Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
He taught, in chapter 1, that the faithful, reborn through Christ into new light and life, have entered into fellowship with God; now He teaches that they should diligently persevere in it, and therefore should beware of sins and observe God's precepts, especially the precept of love both of God and of neighbor, which He calls the old and the new commandment. Thence, in verse 13, He addresses the various ages of men, namely fathers, young men, infants, and youths, and inflames each one to the worship and love of God; therefore He exhorts them to beware of the passing world, inasmuch as in it there is nothing but the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life. Third, in verse 18, He upbraids the heretics, and warns that they should be execrated as Antichrists, but that the faithful should constantly hold to faith in God the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and to His anointing, that they may abide in Him, and not be confounded at His coming, but receive from Him eternal life.
Vulgate Text: 1 John 2:1-29
1. My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just; 2. and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. 3. And by this we know that we have known Him, if we keep His commandments. 4. He who says that he knows Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5. But he who keeps His word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected: and by this we know that we are in Him. 6. He who says he abides in Him, ought himself also to walk, even as He walked. 7. Dearly beloved, I write not a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard. 8. Again a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true both in Him and in you, because the darkness is passed, and the true light now shines. 9. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10. He who loves his brother, abides in the light, and there is no scandal in him. 11. But he who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. 12. I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. 13. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. 14. I write to you, babes, because you have known the Father. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. 15. Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. 16. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17. And the world passes away, and the concupiscence thereof. But he who does the will of God abides forever. 18. Little children, it is the last hour: and as you have heard that Antichrist comes, even now there are become many Antichrists: whereby we know that it is the last hour. 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would surely have remained with us; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us. 20. But you have the unction from the Holy One, and know all things. 21. I have not written to you as to them that know not the truth, but as to them that know it: and that no lie is of the truth. 22. Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son. 23. Whoever denies the Son, has not the Father: he who confesses the Son, has the Father also. 24. As for you, let that which you have heard from the beginning, abide in you. If that abides in you, which you have heard from the beginning, you also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. 25. And this is the promise which He has promised us, life everlasting. 26. These things I have written to you concerning them that seduce you. 27. And as for you, let the unction, which you have received from Him, abide in you. And you have no need that any man teach you; but as His unction teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie. And as it has taught you, abide in Him. 28. And now, little children, abide in Him: that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be confounded by Him at His coming. 29. If you know that He is just, know that everyone also who does justice is born of Him.
Verse 1: Christ Our Advocate With the Father
1. MY LITTLE CHILDREN, THESE THINGS I WRITE TO YOU, THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN. — As if to say: At the end of the preceding chapter, I said that all adults have sinned, either mortally in heathenism, or venially in Christianity; now I exhort each one to beware completely of crimes formerly committed in heathenism, and to abstain from venial sins as much as they can; for although it is impossible to avoid them all collectively, yet it is possible to avoid them singly and distributively, especially those which are committed not through inadvertence, but with prior reflection, and therefore deliberately.
BUT IF ANY MAN SIN, WE HAVE AN ADVOCATE. — It is an anticipation. For someone will object: If sins are altogether to be shunned by the faithful, what shall he do who through human frailty has fallen into some sin, especially one that is enormous, shameful, and embarrassing? He answers: If anyone has fallen, let him not despair on that account, nor cast down his spirit; for with God, who is our most loving Father, we have as advocate Christ the Lord, who, presenting to the Father His blood, cross, and the death endured for us, will easily obtain pardon for us, if we truly repent; for God is most merciful, and the merits of Christ are most great. Therefore, just as the magnitude of the wound and disease which the physician cures and heals commends his skill and glory: so the magnitude of our sins, of which He is Himself the physician and propitiator, commends the magnitude of the grace, clemency, and redemption of Christ. He gave a specimen of this in St. Magdalene and St. Paul, who therefore celebrating this grace of Christ in himself, in I Timothy 1:15: "Faithful, he says, is the saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief; but for this cause have I obtained mercy, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth all patience, for the information of them that shall believe in Him to life everlasting." See what is said there.
Note first: "Advocate" is the same in Latin as paraclete in Greek. Whence both Christ and the Holy Spirit is paraclete, that is, our advocate; for so He is called here by St. John in the Greek text, just as in the Gospel xiv, 16. Vatablus translates paraclete as patron, mediator, intercessor. Laurentius Valla, in book IV, distinguishes the patron from the advocate, in that the patron is an orator who defends the accused by his speaking; the advocate is one who stands by the accused for his defense, even if he says nothing. And Asconius Pedianus: "Whoever defends someone in court is either called patron, if he is an orator; or advocate, if he suggests the law, or lends his presence to a friend." But here and elsewhere "advocate" is the same as patron; for so we call those pleaders who handle forensic causes, advocates. Thus Ulpian: "We must accept as advocates, he says, all in general who work in any zeal at all in conducting cases." And Quintilian, book XII, chapter 1: "We are establishing, he says, no merely forensic labor, nor a mercenary voice, nor (to spare harsher words) by no means a useless advocate of lawsuits, whom in short they commonly call a pleader."
Note second: Christ is our advocate. First, by interpretative pleading, namely by presenting Himself and His wounds and the scars of His wounds, and consequently by alleging His merits to the divine presence, as all the Doctors agree. For this reason indeed, when He rose, He retained these scars and bore them into heaven, that He might continually present them to God the Father as our High Priest and Mediator, and through them obtain for us pardon and grace.
Second: many with great probability hold that Christ is also our advocate by prayer properly so called, by which He prays and intercedes with the Father in heaven for us: by prayer, I say, not by which He merits anew or obtains (such as was His prayer while He lived on earth and was a wayfarer), but by which now as comprehensor He petitions, and asks the Father, claiming the right merited in this life and promised to Him, and therefore due, namely our grace and salvation. For this is what Paul signifies in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where he teaches that Christ is our eternal Pontiff in heaven, who "by His own blood entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption," chapter ix, verse 12; and chapter vii, verse 25: "Always living, he says, to make intercession for us." And Christ, John xiv, 16: "I, He says, will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete." And Paul, Romans viii, 34: "Christ Jesus, etc., who is at the right hand of the Father, who also makes intercession for us." See what is said there. Therefore Christ, as man now blessed in heaven, both in mind and in body and in voice, renders to God the due worship of religion, adoring Him, praising Him, giving thanks; why not also by petitioning? for this is the office of an advocate, such as Christ is.
Third, the heretics from this contend that the Saints are not our advocates, nor do they pray for us, and consequently are not to be invoked, on the grounds that this is the office of Christ, who alone is our advocate; and therefore that we do an injury to Christ if we invoke the Saints as advocates. Hear Beza here: "John, when he names Christ, excludes the rest. What then will become of those who do this injury to the Blessed Virgin, that they wish her to be adorned with the spoils of Christ; nay even with most insistent voice they subject Christ to her as an infant to its mother?" You are deceived and you deceive, impostor, when you assert that we subject Christ to the Blessed Virgin and adorn her with Christ's spoils. We know and confess that Christ is God, and the Son of God; that the Blessed Virgin is not a goddess, but the mother of God incarnate, and therefore in infinite respects inferior to Christ. Hence Christ alone is called by St. John an advocate, namely such an advocate as, as he immediately adds, is "the propitiation for the sins of the world," and who by His passion and death placated the Father, indeed satisfied Him by the just price of His blood. But the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are our advocates as suppliants and intercessors through the merits of Christ. Whence the Blessed Irenaeus, book V, chapter xix: "As, he says, Eve was seduced to flee from God, so Mary was persuaded to obey God, that the virgin Mary might become an advocate for the virgin Eve." And St. Bernard, in the sermon on Apocalypse XII, Signum magnum: "There is need, he says, of a mediator to that Mediator, and no other is more useful to us than Mary." See what is said on I Timothy II, 5, on those words: "One mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" and Bellarmine, tract. De Invocatione Sanctorum.
JESUS CHRIST THE JUST. — "Just," that is, innocent and holy, who by His holiness, being most pleasing to the Father, deserves to be heard by Him. Second and more particularly, "just," that is, who has justly satisfied for our sins, and given the just price and ransom for them, namely His blood and His life. Whence, explaining, He adds: "And He is the propitiation." In another sense therefore an advocate is commonly called just who undertakes a just cause to defend, not an unjust one, as some do for the sake of gain: whence Cassiodorus, book XI, epist. IV: "If in the zeal of advocacy you have shone with the brightness of justice." This man indeed is a good advocate before men, but not before God, inasmuch as from Him we ask not justice but mercy and grace. With God therefore we have only a tribunal of grace, not of justice.
Verse 2: He Is the Propitiation for Our Sins, and Not for Ours Only, but Also for Those of the Whole World
2. AND (that is, because, as if to say: Christ is our advocate, because) HE IS THE PROPITIATION (that is, propitiator) FOR OUR SINS. — Because, namely, by offering Himself on the cross as victim for sins, He satisfied God the Father for them, and reconciled Him to us. He alludes to the propitiatory standing over the ark of the covenant; for this represented Christ the propitiator, as I have said on Romans III, 25, and Exodus xxv, 27. St. Augustine, in the book De Fide et Opere, reads: "And He is the entreaty for our sins." For Christ prays for us even in heaven, as I said a little before, and to propitiate is to entreat. St. Cyprian, book IV, epistle 2 or 52, for "entreaty" reads "deprecation." St. John signifies that Christ is such an advocate to us that He certainly obtains our cause, indeed with Him as patron we cannot lose the cause, because He Himself is by office our Redeemer and Propitiator, who has from justice satisfied for our sins.
This is what St. John says, Apocalypse 1, 5: "He loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood." For, as St. Leo says, sermon 12 De Passione: "The shedding of the blood of the just for the unjust was so powerful for privilege, so rich for price, that if the whole multitude of captives believed in their Redeemer, no tyrannical bonds would hold any of them." And a little later: "For although in the sight of the Lord the death of many of the Saints was precious, yet the slaying of no innocent one was a propitiation for the world. The just received crowns, they did not give them; and from the fortitude of the faithful, examples of patience were born, not gifts of justice. For singular indeed were the deaths in each one, nor did anyone pay another's debt by his own death, since among the sons of men our Lord Jesus alone has stood forth, in whom all are crucified, all dead, all buried, and all also raised up."
For this reason St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Elzéar, and the other Saints who at some time sinned, fled to the wounds of Christ as to an asylum, and dwelt within them. I have collected their sayings on Zechariah, chapter xIII, 6. Truly St. Ambrose, Preface on Psalm xxxv: "Good, he says, is gold; the blood of Christ is rich for price, abundant to lift away every sin."
AND NOT FOR OUR OWN ONLY, BUT ALSO FOR THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD. — As if to say: Not for the sins of the Jews only, but also of all the Gentiles, say Oecumenius and Cyril. Better, Clement of Alexandria and others, as if to say: Not for our sins only, who are the faithful, but for the sins of the unbelievers of the whole world. For Christ suffered for these too, and merited grace and glory for them, if they are willing to believe in Him and embrace His merits. Whence He also commanded this Gospel to be preached to all nations, and them to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Mark xvi, 15. Again, Christ is offered as propitiatory victim in the sacrifice of the Mass for all men, even unbelievers, and those who have died and are in Purgatory, as our Justinianus here teaches at length; for the Church excepts only the excommunicated: for these she forbids sacrifice to be offered.
Verse 3: By This We Know That We Have Known Him, if We Keep His Commandments
3. AND BY THIS WE KNOW (not certainly and demonstratively, but probably and conjecturally from signs and effects) THAT (that is, that) WE HAVE KNOWN HIM (with a knowledge not only speculative but also practical, which is joined with love and affection, and is carried into work: "we have known" therefore means, we know and love Him), IF WE KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. — These words must be referred to what preceded: "We have an advocate, Jesus Christ;" for he prescribes the manner in which we shall reconcile this Advocate to ourselves, namely if we know Him through faith, hope and love; and that we shall know Him if we keep His commandments, which he then pursues and inculcates with many further sentences. Truly St. Augustine, in the book De Fide et Operibus, chapter XII: "Let not, he says, the mind be deceived in any way, that it should think it has known God, if with a dead faith, that is, without good works, it should confess Him." Thus David says in Psalm cii, 18: "They remember His commandments, to do them;" and dying he said to his son: "You, Solomon my son, know the God of your father;" know, namely practically, that is, believe, revere, love, obey Him. Whence explaining, he adds: "And serve Him with a perfect heart and a willing mind;" and Osee chapter vi, verse 6: "I desired, he says, the knowledge of God more than holocausts." The Chaldaean translates, my will, or my good pleasure, my complacence is in those doing the law of the Lord more than in those offering holocausts. For whoever does not observe the law of God, surely does not know Him, because he does not practically esteem, does not weigh as he ought, the immense majesty, goodness, power, wisdom, justice of God. For if he weighed it in the just balance of reason, surely he would love, worship, obey Him with his whole heart. "For whoever does not love God, says Bede, undoubtedly shows that he does not know how lovable He is; and he has not learned how sweet and pleasing the Lord is to taste and to see, who does not strive by continual love to please before His sight." Hence St. Dionysius, De Divinis Nominibus, derives Theon from aithein, because He kindles the affection of those who rightly know Him. This is what St. John says, chapter III [IV], verse 7: "Everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who does not love, does not know God, for God is charity."
Wherefore from this "we know" Catharinus does not rightly conclude that the just can know with certainty that they are just and in the grace of God; for although they have grace and the charity of God in their soul, yet they do not see it. Again, although they outwardly observe the commandments of God, yet they do not know whether they observe them out of love for God and in the manner in which God has commanded. Finally, although they feel that they love God, yet they do not know whether this love is such as it ought to be, namely supernatural purely for God's sake, and that they love Him above all things: thus the Council of Trent defines, session VI, chapter IX. See Bellarmine, book III De Justificatione, chapter 1 and following.
Verse 4: He Who Says That He Knows Him, and Keeps Not His Commandments, Is a Liar
4. HE WHO SAYS THAT HE KNOWS HIM (with a true and saving knowledge, namely a practical one, which leads the knower to eternal life. "To know" therefore means to know in such a way as to love God and to obey Him in all things), AND KEEPS NOT HIS COMMANDMENTS, IS A LIAR. — For of the Philosophers, who knew God, but speculatively and dryly, and therefore did not worship Him, the Apostle says: "Who when they had known God, did not glorify Him as God," Romans 1, 21.
Verse 5: He Who Keeps His Word, in Him in Very Deed the Charity of God Is Perfected
5. BUT HE WHO KEEPS HIS WORD (the orders and commandments of God), IN HIM IN VERY DEED THE CHARITY OF GOD IS PERFECTED. — By the antithesis of the contrary sentence he confirms the prior sentence, as if to say: He who does not keep the commandments of God does not know God, that is, does not love Him; because conversely, he who keeps God's commandments, this man loves God, and so has perfect charity. Whence he says "His word" in the singular, because it especially regards the law of charity; for this comprises all the others within itself, as the root comprises the branches and the fruits and the whole tree.
He calls "perfect charity" that which fulfills that word, or law of charity: "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind," Matthew xxII, 37. For he who observes the commandments of God loves God with his whole heart, even if he sometimes sins venially; for this in the corruption of this life is a necessary evil. Furthermore, in this perfection of charity and of the Christian life there are various degrees. The first is to love God with your whole heart in such a way that you never offend Him mortally. The second, that you would not deliberately offend Him venially, even if you could gain the whole world. The third, that for love of God you renounce all love of creatures, and devote yourself entirely to God's worship and service, as religious do. The fourth, that you think, will, or love nothing other than God or for God's sake, as the Blessed do in heaven. The third St. Paul expressed when he said in Romans viii, 35: "Who shall separate me from the charity of Christ? Tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? etc. I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities," etc.
Splendidly Origen, Preface to the Gospel of St. John: "Whoever, he says, is perfect, no longer lives himself, but Christ lives in him; and since Christ lives in him, of him is said to Mary: Behold your son Christ." And St. Augustine in sermon 39 De Tempore: "As the root of all evils is cupidity, so also the root of all goods is charity. Charity possesses the whole magnitude and breadth of the divine sayings, by which we love God and neighbor." And somewhat later: "Therefore, brothers, follow after charity, the sweet and salutary bond of the mind, without which the rich man is poor, and with which the poor man is rich. This in adversities endures, in prosperities tempers, strong in hard sufferings, cheerful in good works, most safe in temptation, most lavish in hospitality, most joyful among true brothers, most patient among false ones; pleasing in Abel through sacrifice, secure in Noah through the flood, most faithful in Abraham's pilgrimages, gentlest in Moses amid injuries, meekest in David's tribulations; in the three young men it innocently awaits the gentle fires, in the Maccabees it bravely endures the savage fires. Chaste in Susanna toward her husband, in Anna after her husband, in Mary apart from a husband."
Excellently also St. Bernard to the Brothers of Mount Dieu: "Perfection is required of you all, he says, but not uniform; but if you are beginning, begin perfectly; if you are already in progress, do this very thing now perfectly. But if you have attained some part of perfection, measure yourself in yourself, and say with the Apostle: But one thing, forgetting those things which are behind, and stretching myself to those things that are before, I press on toward the goal, the prize of the supernal vocation in Christ Jesus; in which, the Apostle clearly teaching, it is declared that the perfect forgetting of those things which are behind, and the perfect extension to those things ahead, is itself the perfection of the just man in this life; and the perfection of this perfection will be there, where there will be perfect apprehension of the prize of the supernal vocation. In this way, just as star differs from star in brightness, so cell differs from cell in conduct, namely of beginners, of those advancing, and of the perfect. The state of beginners may be called animal, of those advancing rational, of the perfect spiritual." And below: "The first state has to do with the body, the second exercises itself about the soul, the third has rest only in God. Each of these, as it has a certain method of advancing, so in its own kind has a certain measure of its own perfection. The beginning of good in the animal life is perfect obedience. Progress is to subject one's body, and reduce it to servitude. Perfection is to have turned by the use of the good a habit into delight. But the beginning of the rational state is to understand what is presented to it in the doctrine of faith. Progress, to prepare such things as are presented. Perfection, when the judgment of reason passes into the affection of the mind. But the perfection of the rational man is the beginning of the spiritual man. His progress, with face unveiled to behold the glory of God. But perfection is to be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord."
