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~bt 4!:antbrtbgt 35tblt for ~tboolu . anb 4!:olltntu. THE EPISTLES OF S. JOHN. il.ontlon: C. J. CLAY AND SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MARIA LANE. l!tambtillgt! DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. lLdpig: F. A. BROCKHAUS. lll,tw ll!otk: MACMILLAN AND co. ~bt C!tambril:Jgt lSiblt for §,cboolu anl:J C!tolltgtu. GENERAL EDITOR :-J. J. s. PEROWNE, D.D., BISHOP OF WORCESTER. THE EPISTLES OF S. JOHN, WITH NOTES, INTRODUCTION AND APPENDICES BY THE REV. A. PLUMMER, M.A. D.D. MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, DGRHAM, FORMERLY FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD, EDITED FOR THE SYNDICS OF THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. <!Cambtfbgc : AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 1892 [All Rights reserved.] Ql;ambtibgc PRJNTED BY C, J. CLAY M.A. AND SONS AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR. THE Gen.eral Editor of The Cambridge Bible for . Schools thinks it right to say that he does not hold himself responsible either for the interpretation of particular passages which the Editors of the several Books have adopted, or for any opinion on points of doctrine that they may have expressed. In the New Testament more especially questions arise of the deepest theological import, on which the ablest and most conscientious interpreters have differed and always will differ. His aim has been in all such cases to leave each Contributor to the unfettered exercise of his own judgment, only taking care that mere controversy should as far as possible be avoided. He has contented himself chietlr with a careful revision of the notes, with pointing out omissions, with 6 PREFACE. suggesting occasionally a reconsideration of some question, or a fuller treatment of difficult passages, and the like. Beyond this he has not attempted to interfere, feeling it better that each Commentary should have its own individual character, and being convinced that freshness and variety of treatment are more than a compensation for any lack of uniformity in the Series. DEANERY, PETERBOROUGIL CONTENTS. PAGES I. INTRODUCTION. Chapter I. TheLastYearsofS.John ............... 9-28 Chapter II. The First Epistle of S. John............ 28-49 Chapter III. The Second Epistle........................ 49-59 Chapter IV. The Third Epistle ...... ..... .. .. .. .. .. 59-62 Chapter V. The Text of the Epistles.................. 63-68 Chapter VI. The Literature of the Epistles .. .. .... 68-70 II. TEXT AND NOTES ............................................... 71-195 APPENDICES. A. The Three Evil Tendencies in the World 196 B. Antichrist...................................................... 198 C. The Sect of the Cainites .. .. ... .. ... ... .. .. .. ....... 202 D. The Three Heavenly Witnesses .. ... .. .... .. ... .. 204' E. John the Presbyter or the Elder ........................ 213 III. INDICES ............... .......................................... 217-220 * * The Text adopted in this Edition is that of Dr Scrivener's * Cambridge Paragraph Bible. A few variations from the ordi• nary Text, chiefly in the spelling of certain words, and in the use of italics, will be noticed. For the principles adopted by Dr Scrivener as regards the printing of the Text see his Intro duction to the Paragraph Bible, published by the Cambridge University Press. INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. THE LAST YEARS OF S. JOHN. A SKETCH of the life of S. John as a whole has been given in the Introduction to the Fourth Gospel. Here it will not be necessary to do inore than retouch and somewhat enlarge what was there said respecting the closing years of his life, in which period, according to all probability, whether derived from direct or indirect evidence, our three Epistles were written. In order to understand the motive and ton,e of the Epistles, it is requisite to have some clear idea of the circumstances, local, moral, and intellectual, in the midst of which they were written. (i) The Local Surroundings-Ephesus. Unless the whole history of the century which followed upon the destruction of Jerusalem is to be abandoned as chimerical and untrustworthy, we must continue to believe the almost uni versally accepted statement that S. John spent the last portioQ of his life in Asia Minor, and chiefly at Ephesus. The sceptical spirit which insists upon the truism that well-attested facts have nevertheless not been demonstrated with all the certainty of a proposition in Euclid, and contends that it is therefore right to doubt them, and lawful to dispute them, renders history im possible. The evidence of S. John's residence at Ephesus is too , strong to be shaken by conjectures. It will be worth while to state the main elements of it. JO INTRODUCTION. (1) The opening chapters of the Book of Revelation are written in the character of the Metropolitan of the Churches of Asia Minor. Even if we admit that the Book is possibly not written by S. John, at least it