which this conclusion rests, which may more profitably be sought
in the Rev. J. J. Tayler's work on "The Fourth Gospel," or in
Davidson's "Introduction to the New Testament." It must suffice
to mention that this gospel is not cited by Papias; that Justin,
Marcion, and Valentinus make no allusion to it, though, since it
furnishes so much that is germane to their views, they would
gladly have appealed to it, had it been in existence, when those
views were as yet under discussion; and that, finally, in the
great Quartodeciman controversy, A. D. 168, the gospel is not
only not mentioned, but the authority of John is cited by
Polycarp in flat contradiction of the view afterwards taken by
this evangelist. Still more, the assumption of Renan led at once
into complicated difficulties with reference to the Apocalypse.
The fourth gospel, if it does not unmistakably announce itself as
the work of John, at least professes to be Johannine; and it
cannot for a moment be supposed that such a book, making such
claims, could have gained currency during John's lifetime without
calling forth his indignant protest. For, in reality, no book in
the New Testament collection would so completely have shocked the
prejudices of the Johannine party. John's own views are well
known to us from the Apocalypse. John was the most enthusiastic
of millenarians and the most narrow and rigid of Judaizers. In
his antagonism to the Pauline innovations he went farther than
Peter himself. Intense hatred of Paul and his followers appears
in several passages of the Apocalypse, where they are stigmatized
as "Nicolaitans," "deceivers of the people," "those who say they
are apostles and are not," "eaters of meat offered to idols,"
"fornicators," "pretended Jews," "liars," "synagogue of Satan,"
etc. (Chap. II.). On the other hand, the fourth gospel contains
nothing millenarian or Judaical; it carries Pauline universalism