Translated by Qwen.
1 Jn 5:4
FOR WHATSOEVER IS BORN OF GOD: Because every kind of man—small or great, perfect or imperfect—who is supernaturally begotten and born of God through grace, insofar as he operates as a Son of God and is led by the Spirit of God, OVERCOMES THE WORLD: [Overcomes] the temptations of the world, which are "the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). From this it follows that the commandments of God are not grievous to the sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God, since even children, women, and the weakest kind of men, provided they are born of God, easily overcome the world and the strongest enemies who are in the world, even though the latter try to make God's commandments burdensome and turn souls away from them. Lest anyone think, however, that he obtains this victory over the world by his own powers, he adds: AND THIS IS THE VICTORY: The instrumental cause of the victory THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD: [In Greek] THAT HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD: For he speaks to the faithful who had already believed and overcome. OUR FAITH: Which obtains charity and the strength to conquer, and through it, by working, conquers. Victory is also attributed to faith as the impetrator [the one who asks/obtains] of good works fighting for it. Cajetan says: "For faith conquers impetratively [by asking], and good works as it were executively."
1 Jn 5:5
WHO IS HE THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD: He explains what that faith is which overcomes the world, namely the faith of Christians. UNLESS HE WHO BELIEVES: With a living faith which breathes works, or "he who believes," not only with the assent of the intellect but also with the affection and work of the will. THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD: That the man Jesus Christ is also the natural Son of God and God the same with the Father, which Cerinthus and the Ebionites do not believe. For, in order that he might be the Mediator of God and men (1 Timothy 2:5), he had to be placed as a mean between God and man through the compounding of extremes. For divinity without humanity is not a mediatrix; humanity without divinity is not a mediatrix; but between divinity alone and humanity alone, the mediatrix is the human divinity and the divine humanity of Christ, says St. Augustine (Sermon on the Sheep, ch. 2).
1 Jn 5:6
THIS IS HE WHO CAME: It can also be translated, as Arias [Montanus] translates: "This is that Coming One," namely, the one so celebrated whom all the oracles of the Prophets announced was to come to spiritually regenerate and reconcile man to God, which is the proper office of the Mediator. BY WATER: Of Baptism. AND BLOOD: Of His passion. Of which the baptisms and purifications by water and the expiations by the blood of animals, which were commanded in the Old Law, were figures; to which St. John seems to allude here. JESUS CHRIST: He repeats under the name of Christ, whom he had just called Jesus the Son of God, to indicate that the name Christ encompasses both names of the Mediator and God-man. NOT IN WATER ONLY: Nor did he come only by water, as John the Baptist, whose baptism, although instituted by God, because it was destitute of the virtue of the blood of Christ, did not sanctify the soul but was only a sign of repentance for those who approached it. BUT IN WATER AND BLOOD: But by water and blood simultaneously, by the merit of whose blood the water of Baptism and all the Sacraments have the power of sanctifying. For the Sacraments of the Church are so many boxes, as it were, of the blood of Christ, from which they receive the virtue of grace in the soul. AND THE SPIRIT: The Holy SPIRIT IS HE WHO TESTIFIES: As when, Christ being baptized by John, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove (Matt 3:16); when on the day of Pentecost He fell upon the disciples like fire, filling them with gifts of faith and charisms (Acts 2:3); and finally, whenever He inspires that faith of Christ into the hearts of the faithful. BECAUSE CHRIST IS THE TRUTH: That Christ is the uncreated Truth and the Word made flesh, emanating from the Father through the intellect, and proceeding God from God and Son of God, as he said a little before. For Christ says of Himself: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). For He is the way as man, the truth and life as God. For the Son of God, who is always in the Father Truth and Life, assuming a man, became the way by which we might go to the truth and life, says St. Augustine (Sermon 55 on the Words of the Lord, ch. 4). And although the whole Most Holy Trinity is the uncreated Truth, as St. Thomas teaches (Part 1, Q. 16, A. 5), this is nevertheless appropriated to the Son because truth is properly in the concept and word of the mind, and the Son is the Word of the Father. However, in Greek it is otherwise: BECAUSE THE SPIRIT IS THE TRUTH: Because the Holy Spirit is the uncreated Truth itself and therefore merits to testify as a most suitable witness who can neither be deceived nor deceive.
