What is it about?
Though the Gospel and Letters of John are widely understood as textual embodiments of an insular, "low church" community resistant to leadership structures, the later episcopal ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch is actually compatible with Johannine theology. Ignatius envisions the office of bishop as deriving from participatory reciprocity, an ecclesial dynamic demonstrated in the fourth evangelist's narrative portraits of the disciples collectively and individually of Peter and the Beloved Disciple. After a reconsideration of the supposed tension between these two Gospel characters, the article will briefly reassess standard interpretations of another pair of antagonists—Diotrephes and John the Elder—whose tension is regularly attributed to Johannine anti-institutionalism. Even if the traditions behind the Gospel and Epistles of John had promoted an egalitarianism disinclined toward hierarchical leadership structures, the Johannine themes of reciprocity and participation may have contributed to the episcopal models of church order that became established in 2nd century Christianity and beyond.
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Why is it important?
This article challenges a prevailing assumption in New Testament scholarship that Johannine ecclesiology is incompatible with formalized and hierarchical leadership structures.
Perspectives
Ironically, my own church tradition is more "low church" and resistant to episcopal models of ecclesial leadership. This article, however, shows that John's Gospel cannot be co-opted by churches or scholarly guilds to denounce leadership hierarchies. Johannine ecclesiology is often understood as sectarian and marginal amidst the wider streams in early Christianity that moved toward episcopal leadership. Problematizing the axiomatic narrative of Johannine sectarianism, I argue in this article is that Johannine ecclesiology may have actually provided a basis for the structured polities that became solidified in the second century.
Dr Andrew J Byers
Cambridge Theological Federation
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This page is a summary of: Johannine Bishops?, Novum Testamentum, March 2018, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15685365-12341598.
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