though we may not be able to
determine with certainty _what_ is the true solution of the
difficulty, no one can show that such a solution is impossible.
The reverent believer will quietly wait for more light, if it
shall please God to give it; otherwise he will be content to
remain without it.

V. JOHN.

32. Though the writer of the fourth gospel everywhere refrains from
mentioning his own name, he clearly indicates himself as the "bosom
disciple." When he speaks of two disciples that followed Jesus,
afterwards adding that "one of the two" "was Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother" (chap. 1:37, 40); of "one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved"
(chap. 13:23; 21:7, 20); and of "another disciple" in company with Simon
Peter (chap. 18:15, 16; 20:2-8), the only natural explanation of these
circumlocutions is that he refers to himself. Even if we suppose, with
some, that the two closing verses of chapter 21 (the former of which
ascribes this gospel directly to John) are a subscription by another
hand, their authenticity is unquestionable, sustained as it is by the
uniform testimony of antiquity, and by the internal character of the
gospel.

33. The Scriptural notices of John are few and simple. He was the son of
Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida on the Western shore of the sea of
Galilee not far from Capernaum. Matt. 4:21; Mark 1:19, 20; Luke 5:10,
11. His mother's name was Salome. Matt. 27:56 compared with Mark 15:40.
His parents seem to have been possessed of some property, since Zebedee
had hired servants (Mark 1:20), and Salome was one of the women who
followed Jesus in Galilee, and ministered to him. Mark 15:40, 41. From
the order in which he and his brother James are mentioned--James and
John, except Luke 9:28--he is thought to have been the younger of the
two. Early in our Lord's ministry he was called to be one of his
followers; was one of the three who were admitted to special intimacy
with him, they alone being permitted to witness the raising of Jairus'
daughter, the transfiguration, and the agony of Gethsemane (Matt 17:1;
26:37; Mark 5:37; 9:2; 14:33; Luke 8:51; 9:28); and of the three was,
though not first in place, first in the Lord's love and confidence--"the
disciple whom Jesus loved," and to whose tender care he committed his
mother as he was about to expire on the cross. By his natural
endowments, as well as by his loving and confidential intercourse with
the Saviour, he was prepared to rec