Of the four canonical Johannine texts, 2 and 3 John are the most obvious candidates to be falsely authored works. As we have seen, the two texts surface surprisingly late in the historical record, with 2 John attested no earlier than the late second century and 3 John no earlier than the third century (and even then, only in a fragment preserved by a fourth-century author). More to the point, the earliest writers to mention both letters indicate that a significant segment of early Christians dismissed them as inauthentic. Origen of Alexandria is clear that although “there may be a second or a third” letter attributed to the author of John, “not all say they are genuine.”1 Eusebius ranks both among the “disputed texts.”2 These disputes continued for centuries, with Syriac Bibles excluding both letters at least into the sixth century (and, in some circles, into the medieval period).
In light of these ancient suspicions, scholars would be more than justified in expressing skepticism over the authenticity of 2 and 3 John. And yet, most take these letters at face value and identify them as real correspondence dating to the end of the first century CE.3 This surprisingly positive reception, out of step with the way critical scholars analyze other works disputed in antiquity, such as 2 Peter and Jude, rests primarily on the idea that these texts are simply too unremarkable to be later fabrications. The two works are strikingly short at less than 250 words each in Greek. Their contents also seem unexceptional or banal. Much of 2 John abridges the contents of 1 John, condensing its essential points. And 3 John takes the form of a personal letter addressing a mundane, interpersonal conflict. According to John Painter, “the contents of 2 and 3 John are such that if they were not addressed to a local group or individual it is not easy to see their point.”4 Along similar lines, Raymond Brown writes, “the forgery thesis faces an objection as to why anyone would have done such a thing.”5 So too B. H. Streeter, who insists: “there can be no doubt that 3 John is a genuine letter … It cannot possibly be a forgery, for it would be a forgery without motive. It maintains no special doctrine, it enforces no general moral duty, it tells no interesting story.”6
As compelling as these arguments have been for many scholars, they overlook the fact that many invented letters survive from antiquity that are no less brief or mundane than 2 and 3 John. These include hundreds of Greek pseudo-historical letters, which were composed for various purposes, including quasi-biographical aims. To understand the origins of the shorter Johannine letters, I will argue, one must situate them within this significant, if often overlooked, literary practice from antiquity.
Anonymous and enigmatic, the eyewitness narrator of the Gospel has always been an enduring riddle for Christians, a riddle approached through centuries of speculation, invented traditions, apocryphal texts, and, more recently, scholarly inquiries. In my view, 2 and 3 John represent two other responses to that riddle, two more avenues by which early Christians channeled and fed their intense curiosity about this figure, resourcing literary practices of the time. Just as other ancient writers explored the inner lives of Apollonius, Plato, or Themistocles by inhabiting their voices in letters and imagining them in invented historical scenarios, so too the authors of 2 and 3 John took up the persona of the Johannine eyewitness to flesh out his memory and apply his insights to new problems. In this case, we can set these works against a rich field of similar texts from the same period that progressively sculpt real and imagined figures from the past, interpreting their distinctive features in that light.7 Above all, we can appreciate the enduring appeal of these texts for readers throughout the centuries: the appeal of reading the lost letters of the shadowy and enigmatic disciple of Jesus.
6.1 Pseudepigraphal Letters in Greek Antiquity
The practice of writing pseudepigraphal letters has its roots in Greek pedagogical practices.8 In ancient schoolrooms, students developed their prose composition and rhetoric by studying classical authors and imitating their style in various written exercises. One such exercise, the personification of a character (prosopopoeia), required students to inhabit the voice of a known author or personage, developing a speech appropriate for a particular historical or fictive situation.9 These training exercises acquired a performative and literary life of their own by the Common Era, specifically, during the period of Greek literature known as the Second Sophistic (60–230 CE). In this period, writers produced letters or entire letter collections for popular consumption written in the voices of classical luminaries, including famous philosophers and sages (e.g., Anacharsis, Heraclitus, Hippocrates, Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, Aristotle, Crates, Apollonius of Tyana), statesmen and orators (e.g., Demosthenes, Dion, Phalaris), groups of individuals (e.g., the Socratic disciples), and even invented characters. By one estimate, some 1,600 pseudo-historical letters survive from antiquity.10 These letters also span a wide range of genres, from letters of invitation, letters of recommendation, letters of consolation, and letters requesting the repayment of debts to invectives, diatribes, and didactic treatises, among others.11
In the face of such a vast and diverse field of examples, classicists doubt that one can uncover a single, universal motive behind all these literary works any more than one can isolate their individual authors, contexts, and initial audiences.12 Epistolarity was a vehicle for a wide range of projects and agendas.13 Nevertheless, as Owen Hodkinson writes, “the biographical impulse” – the desire to flesh out the lives of figures from the past – “is very evident in many of these collections.”14 Patricia Rosenmeyer concurs: “the principal impulse behind the role playing of a pseudonymous letter writer may have been precisely a glimpse into the … past from a more personal angle, and the illumination of a particular historical figure,” capturing “aspects of history that could never have been part of the standard historical record.”15 Consistent with this, many such letters are brief and focused on merely ordinary, humdrum, and quotidian interactions. Consider, for example, the following literary fake written under the name of Apollonius of Tyana, ostensibly to a relative:
To Ferocianus: I was very pleased by the letter that you sent me, since it showed such friendliness and recollection of our blood tie. I am convinced of your eagerness to see me and be seen by me. I will therefore come in person to you all as soon as possible, especially since God seems so to advise me, so please remain where you are. As I come near, you will meet with me before the rest of my intimates and friends, since that privilege is yours by right.16
The letter is compact at no more than 100 words. It is also unremarkable in its content, bracketing out all the outstanding characteristics of Apollonius so crucial to his later fame, including his philosophical teachings, wonderworking, and travels. Instead, the letter provides a glimpse into a private and mundane dimension of his life. As Rosenmeyer writes, “the appeal to read such mundane details is universal and timeless,” closely aligned with “the literary thrill of reading someone else’s private messages”:17
