on the epistle of john

to the parthians.¹⁹⁸⁸

1988 In this designation of St. John’s first Epistle, the manuscript copies of St. Augustin all agree, both here and in the incidental mention, Quæst. Evang. ii. 39, of St. John’s Epistola ad Parthos; and that there is no error of transcription is further proved by the fact, that the present work appears in the Indiculus of Posidius under the title, In Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos Tractatus decem. And yet St. Augustin neither in these Tractates nor in any other of his extant works explains or comments upon this peculiar address. In the Latin church, since Augustin, it frequently occurs in authors and in mss. of the Vulgate. According to Venerable Bede, “Many ecclesiastical authors, and among them St. Athanasius, Bishop of the Church of Alexandria, witness that the first Epistle of St. John was written ad Parthos.” (Cave, Hist. Lit. i. 614). But there is no indication elsewhere that St. Athanasius was acquainted with this superscription, and with the exception of a few very modern mss. which have πρὸς πάρθους in the subscription to the second Epistle, it seems to be unknown to the Greek Church. The tradition according to which St. John preached the Gospel in Parthia rests (so far as appears) on no ancient authority, and perhaps has no other foundation than the superscription itself: which may have originated either, as some critics have supposed, in an abbreviated form of πρὸς παρθένους, “To the Virgins,” or as Gieseler suggests, in τοῦ παρθένου, as the designation of St. John himself, “The Epistle of John the Virgin;” an epithet which has gone with his name from very early times. In favor of this explanation it may be remarked, that Griesbach’s Codex, 30, has for the superscription of the Apocalypse, τοῦ ἁγίου ἐνδοξοτάτου ἀποστόλου καὶ εὐαγγελιστοῦ παρθένου ἠγαπημένου ἐπιστηθίου ’Ιωάννου θεολόγου: “The Apocalypse of the holy, most glorious Apostle and Evangelist, ‘the Virgin,’ the Beloved, who lay in the bosom (of the Lord), John the Theologus.” [Most recent critics and commentators adopt the plausible conjecture of Gieseler that the title originated in the mistake of a transcriber for τοῦ παρθένου. Other conjecturers: Ad Spartos, Ad Pattimios, Ad Sparsos, are not worth considering. See the commentaries of Huther, Haupt, Braune, Westcott, and Plummer.—P.S.]

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The Prologue.

Ye remember, holy brethren, that the Gospel according to John, read in orderly course of lessons, is the subject on which we usually discourse: but because of the now intervening solemnity of the holy days, on which there must be certain lessons recited in the Church, which so come every year that they cannot be other than they are:¹⁹⁸⁹

1989 From S. Aug. Serm. ccxxxii. 1, and ccxxxix. 1, it appears to have been the custom, that during seven or eight days after Easter Sunday, the history of the Resurrection from all four Evangelists should furnish the Gospel Lessons: but not always in the same order, St. Luke being sometimes read before St. Mark. And in fact the second of these Homilies, which one of the oldest mss. assigns to Easter Monday, appears from the opening of it to have been preached on the day which had for its Lesson the narrative of St. Luke concerning the two disciples to whom Christ appeared on the way to Emmaus.—Ben. Ed.

1990 Some mss. have in the title of these Homilies the addition, De Caritate.

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