The Letters of John

    Before you read this, you should read my introduction to the question of authorship and dating of the New Testament.

Summary of the Tradition

Polycarp - Quotes the first letter of John, but without attribution. (Epistle to the Philippians 7)

Papias - Eusebius indicates (Church History 3.39.16) that Papias relies on the first letter of John, but Papias's actual words have been lost.  Regarding the other letters Jerome regarded Papias' following comment relevant:

If, then, any one who had attended on the elders came, I asked minutely after their sayings - what Andrew or Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the Lord's disciples: which things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. (Jerome's Lives of Illustrious Men 18)

This indicates the possibility of two different Johns, an apostle John, and a presbyter (elder) John.  However, Papias does not mention the other letters in his surviving fragments.

Muratorian Fragment - There are at least two letters written by John, and the first letter is quoted.

Irenaeus -  The first letter is quoted, with attribution to John (Against Heresies 3.16.5).  The second letter is also quoted, with attribution to John (Against Heresies 1.16.3).   The third letter is not mentioned. 

Clement - The first letter is quoted, with attribution to John the apostle (Stromata 2.15).  He quotes it as being the longer letter, but he does not quote the other letters in the surviving texts.

Tertullian - Quotes the first letter frequently, with John as the author (Against Marcion 5.16, Against Praxeas 15, 28, Scorpiace 12 and others).

Origen - Frequently quotes John at the author of the first letter (Commentary on the Gospel of John 6.26 and others).  He states that it is unknown if the second and third letters are genuine. (Eusebius' Church History 6.25.10)

Jerome - John the apostle wrote the first letter.  John the elder wrote the other two.  He bases this on the quotation of Papias, above (Illustrious Men 9). 

Augustine - Wrote Homilies on the First Epistle of John, with John listed as the author.  States that there are three letters of John (On Christian Doctrine 2.8.13).

Authorship

    All of the letters and the Gospel share a common themes and word choices, quickly implying to a casual inspection that they are all from the same community of believers.  This impression becomes stronger as the text is analyzed more thoroughly, in word choices, style, theological emphasis, and many direct cross references.  At minimum then, the letters and the Gospel are all from the Johannine community.  This community may be defined more through shared relationships and history than geography, however. 

    For the first letter of John, the tradition is unanimous and goes back to the beginning.  Unlike for the gospel, there is no real evidence of multiple authors.  In addition, in the introduction (1 Jn 1:1-4), the unnamed author indicates that he is a direct eye witness.  The author speaks with an unmistakable air of authority.  Finally, he refers to his target audience as dear children as would be expected of the now old John the Apostle.  For these reasons, ascribing this letter directly to John is the most reasonable action.  However, when we discuss the Apocalypse, we will assert that that was probably written by John as well, even though the Greek is much worse.  This implies that this letter was likely written with the assistance of an amanuensis (personal secretary).

    The evidence is much thinner for the other two letters.  The letters themselves are very short.  While the first letter is a developed sermon, the other two are personal letters that conclude with a promise to visit, so that more can be discussed.  This makes textual criticism difficult, except to say that they are written by the same person (the self-identified presbyter of 2 Jn 1:1, 3 Jn 1:1) due to the nearly identical format.

    The short length of the letters undoubtedly is the reason that these two letters were referenced so rarely in the tradition.  We only have have one solid ancient witness (Irenaeus) on which to base authorship, and several incidental references.  Jerome's evidence that the apostle and the presbyter were not the same person and that Papias was referring to the authors of the letters is not convincing.  By default, then, we should identify the author of the second and third letters as John, but the evidence is admittedly weak.  If he is not the author, then it is certainly a member of the Johannine community. 

Dating

    Precise dating the of letters is difficult.  A very early date is unlikely, because the author is old in all three cases, which implies that the church has been around long enough to have elders.  A very late date is impossible because Irenaeus quotes the letters as authoritative and from before his time.  Even though there is a very close relationship between the letters and the gospel, it is not possible to determine which was written first.  It would be difficult to understand the letters without the gospel, which implies that the gospel already existed, but it is clearly possible that the gospel existed only in oral form when the letters were written.  Note 2 Jn 12 and 3 Jn 13, which indicate a substantial oral preference.  This analysis gives a fairly wide range of A.D. 60 - A.D.130.  Once we accept authorship by John, then we can move the end date to A.D. 100, because this is about when he died.

This page was last changed on 2010/05/31