THE TRADITIONS RESPECTING ST. JOHN.

IN considering the traditions which form the ground of almost all that we know or are told respecting the latter part of St. John's life, it is important to remember that they cannot lay claim to the same authority as they would have if they formed parts of a connected narrative instead of being, as is for the most part the case, isolated anecdotes of which the purport may have been lost or mistaken by their separation from the context, so to speak, in which they originally occurred. But they have contributed so largely to the conception commonly entertained of the life and character of St. John, and they are most of them so consistent with each other and with the records of the Apostle in the New Testament, that it seemed right to dwell upon them at greater length in the Sermon on St. John, than was possible in the case of the analogous traditions of St. Peter, and also to state as far as could be ascertained the amount of external and internal probability which they severally present. And they possess moreover this advantage, that none of them (except that which was pressed into the service of the Paschal controversy in the second century) have been inextricably mixed up with polemical disputes.

tion of St.

I. The earliest recorded tradition respecting St. John Tradihad apparently sprung up, not like most of them after the John's imApostle's death, but during his lifetime, and professed (for mortality. this is the obvious inference from the manner in which it is reported to us) to be founded on an express prediction of our Lord that "St. John should never die." In this case it was still possible to confront the traditionary state

ment with the historical: a chapter was added to the Gospel, apparently with this especial object, in which the true fact was brought out, that Jesus said not unto him, "He "shall not die," but "If I will that he tarry till I come, "what is that to thee?"

Whether the misunderstanding of the words of our Lord on that particular occasion was the sole origin of the tradition may perhaps be questioned: it is perhaps most likely to have been in the first instance occasioned partly by the great age to which the Apostle seemed to be advancing, partly by some such expectation, as I have described in the Sermon, of greater works than he had yet performed: we feel at least that no such belief could have sprung up with regard to St. Peter or St. Paul. Nor again, was the opinion without some ground of truth if we consider the earlier belief of the Church that the world was to end with that generation, and the language in which the Lord's coming is throughout the New Testament so often identified or at least blended with the images which equally describe the fall of Jerusalem. (See especially Matt. xvi. 28, and the explanation of it given in the Essay on the Promises to Peter.)

This last feeling however had evidently passed away before the time when the tradition assumed the particular shape specified in John xxi. 23, and it now therefore took its ground on the supposed saying there referred to. The coming of the Lord" was now to them what it is to us, another expression for the end of all things, and having thus limited the spirit of our Lord's words, the next and natural process was to limit the words themselves, to the new view which now prevailed concerning them. Yet neither the express caution of the Evangelist in that chapter, nor yet the contradiction of this story by the fact of his death, was sufficient entirely to eradicate it. The story of his being not dead but asleep in his grave at Ephesus was related to Augustine by persons who professed to have

witnessed the motion of the dust by the supposed breath
of the sleeper (Tract. 124. in Joann.), and the notion
that he was still living not only became a fixeda article
of popular belief in the middle ages (Niceph. Hist. Eccl.
ii. 42), but has been revived from time to time by later
enthusiasts (Lampe, Proleg. p. 98), and is still partially
commemorated in the Greek Church in the Feast of
the Translation of the Body of St. John.
But even

without the apostolic refutation of it, we should have
required much stronger proof than can be adduced to
warrant our admission of a story so alien not only to the
simplicity of apostolic times, but to the reasonableness of
Christianity itself; and, however willing we may be to
regard it as the fanciful expression of what might have
been in itself a true feeling, yet it must be pronounced to
belong essentially to the region not of Christian history
but of Christian legend, where it has both in earlier and
later times found its appropriate place.

II. The anecdotes of traits of character vary in value, but there seems no reason for absolutely rejecting any of them.

of the

1. The story of the young Asiatic robber, preserved Tradition in Clement of Alexandria, and from him in Eusebius young (H. E. iii. 23), A. D. 180. What was Clement's autho- robber. rity does not appear, but the communication between Alexandria and Ephesus may easily have supplied the information, and the internal evidence of the details of the story is strongly in its favour. The account of the organization of the Asiatic Churches with which the story opens has been spoken of elsewhere, and accords as well with the express statement of Tertullian that St. John was the author

a See Lücke's Introduction to the Gospel of St. John.

b Compare amongst other instances the well-known story of the apparition of St. John to James IV. at Linlithgow before the battle of Flodden, the belief in Prester John in central Asia, and the ancient legendary representations of the search for the body in the empty tomb. Such also is the aspect of it which has been so happily caught in Mr. Moultrie's poem on St. John's Day.

