Of course the hypothesis is by no means certain. Perhaps the letter referred to in III John 9 was a previous letter bespeaking hospitality, which had failed of its effect. When the apostle saw, from the answer or lack of answer to the previous letter, that the church was ill disposed, he had recourse to an individual member of it. Even in this case, however, it remains probable that our two epistles were written at about the same time.
These last two epistles of John do not deserve the neglect which they have sometimes suffered. Despite their brevity--they are the shortest books of the New Testament--they are instructive in a number of ways.
(=1=) =Historical.=--It is exceedingly interesting, for example, to compare them with the private letters of the same period which have recently been discovered in Egypt--see Lesson III, Teacher's Manual, in this course. In form, the opening of the Third Epistle is very much in the manner of the papyrus letters. Compare, for example, with III John 1-4 the following opening of a letter of the second century after Christ: "Apion to Epimachus his father and lord heartiest greetings. First of all I pray that you are in health and continually prosper and fare well with my sister and daughter and my brother. I thank the lord Serapis...." (The translation is that of Professor Milligan. See p. 20 of Teacher's Manual, Part I, of this course.) The differences, however, are even more instructive than the resemblances. What was said in Lesson I about the epistles of Paul applies in full measure to the epistles of John. Even the epistolary forms are here modified so as to be the vehicle of a new message and a new spirit.
Furthermore, the two epistles, especially Third John, cast a flood of light upon the internal development of the Church. In one respect indeed the historical significance of the Third Epistle has sometimes been exaggerated. It is not true that we have here the emergence of the monarchical episcopate--that is, the preëminence of one presbyter, called a "bishop," over his brother presbyters. Diotrephes does not appear clearly as a bishop. At about A. D. 110 in the epistles of Ignatius the episcopate is very prominent; but Third John belongs to an earlier period.