The united testimony of early writers who allude to this matter, is
that John wrote his gospel, long after the completion and circulation
of the writings of the three first evangelists. Some early testimony
on the subject dates from the end of the second century, and specifies
that John, observing that in the other gospels, those things were
copiously related which concern the humanity of Christ, wrote a
spiritual gospel, at the earnest solicitations of his friends and
disciples, to explain in more full detail, the divinity of Christ. This
account is certainly accordant with what is observable of the structure
and tendency of this gospel; but much earlier testimony than this,
distinctly declares that John’s design in writing, was to attack
certain heresies on the same point specified in the former statement.
The Nicolaitans and the followers of Cerinthus, in particular, who were
both Gnostical sects, are mentioned as having become obnoxious to the
purity of the truth, by inculcating notions which directly attacked
the true divinity and real Messiahship of Jesus. The earliest heresy
that is known to have arisen in the Christian churches, is that of
the Gnostics, who, though divided among themselves by some minor
distinctions, yet all agreed in certain grand errors, against which
this gospel appears to have been particularly directed. The great
system of mystical philosophy from which all these errors sprung,
did not derive its origin from Christianity, but existed in the
east long before the time of Christ; yet after the wide diffusion
of his doctrines, many who had been previously imbued with this
oriental mysticism, became converts to the new faith. But not rightly
apprehending the simplicity of the faith which they had partially
adopted, they soon began to contaminate its purity by the addition
of strange doctrines, drawn from their philosophy, which were totally
inconsistent with the great revelations made by Christ to his apostles.
The prime suggestion of the mischief, and one, alas! which has not at
this moment ceased to distract the churches of Christ, was a set of
speculations, introduced “to account for the _origin and existence
of evil in the world_,”――which seemed to them inconsistent with the
perfect work of an all-wise and benevolent being. Overleaping all
those minor grounds of dispute which are now occupying the attention
of modern controversialists, they attacked the very basis of religious
truth, and adopted the notion that the world was not created by the
supreme God himself, but by a being of inferior rank, called by them
the Demiurgus, whom they considered deficient in benevolence and in
wisdom, and as thus being the occasion of the evil so manifest in the
works of his hands. This Demiurgus they considered identical with the
God of the Jews, as revealed in the Old Testament. Between him and the
Supreme Deity, they placed an order of beings, to which they assigned
the names of the “Only-begotten,” “the Word,” “the Light,” “the
Life,” &c.; and among these superior beings, was Christ,――a distinct
existence from Jesus, whom they declared a mere man, the son of Mary;
but acquiring a divine character by being united at his baptism to
the Divinity, Christ, who departed from him at his death. Most of the
Gnostics utterly rejected the law of Moses; but Cerinthus is said to
have respected some parts of it.
A full account of the prominent characteristics of the Gnostical
system may be found in Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History,
illustrated by valuable annotations in Dr. Murdock’s translation
of that work. The scholar will also find an elaborate account of
this, with other Oriental mysticisms, in Beausobre’s Histoire de
Manichee et du Manicheisme. J. D. Michaelis, in his introduction
to the New Testament, (vol. III. c. ii. § 5,) is also copious
on these tenets, in his account of John’s gospel. He refers
also to Walch’s History of Heretics. Hug’s Introduction also
gives a very full account of the peculiarities of Cerinthus, as
connected with the scope of this gospel. Introduction vol. II.
§§ 49‒53, [of the original,] §§ 48‒52, [Wait’s translation.]
In connection with John’s living at Ephesus, a story became
afterwards current about his meeting him on one occasion and
openly expressing a personal abhorrence of him. “Irenaeus
[Against Heresies, III. c. 4. p. 140,] states from Polycarp,
that John once going into a bath at Ephesus, discovered
Cerinthus, the heretic, there; and leaping out of the bath he
hastened away, saying he was afraid lest the building should
fall on him, and crush him along with the heretic.” Conyers
Middleton, in his Miscellaneous works, has attacked this story,
in a treatise upon this express point. (This is in the edition
of his works in four or five volumes, quarto; but I cannot
quote the volume, because it is not now at hand.) Lardner also
discusses it. (Vol. I. p. 325, vol. II. p. 555, 4to. edition.)
There can be no better human authority on any subject
connected with the life of John, than that of Irenaeus of Lyons,
[A. D. 160,] who had in his youth lived in Asia, where he was
personally acquainted with Polycarp, the disciple and intimate
friend of John, the apostle. His words are, “John, the disciple
of the Lord, wishing by the publication of his gospel to remove
that error which had been sown among men, by Cerinthus, and
much earlier, by those called Nicolaitans, who are a fragment
of _science_, (or the _Gnosis_,) _falsely so called_;――and that
he might both confound them, and convince them that there is
but one God, who made all things by his word, and not, as they
say, one who was the Creator, and another who was the Father
of our Lord.” (Heresies, lib. III. c. xi.) In another passage
he says,――“As John the disciple of the Lord confirms, saying,
‘But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Son of God, and that believing, you may have eternal life in
his name,’――guarding against these blasphemous notions, which
_divide_ the Lord, as far as they can, by saying that he was
made of two different substances.” (Heresies, lib. III. c. xvi.)
Michaelis, in his Introduction on John, discusses this passage,
and illustrates its true application.
