Commentary on Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles John Calvin (continued)
John Calvin is far otherwise than that of those who fight under the banners of men, for war is doubtful to them and the issue is uncertain; but we are conquerors before we engage with the enemy, for our head Christ has once for all conquered for us the whole world.
I write unto you, young children They needed another direction. That the Gospel is well adapted to young children the Apostle concludes, because they find there the Father. We now see how diabolical is the tyranny of the Pope, which drives away by threats all ages from the doctrine of the Gospel, while the Spirit of God so carefully addresses them all.
But these things which the Apostle makes particular, are also general; for we should wholly fall off into vanity, except our infirmity were sustained by the eternal truth of God. There is nothing in us but what is frail and fading, except the power of Christ dwells in us. We are all like orphans until we attain the grace of adoption by the Gospel. Hence, what he declares respecting young children is also true as to the old. But yet his object was to apply to each what was most especially necessary for them, that he might shew that they all without exception stood in need of the doctrine of the Gospel. The particle {ὅτι} is explained in two ways, but the meaning I have given to it is the best, and agrees better with the context.
14 I have written unto you, fathers These repetitions I deem superfluous; and it is probable that when unskillful readers falsely thought that he spoke twice of little children, they rashly introduced the other two clauses. It might at the same time be that John himself, for the sake of amplifying, inserted the second time the sentence respecting the young men, (for he adds, that they were strong, which he had not said before;) but that the copyists presumptuously filled up the number. 450
1 John 2:15-17
1 John 2:15-17 15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
15. Ne diligatis mundum, neque ea quae in mundo sunt: si quis diligit mundum non est charitas Patris in eo.
16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
16. Quia quicquid est in mundo (nempe concupiscentia carnis, concupiscentia oculorum, et superbia vitae) non est ex Patre, sed ex mundo est.
450There are no different readings that can justify the supposition of an interpolation. The only reading that Griesbach considers probable is {ἔγραψα} for {γράφω} at the end of the 13th verse. If that be adopted, then the three characters are twice mentioned, and in regular order. The objection that {τεκνία} in ver. 12, is {παιδία} in ver. 13, is not valid, for he uses the latter in the same sense as the former in ver. 18, as denoting Christians in general; while here, in connection with ``fathers'' and ``young men,'' they must mean those young in years or in the profession of the gospel. The repetition is for the sake of emphasis. --- Ed