PURPOSE
PURPOSE
A few scholars have argued that 1 John is pastoral and not polemical, that there is no need to reconstruct a group of heretics or secessionists. The first epistle was written to foster Christian assurance and to ward off possible developments in the community’s theology that could have ultimately led to schism; 16 or, if there was trouble, it was caused by nothing more than the undisciplined exercise of prophetic gifts. 17
Although John does intend to edify his readers, most scholars rightly reject this view as an inadequate explanation of the evidence. Some have already seceded (1 John 2:18-19), and John is writing to warn his readers about false teachers who are actively trying to deceive them (2:26). Paul’s prophecy to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:29-30), renewed to Timothy (2 Tim. 3:1-7; 4:3-4), was coming true: "savage wolves” were rending the flock, and John labels them "false prophets” (1 John 4:1), "deceivers” (2 John 7), and "antichrists” (1 John 2:18; 4:3; 2 John 7). Probably their secession owed much to their failure to convert more of the congregation(s) to which they once belonged (1 John 2:18-19): many Christians by their adherence to the truth had "overcome them” (1 John 4:4). Still, John finds he must reassure the faithful and explain in straightforward terms the differences between the two groups and thereby give them grounds for their own assurance and confidence before God (1 John 5:13) at a time when they were being made to feel inferior and spiritually threatened.
The differences between John’s readers and John’s opponents are substantial. The secessionists denied that Jesus was the Christ (1 John 2:22)—not apparently meaning
that they disbelieved that Jesus was the Messiah of Old Testament expectation, but that the human Jesus really was the Christ, the Son (2:23; 4:15; 2 John 9). They denied that Christ had come in the flesh (4:2; 2 John 7). Judging by 1 John 1:6-10, they also denied that they were in any sense dominated by or even subject to sin: it did not inhere in their nature, display itself in their behavior, or hinder their fellowship with God. Meanwhile their own conduct was so haughty, loveless, and schismatic that they denied the very gospel they claimed that only they understood, prompting some of the more hesitant amongst those left behind to wonder at times if they had the Spirit at all (see 2:26-27).
What, then, could account for this matrix of errors? External evidence commonly leads commentators to postulate one of three movements.
Gnosticism. This theosophical potpourri was anchored in neoplatonic dualism, which fostered a dichotomy between matter (evil) and spirit (good). In the classic Gnostic myth that comes down to us from third-century sources (see DBI, pp. 264-66), there is an ultimate Father from whom a variety of spiritual beings emanate. One of these, Wisdom, tries to act independently from another, Thought, and unintentionally produces a misshapen being, Wisdom’s son Ialdabaoth, who steals enough of her power to become the creator of the spiritual powers who rule this world, and with whose help the physical universe, including Adam and Eve, comes into being. The biblical stories are then retold to accommodate the changes. The fall narrative (Gen. 3), for instance, becomes an attempt to impart true knowledge (gnosis, γνώσις, G1194) to those imprisoned in evil matter by the action of their evil creator. Adam ultimately begets Seth, who receives some pure spirit. This sets up a dichotomy in the human race: some have their origins in this spirit-life, and others are nothing but matter. Later versions of the myth tell of a Gnostic redeemer who explains their origins to the "elect” (i.e., not to those who are chosen by God, but to those who are choice by virtue of their possession of spirit-life, and who therefore have the capacity to receive this "knowledge,” thereby liberating them). The structure of Gnostic myths varies considerably. Valentinus, in the second century, taught that the Godhead is comprised of thirty "aeons,” regarded as male and female pairs. Among them, Intellect and Truth produced Word and Life, who in turn produced Man and Church. Whatever the precise structure, some scholars argue that the heretics presupposed by 1 and 2 John have been influenced by Gnosticism and are concerned with deliverance from the flesh by the acquisition of knowledge.
Docetism. More particularly, a branch of Gnosticism known as Docetism (from δοκεώ, [dokeo], "it seems”, G1506) applied the same reasoning so as to reject the incarnation. Docetism asked, How can a spirit-being, "Christ” or the "Son of God,” good by definition, actually become flesh, which is evil by definition? Although such a spirit-being may temporarily assume it, it could never become it. Docetists so misconceived the true locus of evil that they fell into sin and puffed themselves up with Gnostic pride.
The heresy of Cerinthus. No less commonly, appeal is made to Cerinthus, about whom we learn chiefly from Ireneus and Eusebius. Eusebius, for instance, preserves Polycarp’s report that John the apostle fled the bathhouse in Ephesus when he found that Cerinthus was in it, on the ground that God could at any time reach down and destroy this "enemy of the truth” (H.E. 3.3.4; cf. 3.28.6; 4.14.6). Ireneus gives an account of Cerinthus’s heretical views (Adv. Haer. 1.16.1; 3.2.1, 7, 8), which severed the man Jesus from the divine Christ (or from the Spirit, according to Epiphanius’s report of the heresy (Ref. Haer. 28.1). The Christ (or the Spirit) came upon Jesus at his baptism and left him to suffer alone on the cross (since the Christ/Spirit himself is impassible).
