there has been interposed a third suggestion. The Gospel may have been (1) partly or (2) indirectly the work of the Apostle: parts of it may be from the hand of John, while the remainder is the work of an unknown editor; or, the whole may be from the school of John, but not directly from his own hand. The most distinguished advocate of the former of these two suggestions is Dr. Wendt, whose theory is that the Apostle John made a collection of our Lord’s discourses, which was used by some unknown editor as the basis or nucleus of a Gospel. This theory ruthlessly sacrifices many of the most valuable and characteristic portions of the Gospel, such as the scene between the Baptist and the deputation, the examination before Annas (or Caiaphas), and many of those historical touches which lend life to the narrative. But the fatal objection to this theory is the solidarity of the Gospel. Holtzmann does not accept the Fourth Gospel as Johannine, but he says: “All attempts to draw a clearly distinguishable line of demarcation, whether it be between earlier and later strata, or between genuine and not genuine, historical and unhistorical elements, must always be wrecked against the solid and compact unity which the work presents, both in regard to language and in regard to matter. Apart from the interpolations indicated by the history of the text (v. 4, vii. 53, viii. 11), and from the last chapter added by way of supplement, the work is both in form and substance, both in arrangement and in range of ideas, an organic whole without omissions or interpolations, the ‘ seamless coat,’ which cannot be parted or torn, but only by a happy cast allotted to its rightful owner.’’ Certainly, if this Gospel is not from one hand, then there is no possibility of proyina nity of authorship by unity of design and execution.
The second alternative, that the Gospel proceeded rather from the circle of John’s disciples than from his own hand, has more in its favour and has enlisted great names in its support. Thus Renan says (Vie de F., xxv.): “Can it indeed be John who has written in Greek these abstract metaphysical discourses, which find no analogy either in the Synoptists or in the Talmud? This is a heavy tax on faith, and for myself I dare not say | am convinced that the Fourth Gospel was entirely from the pen of an old Galilean fisherman; but that the Gospel as a whole proceeded, towards the close of the first century, from the great school of Asia Minor whose centre was John.” “One is sometimes tempted to believe that some precious notes made by the Apostle were employed by his disciples.”
The other great literary critic of our own day, Matthew Arnold, held the same opinion regarding the origin of the Gospel. In God