Tradition of Cerin

of the episcopacy which existed in his time, as with the indications contained in the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul that Ephesus with its district was the first spot where the government of Churches became more regularly constituted. In all other respects, the paternal care of St. John over the Asiatic Churches generally, old and young alike (comp. 1 John ii. 13), the use of "presbyter" and "bishop" as convertible phrases,—the robber-hold in the mountains close to the neighbourhood of the Greek cities, -the agreement of the general moral of the penitence of the young man with the distinction drawn in 1 John v. 16, and ii. 2, and the characteristic union of sternness and energy with devoted affection, which pervades the whole account,―seem strong guarantees for its genuineness not only in substance but in form, especially when it is considered that some of these points belonged to a state of things which by the time of Clement had ceased to exist.

2. The story of Cerinthus and the bath rests on the thus and authority of Irenæus (Adv. Hær. iii. 3), who professes to

the bath.

• It would also exactly agree with the theory which represents the "angels" of the seven Churches in the Apocalypse to have been their respective heads or bishops. But for the reasons stated in a previous Essay, the context hardly justifies our departure from the ordinary use of the word in the Apocalypse, especially when the particular language used concerning them (see especially Rev. ii. 4, 5, 9; iii. 15, 17) almost compels us to regard them not as individual ministers, but as the Churches themselves, personified in their guardian or representative angels. Comp. Matt. xviii. 10, and also Dan. x. 13, 20. So too they are represented in medieval illuminations of the Apocalypse. And may be observed that even if we could assume that the word here was used for an officer of the Church, it is still doubtful whether it would imply the supreme governor. The angel or minister of the Jewish synagogue was inferior not superior to the officiating Rabbi. (See Ewald ad Apoc. i. 19.) The deacon not the bishop is the "angel" of the Apostolical Constitutions (ii. 30).

it

The chief strongholds of the pirates who infested the Mediterranean in the later times of Roman history were in Cilicia, but they extended more or less to all the maritime states of Asia Minor. Appian, Bell. Mith. c. 92. See Arnold's Later Roman Commonwealth, i. 274.

e

Epiphanius (Hær. 30. 25), who represents the heretic to be not Cerinthus but Ebion, lays stress on the fact that St. John's use of the bath was so un

derive it from hearers of St. John's own scholar Polycarp, and if regarded unfavourably is in accordance with the spirit of Luke ix. 51, Mark ix. 38, if favourably, with the expression in 2 John 10. It is however precisely in such a story as this, and passing through such hands, that the essential difference between history and tradition is to be borne in mind. That some such event took place it is unreasonable to doubt. But the point of such an anecdote greatly depends on the circumstances which accompanied it, and which a second or third hand narrator of it, especially when relating it for a special purpose, is likely to omit. What a difference for example would there have been if the passage just referred to in 2 John 10 had been handed down to us by tradition, without the accompaniment, "For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of "his evil deeds." That this same direct wickedness was also the character of the teaching of Cerinthus we have reason to believe from other sources, and in this aspect the story may be usefully employed, as a living exemplification of the possibility of uniting the deepest love and gentleness with the sternest denunciation of moral evil. But to use it simply and in itself as a warrant for refusing intercourse with the teachers of erroneous opinions, would be an assumption, which however true it may possibly be on other grounds, cannot be warranted by the amount of testimony on which this particular story is handed down to us. Polycarp may have reported it as we now have it, but even in his mouth something may have unconsciously altered according to the feeling ascribed to him in the story of his dialogue with Marcion. Or again, Polycarp may have heard and related it rightly, but how

usual, as to give to the visit in question the appearance of a providential occasion for his uttering the anathema. This is certainly not the impression left by the account in Irenæus, who speaks of it without any indication of surprise.