that the fourth Gospel is not historical. This is not true, nor was this Clement’s intended meaning. Clement was not saying that John was less historical than the other three Gospel narratives, but that they handled more the “bodily” events that could be seen. John went further to probe the significance in the spiritual realm of God’s existence and the true life of man as a child of God. When one looks into the Gospel of John, he finds that the opening of the narrative goes back before the beginning