2. The so-called "Second Epistle" is addressed by the author, who calls himself "The Elder, or Presbyter," to an unknown com munity described as "The Elect Lady and Her Children." It is a warning against indiscriminate hospitality towards wandering teachers who were evidently promulgating heretical views of a docetic character about the person of Christ. It is thought by some that the lady is an individual, but the allusions to the family are much better understood if the family is conceived as a small church, some of whose members (ver. 4) had commended them selves to the writer.
The note was familiar to Irenaeus, but tradition has not pre served any information as to the church addressed or the author ship of the note. It is only guess-work to fix on Antioch or Rome; if the Presbyter be identified with the author of the Fourth Gos pel or of the Apocalypse, some Asiatic church is more likely, but we are in the dark on this matter.
3. The third letter is by the same author as the second, and addressed to an individual. It is one of the letters of commenda tion, like Rom. xvi. If, witnessing to the high character of a cer tain Demetrius, and promising to deal sharply with a local official called Diotrephes, who repudiated the writer and his adherents. It is likely that the allusion in ver. 9 ("I wrote to the church") is to the second epistle. Otherwise, we are ignorant of the reasons which led Diotrephes to challenge the Presbyter. But it is plain that the Presbyter had some authority, whether or not he was a representative of the primitive apostolic band, whose sway over the churches was being resisted by Diotrephes as a monarchical bishop (Harnack). The various theories which attempt to throw light upon the letter by identifying Gaius and Demetrius with the Gaius of Rom. xvi. 23 and the Demas of 2 Tim. iv. io or the Demetrius of Acts xix. 24, are fanciful rather than helpful to the serious criticism of the letter.
It is obvious to most critics that the Second and Third "Epistles" came from the same hand. But who the author was, depends on the conclusions reached by a study of the Johannine tradition, in connection with the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse. Those who believe that the apostle John wrote the Gospel are able to go further and add to his credit the three epistles. But if the wit ness of Papias be true, there were two Johns in Asia Minor, or at least in the early church, one of them John the Presbyter. It is a
fair hypothesis that this Presbyter wrote the Apocalypse and also the Second and Third Epistles, whilst the Fourth Gospel and the First Epistle may have come from another author. There is a certain similarity of language, indeed, between the three epistles, which at first sight is striking. But this may be accounted for by their origin in a common circle. And on the other hand, there are differences between the First Epistle and the Fourth Gospel, which are not inconsiderable (see the present writer's In troduction to the Literature of the NT, pp. 589f). The Epistle may have been intended as a tract to supplement the Gospel, or it may be an independent treatise; but identity of authorship is another question. There are scholars still who are prepared to hold that the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse were composed by the same writer. If so, there is less difficulty in assuming that he could have written the other two "Johannine" epistles, who ever he may have been. On the other hand, when the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse are assigned to different writers, and when the latter in particular is attributed to John the Presbyter, the two smaller epistles not unnaturally follow in its wake, whereas the First Epistle may be left alongside of the Fourth Gospel, either as a product of the same pen or as a kindred docu ment from the same sphere of Christian thought. To sum up— there is sufficient tradition to warrant us in believing that in Asia Minor about the end of the first century a distinguished Presbyter lived who was called John. "Harnack's conjecture, based upon the most natural interpretation of the fragment of Papias' preface which Eusebius has preserved, that he was a pupil of John the Apostle, and in some sense a disciple of the Lord, is perhaps the hypothesis which leaves fewest difficulties unsolved. That he is the author of the two smaller Epistles is the view which seems to be best supported by external tradition and by internal prob ability" (Brooke, p. lxxvii). That he also wrote the First Epistle is less likely, since that homily is closely linked to the Fourth Gospel; unless we suppose that the same Presbyter wrote both Gospel and Apocalypse, or edited the former; the alternative whereas the Fourth Gospel belongs to the same soil as that on which the First Epistle shot up.