Compare the First Epistle of St.John, chap.i.3, 5.] A primary distinction, indeed, ought to be made in the Gospel of John.
On the one side, this Gospel presents us with a rough draft of the life of Jesus, which differs considerably from that of the synoptics.
On the other, it puts into the mouth of Jesus discourses of which the tone, the style, the treatment, and the doctrines have nothing in common with the _Logia_ given us by the synoptics.

In this second respect, the difference is such that we must make choice in a decisive manner.

If Jesus spoke as Matthew represents, he could not have spoken as John relates.

Between these two authorities no critic has ever hesitated, or can ever hesitate.

Far removed from the simple, disinterested, impersonal tone of the synoptics, the Gospel of John shows incessantly the preoccupation of the apologist--the mental reservation of the sectarian, the desire to prove a thesis, and to convince adversaries.[1] It was not by pretentious tirades, heavy, badly written, and appealing little to the moral sense, that Jesus founded his divine work.