is written by some one who knows that S. John held that position. Had S. John never lived in Asia Minor, the writer of the Apocalypse would at once have been detected as personating an Apostle of whose abode and position he was ignorant. (2) Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 150) probably within fifty years of S. John's death writes: "Among us also a certain man named John, one of the Apostles of Christ, prophesied in a Revelation made to him, that the believers of our Christ shall spend a thousand years in Jerusalem." These words occur in the Dialogue with Trypho (LXXXI.), which Eusebius tells us was held at Ephesus: so that 'among us' naturally means at or near Ephesus. (3) Irenaeus, the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of S. John, writes thus (c. A.D. 18o) in the celebrated Epistle to Florinus, of which a portion has been preserved by Eusebius (H. E. v. xx. 4, 5): "These doctrines those presbyters who preceded us, who also were conversant with the Apostles, did not hand down to thee. For when I was yet a boy I saw thee in lower Asia with Polycarp, distinguishing thyself in the royal court, and endeavouring to have his approbation. For I remember what happened then more clearly than recent occurrences. For the experiences of childhood, growing up along with the soul, become part and parcel of it : so that I can describe both the place in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit and discourse, and his goings out and his comings in, the character of his life and the appearance of his person, and the discourses which he used to deliver to the multitude; and how he recounted ltis close inter course wt'th 'John, and with the rest of those who had seen the Lord." That Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna, where he spent most of his life and suffered martyrdom, is well known. And this again proves S. John's residence in Asia Minor. Still more plainly Irenaeus says elsewhere (Haer. III. i. 1): "Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned back on His breast, J-.e EPHESUS. II too published a gospel during his resz'dence at Ephesus in Asia." (4) Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, in his Epistle to Victor Bishop of Rome (A. D. 190-200) says: "And moreover John also that leaned back upon the Lord's breast, who was a priest bearing the plate of gold, and a martyr and a t!!acher,-he lies asleep at Ephesus." (5) Apollonius, sometimes said to have been Presbyter of Ephesus, wrote a treatise against Montanism (c. A. D. 200), which Tertullian answered; and Eusebius tells us that Apollo nius related the raising of a dead man to life by S. John at Ephesus (H.E. v. xviii, 14). There is no need to multiply witnesses. That S. John ended his days in Asia Minor, ruling 'the Churches of Asia' from Ephesus as his usual abode, was the uniform belief of Christen dom in the second and third centuries, and there is no sufficient reason for doubting its truth. We shall find that S. John's resi dence there harmonizes admirably with the tone and contents of these Epistles. Ephesus was situated on high ground in the midst of a fertile plain, not far from the mouth of the Cayster. As a centre of commerce its position was magnificent. Three rivers drain western Asia Minor, the Maeander, the Cayster, and the Hermes, and of these three the Cayster is the central one, and its valley is connected by passes with the valleys of the other two. The trade of the eastern Aegean was concentrated in its port. Through Ephesus flowed the chief of the trade between Asia Minor and the West. Strabo, the geographer, who was still living when S. John was a young man, had visited Ephesus, and as a native of Asia Minor must have known the city well from reputation. Writing of it in the time of Augustus he says : "Owing to its favourable situation, the city is in all other re spects increasing daily, for it is the greatest place of trade of all the cities of Asia west of the Taurus." The vermilion trade of Cappadocia, which used to find a port at Sinope, now passed ,through Ephesus. What Corinth was to Greece and the Adri atic, and Marseilles to Gaul and the western Mediterranean, 12 INTRODUCTION. that Ephesus was to Asia Minor and the Aegean. And its home products were considerable: corn in abundance grew in its plains, and wine and oil on its surrounding hills. Patmos, the scene of the Revelation, is only a day's sail fro111 Ephesus, and it has been reasonably conjectured that the gorgeous description of the merchandise of 'Babylon,' given in the Apocalypse (xviii. 12, 13) is derived from S. John's own experiences in Ephesus: 'Merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet ; and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble ; and cinna mon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep ; and merchandise of horses and chariots and slaves; and souls of men.' The last two items give us in terrible simplicity the traffic in human beings which treated them as body and soul the property of their purchaser.