t the author would select the instances
and teachings most telling for his own purpose, and would do this as
naturally as the magnet draws to itself iron filings which are mingled
with a pile of sand, the exclusively personal character of the teachings
of Jesus in this gospel need cause little perplexity. Nor need it seem
surprising that the words of Jesus as reported in John share the
peculiarities of style which mark the work of the evangelist in the
prologue to the gospel and in his epistles. His purpose was not primarily
biographical but argumentative, and he has set forth the picture of his
Lord as it rose before his own heart, his memory of events being
interwoven with contemplation on the significance of that life with which
his had been so blessedly associated. In a gospel written avowedly to
produce in others a conviction like his own, the evangelist would not have
been sensible of any obligation to draw sharp lines between his
recollection of his Lord's words and his own contemplations upon them and
upon their significance for his life. If these considerations be kept in
mind we may accept the uniform tradition of antiquity, confirmed by the
plain intimation of the gospel itself, that it is essentially the work of
John, the son of Zebedee, written near the close of his life in Ephesus,
in the last decade of the first century.

34. We have in our gospel records, therefore, two authorities for the
general course of the ministry of Jesus,--Mark and John. Even if the
fourth gospel should be proved not to be the work of John, its picture of
the ministry of Jesus must be recognized as coming from some apostolic
source. A forger would hardly have invited the rejection of his work by
inventing a narrative which seems to contradict at so many points the
tradition of the other gospels. The first and third gospels furnish us
from various sources rich additions to Mark's narrative, and it is to
these two with the fourth that we turn chiefly for the teachings of Jesus.
Each gospel should be read, therefore, remembering its incompleteness,
remembering also the particular purpose and individual enthusiasm for
Jesus which produced it.

35. A word may be due to two other claimants to recognition as original
records from the life of Jesus. One class is represented by that word of
the Lord which Paul quoted to the Ephesian elders at Miletus (Acts xx.
35). Scattered here and there in writings of the apostolic and succeeding
ages