The urge to read the private words of famous historical figures, such as tyrants or philosophers, reveals a kind of antiquarian interest in great men, similar to a contemporary fascination with the diaries and letters of Virginia Woolf, for example, or the private letters of former presidents … The individual reasons for such a decision will never be clear, but critics point to an interest in the historical past, or in the personal lives of long-dead authors, an eagerness to supplement existing information or to replace information that had been lost over the years, and the invention of an older authority for a particular belief or movement … The goal of the pseudonymous epistolographer was thus to work the bare bones of a biography into a compelling life story. He was both scholar and creative artist, researching historical materials in order to define the bounds of the tradition, and using his imagination to elaborate creatively and dramatically on that tradition.18
These quasi-biographical interests, however, could coexist with other authorial projects or interests.19 For example, glimpses into an esteemed historical figure’s daily life could implicitly illustrate how readers should live, act, or conduct themselves. And like real letters, quasi-biographical letters could incorporate passing philosophical reflections, ethical counsels, and the like. Consider, in this vein, the following example from the letters attributed to the philosopher Diogenes:
To Melesippus, greetings. I heard that you are grieved that the Athenian youths, drunk with wine, laid blows on me, and that you suffer great distress that wisdom should be treated with drunken violence. But be well aware that although Diogenes’ body was beaten by the drunkards, his virtue was not dishonored, since it is in its nature not to be adorned or shamed by evil men. Diogenes certainly was not insulted, but the Athenian public, some of whom resolved to show contempt for virtue, suffered terribly. Really, through the foolishness of one person foolish men throughout the populace come to ruin, since they plan improper actions and wage war when they should be at peace. But had they checked their madness from the start, they would not have come to this.20
The letter imagines a moment in the life of Diogenes – an assault by youths – but it also uses this episode as a platform for moral instruction in the Cynic tradition. Which of these two aims, then, has priority over the other? Was the author’s primary purpose to communicate a moral/ethical teaching through a specific situation? Or did the author primarily want to flesh out a moment in Diogenes’ life, or explore Diogenes’ character, introducing moral/ethical instruction only because such advice suits a philosopher? Quasi-biographical letters can elude simplistic analyses of motivation and project, but perhaps appropriately so. As the historian David Hackett Fischer remarks, a person who commits a particular act “does it for every reason he can think of, and a few unthinkable reasons as well.”21
6.2 2 and 3 John as Pseudo-Historical Letters
As I see it, 2 and 3 John – texts written within the Second Sophistic period – fit snugly within this literary field of pseudo-historical letter writing. And yet, as I noted above, many scholars do not imagine that 2 and 3 John are pseudepigraphal; in their view, the two letters contain features too real, too natural, to have been invented. This argument, however, is flawed. In actuality, there is no such thing as an epistolary feature or detail too realistic to be invented; every possible feature of a real letter can be simulated in a fabricated one. No less tellingly, one can find comparands for all the forms and techniques represented in 2 and 3 John within known pseudo-historical letters.
6.2.1 Size
Arguably, the most distinctive feature of 2 and 3 John is their compact size. The two are the shortest individual works in the Christian Bible, with 2 John numbering a mere 249 words and 3 John numbering 219 words.22 Some contemporary scholars cite the compact size of these letters as evidence that they are, in fact, genuine works, but a substantial segment of pseudo-historical letters are even shorter.23 Consider the following examples at 30 and 99 words apiece in Greek:
To Cleophon and Gaius. The business you wrote about has already been attended to in part, and the remainder shall be attended to presently; for I, Lemnian that I am, count Imbros also as my fatherland, and with good will I am binding the islands to one another and myself to both.24
To Polystratos. I have written to all my other friends to come quickly to Acragas, so I beg you too to be there before the festival of the Olympian Zeus. I wish to convene a meeting of my most devoted friends, so as to exercise the proper care now as always and to take counsel over a dangerous and serious situation, I do not mean to involve you in anything untoward or unpleasant (I shall have strength enough to deal with my own affairs), but to accept whatever advice you may have to give, so that if my empire remains I may often welcome you as my guests, but if it falls, if such be god’s will, you may have one last chance of addressing me, and so preserve a reverent memory of my generosity towards you. So come without delay, with all your old zeal on behalf of the Phalaris whose character you above all know well.25
We can take this observation one step further. In the case of letters such as the above, the choice to write short letters might well have suited the project of producing a plausible literary fake. To sustain the pretense that their works were the actual correspondence of ancient authors, pseudepigraphers were keen to imitate features of genuine letters, even to the point of simulating the average size of such documents.26 In this case, it is interesting to note that the shortest pseudonymous epistles – and for that matter, 2 and 3 John – are precisely of a length that could fit onto a single sheet of papyrus, a widespread medium of ancient letter writing.27 This makes them quite comparable to real Egyptian papyrus letters that survive from sites like Oxyrhynchus, extant examples of which average roughly 8 × 10 in. or 20 × 25 cm.28 Constrained by these proportions, “letters among the papyri average fewer than 100 words and very few surpass 200,” including the following authentic example:29
Theon to the most honored Tyrannus, very many greetings. Heraclides, the bearer of this letter, is my brother, wherefore I entreat you with all my power to take him under your protection. I have also asked your brother Hermias by letter to inform you about him. You will do me the greatest favor if you let him win your approval. Before all else, I pray that you may have health and the best of success, unharmed by the evil eye. Goodbye.30
Against these examples, it hardly seems a coincidence that many letters known to be epistolary forgeries or fictions are also shorter than 100 words. The compact size of these texts is itself a verisimilitude, an attempt to sustain the pretense that these letters could be the papyrus correspondences of an ancient author. The papyrus-worthy lengths of 2 and 3 John fit this pattern.
