JOHN

john, gospel of, and revelation, book of.) the question has not been strictly one between advanced and conservative criticism, for the tubingen school recognized the apocalypse as apostolic, and found in it a confirmation of john's residence in ephesus. on the other hand, lutzelberger (1840), th. keim (_jesus v. naz._, vol. i., 1867), j. h. scholten (1872), h. j. holtzmann (esp. in _einl. in d. n. t._, 3rd ed., 1902), and other recent writers, wholly reject the tradition. it has had able defenders in steitz (_stud. u. krit._, 1868), hilgenfeld (_einl._, 1875) and lightfoot (_essays on supernatural religion_, collected 1889). w. sanday (_criticism of fourth gospel_, 1905) makes passing admissions eloquent as to the strength of the negative position; whilst amongst roman catholic scholars, a. loisy (_le 4me. ev._, 1903) stands with holtzmann, and th. calmes (_ev. selon s. jean_, 1904, 1906) and l. duchesne (_hist. anc. de l'egl._, 1906) exhibit, with papal approbation, the inconclusiveness of the conservative arguments. the opponents of the tradition lay weight on the absence of positive evidence before the latter part of the 2nd century, especially in papias and in the epistles of ignatius and of irenaeus's authority, polycarp. they find it necessary to assume that irenaeus mistook polycarp; but this is not a difficult task, since already eusebius (c. 310-313) is compelled to point out that papias testifies to two johns, the apostle and a presbyter, and that irenaeus is mistaken in identifying those two johns, and in holding that papias had seen john the apostle (_h. e._ iii. 39, 5, 2). irenaeus tells us, doubtless correctly, that papias was "the companion of polycarp": this fact alone would suffice, given his two mistakes concerning papias, to make irenaeus decide that polycarp had seen john the apostle. the chronicler george the monk (hamartolus) in the 9th century, and an epitome dating from the 7th or 8th century but probably based on the _chronicle_ of philip of side (c. 430), declare, on the authority of the second book of papias, that john the zebedean was killed by jews (presumably in 60-70). adolf harnack, _chron. d. altchr. litt._ (1897), pp. 656-680), rejects the assertion; but the number of scholars who accept it as correct is distinctly on the increase. (f. v. h.)