The Historical Proofs of Christianity [pp. 51-84]

THE HIS! ORICAL PROOFS OF CHRISTIANITY. -
first assigned by Keim. When it is considered that the apostle
John, according to the universal and well-grounded tradition of
the ancient church, died at a very advanced age at Ephesus,
Keim's opinion, even his final opinion, as to the date when the
Gospel was in use would appear to exclude absolutely the
assumption that it was a spurious work. How could a book of
this kind be palmed off on the churches, including the church at
Ephesus, with no longer interval between its appearance and
the apostle's death? To meet the exigency, Keim boldly
affirmed that the apostle John never lived at Ephesus, and that
the belief of the ancient church that he resided there and died
there was all a mistake! This was to strike at the corner-stone
of the Tuibingen historical theory, which rested on the Johannine
authorship of the Apocalypse. Keim's novel and adventurous
opinion has been effectually confuted by Hilgenfeld' and
Krenkel.2 The supposition that Irenaeus confounded John the
Apostle with another John, John the Presbyter, is next to impossible. He had a perfectly distinct recollection of Polycarp,
and of his reminiscences of the apostle. In a letter to Victor,
bishop of Rome, Irenaeus referred to the visit of Polycarp to
that city (A.D. I55), and to the appeal which that venerable
bishop made to the instruction which he had received from
John and other apostles.' If there was an error in this statement
of Irenaeus, it would have been evident at Rome, where the
facts concerning Polycarp's visit were remembered. It is not
alone from Polycarp directly that Irenaeus was informed of his
recollections of John. The story of the apostle's meeting the
heretic Cerinthus in the bath he had received from individuals
to whom Polycarp had related it.4 Not Polycarp alone, but
other elders also who had known John are referred to by
Irenaus. Polycarp was not the sole link connecting him with
John.' He had, moreover, before him the work of Papias, in
which the apostle is plainly distinguished from the Presbyter of
the same name. Keim's hypothesis attributes to Irenaus an
I " Einl. in d. N. T.," p. 394, seq.
g "Der Apostel Johannes," p. I33, seC. On this topic see also Steitz, "Stud. u.
Kritik." (i868), p. 467, seq.
3 Irenaeus (ed. Stieren), i., Fragm., iii. p. 826. 4Adv. Haer., iii. 3, 4.
5 See PRINCETON REVIEW, March I88I, p. I95.
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