And St. Maximus De Charitate, century 3, no. 97: "The soul, he says, is perfect whose strength, subject to the affections, has wholly turned to God." The same, century 4, no. 17: "He has not yet attained perfect charity, he says, nor the knowledge of divine providence according to its depth, who in the time of temptation, in pains and afflictions happening to him, does not persevere with longanimity, but cuts himself off from the charity of his spiritual brothers." And St. Francis in the little treatise Decem Perfectionum: "The perfection of a perfect Christian is, he says, that he uproot his heart from every worldly and human creature, nor seek why he might find foundation or root, save in Him who made for himself a heart; but let him accustom his heart to cast itself upon God Himself, and frequently to lift it from earthly dregs: so that without pain, whenever he wishes, he may return to Christ, by thinking and being affected toward the Creator of the heart; and let him be intent in every place and time upon the most high Benefactor. Again, let him have such patience that the one who does him some evil or speaks evil to him, he should strive to love and cherish more from his whole heart, and willingly serve him with good will without any bitterness of heart. For as God by true liberality bestowed all good things upon him, so let him believe that all evils He secretly promises, to the end that He may show the sinner his sins, and so lightly punish them in the present, that He may not scourge more harshly forever. Therefore that one who did or said evil to him, let him love much, because by his mediation as a messenger, God confers a great good upon him; and as a restraint by means of which God holds him back, lest he be cast into the depth of the abyss; and as a wiping-cloth with which God wipes him; and as a chisel with which God carves and perfects him."
BY THIS WE KNOW THAT (because) WE ARE IN HIM. — St. Augustine adds: "If we shall have been perfect in Him," and explains, as if to say: If we adhere perfectly to Him, and love Him, in such a way that out of love for Him we love even our enemies. So also Dionysius reads, and some others. But the Roman and Greek copies generally omit those words. The sense therefore is, as if to say: By this we know that we are in Him, if namely we keep His word, as I said a little before. For the effect and sign of the love by which we cleave to and are joined with God is the observance of His law. Furthermore, through charity we are and abide in God, and God in us, in that manner in which the beloved is in the lover, and the lover in the beloved thing: for the soul is more where it loves than where it animates; and in turn God loves back and indwells, cares for, directs, protects those who love Him and cleave to Him. Whence Hugh explains thus, as if to say: We who love Christ are in Christ, as members are in the head, and as that which is ruled is in the ruler, namely by a peculiar and holy government. This sentence of John is the antistrophe to that one in the Gospel of John xiv, 23: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him." The soul therefore that loves God is, as it were, a temple, in which the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit really dwell. Note here that St. John is fond of the word "to abide," and frequently uses it, and through it signifies first, intimate conjunction; second, lasting stay and perseverance, according to that saying of Christ, John chapter xv, verse 4: "Abide in Me, and I in you." Third, continual presence, friendly conversation, mutual familiarity, and all the services and offices of true friendship.
Verse 6: He Who Says He Abides in Him, Ought Himself Also to Walk Even as He Walked
6. HE WHO SAYS HE ABIDES IN HIM, OUGHT HIMSELF ALSO TO WALK, EVEN AS HE WALKED. — By always advancing in virtue, especially in charity, and by daily exercising greater works of it, as Christ grew "in age and in grace with God and men," Luke II, 51. For the Saints go from virtue to virtue. St. Leo, sermon 2 De Quadragesima: "This, he says, is the true justice of the perfect, that they never presume themselves to be perfect, lest, ceasing from the action of a journey not yet finished, they fall into the danger of failing where they have laid aside the appetite for advancing." This is what Paul says in Ephesians v, 1: "Be imitators of God as most dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved us."
Beautifully St. Prosper, book II De Vita Contemplativa, chapter xxi: "What, he says, is it to walk as He walked, if not to despise all prosperous things which He despised, not to fear adversities which He endured, to teach what He taught, to hope what He promised, etc., to bestow benefits even on the ungrateful, not to repay the malevolent according to their merits, to pray for enemies, to have mercy on the perverse, to invite the adverse, to bear with equanimity the deceitful and the proud? and finally, according to the word of the Apostle, that we be dead to the flesh, that we may live only to Christ. For just as one dead in the flesh now detracts from no one, turns away from or despises no one, does not corrupt anyone's chastity by cunning circumvention, does not envy, does not flatter, does not solicit: so those who have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences can neither do nor suffer any of these things."
Whence Gregory of Nyssa, in his epistle to Harmonius, "defines Christianity to be the imitation of the divine nature." The same to Olympius: "What therefore, he says, must he do who has been made worthy of the great surname of Christ, except that he should diligently examine all his thoughts, words, and deeds, and judge whether each of them tends toward Christ, or is alien from Him."
Splendidly St. Augustine, De Vera Religione, xv, teaches that the Word was made flesh to this end, that He might teach the way of virtue, not by compelling with force, but by going before by example. For while He despised all the goods of the world, He taught that they were to be despised; while He bore all the evils of life, He showed that they must be borne: "In doctrine God appeared, in His ages man. The henchmen of pleasures destructively craved riches of the people: He chose to be poor. They gaped after honors and dominions: He refused to be made king. They thought their fleshly children a great good: He despised such a marriage and offspring. They most haughtily shrank from contumelies: He bore every kind of contumely. They reckoned injuries intolerable: what greater injury, than that the just and innocent be condemned? They execrated bodily pains: He was scourged and tortured. They feared to die: He was punished with death. They thought the cross the most ignominious kind of death: He was crucified. All those things which we lived not rightly while desiring not rightly to have, He made vile by lacking; all those things which we deviated from the pursuit of truth desiring to avoid, He cast down by enduring; for no sin can be committed, save when those things are sought after which He despised, or shunned which He bore. Therefore His whole life on earth, through the man whom He deigned to assume, was a discipline of morals."
To this point comes the spur of St. Cyprian, in the treatise De Zelo et Livore: "If, he says, it is joyful and glorious for men to have sons similar to themselves, and it then more delights to have begotten them, if the offspring sired answers to the father with like features, how much greater is the joy in God the Father, when one is born spiritually in such a way that in his deeds and his praises the divine generosity is proclaimed?" And a little earlier: "As the heavenly One is, such are also the heavenly ones. As we have borne the image of him who is of the slime, let us bear also the image of Him who is from heaven; but we cannot bear the heavenly image, unless we present the likeness of Christ in that which we have now begun to be; for this is to have changed what you were, and to have begun to be what you were not, that the divine nativity may shine in you, that by deifying discipline you may answer to God the Father, that by the honor and praise of your living God may shine forth in man, He Himself exhorting, and promising a mutual recompense to those who glorify Him. Those, He says, who glorify Me, I will glorify," John xII.
Verse 7: Not a New Commandment but an Old Commandment Which You Had From the Beginning
7. DEARLY BELOVED, I WRITE NOT A NEW COMMANDMENT TO YOU, BUT AN OLD COMMANDMENT. — He speaks of the commandment of love of God and of neighbor: for in this is included the observance of all the commandments, of which the discourse has gone before. For St. John, explaining himself concerning love, immediately introduces the discourse, verses 9, 10, 11. He calls this "the old commandment," not "new," because it was given to the Jews in the Old Testament, Lev. xix, 18; nay, it was given to Adam and to all men in the law of nature, equally as also to the angels from the beginning of their creation. For this commandment of the law of nature was dictated by reason and the eternal law, which was in the mind of God from eternity. Thus John explains the "old" when he adds: "The old commandment is the word which you have heard." So St. Augustine and Didymus: "It was objected, he says, against the Apostle that a new and altogether unheard-of doctrine was being delivered by him: silently therefore meeting them, he denies that he is proposing any new precept, but is inculcating ancient and old things."
Again, this commandment is old, because already from of old, namely from the beginning of Christianity, soon from your baptism, you have heard and received it. Thus St. John explains the "old," when he adds: "Which you had from the beginning."
Verse 8: Again a New Commandment I Write to You: the Darkness Is Passed, and the True Light Now Shines
8. AGAIN A NEW COMMANDMENT I WRITE TO YOU. — As if to say: Again I inculcate to you the now indeed ancient, but once new, commandment of loving and of observing the commandments of God, which, having become antiquated through disuse and the vice of corrupt nature, Christ renewed and augmented, and commanded us repeatedly to recall to memory and to renew. He alludes to, indeed cites, that saying of Christ in John XIII, 33: "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, as I have loved you." It is called new, because it is the chief precept of the New Testament, and a precept especially commended by Christ in words and examples, not of fear, as formerly among the Jews, but of love, and that more explicitly (as is plain in Matt. v, 38 and following, John xiv, xv and xvi), more strictly and more firmly than it had been before, and therefore Christ delivered it to us anew.
It is called new therefore through every kind of cause. First, by reason of the new efficient cause, namely of a new lawgiver, that is, Christ, who delivered it to us more strictly and as it were anew. Again, by reason of its new origin, of charity and grace, namely of the Holy Spirit, who first was visibly and copiously poured forth at Pentecost: whence consequently we are bound to the offices of this charity in a new way, and by a new obligation, and we are now more obligated to them than before Christ; for the Jews had obscured this precept of love by depraved interpretations, saying that neighbors were friends: only friends therefore that were to be loved, but enemies hated; and by friends they understood the men of their own race, that is, the Jews; whence they thought they could lend at usury to Christians and all the Gentiles, and exhaust their wealth by usury. Wherefore Christ, correcting and renewing these things, Matthew v, 43, says: "You have heard that it was said to them of old: You shall love your neighbor, and you shall hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you," etc.
Secondly, the commandment of love is "new" by reason of a new material cause, namely the new loving Christians, who had previously been in the darkness of unbelief and hatred, as St. John adds here; but now, renewed by the charity and spirit of Christ, they ought to love God and one another in a new way and more ardently than before.
Thirdly and chiefly, it is called "new" by reason of a new formal cause, namely a new object (for the object is as it were the form) and a new formal reason for loving, namely the new incarnation of the Word, and the new union of the faithful in Him. For when Christ, who is the head of the Church and of the faithful, was incarnate, there came about in Him a singular union and communication of the members of the Church, both among themselves and with Christ their head, now homogeneous, that is, of the same kind and nature: a union, I say, by nature, by grace, and by the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist; which union is the foundation of a greater and singular obligation to a closer love of God, of Christ, and of Christians — namely, that we ought now to love Christians not only as neighbors for God's sake, but as brethren and members of the same head and father, the incarnate Christ, who is the parent and lawgiver of the law of love, just as Moses gave the law of fear. Christ indicates this reason when He adds: "As I have loved you." Therefore, just as Christ's love toward us was supreme, new, and unheard of, so also is His commandment, by which He bids us imitate this love of His, supreme, new, and unheard of. So says Cyril. For the ancient law of love given by Moses runs thus: "You shall love your friend as yourself," Lev. xix, 18. But the new one given by Christ runs thus: "Love one another as I have loved you," John xiii, 33; which is greater and more perfect, by as much as Christ (whose love is set forth and prescribed to us as an exemplar to be imitated) is greater and more perfect than the rest of men. Furthermore, by the incarnation we owe not only to Christ but also to the whole Most Holy Trinity, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a greater love than before, and a new love, both by reason of greater union — for now that the Word has been united to us by the flesh He assumed, consequently the whole Most Holy Trinity is also more united to us, for It is wherever the Word is — and on account of the new and greatest benefits bestowed upon us through the incarnation. Through the incarnation of the Word, therefore, we have a new relation and union to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and among ourselves, which we did not have before, and consequently a new cause and formal reason for loving. For through the incarnation the Word became our blood-relation and brother, and consequently the Father became Father in a new way, as of the incarnate Christ, so also of the Christians who are His brethren; and the Holy Spirit poured Himself wholly upon them. For this new commandment of love is properly given by Christ to Christians (not to all men, except indirectly and consequently, insofar as God wills all to become Christians), that they may love one another not only as neighbors, but as brothers and members of one body of Christ, on account of Christ, as Toletus and Franciscus Lucas rightly note on John chapter xiii.
Fourthly, it is called "new" by reason of a new exemplary cause, namely Christ the Lord: for Christ, out of pure love, expended and exhausted His life, His blood, and His whole self for the salvation of His own. The Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, and the first faithful did the same, that they might give us an exemplar of perfect love which we should imitate, according to that text: "Look, and make it according to the pattern that was shown you on the mount," Exodus chapter xxv, last verse. And the phrase as I have loved you signifies the very same, words which supply much matter of confusion to one who meditates upon them, and much matter of exaggeration to one who speaks of them. For think how many proofs of His love Christ showed us at every moment by being born, laboring, preaching, suffering, dying, etc., and you will see how small is the love of all men. St. John the Almsgiver, Archbishop of Alexandria, used to ponder these things, who, when anyone praised and admired his lavish liberality toward the poor, was wont to say: "Brother, I have not yet shed my blood for you, as the Lord has commanded me."
Wherefore through Christ we have learned that our neighbors are to be loved not only as ourselves, as the old law had it, but more than ourselves. For Christ died to give us life, though we were enemies; and thereby He gave us the example and exemplar of love, that we should do the same for our neighbors: which way of loving was indeed new and unheard of among the Jews and in the world. So St. Cyril on John chapter xiii. Whence Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, and Rupert hold it is called "new" by reason of a new manner. Arias explains this manner thus: that it should be a love modeled on Christ's love, most fervent and most attentive, toward all, even enemies, ready for every service, even to laying down blood and life for the salvation of the brethren, as Christ did: thus also Cajetan, Gagneius, John Major, and others.
Fifthly, "new" by reason of a new end, because by this commandment of love Christ willed to make us new men, heavenly, not earthly. Again, He willed that we should frequently renew it, so that by frequent gatherings, sermons, meditations, etc., we should often stir it up, and lay hold of it with a new and fresh will, effort, and fervor, just as if it were now being given for the first time. To this looked in this place St. John, saying that he writes not an old commandment but a new one, that is, one to be frequently renewed. Whence he himself, now an old man, used to recall it at every assembly, and inculcated nothing else than: "Little children, love one another; for it is the commandment of the Lord, and if only this be done, it is enough," as I said in the proem, and in this Epistle he frequently repeats and inculcates the same thing. Hear St. Bernard, sermon 5 on the Lord's Supper: A new commandment I give you. Whence new? Newly discovered? Not because it is not written in the Old Testament: You shall love the Lord your God. What then is new? It is new, because it brings old things to newness, and transforms old men into young. New, because it strips off the old man and puts on the new, who was created according to God in the holiness and justice of truth. New, because the human race, formerly expelled from the joys of paradise, He now and daily transmits to heaven. And St. Augustine here: "Is the commandment therefore new, because, the old man being put off, it clothes us with the new man? It does indeed renew the hearer, or rather the obedient hearer — not every love, but that love which the Lord commands; and, to distinguish it from carnal love, He added: As I have loved you." And shortly after: "This love renews us, that we may be new men, heirs of the new Testament, makes us singers of a new song, and gathers a new people." Looking to this, St. Gregory, homily 32 on the Gospels: "Because, he says, our Lord and Redeemer came as a new man into the world, He gave new precepts to the world: for to the contrariety of our old life, nourished in vices, He opposed the newness of life," namely, to the love of self the love of God and neighbor.
Sixthly, Maldonatus expounds "new" as meaning excellent and most outstanding, because among all other commandments this precept of love is more sublime, more excellent, more useful, and more necessary; so it is said in Psalm xcvi, 1, and xcviii, 1: "Sing to the Lord a new song," that is, an outstanding, excellent, choice one: for that is called egregium which is, as it were, chosen out of the flock (hence victims were called egregiae, as if chosen out of the flock, according to that line in Aeneid book VI: — Yearling sheep selected after the custom); excellent, because as something singular it is taken out of the flock of the rest, and therefore rare and new.
To this belongs that interpretation of others: "new," they say, that is, last; because Christ gave this commandment as the last to His own when about to go to death: not that "new" means "last," but because, with respect to new things already seen, heard, and past — and therefore old — it appears new. For from novus comes in the superlative novissimus, that is, last, ultimate; because things recently done occupy the last place. So men are called "new men" whose ancestors were not famous, but they themselves first begin to be famous: for which reason Cicero was called at Rome "a new man." The sense is, as if to say: I now give you a commandment which up to now I have not given, but have reserved for this final farewell; now for the first time I deliver this commandment to you, and therefore I call it new: for up to now the disciples had not heard this commandment expressed by Christ in such words. So Sebastian Barradius, who also adds: Moreover it is called new because Christ willed that they should now newly begin to observe it: just as if a father were to give a commandment to his sons which he wished his sons henceforth newly to perform, it would rightly be called a new commandment. And Franciscus Lucas: I give, He says, a new commandment, which up to now I have not given, but have reserved for My death, that it might cling more tenaciously to the memory of you all, since I hold it as Mine, that is, as a commandment proper to Me, that I will it before all others to be commended to you, inculcated, and observed — such a gentle and sweet commandment as no one ever gave to his disciples. It is therefore new, both because it was newly given by Christ at the Last Supper, and because it is proper to Christ, as St. Basil says, On Baptism, last chapter, and because it has been commended by Him with singular zeal.
Seventhly, "new" by reason of effect, because it produces new effects, namely new heroic works, unheard of from the beginning of the age, such as those of St. Paul and the other Apostles, who with new and heavenly life, new doctrine, new miracles, new and unheard-of labors and persecutions, new alacrity, ardor, and spirit subdued the world to Christ. Was not St. Paul's charity new, who wished to be anathema for the brethren? St. Paulinus's, who gave himself as a slave to the Vandals to redeem a widow's son? St. Dominic's, St. Francis's, St. Ignatius's, who consecrated themselves and their followers to the salvation of souls? St. Francis Xavier's, who pushed forward to the most distant Japanese, Chinese, and Indians with such sweat and ardor to convert them to Christ? Blessed Jacopone's, who wished and prayed to undergo all the torments of all the damned, that he might rescue them and save all, if it had pleased God?
Eighthly, "new," says St. Thomas, because charity belongs to the new Testament; and Lyranus: it is called "new," he says, because the new Testament is distinguished from the old; for the old was of fear and of servants, the new is of love and of sons. Whence Christ adds: "In this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another;" where St. Cyril: "The face, he says, and the image of Christ engraved upon us, by which we are known to be His own, is the glory of charity." Hence that of Canticles ii, 4: "He set in order charity in me." Others render from the Hebrew, his banner over me is love. And Canticles chapter viii, verse 6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm: for love is strong as death, jealousy is hard as hell; its lamps are lamps of fire and flames. Many waters could not extinguish charity, nor shall the floods overwhelm it. If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he would despise it as nothing."
Such was the love of the first Christians: "For the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul, and they had all things in common," Acts iv, 32. See what is said there. Whence Tertullian in his Apology says that the heathen used to say of the Christians: "See how they love one another, and how ready they are to die for each other." He adds that the Christians called one another brothers, inasmuch as "they acknowledged one God the Father, drank one Spirit of holiness, and from the one womb of the same ignorance trembled at the same light of truth, etc. Moreover, we are brothers also from family substance, which among you breaks up brotherhood. And so, because we are blended in mind and soul, we do not hesitate about sharing property: with us all things are undivided, except wives."
