[141] The appeal to the senses of _seeing_ and _hearing_ is a trait common to _all_ the group of St. John's writings (John i. 14, xix. 35; 1 John i. 1, 2, iv. 14; Apoc. i. 2). The true reading (καγω Ιωαννης ὁ ακουων και βλεπων ταυτα. Apoc. xxi. 8, where _hearing_ stands before _seeing_) is indicative of John's style.
[142] 1 John v. 6-12.
[143] That the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" are of high antiquity there can be no rational doubt. Tertullian writes: "But if those who read St. Paul's writings rashly use the example of Thecla, to give licence to women to teach and baptize publicly, let them know that a presbyter of Asia Minor, who put together that piece, crowning it with the authority of a Pauline title, convicted by his own confession of doing this from love of St. Paul, was deprived of his orders." (Tertullian, _De Baptismo_, xvii.) On which St. Jerome remarks--"We therefore relegate to the class of apocryphal writings, the περιοδος of Paul and Thecla, and the whole fable of the baptized lion. For how could it be that the sole real companion of the Apostle" (Luke) "while so well acquainted with the rest of the history, should have known nothing of this? And further, Tertullian, who touched so nearly upon those times, records that a certain presbyter in Asia Minor, convicted before _John_ of being the author of that book, and confessing that as a σπουδαστης of the Apostle Paul he had done this from loving devotion to that great memory, was deposed from his ministry." (St. Hieron., _de Script. Eccles._, VII.) See the mass of authority for the antiquity of this document, which gives a considerable degree of probability to the statement about St. John, in _Acta Apost. Apoc._, Edit. Tischendorf.--Proleg. xxi., xxvi.
[144] John iii, 24, 25.
[145] Those who are perplexed by the identity in style and turn of language between the Epistle and the discourse of our Lord in St. John's Gospel may be referred to the writer's remarks in _The Speakers Commentary_ (N. T. iv. 286-89). It should be added that the Epp. to the Seven Churches (Apoc. ii., iii.)--especially to Sardis--interweave sayings of Jesus recorded by the Synoptical evangelists, _e.g._, "as a thief," Apoc. iii. 3, cf. Mark xiii. 37; "book of life," Apoc. iii. 5, cf. Luke x. 20; "confessing a name," Apoc. iii. 5, cf. Matt. x. 32; "He that hath an ear," Apoc. iii. 6, 13, 22, and ii. 7, 11, 17, 29. This phrase, found in each of the seven Epp., occurs nowhere in the fourth Gospel, but constantly in the Synoptics. Cf. Matt. x. 27, xi. 15, xiii. 19, 43; Mark iv. 9, 23, vii. 16; Luke viii. 8, xiv. 35; cf. also "giving power over the nations," Apoc. ii. 26--with the conception in Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 29, 30. The word _repentance_ is nowhere in the fourth Gospel, nor given as part of our Lord's teaching; but we find it Apoc. ii. 5, 16, iii. 3, 19. If the author of the fourth Gospel was also the author of the Apocalypse, his choice of the style which he attributes to the Saviour was at least decided by no lack of knowledge of the Synoptical type of expression, and by no incapacity to use it with freedom and power.
[146] John xi. 16.
[147]
"Qui me suit, aux anges est pareil. Quand un homme a marché tout le jour au soleil Dans un chemin sans puits et sans hôtellerie, S'il ne croit pas quand vient le soir il pleure, il crie, Il est las; sur la terre il tombe haletant. S'il croit en moi, qu'il prie, il peut au même instant. Continuer sa route avec des forces triples."
(_Le Christ et le Tombeau._) Tom. i. 44.
[148] King Henry VIII., Act 2, Sc. 1. Contrast again our Lord before the council with St. Paul before that tribunal. In the case of one of the chief of saints there is the touch of human infirmity, the "something spoken in choler, ill and hasty," the angry and contemptuous "whited wall"--the confession of hasty inconsiderateness (ουκ ἡδειν--ὁτι εστιν αρχιερευς) which led to a violation of a precept of the law (Exod. xxii. 28).