6.2.2 Epistolary Form and Conventions
Scholars have attempted to marshal another outstanding characteristic of 2 and 3 John as evidence of their authenticity, namely, their tight, even self-conscious, adherence to ancient Greek epistolary form and conventions. Georg Strecker insists that “the document called 2 John gives the impression of being a genuine letter and probably was one, for it has the usual letter form.”31 Similarly, Werner Kümmel observes that “no other New Testament letter, not even Philemon, has so completely the form of a Hellenistic private letter as II and III John. Both are real letters.”32
The problem with this view is that many ancient pseudo-historical letters also follow standard epistolary conventions, precisely to simulate real correspondence. Like 2 and 3 John, many such letters open with notice of the sender and addressee as well as a formulaic greeting:
“Plato to Dionysius, Tyrant of Syracuse, wishes well-doing.”33
A number include health wishes:
“I pray for your good health.”34
cf. “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health …”
Some contain fictionalized words of thanksgiving or reports of praise in framing sections at the beginning or end:
“The ambassadors … are everywhere lauding both you and me with the utmost zeal; and not least Philagrus, who was then suffering with his hand. Philaides also, on his arrival from the Great King, was talking about you …”35
cf. “I greatly rejoiced when some of the brethren arrived and testified to the truth of your life, as indeed you do follow the truth.”
Various such letters incorporate apologies for the brevity of a letter and/or references to a future (compensatory) visit:
“We will explore these things more precisely when we meet in person; I hope I’ve answered your questions sufficiently now in my brief response.”36
cf. “Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink, but I hope to come to see you and talk with you face to face.”
And many also contain parting greetings:
“… greet for me your comrades at the game of ball”37
cf. “Greet the friends, every one of them.”
In short, nothing in the epistolary presentation and conventions of 2 and 3 John can be counted as evidence of their genuineness. On the contrary, one can compare every feature of these texts to the features of known literary fakes from antiquity.
6.2.3 Genre and Content
Ancient letters assumed various forms and were tailored to meet the full range of social contexts, relationships, and occasions within which they were composed.38 According to Stanley Stowers, 2 John compares strongly to ancient paraenetic letters, that is, letters of exhortation.39 The epistle urges its recipients to comply with a body of teachings and instructions (vv. 5–6, 8–9). It also instructs the reader to reject anyone who does not share the same teachings (vv. 10–11). In turn, Stowers notes that “the letter of 3 John … has typical features of letters of recommendation” and can be analyzed in parts as “a letter of recommendation on behalf of traveling brethren.”40 The bulk of the letter takes up archetypical formulae of this type (“you would do well”) and encourages material forms of support for itinerants:
Beloved, it is a loyal thing you do when you render any service to the brethren, especially to strangers who have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey as befits God’s service. For they have set out for his sake and accepted nothing from the heathen. So we ought to support such persons, that we may be fellow workers in the truth.
In his letter, the Elder also offers a personal endorsement of one apparent itinerant, Demetrius, who seems to be the letter carrier and envoy of the Elder: “Demetrius has testimony from everyone and from the truth itself; I testify to him too, and you know my testimony is true” (v. 12).
Both of these generic types survive among the extant pseudo-historical letters of antiquity. Paraenetic letters are especially plentiful among the letters written in the names of ancient philosophers, offering a range of philosophical, moral, and ethical instructions. Letters of recommendation appear in other collections. Consider, for example, the following two, here quoted in full:
To Xenophon. You are not ignorant of the care I have bestowed on Chaerophon and now he has been chosen by the city as ambassador to the Peloponnesus, and he will probably come also to you. Hospitality is easily supplied to a philosopher; but travel conditions are unsafe, especially now, because of the troubles which have arisen there. If you take care of him, you will have both saved a friend and also shown the greatest kindness to me.41
To Rhesus, greetings. Phrynichus the Larissaean, a disciple of mine, is anxious to see Argos, “where horses graze.” And he will not require much from you for he is a philosopher.42
One also finds passing words of recommendation embedded in other kinds of pseudo-historical letters, as in this example from the pseudonymous letters of Plato:
Iatrocles, the man whom I released on that occasion, along with Myronides, is now sailing with the things that I am sending: I ask you, then, to give him some paid post, as he is well-disposed towards you, and employ him for whatever you wish. Preserve also this letter, either itself or a précis of it, and continue as you are.43
6.2.4 Unnamed Sender
Many early Christian texts, including some pseudepigrapha, are strictly anonymous. But 2 and 3 John are unusual in that each has its nameless sender identify himself by an epithet: “the Elder.” It is rare to see individuals identify themselves by epithets alone, either in genuine letters or in literary fakes. It is not unknown, however, even in pseudo-historical letter collections. As I noted in a previous chapter, one example appears in the pseudepigraphal letters of Diogenes, composed by multiple hands between the first century BCE and the first century CE.44 In the prescript of Letter 49, pseudo-Diogenes identifies himself merely as “the Cynic.”45
6.2.5 Casual References to Specific Persons
Third John mentions several specific persons: an addressee named Gaius (v. 1), a local church leader named Diotrephes (v. 9), and a third figure named Demetrius (v. 12). The same, however, is true of many epistolary fictions. According to Robert Donelson, “the majority of the letters in the Socratic collection contain personal references of some sort whether they are benign and are used only for verisimilitude or they are specific occasions for philosophical comment.”46 Some correspond to known associates of the co-opted authors; some might be literary fictions. Consider the following spread of examples from that collection:
Xanthippe and the children are doing well.
Your son Gryllus has already sent Geta to you, who told you everything that happened to Socrates during the trial and at his death.
Apollodorus, who is called the madman, and Dio praise you.
Send Philistion and strengthen me in whatever other manner you can.47
The presence of specific names, then, is not evidence of authenticity. The author of 3 John might have adapted historical names or invented names to support the realistic feel of his invented correspondence.
