Andreas of Caesarea

In his own words on 1 John

• 1 John 1:2

  John says this with reference to the close union of the Word with the flesh. Or perhaps he says this with reference to the resurrection, considering the way in which it was made known to the apostles by the action of Thomas. That proved that Christ rose again with the same flesh in which he had been crucified.

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• 1 John 1:3

  What did they proclaim, but that eternal life has appeared to us and that we have become witnesses of it? What you gain from this proclamation is the right to share this experience with us. For the one who is in fellowship with us has fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, and since you share in the same fellowship, we shall all have joy together, in that we have been united to God.

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• 1 John 1:5

  What is this message? It is that eternal life has appeared to us. For the Father so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, and this is what we proclaim to you—that the Word of God who has come into the world and become a man is both God and light.

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• 1 John 1:6

  John says that if we sin we have no fellowship with God, but if we do the works of light, then we have fellowship with one another.

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• 1 John 1:8

  This is how John describes the Jews who dared to say: "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children," as if they could crucify Christ without being sinners. If we say such things, we deceive ourselves.

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• 1 John 1:9

  If we acknowledge our sin and confess it, he will forgive it, and not only that one but all our sins. For when a person repents and is baptized into the name of Jesus Christ, God forgives all his sins which he has committed both against himself and against heaven.

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• 1 John 1:10

  If we say that we have not sinned, we reject his word, which is spirit and life.

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• 1 John 2:1

  John knows that those who have been enlightened have not been given an impassible nature, but neither have they been let out of prison in order that they might sin.

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• 1 John 2:2

  John is saying: "I am writing these things to you, not so that you may say that you no longer sin at all, but so that when you do sin, you will not remain in that state, for Jesus propitiates your sins in the Father's presence."

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• 1 John 2:3

  John shows here that true knowledge means demonstrating that one is faithful to Christ by obeying his commandments.

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• 1 John 2:4

  It is obvious that the person who does not keep God's commandments has no knowledge of him.

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• 1 John 2:7

  Someone may ask how it was possible for the hearers of this letter to have known the commandment from the beginning, since they were not Jews (as appears from the end of the letter, where they are told to keep themselves from idols). But is there not a commandment which is old, which has existed from the beginning and which all people everywhere have heard? For everybody, even domestic animals, naturally loves those who are close to them.

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• 1 John 2:8

  The new dimension to the commandment is that now the light has come into the world, our Lord Jesus, because of whom the power of the devil has passed away.

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• 1 John 2:9

  How can someone say that he belongs to Christ and at the same time hate his brother for whom Christ died? Or if someone says he belongs to God and yet hates Christ, who has become our brother by becoming a man, he is not of God but of the devil. For if he were of God, he would love the brother who had been sent to him and anointed by grace.

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• 1 John 2:11

  Those who hate Christ do not realize that they have become the inheritors of eternal fire. This is what the devil makes them suffer, because he has blinded their inner vision.

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• 1 John 2:13

  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.

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• 1 John 2:15

  Lest anyone think that he has completely broken with the system of this world, John here reminds us that something of it remains inside us and that we are attracted by it because of the desires of our flesh, which are at war with our soul. From this it may be seen that the visible world is no longer loved by those who have risen above it, who no longer contemplate temporal things but gaze on eternity instead.

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• 1 John 2:16

  None of the vain pleasures of corruption will last. They are temporal and will fade away and in fact are flimsier than any cobweb.

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• 1 John 2:17

  In discussing with the Jews, Christ explained: "This is the will of the Father, that you should believe in the one whom he has sent." The one who keeps his commandments will gain eternal life.

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• 1 John 2:18

  The antichrist will come at the end of the world, and the heresies have already announced his coming, for they are his friends and brothers, since they both blaspheme Christ.

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• 1 John 2:19

  John says this because there were some people who had become teachers but had subsequently departed from the truth in order to follow the blasphemies of their own minds. But even if they were once among us, John adds, they were never really part of us, since if they had been, they would have stayed with us.

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• 1 John 2:20

  This is what each of us has received at baptism.

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• 1 John 2:22

  This was the heresy of Simon, which said that Jesus and the Christ were two different people. According to them, Jesus was a man, the son of Mary, but Christ descended from heaven in the form of a dove at the Jordan. John therefore condemns those who think like that and brands their belief with the name of the devil. There were still others who made a distinction between the Father and some nameless deity beyond him, whom they called the Father of Christ. These too denied Jesus, saying that he was a mere man and did not have the nature of God.

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• 1 John 2:23

  There were other heretics who denied the Son but claimed to know the Father. In fact of course they did not know the Father either, because if they had known him they would have known that he is the Father of the only-begotten Son. These people were similar to the Jews, who say that they know the Father but do not accept the Son. They are also like the Simonians, who share the same ungodly confusion.

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• 1 John 2:24

  Rejecting ungodliness, John goes on to teach the doctrine of godliness and to encourage his listeners to accept it, saying that by it they will have fellowship with both the Father and the Son, as well as the promise of eternal life.

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• 1 John 2:27

  Do not mix anything earthly with the oil of anointing with which you have been anointed, and the devil will not get hold of you.

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• 1 John 2:28

  Having the Holy Spirit as your teacher of godly knowledge, do not go after deceiving spirits, but think in the way that he has taught you, so that at his appearing in glory we may stand with confidence before him.

