1

church in the arms of his disciples. He was unable to address them at length, but was accustomed to stretch forth his hands to his disciples and to exclaim, Little children, love one another. At length his hearers, being wearied with hearing him always repeat the same words, asked him, Master, why dost thou always speak thus? His reply was: It is the Lord's command, and if only this be done it is enough."

2. The Authenticity of the Epistle. The external evidence to prove that the Apostle John wrote this letter is strong and conclusive. Polycarp (116 A. D.), the disciple of John, refers to it in his letter to the Philippians (chap. vii.), Papias (120 A. D.), a hearer of John, and an associate of Polycarp, made use of it (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. III. 39), Irenæus (180 A. D.) mentions this Epistle and "cites many testimonies from it" (Euseb. H. E. V. 8). This evidence of Irenæus has a double value, first, because he was a disciple of Polycarp, who was himself a pupil of John, and secondly, because Irenæus gives such clear testimony to the authenticity of the Gospel of John. For it is now generally admitted by critics of all schools that the author of the Fourth Gospel wrote also what is known as I John, so that the evidence of the genuineness of the one may be used as evidence of the genuineness of the other. It is mentioned in the Muratorian Canon (170 A. D.) as written by John, and this Epistle is included in the oldest versions of the East (the Peshito) and of the West (Old Italic), and in all the Catalogues of the books of Scripture. It is quoted by Clement of Alexandria (190 A. D.) and by Tertullian (200 A. D.), the earliest Fathers of Africa whose writings have come down to us. Eusebius (325 A. D.) speaks of the Epistle as being universally acknowledged as genuine (H. E. III. 25); and there is no reason whatever to ques

tion the genuineness of the Epistle, as has been done by the Tuebingen school. Equally strong and convincing is the internal evidence obtained by a close comparison of the Epistle with the Gospel of John, for there is a striking resemblance between the two. Not only is there a strong similarity of expression, but no less than thirty-five passages are common to the Fourth Gospel and this Epistle. Long lists of these parallelisms are given by Eichhorn, Guericke, Alexander, Westcott, Plummer, and others. Westcott also calls attention to the fact that the writer of the Epistle speaks throughout with the authority of an Apostle. He claims naturally and simply an immediate knowledge of the fundamental facts of the Gospel (i. I; iv. 14), and that special knowledge which was possessed only by the most intimate disciples of the Lord (i. 1)."1

3. The Persons Addressed. The question has often been discussed whether I John is to be regarded as an Epistle or a small treatise. Many suppose it to be a brief didactic discourse or a Pastoral letter. Westcott favors this view: "Perhaps we can best look at the writing not as a letter called out by any particular circumstance, but as a Pastoral addressed to those who had been carefully trained and had lived long in the faith; and, more particularly, to those who were familiar either with the teaching contained in the Fourth Gospel or with the record itself." Though it has not the specific marks of a letter, its substance is that of an epistle. It may be regarded as a circular letter, a pastoral addressed primarily to the circle of Asiatic churches, of which Ephesus was the centre. Such was the view of all the early Fathers, Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian. From the fact that all the

1 The Epistles of St. John, p. xxxi.

35

churches of Proconsular Asia were chiefly composed of Gentile Churches, and as there are no quotations from the O. T., we may infer that the letter was addressed mainly to Gentile Christians, and from its contents we learn that the readers had been carefully instructed in the doctrines and duties of Christianity and had already lived long in the faith.

4. Time and Place of Writing. We have no direct evidence to show when and where the Epistle was written. But the indirect evidence, both internal and external, points to a late period of the Apostolic age. It is most probable that the Apocalypse, the Gospel, and the Epistles of John were all composed about the same time, and ancient tradition is unanimous in affirming that John spent the last twenty years of his life in Ephesus as his usual residence. It is highly probable that the Epistle was written after the Gospel. "The circumstances of the Christian Society point clearly to a late date, and this may be fixed with reasonable likelihood in the last decade of the first century. The later years of St. John were spent in Ephesus; and, in the absence of any other indication, it is natural to suppose that it was written there" (WESTCOTT).

5. Relation of the Epistle to the Gospel of John. The close connection between the Epistle and the Gospel of John has been universally recognized. Some even have maintained that the Epistle was written with a designed reference to the Gospel,—as a preface and introduction. to the Gospel, or as a supplement and postscript, or else that it was a companion volume, if not a comment upon the Gospel. PLUMMER: "The Epistle appears to have been intended as a companion to the Gospel, as a comment on the Gospel, 'a sermon with the Gospel for its text.' St. John's Gospel has been called a sum

mary of Christian Theology, his first Epistle a summary of Christian Ethics. This classification will help us to give definiteness to the statement that the Epistle was written to be a companion to the Gospel. They both supply us with the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But in the Gospel these are given as the foundations of the Christian's faith; in the Epistle they are given as the foundation of the Christian's life. . . . We may in summary say that the Gospel is objective, the Epistle subjective; the one is historical, the other moral; the one gives us the theology of the Christ, the other the ethics of the Christian; the one is didactic, the other polemical; the one states the truth as a thesis, the other as an antithesis; the one starts from the human side, the other from the divine; the one proves that the Man Jesus is the Son of God, the other insists that the Son of God is come in the flesh. But the connection between the two is intimate and organic throughout. The Gospel sug

gests principles of conduct which the Epistle lays down explicitly; the Epistle implies facts which the Gospel states as historically true." On the whole, however, it is best to regard these two works of the same author, though composed about the same time, as independent of each other, and each one complete in itself. A close comparison also establishes the fact that the polemical element, hardly noticeable in the Gospel, is stronger in the Epistle.

Wordsworth calls

6. The Character of the Epistle. attention to the fact that each of the General Epistles has a special character of its own, and that it was John's special office in this Epistle to defend the doctrine of the Incarnation against the heresies affecting the doctrine of the two natures of Christ united in one Person, which already had sprung up in Apostolic times, and against

which Paul had given solemn warning in his farewell charge to the Elders of Ephesus (Acts xx. 28-30). No one could be better qualified for this work than John, for he had been admitted into the closest intimacy with the Incarnate Word, and had seen Christ die on the cross, and had beheld His pierced side, from which "there came out blood and water" (John xix. 34). The very surroundings under which John wrote, the heresies with which he had to contend, gave the special character to his Epistle. These heresies were mainly four: (1) The heresy of the Ebionites-that Jesus was a mere man; (2) the heresy of Cerinthus-that Christ was an æon or emanation from God who descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism, but left Him again before His crucifixion; (3) the heresy of the Docete, of whom Simon Magus was the leader,that Christ had no real body, but that He suffered merely in appearance; and (4) the heresy of the Nicolaitanswho as far as we can learn were Gentile Christians carried away by Antinomianism and Libertinism, abusing Paul's doctrine of Christian freedom.

Of all commentators Plummer develops the characteristics of the Epistle in the most sympathetic manner: "Two characteristics will strike every serious reader,— the almost oppressive majesty of the thoughts which are put before us, and the extreme simplicity of the language in which they are expressed. The most profound mysteries in the Divine scheme of redemption, the spiritual and moral relations between God, the human soul, the world, and the evil one, and the fundamental principles of Christian Ethics, are all stated in words which any intelligent child can understand. Their ease and simplicity and repose irresistibly attract us. Even the unwilling ear is arrested and listens. We are held as by a spell.

"Another characteristic is its finality. As St. John's