Difference between revisions of "Diotrephes"

<p> 3 John 1:9, loving to have the preeminence" through ambition. A Judaizer, who opposed the missionaries when preaching grace to the Gentiles, see 3 John 1:7. He "prated against" John and the orthodox "with malicious words"; he "received not" John, by not receiving with love the brethren whom John recommended (Matthew 10:40). His influence was so great that he "cast out" of the church such as were disposed to receive them. But Neander thinks that the missionaries were [[Christian]] [[Jews]] who "took nothing of the Gentiles" (3 John 1:7), in contrast to the Jews who elsewhere abused ministers' right of maintenance (2 Corinthians 11:22; Philippians 3:2; Philippians 3:5; Philippians 3:19); and that [[Diotrephes]] stood at the head of an ultra-Pauline party of anti-Jewish tendency, forerunners of Marcion. This accounts for Diotrephes' domineering opposition to the missionaries and to John, whose love combined with truth sought to harmonize the various elements in the Asiatic churches. </p> <p> [[Demetrius]] is praised as of the opposite spirit to Diotrephes; as the former was to be followed, so the latter to be shunned (3 John 1:11-12). Perhaps Diotrephes as the local bishop simply resented the interference of John's apostolic legates as an infringement of his personal rights. For whereas in the 2nd [[Epistle]] of John corruption of doctrine is spoken of as disqualifying one from the hospitality of the church, in this 3rd Epistle no hint is given of erroneous doctrine; but only of Diotrephes' "love of preeminence." </p> <p> Diotrephes and the presbyters influenced by him (whether as their bishop or not) treated the apostle's messengers as persons claiming an authority derogatory to his own. But John (3 John 1:10) uses language implying his own unquestionable power of restraining Diotrephes's "prating" opposition: such as none but an apostle could properly have employed, an indirect confirmation of the Johannine authorship of the epistle. </p>

<p> An otherwise unknown man named in 3 John 1:9 as ambitious, masterful, and tyrannical. As the authorship of the Epistle, its destination, and date are all doubtful, any attempt to identify [[Diotrephes]] is futile. His main interest for the student of the [[Apostolic]] [[Church]] is that he is a witness to the opposite currents of thought which disturbed it. The writer of 3 John was apparently responsible for a band of travelling evangelists to whom Diotrephes refused a welcome. The ground of refusal appears, from the references to ‘truth’ in the Epistle, to have been a difference of doctrine. If the writer was a ‘pneumatic’ teacher, Diotrephes would probably be a [[Catholic]] officer of influence, but of lower standing than the writer. If the writer, on the other hand, was a Catholic teacher, Diotrephes was probably a man of Docetic views. The name occurs in profane [[Greek]] twice-once as son of [[Heraclitus]] in the 3rd cent. b.c., and once as the name of an Antiochene rhetorician (Pauly-Wissowa[Note: auly-Wissowa Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyklopädie.], <i> s.v. </i> ). </p> <p> W. F. Cobb. </p>