WHICH IS TRUE, BOTH IN HIM AND IN YOU. — The pronoun ho, that is, which, since it is neuter, cannot refer to commandment, since the Greek entolen is feminine. Therefore it is taken technically or substantively, as if to say: "That which," that is, the thing which is true "in Him," that is, in itself, because this commandment of love, since it is of the natural law, is in itself most certain and most true, as well as most ancient, although in respect of practice and execution it is new. The same is true "in you," because you have embraced that very thing with the new life in Christ. So St. Augustine, Junilius, and Oecumenius. In this sense in Him refers to the commandment. Others better refer it to Christ: for although he does not name Him here, yet he named Him in verses 1, 2, 3, 4 and following. For St. John's heart was so full of Christ that, when he says "Him," he means none other than Christ, his very Love, with whom his mouth was full as well as his heart; whence Mary Magdalene similarly says to Christ, whom she supposed to be the gardener: "Lord, if you have taken Him away," John xx, 15. Whom? Christ, surely: for besides Him Magdalene was thinking of nothing else, seeking nothing else, loving nothing else. For wholly absorbed in Christ, she thought all had their heart there, where she had her own. These are the phrases of lovers, which the Bride accordingly uses in the Canticle. So St. Jerome, who therefore in book II Against Jovinian reads: "I have written to you a new commandment, which is most true both in Christ and in us." For some manuscripts read hemin, that is, in us: but our text, with most others, reads hymin, that is, in you, but the sense returns to the same. Now some explain it as if to say: This commandment of charity is the thing which makes you to be as truly in Christ as you are in yourselves.
Secondly and more plainly, as if to say: "Which," that is, which thing, namely this new commandment of love, has a place both in Christ and in you, both because it is a commandment, and because it has been put into practice and carried out: for, just as Christ as head of the Church supremely loves Christians as His members, so they themselves ought supremely to love one another as fellow-members (and indeed do love), and to imitate Christ in this love, that, as He at the commandment of our Father expended Himself wholly upon love, so we in turn should expend ourselves wholly upon the love of God, of Christ, and of Christians. He adds the reason.
BECAUSE THE DARKNESS (of ignorance, of concupiscence, of sins, as well as of shadows, of fear, and of the ceremonies of the old Testament) HAS PASSED AWAY: AND THE TRUE LIGHT IS NOW SHINING. — The Syriac: is beginning to appear: namely, the light of the Gospel, of faith, of grace, of love, and of all holiness. In a similar way Paul says: "The night has gone before, but the day has drawn near," Romans xiii, 12. And: "You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord," Ephesians v, 6. See what is said there. This is called the "true" light, that is, perfect, full, divine. So John says of Christ: "He was the true light," that is, perfect, and essential, John i, 9. "I am the true vine," that is, perfect, giving divine wine, John xv, 1. So the Eucharist is called "true bread," that is, perfect, fully feeding and satisfying, John vi, 55. As a symbol of this thing, the sun and morning-star of this light, Christ the Lord, was incarnate at the vernal equinox, namely on the 25th of March, to signify that He, having driven away the darkness of Judaism and paganism, would bring in the true light of the Gospel and of Christianity, as St. Chrysostom notes, hom. On St. John the Baptist. For the same reason Christ was born at the winter solstice, when light and day begin to grow, as St. Augustine noted, sermon 22 On the Times.
Verse 9: He Who Says He Is in the Light, and Hates His Brother, Is in Darkness Even Until Now
9. HE WHO SAYS HE IS IN THE LIGHT (of the Gospel, of faith, of grace, and of the charity of Christ), AND HATES HIS BROTHER (lies in saying he is in the light. Whence St. Cyprian, book III Against the Jews, chapter III, reads, or rather supplies by way of interpretation, "is a liar, because") IS IN DARKNESS — at least in the practical darkness of ignorance, of anger, of hatred, of concupiscence, and of sins; by which, being blinded, he does not see how great an evil hatred is, how hateful to God, who is the light of charity, what slaughters it brings, what damages it heaps upon itself, what torments of hell it summons. "He has been blinded by the very crime; he goes unknowingly into the hell of fire, and is borne headlong into punishment," says St. Chrysostom, hom. On the Discipline of Education. Truly the Wise Man said: "Error and darkness are created together with sinners," Ecclesiasticus chapter xi, verse 16.
Excellently St. Cyprian On Zeal and Envy: "If you have begun to be a man of light, do the things that are Christ's: because Christ is light and day. Why do you rush into the darkness of zeal? Why do you wrap yourself in the cloud of envy? Why by the blindness of envy do you extinguish all the light of peace and charity? Why do you return to the devil whom you had renounced? Why do you become like Cain?" Again: "He who hates his brother is in darkness," namely the darkness of hell and the underworld, both because he tends thither, and because the demon possesses him. Hear St. Basil, hom. On Anger: "As, he says, he who has charity has God in himself: so he who has hatred and anger contains the demon in himself." And again: "You have, he says, a most evil demon innate in your souls;" and St. Chrysostom calls "anger a voluntary demon." In an angry man, therefore, as in Hades, one may contemplate three-headed Cerberus, Megaera, Alecto, and the other Furies. Seneca, book II On Anger: "Such, he says, infernal monsters as the Poets feigned, girt with serpents and fiery breath; such as the most foul Furies of hell go forth to stir up wars and tear apart peace; such a Cerberus" three-headed and vomiting flames — "such let us figure anger to be for ourselves."
EVEN UNTIL NOW — until this time in which he has been baptized and is a Christian, as if to say: Although baptism is illumination, yet it cannot drive away these shadows of hatred, if they still remain voluntary, or if they follow baptism: so St. Augustine, Bede, and Hugh.
Verse 10: He Who Loves His Brother Abides in the Light, and There Is No Scandal in Him
10. HE WHO LOVES HIS BROTHER ABIDES IN THE LIGHT — of Christian faith and love. It is the antithesis of the preceding verse.
AND SCANDAL. — St. Jerome gives the etymology of "scandal" on Matthew chapter xv: "Since, he says, in the Ecclesiastical Scriptures the word scandal is frequently used, let us briefly say what proskomma and skandalon mean. We can say it means a stumbling-block, or a fall, or a striking of the foot: they derive it from skazo or schao, that is, I limp, because the stumbling-block placed before causes one to limp with the feet; or, as others prefer, skandalon is a curved piece of wood by which a snare or trap is set, and against which an animal, while striking it, overturns the trap to its own ruin; or finally, an obstacle insidiously placed in the way, that the passer-by may stumble."
AND THERE IS NO SCANDAL IN HIM. — As if to say: He who loves nowhere offends, nowhere stumbles. Therefore scandal, that is, offense or stumbling-block, is not in him, whether active, as St. Augustine says, or passive, as the Gloss says: for he who loves is by no thing, no injury, no manners offended or causes offense; because "charity is patient, is kind, etc., is not provoked, thinks no evil, etc., bears all things, believes all things, endures all things," I Corinthians xiii, 4. This is what the Wise Man says, Proverbs xv, 19: "The ways of the just are without stumbling-block." And the Psalmist, Psalm cxviii, 165: "Much peace have they who love your law, and there is no scandal for them."
Hear St. Augustine: "Who are they, he says, who suffer scandal or cause it? Those who are scandalized in Christ and in the Church: those who are scandalized in Christ are burned, as it were, by the sun; those who in the Church, by the moon. The psalm says: By day the sun shall not burn you, nor the moon by night, that is, if you hold to charity, you will neither suffer scandal in Christ nor in the Church; you will neither forsake Christ, nor the Church." The same, sermon 59 On the Times: "Enemies are more to be loved than friends: for those who are enemies oppose the body, but prepare eternal rewards for the soul; because those who snatch away our carnal and earthly goods, gather for us heavenly and spiritual ones. Is he not more to be loved than hated, who gives us eternal riches? But the friends of our flesh strive to persuade us to pleasant things, which prepare for our soul eternal death."
And to the same effect Basil in his Shorter Rules, Rule 176: "What, he says, can come from a friend that is so great a benefit as that which is given us by enemies, by whose work it comes about that we attain that blessedness of which the Lord says: Blessed are you when men hate you, and persecute you, and speak all evil against you, lying, for My sake." Again St. Augustine, sermon 61 On the Times: "So many men, he says, so many women, clerics, boys, so many and such delicate maidens have endured flames and fires and beasts with equanimity, and we say we cannot tolerate the insults of men. Whence I do not know with what face or with what conscience we desire to have a part in eternal beatitude with all the Saints, whose examples we do not consent to follow even in the smallest things."
Verse 11: He Who Hates His Brother Is in Darkness and Knows Not Where He Goes
11. BUT HE WHO HATES HIS BROTHER IS IN DARKNESS. — "He cannot be in the light of Christ, and belong to Christ, says Oecumenius, who hates him for whom Christ died." St. John, in his usual manner, repeats and inculcates the same thing.
AND HE DOES NOT KNOW WHERE HE IS GOING. — "For he goes, says St. Cyprian, On Zeal and Envy, unknowing into hell, ignorant and blind he is hurled into punishment, departing namely from the light of Christ admonishing and saying: I am the light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Truly the author of the Unfinished Work, hom. 13: "Hatred, he says, is the spirit of darkness, and wherever it has settled, it sullies the beauty of holiness." He adds: "Since this world is full of scandals, if we wish to love only friends, we shall not be able to find anything to love." This is what the Wise Man says in Proverbs iv, 19: "The way of the wicked is dark, they do not know where they fall." And Zephaniah i, verse 17: "They will walk as blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord." And Isaiah lix, 10, expressing their character and feelings: "We have groped, he says, like the blind for the wall, and as though without eyes we have groped: we have stumbled at noon as in the dark, in dark places as dead men."
Indeed no vice so blinds the reason as anger, envy, hatred; for these make a man not to be wise but to rage, so that he seems to be not a man but a Fury vomiting forth the torches of hell, according to that line of Virgil, Aeneid X: He is driven by these furies, and from his whole burning face / Sparks fly forth; in his keen eyes flashes fire. The same, in Georgics book III: They rush into furies and fire, love is the same in all. / At no other time has the lioness, forgetful of her cubs, / Wandered more savage in the fields, nor have shapeless bears / Given so many funerals and slaughter to the multitude.
Whence Seneca, book I On Anger, chapter I, defines "anger" as "a brief madness." And Cicero, Tusculan iv: "Nothing, he says, is more like madness than anger, which Ennius well called the beginning of madness." And St. Chrysostom, hom. 47 on John: "Between anger and madness, he says, there is no difference," according to that line: "Anger is a brief madness."
Furthermore, anger and hatred are so blind that, blinded by fury, they do not see these their own furies, nay, do not regard them as furies, but as just vengeance, so that they think themselves moved not by hatred but by reason; and they ascribe all the blame not to themselves who do the harm, but to the one harmed by them. Seneca neatly represents this same thing in epistle 31, in the case of Harpaste, his wife's maidservant, who was blind and silly: when she had fallen into blindness, she denied that she was blind, and laid the blame for not seeing on the house, saying it was dark, and so demanded to be led out of it and brought into another. "Let it be plain to you, he says, that what we see in her happens to us: no one understands himself to be greedy, no one to be covetous; the blind seek a guide, but we err without a guide, and say: I am not ambitious, but no one can live in Rome otherwise; I am not spendthrift, but the city itself demands great expenses. It is not my fault that I am irascible, that I have not yet settled on a fixed kind of life — adolescence does this. Why do we deceive ourselves? Our evil is not from without, it is within us, it sits in our very bowels. And therefore we come with difficulty to soundness, because we do not know that we are sick." The philosopher Democritus blinded himself by the brightness of the sun, that he might not see the happiness of the wicked: so the envious and those livid with hatred blind themselves with envy, that they may not see the prosperity of their rivals. Hear Laertius in Gellius, book X, chapter xvii: That Democritus might dig out by bronze splendor and by rays / Of the sun the keenness of his sight he dug out, that he might not see / Wicked citizens prosper: so I / By gleaming brightness against money wish / To light the destruction of my age, / Lest in good fortune I should see my son a wretch.
Verse 12: I Write to You, Little Children, Because Your Sins Are Forgiven You for His Name's Sake
12. I WRITE TO YOU, LITTLE CHILDREN. — St. John descends from the thesis to the hypothesis, from the general to the particular. For what he had commended to all Christians in general concerning the knowledge and love of God, the same things he here commends to each of their grades and states. He distinguishes them into three grades and classes, according to their three ages, namely children, young men, and old men. The children he calls "little ones" and "infants," the young men he calls "adolescents," the old men he calls "fathers." To each of these in turn he congratulates the gift of Christianity, namely that through it they know, worship, and love God, and by congratulating them silently exhorts them to persevere and grow in the same. By this triple grade of age, he represents a triple grade of Christians in virtue, and as it were a triple age; for children represent the beginners and neophytes, young men represent the proficient, old men the perfect. By this St. John tacitly suggests that Christians ought to grow and advance in virtue as well as in age, that they may imitate Christ, of whom St. Luke writes, chapter ii, verse 52: "Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and in grace before God and men:" so Clement, Oecumenius, Dionysius, Gagneius, Cajetan, and Catharinus; though St. Augustine thinks otherwise, namely that these three pertain to the same persons, that is, individual Christians are called little children because they have been reborn by baptism, and fathers because they acknowledge Christ as Father and the Ancient of Days, and adolescents or young men because they are strong and vigorous: "In sons, he says, nativity is signified, in fathers antiquity, in young men strength." But what I said first seems both simpler and more genuine. To the first, then, that is to the children, John says: "Little children," recently born into the world and reborn by baptism, rejoice, congratulate yourselves, and give thanks to God, and love and worship Him, "because there are remitted," that is, by baptism have been remitted, and if you commit any hereafter, they will be remitted by penance, "to you your sins," to which the age of childhood, as weak and fragile and of small mind, judgment, and spirit, is prone and inclined, "for His name's sake," namely Christ's, as I said in verse 8. By the name of Christ, by metonymy, he calls either Christ Himself, whom we must frequently name and invoke, or the very invocation of the name of Christ, as if to say: For the sake of the name of Christ professed and invoked, or for the authority and power of Christ: for it is this that name signifies, and by this sins are remitted through the grace and merits of Christ.
Morally St. John here teaches that great care must be taken of the education and instruction of children, as he himself showed by the example of the boy whom he commended to a Bishop, which I recounted in the Proem: for upon childhood depends the whole shaping of a man's life thereafter. For what we learn as boys, we retain as men: With that with which it has once been steeped when fresh, it will keep the scent / For a long time, the jar, says Horace. For this reason St. Ignatius, founder of our Society, established schools in it, in which children might imbibe along with letters piety and upright morals: from which how many benefits redound to the universal Church, experience teaches: see Ribadeneira treating at length of the education of children and the benefits of schools, book III of the Life of St. Ignatius, chapter xxiv, where he confirms the same not only from Scripture, the Fathers, and Councils, but also from Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Quintilian, and other Philosophers.
Mystically: Hear St. Augustine describing the seven mystical ages of the just man, in his book On True Religion, chapter xxvi: "This man, he says, is called the new man, both interior and heavenly, having also himself by proportion certain spiritual ages of his own, distinguished not by years, but by progress. The first at the breasts of useful history, which nourishes by examples. The second now forgetting human things, and tending toward divine, in which he is not contained in the bosom of human authority, but leans by the steps of reason upon the supreme unchangeable law. The third now more confident, marrying the carnal appetite by the strength of reason, and rejoicing inwardly in a certain conjugal sweetness, when the soul is joined to the mind, and is veiled with the covering of modesty, so that he is no longer compelled to live rightly, but, even if all should give license, has no pleasure in sinning. The fourth doing the very same thing much more firmly and orderly, and shining forth into the perfect man, fit and suitable for sustaining and breaking even all persecutions and the storms and floods of this world. The fifth peaceful and altogether tranquil, living in the riches and abundance of the unchangeable kingdom, of the supreme and ineffable wisdom. The sixth of every kind of change into eternal life, and passing even to the total forgetfulness of temporal life, into the perfect form which has been made to the image and likeness of God. The seventh is now eternal rest, and perpetual blessedness not to be distinguished by any ages. For as the end of the old man is death, so the end of the new man is eternal life. For that man is of sin, this of justice."
Verse 13: I Write to You, Fathers, Because You Have Known Him Who Is From the Beginning
13. I WRITE TO YOU, FATHERS, BECAUSE YOU HAVE KNOWN HIM WHO IS FROM THE BEGINNING. — From children he passes to fathers, that is, to those advanced in age and old men: these are wont to boast that they have seen and experienced many things, according to that of Job xii, 12: "In the ancients is wisdom, and in length of time prudence." Accordingly to these old men St. John, accommodatingly to their character, congratulates them that they have known the Ancient of Days, namely God, who "from the beginning," that is, from eternity, "is." For, as St. Augustine says: "Christ is new in the flesh, but ancient in divinity;" and he adds: "Remember that you are fathers. If you forget Him who is from the beginning, you have lost fatherhood."
I WRITE TO YOU, YOUNG MEN, BECAUSE YOU HAVE OVERCOME THE WICKED ONE. — From both extreme ages, namely childhood and old age, he passes to the middle one, namely adolescence. This age glories in strength, and rejoices in struggles and fights, in which it may exert and display its vigor: it also, on account of the fervor of the blood, abounds in concupiscences, which the demon kindles, with which it must constantly wrestle. To the young men, then, he congratulates them on having overcome the wicked one, namely the demon, with the concupiscences which he stirs up. For he speaks to young Christian men living a Christian life, who through the grace of Christ at that age strongly overcame temptations: such were the virgins (for under "young men" he also understands both sexes, namely young women too) who, dragged to the brothel, fought strongly for their virginity, and therefore were preserved unhurt and untouched almost all by God through miracle, as were St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Agatha, and innumerable others. Such also was the young man who, as St. Jerome writes in the Life of St. Paul the first Hermit, having been bound by his persecutor among roses and lilies, was solicited to the crime by a beautiful harlot with shameless touches. "What was the soldier of Christ to do, he says, and where to turn he knew not: he whom torments had not conquered, pleasure was overcoming; at last, divinely inspired, he bit off his tongue and spat it into the face of the woman kissing him, and thus the greatness of pain, succeeding to the sense of lust, overcame it." This fortitude and victory is given by Christ, whence Paul says: "Who gives us victory through Christ," I Corinthians xv, 57. And St. Augustine here: "If, he says, the wicked one is overcome by the young, he fights with us: he fights, but he does not vanquish; why? because we are strong, or because He is strong in us, who in the hands of His persecutors was found weak? He made us strong, who did not resist His persecutors: for He was crucified out of weakness, but lives by the power of God."
