There can be no doubt that this Letter was addressed to
an individual person. We cannot affix to it a definite date, or
place, but the most natural supposition--which there is nothing
to contradict--is that it came from the Apostle in Ephesus, about
the same time as the preceding Letter.
The special mention of Diotrephes and his behaviour
points indeed to a somewhat advanced development in the Church to
which Galus belonged, but such characters are all too possible at
any juncture to afford in this instance any guarantee of a later
date.
In this, as in the preceding Letters, the writer's great
concern is that transcendental truth should be embodied in
practical holiness.