The arguments in favour of the non-apostolic origin of the Ep. are far from convincing. Even were they much more so than they are, they could not prevail against the historical evidence. For that is peculiarly strong. The entire witness of antiquity (with the solitary exceptions already referred to in the cases of Cosmas and I.,eontius) from the time of Eusebius is for the Johannine authorship. Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, and others attest it. Jerome, speak- ing of the Apostle John, in his Oitalnr/ue of Ecclesiastical Writers (ch. 9), says of him : ' Scripsit autem et unam epistolam, cujus exordium est, Quod fuit ah initio . . . quie ab universis ecclesi- asticis et eruditis viris probatur.' Eusebius him- self places it among the Homologoumena (HE iii. 25), and ascribes it to John (HE iii. 24, 25). Travelling back from these declarations, we find Dionysius, the scholar of Origen, citing the words of the Ep. as those of the evangelist, and reason- ing against the Johannine origin of the Apoc. from its unlikeness to the Ep. in style and language (Euseb. HE vii. 25). We find Origen himself repeatedly quoting it or referring to it as by John (e.g. Ev. Joh. toni. xiii. 21). It is in the Peshitta, and in the Muratorian Fragment, the latter quot- ing the words ' Qute vidimus oculis nostris et auri- bus audivimus et manus nostrae palpaverunt haec seripsimus vobis' as John's. Similar testimony is borne to it by Cyprian (Ep. 25), who quotes 2*- *, by Tertullian (adv. Marc. v. 16 ; adv. Prax. ch. 13, 28: adv. Gnost. 12, etc.), and by Clem. Alex. (Strom. ii. 15, iii. 4, 5, iv. 16). Irena?us, too, quotes the Ep. several times, and ascribes it to John, the Lord's disciple, who also WTote the Gospel (de Heer. iii. 16 ; Euseb. HE v. 8). Further, Papias (who is described by Irenoeus as 'luawov nkv dKoi'aT7)s, YloXv- ndpvov 5' eraTpoi) is reported by Eusebius (HE iii. 39) to have ' used testimonies from Jolin's former Ep.' (k^xPV^^*- 5' ^ avrits fiaprvplats diri ttJs 'ludvvov TrpoT^pas iT!-i(TTo\rji). And Polycarp, the disciple of St. John (ad Philipp. ch. 7), has the sentence irds 7ip is hv /it; ifioKoy-Q 'Itjitow XpiffT&f Iv aapKl {KtjXv- Bivai, ivTlxpt<rr6s (anv ; wliich BO closely resembles 1 Jn 4' that few (though Scholten is of the number) have refused to see in it an eWdence of Polycarp's acqiiaintance with the Epistle.
Whether we can carry the chain of witness further back even than Polycarp's letter, is doubtful. It depends chiefly on the date to which the DidacfU is referred, and on the view taken of certain sentences in it. The Ep. appears to be known, indeed, to the WTJterof the Ep. to Dioioietus ; but the date of that writing, which is placed by Lightfoot (St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, i. 517) between A.D. 117 and 130, is uncertain. 'Traces of it have also been found by some in Justin Martyr, the Ep. of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hernias, and the Epistles of Ignatius. But these are iiot definite enough to prove ac-
quaintance with the tcriting. They may indicate no more than the use of terms which were common to all Christians, or to certain circles of Christians, at the time. But in the Didachi we have, perhaps, something more. In chs. x., xi., e.g., we find tlia phrase reXadaai aiTi^jV iv t^ d7dirj; tjov ; irapeXd'^rw 6 k6(tplos o^« ; Trdt 5^ ■irpo(pn/fnjs StSoKi^jiafffUi'OS. Tiiese remind us of the TereXfiwrat iv d7dirjj of our Ep, (4'*) and the parallel phrases in 2* 4"- " ; of the 6 k/ktjxo! Tapiyerai of 2" (a very similar forn. occurs, however, also in St. Paul, 1 Co 7''") ; and of the SoKt/tdi'rre tA Tvev/xara. of 4*. If these are re- garded as reminiscences of the words of the Ep., and not simply as proofs of acquaintance with John's teaching, it may be, in oral form, and if the DidactU can be referred to the closing j-ears of the first century or the opening years of the second, we have a witness earlier even than Polycarjj.
■To this must be added the argument drawn from the relation in which Gosjiel and Ep. stand to each other. If it can be sliown that the two writings are by one hand, then all that goes to prove the Gospel to be the work of the evangelist John goes to prove the Ep. to be his also. This question, whether the autlior of the Gospel also wrote the Ep., is answered in tlie negative by the Tubingen critics generally. In support of that position it is urged that the two writings ditl'er radically in their attitude to the OT law, in their view of the person of Christ, in their doctrines of the Holy Spirit and the work of Olirist, in their eschatology, and in their general mode of thought. The Ep., it is said, stands 'in a more intimate relationship ' to the law than is the case with the Gospel. But in point of fact tliere is no mention of the vi^ot in tne Ep., and the passages which are supposed to have it specially in view have another application. It does not appear that in the use of the term ivopila. in 3* it is the Mosaic law that is particularly in view, or that the iir dpx^t in 2'- * refers specially to the OT law of love. The idea of a personal Logos, again, which is found in the Prologue to the Gospel, is thought to be foreign to the Epistle. But if we have not the term 6 Xtryoi, we have the phrase 6 Xi7os rrii for^f in the introduction to the Ep. ; and, even if it ia allowed to be a question whether the latter phrase has the same sense as the former, we have a similar conception of the superhuman, pre-temporal, personal being of Christ in the terms ' life ' and ' Son of God ' as they appear in the Epistle. 'The Holy Spirit, it is further urged, is not presented as He IS in the Gospel in personal relations, of which the use of the neuter term xP^a/io. is supposed to be a proof. But the term xp^nfui is an easily under- stood term for a particular gift or operation of the Holy One ; and the ' witness ' whicn is said to be borne by the Spirit (5'), which is also aserbed to the Spirit by Christ in the Fourth Gospel (15"), points to the harmony of the two writings on the subject of the personality of the Holy (Jhost.