Verse 14: I Write to You, Young Men, Because You Are Strong, and the Word of God Abides in You
14. I WRITE TO YOU, INFANTS. — In his customary manner St. John returns in a circle, and to each age repeats what he had said, but in other words, that he may inculcate it. For those whom in verse 12 he called tekneia, that is little children, here he calls paidia, that is boys, little ones, whom our text calls infants. So in Job chapter xxi, 11, it is said: "Their infants exult in play;" infants, in Greek paidia, that is boys: for those properly called infants, as they cannot speak, neither can they leap. So Pliny, book IX, chapter viii, says that dolphins carry their young in infancy, that is in their early stage, and therefore weak. And book XXII, chapter xxii: "Nor is the grace of the skin less in the food of an infant," that is, of a small, not yet adult "mushroom." So Cicero, On Famous Orators, says that Scipio was not an infant, that is, not unable to speak.
BECAUSE YOU HAVE KNOWN THE FATHER. — When you learned the Creed, saying: "I believe in God the Father almighty."
Morally: Beautifully Catharinus: "Of beginners' life, it is to be in some manner under the Father, who cherishes with caresses and paternal embraces, restraining for a while the harsher temptations; then, that they may grow and be more fully instructed, He hands them over to the Son, and afterwards here to the Holy Spirit to be confirmed and made perfect."
After: "I write to you, little children," the ancient codices add: "I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning." The Greek and Syriac codices support this; Augustine, Bede, Thomas, and Oecumenius agree. Hear Francisco Lucas in his Notes here: "This little verse seems to have been omitted, both because it is most similar in words and substance to what immediately precedes, and because the same thing was just read a little earlier. For when the Apostle had addressed himself to every age, so that, having been enriched with the Saviour's benefits, each might rejoice in the Lord and glory in Him, desiring to penetrate minds with greater weight and to make it cling fixedly, he repeated the same thing again. And the infants or children, and the adolescents, whom many books here call 'young men' (the Greek word here being the same as before, neaniskoi), are repeated harmoniously by all; but the fathers, or elders, why should they be passed over? Or because it would suffice to have admonished the elders, who are by themselves wise, only once? There is one Complutensian Greek edition (for the Regia is the same) which, similarly to the common Latin codices, omits it."
I WRITE TO YOU, YOUNG MEN (in Greek neaniskoi, whom in v. 13 our text renders adolescents — rejoice, give thanks to God, and worship and love Him), BECAUSE YOU ARE STRONG (in Greek ischyroi, that is, mighty in strength, and therefore) YOU HAVE OVERCOME THE EVIL ONE. — In Greek ton poneron, that is, that evil one by antonomasia, namely the prince and head of malignity, that is, the Devil. As if to say, Saint Augustine writes: "I write to you, young men: again and again consider that you are young men. Fight, that you may conquer; conquer, that you may be crowned; be humble, lest you fall in the fight," etc. And again: "A great commendation of grace, my brethren: it instructs the hearts of the humble and stops the mouths of the proud."
AND THE WORD OF GOD ABIDES IN YOU. — As if to say: You keep God's words and precepts, which I and my colleagues have preached to you, and in this keeping you abide and persevere. Others take it of the uncreated and incarnate Word, namely Christ — as if to say: You persist in the faith and love of Christ by His grace, and therefore stand strong and constant against all the assaults of enemies, and overcome the evil one. Hear Oecumenius: "To the adolescents and young men, who being strong are to be trained for wrestling and contests, having attested the glory of victory, he shows that they need noble and military discourses." And St. Prosper, in the epistle to Demetrias, which is found in book II of the epistles of St. Ambrose, no. 33: "By the working of the Spirit of God, he says, the will is helped, not taken away; grace acts so that the will, corrupted by sin, drunk with vanities, hemmed in by seductions, hindered by difficulties, does not remain in its weaknesses, but, healed by the help of the merciful Physician, recovers strength." And soon after, with some passages between: "The snares of the tempter are watchful; so that where devotion advances, pride may creep in, and a man may glory in a good work in himself rather than in the Lord. But the Apostle warns us against this danger, saying: Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to work according to His good will. The more excellently, then, anyone advances in God's commandments, the greater are his causes for fear and trembling; lest the mind, well-conscious of itself and greedy for praise, be carried away by the very increases of its uprightness into the excess of pride, and become foul with vanity while it seems to itself bright with virtue."
Verse 15: Love Not the World, Nor the Things Which Are in the World
15. LOVE NOT THE WORLD. — He had urged the love of God; now he urges hatred of the world, because love of the world begets hatred of God. Hear St. Augustine: "There are two loves, of the world and of God: if love of the world dwells, there is no way for love of God to enter. Let love of the world depart, and let love of God dwell: let the better take its place. You were loving the world; do not love the world. When you have emptied your heart of earthly love, you will draw in divine love, and charity will already begin to dwell, from which nothing evil can proceed. Hear, then, the words of one cleansing: just now He has found human hearts as a field, but how has He found them? If He has found a forest, He uproots it; if He has found a cleansed field, He plants. He wills to plant there the tree of charity. And what forest does He wish to uproot? Love of the world. Hear the uprooting of the forest: Love not the world."
Abbot Isaiah, oration 21 On Penitence, when someone asked him: "What is the world? replied: 'The world is the destruction of the soul into sins. The world is, when we follow those things which are contrary to nature. The world is, when we fulfil the pleasures of the flesh. The world is, when we suppose we shall remain a long time in this age. The world is, when we have greater care of the body than of the soul. The world is, when we glory in those things which are perishable. I do not invent these things from myself, but the Apostle John speaks thus: Love not the world, etc., for whatever is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.'" Wherefore St. Augustine here: "Dearest brethren, he says, in this valley of misery, possess nothing so beautiful, so delightful, that your soul should be wholly taken up with it. Flee the world, if you wish to be clean (mundus); if you are clean, the world no longer delights you. Flee creatures, if you wish to have the Creator. Let every creature become cheap, that the Creator may grow sweet in the heart."
See St. Augustine, Book On Contempt of the World and On Flight from the Age; St. Ambrose, On Flight from the Age; St. Cyprian, On Mortality; St. Eucherius, epistle to Valerian, who teaches elegantly and piously how vain and to be despised are all the goods of the world.
IF ANY MAN LOVE THE WORLD, THE CHARITY OF THE FATHER IS NOT IN HIM. — St. James agrees, ch. IV, v. 4: "Adulterers, do you not know that the friendship of this world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wishes to be a friend of this world, is constituted an enemy of God." See what is said there. For God wishes to be loved "with the whole heart, with the whole soul, with all our strength." Therefore He does not allow our heart and love to be divided, so that we should give part of it to God and part to the world; but He wishes the whole to be rendered to Himself, who created and gave the whole. "For there are two loves, says St. Leo, sermon 5 On the Fast of the Seventh Month, from which all desires proceed, as different in qualities as they are divided in their authors. For the rational soul, which cannot be without love, is either a lover of God or of the world. In the love of God nothing is excessive; but in the love of the world all things are harmful. And therefore we must cling inseparably to eternal goods, but use temporal ones in passing, so that, since we are pilgrims and hastening to return to our homeland, whatever of this world's prosperities meets us may be a viaticum for the journey, not the allurements of a dwelling-place."
Verse 16: All That Is in the World Is the Concupiscence of the Flesh, the Concupiscence of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life
16. FOR ALL THAT IS IN THE WORLD IS THE LUST OF THE FLESH, AND THE LUST OF THE EYES, AND THE PRIDE OF LIFE. — You will say, properly speaking concupiscence is not in the world; for it is in souls and in men who lust. I reply: the world is taken in three ways.
First, for worldly men, and those who follow the goods and allurements of the world: in these properly is concupiscence; thus it is said: "The world knew Him not" — the world, that is, the worldly, the lovers of the world (John 1:10). And: "The world hates you" (John 15:18). So St. Augustine on Psalm 54: "Lest perhaps, he says, when he had said 'of the world,' you should understand the demons to be rulers of heaven and earth, he said 'of the world,' that is, of these darknesses; he said 'of the world,' of the lovers of the world; he said 'of the world,' of the impious and wicked of the world." And for these throughout the Gospel of St. John he takes the name 'world.'
Second, "world" properly and physically signifies this created world, namely this sublunary globe, this earth in which we live and dwell. In this world, since it is inanimate, properly and formally there is no concupiscence, which is something animate and living; but in it there is material concupiscence, that is, the object that can be desired, which provokes the concupiscence of men and invites them to itself — such as wealth, delights, honors. It is a metonymy. By a similar trope God is called our love and our fear, that is, the object of our love and fear, namely Him whom we love, fear, and revere. Now whatever is in this world — understand: visible and sensible — is likewise an object of desire; for everything sensible affects the sense, attracts and entices it into love and desire of itself. Otherwise, there are also in the world angels, Saints, virtues, etc.; but these visible and sensible things which provoke the senses and are therefore objects of desire, are not so, but rather lovable and venerable.
Third, "world" can be taken for worldly life, or worldly concupiscence in general; for in this generic concupiscence are contained three specific ones, or three of its species, namely the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. This is the whole body, as it were, of concupiscence and sin, made up and integrated from these three parts as from members. This is, as it were, a world of vices consisting of its four elements: for earth is the lust of the flesh, air and water are the lust of the eyes, fire is the pride of life, which burns with the desire of dominating all. Or, as St. Anthony of Padua used to say: "Earth is avarice, water is luxury, air is inconstancy, fire is pride." As therefore parts are in the whole, species in the genus, members in the body, elements in the world, so these three particular concupiscences are in concupiscence in general, as in a general embrace. Hence of it he adds, v. 16: "Which is not of the Father, but of the world," that is, of worldly vice and concupiscence.
In all these ways "world" can be taken here, and St. John now looks to one, now to another; for he plays on the word 'world.'
However, the second exposition, being simpler, is also more genuine. For he just before said about the world: "Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world." Now we do not love or desire concupiscence itself, but the desirable goods which are in the world, such as wealth, pleasures, honors. From these St. John wishes to call away the souls of the faithful, because they are the roots and sources of all sins, and he commands that they transfer it to God, that they may love Him and heavenly goods. Again, because he distinguishes the world from concupiscence, saying in v. 17: "And the world passes away, and the desire thereof." Therefore he takes the world here physically.
The sense, therefore, is, as if he said: Do not love this world, nor the goods contained in the world, because whatever is contained in this visible world either softens and pollutes the soul with the desires and allurements of the flesh, or inflames it with the desire of riches, or exalts it with pride and arrogance — all which are foreign to God the Father and to His love, and pertain to these perishable goods of the world, or rather to the shadows and simulacra of goods.
Note first: As the lust of the eyes is avarice and curiosity, so the desirable object of the eyes is gold, silver, gems, estates, wealth, curious and precious things, etc., which the miser and avarice desire. So St. Augustine, book III On the Creed, ch. 1: "To the lust of the flesh, he says, belong the allurements of pleasures; to the lust of the eyes, the triviality of spectacles; to the ambition of the age, the madness of pride." It is called "of the eyes," both because it provokes the eyes, and through the eyes the imagination and the mind. "The eyes, says St. Augustine on Psalm 41, are members of the flesh, they are windows of the mind; it is the inner [self] who sees through them." Also because it feeds only the eyes; also because it is held and possessed almost by the eyes alone. For the miser hides away his wealth, and does not dare to spend it or enjoy it, but keeps it in a chest; whence he has no other use or enjoyment of it than that he can from time to time scan it with his eyes and gaze upon it with pleasure — which truly is an enormous misery and folly. For in like manner he could gaze upon the gold, silver, and gems in temples, and feed himself on them; but he would feed himself more on his own wealth, and enjoy it, if he were to spend it for his own benefit and that of his friends and the poor, for use and enjoyment.
Second, as the lust of the flesh is gluttony and lust (luxuria), so the desirable object of the flesh is wine, delicate food, woman, and things of Venus, which the glutton and the lustful desire. It is called "of the flesh," because it titillates and provokes the flesh, and because it is held and possessed by the flesh. Whence it is plain how vile, slight, brief, and sordid it is: vile, because similar to the beasts, for they seek only the delights of the flesh; slight, because it does not feed spirit and mind, but only the flesh, which in itself is inanimate and insensible; brief, because as soon as the food passes through the palate, the pleasure of the throat passes away. The same is true of sordid lust, because it ends in spittle, dung, vomit, abscesses, putrefactions, fevers, dysenteries, and other grave and foul diseases. Whence St. Augustine, On True Religion, ch. 55: "Let us not love, he says, to corrupt or be corrupted through the pleasure of the flesh, lest we come to a more miserable corruption of pains and torments." So the Apostle opposes the desires and works of the flesh to the desires and works of the spirit, Galatians 5:17; on which see Cassian, Conferences IV, ch. 10.
Third, as the pride of life is ambition, arrogance, the appetite for excellence and glory, so the desirable objects of this pride are proud garments, palaces, servants, chariots, dignities, magistracies, prelacies, etc. Seneca graphically depicts the proud man in Thyestes, Act V: "Equal to the stars, he says, shall I stride, and above all / proud heads, touching with my high crown the pole." In Greek it is he alazoneia tou biou, which the Zurich version renders 'pride of life'; Vatablus, 'arrogance, insolence, and ostentation of the faculties pertaining to the sustaining of life'; the Syriac, 'arrogance of the world'; SS. Augustine and Cyprian, 'ambition of the age'; others, 'desire of honour, praise, and rule'; others, 'boasting, glorying, the marketing and proclaiming of oneself.' All these are apt: for hence is called taos alazon, that is, 'proud peacock,' when, spreading his wings, he proceeds pompously — which is a true image of the proud man and of pride, according to that of Ovid, Metamorphoses XIII: "Prouder than the praised peacock."
Excellently St. Bernard on the Psalm 'Qui habitat,' sermon 6: "Ambition, he says, is a subtle evil, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the artificer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the origin of vices, the kindling of crimes, the rust of virtues, the moth of sanctity, the blinder of hearts, creating diseases out of remedies, generating languor out of medicine." Hence ambition is called "the whetstone of depravity," because it stirs up and sharpens all vices, by St. Basil, sermon 'Let us not be fastened to temporal things.' See St. Gregory, Morals XIV, book XXXI, ch. 17.
These three passions and concupiscences, then, are the three sources of all temptations and sins; concerning which see St. Augustine, Confessions book X, ch. 30 ff., and St. Thomas, I-II, Quaestio 77, art. 5. Truly the Poet: "Ambitious honour, and wealth, and foul pleasure — / These three the world holds in place of a triune deity."
Wherefore by these three the serpent first tempted Adam and Eve, our first parents: by the lust of the flesh, when he persuaded them to eat of the forbidden tree; of the eyes, when he falsely promised them: "Your eyes shall be opened"; by the pride of life, when he likewise falsely promised them: "You shall be as gods," Genesis 3. So St. Prosper, On the Contemplative Life II, ch. 19. By the same the devil tempted Christ, Matt. 4: by the lust of the flesh, when he said to Him: "Command that these stones be made bread"; but Christ repulsed him, saying: "Not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." By the pride of life, when he urged Him to seek vain glory, that He should cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, since God had charged the angels concerning Him; but Christ drove him away, saying: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." By the lust of the eyes, when, showing Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, he said: "All these I will give You, if falling down You will adore me." But Christ routed him saying: "You shall adore the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve," Matt. 4. So St. Augustine, On True Religion, ch. 38.
Furthermore, this triple concupiscence is opposed to the Most Holy Trinity: the lust of the eyes, that is, avarice, to God the Father — for He is most liberal; for He communicates His essence and all His attributes to the Son and to the Holy Spirit essentially, and to creatures by participation. The lust of the flesh is opposed to the Son, whose generation is not carnal, but spiritual; for He is begotten from the mind of the Father, as it were the Word, and therefore is most pure Spirit, and a hater and enemy of all carnal impurity. The pride of life is opposed to the Holy Spirit, because He is the Spirit of humility and gentleness. Again, the same is opposed to the three primary virtues: namely, the lust of the flesh to continence, that is, sobriety and chastity; the lust of the eyes, to charity and beneficence; the pride of life, to humility. See more in St. Bernard, sermon on the Octave of Easter, and the sermon On Loving God.
WHICH IS NOT OF THE FATHER, BUT IS OF THE WORLD. — This 'which' refers not only to the pride of life, but to the triple concupiscence already mentioned. Whence the Syriac translates in the plural: 'which are not of the Father, but of the world itself.' Now the concupiscence is of the world, that is, from the corruption of the world and of worldly men, and from vice — those who cling to the things of the world with excessive love. Whence St. Cyprian, in his treatise On Mortality and elsewhere, reads: "But from the concupiscence of the world or of the age." For St. John here plays elegantly on the word 'world,' as also in the Gospel ch. 1, v. 10, saying: "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world knew Him not." For the former 'world' he calls the globe; the latter 'world' he calls the lovers of the world. And ch. 17, v. 9: "Not for the world," that is, for those given over to the world, "do I pray, but for those whom You have given Me, etc. And now I am no longer in the world, and these are in the world," namely, in this globe. In a similar way Paul plays on the word 'sin,' saying: "Him who knew no sin, He made sin for us," that is, a victim for sin, "made," 2 Corinthians 5:21. And: "Christ from sin condemned sin," Rom. 8:3. As, therefore, 'flesh' in Scripture often signifies the corruption of the flesh, concupiscence, and vices, so likewise 'world' signifies the corrupted morals and loves of the world, that is, of worldly men.
He gives the reason why the world and worldly concupiscence are not to be loved, namely because it is not of God, but of the world, that is, of the worldly life. Under 'concupiscence' understand the desirable good: for this is born from concupiscence. For this made it so that a good thing became desirable, just as the estimation and appraisal of men puts a price on gold, silver, and other things. Hence before Adam's sin there was no desirable good in the world; but Adam, sinning and lusting, made it desirable.
Concupiscence, therefore, and desirable goods were born from Adam who lusted and sinned; for from him we draw with original sin concupiscence, and consequently it comes about that this world becomes for us an object of desire — so that wealth, honours, delights, etc., created by God for man's good, are turned for us into allurements and provocations of concupiscence, while we covet and lust after them with excessive and immoderate love, according to that saying: "The creatures of God are turned to an abomination, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise," Wisdom 14:11. And ch. 4, v. 12: "For the bewitching of vanity obscures good things, and the inconstancy of concupiscence overturns the sense without malice" — as if to say: The fascination of vanity or concupiscence obscures the things that are honourable. For the appearance of pleasure, which is in the concupiscence and vanity of sin, fascinates the mind, so that it does not see the foulness and punishments of sin, nor consider the beauty and rewards of virtue: see what is said in James 1:14.
