The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the First Epistle of S. John
Moreover, charity is chiefly perfected by the love of our enemies, extending itself beyond our friends to our rivals, enemies, and persecutors . “The fire of charity,” says S. Augustine, “first seizes upon our neighbours, and so extends itself further, from our brethren to strangers, from thence to our adversaries.” Further on he teaches us to love our enemies, just as a physician loves the sick and insane. “ When any one rages against thee, let him rage, but do thou entreat. When he hates, do thou pity. It is his fevered soul which hates thee. As soon as he is well, he will give thee thanks. How do physicians love the sick ? Do they wish them always to be sick? They love the sick in order to make them whole. How much do they suffer from the insane ! What reproaches ! How often they are struck ! The physician attacks the fever, he forgives the man.”
Ver. 13. — In this we know that we abide in Him ... by His
Spirit , &c. By His Spirit’, i.e. the participation of the Spirit, the communication of grace and charity, which are the gifts of the Spirit
In the preceding verse S. John said that God abides in us, and consequently we in God by charity. For so loving He abides in the lover and the beloved. For so God loves us and we God. He here inculcates the same thing, repeats it, and as it were enforces it by a reason. The reason is this, He who hath the Spirit of God abides in God, and God in him : but he who hath charity hath the Spirit of God. Therefore he who hath charity abides in God and God in him. The major premiss is self-evident, because where the Spirit of God is, there is God Himself. But where God is, there He unites to Himself the subject in which He is, and by, as it were, the infinity of His Essence incorporates and absorbs it, so that the subject should be more in God than God in it. He therefore who hath experience in himself of the Spirit of God, i.e. of charity, this man feels God's presence and liberality. He feels God to be in him and himself in God, in such wise that God is bestowing His gifts upon him, and printing His perfect image in him, according to the words, “he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.”
Ver. 14. — And we have seen and do testify , &c. These words have reference to the 9th verse, where he saith that God hath shown His love to us by sending His Son. This he now proves and confirms by his own testimony, and that of the other Apostles. For they were the eye and ear witnesses, who saw, heard, and conversed with Christ Incarnate, as he said in the beginning of the Epistle.
This is an allusion to S. John's Gospel (iii. 17). “ For God sent not His Son into the world to judge the world, but that through Him the world might be saved.” Whence S. Bernard saith (de amor Dei, c. 8), “ Christ Himself is our Love, by whom we attain to Thee, by whom we embrace Thee : for how otherwise, O incomprehensible Majesty, couldest Thou appear comprehensible to the soul that loveth Thee ? For although no understanding of any soul or spirit can comprehend Thee, yet the love of the loving soul comprehends Thee wholly as thou art.”
Ver. 15. — Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, &c. He here maintains the Divinity of Christ because Ebion, Cerinthus, and many others at that time impugned it. This is as it were a conclusion drawn from the preceding verse. As though he said, Christ is the Saviour of the world. Whosoever therefore believeth in Him, and stedfastly confesses His faith, God abideth in him, and he in God. He abides, I say, by a true, living faith and confession, which includes charity, and which works by love. As S. Augustine says, “ Whosoever shall confess, not in word, but in deed, not in tongue, but in life. For many confess in words, but deny by their deeds.”
Ver. 16. — And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. In these words S. John confirms and inculcates what he has said in the two preceding verses. His meaning is, “ We have seen and do testify of Christ incarnate, who is the Love of God, because we know Him by experience and conversation to be really such. And we have believed in Him by faith. Therefore we have believed the love which God hath in us, i.e. towards us, because we have believed that God in his infinite love towards us hath given to us Christ the Saviour. The Vulg. has in us, but the Syriac translates towards us. (So also the Eng. Version.)
Observe : S. John moves in a circle. From God he leaps to
Christ, from Christ to charity, from charity to love of our neighbour, from charity and love he returns to God, thence to Christ, and so on.
For all these things have reference to this one point, that we should love one another. And this is his argument, God in His infinite charity hath loved us, i.e. all men, by giving Christ His Son for our salvation. Therefore it is just that we should imitate His charity, and answer to His love by loving our neighbours and doing good to them in His love, because we cannot do good to God Himself.
Observe : the Vulgate renders more significantly, we have trusted in the charity (credidimus charitati) than it is in the Greek (we have believed the charity [ credidimus charitatem]), signifying that we are joined to the love of God, not only by faith, but likewise by hope and charity. We have not only known, and by faith believed the mystery of the Incarnation, in which God’s peculiar love to us shines forth, but we have wholly trusted and committed ourselves to the Divine charity. We have fixed our whole faith, hope, and love upon it We rest securely upon it in all things, certain that it can never fail us, and saying with the Psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and there is none upon earth which I desire in comparison of thee. God is the God of my heart, and my portion for eternity.”
God is love : the Syriac reads, for God is love , giving the reason why he had said, and we have believed the love , and why God hath love towards us. The reason is because God Himself by His Essence is love. Therefore He cannot deceive him who believes, hopes in, and loves Him.
Now the reason why God is essentially love is because He
Himself in His Essence is pure, perfect, and highest goodness, whose nature it is to be plainly and fully communicative and diffusive of Himself. This, says S. Dionysius, is an attribute of love. For God is a sea of honey, an ocean of goodness and charity. God is as it were a fire always burning, kindling all things and transforming them into Itself. For “ our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb.
xii. 29.) Listen to S. Bernard (Serm . 83 in Cant.) : “ I read,” he says, “that God is love, not that He is honour, or dignity. It is not that God does not wish to be honoured, for He saith, ‘If I be a Father, where is My honour ?’ Honour is the due of a father. But if he manifest Himself as a bridegroom, I think He will change His voice and say, ‘ If I be a Husband, where is My love ?’ For before this He had spoken, and said, ‘If I be a Master, where is My fear?’ God therefore requires to be feared as a master, to be honoured as a father, to be loved as a husband. What is it which shines pre-eminently amongst these? Surely it is love. Without love fear hath torment, and honour hath no grace. Fear is slavish, until it be manumitted by love. And the honour which springs not from love is mere flattery. And indeed to God alone belong honour and glory : yet will He accept of neither unless they be flavoured with the honey of love.”