The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 60

or gnide, ·who might on t,his bnsis hM·e felt tk1t thero wonld nnt11rnlly unfold itself t,he ofiice of a bishop, or 11ngel, or npostle, ns the cnse might demnnd. LnthBrdt ('St.John the Author oft.he Fourth Go~pel,' p. 132) criticizes vcr)• successfully Euscblus'e inferences froTQ the fragment of Papias, and shows that not only does this pnssago give the title of cider to the npostlcs, but that Irenmus calls Polycarp µarcclp,os 1tal 1bro11"1'oh1rcb, "'P•<J'f'Jvnpo,, 11nd, v.-riting to Soter, Bishop of Rome, speaks of his predecessors as ol orpb ll'ou ..-p•,rfJvr•po,. Let us also add that Papias explicitly calls Andrew, Petor, John, Philip, and others" r.lders," from the report of whose conversation he derived so much information. (b) The allegation that the Presbyter John, if thero was such a personage, may also have used such a designation, is certainly possible, though it is nothing more than conjecture; and (3) that Diotrephes, who loved to have the pre- emiaence, should have prated against the apostle is only akin to the treatment which the apostles were likely to have received and did receive from their contemporaries. This is too abundantly clear from the Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians, an:d from the consolations offered by Peter to the victims of angry recrimination. It is more than probable that Papias discriminated the reports which reached him second-hand concerning the several "elders" whom he mentions by name, from the immense advantage which he also found in listening to the positive teaching of two disciples, the elder John and Aristion, who were yet living in his own time. Eusebius most likely was in error in inferring that Papias bad spoken of two Johns; and the conclusion to which we incline here is that tbis fragment simply fastens upon the Apostle John himself the very title which he assumed in writing these leaflets. What, then, do we gather of the character of their author? There is the same general limpid and easy concatenation of sentences, each one nn aphorism, which characterizes the other \\'ords of the apostle in the prologue and epilogues of the Gospel and First Epistle. The Epistles breathe the same atmosphere of love, the same chivalrous regard for the truth, the same loyalty to Jesus Christ, the same willingness to denounce the spirit of antichrist and error. With no honeyed words, but in terrible earnest, he preaches the sanctity of truth and the certainty of Divine revelation, arid refuses even the rights of hospitality to one who comes (l'px•,.m) summoning the house of God in the name of antichrist, with alien and unchristian doctrine. The language thus addressed to Kyria (2 John) and to Gaius with reference to Diotrephes is not regarded, even by Ebrard, as opposed to the character of the author of the Fourth Gospel, and, together with the similar outspoken loyalty to Chi'ist seen in the Fir~t Epistle, reveals another but very significant indication of the character of the son of Zebedee, as vaguely hinted at in the synoptic Gospels (see pp; lv.-lviii.). The two shorter Epistles appear to us a ~ingularly interesting link of relation between the author of the Gospel and the author of the Apocalypse-between the "disciple whom Jesus loved" and the John of the synoptists. (4) A comparisM, betwren the author of the Fourth Gospel and the author of the .Apoc£ilypse. This great question is intimately inwoven with that of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. The superficial contrast between these two documents is so great that from early time,:, and on internal grounds, the apostolic authorship of the Apocalypse has been disputed, and though external testimony is of a powerful and impressive kind, yet, from a variety of reasons, it was referred to a different author. Eusr;hius, from his own anti-chiliasm, Dionysius of Alexandria (A.D, 247), from his dislike to its material symbolism, and from sundry other critical grounds, disputed its apostolic authorship. Numerous modem critics-Ewald, Credner, De Wette, Liicke, Nea.nder, Diisterdieck-who have defended the Johannine origin of the Gospel, have done so by repudiating the apostolicity of the Apocalypse, and they have rid themselves from some of the gravest perplexities in the argument for the former by exaggerating the contrasts, both in language, style, and matter, between the Gospel and the Revela- tion. The Presbyter John has been again and again summoned from the differently interpreted passage of Papias to take the place of the apostle, and to account for a certain deficiency of external testimony to its early admission into the New Testament canon; while a certain unknown John has been the resort of others. On the other side, a considerable number of those who dispute the Johannine author- i;hip of the Fourth Go11pel-Daur, Schweglcr, Hilgonfeld, Zeller, Davidson-do so with the aid of a strong conviction of the apostolic and Johannine authorship of the Apoca•  ·nm GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. lxvii