the Father of the Lord."^1044 Jerome adds the opposite error of Ebionism, Ewald that of the disciples
of the Baptist.
No doubt the fourth Gospel, by the positive statement of the truth, is the most effective
refutation of Gnostic dualism and doketism, which began to raise its head in Asia Minor toward
the close of the first century. It shows the harmony of the ideal Christ of faith and the real Christ
of history, which the ancient and modern schools of Gnosticism are unable to unite in one individual.
But it is not on this account a polemical treatise, and it even had by its profound speculation a
special attraction for Gnostics and philosophical rationalists, from Basilides down to Baur. The
ancient Gnostics made the first use of it and quoted freely from the prologue, e.g., the passage:
"The true light, which enlighteneth every man, was coming into the world" (1:9).^1045
The polemical aim is more apparent in the first Epistle of John, which directly warns against
the anti-Christian errors then threatening the church, and may be called a doctrinal and practical
postscript to the Gospel.- The supplementary theory. Clement of Alexandria (about 200) states, on the authority
of "presbyters of an earlier generation," that John, at the request of his friends and the prompting
of the divine Spirit, added a spiritual Gospel to the older bodily Gospels which set forth the outward
facts.^1046 The distinction is ingenious. John is more spiritual and ideal than the Synoptists, and he
represents as it were the esoteric tradition as distinct from the exoteric tradition of the church.
Eusebius records also as a current opinion that John intended to supply an amount of the earlier
period of Christ’s ministry which was omitted by the other Evangelists.^1047 John is undoubtedly a
most welcome supplementer both in matter and spirit, and furnishes in part the key for the full
understanding of the Synoptists, yet he repeats many important events, especially in the closing
chapters, and his Gospel is as complete as any.^1048 - The Irenic tendency-theory is a modern Tübingen invention. It is assumed that the fourth
Gospel is purely speculative or theological, the last and crowning literary production which
completed the process of unifying Jewish and Gentile Christianity and melting them into the one
Catholic church of the second century.
No doubt it is an Irenicon of the church in the highest and best sense of the term, and a
prophecy of the church of the future, when all discords of Christendom past and present will be
harmonized in the perfect union of Christians with Christ, which is the last object of his sacerdotal
prayer. But it is not an Irenicon at the expense of truth and facts.
(^1044) Adv. Haer., III. 11, 1.
(^1045) Basilides in Hippolytus, Ref. Haer., VII. 22.
(^1046) In Eusebius, H. E., VI. 14 (quoting from the Hypotyposes):τὸν Ἰωάννην ἔσχατον συνιδόντα ὅτι τὰ σωματικὰ ἐν τοῖς
εὐαγγελίοις δεδήλωται προτραπέντα ὑπὸ τῶν γνωρίμων[i.e., either well known friends, or distinguished, notable men], πνεύματι
θεοφορηθέντα, πνευματικὸν ποιῆσαι εὐαγγέλιον. Origen had a similar view, namely, that John alone among the Evangelists
clearly teaches the divinity of Christ. Tom. 1:6 in Joan. (Opp., IV. 6).
(^1047) H. E., III. 24. Jerome repeats this view and connects it with the antiheretical aim, De vir. illustr., c. 9, comp. Com. in Matt.
Proaem. Theodore of Mopsuestia thought that John intended to supplement the Synoptists chiefly by the discourses on the
divinity of Christ. See Fritzsche’s ed. of fragments of his Commentaries on the New Test., Turici, p. 19 sq. (quoted by Hilgenfeld,
Einleitung, p. 696).
(^1048) Godet expresses the same view (I. 862): "Cette intention de compléter les récits antérieurs, soit au point de vue
historique,comme l’a pensé Eusébe, soit sous un rapport plus spirituel, comme l’a déclaré Clément d’Alexandrie, est donc
parfaitement fondée en fait; nous la constatons commne un but secondaire at, pour mieux dire, comme moyen servant au but
principal."
A.D. 1-100.