- thority, even offer reports, that the Apostle John preached in India;
and some of the Jesuit missionaries have supposed that they had detected such traditions among the tribes of that region, among whom they labored. All that can be said of these accounts is, that they accord with a reasonable supposition, which is made probable by other circumstances; but traditions of such a standing cannot be said to prove anything.
Parthia.—The earliest trace of this story is in the writings of Augustin, (A. D.
398,) who quotes the first epistle of John as "the epistle to the Parthians," from
which it appears that this was a common name for that epistle, in the times of Augustin.
Athanasius is also quoted by Bede, as calling it by the same name. If he
wrote to the Parthians in that familiar way, it would seem probable that he had been
among them, and many writers have therefore adopted this view. Among these, the
learned Mill (Prolegom. in N. T. § 150) expresses his opinion very fully, that John
passed the greater part of his life among the Parthians, and the believers near them.
Lampe (Prolegom. in Joan. Lib. I. cap. iii. § 12, note) allows the probability of such
a visit, but strives to fix its date long before the destruction of Jerusalem; yet offers
no good reason for such a notion.
India.—The story of the Jesuit missionaries is given by Baronius, (Ann. 44. § 30.) The story is, that letters from some of these missionaries, in 1555, give an account of their finding such a tradition, among an East Indian nation, called the Bassoras, who told them that the apostle John once preached the gospel in that region. No further particulars are given; but this is enough to enable us to judge of the value of a story, dating fifteen centuries from the event which it commemorates.
HIS RESIDENCE IN ASIA.
The great mass of ancient stories about this apostle, take no notice at all of his residence in the far eastern regions, on and beyond the Euphrates, but make mention of the countries inhabited by Greeks and Romans, as the scenes of the greater part of his long life, after the destruction of Jerusalem. The palpable reason of the character of these traditions, no doubt, is, that they all come from the very regions which they commemorate as the home of John; and the authors of the stories being interested only to secure for their own region the honor of an apostolic visit, cared nothing about the similar glory of countries far eastward, with which they had no connection whatever, and of which they knew nothing. That region which is most particularly pointed out as the great scene of John's life and labors, is Asia, in the original, limited sense of the term, which includes only a small portion of the eastern border of the Aegean sea, as already described in the life of Peter. The most important place in this Little Asia, was Ephesus; and in this famous city the apostle John is said to have spent the latter part of his life, after the great dispersion from Palestine.
The motives of John's visit to Ephesus, are variously given by different writers, both ancient and modern. All refer the pri-
