The questions of the authorship and the historicity of the Fourth Gospel are closely bound together. If the Gospel is a theological romance intended to give currency to the conceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy, it is clear that its authorship cannot be ascribed to one of the disciples of Jesus. On the other hand, if it was written by one of the Apostolic band, it must certainly, whether reliable or not in its details, contain a wealth of historical reminiscence which will enrich our knowledge of the personality, the words and the deeds of Christ. It is an interesting fact that a strong defense of the Apostolic authorship of the Gospel has been made, in the present generation and in the one which preceded it, by writers whose theological position would incline them to an opposite conclusion.[291] The strength of the evidence for Johannine authorship lies in the testimony which it receives from all parts of the early church, whether divisions be made on geographical or theological lines, and in the links of connection which bind the witnesses to the alleged scene of John's labours and to the Apostle himself. 291: Ezra Abbot, 1880 (see "The Fourth Gospel," by Abbot, Peabody and Lightfoot, 1891) and James Drummond: "Character and Authorship of the Fourth Gospel," 1904. If it be objected that John, as a Galilean fisherman and an unlettered man, could not have produced a work so profound in thought and so polished in Greek composition, the objection may be compared with that which is raised against the authorship of the plays which go under the name of Shakespeare. Andrew Lang remarks with irony upon the surprising belief that "a young man from a little country town, and later an actor, could possibly possess Shakespeare's vast treasures of general information, or Latin enough to have read the Roman classics."[292] 292: "A New Theory of Shakespeare," _Independent_, December 22, 1910, p. 1373.