25 Jerome, Book I., Against Jovinian.
1 ["Our fellowship is."- J. H. M.]
2 [Gr. kaqarizei, cleanses.- J. H. M.]
3 O e0qeasa/meqa. "Which we have looked upon." Vulg . quod perspeximus. Aug, om.
7 Edd. Non calcibus persequamur: "not virtually trample upon, or kick at them, persecuting the martyrs afresh by turning their festivals into luxurious orgies;" or "not merely walk after them." Morel. Elem. Crit. p. 208, cited by Ed. Par, proposes calicibus persequamur: Complaining of these excuses. S. Aug. says, Enarr. in Psa. 69, sec. 2: Adhuc illi inimici martyrum quia voce et ferro non possunt, eos sua luxuria persequuntur. Atque utinam Paganos tantum doleremus!...Videmus etiam portantes in fronte signum Ejus, simul in ipsa fronte portare impudentiam luxuriarum, diebusque et solemnitatibus martyrum non exultare, sed insultare. On Ps. 59 (al. 60) sec 15, he has, modò eos ebriosi calicibus persequuntur, and one Oxford Ms. reads so here. Compare infra, Hom. iv. 4.
12 Isa. lxi. 10. Enarr. in Ps. ci. sec. 2.
15 Et societas nostra sit. So Vulg. Mill cites one Ms. h[ meta\ tou= patro/j.
18 Rom. ix. 5. Deus super omnia: so de Trin. ii. 23, c. Faust. iii. 3, 6, Propos. ex Ep. ad Rom. Exp. 59, super omnes Deus. S. Aug. constantly refers this clause to Christ. So S. Iren. iii. 18 (D. super omnes), Tertull. adv. Prax. 13, 15; Origen (Lat.) Comm. in Ep. ad Rom. vii. 13; St. Cypr. adv. Jud. ii. 6; St. Hilar. de Trin. viii. 37; St. Ambros de Sp Sa. i. 3, sec. 39; In all these it is De super omnia or super omnia Deus.
19 1 John i. 5. [God is Light; God is Love.-The Apostle gives in these two great words indications of the Divine essence, so far as it can be conveyed or suggested in human language. He had before said (John iv. 24), narrating the words of the Lord Jesus, "God is spirit" (not, a spirit). In this epistle he declares to us that God is light, and God is love.
God is light, not "a light" (Luther) or even "the light," but "light" in the most absolute sense. In the text, Augustine forcibly employs this language in reference to sins; they, he says, are "our darkness." In the phrase of the apostle we may recognize a declaration altogether unrestricted and absolute with respect to the essence of God. Surely, He cannot be fully or adequately apprehended by man. Yet, He communicates Himself. He is revealed in His works; in them "the invisible things" of Him are clearly seen. His pure and glorious light shines; darkness confines; light is diffusive, without limit: by the light emanating from Him, alone, is God seen (Philo).
But God, adds the apostle, is love. Love has its source in God. It belongs to His essence, to His very nature. Like light it is diffusive; in its self-communication it begets love. Love discloses to us the personality of God. His love meets with returns from personal beings to whom it comes and whom it enters; he that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. Apart from creation God is love, and before creation He had in Himself the perfect object of love; in the unity of the One God, in the communion of the Father and the Son, And the perfect response of love in and by the Holy Spirit (the activity of love is affirmed in Scripture of each person of the Holy Trinity), uniting both in the society and fellowship of love.
Such love, manifested in the Gospel, encourages us to draw nigh in confidence to Him who is Love, and who may be loved.-J. H. M.]
24 [Fellowship.-The primary object of the apostle's communication in this epistle (1 John i. 3), is that his readers may have fellowship with the apostolic body, and, in connection with them, fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
St. John's message contemplates both a human and a Divine fellowship. The union among believers is described and emphasized, and he points also to the manifold blessings that flow from the Divine fellowship. The fruits of this revelation-of the disclosures of the love of God,-the apostle intimates are not for that age only, but for all who should afterwards believe; a thought which Augustine brings out in the text by adducing the history of Thomas (John xx. 24-29),and the consolation administered to him by the Lord, with the wider comfort for all His disciples: "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believe."
The life, "even the life eternal," is manifested in this joyous fellowship, which is set forth by St. John in different forms of expression; it is reciprocal. "Hereby we know that we abide in Him and He in us" (1 John iv. 13). Again, it is presented as the abiding of man in God: "By this we know that we are in Him" (ii. 5). "We know that the Son of God hath come, and we are in Him is true"(v.20). Again, the twofold fellowship (human and Divine), is represented as the abiding of God (or Christ) in man. "If we love one another, God abideth in us" (iv. 12). Among the results of this Divine-human fellowship, the apostle names, confidence, growing purity and love (ii. 28; iii. 3, 10).-J. H. M.]