ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY
gards it as the work of John the So. of Zebedee,
who, according to R. H. Charles, Alfred Loisy, Rob-
ert Eisler, and other scholars, was beheaded by
Agrippa I in the year 44 C.E., long before the Fourth
Gospel was written. Modem Biblical scholars doubt
the genuiness not only of the writer's own views ex-
pressed in this Gospel, but also of the words put by
him in the mouth of Jesus Christ. C. J. Ca-
doux'writes :
"The speeches in the Fourth Gospel (even apart
from the early messianic claim) are so different from
those in the Syoptics, and so like the comments of
the Fourth Evangelist both cannot be equally reliable
as records of what Jesus said : Literary veracity in
ancient times did forbid, as it does now, the assing-
ment of fictitious speeches to historical characters:
the best ancient historians made a practice of and as-
signing such speeches in this way."I
- C.J. Cadoux: The Life of Jesus, p. 16.
