ABSTRACT
Dante’s terrible contrapasso for schism depicts perpetrators endlessly cleft from head to bowels as they make their eternal circle in the depths of hell. One can imagine that the author of 1 John who tarred those who had left his fellowship with his newly invented label “Antichrists” would have considered such punishment well-deserved.2 The lofty recognition – which also drives Dante’s poem – that “God is love” and the associated command to imitate that love in relationships with one another (1 John 4:1-21) only applies to those who remain within the bounds of fellowship. Second John 9-10 instructs members of another house church gathering in the Johannine fellowship to treat those associated with the secessionists as complete outsiders: no hospitality, not even a greeting. What provoked such a rupture? The author alludes to both incorrect belief, failing to acknowledge Jesus coming “in the ®esh,” and incorrect conduct, a misguided understanding of sin. Beyond that, scholars have dif¬culty ¬tting the pieces together. Raymond Brown suggested that the result of this schism among Johannine churches in the Ephesus region led those connected with the evangelist to seek common cause with other communities that revered Peter as shepherd. Despite the spiritual insight of their founder, the Beloved Disciple, these Christians accepted Peter as shepherd of Jesus’ ®ock (John 21:15-25).3
