2 John - Introduction

The address of the Second Epistle is more disputed. It opens, "The elder unto the Elect lady" ( 2 John 1:1 children of thy elect sister greet thee" ( 2 John 1:13 1 Peter 1:1 1 Peter 1:2 ( 1 Peter 5:13 you, saluteth you." Putting together these facts, with the quotations (above) from CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, and the fact that the word "Church" comes from a Greek word (kyriake) cognate to the Greek for "lady" (kyria; "belonging to the Lord," kyrios); WORDSWORTH'S view is probable. As Peter in Babylon had sent the salutations of the elect Church in the then Parthian (see above on CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA) Babylon to her elect sister in Asia, so John, the metropolitan president of the elect Church in Asia, writes to the elect lady, that is, Church, in Babylon. NEANDER, ALFORD, and others, think the Greek "kyria" not to mean "lady," but to be her proper name; and that she had a "sister, a Christian matron," then with John.

DATE AND PLACE OF WRITING.--EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 3.25] relates that John, after the death of Domitian, returned from his exile in Patmos to Ephesus, and went on missionary tours into the heathen regions around, and also made visitations of the churches around, and ordained bishops and clergy. Such journeys are mentioned, 2 John 1:12 ; 3 John 1:10 3 John 1:14 EUSEBIUS be right, both Epistles must have been written after the Apocalypse, in his old age, which harmonizes with the tone of the Epistles, and in or near Ephesus. It was on one of his visitation tours that he designed to rebuke Diotrephes ( 3 John 1:9 3 John 1:10