It is when we approach the Fourth Gospel by way of its own author's adaptation of his message to the conditions around him that we begin to appreciate it historically, and in its true worth. The spirit of polemic is still prominent in 1st John, but the Gospel shows the effect of opposition only in the more careful statement of the evangelist's exact meaning. It is a theological treatise, an interpretation of the doctrine of the person of Christ, written that the readers "may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing they may have life in his name" (xx. 31). In an age so eagerly bent on ascertaining the historic facts regarding Jesus' life, and the true sequence of events (Luke i. 1-4), it is insupposable that an author so strenuous to uphold the concrete reality of the church's historic tradition should not give real history so far as he was able. He could not afford to depreciate it in the face of Doketic myth and fancy and contempt for a "Christ in the flesh." The idea that such a writer could deliberately prefer fiction to fact is most improbable; ten times more so if he was the only surviving representative of the twelve, a Galilean disciple even more intimate than Peter with Jesus from the outset. But real history was no longer attainable. The author of the Fourth Gospel reports no event which he does not take in good faith to be fact. Yet it must be apparent from his own statement of his purpose as well as from the very structure of the book that he does not aim to be a historian, but an interpreter of doctrine. He aims to give not _fact_ but _truth_. And his handling of (supposed) fact has the freedom we should expect in a church teacher of that age, and of the school of Paul the mystic. The seven progressive "signs" that he narrates, culminating in the raising of Lazarus, are avowedly (xx. 31) illustrative selections from a multitude of current tales of miracle, aiming to produce that faith in Jesus as the Son of God which will result in "life," _i. e._ the eternal life which consists in his indwelling (1st John v. 20). They are not described as acts of pity, drawn from one with whom the power of God was found present to heal. Jesus does not yield as in the Synoptics when compassion for trusting need overcomes reluctance to increase the importunity that interfered with his higher mission. Their prime purpose is to "manifest the glory" of the incarnate Logos, and Jesus performs them only when, and as, he chooses. Pity and natural affection are almost trampled upon that this "manifestation of his glory" may be made more effective (ii. 4; iv. 48; ix. 3; xi. 4-6, 15). As in Paul, there is no exorcism. This most typical and characteristic miracle of Petrine story (Mark iii. 15; Acts x. 88) has disappeared. Or rather (as in Paul) the casting out of Satan from his dominion over the entire world has transcended and superseded it (John xii. 31-33; _cf._ Col. ii. 15). In