{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-484","native_reference":{"book_number":690,"chapter_from":2,"chapter_to":2,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":13,"verse_to":13},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Andreas of Caesarea</b>: The different ages here are to be understood in spiritual terms; they refer to our maturity in faith. First you must become a child and be weaned off evil. It is in this state that you must put off the weight of your old sins. Once you have done this, you can progress to the status of adolescents, when you must struggle against evil. Finally you will be deemed worthy of the deep knowledge of God which characterizes parents. This is the best and truest order of growth toward acceptance by the Father.<br/><i>— CATENA</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: \"I write unto you, fathers.\" Why first sons? \"Because your sins are forgiven you through His name,\" and ye are regenerated into a new life, therefore sons. Why fathers? \"Because ye have known Him that is from the beginning:\" for the beginning hath relation unto fatherhood. Christ new in flesh, but ancient in Godhead. How ancient think we? how many years old? Think we, of greater age than His mother? Assuredly of greater age than His mother, for \"all things were made by Him.\" If all things, then did the Ancient make the very mother of whom the New should be born. Was He, think we, before His mother only? Yea, and before His mother's ancestors is His antiquity. The ancestor of His mother was Abraham; and the Lord saith, \"Before Abraham I am.\" Before Abraham, say we? The heaven and earth, ere man was, were made. Before these was the Lord, nay rather also is. For right well He saith, not, Before Abraham I was, but, \"Before Abraham I Am.\" For that of which one says, \"was,\" is not; and that of which one says, \"will be,\" is not yet: He knoweth not other than to be. As God, He knoweth \"to be:\" \"was,\" and \"will be,\" He knoweth not. It is one day there, but a day that is for ever and ever. That day yesterday and tomorrow do not set in the midst between them: for when the 'yesterday' is ended, the 'to-day' begins, to be finished by the coming 'tomorrow.' That one day there is a day without darkness, without night, without spaces, without measure, without hours. Call it what thou wilt: if thou wilt, it is a day; if thou wilt, a year; if thou wilt, years. For it is said of this same, \"And thy years shall not fail.\" But when is it called a day? When it is said to the Lord, \"To-day have I begotten Thee.\" From the eternal Father begotten, from eternity begotten, in eternity begotten: with no beginning, no bound, no space of breadth; because He is what is, because Himself is \"He that Is.\" This His name He told to Moses: \"Thou shalt say unto them, He that is hath sent me unto you.\" Why speak then of \"before Abraham\"? why, before Noe? why, before Adam? Hear the Scripture: \"Before the day-star have I begotten Thee.\" In fine, before heaven and earth. Wherefore? Because \"all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.\" By this know ye the \"fathers:\" for they become fathers by acknowledging \"That which is from the beginning.\"<br/><i>— Ten Homilies on 1 John 2</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: \"I write unto you, young men.\" There are sons, are fathers, are young men: sons, because begotten; fathers, because they acknowledge the Beginning; why young men? \"Because ye have overcome the wicked one.\" In the sons, birth: in the fathers, antiquity: in the young men, strength. If the wicked one is \"overcome\" by the young men, he fights with us. Fights, but not conquers. Wherefore? Because we are strong, or because He is strong in us who in the hands of the persecutors was found weak? He hath made us strong, who resisted not His persecutors. \"For He was crucified of weakness, but He liveth by the power of God.\"<br/><i>— Ten Homilies on 1 John 2</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. He calls fathers not by age, but by greater wisdom and maturity. For venerable old age is not counted by long duration nor by the number of years. Gray hairs, however, are the understanding of a man, and the mature age is an unspotted life (Wis. IV). For it is the role of fathers to remember ancient things, to know them, and to reveal these to the younger. Hence, it is written: \"Ask your fathers, and they will tell you\" (Deut. XXXII). And thus he rightly calls fathers those who have learned to know Him who is from the beginning, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and to faithfully preach to their hearers.<br/><i>— Commentary on the Catholic Epistles</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. Youth is a slippery time because of the incentives of the flesh, but fitted for battle due to the vigor of age. Hence, John writes to those youths who have, by the love of God's word, overcome the temptations of carnal delights. He writes also to those who, with greater perfection, despite persecutions inflicted because of the word of God, have bravely scorned all the plots of the wicked enemy.<br/><i>— Commentary on the Catholic Epistles</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. He calls little children those humble in spirit, who, the more they consent to be humbled under the mighty hand of God, the more sublimely know the mysteries of His eternity, just as the Son says to the same Father: You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to little ones (Luke X).<br/><i>— Commentary on the Catholic Epistles</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. He commends this and repeats it: Remember that you are fathers. If you forget Him who is from the beginning, you lose the fatherhood.<br/><i>— Commentary on the Catholic Epistles</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria</b>: By \"fathers\" John means those perfect people who understood everything from the very beginning and readily perceived that the Son had always existed.<br/><i>— From the Latin Translation of Cassiodorus</i></p><p><b>Clement of Alexandria ((as quoted by Cassiodorus))</b>: He styles \"fathers\" the perfect, \"who have known what was from the beginning,\" and received with understanding - the Son, that is, of whom he said above, \"that which was from the beginning.\"</p><p>\"I write,\" says he, \"to you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.\" Young man strong in despising pleasures. \"The wicked one\" points out the eminence of the devil. \"The children,\" moreover, know the Father; having fled from idols and gathered together to the one God.<br/><i>— From the Latin Translation of Cassiodorus</i></p><p><b>Oecumenius</b>: \"I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I wrote to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I wrote to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.\"<br/>But others, like those who have advanced to the perfect man, to the full stature of Christ, (Eph. 4:3) and live so that they can also make others sons: to whom it is also testified that they have knowledge of him who is from the beginning. But who is he who is from the beginning (1 Jn. 2:8), except the Word of God, which was in the beginning with God? (Jn. 1:1)<br/>Moreover, others are like young men, who, have overcome energetically and strongly against affections and the afflictions of insults, are testified to be about to receive the palm of victory (see Rev. 7:9). Thus, approaching in another way, John repels the same, adapting the discourse of doctrine to the measure of spiritual understanding. Therefore, I say, since I know you will receive in various ways what has been written by me, it is necessary for me to measure my doctrine according to the nature of your age: and with these, certainly as with children who have known the Father, I truly say God: but with those as with fathers, who have something more than children in knowledge, not only that they have known him as a Father, but also as One who is without beginning, and whose beginning no one can describe: for he was in the beginning.<br/>It is right and proper to add more perfect treatises: indeed, to those strong young men, suitable for struggle and contests, to anoint them: to whom, while declaring the clarity of victory, it shows that discussions on theft and military matters are necessary.<br/><i>— Commentary on 1 John</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"d75625ab0b34d540916c6821e402af70e2e2614316d0c07fe3af7d71c98d42a8","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":484,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"e51164a7bc9428f08704461259fd3864a7a476a11893f5a5eae578ef12beb59b","translator":null,"work":null}