1 Jn 5:7
FOR THERE ARE THREE: And it appears still more clearly that this is most true, that Christ is the Truth and the incarnate Son of God, because there are three WHO BEAR WITNESS of that thing IN HEAVEN: In the aerial heaven, by voices and signs testifying, which are formed in that higher air and descend in a way to men on earth; whence others explain "from heaven." However, Hugh of St. Cher, Thomas Anglicus, and the Carthusian say "in heaven," namely the empyrean, before the Angels and inhabitants of heaven, where the works of the Trinity shine forth more, and therefore the Most Holy Trinity is said to dwell specially in that heaven. THE FATHER: Who often gave testimony of the divinity of his Son by a voice sent down from heaven, as at His Baptism (Matt 3:17), at the Transfiguration (Matt 17:5), and when a voice came from heaven like thunder (John 12:28). THE WORD: The Son Himself proceeding from the Father through the intellect, who even in his assumed humanity gave testimony of himself from heaven after the Resurrection, when he was lifted up into heaven while the disciples watched (Acts 1:9); then when the heavens were opened and he was seen by St. Stephen (Acts 7:55); finally when he cried out from heaven to Saul: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4). And although no one is usually a suitable witness in his own cause, Christ nevertheless was an irrefragable witness of himself because he knew whence he came and whither he went (John 8:13), that is, he knew that he was God and man who had come from the bosom of the Father and was returning thither, drawing the Church of the elect after him to reign with them in the heavens. Because therefore he was God from God, light from light, and the first Truth, he could testify of himself because truth and light manifest themselves and other things. AND THE HOLY SPIRIT: Who also gave his testimony at the Baptism of Christ and the day of Pentecost, as we already said in verse 6. AND THESE THREE ARE ONE: That is, these three persons are one in the divine essence, on account of the infinity of that essence; whence the testimony of these three is of the Trinity and Unity, and therefore altogether infallible. The Interlinear Gloss interprets "ARE ONE" as "They consent into one." But thus this passage is snatched from us against the Arians. Abbot Joachim interpreted this verse thus... [Text cuts off slightly but implies an interpretation of unity of will rather than essence].
Note on Textual Criticism: However, this verse was formerly missing in some Greek and Latin texts, whence Augustine does not mention it, nor do many Fathers, both Greek and Latin, usually use it against the Arians; whence Erasmus and Cajetan doubt whether it is part of Sacred Scripture. But St. Jerome strongly retains it and says it was omitted by unfaithful Arian translators. Or certainly it seems the Greek Arians first erased it from many Greek codices, and then the Latin translation, which St. Augustine and many Fathers used, was made from a mutilated Greek Codex. Then Henry Stephanus says that out of sixteen ancient Greek exemplars, he found only seven in which this verse was missing. Finally, our elders of Louvain, when they gathered many manuscript exemplars from everywhere for the correction of the Bible, found only five mutilated in this verse.
