whatever its date. But if it is not historically reliable and if the utterances attributed to our Lord were not really uttered by Him but are merely the creation of the writer and ascribed to the Pounder of the Church to account for and justify some of its developments, plainly its value is widely different from that which attaches to a reliable record of the words and actions of Jesus. The faith and life of the Church of the second century is not normative ; and if in this Gospel all that we have is a reflex of that life given in terms of the life of Christ, we have, no doubt, a very interesting document, but not a document on which we can build our knowledge of our Lord. Nay, professing, as this record does, to be historically reliable, the Church has been throughout its history gravely in error regarding the claims of its Founder, and this error lies at the door of the author of the Gospel. It is of the first importance, therefore, that we ascertain whether the writer had the means of being historically trustworthy, whether he was an eye- witness or was entirely dependent on others for his information.
1. External evidence in favour of Fohannine authorship. In examining the Christian literature of the second century with a view to ascertain the belief of the Church regarding the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, it must be borne in mind that there are many instances in which the classical writers of antiquity were not quoted for some centuries after their works were published. The character and position of the New Testament writings, however, made it likely that they would at once and frequently be referred to. But although the second century was prolific of Christian writings, their extant remains are unfortunately scanty. We might have expected definite information from the exegetical writings of Papias and Basileides, and possibly some allusions in the histories of Hegesippus, but of these and other important documents only the names and a few extracts survive. It is also to be borne in mind that the mode of quotation in vogue at that time was different from our own. Books were not so plentiful, and they were more cumbrous. Accordingly there was more quotation from memory and little of the exactness which in our day is considered desirable. It was a common practice with early writers to weave Scriptural language into their own text without pausing to say whence these allusions were derived. The consequence is that while such allusions may seem to one reader to carry evidence that the writer is making use of such and such a book of Scripture, it is always open to a more sceptical reader to say that the inexactness of the allusion is rather a proof that the book of Scripture had not been seen, and that some traditional
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