The Literature and History of New Testament Times

ved-the tradition about the authorship of the Gospel was practically unanimous. Even the one small and uninfluential sect that disagreed practically su

with Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was martyred in A. D. 155. Polycarp would be an important figure merely on account of the early period in which he lived; but what makes his testimony supremely valuable is his personal association with John. Iren?us himself in his early youth, before he had left Asia Minor, had heard Polycarp discoursing about the things he had h

d when Iren?us exhibits an absolutely unwavering belief that the Fourth Gospel was written by the apostle, it is very unlikely that he was mistaken. He had known one of the personal disciples of John; he himself had lived in Asia Minor where John had been the well-known leader of t

ot one of the twelve apostles at all. The unnaturalness of such an hypothesis appears on the surface. Could a native of Asia Minor who had repeatedly heard Polycarp speak about the John in question, and who had

il in a remarkable consensus. When the most widely separated portions of the Church before the close of the second century all agreed that the Fourth Gospel was written b