"The time and place of writing was at Ephesus, as is generally held, not long before the death of the Apostle, and probably at the request of Christians in that city, Ch. xxi: 24 ('And we know that this testimony is true') suggests that others desired to attest the truth of the record as coming from the Apostle. This late date, nearly a generation after the writing of the other Gospels, shows that the leading facts about Jesus were already known to Christians. This Gospel is therefore, in a certain sense, supplementary; but there is no evidence that it was intended to supply omissions in the other narratives. The design is stated in the book itself, and the many events and discourses found only in this Gospel are in accordance with it." (Bible Treasury, p. 129). 5. _The Purpose of John's Gospel:_ Contradictory opinions obtain concerning the purpose for which the Apostle John wrote his account of the gospel. Eusebius quotes Clement of Alexandria as saying that John, perceiving that the bodily influence of Jesus had been made known in the Gospels, (i. e., supposedly Matthew, Mark and Luke), and being at the same time urged by his friends and borne along by the spirit, wrote a spiritual Gospel (third century). A still earlier authority, the unknown author of the so-called Muratorian Fragment (See Apostolic Fathers, Rev. George A. Jackson, p. 186), which most scholars agree belongs to the second century and probably not later than A. D. 170, so far agrees with the idea that John's Gospel was intended to supplement the other Gospels as to say, that when John's fellow-disciples and bishops exhorted him to write, he said: "Fast along with me three days from today, and let us relate the one to the other whatever has been revealed to us. The same night it was revealed to Andrew, the Apostle, that "John should in his own name, write down the whole, and that they all should revise" what he wrote. Another contention is, and this is based on the authority of Irenaeus (third century) that John wrote to controvert the errors of the Nicholaitanes and Cerinthus, in other words, that "his aim was not so much supplementary as polemical." In the midst of the conflicting theories it is just as well that we accept the simple and straight-forward statement of St. John himself in the last chapter but one of his famous Gospel as to the purpose for which he wrote his Gospel, namely, "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book; but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye might have life through his name."