a Parousia (3'- ' 2™). There is no express mention, it is true, of the Ilcsun-ection. But it is impUtd in what is said of the J'ltroiiA-in and the Judijincnt, the fact of a great .Judgment in the future being stated in express terms (4"). The tilings of the End may occupy a sm.aller place in this En. than in the writings of St. Peter and St. Paul. Itiit alongside the present conditions which are expressed by the same words, the 'coming' of Christ, the 'judg- ment,' the ' life eternal' appear also as events of tlie end and as final conditions. These are, in brief, the main ideas of the Epistle. They have an important bearing, as will be seen, on the (luestion of the authorship of the writing. See also art JoH.v (Life and Theology of).
4. Form and Structure. — There are certain ques- tions relating to the form and construction of the Epistle. They are matters of subordinate im- portance, which have had a consideration given them that is much beyond their merits. One of these is the question whether this writing is really an Epistle or something else. The fact that it has neither an introduction nor a conclusion, such as we find in other NT Epp., neither a greeting nor a lienediction nor a doxology, such as we get in tlio Pauline Epp., together witli the circumstance that in much of its matter it does not run in terms of direct address, has led some to deny it the char- acter of a letter, and to speak of it as a homiletical essay or a pastoral (Reuss, Westcott), a lihdliu rather than an Epistle (Bengel), a manual of doctrine (Heidegger), a treatise (.Micliaelis), a prac- tical or polemical composition meant to form part of the Gospel (Berger, Storr). But if it wants the usual form of superscription and greeting, it has an equivalent resembling the opening of the Ep. to the Hebrews. If it has not the liind of con- clusion, or the doxology, with which we are familiar in the Pauline Epp., that is the case also with the Ep. of Janiea. The freedom of the style, the use of sucli direct terms as ' I write unto you,' 'I wrote unto you,' and the footing on which writer and readers stand to each other all through its contents, show it to be no formal composition or didactic treatise, but an Epistle in the proper sense of the word.
Nor is anything to be gained by applying to 1 Ju such ingenious distinctions as are attempted to lie drawn (e.g. by Deissmann, Bibelstudien) be- tween 'letter' and 'epistle,' and denying it the former designation. If the term ' letter ' were to be restricted, indeed, in common speech to a piece of private correspondence not meant for the public, it might be necessary to speak only of 3 J n as a 'letter,' and to describe 1 Jn and (on a particular interpretation of its address) 2 Jn as ' Ejiistles.' And so some would hold St. Paul's letters to be the only 'letters' in the proper sense in the NT. But there are ' open ' letters as well as closed, encyclical letters as well as personal, letters to communities as well as to individuals. What gives to a composition the character of a letter is its style and contents. And though there is not a little in 1 Jn that might suit an address or dis- course, there is more that fits a letter, especially such a letter as one might write who had both age and honour on his side, and who could write lioth freely and authoritatively. The relations which the writing indicates between writer and readers are not distant, but familiar. They are the near relations of those who know each other well.
The question of the structure of the Ep. haa also been much debated. Some have pronounced the writing to be wholly without a plan, and to consist simply of a number of reflections, counsels, or deliverances loosely put together, without con- tinuity or logical connexion (Calvin, cf. his Argu- mentum Epist. IJoh.; Flacius lilyricus, Episcopus)
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Others have regarded it as a systematic composi- tion, on a dogmatic plan, and with a niethodical arrangement of ideas in all its parts. Bengel, e.g., asserted for it an elaborate contextual plan on a basis mainly Trinitarian. These are e.xtreme opinions, and the truth lies somewhere between tliem. It is impossible to claim for this Ep. the strict logical sequence of thought which some imagine they find in it. But it is at the same time more than a series uf unrelated ideas, a collection of unconnected maxims or aphorisms. There is a certain order in the Ep., due to the object with whiih it is declared to have been written. But it is an order that can be taken only in a broad and general way. Attempts have been made to carry it out in detail ; but they have been only partially successful. Some have distributed the contents of the Ep. into something like eight groups of ideas (Liicke) ; others have fonnd jive main divisions in it, viz. l''-2" 2""" 2^-3-*' Z'-*'0- 4-' 5'""' ( Hofmann, cf. Srhri/lbeiceis ; Luthardt) ; others four, viz. l''-2" 2'3-»' 2'='-32-'' 3=»-5", dealing respectively with the danger of moral inditt'erence, the love of the world and Antichrist, the necessity of a life of brotherly love, and faith as the founda- tion of the Christian life (Uuther). Some, again, have arranged the matter of the Ep. on tlie plan of thrte great exhortations, viz. l'-2^ 2^-4' 4'-5'', with Introduction and Conclusion (de Wette). Others have regarded it as consisting of Introduc- tion, Conclusion, and two great connected sections, vi?.. l'-2^ 2^-5', both parts setting fortli the same subject of fellowship with God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ; but each in its own way — the former havinj^ for its special theme the proposition that God is light, the latter the iiroposition that God is Wj7/(<eoi« (Diisterdieck, Alford). Divisions of a somewhat dillerent kind are also suggested, as, e.g., into three main sections, each with three or four sub-sections, the subjects for these sections being taken to be the ' problem of life and those to whom it is pro[Xjsed,' the 'conflict of truth and falsehood without and within,' and the ' Christian life : the victory of faith ' (Westcott).