1 John 4:20

20. For πῶς δύναται ([749][750][751], Peschito, Vulgate) read οὐ δύναται ([752][753], Thebaic).

[749] 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.
[750] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[751] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[752] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[753] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

20. ἐάν τις εἴπῃ. We return to the form of statement which was so common at the beginning of the Epistle (1 John 1:6; 1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:10). The case here contemplated is one form of the man that feareth not. His freedom from fear is caused, however, not by the perfection of love, but by presumption. He is either morally blind or a conscious hypocrite. Comp. 1 John 2:4; 1 John 2:9.

ὁ γὰρ μὴ�. As we have seen already (1 John 3:14-15), S. John treats not loving as equivalent to hating. For μή see on 1 John 2:4; 1 John 3:10; 1 John 3:14.

ὃν ἑώρακεν. S. John does not say ‘whom he can see’, but ‘whom he has continually before his eyes’. The perfect tense, as so often, expresses a permanent state continuing from the past. His brother has been and remains in sight, God has been and remains out of sight. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a saying which holds good in morals and religion as well as in society. And if a man fails in duties which are ever before his eyes and are easy, how can we credit him with performing duties which require an effort to bear in mind and are difficult? And in this case the seen would necessarily suggest the unseen: for the brother on earth implies the Father in heaven. If therefore even the seen is not loved, what must we infer as to the unseen? The seen brother and unseen God are put in striking juxtaposition in the Greek; ‘He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, the God whom he hath not seen cannot love’. But in English this would be misunderstood.

οὐ δύναται. It is a moral impossibility: comp. 1 John 3:9; John 3:3; John 3:5; John 3:27; John 5:19; John 5:30; John 7:7; John 7:34; John 8:21; John 8:43; John 12:39; John 14:17. The reading πῶς δύναται is perhaps a reminiscence of 1 John 3:17 or John 3:4; John 3:9; John 5:44; John 6:52; John 9:16. See critical notes.