Furthermore, because Adam's concupiscence and sin came about at the instigation of the demon, hence Oecumenius expounds the 'of the world' as 'of the demon.' "If indeed, he says, the depraved one is opposed to the good Father — he who serves the concupiscences of the world is not of the Father, but of the world. That he who is not of the Father, but of the world, is of the devil, is plain. Even as in the Gospels also He says to the Jews: You are of your father the devil — that is, of worldly pursuits, of which the devil is both sower and cultivator." So the demon is often called by St. John "prince of the world" in the Gospel, as ch. 12, v. 31; ch. 14, v. 30; ch. 16, v. 11.
Verse 17: The World Passes Away, but He Who Does the Will of God Abides For Ever
17. AND THE WORLD PASSES AWAY, AND THE DESIRE THEREOF. — "And," that is, "because": for the Hebrew vau is often taken thus, that is, "and"; For here is the second reason why the world is not to be loved, namely because it passes away just as does all its concupiscence — that is, everything in it that is delightful and desirable: wealth, delights, pleasures, honours. This is what Christ says: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away," Matt. 24:35. And Paul: "For the figure of this world passes away," 1 Cor. 7:31. And St. Peter, Epistle II, ch. 3, v. 11: "Seeing therefore that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of the Lord." See more in Wisdom 5:9 ff., and St. Bernard, epistle 107, and Nazianzen, On the Itinerary of Life, and Plutarch in the Consolatory Oration, and Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.
Furthermore the world passes away, because time passes: for the world is bound to time as to its measure, for it is measured by time. As, therefore, an hour, a day, a year passes, and the sun passes from East to West, so passes also the world. "Day is thrust on by day," says Horace, month by month, year by year; and Ovid, On the Art [of Love], book III: "Be mindful even now of old age that is to come, / so no time shall pass for you idly. / While you may, and while you give forth even now your true years, / play: the years go like flowing water. / Neither shall the wave that has gone by be called back again, / nor can the hour that has passed return. / We must use our age; with swift foot age slips away: / nor does the good that follows come up to the good that was first." And Virgil, Georgics III: "Meanwhile time has flowed away, slipping with fleeting foot."
Excellently St. Jerome, epistle 3: "We ought, he says, to premeditate in our mind what we shall one day be, and what, willing or unwilling, cannot be far off. For if we were to exceed nine hundred years of life, as the human race lived before the flood, and Methuselah's times were granted us, yet the past length, which had ceased to be, would be nothing; for between him who lived ten years and him who lived a thousand, after the same end of life has come, and the inescapable necessity of death, everything that has passed is the same — except that the old man sets out more burdened with the bundle of his sins." St. Cyprian, in his book to Demetrius, at length shows the world is growing old. "There fails, he says, in the fields the husbandman, at sea the sailor, the soldier in the camps, innocence in the forum, justice in judgment, concord in friendships, skill in the arts, discipline in morals." And soon: "This sentence has been given to the world, that all things that have arisen will set, and things that have grown will grow old, and strong things will be weakened, and great things will be diminished, and when they have been weakened and diminished, they will come to an end." And St. Anselm on chap. XII of Romans: "Do not, he says, constantly love the world, since the very thing you love cannot endure: in vain do you fix your heart as if upon something abiding, while the very thing you love is fleeing away." This reasoning is from the effect to the cause: for time is at least in the order of nature posterior to the world, just as duration is posterior to the thing that endures. Therefore the world passes away before time; but you may rightly conclude from the effect: Time passes, therefore the world too. The reason a priori why the world passes away is that it was created out of non-being or nothing; whence it received from God a participated being, and therefore a tenuous and mutable being, which by its nature tends toward non-being, that it may return to that whence it came. On the contrary, eternity is proper to God, because God has being of Himself, uncreated, and therefore stable, constant, immutable, and eternal. Again, the world is not simple, but composite, partly of various bodies, partly of matter and form, partly of act and potency, partly of substance and accident, partly of other bodies, as mixtures consist of elements; and every composite is resolved into its parts of which it consists, as into its principles and elements. The final cause is that from passing and mutable creatures we may transfer our mind to the immutable and ever-abiding Creator. For all creatures, indeed our very heart, cry out by their mutability as if with a mute voice, according to that saying of St. Augustine, Confess. I, chap. 1: "Thou hast made us, O Lord, for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it rests in Thee." John adds this cause, saying: "have run." The Hebrew has, as their loves. And Jeremiah, Lam. 1:8: "Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable." See what is said there. Do you wish, then, to be eternal? love the eternal good. Do you wish perpetually to enjoy the thing loved? love an eternal thing. For if you love a fleeting and frail thing, you will fall, pass away, and slip with what is frail; but if you fix your mind and love on a stable, heavenly, divine, eternal thing, you will become stable, heavenly, divine, eternal. This is true wisdom and the wisdom of the Saints. Foolish therefore are the lovers of the world, who love passing things instead of stable, fleeting instead of eternal, earthly instead of heavenly, human instead of divine, created instead of uncreated; and therefore they pass away with them, nay rather perish and are tormented forever. "O ye sons of men, why do ye love vanity, and seek after lying?" Why do ye pursue not realities, but the empty and fleeting shadows of things and riches? You cannot hold a shadow, nor will you be able to hold shadowy riches and honors. Grant us, O Lord, this wisdom, "that amid the changes of the world, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are."
St. Augustine here speaks beautifully: "Why, he says, should I not love what God has made? What do you want? to love temporal things and pass away with time; or not to love the world, and live forever with God?" Then he compares the lovers of the world more than of God — since the world was created and given by God to this end, that through it men should remember God the Creator — to a bride who loves more the gold ring given by her bridegroom than the bridegroom himself, which is surely an adulterous love, since she gave it for this very purpose, "that in His own pledge He Himself might be loved. Therefore God has given you all these things, love Him who made these things. Greater is what He wishes to give you, that is, Himself who made these things: but if you love these, though God made them, and neglect the Creator, and love the world, will not your love be reckoned adulterous?" And Didymus: "Whoever, he says, despises all things and is above the world, will be loving God and doing the will of Him who remains forever." And presently: "Justice is immortal, for so it is written: His justice remaineth for ever and ever." And: "As a passing tempest, so the wicked shall be no more, but the just is as a sempiternal foundation," Prov. 10:25.
The Philosophers saw the same thing through a shadow. Listen to Seneca, Epistle 59: "Whatever we see and touch, Plato does not number among those things which he thinks properly are: for they flow, and are in continual diminution and addition." And the same: "All those things that are subject to the senses, which inflame and provoke us, he denies to be among those things that truly are." So Seneca adds: "Therefore these things are imaginary, and bear some appearance for a time: none of them is stable and solid." And presently: "Let us send the mind to those things which are eternal, let us marvel at the forms of things flying on high, and at God dwelling among them."
BUT HE THAT DOTH THE WILL OF GOD, ABIDETH FOR EVER. — Both because the soul always abides, which, when it migrates from the body, if it has done God's will, will be blessed forever; and because the body after death will soon rise immortal and glorious: for so God has decreed and promised to His own. This is what the Psalmist says, Psalm 118:96: "I have seen an end of all perfection: Thy commandment is exceeding broad." And Christ: "If any man keep My word, he shall not taste death for ever," John 8:52. The a priori reason is that love, like a chameleon, conforms the lover to the thing loved; for love is an impulse of the soul and as it were a going forth into the thing loved: but understanding and knowledge, on the contrary, is an entrance and ingress of the thing known into the knowing intellect. Thus St. Augustine: "Such, he says, is each one as is his love. You love earth, you will be earth. You love God, what shall I say? you will be God? I dare not say it of myself: let us hear the Scriptures. I have said: You are gods, and all the sons of the Most High. If therefore you wish to be gods and sons of the Most High, do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world." For the thing loved here is God, and God's will, which is stable and eternal; therefore the one loving it also turns out eternal. Hosea suggests this in chap. 9, verse 10, saying: "They became abominable, as those things which they loved."
Verse 18: Little Children, It Is the Last Hour, and Many Antichrists Are Become
18. LITTLE CHILDREN, IT IS THE LAST HOUR, etc. — He proves what he said in the preceding verse: "The world passes away, and the concupiscence thereof," from the fact that already the last hour of the world is at hand, that is, the last time. It is a synecdoche: for by "hour," as the most familiar measure of time, he signifies time itself. The sense is, as if to say: Know, O faithful, that the last time of the world is now at hand, or near at hand, in which time you have often heard that Antichrist is to come. For already many Antichrists have come into the light, which is a sign that this is the last age of the now-aging, indeed nearly dying world, and that the day of judgment is at hand; and therefore consider that your life in this aging world cannot be long. Wherefore, if you are wise, tear your mind and love away from the world and its vain and fleeting concupiscences; and fix it wholly upon heavenly and eternal things, and upon God Himself, according to that saying of Paul: "It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep," Rom. 13:11. Again, since in this brief hour of the world's life so many dangers from heretics and impostors threaten, beware with all care, attention, and solicitude, lest by them you be led into heresy, impiety, and hell. Thus Oecumenius and Didymus: "Rightly," he says, "does he lead each one to consider his own end, that the last hour of life may stand before each, that sobriety may follow, and that thus an unspotted life and purity of actions may ever dwell among Christians," according to that saying of St. Peter, Epistle II, chap. 3, verse 14: "Wherefore, dearly beloved, looking for these things, be diligent that you may be found in peace, unspotted and undefiled before Him;" for, as the same says in verse 8: "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years." See what is said there.
Note: He calls the last time "the last hour." So the Syriac, or rather more precisely, "hour" does not signify time, but one part of time. For we divide time into hours; therefore the "last hour" is the last part of time, or the final age of the age and the world, of which more presently. Thus St. Augustine, Epistle 80 to Hesychius. It is called "last" with respect to the origin and duration of the world, and its preceding parts, states, and ages, namely if you divide all time from the origin of the world into first, middle, and last, says Oecumenius from St. Chrysostom, viz. into the time of the law of nature, the Mosaic law, and the law of grace. He calls it "last" to signify that this is the last law, religion, and state of the Church, and that no other is to be expected, as the Jews expect their Messiah and His kingdom and Church.
Oecumenius adds from St. Chrysostom: "or last," he says, "that is, worst." For just as we say of an already despaired-of sick man: This sick man has come to the extremity of evil and disease, so St. John says of the world, that it has come to the last, that is, the height of evils. "He called it the last hour, as if you should say the worst, since it has settled in the last place as it were as dregs and bilge-water." To this Ribera adds in his commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews on chap. 9, no. 113 et seq.: "the last time," he says, is the time of seduction and of impostors, namely heretics and Antichristians: for of these the head will be Antichrist, who is to come in the last age of the world. This exposition is very congruent and proper to this passage: for St. John proves that this is the last hour, that is, age of the world, from the fact that Antichrist, indeed many Antichrists, have already arisen; and Antichrist is to come in the last age of the world. To this is added the Gloss, Cajetan, Dionysius, and others, who interpret the "last hour" as similar to the last, because, namely, it raises up heresies and persecutions such as the end of the world will raise up, viz. Antichrist.
Furthermore, this last hour of the world, that is, age, has great latitude. For as the first hour of the world, that is, age, in the law of nature lasted two thousand years, and as many the second in the law of Moses; so likewise some conjecture that the third age in the law of Christ will last as long, of which there is more in Apoc. 20:5 and 7. Wherefore the early faithful were mistaken who thought the day of judgment was at hand, and judged Nero to be Antichrist, whom St. Paul refuted in II Thess. 2. So St. Cyprian in his time judged that the end of the world was at hand, lib. IV epist. 6, and St. Jerome, De Monogamia, and St. Gregory, lib. IV, epist. 38, and Lactantius, lib. VII, chap. 25. I will indicate the cause of the error at Apoc. 20.
So "hour" is taken for age and saeculum in Matth. chap. 20, where God calls workers into the vineyard, that is, His Church, at the first, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hour of the day, that is, the first, second, third, and fourth, or last age of the world. To this St. John alludes, and calls the eleventh hour the "last." The reason for the phrase is a Hebraism: for the Hebrews call the hour eth, that is, time, as the most well-known part of time, although the Chaldeans give to the hour its own name scaa from the verb scaa, that is, he looked back, gazed upon; because men in their actions look to the hours, and direct and measure their acts by them. So Christ says, John chap. 5, verse 25: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God," "hour" meaning time. And chap. 4, verse 21, He calls the time of Christ and the new law "hour": "The hour cometh," i.e., time, "of His judgment." This phrase is therefore familiar to St. John, that all this time, on account of its brevity, he calls an hour. So too among Latins and Greeks "hour," according to Calepinus, signifies time, that is, any part of duration, whether embracing a yearly, daily, or nightly space.
Hence the four seasons of the year, that is winter, spring, summer, autumn, are called hours, according to that of Horace, Carm. I, ode 12: Likewise the very parts into which the day is divided are similarly called hours. Among the Hebrews these were four, namely the first, which began with the rising of the day; the third, which after three of our hours from the rising of the sun; the sixth, which at noon; the ninth, which began three of our hours after noon and ended at sunset. Hence the Romans also divided the night into four watches, like hours. Later, however, they divided the day into twelve hours, of which division this origin is recorded. At some time, when Hermes Trismegistus was a priest in Egypt, having observed a certain animal dedicated to Serapis, because it had urinated twelve times in the whole day, with always an equal interval of time, he conjectured that the day ought to be divided into twelve hours: thus from Cicero, Pierius, Hieroglyph. VI, chap. 4. So too the Cynocephalus, which twelve times a day, namely each hour with a sharper howl, vociferates, indicates the twelve hours of the day, says Pierius in the same place. So Pliny calls a part of the year "hour of the year," Lib. IX, chap. 35; and Terence in the Eunuch: "The hour has gone," that is, time has elapsed. Hence also Ovid, II Metamorph., feigns the hours to be goddesses and ministers of the sun. And Cicero, act. 3 against Verres: "So that, when we had used our hours, he says, you, with two games interposed, would respond on the fortieth day after." Asconius says he calls "his hours" the twenty days that were given by law to the accuser for accusing, and as many to the defender. Hence also Pierius, Hierogl. XXIX, chap. 18, says the Egyptians signified hours by the river-horse (hippopotamus), which at a fixed time grazes a fixed measure of a field; for "hour" is taken for the time of any maturity. Hence the Greeks call all summer fruits "horaios" (seasonable), and call the time of maturity by excellence "hora"; for hora or horaios-a is grace, beauty, maturity, ripeness, a flourishing and opportune time. The same author, in Lib. XXXIII Hieroglyph., chap. 49, considers the hours so called from Horus, king of Egypt, who from his own name called the four seasons of the year, in which all things mature, "hours"; which was then transferred to the 24 hours of the day, which Homer called daughters of the sun; about which there is a fable, namely that Horomazeus enclosed 24 gods in an egg: which when the Arimanii had pierced, goods mixed with evils came forth, and so however much pleasure we enjoy, we know not what the late evening will bring. I have said more about "hour" on Isaiah chap. 38, verse 8.
Morally: Learn here the brevity of life. For if this whole age of the world is one hour, and that the last, surely the life of every man, which is the least portion of this age, cannot be more than an hour, indeed the least portion of that hour. Do you wish therefore to know how great your age is, you who promise yourself the years of Nestor, indeed live as if you were eternal? It is an hour, your life is hourly; we are all hourly creatures; the old are in the last hour of life, indeed in part of an hour; the young hope and promise themselves a whole and long hour, but often they are snatched away and die at the beginning of the hour, according to that saying of St. Jerome: "A youth can die quickly, an old man cannot live long." Hence the Gentiles called the hour of youth and beauty a goddess. Listen to Ennius: "And Thee, Father Quirinus, I venerate, and the Hour of Quirinus."
The "hour" therefore admonishes us to diligence, that we may take most diligent account of the time granted to us, since it is most brief, like an hour. So Cicero, act. 3 against Verres: "Here you perhaps, he says, will be diligent, lest I remit any hour of my legitimate hours." "He said 'hours,' says Asconius, remarkably, since they are days, to show excessive diligence." Think if the physician or judge were to say to you: Prepare yourself for death, for after an hour you will certainly die: with what zeal and solicitude you would expiate your conscience, how many acts of contrition and charity you would elicit, how you would spend all your things in good works. Do the same now; for your life is nothing but an hour. Again, you are afflicted, sick, hungry, hot, you endure calumny, etc.: bear it, endure a little; the affliction will be of an hour, after the hour you will pass to blessed eternity. "The time is short, says St. Paul, I Cor. 7:29; it remaineth that they who use this world, be as if they used it not." Wherefore by this saying of John, Melania, the most noble and richest of the Romans, persuaded her family to sell all things, depart from Rome, and set out for the Holy Land: "Children, she said, more than four hundred years ago it was written: It is the last hour. Why then do you willingly and gladly linger in the vanity of life? lest perchance the days of Antichrist come, and you cannot enjoy your wealth and the goods of your ancestors." For she used to say (as she thought) that with the city the world would equally fall, as Baronius rightly observes. She therefore set out with her family for Jerusalem, and there on the fortieth day she died, and soon the Barbarians devastated Rome, so that Rome became polin, that is, a village, as the Sibyl had predicted. Then her followers, believing her, praised God, who by the change of things had persuaded the incredulous, that while all others had been reduced to servitude, those families alone were saved which had been holocausts to the Lord by the zeal of blessed Melania, says Palladius in the Lausiac History, chap. 118. Now this devastation of Rome was brought about by Alaric, king of the Goths, in the year of Christ 410. In a similar way in Apoc. 10:6, the angel appearing to St. John swears by Him that lives forever and ever, "that time shall be no longer:" of which more there.
Finally, St. Basil speaks beautifully in Moralia, regula LXXX, chap. 21, at the end: "What is proper to a Christian? he says. To watch daily and every hour, and to be constantly prepared for that perfection by which He may be pleased to God, knowing this, that the Lord will come in that hour in which He is not expected."
ANTICHRIST COMES. — Concerning Antichrist — who, what kind, and when he will be — I have spoken fully and completely on II Thess. 2: I have nothing to add to those things.
AND NOW THERE ARE BECOME MANY ANTICHRISTS. — "Antichrists," that is, those opposed to Christ, and forerunners of the true Antichrist, because just as he attacks the faith of Christ — faith, religion, the Church, the Sacraments, etc., indeed they attack the very person and nature of Christ Himself. For he refers to the heretics of his time, of whom some denied Christ to be God, others to be a true man. Such were Ebion, Cerinthus, Saturninus, Basilides, Menander, Simon the standard-bearer of the heretics, and their followers: of whom Paul says: "The mystery of iniquity already works," II Thess. 2:7. See what is said there. Truly St. Augustine (or rather Rabanus) in the tract De Antichristo: "Antichrist, he says, has many ministers of his malice, of whom many in the world have preceded him, such as Antiochus, Nero, Domitian were. We also in our time know that there are many Antichrists. For whoever, whether layman, or canon, or monk, lives against justice, and attacks the glory of his Order, and blasphemes what is good, is an Antichrist, a minister of Satan." Heretics therefore are Antichrists. Thus St. Hilary, writing to the Arian Emperor Constantius, calls him an Antichrist. I have cited his words at I Peter 3:14.
