THE TWO SHORTER EPISTLES OF JOHN.

360. THESE two epistles contain, in all, only twenty-eight verses; but, though their Divine authority is abundantly testified by the most respectable witnesses of Christian antiquity, they were, among many persons, for a time, an object of doubt. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iii, 25) has classed them, as we have said, among the controverted books, though acknowledged, at the same time, by a great number, (τοῖς πολλοῖς.) He seems even to doubt whether they should be attributed to John the Evangelist, or to some other author of the same name, (εἴτε καὶ ἐτέρου ὁμωνύμου.) He quotes, besides, (vi, 25,) a passage from Origen, in a work now lost, where that father, while acknowledging himself these two epistles, has thus spoken of them: — “John, besides his Gospel, has written the Apocalypse;. . . . and he has left an epistle of a very small number of lines, (στίχων.) To this a second and third epistle are added, though all do not say that they are genuine, (οὐ πάντες φασὶ γνησίους εἶναι ταύτας.) But both together have not a hundred very short lines, (πλὴν οὔκ εἶσι στίχων ἀμφότεραι ἑκατόν.)”

361. It is easy to give a satisfactory reason for the reluctance which many felt to admit these two short and late epistles into the canon. They were addressed to individuals; they were remarkably short; and the author never names himself otherwise than by his title of elder, (ὁ πρεσβύτερος, the elder, by eminence.) We shall return to this subject in the following chapter.

362. On the other hand, these two epistles, in their style and thoughts, are so manifestly of the same parentage as the first of John, that we cannot attribute them to any other author. The first and the two last render mutual testimony by the numerous resemblances which the critics have taken pains to point out, and which may be studied in their works;¹ as well as other relations, quite worthy of notice, between these two short epistles and those of James and Peter.²

Besides, it may be asked, what end could a false St John have in forging them? What object could an impostor have in fabricating these two writings, so familiar, and, at the same time, so full of interest, as representing to us, to the very life, the intimate relations of the apostle and the churches? Neither of them advances any doctrines but those of John. They recommend no man, and no party in the Church; they do not insinuate, even in the most distant manner, the least of the errors which the heretics of the time were then sowing plentifully; they breathe only the holy unction and the tender love of John; they are simple and modest, like himself; in a word, they present all the most natural characteristics of reality and truth.

363. Also these two epistles, notwithstanding their extreme brevity, have had the best testimonies of authenticity.

First of all, in the East, from the second century, there is the testimony of Clement of Alexandria, to whom so much credit has been given in sacred criticism. He received them both as the divinely-inspired writings of the apostle John,³ and even wrote commentaries on them.⁴ Then, in the West, in the same century, there is the testimony of the Canon, attributed by many to Caius, a presbyter of Rome, and published, for the first time, by Muratori⁵ These are his words. He had before cited the First Epistle of John; and adds, “Epistola sanè Judae et superscripti Joannts duae in catholica habentur.” Our epistles have, besides, in their favour in the East and West, the suffrage of Irenæus. Though the first contains only thirteen verses, we find it quoted twice by this Father. It is well known how much weight his education in Asia, near Polycarp, and his long sojourn in the very places where John resided to his death, give to his testimony, when it relates to this apostle. But, in his first book, (chap. xvi. art. 3,) he quotes at length the 11th verse of the second epistle. “John,” he says, “the disciple of the Lord, pronounces condemnation on such men. He forbids our saying to them, ‘Joy be to you, (χαίρειν;) for he that saith to them, Joy be to you, is a partaker of their evil deeds.’” And further on, in his third book, (chap. xviii.,) he says, “And His disciple, John, in the epistle of which I have just spoken, enjoins upon us to flee from them, when he says, ‘for many deceivers,” &c., quoting at length the 7th and 8th verses of the Second Epistle of John.

Again: we can name, at the beginning of the third century, Origen, who acknowledged both epistles as canonical in his seventh Homily on Joshua, already quoted. He there enumerates the writings of the envoys of our heavenly Joshua, and compares them to the priests who bore the trumpets in the host of the son of Nun. “Peter,” he says, “sounds the two clarions of his epistles; James also, and Jude; and John comes forth to sound the trumpet as loudly in his epistles and Apocalypse, (Addit nmihilominus atque et Joannes tubâ canere per epistolas suas et Apocalypsin.)”

We are also able to name, in the same third century, Dionysius of Alexandria, who, in a passage also alledged by Eusebius, (vii, 25,) cites them as authentic, and attributed to John — “though John,” he tells us, “writes anonymously, and designates himself in both epistles only as the elder, (ἀλλα ἀνωνύμως ὁ πρεσβύτερος γένηοαπται.)”

Lastly, we are able to add to all these testimonies those of Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Philastrius, Jerome, Rufinus, Cyril of Jerusalem, and St Augustin; the Council of Laodicea, the Council of Carthage, and, in a short time, of all Christendom.

1) See, for example, Guericke, p. 497.

2) See Wordsworth on the Canon, London, 1848, pp. 283-286.

3) Stromata, ii, p. 389, ed. Sylburgius; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., vi., 14; Adumbrat, p. 1011, edit. Venet.

4) Guericke, Gesammtgesch. des N. T., pp. 474, 495.

5) See Propp. 31, 191-196.