1 John 2:15

15. [489][490] read ἡ�. Some later authorities have the conflate reading ἡ� τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ πατρός.

[489] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[490] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 4:2; 3 John 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

15. μὴ�. The asyndeton is remarkable. S. John has just stated his premises, his readers’ happiness as Christians. He now abruptly states the practical conclusion, without any introductory οὖν or διὰ τοῦτο. Our equally abrupt ‘Love not the world’ comes from the Rhemish. Tyndale and others weaken it by expansion; ‘So that ye love not the worlde.’ And obviously S. John is once more addressing all his readers, not the νεανίσκοι only. Omnibus his pariter mandat (Bede). As was said above on 1 John 2:2, we must distinguish between the various meanings of the Apostle’s favourite word, κόσμος. In John 3:16 he tells us that ‘God loved the world’, and here he tells us that we must not do so. “S. John is never afraid of an apparent contradiction when it saves his readers from a real contradiction.… The opposition which is on the surface of his language may be the best way of leading us to the harmony which lies below it” (Maurice). The world which the Father loves is the whole human race. The world which we are not to love is all that is alienated from Him, all that prevents men from loving Him in return. The world which God loves is His creature and His child: the world which we are not to love is His rival. The best safeguard against the selfish love of what is sinful in the world is to remember God’s unselfish love of the world. Ὁ κόσμος here is that from which S. James says the truly religious man keeps himself ἄσπιλον, friendship with which is ἔχθρα τοῦ Θεοῦ (James 1:27; James 4:4). It is not enough to say that ‘the world’ here means ‘earthly things, so far as they tempt to sin,’ or ‘sinful lusts,’ or ‘worldly and impious men.’ It means all of these together: all that acts as a rival to God; all that is alienated from God and opposed to Him, especially sinful men with their sinful lusts. Ὁ κόσμος and ἡ σκοτία are almost synonymous. To love the one is to love the other (John 3:19). To be ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ (1 John 2:9; 1 John 2:11) is to be ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου (1 John 2:16; 1 John 4:5). Nor is μὴ� to be weakened into ‘love not too much’: it means quite literally, ‘love not at all.’ The world ‘lies in the evil one’ (1 John 2:19); and those who ‘have overcome the evil one’ cannot love the world.

μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷκ. Nor yet the things &c. ‘Love not the world; no, nor anything in that sphere.’ Comp. Matthew 6:25; Matthew 23:9-10; and μὴ συναναμίγνυσθαι … τῷ τοιούτῳ μηδὲ συνεσθίειν (1 Corinthians 5:11). Τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, as is plain from 1 John 2:16, are not material objects, which can be desired and possessed quite innocently, although they may also be occasions of sin. Rather, they are those elements in the world which are necessarily evil, its lusts and ambitions and jealousies, which stamp it as the kingdom of ‘the ruler of this world’ (John 12:31) and not the kingdom of God.

ἐάν τις�. Once more, as in 1 John 2:1, the statement is made quite general by the hypothetical form: everyone who does so is in this case. The Lord had proclaimed the same principle; ‘No man can serve two masters … Ye cannot serve God and mammon’ (Matthew 6:24). So also S. James; ‘Whosoever would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God’ (1 John 4:4). Comp. Galatians 1:10. Thus we arrive at another pair of those opposites of which S. John is so fond. We have had light and darkness, truth and falsehood, love and hate; we now have love of the Father and love of the world. The world which is coextensive with darkness must exclude the God who is light.

ἡ� occurs nowhere else: hence the reading of [567][568], ἡ�. τ. Θεοῦ. It means man’s love to the Father, not His to man (see on 1 John 2:5); and it points to the duty of Christians as children of God. They must not love their Father’s enemies. The order of the Greek is perhaps to be preserved. There is not the love of the Father in him. Whatever profession there may be of Christianity, the guiding principle of his life is something quite different from devotion to God.

[567] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[568] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1 John 1:1 to 1 John 4:2; 3 John 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.