there any reason to suppose (with Harnack)[1] that the note of 9
was written to, and suppressed by, him. What the presbyter
is afraid of is not so much that his note would not be read
(Ewald, Harnack), as that it would not be acted upon.
These notes, written originally on small sheets of papyrus, reveal the anonymous presbyter travelling (so Clem. Alex. Quis dives salv. xlii.) in his circuit or diocese of churches, and writing occasional pastoral letters, in which he speaks not only in his own name but in that of a coterie of like-minded Christians.[2] It is otherwise with the brochure or manifesto known as the “first epistle.” This was written neither at the request of its readers nor to meet any definite local emergency, but on the initiative of its author (i. 4) who was evidently concerned about the effect produced upon the Church in general by certain contemporary phases of semi-gnostic teaching. The polemic is directed against a dualism which developed theoretically into docetic views of Christ’s person (ii. 22, iv. 2, &c.), and practically into libertinism (ii. 4, &c.).[3] It is natural to think, primarily, of the churches in Asia Minor as the circle addressed, but all indications of date or place are absent, except those which may be inferred from its inner connexion with the Fourth Gospel.
The plan of the brochure is unstudied and unpremeditated, resembling a series of variations upon one or two favourite themes rather than a carefully constructed melody. Fellowship (κοινωνία) with God and man is its dominant note. After defining the essence of Christian κοινονία (i. 1–3),[4] the writer passes on to its conditions (i. 5–ii. 17), under the antithesis of light and darkness. These conditions are twofold: (a) a sense of sin, which leads Christians to a sense of forgiveness[5] through Jesus Christ, (b) and obedience to the supreme law of brotherly love (cf. Ignat. Ad Smyrn. 6). If these conditions are unfulfilled, moral darkness is the issue, a darkness which spells ruin to the soul. This prompts the writer to explain the dangers of κοινωνία (ii. 18–29), under the antithesis of truth and falsehood, the immediate peril being a novel heretical view of the person of
Christ. The characteristics of the fellowship are then developed (iii. 1–12), as sinlessness and brotherly love, under the antithesis of children of God (cf. ii. 29, “born of Him”) and children of the devil. This brotherly love bulks so largely in the writer’s mind that he proceeds to enlarge upon its main elements of confidence towards God (iii. 13–24), moral discernment (iv. 1–6), and assurance of union with God (iv. 7–21), all these being bound up with a true faith in Jesus as the Christ (v. 1–12).[6] A brief epilogue gives what is for the most part a summary (v. 13–21) of the leading ideas of the homily.[7]
Disjointed as the cause of the argument may seem, a close scrutiny of the context often reveals a subtle connexion between paragraphs which at first sight appear unlinked. Thus the idea of the κόσμος passing away (ii. 17) suggests the following sentences upon the nearness of the παρούσια (ii. 18 seq.), whose signs are carefully noted in order to reassure believers, and whose moral demands are underlined (ii. 28, iii. 3). Within this paragraph[8] even the abrupt mention of the χρίσμα has its genetical place (ii. 20). The heretical ἀντίχριστοι, it is implied, have no χρίσμα from God; Christians have (note the emphasis on ὑμεῖς), owing to their union with the true Χρίστος. Again, the genetic relation of iii. 4 seq. to what precedes becomes evident when we consider that the norm of Christian purity (iii. 3) is the keeping of the divine commandments, or conduct resembling Christ’s on earth (iii. 3–ii. 4–6), so that the Gnostic[9] breach of this law not only puts a man out of touch with Christ (iii. 6 seq.), but defeats the very end of Christ’s work, i.e. the abolition of sin (iii. 8). Thus iii. 7–10 resumes and completes the idea of ii. 29; the Gnostic is shown to be out of touch with the righteous God, partly because he will not share the brotherly love which is the expression of the righteousness, and partly because his claims to sinlessness render God’s righteous forgiveness (i. 9) superfluous. Similarly the mention of the Spirit (iii. 24) opens naturally into a discussion of the decisive test for the false claims of the heretics or gnostic illuminati to spiritual powers and gifts (iv. 1 seq.); and, as this test of the genuine Spirit of God is the confession of Jesus Christ as really human and incarnate, the writer, on returning (in iv. 17 seq.) to his cardinal idea of brotherly love, expresses it in view of the incarnate Son (iv. 9),
- ↑ In his ingenious study (Texte und Untersuchungen, xv. 3), whose main contention is adopted by von Dobschütz and Knopf. On this view (for criticism see Belser in the Tübing. Quartalschrift, 1897, pp. 150 seq., Krüger in Zeitschrift für die wiss. Theologie, 1898, pp. 307–311, and Hilgenfeld: ibid. 316–320), Diotrephes was voicing a successful protest of the local monarchical bishops against the older itinerant authorities (cf. Schmiedel, Ency. Bib., 3146–3147). As Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (Hermes, 1898, pp. 529 seq.) points out, there is a close connexion between ver. 11 and ver. 10. The same writer argues that, as the substitution of ἀγαπήτος for φίλτατος (ver. 1) “ist Schönrednerei und nicht vom besten Geschmacke,” the writer adds ὅν ἐγὼ ἀγαπῶ ἐν ἀληθείᾳ.