It appears well established by respectable historical testimony,
that Cerinthus was contemporary with John at Ephesus, and that he had
already made alarming progress in the diffusion of these and other
peculiar errors, during the life of the apostle. John therefore, now
in the decline of life, on the verge of the grave, would wish to bear
his inspired testimony against the advancing heresy; and the occasion,
scope, and object of his gospel are very clearly illustrated by a
reference to these circumstances. The peculiar use of terms, more
particularly in the first part,――terms which have caused so much
perplexity and controversy among those who knew nothing about the
peculiar technical significations of these mystical phrases, as they
were limited by the philosophical application of them in the system
of the Gnostics,――is thus shown in a historical light, highly valuable
in preventing a mis-interpretation among common readers. This view of
the great design of John’s gospel, will be found to coincide exactly
with the results of a minute examination of almost all parts of it,
and gives new force to many passages, by revealing the particular error
at which they were aimed. The details of these coincidences cannot
be given here, but have been most satisfactorily traced out, at great
length, by the labors of the great modern exegetical theologians, who
have occupied volumes with the elucidation of these points. The whole
gospel indeed, is not so absorbed in the unity of this plan, as to
neglect occasions for supplying general historical deficiences in
the narratives of the preceding evangelists. An account is thus
given of two journeys to Jerusalem, of which no mention had ever been
made in former records, while hardly any notice whatever is taken of
the incidents of the wanderings in Galilee, which occupy so large a
portion of former narratives,――except so far as they are connected
with those instructions of Christ which accord with the great object
of this gospel. The scene of the great part of John’s narrative is
laid in Judea, more particularly in and about Jerusalem; and on the
parting instructions given by Christ to his disciples, just before
his crucifixion, he is very full; yet, even in those, he seizes hold
mainly of those things which fall most directly within the scope of
his work. But throughout the whole, the grand object is seen to be, the
presentation of Jesus as the Messiah, the son of the living, eternal
God, containing within himself the Life, the Light, the Only-begotten,
the Word, and all the personified excellences, to which the Gnostics
had, in their mystic idealism, given a separate existence. It thus
differs from all the former gospels, in the circumstance, that
its great object and its general character is not historical, but
dogmatical,――not universal in its direction and tendency, but aimed
at the establishment of particular doctrines, and the subversion of
particular errors.
Another class of sectaries, against whose errors John wrote in this
gospel, were the Sabians, or disciples of John the Baptist;――for some
of those who had followed him during his preaching, did not afterwards
turn to the greater Teacher and Prophet, whom he pointed out as the
one of whom he was the forerunner; and these disciples of the great
Baptizer, after his death, taking the pure doctrines which he taught,
as a basis, made up a peculiar religious system, by large additions
from the same Oriental mysteries from which the Gnostics had drawn
their remarkable principles. They acknowledged Jesus Christ as a
being of high order, and designate him in their religious books as the
“Disciple of LIFE;” while John the Baptist, himself somewhat inferior,
is called the “Apostle of LIGHT,”――and is said to have received his
peculiar glorified transfiguration, from a body of flesh to a body of
light, from Jesus at the time of his baptism in the Jordan; and yet is
represented as distinguished from the “Disciple of LIFE,” by possessing
this peculiar attribute of Light.
This mystical error is distinctly characterized in the first chapter of
this gospel, and is there met by the direct assertions, that in Jesus
Christ, the Word, and the God, was not only _life_, but that the LIFE
itself was the LIGHT of men;――and that John the Baptist “was _not_ the
LIGHT, but was only sent to bear witness of the LIGHT;” and again, with
all the tautological earnestness of an old man, the aged writer repeats
the assertion that “_this_ was the true Light, which enlightens every
man that comes into the world.” Against these same sectaries, the
greater part of the first chapter is directed distinctly, and the whole
tendency of the work throughout, is in a marked manner opposed to their
views. With them too, John had had a local connection, by his residence
in Ephesus, where, as it is distinctly specified in the Acts of the
Apostles, Paul had found the peculiar disciples of John the Baptist
long before, on his first visit to that city; and had successfully
preached to some of them, the religion of Christ, which before was a
strange and new thing to them. The whole tendency and scope of this
gospel, indeed, as directed against these two prominent classes of
heretics, both Gnostics and Sabians, are fully and distinctly summed up
in the conclusion of the twentieth chapter;――“These things are written,
that ye might believe that JESUS _is the_ CHRIST, the SON OF GOD, and
that in believing on him, ye might have LIFE through his name.”
As to the _place_ where this gospel was written, there is a very
decided difference of opinion among high authorities, both ancient and
modern,――some affirming it to have been composed in Patmos, during his
exile, and others in Ephesus, before or after his banishment. The best
authority, however, seems to decide in favor of Ephesus, as the place;
and this view seems to be most generally adopted in modern times.
Even those who suppose it to have been written in Patmos, however,
grant that it was first given to the Christian world in Ephesus,――the
weight of early authority being very decided on this latter point.
This distinction between the place of composition and the place
of publication, is certainly very reasonable on some accounts, and
is supported by ancient authorities of dubious date; but there are
important objections to the idea of the composition of both this and
the Apocalypse, in the same place, during about one year, which was
the period of his exile. There seem to be many things in the style of
the gospel which would show it to be a work written at a different
period, and under different circumstances from the Apocalypse; and
some Biblical critics, of high standing, have thought that the gospel
bore marks in its style, which characterized it as a production of a
much older man than the author of the energetic, and almost furious
denunciations of the Apocalypse, must have been. In this case, where
ancient authority is so little decisive, it is but fair to leave the
point to be determined by evidence thus connected with the date, and
drawn from the internal character of the composition itself,――a sort of
evidence, on which the latest moderns are far more capable of deciding
than the most ancient, and the sagest of the Fathers. The _date_
itself is of course inseparably connected with the determination of the
place, and like that, must be pronounced very uncertain. The greatest
probability about both these points is, that it was written at Ephesus,
_after_ his return from Patmos; for the idea of its being produced
_before_ his banishment, during his first residence in Asia, has long
ago been exploded; nor is there any late writer of authority on these
points, who pretends to support this unfounded notion.