WHEREBY WE KNOW THAT IT IS THE LAST HOUR. — As if to say: In the last time Antichrist will come; now, however, we see the heretical forerunners: whence it is a sign that the last time is approaching, just as when the forerunners of a king and army are seen, it is a sign that he is approaching; and when in the dawn the rays of the sun are seen, it is a sign that he is rising. Thus Oecumenius: "If we await Antichrist, he says, and now many Antichrists are present in this life, it is manifest that the time of consummation is at hand, since many Antichrists precede the one and prepare his way."
Verse 19: They Went Out From Us, but They Were Not of Us
19. THEY WENT OUT FROM US. — St. Augustine and St. Cyprian read exierunt (they went out); for all heretics were Catholics, either true or feigned: for a heretic is one who, having once received the faith of Christ, apostatizes and goes off into heresy. Hear St. Cyprian, Lib. I, epist. 8, and De Unitate Ecclesiae, or De Simplicitate Praelatorum: "Bitterness cannot cohere with sweetness, darkness with light, rain with clear weather, battle with peace, sterility with fecundity, dryness with springs, tempest with tranquillity. Let no one think that the good can depart from the Church: the wind does not snatch away wheat, nor does a storm overturn a tree founded on a solid root; empty straws are tossed by the tempest, weak trees are overturned by the onset of the whirlwind. These the Apostle John execrates and strikes, saying: They went out from us, but they were not of us; hence heresies have frequently arisen, and arise, while a perverse mind has no peace, while discordant treachery does not hold unity." And St. Jerome: "They come forth outwardly, he says, to worship publicly what they were venerating before within." And St. Augustine: "With him (the Apostle John) explaining, he says, you will understand that none can go forth but Antichrists; but those who are not opposed to Christ can in no way go forth. For he who is not opposed to Christ remains in His body and is reckoned a member." But a little later, explaining how some are with us, yet not of us: "They are, he says, in the body of Christ as bad humors when they are vomited up: then the body is relieved; so too the bad, when they go out, then the Church is relieved; and the body says, when it vomits up the humors and casts them out: These have gone out from me, but they were not of me. What is, 'they were not of me'? they were not cut off from my flesh, but they were pressing my breast while they were within. They have gone out from us; but do not be sad, they were not of us."
THEY WERE NOT OF US (because, as he explains and adds, they were not going to remain with us, except for a time); FOR IF THEY HAD BEEN OF US, THEY WOULD NO DOUBT HAVE REMAINED WITH US — constantly and always, as if to say: They were not true, genuine, and solid Christians, because they did not have Christian virtue and constancy; whence they had not imbibed the true and genuine character of faith, grace, and the Christian spirit at the root, that is, constantly and stably, so as to be plainly steeped in it for resisting all temptations strongly: hence when temptation and persecution arose, they yielded, deserted the faith, and became apostates: like a plant which, transplanted from its own soil into another, struck by the heat of the sun, withers immediately, because it does not imbibe the character and sap of the other soil. So in I Macc. 5:62, of Joseph and Azarias, rivals of Judas Maccabeus, it is said: "But they were not of the seed of those men, by whom salvation was brought to Israel," as if to say: They themselves were not Maccabees, they did not have the character, prudence, fortitude, and help of God which Judas with his brothers had; whence they did not save Israel, but lost it. So of a betrayer of their fellow citizens the Romans used to say: This man is not ours, he is not a Roman but a Carthaginian, because he does not have Roman faithfulness, but Carthaginian perfidy. So Haman, who was a Macedonian, as is plain from Esther chap. 16, vers. 10, on account of his barbarous tyranny is called "Bugaeus" 12:6, that is, Agagite: for thence by aphaeresis it becomes Gogaeus, then Bogaeus and Bugaeus; for that the letter B is sometimes put for G, St. Jerome attests in his Book of Hebrew Places, where he says Byblum in Ezekiel is put for Gobel, or Hyblus. The sense therefore is, as if to say: Haman the tyrant and traitor seems not so much to be a Macedonian, as an Agagite, that is, descended from the stock of Agag, as the Hebrew has it. So a son who degenerates from the character, affection, and virtue of his fathers is said to be not legitimate, but illegitimate. So Saul calls Jonathan — since he was a friend of David his enemy — a son of a harlot and a bastard, I Sam. 20:30. So Virgil says: "O ye truly Phrygian women, for ye are no Phrygians;" following Homer who says Achaides, ouk et' Achaioi, as if to say: "You are Achaean women, not Achaean men;" you are women, not men, because you have degenerated from the manly strength of the Achaeans, you are effeminate and transformed into women. So apostates from Religion are said not to have been truly Religious, because they did not imbibe the true character, spirit, and constancy of Religion; for if they had imbibed it, they would not have failed. Thus St. Augustine here: "Temptation, he says, proves that they are not of us: when temptation comes upon them, as if at the occasion of a wind they fly outside, because they were not grains." Such was Judas, says the same, tract. 50 on John: "That Judas, he says, was not made perverse and feigned then, when, corrupted by the Jews, he betrayed the Lord. He did not perish then, he was already a thief, and lost was following the Lord, since he was following the Lord not in heart, but in body." Whence the same Augustine in this place: "By his own will, he says, each one is either Antichrist, or in Christ: we are either among the members, or among the bad humors. He who changes himself for the better is a member in the body; but he who remains in malice is a bad humor, and when he goes out, those who were being pressed will be relieved."
Secondly, many explain it thus: "they were not of us," namely by God's foreknowledge and predestination, that is, they were not predestined and elected by God, because they were foreknown to fall and apostatize. This sense follows from the first; for since they were going to fall by their own will and inconstancy, hence by God they were foreknown to be such. For whatever is to come, that is foreknown by God: thus Clement of Alexandria, Oecumenius, Lyranus, the Gloss, Hugo. Understand these things concerning foreknowledge and predestination to faith, grace, and the Church, but not to the glory of eternal beatitude. For St. John did not wish to touch upon this secret, especially because some who fell from faith and the Church repent, return to it, and are saved, as happened to Berengarius, and today to many repenting from heresy; on the contrary, many reprobates are and remain in the Church, who are not predestined to glory, but to hell. St. Augustine, however, in his book De Bono Perseverantiae, chap. 8, takes these things of those predestined to glory and foreknown to hell, because he who remains until the end of life in faith, the Church, and grace, is predestined to glory; but he who departs before the end of life and does not return, is foreknown to hell. And nearly all heresiarchs, with the one exception of Berengarius, once they have departed from the Church never afterwards return to it, whence they are foreknown and reprobate. Furthermore, the error of some is to be avoided, who from this inferred that God's reprobation is the cause of departure from the Church, fall, and damnation of the reprobate, which the Semipelagians falsely imputed to St. Augustine. Whence he, clearing himself, in art. 12 of the articles falsely imputed to him: "By their will, he says, they went out, by their will they fell; and because they were foreknown to fall, they are not predestined; but they would have been predestined, if they were going to return, and remain in holiness and truth: and through this God's predestination is for many a cause of standing, for none a cause of falling."
Thirdly, some explain it thus: "They were not of us," because before they went out publicly from the Church and the assembly of the faithful by open schism or heresy, they had already gone out secretly in their soul beforehand. They went out therefore "that they might publicly worship what they had previously venerated within," says St. Jerome, lib. I on Jeremiah, near the end. For heresy is the apex of impiety; but no one suddenly becomes most impious, but gradually rises to the apex, as St. Cyprian excellently teaches, lib. I, epist. 8, and De Unitate Ecclesiae, and St. Cyril, catechesis 6. This sense is suggested by what follows: "But that they may be made manifest, that they are not all of us."
Catharinus and Melchior Cano, lib. IV De Locis, chap. ult., at 7, take this only of the Apostles, as if to say: They were not of us, that is, they were not of the number of the Apostles. But this sense is too narrow; for St. John speaks generally of the assembly of the faithful.
Here St. John forewarns Christians, lest they be disturbed if they see the faithful, indeed bishops, apostatize and become heresiarchs. Paul also forewarned his own at Acts 20:30. Surely our Salmeron from Climacus judges that of the 120 who received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Acts 2, fourteen became heresiarchs. See Vincent of Lerins, Contra Profanas Haeres. Novitates, and Tertullian, De Praescriptione, chap. 1 and following: "Do we prove the faith from persons, he says, or persons from the faith? Let the chaff of light faith therefore fly away as much as it wants: the mass of grain will be stored more pure in the Lord's barn." At the same time St. John tacitly admonishes the faithful, that they may work out their salvation with fear and trembling, that they may be humble, and so deserve constancy from God, lest also of them at some time it be said: "They went out from us, but they were not of us." This is what Paul says in Rom. 11:20: "Thou standest by faith, be not high-minded, but fear, etc., otherwise you also will be cut off."
BUT THAT THEY MAY BE MADE MANIFEST, THAT THEY ARE NOT ALL OF US. — The Syriac is clear: "but they have departed from us, that it may be known that they were not of us," as if to say: God permitted them to apostatize that their internal lightness, inconstancy, pride, perfidy might be exposed, and that they had not plainly and fully imbibed the Christian faith, character, and constancy, so that, now publicly betraying their heresy and perfidy, the faithful might flee and beware of them as if of plagues. This is what Paul says: "There must be heresies, that they also, who are approved, may be made manifest among you," I Cor. 11:19. Hence therefore Beza has no ground to infer that the faithful cannot fall from the faith, but only that defection from the faith is a sign that it was not fully rooted and strengthened, so as to stand constant in every temptation and persecution.
St. Augustine in the places cited refers these things to the predestined and elect, as if to say: From their apostasy it became manifest that they were not of the number of the predestined and elect.
Verse 20: You Have the Unction From the Holy One, and Know All Things
20. BUT YOU HAVE THE UNCTION FROM THE HOLY ONE, AND KNOW ALL THINGS. — As if to say: I have taught you that in this last hour Antichrists must be guarded against, and that Antichrist is to come at the end of the world, etc.; but it is not necessary to teach you these things at greater length and to describe the Antichrists, that you may discern them, because you have the unction, that is, you have grace and wisdom from the Holy One, namely from Christ (so Bede and Salmeron), and consequently from the Holy Spirit (so Oecumenius, Lyranus, Catharinus), who will abundantly instruct you about all things, and will point out these Antichrists, who oppose Christ and His unction. For by the word "unction" he marks the Antichrists, says Bede, just as Christ, as I shall say presently. This is what Christ says, John 16:13: "The Spirit will teach you all truth;" and: "He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you."
You will ask, what is this "unction"? First, Oecumenius and St. Jerome, lib. II on chap. 3 of Habakkuk, and Cyril of Alexandria, oration to Presbyters, Deacons and Monks, take it to be baptism, in which we are anointed on the crown of the head.
Secondly, Cyril, Catechesis 3 mystagogica, and others to be cited presently, take it as the sacrament of Confirmation, in which we are anointed on the forehead.
Thirdly, Emmanuel Sá takes it as Christianity: for as "Christian" is the same as "anointed," so "Christianity" is the same as "unction."
Fourthly, others take it as the Christian faith.
Fifthly, others, grace.
Sixthly, others, the gift of wisdom and understanding.
Seventhly, others, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
All these, although diverse among themselves, come back to the same; for Christianity embraces all these, as if to say: The Unction, that is, the Christian faith, Christian doctrine, Christian religion, the grace and wisdom of Christ breathed upon you through Baptism and Confirmation, will teach you all the dogmas and duties of a true Christian, and to discern and flee the heretics as Antichristians.
That this may be more fully understood, it must be noted that for "unctionem" the Greek is chrisma, that is, unction and ointment. "Unction" therefore is taken for ointment or oil. Whence St. Jerome, lib. II on chap. 3 of Habakkuk, reads "ointment"; for this, since it is permanent, is possessed, not the unction itself which passes. Chrisma alludes to the name of Christ, as if to say: You have chrism from Christ, unction from the One who anoints, and from this you are and are called Christians, and you have been mystically made kings and priests through the unction, by which you have been anointed and consecrated to God, both in the sacrament of Baptism and of Confirmation, which was formerly given to those baptized, who being adults, was given soon after baptism, as teleiosis, as St. Dionysius says, that is, completion, consummation and perfection of baptism and Christianity; therefore through the bodily unction you have received the spiritual, namely through the chrism you have received the charism and gift of the Holy Spirit. Whence St. Cyril, Catechesis 3 mystagogica; Turrianus, lib. II Pro epist. Pontif., chap. 18, and Bellarmine, lib. II De Sacram. Confirm., chap. 5 and 8, take this passage of the chrism and the sacrament of Confirmation, because in it we receive the perfect unction, that is, the grace and illumination of the Holy Spirit. For by "unction" here is taken not so much sanctifying grace, as the gift of prudence and understanding, and, as St. Gregory says, V Moral. 19, alias 20, "an address of inmost inspiration, which by touching uplifts the human mind." Whence also St. Irenaeus, lib. IV, chap. 43, calls it the "chrism of truth," that is, doctrine: for this gift was formerly given to the baptized in baptism, and more so in Confirmation: whence the baptized immediately prophesied, that is, poured forth sublime mysteries about God and Christ, as is plain in Acts 2:6, chap. 10, vers. 46, chap. 19, vers. 6, and I Cor. 14. The same is even now given in baptism; for it is joined with sanctifying grace, as I said on Isaiah 11:1, although it is not now given in such great abundance.
To all these things now said the "unction" alludes, especially to the royal priesthood, which St. Peter attributes to Christians in I Pet. 2:9. For of old, as even now, kings, prophets and priests were consecrated through unction: kings, that, illumined and directed by God, they might rule well and prudently; priests, that, sanctified and illumined by God, they might well and prudently administer and teach the sacred things; prophets, that, inspired by God, they might foresee and predict future things. So too Christians, anointed in Baptism and Confirmation, receive grace by which they rule both themselves and their own, as kings; foresee future goods and evils, as prophets, and therefore offer to God the sacrifices of good works, as priests. Whence Prudentius in the Psychomachia: "After the seals inscribed with oil on the forehead, through which / The royal ointment is given and the everlasting chrism."
The sense therefore is, as if to say: Just as the unction, that is, the grace and wisdom which they received in the unction, taught kings to rule, prophets to prophesy, priests to handle and teach the sacred things: so the unction, that is, the grace and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, whom you received in the bodily unction of Baptism and Confirmation, will teach you, O Christians, all things which pertain to the Christian faith and life. For these reasons St. John rejoices in the name of "unction," because it represents Christ his love; concerning whom therefore it is said in Canticles 1:2: "Thy name is as oil poured out;" and on account of his assiduous preaching of Him, St. John about this same time was at Rome by Domitian put into a vat of boiling oil, but, fortified by the unction of Christ, he came out unharmed. Hence also the Psalmist sang of Christ, Psalm 44:8: "Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows;" and Isaiah, chap. 61:1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me;" and Peter, Acts chap. 10:38: "The Lord anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power."
St. Athanasius, in his epistle to Serapion, says that this ointment is the Holy Spirit, namely with His gifts and graces. For in justification there is infused not only grace and charity, but also the Holy Spirit Himself, as Paul teaches in Rom. 5:5, and the Council of Trent, sess. VI, chap. 7, and St. Augustine here: "The spiritual unction, he says, is the Holy Spirit Himself to be consecrated; in the second also, that the sevenfold grace of the same Holy Spirit might be declared to come into man with all fullness of holiness and of knowledge and of virtue." Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 8, treating of the ceremonies of Confirmation: "The flesh, he says, is anointed, that the soul may be consecrated; the flesh is signed, that the soul also may be fortified; the flesh is overshadowed by the imposition of hands, that the soul also may be illumined by the Spirit." Hugh of St. Victor, bk. II On the Sacraments, pt. VII, ch. 7, teaches that the "anointing" of chrism upon the forehead must be preserved for seven days. "Because, he says, there are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom has its day, understanding another, counsel another, fortitude another, knowledge another, piety another, fear another." Origen, homily 7 on Ezekiel: "The oil, he says, with which the holy man is anointed, is the oil of Christ, the oil of holy doctrine."
Moreover, although oil has various qualities and virtues, namely of refreshing, exhilarating, strengthening athletes, nourishing, healing the sick, kindling fire, fattening — which the unction of the Holy Spirit mystically supplies, according to that saying: "Thou hast fattened my head with oil," Psalm 22:5; and that of Ambrose, bk. I On the Sacraments, ch. 2: "The priest meets thee; thou art anointed as an athlete of Christ; about to wrestle as in the contest of this age, thou hast professed the struggles of thy combat; he who wrestles has something to hope for: where the contest is, there is the crown." Yet its proper virtue is to illuminate and to foster light. Wherefore, that by chrism and oil is properly signified the gift of illumination — that is, of wisdom and understanding, which is conferred in the sacrament of Confirmation — the Fathers teach. Amalarius, bk. I On Ecclesiastical Offices, ch. 27, gives this reason why chrism is made of oil and balsam: "That by the oil, he says, we may understand right conversation, which is moderated in the mind by the maturity of wisdom; and by the balsam, doctrine, which yields a good odor outwardly."
St. Ambrose, in the book On Those Who Are Initiated into the Mysteries, ch. 7: "Recall, he says, that thou hast received the spiritual seal, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of strength. The Father hath sealed thee, the Lord Christ hath confirmed thee, and hath given the pledge of the Spirit in thy heart, as ye have learned from the Apostolic reading." The Roman Order, which was published either at St. Gregory's command or shortly after his time, prescribes this prayer for blessing the chrism: "O Sovereign Lord God, it says, in Thy name let this creature now become chrism, and be held as chrism — the form of the cross, the sign of the forehead, the sacred title of the warrior; in this chrism let the hearing be soothed, the sight purified: that the soldiers of Christ, adorned with such pay and drenched with ambrosial dew, may serve Him who commands, not Him who merely persuades, and being signed with the holy chrism, may be worthy to be heavenly standard-bearers."
Rabanus Maurus, bk. I On the Instruction of Clerics, ch. 30: "The baptized, he says, is signed with chrism by the priest on the top of the head, but by the Bishop on the forehead, so that by the first anointing may be signified the descent of the Holy Spirit unto an habitation consecrated to God," and in the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, etc., He is called "spiritual unction." Therefore the Holy Spirit, dwelling in, illuminating, and directing the soul, in due time admonishes and suggests whatever things are conducive to its salvation; this is His unction, that is, His illumination. Whence Clement, bk. III of the Apostolic Constitutions, ch. 17, explaining the ceremonies of Baptism and Confirmation: "Baptism, he says, is given unto the death of the Son of God; water is applied for the sepulchre, oil for the Holy Spirit, the seal of the cross for the cross; chrism is the confirmation of confession." Indeed St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 1:21: "He, he says, who confirmeth us with you in Christ, and who hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts."
