Didymus the Blind — Commentary on Scripture

1 John 4:6

If we take the word hear literally, it is clear that this cannot be true, since everybody can pick up the sounds of the words. It is therefore clear that the word means something more than that—it means that we should do what we hear. If someone does not know that he is supposed to act, he has not really heard.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 4:7

Just as the person who does not choose what he ought to choose has done wrong and does not love what he ought to love, so those who love only those who are worthy of love receive only that level of praise due to them.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 4:12

Since God is invisible, nobody has ever seen him, since bodily sight cannot see things which have no bodies. But there are some heretics who say that the Old Testament speaks of a visible God, because occasionally people are said to have seen him, whereas the New Testament makes him completely invisible. So we have to ask what substance he is supposed to have which would make him visible. They would have to answer, unless they are out of their minds, that God is a body, even though it is not made of any perceivable substance. If that is what they think, they ought to consider how incongruous and full of ungodliness their beliefs are. For how can there be a body if there is no way of defining what it is?

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 4:15

This needs to be properly understood. God will not dwell in anyone who does not obey his commandments, however much he may confess him with his lips. Some people are confused by the various names of Jesus, because they do not interpret the Scriptures correctly. They think that because he came out of the womb of Mary according to the flesh and was given the name Jesus at that time, he is not to be identified with the eternal Son of God, who did not think it robbery to be considered equal with God. They restrict themselves to the human form which the Word of God assumed, even though the being of the Word was never changed into humanity. To confess the one Lord Jesus Christ is to confess him as God and man, not as a man only.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:1

This describes everyone who is born of God and does what God wants him to do.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:3

The substance and ground of the love we ought to have for God is obedience to his commandments.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:14

Those who possess technical skills and know how to repair things are fully confident that when the need arises they will be able to do so. Similarly these holy men, John and the other apostles, knew from their own experience that if they asked God for what was pleasing and acceptable to him, they would obtain it. For God is most generous to those who have this knowledge and will grant the requests of those who ask according to his will.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:18

If it is true that when someone does what is righteous his power to do so comes from God, and if it is also true that righteousness and evil cannot live together, then it is perfectly clear that as long as a person does such things he is righteous and does not sin. But because this ability is given by grace and is not natural, John adds that the righteous person must watch out, so that evil will not touch him.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:19

The “world,” that is, those who love the world, are subjected to evil. This includes everybody, because we are all born under sin, which traces its origin to the disobedience of Adam. Many heretics claim that there is a creator god who made the world evil to begin with, but this is not so. The word refers to people, not to the material substance of creation.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:20

The understanding which God gave, by which it is known that the true Son of God is coming, is the same as the mind of Christ.

COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN

1 John 5:21

Why is it that after everything else which he has said to his hearers during the course of his letter, John should keep this warning about idols to the very end? In my opinion it is because here he is addressing the church in general. There must have been many in that assembly who were former idolaters, and he adds this caution for their benefit.

CATENA