ight. The plan of St. John's Gospel is different, the
style is different, the subjects of the discourses, the scene of action,
the incidents, and (with one exception) the miracles, all are different.

Now this will greatly facilitate the investigation of the question as to
whether any author had St. John before him when he wrote. There may be
some uncertainty with respect to the quotations from the Synoptics, as
to whether an early writer quotes one or other, or derives what he cites
from some earlier source, as for instance from one of St. Luke's [Greek:
polloi].

But it cannot be so with St. John. A quotation of, or reference to, any
words of any discourse of our Lord, or an account of any transaction as
reported by St. John, can be discerned in an instant. At least it can be
at once seen that it cannot have been derived from the Synoptics, or
from any supposed apocryphal or traditional sources from which the
Synoptics derived their information.

The special object of this Gospel is the identification of the
pre-existent nature of our Lord with the eternal Word, and following
upon this, His relation to His Father on the one side, and to mankind on
the other.

He is the only begotten of the Father, God being His own proper Father
[Greek: idios], and so He is equal to the Father in nature (John v. 18),
and yet, as being a Son, He is subordinate, so that He represents
Himself throughout as sent by the Father to do His will and speak His
words.

With reference to mankind He is, before His Incarnation, the "Light that
lighteth every man." After and through His Incarnation He is to man all
in all. He is even in death the object of their Faith. He is the
Mediator through whose very person God sends the Spirit. He is the Life,
the Light, the Living Water, the Spiritual Food.

Justin Martyr repeatedly reproduces in various forms of expression the
truth that Christ is the eternal "Word made flesh" and revealed as the
"Only-begotten Son of God," thus:--

"The first power after God the Father and Lord of all is the Word,
Who is also the Son, and of Him we will, in what follows, relate how
He took flesh and became man." (Apol. I. Ch. XXXII.)

Again:--

"I have already proved that He was the only-begotten of the Father
of all things, being begotten in a peculiar manner [Greek: idios],
Word and Power by Him, and having afterwards become man through the
Virgin." (Dial. ch. cv.)

Now, we have i