Finally, in this passage the Innovators and Enthusiasts abuse the text — those who boast that they have an internal spirit, by whose illumination they understand the Holy Scripture and are directed in all things, so that they have no need of interpreter, teacher, or the judgment of the Church. But they err gravely; for this unction illumines the faithful in the things they have learned — namely, that they should know that the dogmas of faith which they heard at the beginning of Christianity must be retained, and that the Antichrists who oppose them must not be heard. For if a doubt arise in faith, or some difficulty in Scripture, the same unction of the Holy Spirit teaches that it is not for any common person to resolve them, but that the Doctors and Prelates of the Church must be consulted. For God placed these in the Church for this very end, as St. Paul teaches, Ephesians 4:11: for the hierarchical order and right reason demand the same. Whence all commonwealths, even of the Gentiles and Saracens, do likewise.
Morally we are here taught that, in all doubts, perplexities, and difficulties, the unction of the Holy Spirit must be invoked, and we must say with King Jehoshaphat: "Since we know not what we ought to do, this only have we left, that we may direct our eyes unto Thee," 2 Chronicles 20:12. Moreover, how the Holy Spirit illumines the minds of His own, and how all things are perceived in Him, St. Cyril splendidly teaches in catechesis 16: "To him, he says, to whom the Holy Spirit is given, his soul is illumined, and he perceives more than a man. His body shall be on earth, and his soul shall contemplate the heavens. He sees as Isaiah saw the Lord upon a throne high and lifted up; he sees as Ezekiel saw Him who sat upon the Cherubim; he sees as Daniel saw myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands. The little man perceives the beginning and the end of the world, and the middle of times, and the successions of kings. He knows what he hath not learned; for the true Leader of light is present. The man within him, and the power of knowledge is sent unto him from afar from God, so that he himself comes to know from others the things that are taking place. Peter had not been present when Ananias and Sapphira were selling their goods, but he was present through the Spirit. Wherefore, he says, hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Spirit? There was no accuser, no witness. Whence then did this happen that he came to know it? Did it not, he says, while it remained, remain to thee, and what thou hast sold, was it not in thy power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy heart? He who was without letters, by the grace of the Spirit said those things which not even the wise men of the Greeks had known. Thou hast a similar example concerning Elisha," who, though absent, saw Gehazi receiving gifts from Naaman, and therefore said to him on his return: "Did not my heart go with thee? Here was I shut up in body, but the spirit given me by God beheld things that were far off. Thou seest how the Holy Spirit illumines souls: He takes away ignorance and replaces it with knowledge."
Mystically, concerning the threefold unction — namely of compunction, which lies in the detestation of sins; of devotion, which lies in the remembrance of God's benefits; of piety, which lies in compassion toward neighbors — see St. Bernard, sermons 10 and 22 on the Canticles. The same, sermon 2 On Pentecost: "The Holy Spirit, he says, bestows on His own the pledge of salvation, the strength of life, the light of knowledge. The pledge of salvation indeed, that the Spirit Himself may bear witness to thy spirit that thou art a son of God, who shall imprint and show to thy heart the surest signs of thy predestination, who shall grant joy in thy heart and shall, if not continually, yet very often, fatten thy mind with the dew of heaven. The strength of life, that what is impossible for thee by nature, may by His grace become not only possible but also easy. The light of knowledge, that when thou hast done all things well, thou mayest think thyself an unprofitable servant, and whatever good thou findest in thyself, thou mayest attribute to Him from whom is all good, without whom thou canst begin not little but nothing at all — to say nothing of completing it."
AND YE KNOW ALL THINGS — namely those which I have just said about retaining the faith, about avoiding the Antichrists, about the Antichrist to come; therefore understand "all things" fittingly, as those things which the faithful are taught and which it is fitting for them to know. For it is clear that neither the faithful, nor the Doctors, nor John himself and the Apostles knew absolutely everything. Whence the Syriac translates: "ye discern every man" — that is, as Bede says, ye discern between the upright and the wicked, between Christians and Antichristians. With similar modesty and phrasing Paul says, 1 Thessalonians 5:1: "Concerning times and moments ye have no need that we write to you; for ye yourselves know diligently." And St. Peter, epistle II, ch. 1, v. 12: "I shall begin always to remind you of these things, and indeed knowing that ye are confirmed in the present truth."
Verse 21: I Have Written to You as to Those Who Know the Truth
21. I HAVE NOT WRITTEN TO YOU AS TO THOSE WHO ARE IGNORANT OF THE TRUTH, BUT AS TO THOSE WHO KNOW IT. — Teachers are accustomed to praise the talent and knowledge of their disciples, that they may win them over to themselves and stimulate them to study more keenly. So St. John does here, and at the same time he gives a remarkable example of modesty, as if to say: I have not written these things in order to teach you, but to confirm and admonish those already taught, "as if calling you back into remembrance," as Paul says in a similar place, Romans 15:15.
AND BECAUSE NO LIE IS OF THE TRUTH. — Repeat "to those who know," as if to say: I have written these things to you who know the truth, and therefore likewise know that a lie is not from the truth. He calls "lie" not the ethical kind, which is to speak against one's mind, but the theological kind, which is error, falsity, heresy. He indicates the fountainhead of heresy and of heretics, whom he has named Antichrists, as if to say: The doctrines of heretics are errors and lies, and therefore do not flow from God and Christ, who is the first truth, but from the devil, who is a liar and the father of lies — that is, of all heresy and error, John 8:44. "He who lies is not of Christ," says Bede; whence St. Augustine concludes: "Behold, he says, we are admonished how we may know Antichrist. What is Christ? Truth itself has said: I am the truth, John 14:6. But every lie is not of the truth; therefore all who lie are not of Christ." See St. Augustine, book Against Lying, ch. 18. Note the Hebraism: "every... not," that is, no lie is of the truth. The Logicians take this otherwise in their equipollencies; for "not every" or "every... not" means to them the same as "some... not" — as "every man is not learned," or "not every man is learned," means the same as "some man is not learned." But the matter stands otherwise among the Hebrews. So Ecclesiasticus 7:14 says: "Be not willing to lie any lie," that is, do not wish to lie any lie at all; "No word shall be impossible with God," Luke 1:37, that is, no thing shall be impossible to God.
Verse 22: Who Is a Liar but He Who Denies That Jesus Is the Christ? This Is Antichrist
22. WHO IS A LIAR (by antonomasia, that is, the most lying of all), BUT HE WHO DENIES THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST? — Thus the Roman copies, but other Latin, Greek, and Syriac codices add "not," and read: "that Jesus is not the Christ"; for among the Hebrews a double negation negates more strongly, although among the Latins it affirms. Some, wrongly, in Hugh's text read: "that Jesus is not a man." He explains what kind of lie he means, namely the gravest in faith and religion, and indeed at the very head and summit of the faith — that is, the heresy of the Antichristians, who denied that this man, namely Jesus, was the Messiah and Christ, and consequently the Son of God, as Simon, Ebion, Cerinthus, and other ancient Judaizers as well as modern ones denied — against whom St. John composed both the Gospel and the Epistle. "For in comparison with this lie, says Bede, the others appear either small or as nothing." For what more lying or more pernicious thing can be said or imagined, than that Jesus is not the Christ — that is, the redeemer and savior of the world? For this is to cut off all faith and hope of salvation. Such a one therefore is a liar par excellence, because he is a forger, a heretic, a sacrilegious man, an atheist, an Antichrist. This is what "liar" signifies here; otherwise, among the Latins, "liar" properly is said of him who speaks against his mind, knowing or thinking one thing and saying another. But these too were speaking against their minds, because they knew, or ought to have known, that Jesus is the Christ.
Hear Tertullian, On Prescription, ch. 33: "John, he says, in his epistle calls those Antichrists chiefly, who denied that Christ had come in the flesh, and who did not consider Jesus to be the Son of God. The first Marcion claimed, the second Ebion claimed." And Oecumenius: "Simon, he says, asserted that Jesus was one and Christ was another — Jesus, namely, who had been born of the holy Mary, and Christ, who had descended from heaven into the Jordan." And Cyril, catechesis 6: "They went out from us, he says, but they were not of us. The leader of these and the inventor and author of every heresy is Simon Magus. He, when he was at Rome, after he had been rejected by the Apostles, and going about with a certain Greek harlot named Selene, was the first who dared with impious mouth to say that he himself was God, who appeared on Mount Sinai as the Father; and then among the Jews he was seen not in the flesh, but in image, as Christ Jesus; and afterwards he was promised to be sent by Christ as the Holy Spirit. And he so seduced the city of Rome, that Claudius set up a statue to him, with this inscription in the Roman tongue: TO SIMON THE HOLY GOD."
Furthermore, what fanatical, foolish, and insane Antichrists heresy has produced in this age is clear from the History of the Anabaptists by Arnold Meshovius, in which, among other things, bk. I, ch. 17, he narrates that Karlstadt, their parent, made himself from a Doctor of Theology into a farmer and plowman, because he said that everyone must live by the labor of his own hands, according to the law of God, Genesis 3: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread;" and at last he relates that this Karlstadt was carried off by the devil and was never afterwards seen. In ch. 19 he narrates that a certain Jacob boasted himself to be Christ and instituted twelve apostles, who imposed upon the people with wonderful frauds and impostures; and at last these sycophants in Silesia demanded a tablecloth from a noble matron for sacrificing. "But the woman, he says, offered them a small bundle of cloth; then they said: We will take this with us, and Christ will bless thee, that thy flax may grow more abundantly; show another, if thou hast it. When they wished similarly to take it, the woman refused, fearing her husband. But they secretly wrapped a small bit of tinder with fire in the cloth and returned it to the woman. So the chest from the cloth, and from the chest the house, caught fire and was burned. When the husband returned home, the wife said this had justly happened to her on account of Christ being ill-treated with His apostles; but the husband, blazing with anger, said: That fellow was a most worthless robber, and not Christ. So with his neighbors he pursues them, and in a certain village overtakes them. Then the pseudo-Christ said to him who was called Peter: My passion, Peter, and the cup I am to drink, now draws near. To whom Peter: And to me also, as I see, Lord, it threatens. But he said: Peter, I cannot escape otherwise except through this window; then Peter: And I, as long as I live, will not abandon thee, but wherever thou shalt flee I will follow. So he escaped through the window; the other apostles too escaped where they could. The peasants pursued and beat them with sticks and clubs, saying: Prophesy to us, Christ, with thy apostles, in what wood these sticks grew. So, corrected by blows, they corrected their lives, saying: It is hard for us to undergo the passion of Christ and the torments of the apostles."
Then, in bk. II, ch. 15, he relates that there existed a woman by the name of Abacella, who, when she heard the other Anabaptists boasting of the Holy Spirit, and that from Him they were learning the interpretation of Sacred Scripture, herself also seized a copy of the sacred letters of the New Testament into her hands and began to teach the people its meaning; and when she had come to that passage, "With God nothing shall be impossible," reckoning that this was possible, she set up herself as Christ and the true Messiah of the world, joining to herself twelve men from a band of brothers, whom she would use as apostles for spreading the gospel. They sometimes went out abroad and in the countryside preached to the farmers the doctrine of their Messiah. In bk. V, ch. 11, he narrates that John Matthias, a baker by trade and a native of Haarlem, pretended to be Enoch, sent by God, that as the truest witness of God he might call together the faithful people in Holland to a new Jerusalem. For among other paradoxes he taught that the kingdom of Christ before the day of judgment would be a civil kingdom on earth, in which the saints alone, after the kings had been removed by sword and force, would rule; and that this kingdom had already begun in the Anabaptists. In all of bk. VII he narrates that John Bocold, a tailor of Leiden, seized the city of Münster in Westphalia, and there set himself up as king, and called himself Christ, chose twelve apostles, that they might summon their neighbors to worship the new Messiah; but after horrible doctrines and crimes, the city having been taken by storm by its Bishop, he was lacerated over his whole body with red-hot plates and paid the deserved penalties for his sacrileges.
THIS IS THE ANTICHRIST WHO DENIES THE FATHER AND THE SON. — Because by denying that Christ is the Son of God, they deny God to be His Father, as follows. For Father and Son are correlatives, whose law is that they mutually posit and remove one another. For the Son is the Son of the Father, and the Father is the Father of the Son; therefore, when one is posited, the other is also posited; when one is removed, the other is necessarily removed too. Oecumenius thinks that Valentinus is here being touched upon, "who asserted that there is another Father, an unnameable one, besides Him who is called the Father of Christ. The same heretics, he says, also deny the Son, when they affirm that He is only a man, and not God by nature." So Basilides also feigned another certain Father, from whom nous, that is mind, then logos, that is word, was produced. On whom see Irenaeus, bk. I, ch. 23; Tertullian, On Prescription; Epiphanius, heresy 24, and others.
Verse 23: Whoever Denies the Son Has Not the Father; He Who Confesses the Son Has the Father Also
23. EVERYONE WHO DENIES THE SON, NEITHER HAS THE FATHER (neither as one in whom he abides, nor as one abiding in himself, says Cajetan, because he does not believe in His eternal generation, says Dionysius); WHO CONFESSES THE SON, ALSO HAS THE FATHER. — So all the Roman and Latin codices, and many of the Syriac and Greek ones; some, however, omit the words "who confesses the Son, also has the Father." HAS — namely in mind and in faith, and consequently in mouth and in confession; that is, as the Syriac translates: believes, or confesses the Father. He alludes to that passage in the Gospel, ch. 5, v. 38: "Ye have not His (the Father's) word abiding in you, because Him whom He has sent, ye believe not," where likewise he interprets "have" by "believe." With a similar phrase he said in ch. 1, last verse: "His word is not in us." And in this chapter, v. 5: "In this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him," etc.; and v. 24: "Let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you." For through faith, hope, and charity God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit abide in us; and consequently we have them in us, just as a temple holds and contains the Eucharist within itself: for a holy soul is really the temple of the indwelling God. Christ His Son, according to that saying: "He that honors not the Son, honors not the Father who has sent Him," John 5:23.
Verse 24: Let That Which You Have Heard From the Beginning Abide in You
24. LET THAT WHICH YE HAVE HEARD FROM THE BEGINNING ABIDE IN YOU. — This is a Hebraic transposition of the words, which in Latin you may order thus: "That which ye have heard from the beginning, let it abide in you," as if to say: Constantly persevere in the Christian faith, doctrine, and life which ye first received; for thus the true faith will abide in you, and in turn ye will abide in true faith, religion, and worship of God. Wherefore, "if anyone preach a gospel besides that which ye have received, let him be anathema," says Paul, Galatians 1:9. And therefore "be not led away with various and strange doctrines," Hebrews 13:9. Splendidly St. Cyprian, epistle 40: "I warn, he says, and likewise counsel, that ye do not rashly believe pernicious voices, that ye do not easily lend assent to fallacious words, that ye do not take darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food, thirst for drink, poison for remedy, death for salvation."
He touches on the Judaizing heretics; for the Jews deny the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. For they say that there is only one God, existing in only one person, just as in only one nature, and consequently they deny that Christ is God and the Son of God. Whence Christ throughout the Gospel of St. John disputes against them, and proves Himself to be the Only-begotten Son of God the Father. See ch. 3, v. 35; ch. 5, v. 18 and following, and v. 36 to the end of the chapter; ch. 6, v. 58, etc. "For if, says Oecumenius, they had known the Father, they would beyond doubt have perceived Him to be the Father of the Only-begotten Son also." Especially because he who is ignorant of the Trinity is also ignorant of the nature of the Godhead — namely, that it is so full and fecund that it requires a plurality of persons and demands to communicate itself to three; so much so that if you take away one person, you take away the whole divinity, and this is what St. John signifies here. In a similar way Christ said to Philip: "Philip, he who sees Me sees the Father also, etc. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?" John 14:10. By which saying are signified both the plurality of persons and the identity of the divine essence, and the intimate and perfect indwelling of one person in another, and conversely, which Damascene, bk. I On the Faith, ch. 11, calls perichoresis, and following Damascene the Scholastic Doctors call "circumincession." Concerning which sublime mystery St. Augustine disputes sublimely, bk. VI On the Trinity, last chapter; St. Hilary, bk. IV On the Trinity; Ambrosiaster, on the second epistle to the Corinthians, ch. 13. "Each thing, says St. Augustine, is in each (person), and all things in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one."
IF THAT WHICH YE HAVE HEARD FROM THE BEGINNING (in the manner I have just explained) ABIDE IN YOU, YE ALSO SHALL ABIDE IN THE SON AND IN THE FATHER. — As if to say: Ye shall cleave to the Son and to the Father through true faith, hope, and charity, which the previous verse stated: "He who confesses the Son also has the Father" — add also the Holy Spirit; for He is here included in the Father and the Son. For the Father and the Son are the spirators of the Holy Spirit; whence in their full essence and ratio they include the spirative power, indeed the actual spiration of the Holy Spirit. St. John, however, does not name the Holy Spirit but the Son and the Father, because at that time there was no question concerning the Holy Spirit, but only concerning the Son — that is, Christ — and consequently the Father. For the Simonians and Cerinthians denied that Jesus is God and the Son of God. Hence he also places the Son before the Father, especially because "no one comes to the Father except through the Son," John 14:6. "For no one shall behold the height of divine glory, except he who has been reborn through the sacraments of the humanity which the Son took on," say Bede and Thomas the Englishman.
Furthermore, from the fact that "ye shall abide in the Son and in the Father," in turn the Son and the Father shall abide in you. For, as Oecumenius explains: "In the Son, he says, and the Father ye shall abide, that is, ye shall have conjunction and communication with Him," according to the promise of Christ, John 14:23: "If any man love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him." On which passage St. Augustine: "Behold, he says, the Holy Spirit also makes His abode among the Saints together with the Father and the Son, indeed within, as God in His own temple. God the Trinity — Father and Son and Holy Spirit — come to us as we come to Them; They come by helping, we come by obeying; They come by illuminating, we come by gazing; They come by filling, we come by receiving — so that to us there may be no outward but an inward vision of Them, and in us no transitory but an eternal abiding of Them."
Finally, St. Cyprian, On the Exhortation to Martyrdom, ch. 5, and Hilary, bk. VI On the Trinity, read the final words thus: "He who has the Son has both the Son and the Father" — namely, benevolent and favorable. So too St. Augustine reads, but he explains it of worship and veneration, as if to say: He who worships the Son worships also the Father; for he cannot worship the Father who does not worship the Son.
