Augustine of Hippo : And what is the promise? Let us see what He hath promised. Is it gold which men here love much, or silver? Or possessions, for which men lavish gold, however much they love gold? Or pleasant lands, spacious houses, many slaves, numerous beasts? Not these are the wages, so to say, for which he exhorts us to endure in labor. What are these wages called? "eternal life." Ye have heard, and in your joy ye have cried out: love that which ye have heard, and ye are delivered from your labors into the rest of eternal life. Lo, this is what God promises; "eternal life." Lo, this what God threatens; eternal fire. What to those set on the right hand? "Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world." To those on the left, what? "Go into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Thou dost not yet love that: at least fear this. — Ten Homilies on 1 John 3 Augustine of Hippo : Remember then, my brethren, that Christ hath promised us eternal life: "This," saith he, "is the promise which He hath promised us, even eternal life. These things have I written to you concerning them which seduce you." Let none seduce you unto death: desire the promise of eternal life. What can the world promise? Let it promise what you will, it makes the promise perchance to one that tomorrow shall die. And with what face wilt thou go hence to Him that abideth for ever? "But a powerful man threatens me, so that I must do some evil." What does he threaten? Prisons, chains, fires, torments, wild beasts: aye, but not eternal fire? Dread that which One Almighty threatens; love that which One Almighty promises; and all the world becomes vile in our regard, whether it promise or terrify. — Ten Homilies on 1 John 3 Bede : And this is the promise which He Himself promised us, eternal life. As if you were asking for a reward, and you were saying: "Behold me, I keep what I have heard from the beginning, I obey; I endure dangers, labors, temptations, for maintaining this. What will be the fruit, what the reward? What will be given to me afterward?" And this, he says, is the promise which He Himself promised us, eternal life. Let the remembrance of the promised reward make you perseverant in your work. — Commentary on the Catholic Epistles Hilary of Arles : Christ's promise is that we shall receive a hundred times over in this life, and eternal life in the next. — INTRODUCTORY COMMENTARY ON 1 JOHN Oecumenius : "And this is the promise that he himself made to us, eternal life." "And this is the promise." For the conjunction και, that is, "and", must be taken causally for "indeed". But what is the promise? It is that which the Lord says to the Father: "That as I am in you and you are in me, so they may be one in us." (Jn. 17:21) And again: "That they may have eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (Jn. 17:3) — Commentary on 1 John