1 Jn 5:8
AND THERE ARE THREE: Other witnesses WHO BEAR WITNESS: Not of the divine nature in Christ, concerning which the first three witnesses bear witness, but of the human nature, which Basilides, the heretic of that time, denied, saying that Christ bore only a phantom instead of a true body. ON EARTH: Not from heaven above, but from the earth in which we dwell. Many ancient Latin and Greek Codices lack the particle "ON EARTH," nor does the Syriac Interpreter add it, which seems to have been done on the occasion of the expunction of the preceding verse; for when the particle "in heaven" was omitted with that whole verse, it did not appear why the particle "on earth" should be added here. But the former verse being restored, this particle ought to be restored so that "on earth" is opposed to the particle "in heaven" of the previous verse. THE SPIRIT: The human soul, a spiritual substance, which Christ emitted on the cross when it is said that "bowing his head, he gave up the spirit." For the Spirit here is taken not for the Holy Spirit, as many interpret, but for the human spirit, by Augustine (Book 3, ch. 22 against Maximinus) and by Innocent III (in the chapter "In Quadam," Title "On the Celebration of Masses"). Whence the word "spirit" is not added "Holy" here as in the preceding verse. AND WATER: True and elemental water which flowed from the side of Christ opened by the lance (John 19:34). AND BLOOD: Which also flowed from the same side. But blood and water, things insensible, are said metaphorically to give testimony of the thing which they signify. For that water signified that the body of Christ was a body mixed of elements, of which one, and most necessary, is water, which enters the composition of a mixed body both by way of matter and by way of glue for the other elements. But the blood, which is first among the humors of the animal, signified that it was a true sensitive animal body, because animals are nourished by four humors: blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy, says Innocent III. Finally, the spirit which Christ expired in death signified that it was a true human body, whose substantial form is the spirit or rational soul. Thus Innocent III interprets this passage (chapter cited), where he defines it to have been true and natural water, and not the phlegm of the human body which miraculously flowed from Christ's side to signify some mystery. AND THESE THREE ARE ONE: They signify the one human nature of Christ. For in Greek it is: AND THESE THREE ARE INTO ONE, or are ordered for signifying one thing, although many explain "are into one" as being the same as "are one," according to the Hebrew phrase: "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Jeremiah 31:33), that is, "I will be their God and they will be my people." But it is not necessary to explain it thus here, nor without cause did the Greek text change the phrase in this and the preceding verse; for concerning the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit he said "are one" (unum sunt), but concerning the spirit, water, and blood "are into one" (in unum sunt). Although meanwhile it can also be understood how the human spirit, water, and blood are one, or one human nature, not by simplicity as the three Divine Persons are one simple essence, but by composition; for the elements and humors constitute one human body with the spirit, or rational soul infused, in their own way.
Alternative Interpretation: St. Augustine (Book 3, ch. 22 against Maximinus the Arian) explains "are one" as signifying the one nature, not human but divine, of the three persons; for the human spirit, he says, represents the Father, according to "God is spirit" (John 4:24); the blood represents the Son made flesh; the water represents the Holy Spirit, who pours into our souls the water of grace springing up unto life eternal (John 4:14). But St. Augustine did not read the preceding 7th verse in his Codex, where this unity of the divine essence is signified, so that there was no need to say the same thing twice. Then, St. Augustine there not fully acquiescing in his own exposition, permits that the profundity of so great a sacrament, which is contained in this eighth verse, be explained otherwise, provided it be according to the Catholic faith, which neither confuses the Persons nor separates the Essence in divine things. But these and similar obscure profundities, he says, are permitted by the Holy Spirit to be mixed in Sacred Scripture on purpose, to exercise the study and minds of faithful interpreters.
Note on "Unum Sunt": However, Innocent III (chapter cited) does not read this particle "AND THESE THREE ARE ONE" in this verse, and many ancient Codices omitted it. Indeed, St. Thomas (Opusc. 19 on the Decretal of Innocent III against Abbot Joachim) says that some say it was inserted by Arians to obscure the interpretation of verse 7, by which the Father, Word, and Holy Spirit are said to be one, if the spirit, water, and blood were also said to be one. But it is not probable that the Church would have retained this particle as Sacred Scripture which heretics had inserted.
1 Jn 5:9
IF WE RECEIVE THE TESTIMONY OF MEN: If we receive the testimony of two or three men worthy of faith as legitimate and sufficient for making faith and ending human suits and affairs, according to that: "In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand" (Deuteronomy 19:15). THE TESTIMONY OF GOD: Of the Father, which we cited from us in verse 7, IS GREATER: Truly it is more certain and more irrefragable, since God is the first Truth who can neither be deceived nor deceive. BECAUSE THIS IS THE TESTIMONY OF GOD: As if he were to say: "I call it the testimony of God because truly this is the testimony of God the Father." WHICH IS GREATER: Than all the testimonies of men. BECAUSE HE HAS TESTIFIED: Because God the Father gave that testimony of which we spoke in verse 7. OF HIS SON: Of the divinity of his Son, both in his Baptism and in his Transfiguration. In Greek it is clearer; instead of the causal preposition BECAUSE, there is a relative pronoun WHICH, in this way: "WHICH [testimony], namely the testimony, HE HAS TESTIFIED OF HIS SON." Where he calls the thing itself testified by the testimony, by metonymy, the testimony.
CONTINUE
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