32.  Though the writer of the fourth gospel everywhere refrains from mentioning his own name, he clearly indicates himself as the “bosom disciple.”  When he speaks of two disciples that followed Jesus, afterwards adding that “one of the two” “was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother” (chap. 1:37, 40); of “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (chap. 13:23; 21:7, 20); and of “another disciple” in company with Simon Peter (chap. 18:15, 16; 20:2-8), the only natural explanation of these circumlocutions is that he refers to himself.  Even if we suppose, with some, that the two closing verses of chapter 21 (the former of which ascribes this gospel directly to John) are a subscription by another hand, their authenticity is unquestionable, sustained as it is by the uniform testimony of antiquity, and by the internal character of the gospel.

33.  The Scriptural notices of John are few and simple.  He was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida on the Western shore of the sea of Galilee not far from Capernaum.  Matt. 4:21; Mark 1:19, 20; Luke 5:10, 11.  His mother’s name was Salome.  Matt. 27:56 compared with Mark 15:40.  His parents seem to have been possessed of some property, since Zebedee had hired servants (Mark 1:20), and Salome was one of the women who followed Jesus in Galilee, and ministered to him.  Mark 15:40, 41.  From the order in which he and his brother James are mentioned—­James and John, except Luke 9:28—­he is thought to have been the younger of the two.  Early in our Lord’s ministry he was called to be one of his followers; was one of the three who were admitted to special intimacy with him, they alone being permitted to witness the raising of Jairus’ daughter, the transfiguration, and the agony of Gethsemane (Matt 17:1; 26:37; Mark 5:37; 9:2; 14:33; Luke 8:51; 9:28); and of the three was, though not first in place, first in the Lord’s love and confidence—­“the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and to whose tender care he committed his mother as he was about to expire on the cross.  By his natural endowments, as well as by his loving and confidential intercourse with the Saviour, he was prepared to receive and afterwards to publish to the world, those deep and spiritual views of Christ’s person and office which so remarkably characterize his gospel.

So far as we have any notices of John in the Acts of the Apostles and epistles of Paul, his residence after our Lord’s ascension was at Jerusalem.  But, according to the unanimous testimony of antiquity, he spent the latter part of his life in Ephesus, where he died at a very advanced age, not far from the close of the first century.  The subject of his banishment to the isle of Patmos will come up in connection with the Apocalypse.