The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle of S. John
And that no lie is of the truth . By a lie he means, false doctrine and heresy. For all these doctrines come not from God, who is the source of truth, but from the father of lies. See John viii. 44. And accordingly S. Augustine says, “ We are here told how to know Antichrist. For what is Christ ? The truth, as He Himself said. All they then who lie are not of the truth.” (Contra Mendac. cap. xviii.)
Ver. 22. — Who is a liar , but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He here explains what kind of lie he means, the heresy of denying that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, as Simon Magus, Ebion, Cerinthus, and other Judaisers, against whom S. John wrote, both ancient and modern. For, as Bede says, “ Compared with this all other lies are little or nothing.” Indeed, what more pernicious lie could be uttered or invented than this, cutting off as it does all faith and hope of salvation ? He then that maintains it, is pre-eminently a liar, because he is heretical, sacrilegious, an atheist, an antichrist. The word is commonly used of those who mean one thing and say another. And this is the case with these very persons, for they knew or ought to know that Jesus was the Christ. So writes Tertullian (de Prescript. Heret. cap. xxxiii.) : “John in his Epistle specially calls those persons antichrist, who said that Jesus had not come in the flesh, as Marcion and Ebion maintained.” And as Œcumenius tells us, “ Simon stated that Jesus and Christ were different persons. Jesus who was born of Mary, Christ who had come down from heaven.” S. Cyril ( Catech . vi.) says that Simon Magus was the author of all these heresies, and then enlarges on them and his impostures.
Cornelius here says much of the heresies and follies of the Anabaptists, for which he quotes their history by Arnold Meshovius.
He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. Because that Christ is not the Son of God, they say that God is not His Father. For the terms Father and Son are correlative, and accordingly if one of them is done away with, so is the other also. Œcumenius supposes that Valentinus is here aimed at, who said that there was another Father, beside Him who was called the Father of Christ. And these self-same heretics (he says) deny the Son, by affirming that He is a mere man, and not God by nature. So too Basilides. (See Irenaeus, i. 23 ; Tertullian, de Prescript. ; Epiphanius, Hær. xxiv., and others.)
Ver. 23. — "Whosoever denieth the Son , hath not the Father. In Whom to abide (as Cajetan says), “nor as abiding in Him, for he believes not His eternal generation ” (see Dionysius ).
He hath Him not in his mind, and consequently does not confess Him with his life. He seems to refer to John v. 37, and as he says above, cap. i., “ His word is not in us.” And in this chapter, vers. 5 and 24. For it is by faith, hope, and charity that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit abide in us, and we consequently have them in us, just as a Church has the Eucharist within it, for a holy soul is in truth the temple of God who dwells within it. He here aims at the Judaising heretics, who deny the doctrine of the Trinity, and say that there is but one Person in the Godhead, and consequently deny that Christ is God, and the Son of God. Christ in this very Gospel maintains against them that He is the Only Begotten Son of God the Father. See iii. 35, v. 18 seq. 36 seq., vi. 58. For, as Œcumenius says, “ Had they known the Father, they would without any doubt have known Him to be the Father of the Only Begotten Son.” And more especially because he who knows not the Trinity knows not the nature of the Godhead to be so full and prolific as to require a plurality of Persons, and demands that it should be communicated to all the Three, so that in taking away One Person you in fact do away with the Godhead altogether.
And this is what S. John means here. In like manner, Christ said to Philip, “ He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father. . . . Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in Me?” (John xiv. 9, 10). Whereby is signified plurality of Persons and identity of Essence, and the intimate and complete indwelling of one Person in another. Damascene (de Fide , i. 2) terms this περιχώρησις, and the Schoolmen (after him) circumincessio . See S. Augustine, de Trinit vi. ; S. Hilary, de Trinit. Lib . iv. ; and Ambroseaster, in 2 Cor. 13. S. Augustine says, “ Each is in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are One.”
S. Cyprian (Exhort. Martyr , cap . 5) and S. Hilary (de Trin. lib. vi.) here read, He that hath the Son , hath both the Father and the Son, i.e., wishing him well, and favouring him. S. Augustine has the same reading, but explains it of worship and veneration: “He who worships the Son worships the Father, for he cannot worship the Father who worships not the Son, as it is said John v. 23.”
Ver. 24. — Let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you. Be stedfast in the faith, doctrine, and Christian life, which ye received at first, for thus will true faith abide in you, and ye will abide in the true faith and sonship of God. See Gal. i. 9 ; Heb. xiii. 9. As S. Cyprian strikingly says (Ep. xl.) : “ I exhort and advise you not to believe rashly pernicious words, or readily yield consent to words of falsehood, not to put darkness for light, night for day, hunger for food, poison for a remedy, death for life.”
If that abide with you, which ye have heard from the beginning (as I have just explained it), ye also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father. We must consider that the Holy Spirit is also included in the expression, the Father and the Son. For the Father and the Son are the Breathers forth of the Holy Spirit, and in their Essence, as understood in its full meaning, they include the power of breathing forth the Holy Spirit, yea, its actual exercise. But at this time no question had arisen respecting the Holy Spirit, but merely respecting the Son, and consequently respecting the Father. The Son is here put before the Father, for the special reason that “ no man cometh to the Father but through the Son.” John xiv. “For no one will behold the greatness of the Divine Glory, except he be born again by the sacraments of that Manhood, which the Son assumed.” So Bede.
But further, if ye abide in the Son and in the Father, the Father and the Son will in their turn abide in you. As Œcumenius says, “ Ye will have union and communion with Him, as Christ promised” (John xiv. 23). As S. Augustine remarks on this passage, “The Holy Spirit also dwells in the Saints together with the Father and the Son : just as God in His temple. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit come to us when we come to them — they come to us by their aid, we by our obedience — they come by their enlightening, we on them — they come by filling us, we by admitting them within — so that we behold them by no outward, but by inward vision, and they abide in us, not transitorily, but for ever.”
Ver. 25. — And this is the promise which He has promised us, even eternal life. Gagneius refers thus to the promise made by our Lord, John xvii. 20. “ For (he says) the promise He has made us is indeed eternal life, since it is eternal life to abide in God, and to enjoy Him here in grace, and hereafter in glory.” Œcumenius makes the word ‘and’ equivalent to ‘because’: “Ye will abide in the Father and the Son because He promised you this in promising eternal life.” But the first meaning is the best. This is a powerful motive for constancy in the faith. “ Let the memory of the promised reward,” says Bede, “ make thee persevere in thy work.” “ Let us see (says S. Augustine) what He hath promised? Silver, or possessions, or pleasant lands ? No indeed, this is not the reward for which He exhorts us to endure. It is eternal life.” And he adds, “God combines threats with His promises, even eternal death, if we disobey Him.” “ A powerful man threatens us with imprisonment, with fire, with torments, with wild beasts. But does he threaten us with eternal fire ? Dread that which the Almighty threatens, love that which He promised, and then the whole world is a worthless thing, whether in its promises or its threats.”
Ver. 27. — And let that anointing which ye have received abide in you. By the anointing he means the gift of wisdom and understanding given in baptism and augmented in confirmation. See