Zahn's opinion that Leucius was earlier than Papias, it is highly probable that he was a full century earlier than Eusebius, and we can assert, with as much confidence as such a thing can be asserted of a book of which only fragments remain, that Leucius mentioned no John but the apostle. If when Leucius put his stories together any tradition had remained of a second John, this would surely have been among the Leucian names of the apostle's disciples, so many of which we are able to enumerate. Eusebius had not thought of his theory at the time of his earlier work, the Chronicle, in which he describes Papias as a disciple of the evangelist. Jerome also is not self-consistent, speaking in one way when immediately under the influence of Eusebius, at other times following the older tradition. In the East the only trace of the theory of Eusebius is that the Apostolic Constitutions (vii. 46) make John ordain another John, as bp. of Ephesus in succession to Timothy. The writers who used the work of Papias do not seem to suspect that any John but the apostle was the source of his information. One fragment (Gebhardt and Harnack, 2nd ed. No. iii. p. 93) was preserved by Apollinarius, who describes Papias as a disciple of John; some authorities add "the apostle," but wherever John is mentioned without addition no other is meant. Anastasius of Sinai (Gebhardt, No. vi.) describes Papias as ὁ ἐν τῷ ἐπιστηθίῳ φοιτήσας; No. vii. as ὁ Ἰωάννου τοῦ εὐαγγελιστοῦ φοιτητής; Maximus confessor (No. ix.) describes him as συνακμάσαντα τῷ θείῳ εὐαγγελιστῇ Ἰωάννῃ. An anonymous but ancient note even makes Papias the scribe who wrote the gospel from the apostle's dictation. Thus Eusebius stands completely alone among ancient authorities, differing alike from his predecessors and successors. It by no means necessarily follows that he was wrong. If he has correctly interpreted the language of Papias, the authority of so ancient a witness outweighs that of any number of later writers. We can conceive either that there were two Johns in Asia, and that the latter's fame was so absorbed by the glory of his greater namesake that all remembrance of him was lost; or else we may imagine that the second John, the source of apostolic traditions to the Asiatic churches, was held in such high consideration that, though not really so, he passed in common fame as the apostle.
The supposition that John the apostle was never in Asia Minor has been embraced by Keim (Jesu von Nazara), Scholten (Der Apostel Johannes in Kleinasien) and others. But except that the recognition of the residence of a different John in Asia opens the possibility of a confusion, their reasons for disbelief in the apostle's residence in Asia are worthless. There is an immense mass of patristic testimony that John the apostle lived to a great age and died in Asia in the reign of Trajan.
If, then, both John the apostle and the elder taught in Asia, can we transfer to the second anything traditionally told of the first? Dionysius and Eusebius transfer to him the authorship of the Apocalypse, but those who now divide the Johannine books between these two Johns unanimously give the Apocalypse to the first. St. Jerome assigns to "the Elder" the two minor epistles, and this is a very natural inference from their inscription. That is a modest one, if the writer could have claimed the dignity of apostle; but if not, it seems arrogant to designate himself as the elder when there must have been elders in every city. There is also a great assumption of authority in the tone of the 3rd epistle. The writer sends his legates to the churches of the district, is angry if these legates are not respectfully received, and addresses the churches in a tone of command. It may be suggested as an explanation of this, that the writer knew himself to be the sole survivor in the district of the first Christian generation; and it agrees with this that Papias describes him as a disciple of our Lord, yet speaks of him in the present tense while he speaks of the apostles in the past. But this hypothesis is scarcely tenable if we believe what is told of the great age attained by the apostle John, who is said to have lived to the reign of Trajan. This hardly leaves room for any one who could claim to have heard our Lord to acquire celebrity after the apostle's decease. Further, no one who used the fourth gospel only could know that there had been an apostle named John. Even our Lord's forerunner, called in other gospels John the Baptist, in this is simply John, as if there were no need to distinguish him from any other. The apostle alone would not feel such need, therefore if he were the author of the gospel, all is intelligible; but if the author were his disciple, is it conceivable that he should thus suppress the name of his great master and predecessor in labour in Asia; and if beside the apostle there were in our Lord's circle another John, is it conceivable that the writer should not have distinguished between them?
Thus the Eusebian interpretation of Papias must stand on its own merits. It obtains no confirmation from independent testimony, nor does it solve any perplexing problems. It is certainly possible that we with our more powerful instruments of criticism may be able to resolve a double star which had appeared to the early observers single. Yet considering how much closer and more favourably circumstanced they were, we have need to look well that the mistake is not our own. One Eusebian argument must then be rejected, namely, that by calling his second John the elder, Papias meant to distinguish him from the apostle. This would be so if he had called the first John an apostle, but actually he calls him an elder. If we suppose, as do Lightfoot and others, that he uses the word elder in two different senses, at least the word cannot be used the second time to distinguish him from those to whom it is applied the first time. If it is to distinguish him from any one it is from Aristion, to whom, though also called a disciple of the Lord, this name is not applied. Hence Eusebius's second argument, that Papias by placing John after Aristion meant to assign to him a less honourable place, fails since John is given a title of dignity which is refused to Aristion. Some light is thrown on the sense in which the word elder is applied to John by Papias in his preface by the fact that one of his traditions is told with the formula, "These things the
