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?Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - 1 John?(Charles J. Ellicott) Commentator
Charles John Ellicott, compiler of and contributor to this renowned Bible
Commentary, was one of the most outstanding conservative scholars of the
18th century. He was born at Whitwell near Stamford, England, on April 25,
1819. He graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, where other famous
expositors like Charles Simeon and Handley Moule studied. As a Fellow of
St. John's, he constantly lectured there. In 1847, Charles Ellicott was
ordained a Priest in the Church of England. From 1841 to 1848, he served as
Rector of Pilton, Rutlandshire. He became Hulsean Professor of Divinity,
Cambridge, in 1860. The next three years, 1861 to 1863, he ministered as
Dean of Exeter, and later in 1863 became the Lord Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol.
Conspicuous as a Bible Expositor, he is still well known for his Critical
and Grammatical Commentaries on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians,
Colossians, Thessalonians and Philemon. Other printed works include Modern
Unbelief, The Being of God, The History and Obligation of the Sabbath.
This unique Bible Commentary is to be highly recommended for its worth to
Pastors and Students. Its expositions are simple and satisfying, as well as
scholarly. Among its most commendable features, mention should be made of
the following: It contains profitable suggestions concerning the
significance of names used in Scripture. 00 Introduction THE EPISTLES OF
JOHN.
The Epistles of St. John.
BY
THE VEN. W. M. SINCLAIR, M.A., D.D.,
Archdeacon of London.
INTRODUCTION
TO
THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN.
I. WHO WAS THE WRITER?
II. WHO WERE THE READERS?
III. WHAT WERE THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHURCHES?
IV. IS THE WRITING AN EPISTLE?
V. WHEN WAS IT WRITTEN?
VI. WHERE WAS IT WRITTEN?
VII. WHAT IS ITS SCOPE?
VIII. NOTES ON DIFFICULT PASSAGES.
IX. LITERATURE.
I. Who was the Writer?-Three Epistles come before us in the New Testament
bearing a very strong family likeness to each other and to the Fourth
Gospel. They carry no superscription in their text, but "the elder," or
"the old man." Whose are they? The manuscripts from which they are derived
have always said "John's," and in some is added "the Apostle."
We will here consider the First. The Second and Third will be treated
separately. The evidence for the First is as strong as anything could be.
It was accepted as the Apostle's by the whole Church. Eusebius, the
historian (born about A.D. 270), places it among the writings "universally
admitted (homologoumena)"; and Jerome states that it received the sanction
of all members of the Church. The only exceptions were such sects of
heretics as would be likely to repudiate it as not harmonising with their
theological errors: the Alogi, or "Unreasonables," an obscure and rather
doubtful sect in the second century, who rejected St. John's Gospel and the
Revelation, and therefore, probably, these three Epistles; and Marcion, in
the same century, who chose such parts of the New Testament as suited him
best, and altered them at pleasure.
The evidence of quotation and reference begins early. Polycarp, the
disciple of St. John, became a Christian A.D. 83. In the epistle which he
wrote to the Philippians, occur these words: "For every one that confesseth
not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is antichrist." The likeness to
1 John 4:2-3, is marked; and it is far more probable that a loosely written
letter, such as his, should embody a well-known saying of so sententious
and closely worded a treatise as the First Epistle of John than the other
way.
Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, flourished in the first half of the second
century. Irenæus, who was born about the end of the first century, says
that he was a hearer of St. John. This is contradicted by Eusebius on the
evidence of Papias' own writings (H.E. III. 39, 1, 2); but he wrote a work
called, An Explanation of the Oracles of the Lord, in which he bore witness
to the authenticity of Christian doctrine. The account of his work is
derived from Eusebius, the historian, who says that "he used testimonies
from the First Epistle of John." By balancing the name of St. John in this
sentence with that of St. Peter, Eusebius evidently understood the Apostle.
About A.D. 100 was born Justin Martyr. In his time was written the
anonymous epistle to Diognetus. Six of its chapters contain indisputable
reminiscences of the First Epistle. The epistle of the Churches of Vienne
and Lyons was written in A.D. 177. It quotes 1 John 3:16. Carpocrates, the
Gnostic, lived at Alexandria at the beginning of the second century. He
tried to pervert 1 John 5:19, "The whole world lieth in the evil one."
