Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
Nevertheless they prove this much,
that already about the end of the second century, the story
of the two Apostles suffering martyrdom together at Rome was
believed, and that some, of whom Caius tells us, professed to
know their graves and to have their bones in their possession.
§ 16.2. =The Apostle John.=--Soon after the death of Paul, the
Apostle John settled in Ephesus, and there, with the temporary
break caused by his exile to Patmos (Rev. i. 9), he continued
to preside over the church of Asia Minor down to his death in
the time of Trajan (A.D. 98-117). This rests upon the church
tradition which, according to Polycrates of Ephesus (Eus., _Hist.
Eccl._, v. 24) and Irenæus, a scholar of Polycarp’s (Eus., iv. 14),
was first set forth during the Easter controversies (§ 37, 2)
in the middle of the second century by Polycarp of Smyrna, and
has been accepted as unquestionable through all ages down to our
own. According to Irenæus (Eus., iii. 18), his exile occurred
under Domitian; the Syrian translation of the Apocalypse, which
was made in the sixth century, assigned it to the time of Nero.
But seeing that, except in Rev. i. 11, neither in the New
Testament scriptures, nor in the extant writings and fragments
of the Church Fathers of the second century before Irenæus, is
a residence of the Apostle John at Ephesus asserted or assumed,
whereas Papias (§ 30, 6), according to Georgius Hamartolus, a
chronicler of the 9th cent., who had read the now lost work of
Papias, expressly declares that the Apostle John was slain “by
Jews” (comp. Matt. xx. 23), which points to Palestine rather
than to Asia Minor, modern critics have denied the credibility
of that ecclesiastical tradition, and have attributed its origin
to a confusion between the Apostle John and a certain John the
Presbyter, with whom we first meet in the Papias-Fragment quoted
in Eusebius as μαθητὴς τοῦ κυρίου. Others again, while regarding
the residence of the Apostle at Ephesus as well established, have
sought, on account of differences in style standpoint and general
mode of thought in the Johannine Apocalypse on the one hand, and
the Johannine Gospel and Epistles on the other hand, to assign
them to two distinct μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου of the same name, and
by assigning the Apocalypse to the Presbyter and the Gospel and
Epistles to the Apostle, they would in this way account for the
residence at Ephesus. This is the course generally taken by the
Mediation theologians of Schleiermacher’s school. The advanced
liberal critics of the school of Baur assign the Apocalypse to
the Apostle and the Gospel and Epistles to the Presbyter, or else
instead of the Apostle assume a third John otherwise unknown.
Conservative orthodox theology again maintains the unity of
authorship of all the Johannean writings, explains the diversity
of character discernible in the different works by a change on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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