6.2.6 References to Earlier Correspondence
A final prominent feature of 2 and 3 John is their attempts to situate themselves within presumed correspondences. In 3 John, the Elder references an earlier letter he sent to a Christian community led by Diotrephes, claiming: “I have written something to the church” (v. 9). Similarly, in both 2 and 3 John, the Elder reacts to reports – perhaps written reports – from other parties (2 John 4; 3 John 3).48
Tellingly, many pseudo-historical letters from antiquity also situate themselves within earlier, typically fictional, correspondences. Some reference prior correspondence by the author.49 Others cite letters received by the author.50 A few even present themselves as cover letters for documents supposedly borne by the same letter carrier.51 In some cases, the author only mentions these (often purely fictional) documents. In Letter 117, for instance, pseudo-Phalaris says, “I send back to you by the hands of your emissary those [letters],” never producing the letters themselves.52 In other instances, the author includes these additional documents, appending them to the cover letter.53 Other examples fold the documents into the same pseudepigraphic letter collection.54 In these cases, the cover letter might have been written to authenticate the appended works. Pseudo-Plato’s Letter 12, for example, references certain pseudepigraphic treatises of Ocellos of Lucania and “was thus probably written by the same forger with the object of stamping his effusions with the authority of Plato.”55
6.3 Re-reading 2 and 3 John
In light of the above, there is no reason to exclude 2 and 3 John from the field of pseudo-historical texts. But if these works are falsely authored letters, why were they written? What triggered their production? Again, these questions do not obtain easy answers in the case of similar works from Greek antiquity. An author writing in a pseudo-historical mode might do so with several projects in mind, none of which were mutually exclusive.
In what follows, I will argue that 2 and 3 John might have also been meant to serve multiple purposes. On the one hand, the texts contain features that suggest a quasi-biographical interest in the Johannine eyewitness, that is, an interest in illuminating the private life of this figure from the (invented) past.56 On the other hand, the letters also contain evidence of other agendas and polemical interests. One particular theme of interest is also a point of discussion in other second-century works: hospitality, or the treatment of itinerants. The authors of the epistles united these aims, crafting rich and complex works.
6.3.1 2 John
From one perspective, 2 John mostly re-packages the contents of 1 John. To understand what might have motivated the letter’s production, then, we should look closely at the features that make the shorter letter distinct from its predecessor, that is, the elements of the letter that diverge from, alter, and even elaborate, 1 John. I contend that those differences contribute to a deliberate expansion of the figure of the eyewitness, refashioning him into a traveling, letter-writing apostle in the image of Paul. By recapitulating the principal teachings of 1 John in a new format, the letter’s real author crafted a letter easily mistaken as a work by the same hand as 1 John, but one which significantly expands the memory of its eyewitness narrator.
6.3.1.1 Imagining an Itinerant Ministry
Neither the Gospel of John nor 1 John explores the later career of the invented eyewitness. Besides the fact that he was an active writer, they do not reveal whether he remained in Judea or went abroad, nor do they reveal what interests and issues engaged him. This kind of silence is not unique; we know little about the later careers and exploits of most of Jesus’ disciples. What we do know is that Christians were increasingly curious about their personal stories by the second century CE and that they invented narratives to supplement their knowledge.
Crucially, the trend in these invented narratives was to imagine those later careers as trans-regional, itinerant ones in the mold of Paul’s. This was hardly an inevitable development. Although we know that some of Jesus’ disciples traveled to other regions, several early Christian sources imagine most of the disciples having a stable residence in Jerusalem decades after Jesus’ death (cf. Gal. 2:9; Matt. 24:20; Acts 8:1; 15:2–6).57 Nevertheless, some apocryphal acts cast all the disciples of Jesus as itinerants who traveled to distant lands and established new networks of converts under their leadership. The Acts of Thomas, for one, famously portrays the disciples casting lots and “dividing the regions of the world” among themselves, with each going “unto the region that fell to him” (1:1).58 These accounts even seem to draw direct inspiration from the events of Paul’s life depicted in sources such as the biblical Acts of the Apostles, including the apostle’s visionary experiences, miracle accounts, shipwrecks, and farewell speeches to individual communities.59
We can read the letter of 2 John as a similar project, that is, as a move to flesh out the later career of the Johannine eyewitness along a Pauline pattern. Before closing his epistle, the Elder expresses his intention to visit his reader – a line that casts him as mobile, if not itinerant. This wish finds cognates in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline letters, especially in one of the Pastoral Epistles:
I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face so that our joy may be complete [ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ἡμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη].
I long night and day to see you … that I may be filled with joy [ἵνα χαρᾶς πληρωθῶ].
No less significant is the fact that, in the next verse, the Elder salutes this Lady on behalf of “the children of [her] elect sister” (v. 13). Closing greetings such as these presuppose the author’s residence among those whose greetings he forwards, as in parallel examples from the Pauline epistles:
Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my kin. (I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.) Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus greet you.
Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.
These verses consolidate a similarity between the Johannine eyewitness and Paul. Both men travel from city to city, temporarily reside at various sites, and maintain long-distance relationships with different communities. The author of 2 John might well have put pen to papyrus to open up this forgotten chapter in the eyewitness’ life. In a loose sense, 2 John accomplishes some of the work of an apocryphal acts account, albeit in epistolary form.
6.3.1.2 The Eyewitness as Correspondent
Although there is some evidence that Jesus’ disciples engaged in long-distance mission work, there is no evidence that they engaged in extended correspondence with the communities they supposedly founded. As far as we know, letter writing was not a significant facet of the ministry of any member of Jesus’ inner circle; not a single authentic letter from these figures exists or survives.60 Nevertheless, by the end of the first century, Christians had begun imagining their ministries along these lines, even to the point of penning pseudonymous letters in their names. As Margaret Mitchell writes, this turn in early Christian memory, this refiguring of Jesus’ disciples into prolific letter writers, represents an assimilation of these figures to the earliest known Christian writer, Paul:
Paul’s letters are the oldest preserved “early Christian” texts, and likely were the oldest, since literary legacies of Paul’s contemporaries, such as Peter and James, were only written later, and in imitation of Paul, not only in genre and expected content, but in emulation of the precedent he set (as is mimicked also in the Acts of the Apostles, also under Pauline influence) that apostles should have been letter writers in the first place.61
By the second century, this current swept up even the invented disciple of John. First John presupposes that the eyewitness wrote epistles (2:13–14, 21, 26; 5:13). So too does 2 John. But the latter epistle takes this idea further in many respects.
