I have argued (conjectured?) elsewhere my opinion that Simon of Cyrene was indeed the Beloved disciple and that the Synoptics were merely moving him further down the trough, as it were. Curious that John doesn't have Simon of Cyrene, proper, only Lazarus. To me this signifies the Johannine priority behind the Synoptics, because they would have to create a proxy for Lazarus to take over for Christ (prefigured in the passion), while John knows of no Simon figure.
And who else argued previously that John was in fact the Christ? Me.
As for John of Gischala, I have trouble reconciling much of Life with the rest of Josephus. Josephus is just another made up proxy. Though I do think that John was involved in military and zealot activities, but during the Kitos uprising.