The tradition of the

tion of the

Gospel.

easily may the genuine tone and spirit of it have been lost in its transmission through the Gaulish bishop, whose whole heart was in the great polemical work of his life, and who also maintains that he heard from St. John's hearers that our Lord was above fifty years old.

3. The story of the calling of the Ephesian presbyters composi- together for a common fast when they asked him to compose his Gospel, and then suddenly as if by miracle breaking out into the words, "In the beginning was "the Word," rests on the authority of Jerome (De Vir. Ill. 29.) It is of course itself perfectly conceivable, but with the suspicion thrown upon it by the silence of Irenæus (Adv. Hær. iii. 1), who relates the general fact of his being asked to compose a new Gospel, it ought perhaps to be regarded as originating in a wish to give a tangible shape to the solemn feeling with which the opening words of the Gospel have always been regarded in the Church.

The tradition of the

4. The story, mentioned in the Sermon, of his last last words words to the Ephesian Church, again rests solely on the of St.John. authority of Jerome (Comm. ad Gal. vi.), but its exact agreement with the spirit and phraseology of the Epistles of St. John, and we may add, its contrast with the severe language so frequent in the author who records it, as well as with the general spirit of later times, as embodied in the wholly different account of St. John's last days, given by Nicephorus, sufficiently justifies the general credit which it has received.

The tradition of St.

5. In the works of Cassianus the monk (A.D. 420), conJohn and sisting of twenty-four Collationes or colloquies of different

the hunts

man.

The fact however of the fast is mentioned by the author of the ancient Fragment on the Canon (probably of the end of the second century), preserved by Muratori, and agrees with the practice in Acts xiv. 22; xiii. 2. See Routh, Rell. iv. 16.

Hist. Eccl. ii. 42. See Cave's Apostles, p. 151.

abbots, and prefixed to the works of John Damascenus, occurs a story which considering the character of the work in which it is found, ought hardly to be noticed amongst the usual traditions of St. John, were it not that it occurs in the regular account of his life in Fleury's Ecclesiastical History (ii. 54), and that although wholly destitute of external testimony, it possesses a grace and tenderness, which would be an argument in favour of its reception had it any other support to rest upon. "It is said" (so the Abbot Abraham is introduced as arguing on behalf of some relaxation of the usual austerities of the convent on the arrival of new brethren), "it is said that the blessed Evangelist St. “John, as he was gently stroking a partridge which he held "in his hand, suddenly saw a huntsman approaching, who "in astonishment at the sight of so illustrious a character "descending to such trivial enjoyments, asked, 'Art thou "that John, whose glorious renown had inspired even me "with a wish to know thee? why then occupy thyself with "pleasures so humble?' St. John replied, What hast "thou in thy hand?' 'A bow,' was the answer. 'And "why dost thou not always carry it bent?' 'Because,'

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replied the huntsman, 'it would then lose its strength, "and when it was wanted to shoot at some wild animal, "it would fail from too continuous straining.' Then, let "not this brief and slight relaxation of my mind offend "thee, young man,' answered St. John, without which "the spirit would flag from over exertion, and not be able "to respond to the call of duty when need required.”” A similar speech is ascribed to an Egyptian king by Herodotus, and the metaphor is too obvious to need an Apostle to enunciate it. Still, if it be, as it is perhaps most safe to regard it, a pure invention, we may fairly admire the dramatic propriety which has placed the scene in the life of the one apostolical character which we most naturally associate with all the gentler affections not less

The tradi

John's

austeri

ties.

than with the more solemn devotions of the Gospel narrative.

III. Such is the more general class of traditions with which we are familiar; another cycle less known, and less easy of interpretation, are those which belong to St. John, not so much as the Apostle of Love, but in that earlier aspect, of which I have spoken in the Sermon, in which he appears to us as one of the Apostles of the Circumcision.

