such uncompromising abhorrence of the national blindness that rejected Him and the sacerdotal bigotry that hounded Him to death. Intolerance of evil and of opposition to the truth was sometimes expressed in a way that called for rebuke; but this would become less and less so, as his own knowledge of the Lord and of the spirit of the Gospel deepened. With his eagle gaze more and more fixed on the Sun of Righteousness, he became more and more keenly alive to the awful case of those who 'loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil' (iii. 19). With all such men compromise was impossible; and to S. John's character compromises of all kinds were foreign. To others sin may seem weakness; to him it is simply evil. Eternity for him was a thing not of the future but of the present (iii. 36, v. 24, vi. 47, 54); and whereas the world tries to make time the measure of eternity, he knows that eternity is the measure of time. Only from the point of view of eternal life, only from its divine side, can this life, both in its nothingness and in its infinite consequences, be rightly estimated for 'the world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever' (1 John ii. 17).

We thus see how at the end of a long life he was specially fitted to write what has been well called 'the Gospel of Eternity' and 'the Gospel of Love.' It is at the end of life, and when the other side of the grave is in sight, that men can best form an estimate both of this world and of the world to come. If that is true of all men of ordinary seriousness, much more true must it have been of him, who from his youth upwards had been an Apostle, whose head had rested on the Lord's breast, who had stood beside the Cross, had witnessed the Ascension, had cherished till her death the Mother of the Lord, had seen the Jewish dispensation closed and the Holy City overthrown, and to whom the beatific visions of the Apocalypse had been granted. No wonder therefore if his Gospel seems to be raised above this world and to belong to eternity rather than to time. And hence its other aspect of being also 'the Gospel of Love:' for Love is eternal. Faith and Hope are for this world, but can have no place when we shall see Him as He is' and

'know even as we are known.' Love is both for time and for

eternity.

"They sin who tell us Love can die,
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.

In heaven ambition cannot dwell,

Nor avarice in the vaults of hell;

Earthly, these passions of the earth
They perish where they had their birth.
But love is indestructible,

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,

At times deceived, at times oppressed,

It here is tried, and purified,

Then hath in heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,

But the harvest-time of Love is there."

CHAPTER II.

SOUTHEY.

THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE GOSPEL.

The Fourth Gospel is the battle-field of the New Testament, as the Book of Daniel is of the Old: the genuineness of both will probably always remain a matter of controversy. With regard to the Gospel, suspicion respecting it was aroused in some quarters at the outset, but very quickly died out; to rise again, however, with immensely increased force in the eighteenth century, since which time to the present day the question has scarcely ever been allowed to rest. The scope of the present work admits of no more than an outline of the argument being presented.

i. The External Evidence.

In this section of the argument two objections are made to the Fourth Gospel: (1) the silence of the Apostolic Fathers;

(2) its rejection by Marcion, the Alogi, and perhaps another

sect.

(1) The silence of the Apostolic Fathers, if it were a fact, would not be an insuperable difficulty. It is admitted on all sides that the Fourth Gospel was published long after the others, and when they were in possession of the field. There was nothing to lead men to suppose that yet another Gospel would be forthcoming; this alone would make people jealous of its claims. And when, as we shall see, it was found that certain portions of it might be made to assume a Gnostic appearance, jealousy in some quarters became suspicion. The silence, therefore, of the first circle of Christian writers is no more than we might reasonably expect; and when taken in connexion with the universal recognition of the Gospel by the next circle of writers (A.D. 170 onwards), who had far more evidence than has reached us, may be considered as telling for, rather than against the authenticity.

But the silence of the Apostolic Fathers is by no means certain. The EPISTLE OF BARNABAS (C. A.D. 120-130) probably refers to it: Keim is convinced of the fact, although he denies that S. John wrote the Gospel. The shorter Greek form of the IGNATIAN EPISTLES (c. A.D. 150) contains allusions to it, and adaptations of it, which cannot seriously be considered doubtful. Bishop Lightfoot1 says of the expression dop (wv (Rom. vii.) "Doubtless a reference to John iv. 10, 11, as indeed the whole passage is inspired by the Fourth Gospel," and of the words οἶδεν πόθεν ἔρχεται καὶ ποῦ ὑπάγει (Philad. vii.), “The coincidence (with John iii. 8) is quite too strong to be accidental;" and "the Gospel is prior to the passage in Ignatius;" for "the application in the Gospel is natural: the application in Ignatius is strained and secondary." Again, on the words avròs av Oúpa Tоû Tаτρós (Philad. ix.) he says, "Doubtless an allusion to John x. 9.” Comp. ὁ κύριος ἄνευ τοῦ πατρὸς οὐδὲν ἐποίησεν (Magn. vii.) with John viii. 28, Magn. viii. with John viii. 29, Trall. viii.

