But indeed, when he does stoop to notice the arguments of 'apologetic' writers, he is not always successful in apprehending their meaning.
Thus he writes of the unnamed disciple, the assumed author of the Fourth Gospel:--
'The assumption that the disciple thus indicated is John, rests principally on the fact that whilst the author mentions the other Apostles, he seems studiously to avoid directly naming John, and also that he only once [18:3] distinguishes John the Baptist by the appellation [Greek: ho baptistês], whilst he carefully distinguishes the two disciples of the name of Judas, and always speaks of the Apostle Peter as 'Simon Peter,' or 'Peter,' or but rarely as 'Simon' only. Without pausing to consider the slightness of this evidence, etc.' [19:1]
Now the fact is, that the Fourth Evangelist never once distinguishes this John as 'the Baptist,' though such is his common designation in the other Gospels; and the only person, in whom the omission would be natural, is his namesake John the son of Zebedee. Hence 'apologists' lay great stress on this fact, as an evidence all the more valuable, because it lies below the surface, and they urge with force, that this subtle indication of authorship is inconceivable as the literary device of a forger in the second century. We cannot wonder, however, if our author considers this evidence so slight that he will not even pause upon it, when he has altogether distorted it by a mis-statement of fact. But it is instructive to trace his error to its source. Turning to Credner, to whom the author gives a reference in a footnote, I find this writer stating that the Fourth Evangelist
'Has not found it necessary to distinguish John the Baptist from the Apostle John his namesake _even so much as once_ (auch nur ein einziges Mal) by the addition [Greek: ho baptistês].' [19:2]
So then our author has stumbled over that little word 'nur,' and his German has gone the way of his Greek and his Latin [19:3]. But the error is instructive from another point of view. This argument happens to be a commonplace of 'apologists.' How comes it then, that he was not set right by one or other of these many writers, even if he could not construe Credner's German? Clearly this cannot be the work which the reviewers credit with an 'exhaustive' knowledge of the literature of the subject. I may be asked indeed to explain how, on this theory of mistaken identity which I here put forward, the work reviewed by the critics came to be displaced by the work before me, so that no traces of the original remain. But this I altogether decline to do, and I plead authority for refusing. 'The merely negative evidence that our actual [_Supernatural Religion_] is not the work described by [the Reviewers] is sufficient for our purpose.' [20:1]