sus. Definite notices as to his abode in the interval are wholly wanting. It is a noteworthy fact that the lives of so many of the world’s leaders include spaces which remain a blank to the most careful biographer, and into which the world’s curiosity can never penetrate. Such is the period of Paul’s retirement in Arabia, of Dante’s exile, and, to some ex- tent, of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Some later tra- ditions assert that he visited Parthia, and Jerome groundlessly conjectures that he had preached in Judea. There is some plausibility in the supposition that he may have betaken him- self to Antioch at the time of Paul’s first missionary journey. It is certain that, much later, John was a successor of Paul at Ephesus. Neither at the departure of Paul to Miletus (Acts xx.) nor during the composition of the Ephesian letter is there a trace of John’s presence at Ephesus.
Tradition is also agreed that John was banished to the isle of Patmos by the Roman authority. Irenzus says that he was banished in the reign of Domitian: another tradition as- signs the exile to the reign of Nero. From this exile he was permitted to return, it is said, under Nerva (a.p. 96-98). The date of his death is unknown. Jerome places it sixty-eight years after the death of Christ.
The dominant characteristic of John’s nature is contempla- tive receptivity. Every word of his Lord is taken into his deepest heart, held fast and pondered. “He does not ask, ‘What shall I do?’ but ‘What does He do?’” Hence it is clear why the finest and subtilest flavor of Jesus’ personality has been caught by him. With this receptiveness goes a power of impartation. ‘“ Every man,” says Ebrard, ‘‘can see the sun- set-glow on an Alp, but not every one can paint it.” John, like a mirror, not only received but reflected. While the other Evangelists perceived that element of Jesus’ teaching and work whieh. produced the most immediate and striking outward re- sults, as the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, John discerned the meaning and the bearing of 1ésd prominent incidents, such as the conversation at Jacob’s well. Paul, like John, has the quality of inwardness, but Pan] reasons where John contem- plates. John is tenacious and intense; Paul equally so, but