to mean, then the sceptics are forced to admit that one who
personally knew Jesus, describes Jesus as a more than human Being--as,
in fact, the Divine Creator. This is the precise fact which keeps
these writers from admitting that an apostle wrote the Gospel. If, on
the other hand, they suppose, as some do, that John the Presbyter was
very much younger than the apostles, the sceptics are confronted with
the following difficulties:--

(a) There is the important external evidence which shows how widely the
Gospel was regarded in the early Church as the work of St. John.

(b) There is the minute knowledge displayed of the topography, customs,
and opinions of Jerusalem and the Holy Land as they existed in the time
of Christ.

(c) There is the impossibility of supposing that Irenaeus, who was
probably not born a year later than A.D. 130, would not have known that
the Gospel was written by John the Presbyter.

(d) There is the fact that the evidence for St. John having lived in
Ephesus is better than the evidence for a renowned presbyter of the
same name having lived in Ephesus. This has been wisely pointed out by
Juelicher, even though he himself denies that the apostle wrote St.
John's Gospel. And the justice of this argument proves that it is
sheer paradox to maintain, as some now maintain, that the _only_ John
who lived in Ephesus was the Presbyter.

It is constantly urged by the opponents of the authenticity of this
Gospel that, as it was published at Ephesus at a late period, it cannot
be the work of the apostle, because he never went to Ephesus, and "died
early as a martyr." [2] This is a most unscrupulous use of an inexact
quotation made by some later Greek writers from a lost book of Papias.
It can be {85} traced to Philip of Side (5th century), and it is to the
effect that "John the Divine and James his brother were killed by the
Jews." Papias does not say that they died together, and his statement
is compatible with the belief that St. John survived his brother very
many years. We know from Gal. ii. 9 that he was alive some time after
his brother's death, which was about A.D. 44. And George Hamartolus,
one of the Greek writers who quote the above passage in Papias,
expressly says that the Emperor Nerva (A.D. 96) recalled John from
Patmos, and "dismissed him to live in Ephesus."

[Sidenote: The External Evidence.]

The external evidence for the authenticity of this Gospel is in some
respects stronge