1. The general picture of this side of his life is taken tion of St. from the collection of stories which exist in Epiphanius' work on heresies (78. 14), written about A.D. 380. St. John, as well as his brother James, are there described as sharing the same mode of life as James the Just, who "lived a single life, on whose head the razor never came, who "used neither bath nor oil, who ate no animal food, and

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wore no garments but linen." This account of James is evidently taken from that of Hegesippus, to which reference will have to be made again in another connexion, and from its mention here it would seem to be presented to us as the type of a Jewish Apostle, according to which the lives of the others were to be modelled. If therefore there is any truth in the representation of it in St. James, there is perhaps no sufficient cause for doubting it, at least at some period of his life, in St. John, who as we know from the Acts attended the temple services with Peter, and was with Cephas and James one of the chief pillars of the Church of Palestine, if we make allowance for the doubt which must hang over parts of it, from their apparent contradiction with 1 Cor. ix. 4, and Iren. Hær. iii. 3. And when we recollect that even the Apostle of the Gentiles conformed in all matters of indifference to the Jewish ritual, much more according to the same rule similar conformity would be expected from those who like St. John and St. James were especially Apostles of the Circumcision.

2. In a fragment of Polycrates, who was bishop of

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tion of the

diadem.

Ephesus in the close of the second century, amongst a The tradicatalogue of the remarkable saints whose bodies were pontifical interred in Asia Minor, and thus gave to its Churches a claim to be heard in the controversy concerning the time of Easter, it is said, "And John too, he who reclined on "the Lord's breast, who became a priest bearing the « diadem (ὅς ἐγένηθη ἱέρευς, τὸ πέταλον πεφορέκως, which "is somewhat inaccurately paraphrased by Jerome, pon"tifex ejus auream laminam in fronte portans), and martyr " and teacher (καὶ μάρτυς καὶ διδάσκαλος), he too sleeps (KEKоlunтαι) in Ephesus." (Eus. H. E. v. 24. Hieron. De Vir. Ill. c. xlv. 119.) That the Téraλov or plate here alludes in some way to that borne on the forehead of the Jewish high-priest (Ex. xxxviii. 36, 37) is evident, but what Polycrates meant by saying that St. John wore it must on any hypothesis be very doubtful. The same thing is said of St. James the Just by Epiphanius (Hær. 39. 2. 4. 78. 2. 14), and of St. Mark in an anonymous MS. (Passio S. Marci, quoted by Valesius, 1693, p. 155. c. 7), and of the latter it is expressly said that he wore it as being of the family of Levi, which statement is confirmed to a certain extent by its coincidence with the inference which may be drawn from the statement in Col. iv. 10, that he was a relation of Barnabas, and in Acts iv. 36, that Barnabas was a Levite. But if James the Just was the same as James the brother of our Lord, and if there is any ground for the very late tradition that John was a relation of our Lord, they must have been of the tribe of Judah, and at any rate it is safer to look for some further reason.

That James the Just was in the mind of the early Jewish Christians invested with all the attributes of the Jewish highpriest, is clear from the account in Hegesippus, and this not by virtue of any Levitical descent nor of any outward office which he held in the Christian society, but by reason of his own intrinsic and extraordinary holiness of life. But

the impossibility of understanding literally the words “to "him alone it was lawful to enter into the holy place," (for the Jewish high-priest must at any rate have entered also,) would almost lead one to suppose that the words are to be interpreted as a matter of fact exposition by the later historians of what was really a strong figure by which the Church of Jerusalem expressed its belief in the sanctity of its head; in the same way as by a similar metaphor Symeon the successor of James, and equally of the tribe of Judah, is apparently called not only a priest, but also a Rechabite, the latter expression being evidently derived not from any literal descent from the Kenite tribe, but from the Nazarite austerities which he in common with James was supposed to have exercised, and which in some important points resembled that of the sons of Jehonadab1. And the same may probably be said of the still later addition of the wearing of the golden plate by Epiphanius. If then we apply this to the statement of Polycrates respecting St. John, perhaps the simplest explanation, and the one which best agrees with the context of the "martyr" or "witness" and " teacher," is that John as well as James was regarded as invested with the sanctity which was especially indicated in the golden plate of the mitre, and which up to that time had belonged only to the descendants of the house of Aaron.

The statement of Epiphanius respecting St. James might lead us to ascribe to this story a Palestine origin. But if the mention of it by Polycrates points to an Asiatic tradition, and we ask how an image so purely Jewish could have presented itself to the mind of the Ephesian Christians, the answer is perhaps to be found in the apostolical writings peculiar to the period when St. John's prominence was first beginning to be recognised. It is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the First Epistle of St. h See the Essay on the Traditions of St. James.