1 I am enabled to make these quotations from the great work of his life (unhappily still unfinished and unpublished) through the great kindness of the Bishop of Durham.

with John vi. 51. The EPISTLE OF POLYCARP (c. A.D. 150) contains almost certain references to the First Epistle of S. John: and as it is admitted that the First Epistle and the Fourth Gospel are by the same hand, evidence in favour of the one may be used as evidence in favour of the other.

Besides these, PAPIAS (martyred about the same time as Polycarp) certainly knew the First Epistle (Eus. H. E. III. xxxix.). BASILIDES (c. A.D. 125) seems to have made use of the Fourth Gospel. JUSTIN MARTYR (c. A.D. 150) knew the Fourth Gospel. This may now be considered as beyond reasonable doubt. Not only does he exhibit types of language and doctrine closely akin to S. John's (e.g. ὕδωρ ζῶν, λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, μονογενής, σαρκοποιηθῆναι), but in the Dialogue with Trypho, LXXXVIII. (c. A.D. 146) he quotes the Baptist's reply, ovk eiμì ô Xpioròs åλλà pwvǹ Boŵvros (comp. John i. 20, 23) and in the First Apology, LXI., he paraphrases Christ's words on the new birth (John iii. 3—5). Moreover Justin teaches the great doctrine of S. John's Prologue, that Jesus Christ is the Word. Keim regards it as certain that Justin knew the Fourth Gospel.

When we pass beyond A.D. 170 the evidence becomes full and clear: TATIAN, the EPISTLE TO THE CHURCHES OF VIENNE AND LYONS, CELSUS, the MURATORIAN FRAGMENT, the CLEMENTINE HOMILIES, THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH (the earliest writer who mentions S. John by name as the author of the Gospel-c. A.D. 175), ATHENAGORAS, IRENAEUS, CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, and TERTULLIAN. Of these none perhaps is more important than IRENAEUS, the pupil of Polycarp, who was the friend of S. John. It never occurs to him to maintain that the Fourth Gospel is the work of S. John; he treats it as a universally acknowledged fact. He not only knows of no time when there were not four Gospels, but with the help of certain quaint arguments he persuades himself that there must be four Gospels, neither more nor less (Haer. III. i. 1, XI. 8: comp. v. xxxvi. 2). So firmly established had the Fourth Gospel become considerably before the end of the second century.

(2) The rejection of the Fourth Gospel by Marcion and some obscure sects is of no serious importance. There is no evidence to shew that the Gospel was rejected on critical grounds; rather because the doctrines which it contained were disliked. This is almost certain in the case of Marcion, and probable enough in the other cases.

Whether the obscure sect mentioned by Irenaeus (Haer. III. xi. 9) as rejecting the Fourth Gospel and the promises of the Paraclete which it contains are the same as those whom Epiphanius with a contemptuous double entendre calls "Aλoyoi ('devoid of [the doctrine of] the Logos' or 'devoid of reason'), is uncertain. But we can easily understand how a party might arise, who in perfectly good faith and with good but mistaken motives might reject the Fourth Gospel both for the doctrine of the Logos and for other peculiarities which seemed to favour the Gnosticism of Cerinthus. None of the Synoptists, none of the Apostles, had thus far used the term Aóyos; and the fact that Cerinthus made use of it must have made its prominence in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel doubly suspicious. Cerinthus maintained that Jesus was a mere man on whom the Logos or Christ descended in the form of a dove at his baptism: and the Fourth Gospel says nothing about the miraculous conception of Christ, or about the wonders that attended and attested His birth, but begins with the Baptism and the descent of the Spirit. The Evangelist pointedly remarks that the miracle at Cana was the first miracle: perhaps this was to insinuate that previous to the Baptism Jesus (being a mere man) could do no miracle. This Gospel omits the Transfiguration, an incident from which a participation of His Human Body in the glory of the Godhead might be inferred. The 'prince' or 'ruler of this world,' an expression not used previously by any Evangelist or Apostle, might possibly be understood to mean the Demiurgus of the Cerinthian system, the Creator of the world, and the God of the Jews, but inferior to and ignorant of the Supreme God. Again, the Fourth Gospel is silent about the wonders which attended Christ's death; and this also harmonizes with the system of Cerinthus, who taught that the Logos or Christ departed when