Note 62 — Chapter V · THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS.

Was that author, then, really the Apostle John, as he apparently wishes us to surmise? This is another question on which we can only pronounce when we shall have completed our investigation. We will merely allude to the difficulty of supposing that the Apostle John could give so unhistorical a sketch of the Baptist as that in the fourth gospel. But we ask, is it at all probable that the real John would so unbecomingly neglect the well-founded claims of his brother James to a special notice? and is not such an omission rather indicative of a late Hellenistic author, who scarcely had heard the name of the brother so early martyred? The designation, the disciple whom Jesus loved, which in xxi. 20 has the prolix addition, who also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord which is he that betrayeth thee? is not to be considered as an offence against modesty.62 It is certainly far too laboured and embellished for one who, without any ulterior view, wishes to indicate himself, for such an one would, at least sometimes, have simply employed his name: but a venerator of John, issuing perhaps from one of his schools, might very naturally be induced to designate the revered apostle, under whose name he wished to write, in this half honourable, half mysterious manner.63