appealed to in vain. That the diffuse and often monotonous discourses of this Gospel, however, should ever have been preferred to the grand simplicity of the teaching of the Synoptics, illustrated by such parables as the wise and foolish virgins, the sower, and the Prodigal Son, and culminating in the Sermon on the Mount, each sentence of which is so full of profound truth and beauty, is little to the credit of critical sense and judgment. The elaborate explanations by which the phenomena of the fourth Gospel are reconciled with the assumption that it was composed by the Apostle John are in vain, and there is not a single item of evidence within the first century and a half which does not agree with internal testimony in opposing the supposition. To one point, however, we must briefly refer in connection with this statement. It is asserted that the Gospel and Epistles--or at least the first Epistle--of the Canon ascribed to the Apostle John are by one author, although this is not without contradiction,(1) and very many of those who agree as to the identity of authorship by no means admit the author to have been the Apostle John. It is argued, therefore, that the use of the Epistle by Polycarp and Papias is evidence of the apostolic origin of the Gospel. We have, however, seen, that not only is it very uncertain that Polycarp made use of the Epistle at all, but that he does not in any case mention its author's name. There is not a particle of evidence that he ascribed the Epistle, even supposing he knew it, to the {474} Apostle John. With regard to Papias, the only authority for the assertion that he knew the Epistle is the statement of Eusebius already quoted and discussed, that: "He used testimonies out of John's first Epistle,"(1) There is no evidence, however, even supposing the statement of Eusebius to be correct, that he ascribed it to the Apostle. The earliest undoubted references to the Epistle, in fact, are by Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria, so that this evidence is of little avail for the Gospel. There is no name attached to the first Epistle, and the second and third have the superscription of "the Presbyter," which, applying the argument of Ewald regarding the author of the Apocalypse, ought to be conclusive against their being written by an Apostle. As all three are evidently by the same writer, and intended to be understood as by the author of the Gospel, and that writer does not pretend to be an Apostle, but calls himself a simple Presbyter, the Epistles likewise give presumptive evidence against the apostolic authorship of the Gospel.