In the first place, 2 John self-consciously adopts the formal style of an actual letter. In this respect, it is much more like the letters of Paul than 1 John. As a point of comparison, consider Philemon, the shortest of Paul’s extant letters at 303 words and the only extant personal letter from his pen. That text opens with a conventional prescript identifying sender and addressee (“A to B”; e.g., Phlm. 1–2), salutations (Phlm. 3), and opening thanksgivings based on positive reports (Phlm. 4–7). In turn, it closes with promises to visit (Phlm. 22) and parting greetings (Phlm. 23–24). The same conventions appear in 2 John. It too incorporates a conventional prescript (2 John 1–2), a salutation (2 John 3), a response to positive reports (2 John 4), promises to visit (2 John 12), and parting greetings (2 John 13).
Second, 2 John demonstrates a direct familiarity with Paul’s style in his letters, resourcing elements of those texts. Most strikingly, 2 John incorporates a variation of Paul’s signature “grace … and peace” greeting closest to those we find in the pseudo-Pauline Pastoral epistles:
… grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and from Jesus Christ …
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord …
Last, whereas 1 John addresses an unspecified, and perhaps general, audience, 2 John positions itself as a letter to a particular local community. The letter also presupposes that the Elder has some capacity, if not responsibility, to instruct that community. Early in the letter, the Elder references reports he has received about the behavior of “some” – that is, a specific, delimited set of persons – in a particular congregation (v. 4). He then offers a series of admonitions to the congregation (vv. 5–6, 8), followed by instructions on how the congregation should manage access to “the house” (v. 10) – presumably, the house in which the congregation gathers. We can detect basic analogies to Paul’s instructions in his letters to the particular communities he founded, especially in 1 and 2 Corinthians.
These moves, I believe, amount to more than an attempt to align the emerging “Johannine” literary tradition with the Pauline. They also serve the letter’s quasi-biographical aims. They expand the characterization of the invented disciple, deepening the impression that he later set out on a ministry very much like Paul’s.
6.3.1.3 A Polemic against (“Docetic”) Itinerants
Although 2 John makes substantial contributions to the memory of the Johannine eyewitness, it, like so many other literary fakes from antiquity, is not devoid of additional teachings and exhortations. Much of that content is shared with 1 John and might have been included merely to support the pretense that the letter was written by the same author as the longer epistle. But 2 John reworks some of this material in subtle ways, suggesting it emerged in a distinct context with distinct aims in mind.
The best example of this reworking appears in 2 John’s discussion of the “antichrists.” Whereas the author of 1 John indicts the antichrists for denying “that Jesus is the Christ” (2:22) – an ambiguous expression – the author of 2 John indicts the antichrists as ones who “do not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh” (2:7). The language here conflates 1 John 2:22 with 4:2 (“every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God”) in ways that more explicitly cast the “antichrists” as having a problematic Christology, perhaps by design. We know that various second-century Christian groups speculated that Christ did not fully take on a fleshly body, a view scholars group under the (problematic) label of “docetism.”62 Again, Cerinthus is said to have distinguished a spiritual “Christ” from the human “Jesus.”63 Additionally, the apocryphal Gospel of the Acts of John presents a polymorphic and, it would seem, phantasmic Jesus.64 Writing later than the author of 1 John – perhaps significantly later – the author of 2 John reworked the language of his source text to more clearly direct its polemic towards the challenge of some such theology.65
Second John builds on 1 John in yet another way, incorporating a single counsel not contained in any other Johannine text. Toward the conclusion of the letter, the Elder admonishes the congregation to shun itinerants who deviate from the letter’s teachings: “if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting, for the one who greets such a one shares their wicked work” (2 John 10–11).66 It is easy to dismiss this line as relatively marginal to the letter’s point, given its brevity. Its potential importance, however, should not be underestimated. After all, the letter itself is so short that the line accounts for a significant proportion of the text’s total word count (13.1%, or just over one out of every eight words).
More to the point, this teaching compares strongly to warnings in other Christian texts of the period, suggesting that it could have had special resonance or urgency for the letter’s author and initial audience. A similar instruction with an accompanying warning appears in the Didache:
Accordingly, receive anyone who comes and teaches you all that has been said above. If the teacher himself turns away and teaches another doctrine so that he destroys [the correct teaching], do not listen to him, but [if he teaches] so that justice and knowledge of the Lord increase, receive him as the Lord.67
Several more examples appear in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, a set of texts that may be pseudonymous.68 Like 2 John, the Ignatian letters reflect anxiety around certain second-century doctrinal currents positing that Jesus did not have physical, material “flesh.” One letter in particular, the Letter to the Smyrnaeans, mirrors 2 John in insisting on the materiality of Jesus’ flesh immediately before instructing its implied readers to refuse hospitality to any persons who deny this teaching:
For he suffered all this for us that we might be saved; and he truly suffered just as he also truly raised himself, not as some unbelievers say that he suffered in appearance, whereas it is they who are (mere) appearance; and just as they think, so it will happen to them, being bodiless and demonic. For I know and believe that he was in the flesh even after the resurrection. And when he came to those about Peter, he said to them: “Take, handle me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon.” And immediately they touched him and believed, being intermingled with his flesh and spirit. Therefore they despised even death and were found to be above death. And after the resurrection he ate and drank with them as a being of flesh, although spiritually united with the Father.
