The shadowy figure of John the Presbyter ("John the Elder") formed a link in the chain of Early Christian oral tradition that Papias of Hierapolis recorded in the early 2nd century, in five volumes called "Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord" (Greek κυριακῶν λογίων ἐξηγήσις — Kyriakôn logiôn exêgêsis), which was quoted by Irenaeus in the late second century and by Eusebius of Caesarea later, but which have been lost. The Catholic Encyclopedia article "St. John the Evangelist" even refers to him as "the alleged Presbyter John," but Jerome (De viris illustribus ix) remarks that John the Elder ("presbyter") was credited by many in the Church with having written the Epistles of John (see Second Epistle of John and Third Epistle of John) and that the Prespyter's tomb was to be seen at Ephesus in Jerome's day, "though some think that there are two memorials of this same John the evangelist", The Decretum Gelasianum associated with Pope Gelasius I, though of later date, follows Jerome in accepting one letter of "John the apostle" and two letters of the "other John the elder".

The presbyter John has often been confused with the Apostle John, though not by Jerome: in ("Praise of

Papias, the pupil of John.. had the apostles for authority, he said "I considered what Andrew and Peter said, what Philip, what Thomas, what James, what John, what Matthew or any one else among the disciples of our Lord, what also Aristion and the elder John, disciples of the Lord had said, not so much that I have their books to read, as that their living voice is heard until the present day in the authors themselves.

It appears through this catalogue of names that the John who is placed among the disciples is not the same as the elder, or presbyter John, whom Jerome places after Aristion in his enumeration.

"This we say moreover because of the opinion mentioned above, where we record that it is declared by many that the last two epistles of John are the work not of the apostle but of the presbyter."

A natural motivation for conflating John the Apostle, as author of the Gospel of John, and John the Presbyter, was that it would bring his pupil Papias one step closer to the Apostolic tradition.

In the Middle Ages legend began to accrue about such a mysterious "presbyter John" in the East: see "Prester John".