iii. In another direction Delff’s theory fits in well with some portions of the patristic evidence. We have seen how it would account for the curious expression used by Polycrates (_circa_ 195 A.D.). Delff thinks that the beloved disciple must have actually performed the functions of the high priest. The high priest only wore his full dress on the Day of Atonement, but on an emergency his place might be taken for him by a substitute; and it is in this capacity that John of Ephesus is supposed to have acted. That does not on the face of it appear very probable; but we can more easily conceive that in the early days, before liturgical details were settled, and when the Christian Church had not yet wholly outgrown its Jewish antecedents, one who had the blood of high priests in his veins might on some solemn occasion (e. g. at Easter) have assumed a part of his distinctive dress. iv. Yet another alleged point in the testimony of Papias would be explained on this theory, and is not easily explained on the view which identifies the John who wrote the Gospel with the son of Zebedee. Since the publication of De Boor’s Fragment (Cod. Barocc. 142[39]) we have two authorities instead of one for the express statement that Papias in his second book asserted that both the sons of Zebedee were ‘slain by the Jews.’ When attention was first called to this statement, the tendency among scholars was to explain it away, to suppose that there had been some corruption of the text, or some confusion between John the Baptist and John the son of Zebedee. Of course there may have been something of the kind; and yet the statement is quite explicit as it stands, and one does not like emending away just the words that cause a difficulty. Hence there is an increasing tendency among scholars to regard the statement as having some real foundation. Schwartz, the editor of Eusebius, has lately put forth a monograph[40], the whole argument of which turns on the assumption that the statement is true. If it were true, the prediction of our Lord in Mark x. 38, 39, will have been literally fulfilled: both the sons of Zebedee will have suffered ‘red martyrdom,’ and not one red and one white. Wellhausen is among those who think that this was probably the case. v. Now Schwartz assumes that if John perished by the sword like his brother James, he did so at the same time and at the hands of Herod Agrippa I, in the year 41. Of course he can only do this by throwing over the data in the Acts, which I do not think that he is warranted in doing. I have little doubt that the John who was still a pillar of the Church at the time referred to in Gal. ii. 9 was the son of Zebedee. But it is quite credible that he may have perished, if not at the same time as James the Elder, yet about the same time as James the Brother of the Lord, or in the troublous times which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem.