While I was looking for more possible parallels between the Shepherd of Hermas 54-60 and the NT, I came across the idea that one must do God's commandments and walk according to his ordinances. I vaguely remembered this from my Campus Crusade days, "walking with God", which came from Gen 5:22, 24 and 1 John 2:6. Oddly, an otherwise valuable book I have, "The Theology of the Johannine Epistles" by Judith Lieu, does not mention the walk of God as one of 1 John's theological ideas - I say "oddly", because as far as I can tell 1 John was the writing that introduced it. I hope this essay will fill in the blanks.
After posting earlier drafts, I returned to Earl Doherty's supplemental article: No. 2: A Solution to the First Epistle of John. His article is more sweeping than this one. When I talk about 1 John, I could be talking about multiple layers of 1 John. Unfortunately, 1 John's layers - perhaps we should say "sources" - do not exist in independent form as they do in the four gospels. (Which we know through synopses of the four, plus non-canonical literature which shares those sources like Egerton.) As a result I speak of 1 John as an individual; but remember that 1 John is probably composite.
The ancient Greek translation of Ecclesiastes 12:13 reads: ton qeon fobou kai taV entolaV autou fulasse. It is a command to the individual: "fear God and keep his commandments". The translater used the same words as the older Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 5:29 and 6:2; he probably saw those verses as the whole point of Torah. This soundbite was easier to remember than its Deuteronomic antecedents, and would have achieved common currency as a Jewish (Maccabean?) slogan.
One witness to this slogan is 1 John 5:2, which reads: ton qeon agapwmen kai taV entolaV autou poiwmen/thrwmen (depending on the codex). 1 John asserts that it is "by this we know that we love the children of God:" "we love God and we do his commandments".
1 John mimics Ecclesiastes's language down to the word order, only changing the two verbs and their tenses. In the first instance - changing "fear!" to "we love" - he gives us a reason. For 1 John, "foboV ouk estin en th agaph" - there is no phobos in agape (1 John 4:18). In the second instance, a more major theme of 1 John is going beyond what we "say" (1:6,8,10; 2:4,6,9); "whoever says 'I abide in him' ought to walk just as he walked'".
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43), mainstream Jews have heard much said one way, but Jesus would "say unto" them another. In 4QMMT, the author's group ("we") has also "determined" much (B.29,36,37,42) which "you" (C.8,10) have not, yet. In the former case, Jesus is updating the law; in the latter case, "we" are taking it to its logical conclusion.
1 John does not cite the status quo directly and it is "we" who are closer to God's will (like 4QMMT, unlike the Sermon), but he intends to fulfil the will of God by negating certain exhortations of Scripture (like the Sermon, unlike 4QMMT).
1 John says his "commandments are not burdensome". And what of those commandments? In reality, having brought them up, 1 John does not quote any other "commandments" of the Scriptures. Instead, he says "for whatever is born of God conquers the world". His train of thought is famously circular. The only traits that mark one as a child of God is that one "does right" (2:29) and avoids sin (3:4); sin is "lawlessness". The Lord's specific commandments are that 1 John's community "believe in the name of [God's] son Jesus Christ and love one another" (3:23).
1 John led up to this proclamation. Unlike the Lord's commandment, this was not something the community had had from the beginning. In rewriting Ecclesiates 12:13, 1 John has announced his opposition to those who believe in its sentiments: those who obeyed the Law of Moses literally, out of fear. They fear, we love; they keep, we do. Since God is love, they who do not love God are not true followers of God.
On 1 John's topic of loving God and doing his commandments, the Gospel of John
14:15 asserted, "If ye love me, keep my commandments
". The former clause develops God secondarily into Jesus; but the latter clause is closer to the old Jewish slogan.
Another minor theme of 1 John is that one "walk in the light" (peripatw, 1:7) "just as he walked" (2:6), and not "walk in the darkness" (1:6, 2:11). Judith Lieu did not have a separate heading in the index for "walk", but she did mention it in pages 26, 50, 52-3, 56, 58, 65. The author of 1 John believed that Jesus (and? or? also-called?) God walked, and "in the light". The audience of the epistle was used to saying, "I abide in him" (2:6, which 1 John understood to mean God: 4:16) and had heard people deny that Jesus came "in the flesh" (4:1-2). In addition, 1 John dropped the "walk" imagery after 2:11. Belief in Jesus as a living being was not yet universally accepted in that sect. And no-one was claiming Jesus to be God, Trinitarian additions notwithstanding.
The Fourth Gospel was the first, clearest, and most far-reaching attempt by Johannines to depict an earthly, walking Jesus of light and life. It uses the "walking in light" terminology in a way subtly different from both 1 and 2 John. John 8:12 has Jesus say, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life". In John 11:9-10, Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. It is when he walks by night that he stumbles, for he has no light." Finally, in John 12:35 "Jesus then told them, "You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going." As in 1 John, the Johannines are to avoid walking in the darkness and are to have life. But Jesus does not walk in the light here: Jesus is the light. These Johannines do not walk in the light either; they have the light, as 1 John has the Father (1 John 2:23) and Son (1 John 5:12).
John 15:4-5 also uses the term, "abiding in -", but instead of ending the phrase with "God" or "light" as does 1 John (except 2:24: "son and father"), it ends it with "Jesus". "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
Now, 1 John had said that Jesus had walked in the light himself. In 1 John, Jesus was not the light. I agree with Earl Doherty and a few others that 1 John did not base his letter on the Gospel.
I showed here that the Johannines followed the Enochian cycle up to the "Epistle of Enoch" and the Damascus Document. The Johannines went on to claim they were children of God and abode in God. 1 John introduced the idea that God was love; it also seems to have faced a rebellion of people who denied that the Righteous One was a physical person, arguably in different redactional layers (it gets very complicated here). The Gospel of John picked up Johannine thought (although not necessarily 1 John's) and gave Jesus something to do while he was beaming around.
As for the Egerton Gospel, speculation that it is another Johannine writing is at present completely unwarranted.
2 John was written by an "elder" and was not accepted into the Syriac NT until later editions of the Peshitta. Irenaeus was the first to accept it as John's, in the later 2nd century CE: 'And John, the disciple of the Lord, has intensified their condemnation, when he desires us not even to address to them the salutation of "good-speed"; for, says he, "He that bids them be of good-speed is a partaker with their evil deeds" (2 John [10-]11)'. (Adv. Haer. I.16.3) It is very short, but one can still recognise a development of ideas from 1 John and not just the Johannine milieu. For example, the elder is "overjoyed to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we have been commanded".
"But now," as the elder continues: "walking in truth" is no longer walking in the light as Jesus and 1 John walked. The elder has to insist that it is "not as though I were writing you a new commandment" - which is a hint he is about to redefine some terms. 2 John 6 - "And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments - took the "we do the commandments" of 1 John 5 and harmonised it with the "walk" of 1 John 1-2, completing the circle with Deuteronomy 5:33. These commandments are no longer hazily connected to abiding in the Light; one must now abide in the "teaching of Christ" (2 John 9 - c.f. Lieu p. 94). For the first time in the Johannine epistles, Christ did more than just walk the earth and die for our sins; he also taught. These teachings still do not cite the discourses of Jesus in the Gospel of John, but some teachings may have existed already: note the Gospel of Thomas and possibly some of the Nag Hammadi dialogues.
A stratum of the "apostolic" work Shepherd of Hermas which post-dates the Gospel of Luke (see here) also refers to "walking" according to commandments: mhden ponhreush en th zwh sou, kai douleuson tw kuriw en kaqara kardia: thrhson taV entolaV autou poreuomenoV en toiV prostagmasin autou... pisteuson de tw qew: kai ean tauta ergash kai fobhqhV auton... (54:5) To analyse the underlined phrases in order:
I do not see a dependence on 2 John or even 1 Clement, but there is at least an affinity with 1 John and the Epistle of Enoch. These were commonplaces of "Two Ways" literature, which 1 Clement, Hermas, and the Johannines all cherished. If anything, 2 John may have read Hermas: compare 2 John's elect lady with the desired woman of Hermas 1, who "has been taken up that I might convict you of your sins before the Lord".
The ideas of "walking in the light" right now, of the Righteous One having walked already, and of "love God and do his commandments" had not appeared in Johannine thought before 1 John. In each case there is good reason to believe that 1 John invented them for the purpose of his epistle. He already knew of terms like "abide in God" and the commandment: "love one another", neither of which had yet appeared in Enoch.
Afterwards, 1 John's Enochian themes were rewritten according to Jesus's teachings (2 John) according to his worship (the Gospel) and according to the Torah (Hermas). The Gospel eventually won out; one reason doubtless being that it was closer to the thought of 1 John than was Hermas.
Any thoughts? e-mail me :^) zimriel@sbcglobal.net
The first version of this project was written 18 June 2000. 27 June, I added the Gospels of John & Egerton. I had to clarify Egerton on 1 July. 11 July 2000 - 1 April 2002, there was another section speculating that the Johannines were schismatic Enochians; but now that is in a new project. 20 July 2007, John 14:15.