2. Integri ty. —Certain portions of this Gospel have been regarded as interpolations or later addi tions, even by those who accept the Gospel as a whole as the work of St. John. One of these is the closing part of v. 2, from Mexo,alvow, and the whole of ver. 4, in regard to which the critical authorities fluctuate, and which contain statements that give a legendary aspect to the narrative, such as belongs to no other of the miracles related in the gospels. Both are rejected by Tischendorf but retained by Lachmann ; and the same diversity of judgment appears among interpreters, some reject ing both passages (Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen), others retaining both (Bruckner), others rejecting ver. 4, but retaining ver. 2 (Ewald), while some leave the whole in doubt (De Wette). Another doubtful portion is the section relating to the woman taken in adultery (vii. 53 ; viii. 1). This is regarded as an interpolation, because of the deficiency of critical evidence in its favour (see Tischendorf or Alford, in loc.), and because of reasons founded on the passage itself, viz., the apparently forced way in which it is connected with what precedes by means of vii. 53 ; the interrup tion caused by it to the course of the narrative, the words in viii. 12 being evidently in continuation of what precedes this section ; the alleged going of Jesus to the Mount of Olives and return to Jeru salem, which would place this occurrence in the last residence of our Lord in Jerusalem (Luke xxi. 37) ; the absence of the characteristic usage of the otp, which John so constantly introduces into his narratives, and for which we have in this section ae used as John generally uses av ; and the presence of the expressions 6pOpov, ELS .5 ?tabs, KaOLoas laiatuncev arras, ot -ypawharlis rpapuraioc, brip.lvetv, dvauciprnrot, KaraXebrareat, and Kara Kpivew, which are foreign to John's style. On the other side it is urged that the section contains, as Calvin says, nihil apostolico spiritu indignum,' that it has no appearance of a later legend, but bears every trace of an original account of a very probable fact, and that it has a considerable amount of diplomatic evidence in its favour. The question is one which hardly admits of a decided answer. The preponderance of evidence is undoubtedly against the Johannine origin of the section, and it has consequently been regarded as an interpolation by the great majority of critics and interpreters, including among the latter Calvin, Beza, Tittmann, Tholnck, Olshausen, Lucke, and Luthardt, as well as Grotius, De \Vette, Paulus, and Ewald. At the same time, if it did not form part of the original Gospel, it is difficult to account for its being at so early a period inserted in it. From a passage in Eusebius (H. E. iii. 39) some have con cluded that Papias inserted it from the Gospel ac cording to the Hebrews ; but it is not certain that it is to this section that the words of Eusebius refer. nor is it certain that he meant to say that Papas mserted the story he refers to in the Gospel. Afore important than either of these portions is chap. xxi., which is by many regarded as the ad dition of a later hand after the apostle's death. This opinion rests wholly on internal grounds, for there is no evidence that the Gospel was ever known in the church without this chapter. At first sight it certainly appears as if the original work ended with ch. xx., and that ch. xxi. was a later addition ; but whether by the apostle himself or by some other is open to question. The absence of any trace of the Gospel having ever existed without it must be allowed to afford strong prima facie evidence of its having been added by the author himself ; still this is not conclusive, for the addition may have been made by one of his friends or disciples before the work was in circulation. Grotius, who thinks it was made by the elders at Ephesus, argues against its genuineness, especially from ver. 24 ; but though the language there has certainly the appearance of being rather that of others than that of the party himself to whom it refers, still it is not impossible that John may have referred to himself in the third person, as he does for instance in xix. 35, and as for the use of the pl. or8a,uev, that may be accounted for by his tacitly joining his readers with himself, just as he assumes their presence in xix. 35. There is more difficulty in accepting ver. 25 as genuine, for such a hyper. bolical mode of expression does not seem to com port with the simplicity and sincerity of John ; but there seems no valid reason for calling into doubt any other part of the chapter.
3. Destkn. —At the close of the Gospel the apostle has himself stated his design in writing it thus : These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name' (xx. 31). Taken in the general this may be said to be the design of all the evangelical narratives, for all of them are intended to produce the convic tion that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah promised to the Fathers, and so to exhibit IIim in his saving power, that men believing on Him might enjoy that life which He had come to bestow. We must seek, therefore, John's specific design either in some special occasion which he sought to meet, or in some peculiarity in his mode of pre senting the claims of Jesus, by which not merely his Alessiahship should be evinced, but the higher aspect of his Person, and the spiritual effects of his working, should be prominently exhibited. Pro bably both of these concurred in the apostle's design ; and we shall best conceive his purpose by neither, on the one hand, ascribing to him a merely historical, nor on the other a purely dog matical design. It is an old and still prevalent opinion that John wrote his Gospel to supply the omissions of the other three ; but no such impres sion is conveyed by the Gospel itself, which is as far as possible from having the appearance of a mere series of supplemental notes to previously existing writings ; indeed, if this had been the apostle's purpose, it cannot be said that he has in any adequate way fulfilled it. Nor is there any ground for believing that it was a pa/ern/ea/ object which chiefly prompted him to write this Gospel, though such has often been suggested. Thus Irenaeus (Haer. t) says that the Gospel was written against the errors of Cerinthns. Jerome (De vir. 9) adds the Ebionites ; and later writers have maintained that the Gnostics or the Doketae are the parties against whom the polemic of the apostle is here directed. All this, however, is mere supposition, for which there is no real basis. Doubtless in what John has written there is that which furnishes a full refutation of all Ebionite, Gnostic, and Doketic heresy ; but that to confute these was the design of the apostle, as these writers affirm, cannot be proved. [GNosT/c1 At the same time, though he may have had no intention of formally confuting any existing heresy, it is more than probable that he was stimulated to seek by means of this record to counteract certain tendencies which he saw rising in the church, and by which the followers of Christ might be seduced from that simple faith in Him by which alone the true Life could be enjoyed. Still this must be regarded, at the utmost, as furnishing only the occasion, not the design, of his writing. The latter is to be sought in the effect which this Gospel is fitted to produce on the mind of the reader in regard to the claims of Jesus as the Divine Redeemer, the source of light and life to darkened and perishing humanity. With this view St. John presents Him to us as He tabernacled among men, and especially as He taught when occasion called forth the deeper reve lations which He, as the word who had come forth from the invisible God to reveal unto men the Father, had to communicate. John's main design is a theological one ; a consciousness of which doubt less led to his receiving in the primitive church the title Kar' advn, of 0c6Xo-yos. But the histori cal character of his writing must also be acknow ledged. As one who had been privileged to com pany' with Jesus, he seeks to present Him to its as Ile really appeared among men, in very deed a partaker of their nature, yet, under that nature, veiling a higher, which ever and anon broke forth into manifestation, so that those around Him be held his glory as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father' (i. 14). There is here no history of Jesus and his teaching after the manner of the other evangelists ; but there is, in historical form, a representation of the Christian faith, in relation to the Person of Christ, as its central point, and in this representation there is a picture, on the one hand, of the antagonism of the world to the truth revealed in Him, and on the other of the spiritual blessedness of the few who yield themselves to Him as the Light of Life' (Reuss, Gesch. der Heil. Sch. a'. N. T., p. 204).