Whatever difference there is between the composition of the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalyse, there is, at all events, a striking analogy between the opening verses of the former and those in the latter, where the faithful and true witness is referred to as "the beginning of the creation of God,"[61] and as being set down with His Father upon His throne. In the preface to each of the addresses to the seven Churches Christ assumes the attributes and prerogatives of the Deity. The prominence given to the mysterious doctrine of the Divinity of Christ is as great in the one as the other. [61] Rev. iii. 14. It is somewhat singular that from Rénan, who so utterly rejects the miraculous, we should have such a decided opinion that it is appropriately entitled the Gospel according to John. After saying, "I dare not be sure that the Fourth Gospel has been entirely written by a Galilean fisherman," he writes in his introduction to the "Life of Jesus": "No one doubts that towards the year 150, the Fourth Gospel did exist, and was attributed to John. Explicit texts from Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, and Irenæus, show that from thenceforth this Gospel mixed in every controversy, and served as corner-stone for the development of the faith. Irenæus is explicit. Now he came from the school of John, and between him and the apostle there was only Polycarp. The part played by this Gospel in Gnosticism, and especially in the system of Valentinus, in Montanism, and in the quarrel of the Quartodecimans, is not less decisive. The school of John was the most influential in the second century, and it is only by regarding the origin of the Gospel as coincident with the rise of the school, that the existence of the latter can be understood at all." "The First Epistle, attributed to John, is certainly by the same author as the Fourth Gospel. Now this Epistle is recognised as from John by Polycarp, Papias, and Irenæus. But it is, above all, the perusal of the Fourth Gospel itself which is calculated to give the impression that John must have written it. The author always speaks as an eye-witness. He wishes to pass for the Apostle John. If, then, this work is not really by the apostle, we must admit a fraud of which the author convicts himself. Now, although the ideas of the time respecting literary honesty differed essentially from ours, there is no example in the apostolic world of a falsehood of this kind. Besides, not only does the author wish to pass for the apostle, but we see clearly that he writes in the interest of this apostle."