The Life of the Evangelist falls into three periods: first, the period covered by the Gospel in which he appears as the beloved disciple; then, at the end of his career, the period during which he appears as John of Ephesus: and, between these two, the period of some forty years which connects them together. Now we might say of Delff’s theory, that it gives a quite satisfactory account of the first period, and also in most ways of the last, and that in particular it enables us to work in the statement as to the death of the two sons of Zebedee; but that its difficulties come out chiefly in regard to the connexion between the first stage of the history and the last. On the other hand, the common view gives what I think is really on the whole as good an account of the first period, and raises no special difficulties as to the second, but it does leave some obscurities which with our present knowledge it is difficult to clear away as to the third. And it also leaves the alleged statement of Papias an enigma for which we have no certain solution. At the same time, although the cohesion is on either view not quite complete, it is in each case far too complete to be rejected in the interests of an agnosticism which only presents no target for objections because it has no tangible form or substance. Footnote 33: The division of opinion in this case is among the more radical critics themselves. H. J. Holtzmann, Schmiedel, and Professor Bacon are on the one side: Jülicher, Wrede, and Wernle are on the other; and in each of these instances the opinion is thoroughly characteristic; the subtle and acute minds are ranged against those that are stronger on the side of what we should call plain common sense. Footnote 34: _Chronologie_, &c., p. 676. Footnote 35: Letter to the Rev. William Unwin, dated Oct. 31, 1779. Footnote 36: _Character_, &c., p. 387. Footnote 37: For the proof see especially Lightfoot. Footnote 38: _On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament_ (1871), pp. 72, 73. Footnote 39: _Texte u. Untersuch._ v. 2, p. 170. The other authority is a single MS. (but the oldest and most interesting) of the ninth-century writer Georgius Monachus or Georgius Hamartolus (ed. De Boor, p. 447 [Ἰωάννης] μαρτυρίου κατηξίωται, where the other MSS. have ἐν εἰρήνη ἀνεπαύσατο). The question of the relation of the texts is judiciously discussed by De Boor (Preface, pp. lx-lxxi), but the fuller statement of particulars is reserved for a third volume. Footnote 40: _Ueber den Tod der Söhne Zebedaei_ (Berlin, 1904). LECTURE IV THE PRAGMATISM OF THE GOSPEL Different Kinds of Precision in Detail.