16.  SECOND AND THIRD EPISTLES OF JOHN.  These two short epistles are so closely related to each other in style and manner that they have always been regarded as written by one and the same person.  In considering, therefore, the question of their authorship we take them both together.  Though reckoned by Origen (in Eusebius’ Hist.  Eccl., 6. 25) and by Eusebius himself (Hist.  Eccl., 3. 25; Demonstratio Evangel. 3. 5) among the disputed writings, the external testimony to their apostolic authorship is upon the whole satisfactory, embracing the names of Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Dionysius of Alexandria, Jerome, etc.  When we take into account the small extent of these epistles it is plain that no unfavorable inference can be drawn from the silence of Tertullian and others.  Nor is there any internal evidence against them.  That the man who, in his gospel, studiously avoids the mention of his own name, describing himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and, in his first epistle, simply classes himself with the other apostles—­“that which we have seen and heard,” etc.—­should in these epistles, where some designation of himself was necessary, speak of himself as “the elder” is not surprising.  Compare 1 Peter 5:1.

17.  Concerning the date of these two epistles we know nothing.  The object of the first seems to have been to set before the lady to whom it was addressed the importance of a discriminating love, which distinguishes between truth and falsehood, and does not allow itself to aid and abet error by misplaced kindness towards its teachers.

In the second the apostle, writing to Gaius, commends to his hospitality, certain missionary brethren, who were strangers in the place where this disciple lived.  It would seem that the design of these brethren was to preach the gospel to the Gentiles without charge; that he had in a former letter, commended them to the church where Gaius resided; but that Diotrephes had hindered their reception, and persecuted those who favored them.

Short as these epistles are, then, each of them contains weighty instruction—­the first, in reference to ill-timed kindness and liberality towards the teachers of error; the second, concerning the character and conduct of those who love to have the preeminence, and the abhorrence in which they ought to be held by all who love the purity and peace of the churches.

IV.  EPISTLE OF JUDE.

18.  The writer of this epistle styles himself “the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James.”  Chap. 1:1.  This James is undoubtedly the same man who held so conspicuous a place in the church at Jerusalem, and was the author of the epistle which bears his name.  Whether Jude was an apostle, or an apostolic man, like Mark and Luke, depends upon the question respecting the relation which his brother James held to Christ, concerning which see the introduction