Irenæus cites three passages from the First Epistle, mentioning its author;
and Eusebius mentions this piece of evidence in, exactly the same manner as
that from Papias. Clement of Alexandria was born about A.D. 150. Like
Irenæus, he quotes passages from the First Epistle, naming the author. So
Tertullian, born about the same time, Origen, and the succeeding Fathers.
About A.D. 170, a Canon of the New Testament was drawn up by some teacher
for the use of catechumens. This is now known by the name of Muratori, who
discovered and printed it A.D. 1740. (See Tregelles' Canon Muratorianus,
pages 1, 81-89: Oxford, 1867.) "What wonder," it says, "that St. John makes
so many references to the Fourth Gospel in his Epistles, saying of himself,
'that which we have seen with our eyes, and have heard with our ears, and
our hands have handled, that have we written'? for thus he professes
himself not only the eye-witness, but also the hearer and the writer of all
the wonders of the Lord in order." And, after cataloguing St. Paul's
Epistles, it continues: "The Epistle of Jude, and the two which bear the
name of John as a title, are considered General." The writer evidently
means the Second and Third Epistles, which might not have been considered
general from their shortness and slightness. The Peschito, or Syrian
version, of about the same date, gives the same evidence as the Muratorian
Canon. We have thus a consentient voice from the churches of East and West,
of Syria, of Alexandria, of Africa, and of Gaul.
So strong, so clear, is the external proof. On the internal, nothing can
be better than the words of Ewald. "As in the Gospel, we see here the
author retire to the background, unwilling to speak of himself, and still
less to support anything by the weight of his name and reputation, although
the reader here meets him, not as the calm narrator, but as an epistolary
writer, as exhorter and teacher, as an Apostle, and, moreover, as the only
surviving Apostle. It is the same delicacy and diffidence, the same lofty
calmness and composure, and especially the same truly Christian modesty,
that cause him to retire to the background as an Apostle, and to say
altogether so little of himself. He only desires to counsel and warn, and
to remind his readers of the sublime truth they have once acquired; and the
higher he stands the less he is disposed to humble 'the brethren' by his
great authority and directions. But he knew who he was, and every word
tells plainly that he only could thus speak, counsel, and warn. The unique
consciousness which an Apostle as he grew older could carry within himself,
and which he, once the favourite disciple, had in a peculiar measure; the
calm superiority, clearness, and decision in thinking on Christian
subjects; the rich experience of a long life, steeled in the victorious
struggle with every unchristian element; and a glowing language lying
concealed under this calmness, which makes us feel intuitively that it does
not in vain commend to us love as the highest attainment of Christianity-
all this coincides so remarkably in this Epistle, that every reader of that
period, probably without any further intimation, might readily determine
who he was. But where the connection required it the author intimates with
manifest plainness that he stood in the nearest possible relations to Jesus
(1 John 1:1-3; 1 John 4:16; 1 John 5:3-6), precisely as he is wont to
express himself in similar circumstances in the Gospel; and all this is so
artless and simple, so entirely without the faintest trace of imitation in
either case, that nobody can fail to perceive that the self-same author and
Apostle must have composed both writings" (Ewald, Die Johann. Schriften, i.
431).
No less than thirty-five passages of the Fourth Gospel are common to the
First Epistle. These expressions occur in twenty-three different places,
and are used in a way of which only the author of the same two treatises
could be capable. Considerably more than half of the parallel places in the
Gospel belong to the farewell discourses of John 12-17. There the tender,
loving, receptive, truthful, retentive mind of the bosom-friend had been
particularly necessary; at that great crisis it had been, through the
Spirit of God, particularly strong; and the more faithfully St. John had
listened to his Master and reproduced Him, the deeper the impression was
which the words made on his own mind, and the more likely he was to dwell
on them in another work instead of on his own thoughts and words. The style
may be his own both in Gospels and Epistles, modified by that of our Lord;
the thoughts are the thoughts of Jesus. (See Vol. I., pp. 557 and 558.) An
examination of the following parallels will illustrate this:
|First Epistle of John. |Gospel of John. |
|1 John 1:1-2 |John 1:1-2;