" (John xx. 17.) This can only be accounted for
by the supposition that St. John wrote under a sense of the notoriety of
Christ's ascension, among those by whom his book was likely to be read.
The same account must also be given of Saint Matthew's omission of the
same important fact. The thing was very well known, and it did not occur
to the historian that it was necessary to add any particulars concerning
it. It agrees also with this solution, and with no other, that neither
Matthew nor John disposes of the person of our Lord in any manner
whatever. Other intimations in St. John's Gospel of the then general
notoriety of the story are the following: His manner of introducing his
narrative (ch. i. ver. 15.)--"John bare witness of him, and cried,
saying" evidently presupposes that his readers knew who John was. His
rapid parenthetical reference to John's imprisonment, "for John was not
yet cast into prison," (John iii, 24.) could only come from a writer
whose mind was in the habit of considering John's imprisonment as
perfectly notorious. The description of Andrew by the addition "Simon
Peter's brother," (John i.
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