Ridicidous, certainly, is the argument which some have advanced, that the diff'erent Johannean epistles differ so much in style that they cannot possibly be as- cribed to one and the same person. On this argument Ebrard (Einleitum)) laid particular stress, but he is ably answered by Dr. Tholuck in his Glaubn-ih-dir/keit der evanf/el. Geschichte, 2d ed. \). 283. From the rich treas- ury of his reading the latter draws such analogies as the "varietas dictionis Appidejanaj;" the difference between the Dialof/us de Oratoribus and the Annales of Tacitus; between the Leges and the earlier dialogues of Plato; the sermons and the satires of Swift, etc. " This cata- logue," says Dr. Schaff", "may easily be increased from the history of modern literature. Think, for example, of the immense distance between Schleiermachcr's Re- den iiber die Relif/ion and his Di(dehtik ; Hegel's L.ogik and A esthetik ; the first and second part of Gothe's Faust:
JOHN
976
JOHN
Carlvle's Life of Schiller and his Latter-day Pamphlets, etc."' Comp. also Liddon, Dinnity of Christ, p. 512 sq. See John, second and tiiikd Epistles of.
John, Prester {Priest John), a supposed Christian ki'.ig and priest of a medieval kingdom in the interior t)f Asia, tlie locality of which is vague and undefined. In the 11th and 12th centuries the Nestorian missiona- ries penetrated into Eastern Asia, and made conversions among the Keraeit or Krit Tartars, which, according to the earliest reports, are said to have included the khan or sovereign of the tribe. Ung (or Ungh) Khan, who re- sided at karakorum, and to whom the afterwards cele- brated Genghis Khan was tribntarv. This name the Syrian missionaries translated by analogy with their own language, converting Unrj into " Jachanan" or ".John," and rendering Khan by " priest." In their re- ports to the Christians of the West, accordingly, their royal convert figured as at once a priest and the sover- eign of a rich and magnificent kingdom. Genghis Khan having thrown off his allegiance, a war ensued, which ended in the defeat and death of Ung Khan in 1202 ; but the tales of his piety and magnificence long survived, and not only furnished the material of num- berless medi;eval legends (\vhich may be read in Asse- mani's Bibliotkeca Orientulis, III, ii, 484), but supplied the occasion of several of those missionary expeditions from Western Christendom to which we owe almost all our knowledge of mediaeval Eastern gef)gra|ih\ . The reports regarding Ung Khan, carried to Europe by two Armenian legates in 1145 to Eugene III, created a most profound impression; and the letters addressed in his name, but drawn up by the Nestorian missionaries, to the pope, to the kings of France and Portugal, and to the (ireek emperor, impressed all with a lively hope of the speedy extension of the Gospel in a region hitherto regarded as hopelessly lost to Christianity. They are printed in Assemani's Bibliotkeca Orientalis. The ear- liest mention of I'rester .John is in the narrative of the Franciscan father John Caq^ini, who was sent by pope Innocent IV to the court of Batii Khan of Kiptchak, the grandson of Genghis Khan. Father Carpini sup- posed that Prester John's kingdom lay still further to tlie east, but he did not prosecute the search. This was reserved for a member of the same order, father Eubru- quis, wlio was sent as a missionary into Tartary by St. Louis, and, having reached the camp of Batu Khan, was by him sent forward to Karakorum, the seat of the supjioscd Prester John. He failed, however, of his hope of finding such a personage, the Khagan of Karakorum, JIaugu, being still an unbchever; and his intercourse with the Nestorian missionaries whoni he found estab- hshed there satisfied him that the accounts were griev- ously exaggerated. His narrative, which is printed in Purchases Collection, is one of the most interesting among those of media;val travellers. Under the same vague notion of the existence of a Christian \mncQ and a Christian kingdom in the East, the Portuguese sought for traces of Prester John in their newly-ac(iuired In- dian territory in the 15th century. A "similar notion prevailed as to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, which, in the hope of finding Prester John, was visited so late as the reign of John H of Portugal (1481-95) by Pedro Covilham and Alfonzo di Payva, the former of whom married and settled in the counfrv.— Chambers, Cyclo/). s. v. See Gieseler's Kirr/irm/csr/iir/ifc. HI. iii. 43; Hitter's Erdhiwle von Asicii. i, i'siJ sci. : Schmidt, Forschunyen im (Miete d. alteren niUuiiysycsch. d. Mon- yokii mid Tiibeter (Petersb. 1824), p. 1(J2.
John PuppER. See Go.t;H.
John Plngens Asinim. See John of Paris.
John Raitiiuensis or Raithenls, i. e. of Paithus or H(iithu (tou ■Pa'(^or'),hcgumenos or ai)bot of a mon- astery at Elim, or the Seventy Springs, on the western coast of the peninsula of Mount Sinai, flourished in the Gth century. He is celel)rated on account of the friend- ly relations he sustained and the iulluence he exerted
over John the Scholar, or John Climacus. It was at the desire of Raithuensis that Climacus wrote the work KXifia^ or Scala Parudisi, from which he derives his name, and to which Kaithuensis wrote a Commendatio and Scholia. The 'E-kiotoXi) rov ayiov 'lutdvvov rov i)yovfi(vov Toi' 'Pa'i^oii, Litterce Joannis Paithuensis, addressed to Climacus, reciuesting him to undertake the work, and the answer of Climacus are given by Raderus in the original Greek, with a Latin version, in his edi- tion of the works of Climacus (Paris, 1633, fol.). This version of the Litterce of Raithuensis, and a Latin ver- sion of his Commendatio and Scholia, are given in va- rious editions of the BiUiotheca Patriim : the LittercB in vol. iii, edit. Paris, 1575; the Litferat and Commendatio, vcl. V, edit. Paris, 1589 and 1654 ; the Litterce, J-Jpistola, Commendatio, and Scholia, in vol. vi, pt. ii, ed. Cologne, 1618, and vol. x, ed. Lyme, 1677. See F'abricius, Bibl. Gr. ix, 523-524 ; Ittigius, Be Bibliotk. Patrum. — Smith, Diet. Gr. and Rom. Biog. ii, 601.