St. John at Ephesus

https://theologicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bjrl/ephesus_bruce.pdf

This contains a generally helpful survey and analysis of witnesses in early church history to the Johannine authorship of the Fourth Gospel, §§III-V, although Bruce's discussion of Papias is fairly inconclusive. 

Also, in n3 on p346, Cross's interpretation/reconstruction of the anti-Marcionite Prologue to the Fourth Gospel is interesting. And even if we question whether that reflects an accurate memory of how John's Gospel was composed, it's a witness to the ancient practice of dictating an oral history. 

Bruce defends the accuracy of Polycrates by arguing that his statement about John's high-priestly vestments is figurative (343). A  figurative interpretation certainly makes the claim of Polycrates far more plausible. At the same time, that's consistent with a figurative allusion to John's priestly lineage–which would help to explain–assuming any special explanation is required–his access to the high priestly residence.

“Everything That Rises Must Converge”

My actual statement was, "The more that more Christians live [and are taught] according to God's word, the more they converge".

To which an interlocutor said:

And it is glaringly false to say that people who sincerely study God's Word tend to converge. They just don't. The only way you can get that conclusion is to start with the assumption that your particular theological tradition is the only result anyone can get when they study God's Word, and that the many people who disagree do so because at some level they are insincere or inattentive or don't really accept the authority of God's Word. And that's a far bigger and more incredible assumption than any made by RC apologists.

The way to come to this conclusion is to make the presupposition that God is the author of the Scriptures; that God intends to present "truth", and that "truth" has a content that, if people are diligent to understand it, people (created by God, with an ability to understand also created by God) will agree. This is a basic, fundamental thing if God exists and if he reveals himself.

F.F. Bruce has some comments along these lines:

To many it seems safer and more comfortable to stay within familiar and old-established boundaries (which he had earlier identified as both written traditions such as the WCF and unwritten traditions that simply develop around various communities). The admission of more light (meaning clearer understanding of what the Scriptures say) may show up inadequacies in cherished traditions -- inadequacies that would otherwise have remained hidden -- and they may be disposed to question whether what is claimed to be "more light" is in fact light.

But light by its nature is self-evidencing, and John Robinson's choice of this figure (metaphor) for the further truth that might be learned from Scripture was apt. There are those who demand authority for truth, forgetting that truth is itself the highest authority. Where the Holy Spirit guides the people of Christ into further truth, that guidance (though meeting with some initial resistance) tends in the long run to commend itself to their general acceptance.

It will not conflict with truth already learned and established, even if it shows that some things previously reckoned to be truth were only imperfectly so, or not so at all It will be acknowledged to be in harmony with the mind of Christ, as His mind is revealed in Scripture and progressively appreciated in the church" ("Tradition Old and New", Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan 1970, 18).

This is not "a far bigger and more incredible assumption than any made by RC apologists". Actually, RC apologists make a whole different set of assumptions:

1. God has revealed himself, but people can't understand him.
2. Therefore God has appointed a mediator to "authoritatively interpret" what God has said.
3. This mediator is the Roman Catholic magisterium

How Rome Became an Empire

It took centuries for Rome to dominate
its neighboring cities in Italy (c. 300 B.C.)

“Rome wasn’t founded in a day”, or so the saying goes, but the city of ancient Rome, and eventually the Roman empire, became what it was because of a definite pattern of activity that was traceable through the centuries.

This is from F.F. Bruce’s “New Testament History” (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., ©1969):

[In 66 B.C.], the Roman Senate decided to make an end of the Mithridatic war once and for all [it had been dragging on for several decades], and entrusted the conduct of operations to Gnaeus Pompeius (Pompey), who was given an unlimited command over all the Roman forces in the east in order to press the war to a successful conclusion. …

The reputation of the Romans for rapacity [“aggressive greed”] had preceded them in the new areas which they now occupied. Mithridates had done his best, during his twenty-five years of intermittent war with the Romans, to prejudice his allies and neighbours against them. One sample of his anti-Roman propaganda is preserved in his letter to Arsaces XII, king of Parthia (c. 69 B.C.):