e work itself which is
calculated to give this impression. The author always speaks as an
eye-witness; he wishes to pass for the apostle John. If, then, this
work is not really by the apostle, we must admit a fraud of which the
author convicts himself. Now, although the ideas of the time
respecting literary honesty differed essentially from ours, there is
no example in the apostolic world of a falsehood of this kind.
Besides, not only does the author wish to pass for the apostle John,
but we see clearly that he writes in the interest of this apostle. On
each page he betrays the desire to fortify his authority, to show that
he has been the favorite of Jesus;[1] that in all the solemn
circumstances (at the Lord's supper, at Calvary, at the tomb) he held
the first place. His relations on the whole fraternal, although not
excluding a certain rivalry with Peter;[2] his hatred, on the
contrary, of Judas,[3] a hatred probably anterior to the betrayal,
seems to pierce through here and there. We are tempted to believe that
John, in his old age, having read the Gospel narratives, on the one
hand, remarked their various inaccuracies,[4] on the other, was hurt
at seeing that there was not accorded to him a sufficiently high place
in the history of Christ; that then he commenced to dictate a number
of things which he knew better than the rest, with the intention of
showing that in many instances, in which only Peter was spoken of, he
had figured with him and even before him.[5] Already during the life
of Jesus, these trifling sentiments of jealousy had been manifested
between the sons of Zebedee and the other disciples. After the death
of James, his brother, John remained sole inheritor of the intimate
remembrances of which these two apostles, by the common consent, were
the depositaries. Hence his perpetual desire to recall that he is the
last surviving eye-witness,[6] and the pleasure which he takes in
relating circumstances which he alone could know. Hence, too, so many
minute details which seem like the commentaries of an annotator--"it
was the sixth hour;" "it was night;" "the servant's name was Malchus;"
"they had made a fire of coals, for it was cold;" "the coat was
without seam." Hence, lastly, the disorder of the compilation, the
irregularity of the narration, the disjointedness of the first
chapters, all so many inexplicable features on the supposition that
this Gospel was but a theological thesis, without historic value, a