There are, however, other considerations which any such view totally ignores. James and John were by Jesus called Boanerges, “the sons of thunder;” it was John who prohibited a strange disciple from casting out devils in Jesus’ name, because he followed not the Twelve; it was John who desired to call down fire from Heaven upon the Samaritan village which refused to entertain his Master; it was James and John who, with their mother, applied secretly to Jesus for the highest offices for themselves in his anticipated kingdom; it was John who followed Jesus into the courtyard of the high-priest, when all the other disciples forsook him and fled; John who stood with the Galilean women near the cross at the time of the crucifixion; John who with Peter defied the edict of the Sanhedrim after the death of Jesus, prohibiting them from teaching or speaking in his name.[9] These are not the acts of one whose nature was characteristically timid, gentle, or spiritually-minded. By nature John was ardent, courageous, impetuous, and not more broad-minded or spiritually-minded than his co-disciples. Indications of these traits are not wanting, as we shall presently see, in the Gospel and the Epistles which bear his name. But he was of all the Twelve the most receptive. When Christ foretold his passion, Peter remonstrated with him. When Jesus spoke of the heavenly mansions and of his departure to prepare a place therein for his disciples, Thomas expressed his doubt and his perplexity by the question, “We know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?” When Jesus pointed to himself as the manifestation of the Father, Philip, dissatisfied, asked for a direct revelation of the Father. When Jesus promised to his disciples a spiritual manifestation of himself, Judas (not Iscariot), after the manner of modern theology, desired to have that manifestation explained to him before he could accept the truth. When Jesus rebuked Judas Iscariot for complaining of Mary’s act in anointing her Lord, Judas was angered.[10] But we look in vain in the Gospels for any instance in which John expressed any rebuke of Christ, or any opposition to him, or any doubt of his teaching, or demanded any other evidence of its truth than the simple word of his Lord. Of all the disciples the most receptive, he was the one whose character underwent the greatest and most radical change. The John that we know is the John transformed by the renewing influence of the spirit of Christ; he is the John that is a new creature in Christ Jesus. He was, I believe, the beloved disciple, because he was the one in whom the love of Christ had the freest course and wrought the fullest and the largest results. This simple fact must be borne in mind in considering the question of the internal evidences for and against the Johannine authorship of the Gospel.