nd
which, on the contrary, are perfectly intelligible, if, in conformity
with tradition, we see in them the remembrances of an old man,
sometimes of remarkable freshness, sometimes having undergone strange
modifications.

[Footnote 1: John xiii. 23, xix. 26, xx. 2, xxi. 7, 20.]

[Footnote 2: John xviii. 15-16, xx. 2-6, xxi. 15-16. Comp. i. 35, 40,
41.]

[Footnote 3: John vi. 65, xii. 6, xiii. 21, and following.]

[Footnote 4: The manner in which Aristion and _Presbyteros Joannes_
expressed themselves on the Gospel of Mark before Papias (Eusebius,
_H.E._, III. 39) implies, in effect, a friendly criticism, or, more
properly, a sort of excuse, indicating that John's disciples had
better information on the same subject.]

[Footnote 5: Compare John xviii. 15, and following, with Matthew xxvi.
58; John xx. 2 to 6, with Mark xvi. 7. See also John xiii. 24, 25.]

[Footnote 6: Chap. i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 24, and following. Compare the
First Epistle of St. John, chap. i. 3, 5.]

A primary distinction, indeed, ought to be made in the Gospel of John.
On the one side, this Gospel presents us with a rough draft of the
life of Jesus, which differs considerably from that of the synoptics.
On the other, it puts into the mouth of Jesus discourses of which the
tone, the style, the treatment, and the doctrines have nothing in
common with the _Logia_ given us by the synoptics. In this second
respect, the difference is such that we must make choice in a decisive
manner. If Jesus spoke as Matthew represents, he could not have
spoken as John relates. Between these two authorities no critic has
ever hesitated, or can ever hesitate. Far removed from the simple,
disinterested, impersonal tone of the synoptics, the Gospel of John
shows incessantly the preoccupation of the apologist--the mental
reservation of the sectarian, the desire to prove a thesis, and to
convince adversaries.[1] It was not by pretentious tirades, heavy,
badly written, and appealing little to the moral sense, that Jesus
founded his divine work. If even Papias had not taught us that Matthew
wrote the sayings of Jesus in their original tongue, the natural,
ineffable truth, the charm beyond comparison of the discourses in the
synoptics, their profoundly Hebraistic idiom, the analogies which they
present with the sayings of the Jewish doctors of the period, their
perfect harmony with the natural phenomena of Galilee--all these
characteristics, compared with the obscure Gno