JOHN
)51
JOHN
Godet, Commentaire (vol. i, 18G4, 8vo) ; Eyle, T/wuffhts (Loncl. 1865-6, 2 vols. 8vo) ; Anon. Erlduterung (Berlin, 1860, 8vo) ; Von Burger, ErMdrnmj (Nordl. 1867, 8vo) ; Koffliack, AusUrjung (Leipzig, 1871, 2 vols. 8vo). See Gospels.
JOHN, FIRST EPISTLE OF, the most important of the so-called catholic or " general" Epistles, of which it is the fourth in order. See Bible, vol. i, p. 800, col. 2.
I, Its A iithenticity.- — That this is the production of the same author as wrote the fourth (iospel is so manifest that it has universally been admitted (comp. HauflF, Die A tUhentie ii. der kohe Werth des Evavg. Johan. p. 137 sq.). The establishment of the genuineness of the one, there- fore, involves the admission of that of the other. The evidence, however, in favor of the Epistle is sufficient to establish its claims, apart from its relation to the Gospel. See § 7, below.
1. External. — Eusebius informs us that Papias knew and made use of it (H. E, iii, 39) ; Polycarp quotes a pas- sage (iv, 3) from it in his Epistle to the Philippians, ch. vii; Irenaeus uses it (comp. .4rf('. //rrr. iii. 15; v, 8, with 1 John ii, 18 ; iv, 1, 3 ; v, 1) ; it is quoted or referred to by Clement of Alexandria [Strom. ii,389) and Tertullian (Scorjnac. c. 22 ; .4 dr. Pi-ax. c. 1 5) ; and luisebius assures us that it was universally and always acknowledged in the Church (//. E. iii, 25, 26). It is found in the Peshito and in all the ancient versions, and is included in every catalogue of the canonical books which has come down to us (Lardner, WorTcs, vi, 584). In fact, the onh' per- sons \\\\Q appear not to have recognised this Epistle are the ancient heretics, the Alogi and the Marcionitcs, the latter of whom were acquainted with none of the writ- ings of John, and the former rejected them all, ascribing them to Cerinthus, not upon critical, but purely arbitrary and dogmatical grounds.
2. With this the internal evidence fulh' accords. The work is anonjTnous, but the apostle John is plainly indi- cated throughout as the writer. The author asserts that he had been an immediate disciple of Jesus, and that he testifies what he himself had seen and heard (i, 1-4; iv, 14), and this assumption is sustained through- out in a way so natural and luiaffected that it would be doing violence to all probability to suppose that it could have been attained by one who felt that he was practis- ing in this a deliberate imposition. The circumstances also of the writer to which he alludes, the themes on which he chiefly dwells, and the sjiirit which his writing breathes, are all such as fall in with what we know of the apostle John, and suggest him as the writer. If this be the work of a pretender, he has, as De Wette remarks {Exeget. Hdb.), "shown incredible subtlety in concealing the name of the apostle, whilst he has indirectly, and in a most simple natural way, indicated him as the writer."
A few Cierman theologians in our own times (Lange, Schriften dcs Johan. iii, 4 sq. ; Cludius, Vransichten des Christenth. p. 52 sq. ; Bretschneider, Probahilia, p. 166 sq. ; Zeller, in the Theol. Jahrb. 1845) have been the first crit- ics to throw doubts on the genuineness of any of John's ■\mtings, and this altogether on internal grounds, but they have met with complete refutations from the pens of Bertholdt (vi\ Harmsen (.1 iithent. d. Schr. d. Evangel. Johan.~), and Liicke {Commentar, iii). See above. The only serious objections to the Epistles are those of Bret- schneider, who has equally attacked the genuineness of the Gospel.
(1.) He maintains that the doctrine concerning the Logos, and the anti-docetic tendency of John's 1st Epis- tle, betray an author of the second century, whom he as- sumes to be John the Presltyter. But it is beyond all question, says Liicke (/. c.\ that the Logos doctrine of John, substantially, although not fidly developed, exist- ed in the Jewish theological notions respecting the Son of God, and that we find it distinctly expressed, although in different words, in the Pauline representation of Christ's exalted dignity (compare Coloss. i with Heb. i) ; that the rudiments of it appear in the literature of the Jews, canonical and apocryphal, Chaldaic and Alexandrian ;
that in the time of Christ it was considerably developed in the writings of Philo, and still more strongly in the fathers of the second century, who were so far from re- taining the simjile, Hebraizing, and canonical mode of expression peculiar to John that in them it had assumed a gnostically erudite form, although essentially identical. John intends by the Word {Logos) to express" tlie divine natiu'e of Christ, but the patristic logology attcmjits to determine the relation between the. Logos and the invis- ible God on one side, and the world on the other. The earliest fathers, as Justin Martyr and Tatian, while they make use of John's phraseology, further support their doctrines by ecclesiastical tradition, which, as Liicke ob- serves, must have its root in doctrines that were known in the first centurj-. But, from Theophilus of Antioch downwards, the fathers, mentioning John by name, ex- pressly connect their elucidations with the canonical foundation in the Gospel of John, without the granting of which the language of Justin would be inexplicable (Olshausen, On the Genuineness of the Emir Gospels, p. 306 sq.). ^ Accordingly, adds Liicke, on this side, the authenticity of the Gospel and Epistle remains unassail- able. See Logos.