The explanatory power of these proposed backgrounds is considerable, but caution must be exercised. For example, Marshall points out that some of what we know about Cerinthus (e.g., his belief that Jesus was the son of an inferior creator-god) is not reflected in the Johannine Epistles, while some of what the epistles oppose (e.g., the claim to sinlessness) is not known to have been associated with Cerinthus. Schnackenburg, who favors a background in Docetism of the kind opposed by Ignatius a mere decade or two later (e.g., Smyr.1-3; Magn. 11; Trall. 9-10), nevertheless acknowledges that there are critical differences: for example, the Docetists opposed by Ignatius are tied to Jewish rites and beliefs, of which there are no traces in the Johannine Epistles. 19
Above all, the dates of Gnosticism itself are hotly disputed. Full-blown Gnosticism is almost certainly an amalgam of Jewish, Christian, and pagan deviations, an amorphous movement whose flowering is not only later than the New Testament but also so diverse in its manifestations that very few generalizations can be made. The most plausible conclusion is that the movement was gaining strength when John wrote his epistles, and some of the contours of the particular form it took in this case can be hesitantly delineated from these letters. Doubtless this form cannot be precisely identified with any of the manifestations that have come down to us independently. The point is that rather few have been preserved for us, and the most we can say is that, so far as the epistles of John go, the discernible errors and abysmal practices that are being opposed have much in common with the Docetism and Cerinthianism of which we know all too little.
Many contemporary scholars, however, pay little attention to this external evidence and seek to trace out divergent streams of "Johannine Christianity” largely by establishing trajectories from the fourth gospel (or from perceived distinguishable traditions in the fourth gospel) to a complex situation that can be retrieved from the epistles. 20 Virtually all of these scholars exhibit far more sympathy for John’s opponents than John did, and sometimes more for the opponents than for John himself.
Smalley, who at least is sympathetic to the epistles, nevertheless insists that distinctions between heresy and orthoxy have not yet been made at this period in the church’s life—an extraordinary judgment when Paul was making them almost half a century earlier (see Gal. 1:8-9; 2 Cor. 11:4; see further John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Houlden thinks the fourth gospel is adventurous and speculative and judges that the "dissidents” simply wanted to go a little further in the same direction, while the epistles are a conservative "rearguard action” to reassert traditional doctrine. Smalley postulates three groups—one that denies Jesus’ humanity, another that denies Jesus’ deity, and a group of seceders (who may have overlapped with the others)—all quite apart from the traditionalists.
Brown engages in considerable speculation and uncontrolled inferences to tease out the contours of two groups, divided not in their acceptance of the authority of the fourth gospel but in its interpretation, especially in the areas of Christology, ethics, eschatology, and pneumatology (with his commentary primarily focusing on the first two). Brown does not think it is possible for the historian to judge which group understood the fourth gospel correctly. Because of this stance, Brown argues, for instance, that the secessionists did not deny the humanity of Jesus (since they held
John 1:14 to be authoritative) but denied that the humanity of Jesus was significant for revelation or salvation. Perhaps; but the texts do not say so, and a great deal is made to rest on the postulate that both sides adopted the fourth gospel. Brown thinks that in the aftermath of the struggle the "secessionists” (he cannot think of them as heretics) drifted off into the later "heretical” movements (Cerinthianism, Montanism, Docetism, etc.), while those remaining "were swallowed up by the ‘Great Church.’” 21
Detailed evaluation is not possible in short compass. Methodologically, the heart of the problem is the heaping up of merely possible inferences (see discussion in chap. 5 and below in the The Johannine Epistles in Recent Study) and the too-ready distancing from the external sources. It still seems best to conclude that John is combating protoGnosticism, an embryonic Docetism or Cerinthianism that has already divided Christians. Over against the emphases of his opponents, emphases that he frankly aligns with all that is non-Christian, John stresses the truth that Jesus is Christ come in the flesh and that genuine belief in this Jesus works itself out in obedience to the commands of God and in love for God’s people.
If this is approximately correct, the purpose of 2 John is primarily to warn a congregation or house church against admitting traveling teachers who espouse such false teaching. Although many have attempted to find similar heresy behind 3 John (whether in Diotrephes or in the writer!), the epistle itself betrays no such aberrations and is perhaps nothing other than an apostolic warning against someone who is attempting to amass all local authority. Even so, we would have to conclude that this was taking place against the background established by the other two epistles. We might therefore speculate that Diotrephes was using the danger of heresy to build his own power base. But it is hard to imagine that he himself is a heretic, or John would surely have denounced him for it.