f the history which the evangelist was about to
write was already believed by Christians; that it was believed upon the
declarations of eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; that it formed
the account of their religion in which Christians were instructed; that
the office which the historian proposed to himself was to trace each
particular to its origin, and to fix the certainty of many things which
the reader had before heard of. In Saint John's Gospel the same point
appears hence, that there are some principal facts to which the
historian refers, but which he does not relate. A remarkable instance of
this kind is the ascension, which is not mentioned by St. John in its
place, at the conclusion of his history, but which is plainly referred
to in the following words of the sixth chapter; "What and if ye shall
see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (Also John iii. 31;
and xvi. 28.) And still more positively in the words which Christ,
according to our evangelist, spoke to Mary after his resurrection,
"Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go unto my
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father,
unto my God and your God." (John xx. 17.) This can only be accounted for
by the supposition that St. John wrote under a sense of the notoriety of
Christ's ascension, among those by whom his book was likely to be read.
The same account must also be given of Saint Matthew's omission of the
same important fact. The thing was very well known, and it did not occur
to the historian that it was necessary to add any particulars concerning
it. It agrees also with this solution, and with no other, that neither
Matthew nor John disposes of the person of our Lord in any manner
whatever. Other intimations in St. John's Gospel of the then general
notoriety of the story are the following: His manner of introducing his
narrative (ch. i. ver. 15.)--"John bare witness of him, and cried,
saying" evidently presupposes that his readers knew who John was. His
rapid parenthetical reference to John's imprisonment, "for John was not
yet cast into prison," (John iii, 24.) could only come from a writer
whose mind was in the habit of considering John's imprisonment as
perfectly notorious. The description of Andrew by the addition "Simon
Peter's brother," (John i. 40.) takes it for granted, that Simon Peter
was well known. His name had not been mentioned before. The evangelist's
noticing the prevailing mi