From letter to spirit Author:Edwin Abbott Abbott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: -; INTRODUCTION I ON THE HONESTY OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL Apart from other subordinate objects, enumerated in a subsequent Introduction of a more personal n... more »ature, the aim of this work is to demonstrate the honesty, and the historical as well as the spiritual worth, of what is commonly called "The Gospel according to St John." Evidence prevents me from believing that it was written by the son of Zebedee or by any eye-witness of the acts of our Lord, and forces me o suspect or deny the literal accuracy of some of its statements; but I most earnestly desire to help unlearned as well as perhaps some learned readers to discern the impassable gulf that separates this sublime production from a merely false and ignoble forgery like the so-called " Second Epistle of St Peter1." Nearly five and twenty years ago, while writing an article on "Gospels" for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and circulating the proof-sheets among friends, availing myself of criticism from any quarter that promised frankness, ability, spiritual insight, and critical knowledge, I trespassed upon the leisure of one of the most able journalists and essayists of the last century, with whom, though my personal acquaintance did not extend beyond a single conversation of a quarter of an 1 See Appendix V. chapter{Section 4hour, I had the privilege of an occasional epistolary correspondence. His reply, after reading and often re-reading, I have recently mislaid or destroyed; but I am certain of its substance and almost certain of two of its key-words. In effect, it pronounced the Fourth Gospel worthless unless written by an eye-witness: in detail, it contained (I think) the word " forgery" and (I am almost sure) the epithet " impudent". My correspondent was then what would perhaps be called a Broad Churchman,...« less