Now I urge these things on you, beloved, knowing that you are of the same mind; but I am guarding you in advance from beasts in human form, whom not only ought you not receive, but if possible not even meet; rather only pray for them if somehow they may repent, which is difficult.69
Another epistle, the Letter to the Ephesians, calls on its readers to reject itinerants who do not speak “truly” about Jesus before providing a confession of Jesus’ fleshly nature. In this way, it implies that the undesirable itinerants do not uphold these teachings:
[D]o not even listen to anyone except the one who speaks truly concerning Jesus Christ. For some are accustomed with evil deceit to carry about the Name [of God], at the same time doing things unworthy of God, whom you must avoid as wild beasts; for they are rabid dogs, biting without warning, whom you must guard against since they are almost incurable. There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, come in flesh, God, in death, true life, both of Mary and of God, first passible and then impassible. Jesus Christ, our Lord. So let no one deceive you, as indeed you are not deceived …70
A looser cognate appears in another second-century text more clearly entangled with practices of pseudepigraphy: the Acts of Paul.71 That document incorporates a set of two pseudo-historical letters that supposedly represent a correspondence between the church of Corinth and Paul. In the initial letter from the church, a group of presbyters reports that two itinerants “have come to Corinth, named Simon and Cleobius” who “say and teach … [that] Christ has neither come in the flesh, nor was he born of Mary.”72 In turn, Paul’s supposed response – a letter that circulated separately as 3 Corinthians and was accepted as canonical by some Syriac writers – argues strenuously for the materiality of Jesus’ flesh before instructing individuals to reject the itinerants:
I marvel not that the teachings of the evil one had such rapid success … For I delivered to you first of all what I received from the apostles before me who were always with Jesus Christ, that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of Mary of the seed of David … that he might come into this world and save all flesh by his own flesh and that he might raise us in the flesh from the dead … For by his own body Jesus Christ saved all flesh, presenting in his own body a temple of righteousness through which we are saved. They who follow [the false teachers] are not children of righteousness but of wrath, who despise the wisdom of God and in their disbelief assert that heaven and earth and all that is in them are not a work of God. They have the accursed belief of the serpent. Turn away from them and keep aloof from their teaching.73
If the issue of how to receive itinerants denying Jesus’ coming in the flesh was sufficient to (at least partly) motivate pseudo-historical letters in the voice of Paul, if not also Ignatius, we can easily imagine the same issue factoring into the creation of 2 John. Even as the letter extends the memory of the Johannine eyewitness, it co-opts the voice of that eyewitness to place the kind of shunning instructions one finds in the Didache and the Letter to the Smyrnaeans on the lips of an apostle.74
6.3.1.4 Writing 2 John
Some quasi-biographical fakes emerged for innocuous reasons, for example, as compositional exercises or for strictly literary interest and entertainment. No ancient writer interprets 2 John in these terms, however. Instead, these writers offer varying opinions on whether the letter is an authentic or inauthentic work by the same hand that produced 1 John.75 In this case, we have every reason to assume that the author of 2 John circulated the text under precisely this pretense.
To give his new composition a further veneer of credibility, the author of 2 John extensively borrowed language from 1 John, producing, in parts, a bricolage of fragments from that work. This form of borrowing is uncommon within ancient literary fakes but not without precedent. Consider, for one, the pseudo-Pauline Epistle to the Laodiceans. Written to supply the supposedly lost “letter from Laodicea” mentioned in another Pauline fake (Col. 4:16), some 90% of the letter consists of fragments adapted from earlier works attributed to Paul.
Presumably, this tight and extensive imitation of 1 John might have served a second aim; it might have been meant to configure the two texts in a special relationship. The nature of that relationship is unclear, however. Some scholars, convinced of the authenticity of 2 John, have speculated that the epistle might have represented a cover letter for 1 John.76 As intriguing as this possibility is, however, it is far from certain. For one, 2 John does not mention an appended document as so many ancient covering letters do (at least those documents we can recognize as covering letters). Second, the pretense that the letter was meant to introduce an appended document fits awkwardly with the Elder’s claim that he has “much to write” but “would rather not use paper and ink” (v. 12). On balance, then, it is as likely – perhaps even more likely – that the author of 2 John circulated his letter as a parallel epistle to 1 John. In this reading, 2 John represents a separate correspondence of the author of 1 John, albeit one responding to the same sorts of challenges and recapitulating some of the same teachings, but with important new additions.
No doubt, some readers of 2 John developed their own, divergent interpretations of how the two letters were related. They would have been especially inclined to do so if they first encountered the two letters in juxtaposition, which they might have, even from the first. Interpolating existing letter collections was a tried and true path for introducing new, falsely authored works.77 We can easily imagine a scenario in which the author of 2 John introduced his text beside 1 John, tampering with a manuscript already containing 1 John and appending his own text to the end.
6.3.2 3 John
As I have argued in an earlier chapter, there are good reasons for thinking that 2 and 3 John are the works of different authors. For one, the two texts show striking differences in texture. Whereas 2 John is vague and unspecific, constructing only shadowy, nameless characters (“the Elect Lady and her children,” “the children of your elect sister”), 3 John is written in an intimate and personal tone and is the only Johannine letter to make explicit mention of several specific and named individuals (“Gaius,” “Diotrephes,” “Demetrius”). The two letters also enter the historical record in different periods and have different linguistic profiles.78
Despite these differences, however, the two texts stand along a very similar trajectory. Written in the wake of 2 John, 3 John presupposes the same imagined afterlife for the eyewitness, casting that figure as an itinerant apostle and letter writer. But as we will see, the letter also enriches that afterlife by adding specific names and more concrete imagined situations, features that suggest it was also written partly to flesh out the Elder’s life. In 3 John, we see another author intervening in the emerging Johannine corpus for biographical interest, pushing the tradition beyond the flatter portrayals of earlier texts and infusing it with a more lifelike texture.
