If, then, this work is not really by the apostle, we must admit a fraud of which the author convicts himself.

Now, although the ideas of the time respecting literary honesty differed essentially from ours, there is no example in the apostolic world of a falsehood of this kind.
Besides, not only does the author wish to pass for the apostle John, but we see clearly that he writes in the interest of this apostle.

On each page he betrays the desire to fortify his authority, to show that he has been the favorite of Jesus;[1] that in all the solemn circumstances (at the Lord's supper, at Calvary, at the tomb) he held the first place.

His relations on the whole fraternal, although not excluding a certain rivalry with Peter;[2] his hatred, on the contrary, of Judas,[3] a hatred probably anterior to the betrayal, seems to pierce through here and there.

We are tempted to believe that John, in his old age, having read the Gospel narratives, on the one hand, remarked their various inaccuracies,[4] on the other, was hurt at seeing that there was not accorded to him a sufficiently high place in the history of Christ; that then he commenced to dictate a number of things which he knew better than the rest, with the intention of showing that in many instances, in which only Peter was spoken of, he had figured with him and even before him.[5] Already during the life of Jesus, these trifling sentiments of jealousy had been manifested between the sons of Zebedee and the other disciples.