This is a historical-critical study in which John and 1 John both figure. Its purpose is to propose and explore an alternative to the commonly-held view that the epistle is directly related to the gospel. The first chapter is an attempt to establish that the relation between the two is, in fact, indirect by virtue of their common reliance on the Johannine Christian tradition. On that basis, it is claimed that 1 John can provide a secure and effective means of isolating tradition in the evangelist's text and thus significantly improve our chances of understanding the creative processes which gave shape to the finished piece. In the remaining four chapters, that claim is put to the test in the case of John's account of the raising of Lazarus. Chapters 2 to 4 deal with three separate aspects of the narrative in chapter 11 in which appeal to 1 John serves in each case to identify the tradition which is being expounded. In the final chapter, a description of the making of the Lazarus story in its entirety is attempted by combining the findings of the three studies using 1 John with what can be deduced by comparison with other resources of a narrative type in the Synoptics and elsewhere in John's gospel. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the results of the research and some indication of other areas of study of the gospel in which `the Johannine connection' could be used to effect.