Clement was not the first to recognize the distinctive character of the Fourth Gospel: his words were designed to set at rest the anxieties of those for whom that distinctiveness threatened to split the harmony of the Gospel witness: properly understood, he suggests, the four Gospels, John included, speak with a single voice, inspired by the Spirit and by the consensus of apostolic testimony. Yet, it may be said, the dilemma he betrays and the answer he gives have continued to dog the Gospel throughout its subsequent history. Clement's claim, then, and specifically the epithet ‘spiritual’, may still provide a guide for asking ‘how John writes’.

We may begin by asking whether ‘spiritual’ is a description of Johannine distinctiveness or an explanation. As a description it might be replaced by other terms; so, some have held the Gospel to be more ‘theological’, perhaps an epithet supported by the title ‘the theologian’, which at an early date was bestowed upon its putative author, the apostle John.