6.3.2.1 Elaborating a Later Career
Every letter established its place in the emerging Johannine corpus by adopting elements from earlier texts. Whereas 2 John lays claim to the tradition by reproducing the teachings of its predecessor texts, 3 John accomplishes the same primarily by reproducing the formal epistolary elements of 2 John, including that letter’s closing promise to visit (vv. 13–14; cf. 2 John 12). In so doing, it locates itself quite consciously in the same broad scenario as the earlier letter, in which the Elder supervises and moves between congregations.
At the same time, 3 John augments and develops the image of an itinerant Elder, strengthening the analogy between the Elder’s contexts and those of Paul. It is the first Johannine text to utilize the term “churches” – a term frequently encountered across the writings of Paul – fully situating the Elder in a network akin to Paul’s own (3 John 6, 9–10). It is also the first letter to relate the Elder’s ministry to specific, named figures like “Gaius” and “Diotrephes,” figures who mirror the many individuals named in Paul’s letters. For that matter, 3 John is also the only Johannine text to associate the eyewitness with companions in his mission. In fact, the language that 3 John 5–8 applies to these figures, “brothers” and “fellow workers” (συνεργοί), represents characteristically Pauline language (cf. 1 Thess. 3:2; Phil 2:25).79 The letter even mentions a man named Demetrius, implying he is a companion, and perhaps emissary or letter carrier, of the Elder (3 John 12). In this respect, Demetrius is an analog to such associates of Paul as Timothy (1 Cor. 4:17; 16:10) and Titus (2 Cor. 2:13; 8:6, 23; 12:18).
Third John also gives its readers unprecedented access to the personal life of the Elder. It identifies flashpoints in a conflict between the Elder and a particular church leader, and it constructs the Elder as a victim of ongoing slander (3 John 9–10). These moves consolidate the quasi-biographical orientation of the letter. But they also set up still more comparisons to Paul, who faced similar opposition and friction in his ministry. Certainly, we can detect an analogy between the Elder’s rebuke and threats in verse 10 and similar rebukes and threats in the writings of Paul:
So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, prating against me with evil words …
Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. But I will come to you soon if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.… What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love in a spirit of gentleness?
This is the third time I am coming to you … I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again, I will not spare them … I write this while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
Together, these features suggest the author’s interest in augmenting the memory of the Elder, offering a glimpse at lost details of his life.
6.3.2.2 Additional Letter Writing
Along the same lines, 3 John extends the image of the eyewitness as a letter writer. The sheer existence of a third letter attributed to the eyewitness/Elder reinforces the idea that the figure was a prolific writer who regularly communicated with others under his oversight or charge. So, too, does the decision to draft the letter as a message from the Elder to a single individual. This move implies that the Elder participated in a broader web of open correspondences than one might glean from 1 John alone or from 1 and 2 John together. It also assimilates the Elder more closely to Paul, whose undisputed letters include letters to communities such as Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, and Galatia and a letter to a private individual, Philemon. (The pseudo-Pauline letters also cover the same range, folding in additional personal letters to Timothy and Titus by the second century and Seneca by the fourth.) No less telling is the fact that 2 John chooses to flesh out the mundane and quotidian dimensions of the Elder’s letter-writing career.
Other touches give the letter and its implied author a more realistic texture. The decision to incorporate the secular letter convention of the health wish (3 John 2) situates the Elder more firmly in second-century epistolary practice and, to that extent, also indicates his fuller control of the literary medium.80 The health wish adds a brushstroke of warmth to the Elder, imbuing his relationship with Gaius with an extra degree of affection. And, of course, implying that the letter’s likely courier was Demetrius opens more of the imagined context of the work, its supposed delivery, adding to the work’s lifelike quality (3 John 12).
6.3.2.3 Hospitality
In any discussion of the purpose of 3 John, one would be remiss not to explore the letter’s foregrounded and sustained appeal to show itinerants hospitality. That appeal, unparalleled in prior Johannine texts, occupies the entire body of the letter. Immediately after the letter’s conventional opening (its prescript, health wish, and positive reports; vv. 1–4), the Elder urges Gaius to continue supporting “the brothers” on their journeys – evidently, itinerants:
Beloved, it is a loyal thing you do when you render any service to the brothers, especially to strangers, who have testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey as befits God’s service. For they have set out for his sake and accepted nothing from the heathen. So we ought to support such persons, that we may be fellow workers in the truth.
This initial instruction serves as a fitting prelude to the Elder’s rebuke of Diotrephes, precisely as one who “refuses … to welcome the brethren”:
I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge my authority. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, prating against me with evil words. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, stops those who want to welcome them, and puts them out of the church.
Following this reproof are two lines that sustain the theme of hospitality. The Elder urges Gaius not to follow the example of Diotrephes but to welcome a particular itinerant into his community, namely, Demetrius:
Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself; I testify to him too, and you know my testimony is true.
The letter concludes with a promise to visit and closing greetings (vv. 13–15).
Taken as a whole, then, 3 John sustains an interest in supporting itinerants, developing this point across a contrived scenario. We should not overlook the importance of this teaching; it too might have been a major motivation for the writing of the letter. The issue of how to treat itinerants was critical enough to feature in other Christian texts of the period. The Didache, for example, offers similar instructions:
Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. He shall stay one day, or, if need be, another too …When the apostle leaves, let him receive nothing but [enough] bread [to see him through] until he finds lodging … Let everyone who comes in the name of the Lord be received, and then, when you have taken stock of him, you will know – for you will have insight – what is right and false … Every true prophet who wants to settle in with you deserves his food. In the same way, a true teacher, too, deserves his food, just as a worker does.82
One can also find analogues for 3 John’s appeal in non-Christian literary fakes. Consider the following letter, written in the voice of Philostratus, which encourages care for traveling poets within its own contrived situation:
To Pleistaeretianus. The poet-folk are numerous, even more numerous than the swarms of bees; but whereas the bees find their food in meadows, the poets find theirs in houses and cities; and in requiting hospitality some poets serve honey and some serve magnificent and costly viands. Then too there are some poets who serve sweetmeats; let us consider that the poets of erotic verse are such. Among their number is Celsus, the bearer of this note, who has devoted his life to song, as the good cicadas do. I am sure you will see to it that he is fed, not on dew, but on substantial food.83
This latter letter has striking parallels to 3 John. Not only does it imagine a situation in the daily life of a figure from the remembered past, but it also co-opts that figure’s voice to stress the importance of a particular class of itinerants and the obligation of offering hospitality to them. We can imagine 3 John as a similar project, fusing the same two purposes with its quasi-biographical aims.
