anonymous writers. The author of the Synopsis of Scrij^tiire, printed in the works of Athanasius, states that the Gospel was dictated by John in Patmos, and published afterwards in Ephesus. The author of the work De XII Apostolis. jiriiitcd in the Appendix to Fa- hncms's Hippolgtus (p. 9.")-_' [ed. ^ligne]), states that John was banished by Domitian to Patmos, where he Avrote his Gospel. The later date of these unknown writers, and the seeming inconsistency of their testimony with John's declaration (Rev. i, 2) in Patmos, that he had pre- viously borne record of the Word of God, render their testimony of little weight.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, Ephesus probably became the centre of the active life of Eastern Christendom. Even Antioch, the original source of missions to the Gentiles, and the future metropoUs of the Christian patriarch, appears, for a time, less conspic- uous in the obscurity of early Church history than Eph- esus, to which Paul inscribed his Epistle, and in which John found a dwelling-place and a tomb. Tliis half- Greek, half-Oriental city, "visited by ships from all parts of the Mediterranean, and united by great roads with the markets of the interior, was the common meeting- place of various characters and classes of men" (Cony- beare and Howson, ^S7. Paid, ch. xiv). It contained a large church of faithful Christians, a multitude of zeal- ous Jews, an indigenous population devoted to the wor- ship of a strange idol, whose image (Jerome, Prcef in Ejihes.) was borrowed from the East, its name from the West — in the Xystus of Ephesus free-thinking philoso- phers of all nations disputed over their favorite tenets (Justin, Trijpho, i, vii). It was the place to which Ce- rinthus chose to bring the doctrines which he devised or learned at Alexandria (Neander, Church History, i, 396 [Torrey's trans,]). In this city, and among the lawless