consequently, that they do not imply any direct claim on the part of the writer to personal knowledge of Jesus. We must now examine whether the Gospel itself bears special marks of having been written by an eye-witness, and how far in this respect it bears out the assertion that it was written by the Apostle John. It is constantly asserted that the minuteness of the details in the fourth Gospel indicates that it must have been written by one who was present at the scenes he records. With regard to this point we need only generally remark, that in the works of imagination of which the world is full, and the singular realism of many of which is recognized by all, we have the most minute and natural details of scenes which never occurred, and of conversations which never took place, the actors in which never actually existed. Ewald admits that it is undeniable that the fourth Gospel was written with a fixed purpose, and with artistic design and, indeed, he goes further and recognizes that the Apostle could not possibly so long have recollected the discourses of Jesus and verbally reproduced them, so that, in fact, we have only, at best, a substantial report of the matter of those discourses coloured by the mind of the author himself.(1) Details of scenes at which we were not present may be admirably supplied by imagination, and as we cannot compare what is here described as taking place with what actually took place, the argument that the author must have been an eyewitness because he gives such details is without validity. Moreover, the details of the fourth Gospel in many cases do not agree with those of the three Synoptics, and it is an undoubted fact that the author of the fourth Gospel gives the details of scenes at which the Apostle John was not {447} present, and reports the discourses and conversations on such occasions, with the very same minuteness as those at which he is said to have been present; as, for instance, the interview between Jesus and the woman of Samaria. It is perfectly undeniable that the writer had other Gospels before him when he composed his work, and that he made use of other materials than his own.(1)