- ↑ This is the force of the ἡμεῖς in 3 John 9–10 (cf. 1 John iv. 6, 14) “The truth” (3 John 3–5) seems to mean a life answering to the apostolic standard thus enforced and exemplified.
- ↑ Several of these traits were reproduced in the teaching of Cerinthus, others may have been directly Jewish or Jewish Christian. The opposition to the Messianic rôle of Jesus had varied adherents. The denial of the Virgin-birth, which also formed part of the system of Cerinthus, was met by anticipation in the stories of Matthew and Luke, which pushed back the reception of the spirit from the baptism to the birth, but the Johannine school evidently preferred to answer this heresy by developing the theory of the Logos, with its implicate of pre-existence.
- ↑ On the vexed question whether the language of this paragraph is purely spiritual or includes a realistic reference, cf. G. E. Findlay (Expositor, 1893, pp. 97 seq.), and Dr E. A. Abbott’s recent study in Diatessarica, §§ 1615–1620. The writer is controverting the Docetic heresy, and at the same time keeping up the line of communications with the apostolic base.
- ↑ The universal range (ii. 2) ascribed to the redeeming work of Christ is directed against Gnostic dualism and the Ebionitic narrowing of salvation to Israel; only ἡμεῖς here denotes Christians in general, not Jewish Christians. On the answer to the Gnostic pride of perfectionism (i. 8), cf. Epict. iv. 12, 19. The emphasis on “you all” (ii. 20) hints at the Gnostic aristocratic system of degrees among believers, which naturally tended to break up brotherly love (cf. 1 Cor. viii. 1 seq.). The Gnostics also held that a spiritual seed (cf. iii. 9) was implanted in man, as the germ of his higher development into the divine life; for the Valentinian idea cf. Iren. Adv. Haer. i. 64, and Tertull. De anima, 11 [haeretici] “nescio quod spiritale semen infulciunt animae”. Cf. the general discussions by Häring in Theologische Abhandlungen C. von Weizsäcker gewidmet (1892), pp. 188 seq., and Zahn in Wanderungen durch Schrift u. Geschichte (1892), pp. 3–74.
- ↑ Cf. Denney, The Death of Christ (1902), pp. 269–281. The polemical reference to Cerinthus is specially clear at this point. The death of Jesus was not that of a phantom, nor was his ministry from the baptism to the crucifixion that of a heavenly aeon which suffered nothing: such is the writer’s contention. “In every case the historical is asserted, but care is taken that it shall not be materialized: a primacy is given to the spiritual.... Except through the historical, there is no Christianity at all, but neither is there any Christianity till the historical has been spiritually comprehended.” The well-known interpolation of the three heavenly witnesses (v. 7) has now been proved by Karl Künstle (Das Comma Johanneum, 1905) to have originally come from the pen of the 4th century Spaniard, Priscillian, who himself denied all distinctions of person in the Godhead.
- ↑ On the “sin to death” (v. 16) cf. Jubilees xxi. 22, xxvi. 34 with Karl’s Johann. Studien (1898), i. 97 seq. and M. Goguel’s La Notion johannique de l’esprit (1902), pp. 147–153, for the general theology of the epistle. The conceptions of light and life are best handled by Grill in his Untersuchungen über die Entstehung des vierten Evgliums (1902), pp. 301 seq., 312 seq.
- ↑ In Preuschen’s Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft (1907), pp. 1–8, von Dobschütz tries to show that the present text of ii. 28–iii. 12 indicates a revision or rearrangement of an earlier text. Cludius (Uransichten des Christentums, Altona, 1808) had already conjectured that a Gnostic editor must have worked over a Jewish Christian document.
- ↑ Dr Alois Wurm’s attempt (Die Irrlehrer im ersten Johannesbriefe, 1903) to read the references to errorists solely in the light of Jewish Christianity ignores or underrates several of the data. He is supported on the whole by Clemen, in Preuschen’s Zeitschrift (1905), pp. 271–281. There is certainly an anti-Jewish touch, e.g. in the claim of iii. 1 (note the emphatic ἡμῖν), when one recollects the saying of Aqiba (Aboth iii. 12) and Philo’s remark, καὶ γὰρ εἰ μήπω ἴκανοι θεοῦ παῖδες νομίζεσθαι γεγόναμεν, ἀλλά τοι τῆς ἀειδοῦς εἰκόνος αὐτοῦ, λόγου τοῦ ἱερωτ άτου θεοῦ γὰρ εἰκὼν λόγος ὁ πρεσβύτατος (De conf. ling. 28). But the antithesis of John and Cerinthus, unlike that of Paul and Cerinthus (Epiph. Haer. xxviii.), is too well based in the tradition of the early Church to be dismissed as a later dogmatic reflection, and the internal evidence of this manifesto corroborates it clearly.
