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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
In a previous article I argued that the fourth Gospel may best be understood as an evangelistic appeal addressed to Greek-speaking Diaspora Judaism to accept as the Christ him whom ‘the inhabitants ofJerusalem and their rulers’ (‘the Jews’ of this Gospel) refused to acknowledge. If this thesis is to establish itself it must be prepared to account for the evidence of the Johannine Epistles. For, whether or not they come from the same hand as the Gospel, the milieu they presuppose is so similar that any theory about the nature of the community for which the Gospel was written which will not fit the evidence of the Epistles is bound to be precarious.
page 56 note 1 ‘The Destination and Purpose of St John's Gospel,’ N. T.S. VI (1960), 117–31.Google Scholar
page 59 note 1 Law, R., The Tests of Life (Edinburgh, 1909), p. 39.Google Scholar
page 60 note 1 The only other New Testament writer apart from the Author to the Hebrews to refer to Cain.Google Scholar
page 60 note 2 The Religious Thought of St John (London, 1950), p. 168.Google Scholar
page 60 note 3 The Johannine Epistles (London, 1932), pp. liii–liv.Google Scholar
page 61 note 1 The fourth Gospel never uses 
in the plural.Google Scholar
page 61 note 2 On the fundamental affinities between the theological dualism of the Johannine Epistles and Qumran, see Nauck, W., Die Tradition und der Chtsrakter des ersten Fohamesbriefes (Tübingen, 1957), pp. 100–22.Google Scholar
page 61 note 3 Immediately before listing the doctrinal points which, as we have seen, indicate the more Jewish character of the Epistles, Dodd writes: ‘The Epistle is not only less Hebraic and Jewish; it is also more free in its adoption of Hellenistic modes of thought and expression’ (op. cit. p. liii).Google Scholar
page 61 note 4 Pace Bultmann, this looks increasingly to be a late, post-Christian element in Gnosticism, and is absent even from The Gospel of Truth in the middle of the second century.Google Scholar
page 62 note 1 Adv. Haer. 1, xxvi, I: ‘Post baptismum descendisse in eum ab ea principalitate quae est super omnia Christum figura columbae, et tunc annuntiasse incognitum patrem et virtutes perfecisse; in fine autem revolasse iterum Christum de lesu, et lesum passum esse et resurrexisse; Christum autem impassibilem perseverasse existentem spiritalem.’Google Scholar
page 62 note 2 Ibid.:‘lesum autem subiecit non cx virgine natum (impossibile enim hoc ei visum est); fuisse autem eum Joseph et Mariae fihium, similiter Ut reliqui omnes homines.’Google Scholar
page 62 note 3 It would be a mistake to assume that there was a 1:1 correspondence between the views of Cerinthus and John's opponents. Indeed, he never suggests he is attacking an individual person. But, pace Schnackenburg, R., Die Fohannesbriefe (Freiburg, 1953), pp. 17 f.,Google Scholar I am convinced with Brooke, A. E., The Johannine Epistles (Edinburgh, 1912), pp. xlv–xlix, that the Johannine heresy is better explained by what we know of Cerinthus than by any other known system.Google Scholar
page 62 note 4 Op. cit., ibid.
page 62 note 5 Op. cit. III, iii, 4. It is repeated by Eusebius H.E III, xxviii, 6; IV, xiv, 6.Google Scholar
page 63 note 1 XXX (1921), 344–73.Google Scholar
page 63 note 2 Op. cit. p. 349.Google Scholar
page 63 note 3 Op. cit. III, xi, I.Google Scholar
page 63 note 4 Iren. op. cit., ibid.
page 63 note 5 Pseud. Tert. Adu. omn. haer. 3.Google Scholar
page 63 note 6 It is presented as a jewish heresy in Justin, Dial. lxii, 3.Google Scholar Cf. the passage in the Treatise on the Three Natures quoted by Quispel, G. in The Fung Codex, ed. Cross, F. L. (London, 1955), p. 62:Google Scholar ‘They [the Jews] have founded numerous heresies which exis down to the present day among the Jews … Some say that he [God] is the creator of what exists; others say that he created through angels.’
page 63 note 7 Ed. Sedlacek, L., C.S.E.O., Scriptores syri: versio. Series II, vol. CI (Rome, Paris, Leipzig, 1910), p. 1, II. 30 ff. The text is quoted by Bardy, op. cit. p. 353.Google Scholar
page 63 note 8 Haeres. XXVIII.Google Scholar
page 63 note 9 Haeres. XXXVI, 4.Google Scholar
page 63 note 10 Euseb. H.E. III, xxviii, 1–2.Google Scholar
page 63 note 11 Op. cit. p. 371.Google Scholar
page 63 note 12 Op. cit. p. 373.Google Scholar
page 64 note 1 Op. cit. p. 26.Google Scholar
page 64 note 2 Cf. e.g. Quispel, G., The Fung Codex (ed. Cross, F. L.), pp. 61–78;Google ScholarWilson, R. McL., The Gnostic Problem (London, 1958), esp. ch. VII.Google Scholar
page 64 note 3 Reicke, B., N.T.S. I (1954), 141.Google Scholar
