Diotrephes

Diot´rephes (Jove-nourished), a person who seems to have been one of the false teachers condemned by St. John in his third epistle. He appears to have been a presbyter or deacon—probably the former. He refused to receive the letter sent by John, thereby declining to submit to his directions or acknowledge his authority (3Jn 1:9).

An influential member, perhaps minister, of some early church, censured by John for his jealous ambition, and his violent rejection of the best Christians, 3Jn 1:9,10 .\par

Diot’rephes. (nourished by Jove). A Christian mentioned in 3Jn 1:9, but of whom nothing is known.

3Jn 1:9, loving to have the preeminence" through ambition. A Judaizer, who opposed the missionaries when preaching grace to the Gentiles, see 3Jn 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 (Mat 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" (3Jn 1:7), in contrast to the Jews who elsewhere abused ministers’ right of maintenance (2Co 11:22; Php 3:2; Php 3:5; Php 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.

Demetrius is praised as of the opposite spirit to Diotrephes; as the former was to be followed, so the latter to be shunned (3Jn 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."

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 (3Jn 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.

(Διοτρεφής, Jove-nourished), a person who seems to have been one of the false teachers condemned by the apostle John in his third epistle. A.D. cir. 90. He appears to have been a presbyter or dean con, probably the former. He refused to receive a former letter sent by John, thereby declining to submit to his directions or acknowledge his authority, moreover circulating malicious slanders against the apostle, and exercising an undue, arbitrary, and pernicious influence (φιλοπρωτεύων) in the church (3Jn 1:9-10). SEE GAIUS. Neander suggests (Planting and Training, 2:73) that he may have been of an ultra-Pauline party, the forerunner of Marcion (q.v.).

Diotrephes (dî’ŏt’re-fçz), Jove-nourished. A professed Christian, who resisted the authority of John. 3Jn 1:9. His place of residence is unknown.

[Diot’rephes]

One in the church, otherwise unknown, who loved to have the pre-eminence: he refused to receive certain brethren, and excommunicated others. 3Jn 1:9. Thus early was ’clericalism’ manifested in the church.

DIOTREPHES.—A person, otherwise unknown, who is introduced in 3 John (3Jn 1:9-10) as ambitious, resisting the writer’s authority, and standing in the way of the hospitable reception of brethren who visited the Church.

dı̄-ot´re-fēz (Διοτρεφής, Diotrephḗs): A person mentioned in 3Jn 1:9, 3Jn 1:10 as contentiously resisting the writer’s authority and forbidding others from exercising the Christian hospitality which he himself refused to show. The words “who loveth to have the preëminence, among them” may indicate that he was a church official, abusing his position.

An otherwise unknown man named in 3Jn_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.] , s.v.).

W. F. Cobb.