The opponents of the tradition lay weight on the absence of positive evidence before the latter part of the 2nd century, especially in Papias and in the epistles of Ignatius and of Irenaeus's authority, Polycarp. They find it necessary to assume that Irenaeus mistook Polycarp; but this is not a difficult task, since already Eusebius (c. 310-313) is compelled to point out that Papias testifies to two Johns, the Apostle and a presbyter, and that Irenaeus is mistaken in identifying those two Johns, and in holding that Papias had seen John the Apostle (_H. E._ iii. 39, 5, 2). Irenaeus tells us, doubtless correctly, that Papias was "the companion of Polycarp": this fact alone would suffice, given his two mistakes concerning Papias, to make Irenaeus decide that Polycarp had seen John the Apostle. The chronicler George the Monk (Hamartolus) in the 9th century, and an epitome dating from the 7th or 8th century but probably based on the _Chronicle_ of Philip of Side (c. 430), declare, on the authority of the second book of Papias, that John the Zebedean was killed by Jews (presumably in 60-70). Adolf Harnack, _Chron. d. altchr. Litt._ (1897), pp. 656-680), rejects the assertion; but the number of scholars who accept it as correct is distinctly on the increase. (F. v. H.) JOHN THE BAPTIST, in the Bible, the "forerunner" of Jesus Christ in the Gospel story. By his preaching and teaching he evidently made a great impression upon his contemporaries (cf. Josephus, _Ant._ xviii., § 5). According to the birth-narrative embodied in Luke i. and ii., he was born in "a city of Judah" in "the hill country" (possibly Hebron[1]) of priestly parentage. His father Zacharias was a priest "of the course of Abijah," and his mother Elizabeth, who was also of priestly descent, was related to Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose senior John was by six months. This narrative of the Baptist's birth seems to embody some very primitive features, Hebraic and Palestinian in character, and possibly at one time independent of the Christian tradition. In the apocryphal gospels John is sometimes made the subject of special miraculous experiences (e.g. in the _Protevangelium Jacobi_, ch. xxii., where Elizabeth fleeing from Herod's assassins cried: "Mount of God, receive a mother with her child," and suddenly the mountain was divided and received her).