The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 58

Surely the endeRvonr to separate the authorship of the First Epistle from that or tl1e Fourth Gospt·l hrcnks down at every point. The Epistle is in all probability nn appendix to the Gosrcl, writtennta still nwrc advanced age thnu was the 11,rentol' document. It hRs t.hrown the light of the life of Christ upon the society which was emerging from the ruins of the entire Jewish system. It commends the lo\'G of God; it opens the prosp!'Ct of eterual life and personal resemblance to the glorified Lord. It brings the t@ching of the night of the rnssion from the upper chamber, whero nil wns strange expectancy, into the experience of believers in the accomplished promisrs of God; nnd it does 1,0 with ccrtRin striking revelations of personal character which help tho idcutificn- t.ion of the disciple whom Jesus loved.with the son of Zebedee and the Son of Thunder. This is conspicuous if the following passages be considered: eh. i. 10; ii. 4, 5-11, 16, 18, 19, 22; iii. 4-, 6, 8, 12, 15; iv. 3; v. 10, 16, 21. In these verses the spirit which was ready to call fire from hea,·en upon the unbelieving Samaritans, and which forebado the miraclc>-worker to proceed because he followed not the apostles, is undeniably present; while in every verse of the Epistle there breathes the spirit of close intimacy with Jesus, and a most vivid appreciation of the last and noblest manifestation of the ett!rnal love. Holtzmann, 'Einleitung' (1885), p. 4.63, etc., though referring to the points of difference between the teaching of the two documents, admits the identity of authorship; but seems undecided as to their relative priority. This leads us to the Second and Third Epist'les of John, so far as they reveal the diarader qf their author. There is by no means so gen~ral an assent either to the apostolic origin of these Epistles or even to their canonicity, and many advocates of the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel are not prepared to admit that they proceeded from the author either of the Gospel or the First Epistle. The brevity of these Epistles mny account for their absence in the Peschito Syriac, and the silence of the apostolic Fathers,-yet on the other hand, Ephrem Syrus quotes them ; and their private character may have kept them from general circulation as sacred writings,-yet so early as the date of Clemens Alexandrinus that Father writes, "The Second Epistle of John, which is written to virgins, is very simple; it was indeed addressed to a certain Babylonian lady called Electa. 1 " In Strom. ii. p. 264 he speaks of "the greater Epistle," showing that he knew of two. Ver. 1l is quoted by Irenreus (' Adv. Hrer.,' i. 16. 3): "John, the disciple of the Lord, pronounced their condemnation, having counselled them that salutation should not be uttered by you to them," etc.; further he quotes vers. 7 and 8 as part of the First Epistle. So that the Second Epistle was known and regarded as the Apostle John's composition t.owards the close of the second century by lea.ding Fathers in Alexandria and Gaul. Origen did not speak positively of the apostolic ori;in of the Second and Third Epistles. He says (Eusebius, 'Hist. Eccl.,' -vi. 25) that "all do not ad.mi t that they are his very own ( 'l""!O'lous)." His pupil, Dionysius of Alexandria, quoted both the Second and Third Epistles as written by John, iu proof that John could not be the author of the .Apocalypse (Eusebius, 'Hist. Eccl.,' vii. 25). Eusebiw. himself speal;s of the Second and Third Epistles as "named after John, whether that of the evangelist or of some other person of the like name" (' Hist. Eccl.,' iii. 25). Thus he reckoned them among the antilegomena somewhat doubtfully. The Muratorian Canon leaves it doubtful whether the writer meant the Second and 'l.'hird, or the First and Second Epistles, as part of bis canon of orthodox Scripture. They were rejected by Theodore of Mopsuestia. 'l.'heodoret does not mention them. .Arter Euse- bius their canonicity is unquestioned, though their apostolic origin is still open to doubt. Jerome (ill his' De Viris lllus.,' s.v. • Papias,' 18), referring to the fragment of Papias (pre- served by Eusebius (' Hu;t. Eccl.,' iii. 39), in which John the elder and Aristion are spoken of as µ.aD,rrai of Christ, recounts the tradition, held by some, that the Second and Third Epistles were the work of the presbyter, not of the -apostle, and in c. ix., ibid., in the remarks concerning John the apostle, Jerome refers again t.o the same tradition, lllld says that the sepulchre .of the prt'sbyter as well as that of John tho apostle were shown in his day at Ephesus. Still, he adds, "Some think that the two (memori1e) 1 This ii! found in the 'Adumbrationes in Epis. Joannie ii,,' p. 1011.  TIIE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOUN.