Introduction 1. Patristic Witnesses The light of historical tradition falls relatively early on at least part of the Johannine writings. The letter of Polycarp of Smyrna (died 156) to the Philippians (7.1) already has an indirect citation: “For ‘whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is antichrist’; and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross ‘is of the devil’ (ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου); and whosoever perverts the sayings of the Lord to suit [that one’s] own lusts