"The Community of the Beloved Disciple" by Raymond Brown - the history of the Community and the problem of the secessionists

The History of the Johannine Community:
1. The first phase (mid-50s to late80s): Originating group (Jews from and near Palestine, followers JB + Beloved Disciple)
meets the second group (Jews of the anti-Temple bias who made converts in Samaria) = development of the high Cristology (pre-existence) - expulsion from the synagogue for making a second God out of Jesus.
2. The second phase (ca. 90): the community may have moved from Palestine, to the Diaspora to teach the Greeks, persecution by the Jews made a conviction that the world is evil, openness to the Apostolic Christians, towards the split.
3. The third phase (ca. 100) Epistles: the split: the adherents of the author of the Epistles (to be a child of God one must confess Jesus come in the flesh and must keep the commandments, the Spirit is the only teacher) and the secessionists (The One who come down from above is divine, not fully human, they  believed that the human existence of Jesus, while real, was not salvifically significant - His existence was only a stage and not an intrinsic component of redemption - the most important was Incarnation not Pascha. All this comes from: 1. John's portrait of Jesus who somehow relatives his humanity - calls himself I AM, he knows everything, shows a strange, not human behavior - Lazarus, on the cross; 2. lessen importance of his earthly deeds, the most important is his being sent by the Father). The author of the Epistles emphasizes that He came "not by water only, but by water and blood" 1J5:6.
4. The fourth phase (2nd century): the adherents - union with the Great Church (need for the authoritative teachers-bishops/presbyters), the secessionists - towards the Gnosticism (docetism,montanism)