6.3.2.4 Writing 3 John
Like 2 John, 3 John might well have entered into circulation as it was interpolated into a manuscript already containing 1 and 2 John. Interestingly, the letter also seems to make moves to more deeply integrate itself into that collection. As we saw earlier, 3 John has the Elder mention a previous correspondence: “I have written something to the church” (3 John 9). This other epistle may be a purely fictional document: an imagined letter supporting an imagined scenario. Other falsely authored letters position themselves within invented streams of correspondence. But there is another possibility. The letter that the Elder purports to have written “to the church” may be one of the earlier Johannine texts, either 1 or 2 John.84 In this case, verse 9 may represent an attempt to anchor 3 John in the same thread of correspondence as the other letters, justifying 3 John’s presence in the same literary collection.
Interestingly, many scholars also connect 3 John to ancient covering letters that commend messengers.85 An ancient reader might have reached the same conclusion, speculating that 3 John was a text originally packaged with one or both of 1 John and 2 John. In this case, the tendency for scholars to view the Johannine Epistles as a single “epistolary package” may not be accidental, but a directed outcome.86
6.4 Conclusion
Since 2 John and 3 John offer little in the way of new theological content, most scholars today mine these letters for another kind of data: information on the life of the Elder and the communities with which he corresponds.87 This tendency underscores something essential, if often overlooked, about these letters. As brief as they are, they are critical sources for imagining the social contexts of the Elder. They anchor him in a network of “sister” churches, describe his activities, and name his peers (Gaius, Diotrephes, Demetrius).
As I have argued throughout this chapter, this characteristic of the two letters, this interest in more fully fleshing out the world around the Elder, probably speaks to one of the primary intentions behind their production. Like many other pseudo-historical letters from antiquity, 2 and 3 John might have been composed partly to serve quasi-biographical aims, augmenting and enriching earlier portrayals of the Johannine eyewitness/Elder. And yet, the letters offer us glimpses into other agendas and projects critical to their authors, among them, an interest in early Christological debates and a concern over hospitality. None of these projects needs to take precedence over the others; all might have engaged the creativity and energy of our two authors.
Unfortunately, the identities and locations of these authors will remain elusive. We have no way of knowing precisely where 2 John was written, for example; the brevity and pseudo-historical guise of the epistle mask the sorts of features that might link it to a particular geography. At best, we can say that the letter’s author was located in a Greek-speaking area of the Mediterranean. It is also not entirely clear when 2 John was written, though the letter appears to be a mid-second-century work. It was undoubtedly written later than 1 John. It might have been written several decades later, given the very different reception histories of these works. The letter probably also postdates 1 Peter and the Pastoral Epistles, with which it shares certain uncanny parallels, works commonly dated up to the mid-second century.88 Nevertheless, 2 John cannot date much later than the mid-second century since it was known to Irenaeus ca. 180 CE, who approvingly used the text, especially due to its anti-docetic polemic. (Irenaeus cites the text to advance those polemics.)89
We can speak more confidently about the author’s intellectual location. He was a post-Pauline Christian who was a devoted reader of the earliest Johannine works. His letter also seems to reflect an antagonism towards Christian movements holding so-called docetic – perhaps phantasmic or possessionist – Christologies, outlooks represented in various early Christian groups and texts. In this case, we might say that the author stood along a trajectory eventually leading towards Proto-Catholic/Proto-Orthodox Christianity (a current that was still not completely differentiated from others in this period).90 At so late a date, we should also presume the author’s gentile extraction.
Turning to 3 John, its provenance too is elusive, though there are reasons to suspect Alexandria as a possible place of composition. The letter had an icy reception in other regions of the Mediterranean; it took centuries to gain a readership in the Syriac-speaking world, and it was excluded from some Western canon lists (Muratorian Fragment, Mommsen List). Instead, the earliest figures to reference the letter – possibly Origen, possibly Dionysius, and certainly Eusebius – hail from Egypt and Palestine, with two of the three directly embedded in Alexandria.91 It may also be relevant that 3 John achieved canonical status partly through the support of the powerful see of Alexandria – support epitomized by Athanasius’ Letter 39.92
Even if 2 and 3 John came from different geographical coordinates, however, they might not have come from different intellectual coordinates. On the contrary, we have every reason to link 3 John to the emerging Proto-Catholic movement. Admittedly, the text lacks signature Proto-Catholic theological features (it has little theological content in the first place). It also lacks an obvious polemic against other early Christian movements. Nevertheless, if the letter emerged in circles that consumed 2 John – the letter is, after all, modeled after 2 John – then it seems safest to assign it to the same broad current.
Since the letter presupposes 2 John, it cannot be dated earlier than roughly the mid-second century. But it might have been written even later. Again, no record of the letter exists until Origen (assuming that his putative reference to the letter is not a Eusebian gloss).93 Given these uncertainties, it seems safest to identify the epistle as a late second or early third-century text, a date that would make a gentile author especially likely.94 At so late a date, 3 John reveals how persistent the practice of writing letters in the voice of the eyewitness truly was – a practice hardly limited to a single pen, a single terrain, or a single period, but one that united multiple gifted and creative readers of the Gospel of John.