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• 1 John 3:1

  God shows us the necessary patience because of the inheritance which he has given us. Here the "world" refers to wicked people.

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• 1 John 3:3

  Some people argue from this that God made man according to his image but not according to his likeness, which he will give us later on. We have supposedly believed in him according to the likeness which we have, and if that is worthy enough, then we shall receive God's likeness as well. But if you have believed according to the likeness and then turn away from it and destroy it, who will give you what belongs to the likeness? You will not be able to acquire the likeness unless you have fully perfected the image first. This is supposed to be why John adds the words: "Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself, as he is pure." But my bishop, in his letter to Conon, has shown on the basis of the recognized Fathers of the church that the image and the likeness are one and the same thing and that John was speaking here of something which has already taken place.

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• 1 John 3:6

  How can someone sin if he is not cut off from God in any way?

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• 1 John 3:8

  As often as we sin, we are born of the devil. But we are of God once again, as often as we pursue virtue.

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• 1 John 3:9

  The divine seed is Christ, who dwells in believers and makes them become sons of God. Likewise, when it is said that in Abraham's seed all the nations will be blessed, this too is a reference to Christ. John says that the Spirit is the seed which we receive through the blessing of our mind. For he dwells in us, making the mind of sin no longer welcome.

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• 1 John 3:10

  Love is the mark of sinlessness, and hate is the mark of sin. Since the person who walks in righteousness is born of God, it follows that someone who is so born will love the brothers, whereas someone who does not have this new birth will not do so. Rather he who hates his brother is not of God.

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• 1 John 3:12

  Cain became unrighteous and turned into the very first person who killed a member of his family, thereby teaching human nature the way of murder.

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• 1 John 3:14

  God says: "He who hears my words and does them will not see death but will be changed from death into life."

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• 1 John 4:2

  It is characteristic of the antichrist, who is coming into the world and has indeed already come, to deny Christ through false prophets and spirits by saying that he never came in the flesh. There are many different heretics, but on this point they all speak with the same voice. To confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh does not just mean that he has come in his own flesh but that he enters my flesh as well.

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• 1 John 4:4

  The one who is in you is God the Father, through the Son and the Paraclete. The one in the world is Satan, for "world" here refers to evil people.

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• 1 John 4:5

  Who are these but the heretics and Manichaeans? For they blaspheme, speaking evil words out of their evil minds.

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• 1 John 4:7

  What does it mean to say that love is from God? Surely this refers to the man who came from God, who was revealed according to the image and likeness of the one who made him? For when this man appeared, he was revealed as the beloved and as worthy of being loved. Now since this Savior has been sent into the world because of the Father's great love for the things which he has made, those who have received this blessing and who are thus beloved ought to love one another. For each of us is loved and is called to love, having the command that we should love our neighbor.

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• 1 John 4:12

  This is how God's love works. God comes to dwell in us, though no one has ever seen him.

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• 1 John 4:17

  Jesus said: "The ruler of this world is coming, and he shall find nothing in me." We ought to be the same, so that nothing of this world may be found in us either.

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• 1 John 4:19

  God loves us so much that even the hairs of our head are numbered, as it says in the Gospels. It is not that God goes around numbering hairs but rather that he has exact understanding and complete foreknowledge of everything to do with us.

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• 1 John 4:21

  The person who loves God keeps his commandments, and loving one's brother is the fulfillment of those commandments. The person who does not love his brother has not kept the commandments and by not keeping them has not loved God. The one who says he loves but does not do so is a liar.

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• 1 John 5:1

  By practicing virtue, those who are born of God have become his children, his friends, just as Abraham was. Once again John touches on the doctrine of truth, revealing the depths of the unbelief of the heretics.

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• 1 John 5:3

  Keeping the commandments is both the form and substance of our love for God. Those who obey them are brought close to God by them. If someone looks at them in the wrong way and says that they are heavy to bear, he is merely revealing his own weakness.

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• 1 John 5:4

  This means that such a person has overcome all evil and ungodliness. For our faith has destroyed all ignorance and driven out all darkness.

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• 1 John 5:6

  What flowed from his side was also the blood which cleanses us from sin and sanctifies the people of God.… It was not a mere man who appeared at the Jordan but the incarnate Word of God, to whom the Father also bore witness: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Similarly, when he was hanging on the cross, what sounded to the people like thunder was the voice of God speaking at the moment that his blood fell to the ground.

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• 1 John 5:10

  After giving us one testimony about his Son, God gave us another, which is eternal life.

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• 1 John 5:16

  It is the sin of heresy, or of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which leads to death. If one man sins against another, pray for him. But if he sins against God, who is there who can pray on his behalf?

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• 1 John 5:18

  It may be true that the righteous person does not sin, but no one is a child of God by nature. This is why we avoid sin, not by the way in which we were made, which would make sin impossible for us, but by watching out that we do not fall into it.

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• 1 John 5:20

  Even at the end of his letter, John never stops insisting on the need for right doctrine. We have been given understanding to the extent that we have known the Son of God, who really has come into the world. This is what it means to say that "we have the mind of Christ." The person who has this mind and understanding knows what is really true and is united with him because he shares the same mind.

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