little of a mystic, communicated to the
master his simple doubts, his repugnances, and his entirely human
weaknesses,[5] with an honest frankness which recalls that of
Joinville toward St. Louis. Jesus chided him, in a friendly manner,
full of confidence and esteem. As to John, his youth,[6] his exquisite
tenderness of heart,[7] and his lively imagination,[8] must have had a
great charm. The personality of this extraordinary man, who has
exerted so peculiar an influence on infant Christianity, did not
develop itself till afterward. When old, he wrote that strange
Gospel,[9] which contains such precious teaching, but in which, in our
opinion, the character of Jesus is falsified upon many points. The
nature of John was too powerful and too profound for him to bend
himself to the impersonal tone of the first evangelists. He was the
biographer of Jesus, as Plato was of Socrates. Accustomed to ponder
over his recollections with the feverish restlessness of an excited
mind, he transformed his master in wishing to describe him, and
sometimes he leaves it to be suspected (unless other hands have
altered his work) that perfect good faith was not invariably his rule
and law in the composition of this singular writing.

[Footnote 1: Mark iii. 17, ix. 37, and following; x. 35, and
following; Luke ix. 49, and following; 54, and following.]

[Footnote 2: John xiii. 23, xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx.
2, 4, xxi. 7, 20, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 1, xxvi. 37; Mark v. 37, ix. 1, xiii. 3, xiv.
33; Luke ix. 28. The idea that Jesus had communicated to these three
disciples a Gnosis, or secret doctrine, was very early spread. It is
singular that John, in his Gospel, does not once mention James, his
brother.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. iv. 18-22; Luke v. 10; John xxi. 2, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xiv. 28, xvi. 22; Mark viii. 32, and following.]

[Footnote 6: He appears to have lived till near the year 100. See his
Gospel, xxi. 15-23, and the ancient authorities collected by Eusebius,
_H.E._, iii. 20, 23.]

[Footnote 7: See the epistles attributed to him, which are certainly
by the same author as the fourth Gospel.]

[Footnote 8: Nevertheless we do not mean to affirm that the Apocalypse
is by him.]

[Footnote 9: The common tradition seems sufficiently justified to me
on this point. It is evident, besides, that the school of John
retouched his Gospel (see the whole of chap. xxi.)]

No hierarchy, prope