James Moffatt

“ The presbyter or elder warns a Christian community, figuratively addressed as “the elect lady” (cf. 13 with 1 Pet. i. 1; v, 13; also the plural of 6, 8, 10 and 13) , against some itinerant (cf. Didache xi. 1–2) teachers who were promulgating advanced Docetic views (7) upon the person of Christ. The note is merely designed to serve (12) until the writer arrives in person. He sends greetings to his correspondents from some community in which he is residing at present (13) , and with which they had evidently some connexion. ”

“ Nor are they John’s, if John means the son of Zebedee. The latter conclusion depends upon the particular hypothesis adopted with regard to the general Johannine problem, yet even when it is held that John the apostle (q.v.) survived to old age in Ephesus, the second and third epistles may be fairly ascribed (with Erasmus, Grotius, Credner, Bretschneider, Reuss, &c.) to John the presbyter [1] , as several circles in the early church held (“Opinio a plerisque tradita,” Jerome: De vir. ill. 18) . An apostle indeed might call himself a presbyter (cf. 1 Pet. v. 1) . ”

“ It is a private note addressed by the presbyter to a certain Gaius, a member of the same community or house-church (9) as that to which 2 John is written. A local errorist, Diotrephes (9–10) had repudiated the authority of the writer and his party, threatening even to excommunicate Gaius and others from the church (cf. Abbott’s Diatessarica, § 2258) . With this opponent the writer promises (10) to deal sharply in person before very long. Meantime (14) he despatches the present note, in hearty appreciation of his correspondent’s attitude and character. ”

“ 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.) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”