Verse 25-26: This Is the Promise, Eternal Life; These Things I Have Written Concerning Them That Seduce You
25. AND THIS IS THE PROMISE (that is, the thing promised), WHICH (Vatablus reads "by which," but the Greek is hen, that is, "which") HE HAS PROMISED US (if we abide in Him), ETERNAL LIFE. — St. Augustine reads, "eternal life" (in the nominative), and this is clearer and more Latin. It is a Hebraic antiptosis. Similar is verse 27: "The unction which ye have received from Him, let it abide in you;" "unctionem" (accusative) standing for "unctio" (nominative); and in the Gospel, ch. 14:24: "The word [accusative]," that is, "the word [nominative]," "which ye have heard;" and Psalm 117:22: "The stone [accusative]," that is, "the stone [nominative]," "which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner." It is similar among the Latins, as in Terence, prologue of the Andria: "That the plays which he had made might please the people;" and Virgil: "The city [accusative]," that is, "the city [nominative]" "which I am establishing is yours."
Otherwise Gagneius: To abide, he says, in the Son and the Father is the promise which the Lord promised us in the Gospel when praying to the Father for us, John 17:20: "I pray not for these only, but also for those who shall believe through their word, that they all may be one, and as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us." Well therefore says John of this: This is the promise which He has promised us, which indeed is eternal life: for eternal life is to abide in God, and to enjoy Him here through grace, in the future through glory. Oecumenius comes near to this, who takes the "and" as causal, in the sense of "because," as if to say: Ye shall abide in the Son and the Father, because He has promised this, when He promised eternal life. Yet the first sense is simpler and more genuine.
A sharp goad is this which St. John gives to the faithful for constancy in faith against heretics, and for every virtue — namely the promise and reward of eternal life. "Let the memory of the promised reward make thee persevering in thy work," says Bede. "Let us see, says St. Augustine, what He has promised. Silver? Possessions? Pleasant estates? This is not the reward to which He exhorts us, that we may endure in toil. What then is this reward? Eternal life." He then adds that God joins threats to His promises, and that, unless we obey, He threatens eternal death — indeed, eternal fire. "A powerful man, he says, threatens me, that I may do something evil: what does he threaten? Prisons, chains, fires, tortures, beasts: does he threaten eternal fire? Tremble at what the Almighty threatens, love what the Almighty promises, and the whole world becomes worthless, whether promising or terrifying."
Verse 27: Let the Unction Which You Have Received From Him Abide in You
27. AND AS FOR YOU, LET THE UNCTION WHICH YE HAVE RECEIVED FROM HIM ABIDE IN YOU. — It is a hyperbaton, or transposition of words, which is to be clearly ordered thus: "And let the unction which ye have received from Him abide in you." For thus speak not only the Hebrews, but also the Latins, as I have shown at v. 25; whence some codices clearly read "unctio" (nominative) for "unctionem" (accusative). So too the Syriac: "But ye also, he says, if that unction which ye have received from Him shall abide with you, ye have no need that anyone teach you."
He calls "unction" the grace of the Holy Spirit — that is, the gift of wisdom and understanding bestowed on the faithful in Baptism and increased in Confirmation; for this grace and wisdom anoints and steeps the soul as it were with a spiritual ointment of most fragrant odor and savor of divine things, just as a corporeal ointment, namely chrism, anoints and steeps the body with corporeal fragrance. See what was said on v. 20.
AND YE HAVE NO NEED THAT ANYONE TEACH YOU, BUT AS HIS UNCTION TEACHES YOU CONCERNING ALL THINGS. — Understand: "abide in Him," as St. John adds after a brief parenthesis. Some codices supply: "do thus." He argues against the false apostles, namely the heretics, whom in v. 18 he called "antichrists." St. John clearly signified the same in the previous verse, saying: "I have written these things concerning those who seduce you." The sense therefore is, as if to say: It is not necessary that false apostles and heretics teach you the true faith and doctrine; for ye have already learned it from the Apostles of Christ themselves, with the cooperating unction of the Holy Spirit, whom ye received in Baptism and more in Confirmation. For it is necessary that what the Apostles teach outwardly by voice, the Holy Spirit teach you inwardly through grace and illumination — according to that of Isaiah 54:13: "I will make all thy children taught by the Lord;" which St. John, Gospel ch. 6:45, renders, "and they shall all be taught of God." For God is "He who teaches man knowledge," Psalm 93:10. Therefore in this doctrine which the Apostles outwardly, and the Holy Spirit inwardly, has taught you, abide and persevere. See Bellarmine, bk. III On the Word of God, ch. 3 and following, where he also adds: "It would be similar, he says, if a Catholic should write to Catholics whom heretics were disturbing: Ye have no need that a Lutheran or a Calvinist teach you Christian doctrine; because the things ye must know, ye have fully learned and hold from the preaching of the Church, aided by the unction of the Holy Spirit."
In a similar way St. Peter exhorts the faithful to constancy in faith, saying, epistle I, ch. 5, v. 12: "I have written briefly to you, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God, in which ye stand;" and Paul, Colossians 1:6: "Ye have known the grace of God in truth, as ye learned from Epaphras, my most beloved fellow servant." Thus the Interpreters and St. Augustine explain this unction: "As far as I am concerned, he says, I have spoken to all; but those to whom that inward unction does not speak, whom the Holy Spirit does not inwardly teach, return untaught. Outward magistracies are certain helps and admonitions; He who teaches hearts has His chair in heaven: I speak of the Lord. Wherefore He himself says in the Gospel: Call no one master upon earth; one is your Master, Christ; let Him speak to you within when no man is there; for even if someone is at thy side, there is none in thy heart, and let there be none in thy heart — let Christ be in thy heart, let His unction be in thy heart; lest the heart in solitude be thirsting and have no fountains by which the inner man may be watered; therefore He is the Master who teaches, Christ teaches, His inspiration teaches: where His inspiration and His unction are not, words are spoken outwardly to no purpose." And St. Gregory, homily 30 on the Gospels, citing these words of St. John and explaining those of the same Gospel, "He shall teach you all things": "Because, he says, unless the same Spirit be present in the heart of the hearer, the discourse of the teacher is idle." Then he rightly adds: "Therefore let him not attribute to the man who teaches what he understands from the mouth of the teacher, because unless He is within who teaches, the tongue of the teacher labors outwardly in vain. Behold, ye all alike hear one voice of him who is speaking, and yet ye do not all alike perceive the meaning of the voice ye have heard. Since then the voice is not different, why is the understanding of the voice in your hearts different, except because, while the voice of the speaker admonishes commonly, He who is more inward specially teaches certain ones the meaning of the voice?"
Therefore what he says, "His unction teaches you concerning all things," take fittingly "concerning all things" — namely the things already said, which ye have heard and know, that is, concerning all the articles of faith to be retained against the heretics, and the other things which it is fitting for any believer to know; which accordingly each one is taught and learns in his first catechesis and instruction, as the faithful in the primitive Church used to do strictly. For he speaks "to those who know," as he himself says in v. 21. Otherwise they would not have needed Doctors and Pastors, and St. John would teach them by this epistle in vain — as Beza himself rightly argues here, lest anyone abuse this passage of St. John, and contend that the private spirit of individuals is the interpreter of Holy Scripture and the judge of controversies of faith. For such men God thunderingly threatens: "Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit, and see nothing!" Ezekiel 13:3.
Some add that these things are written by St. John to the whole Church, in which there were many wise and illumined of God, who therefore were taught about all things, so that they themselves might teach others less learned, as if to say: O ye faithful, there is no need that the heretics teach you; for your Church and your doctors have been fully taught by the Holy Spirit about all things: go therefore to them, they will teach you about all things necessary for faith and salvation.
Finally, in place of "His unction," namely of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, most Greek manuscripts read to auto chrisma, that is, "the same unction"; whence the Syriac translates: "But as that unction is from God, the same shall teach you concerning all things." Again, by "chrism," that is, "unction," some understand Christ — that is, the anointed and the anointing — as if to say: Christ, through Himself and His own anointing you, that is, imbuing and instructing you, will teach concerning all things, and not the Antichrists. So Daniel 9:26: "Christ shall be slain;" the Septuagint renders "Christ" as "chrism," namely signifying the concrete "Christ" by the abstract "chrism." Whence what follows, "And it is true," the Zurich version translates "and is truthful," namely Christ; so too St. Augustine reads, "and is truthful, and is not a liar."
AND IT IS TRUE, AND NO LIE. — The interpreter Grecizes: for because chrisma is neuter in Greek, he likewise gave it a Latin neuter epithet, namely verum (true), as if to say: This chrism is true — that is, this unction is true and not lying. Secondly and more simply, take these words technically, as if to say: "And" — that is, because — it is true, whatever this unction teaches, and there is no lie in them; therefore listen securely to it in all things, and in them abide and persist unto death. The Hebrews are accustomed to confirm an assertion by the negation of its contrary, as: "He confessed, and denied not," that is, John plainly and fully confessed that he was not the Messiah, John 1:20. So here, "it is true and not a lie," that is, it is most true, and most foreign to every lie and falsity.
AND AS HE HAS TAUGHT YOU ("and" is put for "therefore," says Vatablus. For with the Hebrews "vav" is almost the sole conjunction, which is equivalent to all the others of the Latins and Greeks; as if to say: Since all the things which the unction teaches are true, lacking all lying and falsity; therefore) AS THAT UNCTION HAS TAUGHT YOU, ABIDE IN HIM — that is, persevere in His doctrine and faith. John delights in the word "abide." In place of "abide" (manete), in Greek it is meneite, that is, "ye shall abide," that is, menete. For the Greeks, like the Latins and the Hebrews, often use the future for the imperative. Add that some codices read menete in the imperative, that is, "abide."
Verse 28: Abide in Him, That When He Shall Appear We May Have Confidence
28. AND (that is, therefore, on this account) NOW, LITTLE CHILDREN. — A familiar voice for St. John, as for an old man, the most loving father and patriarch of his own, and as if caressing them as his most beloved children with this paternal voice. ABIDE IN HIM — namely in what the unction of Christ and the Holy Spirit has taught you; that is, persevere constantly in the orthodox faith, doctrine, and Christian life, and do not allow yourselves to be led away from it into heresy or error by the smooth speech of the heretics. He earnestly urges constancy and perseverance in Christianity upon the faithful, amid so many heresies and heretics arising day by day, because of the danger of apostasy — since among all the virtues, perseverance alone is crowned.
THAT WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR (Christ in glory, about to judge the world at the end of the world), WE MAY HAVE CONFIDENCE — parresian, that is, freedom, security, confidence, boldness in speaking: while the others, ill-conscious within themselves, will tremble and become silent, according to that of Wisdom 5:1: "Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those who have afflicted them." For, as Paul says, Colossians 3:4: "When Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then ye also shall appear with Him in glory." Wherefore what St. Basil says, homily 11 on the Hexaemeron: "Abraham too shall fear at the judgment, and shall suffer agony," is said by way of exaggeration, and signifies only the supreme rigor of the future judgment and examination, and the dread arising therefrom — if, that is, you regard it in itself, according to that of St. Peter, epistle I, ch. 4, v. 18: "If the just man shall scarcely be saved, where shall the impious and the sinner appear?" For otherwise, if you regard God's grace and mercy, that grace will assure all the Saints concerning their salvation and glory: for it will, before the examination, discern them from the reprobate, and will set them at the right hand, as dearly beloved friends and as His chosen ones.
AND THAT WE BE NOT CONFOUNDED BY HIM AT HIS COMING. — As if to say: Let us not be put to shame, both of us — namely, both you, if you should stray from the doctrine of Christ, and we Apostles and Pastors, because we did not preserve you in it: for just as the learning and uprightness of the disciple is the praise and ornament of the master, so the ignorance and wickedness of the disciple is the reproach and disgrace of the master. St. Basil, on that text of Psalm XXXIII: "I will teach you the fear of the Lord," teaches that a most bitter punishment for the damned shall be eternal shame and confusion, which they will undergo before Christ and the holy angels, the demons, and all the rest of the damned on the day of judgment, so much so that the damned would prefer to remain and burn in Gehenna rather than to come forth from there into the valley of Jehoshaphat to undergo this judgment so reproachful and infamous to them. Hence they will say "to the mountains and to the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" Apoc. VI, 17. The causes of shame will be these: that Christ will publish before the whole world all sins — even shameful, infamous, and horrendous ones, although most secret and committed in the mind alone; that they will see the Saints whom in this life they had despised, vexed, and slain, raised above them in glory, and that these are their judges, and likewise condemn them; that they were so foolish as to have purchased this eternal reproach for a paltry pleasure; that they neglected to expiate their sins and Gehenna by a modest penance and by the confusion of confession, etc. This is what Isaiah says with the last words of his prophecy: "Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be extinguished, and they shall be until they have their fill of the sight, of all flesh;" and Daniel XII, 2: "They that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some unto life everlasting, and others unto reproach, that they may see always."
St. Cyril notes, in his third mystagogical Catechesis, that the faithful are anointed in Confirmation upon the forehead, which is the seat of shame, lest it should shame them to confess the name of Christ, and lest they should commit anything shameful, on account of which they would be confounded on the day of judgment. St. Augustine speaks splendidly here: "Faithful, he says, is He who promised; He does not deceive you. Only do not you fail, but await Him who promised; for the truth knows not how to deceive — do not you be a liar, professing one thing and doing another. You keep faith, and He will keep His promise; but if you do not keep faith, you have defrauded — not He who promised." And Oecumenius: "What more illustrious and admirable thing could there ever be, than that we shall do with confidence, before Him to whom we are about to render our labors, and shall be steeped in no shame at His coming?"
AT HIS COMING. — en epiphaneia, that is, in the appearing, in the manifestation, in the illumination of Him — namely, when He shall appear in glory, and shall be the judge of all men. "For we now see through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face," 1 Cor. XIII, 12.
Verse 29: If You Know That He Is Just, Know That Everyone Who Does Justice Is Born of Him
29. IF YOU KNOW (that is, because you know, or since you know, inasmuch as you know — so Dionysius) that HE IS JUST (Christ the judge, concerning whose coming I have already treated), KNOW ALSO THAT EVERY ONE LIKEWISE WHO DOETH JUSTICE, IS BORN OF HIM.
He gives the manner and the means by which on the day of judgment we may not be confounded before Christ the judge, but may have confidence — namely if we do justice, that is, just and holy works, which we may offer to Christ the just judge. For lest anyone should suppose that orthodox faith alone suffices — as Simon Magus and the modern heretics taught — he here adds that the works of justice are also required. As if to say: Since Christ, the future judge, is just by way of antonomasia (that is, most just and most holy) not only as God but also as man, both in Himself and in delivering sentence, He certainly loves those who are just and who do works of justice, and on their behalf He will pronounce a just and saving sentence. For it pertains to a just judge to judge the works of each, and to assign reward to the good, and punishment to the wicked. He, therefore, who doeth justice will not be confounded before Him on the day of judgment, but will have full confidence; because he is like his just judge, indeed is born of Him — that is, is His son and heir. Wherefore he will not be confounded at His coming, but will await Him with confidence, certain that through Him he will be a partaker of the eternal inheritance. For "if sons, then heirs also: heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ," Rom. VIII, 17. For all our justice flows from the justice, sanctity, and grace of Christ.
JUSTICE: take this here not as a particular justice, but as the general one, which is the embracing of all the virtues, by which we are denominated just, holy, pleasing to God, friends, and sons. He alludes to that text of the Gospel, ch. 1, v. 12: "But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, who are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Furthermore, there is no surer argument that someone has been born of God, than if by his deeds and conduct he expresses God as if by lineaments. Didymus first notes that "he that doeth" is said in the present tense, not he that did, or he that will do, because a good root gives good fruits in the present; therefore, since by justice and grace we are reborn from God, and become partakers of the divine nature, as St. Peter says (2nd Epistle, ch. 1, v. 4) — for we really participate in the substance of God through supernatural and divine grace, which is the highest participation in the divinity — hence likewise we must in the present always display this birth and divine life through divine vital works, namely through works of justice. For just as he is not a living man who in the present does not produce works of human life, for instance who does not eat, does not walk, does not breathe, does not speak, does not reason: so likewise he is not just, nor reborn or living of God, who does not produce just and divine works, especially since it pertains to a son to imitate the father. Since therefore the just God does justice everywhere, we also, His sons, ought to do the same everywhere.
Secondly, our Salmeron notes that this divine generation is similar to carnal and human generation. For just as the latter is brought about by man and woman, so also the former in a certain way: for Christ, as man, brought us forth in suffering with the deepest pain; the same Christ, as God, acts and produces in us the grace and justice through which we are reborn into sons of God.
Oecumenius notes thirdly that the just are begotten by God, so that they themselves likewise may beget and procreate others similar to themselves; "for indeed, he says, a just one also begets and procreates the just," just as man generates man, ox generates ox; and Didymus: "Virtue commends the one who works justice, he says, since it is namely actual: therefore no one is just before he does the things of virtue, nor while he ceases to operate;" understand this with respect to act in execution, not in designation.
Finally St. Augustine teaches that perfect justice is in the angels, but begun in men: "In the holy angels, he says, who are turned away by no fall, who fall by no pride, but who remain ever in the contemplation of the Word, and have nothing else sweet but Him by whom they were created — in them justice is perfect; but in us it has begun to exist by faith according to the spirit." And shortly after: "The beginning of our justice is the confession of sins. Have you begun not to defend your sin? You have already begun justice; and it will be perfected in you when nothing else will delight you to do, when death will be swallowed up in victory, when no concupiscence will titillate, when there will be no struggle with flesh and blood, when there will be the crown of victory, and the triumph over the enemy. Then will justice be perfect: as it is, we still are fighting — if we fight, we are in the arena, we strike and are struck; but who wins is awaited. And he wins, who, even in striking, does not presume on his own strength, but on God who exhorts."
Therefore the just emulate the justice of the angels, so that — drawing the mind away from all the dregs of the earth, and love away from all creatures — they may bestow him entirely upon the Creator, loving Him, worshipping Him, praising Him, giving Him thanks in all things, prosperous as well as adverse: so that their voice and life, equally with their cross and passion, may be nothing other than continual and ceaseless praise of God. For such is the voice and life of the angels, concerning whom Job says (ch. XXXVIII, v. 7): "Where wast thou, when the morning stars praised Me together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Furthermore, let Christians, reborn from Christ, emulate Christ, and accordingly let them "speak as oracles, live as deities;" because Christ, born of God and reborn of the Virgin, "spoke as the mouth and oracle of the Father, and lived as a deity." Thus shall they strike the hearts of men — even of sinners — convert them, and beget them to Christ, after the manner of St. Basil, of whom St. Gregory Nazianzen writes in his oration at his funeral: "The speech of Basil was thunder, because his life was lightning."