18 f.), there remains nothing that the most exacting friend of 'catholic' apostolicity could demand in the way of tribute to its great representative. Footnote 33: The addition in ver. 10_a_ and the plural "they" in ver. 11, are mere editorial adaptations of the story to Mark i. 16-20. And yet the main object of the Epilogue has not yet been touched. It was not written, we may be sure, merely to glorify Peter; though it is, of course, insupposable that the Gospel in its primitive form simply left Peter in the attitude of a renegade after xviii. 27, to reappear quite as if nothing had happened in xx. 1 ff.[34] It pays its tribute to Peter as chief witness to the resurrection, chief apostle, chief saviour of the unity of the church, chief under-shepherd of the flock of God, in the interest of that catholic apostolic unity which all churchmen were so earnestly labouring to achieve in the writer's time, and for which the name of Peter was increasingly significant. But the chief object of the Epilogue is something else. It was written primarily to commend and find room for another authority, the authority of the Gospel to which it is appended, and which repeatedly sets over against Peter a mysterious unnamed figure, who always sees when Peter is blind, believes when Peter is unbelieving, is faithful when Peter and all the rest have fled in cowardly desertion. The object of the Epilogue is to find room alongside the growing and salutary authority of Peter for the authority and message of "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Its purpose appears in its conclusion, "This (the disciple whom Jesus loved) is the disciple which beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things, and we (the church which cherishes and gives forth this 'spiritual' Gospel) know that his witness is true." Footnote 34: We must conclude that _both_ these data from Synoptic tradition, the denial (xiii. 36-38; xviii. 15-18, 25-27) _and_ the restoration (ch. xxi.) are supplements to the original form of the Gospel. The writer does not explicitly say that he means the Apostle John (reputed in Ephesus the author of Revelation); for such direct identification might well endanger his own object. But he makes it clear in two ways that John is really intended, as, indeed, subsequent writers immediately infer.[35] (1) "The sons of Zebedee" are introduced for the first time in the entire work in xxi. 2, among the group who are present with Peter. An easy process of elimination,[36] then, leaves open to identification as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (ver. 7) only John, or else one of the two unnamed "other disciples," who could hardly be reckoned among Jesus' closest intimates. Footnote 35: The _Muratorianum_ bases its legendary account of the writing of the Fourth gospel by "John" with the endorsement of "his fellow-disciples and bishops" on John xxi. 24.