Ch. ii. 12-17.
Ver. 12, 13, 14. These verses cannot properly be divided so as to embrace three departments of spiritual, answering to three departments of natural, life. All believers are addressed _authoritatively_ as "children" in the faith, _tenderly_ as "little children;" then subdivided into two classes only, "fathers," and "young men." _Confirmation_ is justly found implied here.
Ver. 16. Hardy's comment is quaint, and interesting. "These three are 'all that is in the world;' they are the world's cursed trinity; according to that of the poet,
Ambitiosus honos, et opes, et fœda voluptas; Hæc tria pro trino numine mundus habet,
which wicked men adore and worship as deities; in which regard Lapide opposeth them to the three persons in the blessed Trinity: the lust of the eyes to the Father, who is liberal in communicating His essence to the Son and the Spirit; the lust of the flesh to the Son, whose generation is spiritual and eternal; the pride of life to the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit of humility. That golden calf, which, being made, was set up and worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness, is not unfitly made use of to represent these: the calf, which is a wanton creature, an emblem of the lust of flesh; the gold of the calf, referring to the lust of the eyes; and the exalting it, to the pride of life. Oh, how do the most of men fall down before this golden calf which the world erecteth."
In tracing the various senses of "the world" we have not dwelt prominently upon the conception of the world as embodied in the Roman Empire, and in the city of Rome as its seat--an empire standing over against the Church as the Kingdom of God. The αλαζονια του βιου may be projected outwardly, and set in a material framework in the gorgeous description of the wealth and luxury of Rome in Apoc. xviii. 11-14. M. Rénan finds in the Apocalypse the cry of horror of a witness who has been at Rome, seen the martyrdom of brethren, and been himself near death. (Apoc. i. 9, vi. 9, xiii. 10, xx. 4; cf. _L'Antechrist_, pp. 197, 199. Surely Apoc. xviii. 20 adds a strong testimony to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul at Rome.) So early a witness as Tertullian gives the story of St. John's having been plunged into the boiling oil without injury to him before his exile at Patmos. (_De Præscr. Hær._, 36). The Apocryphal 'Acta Iohannis' (known to Eusebius and to St. Augustine), relates at length an interview at Rome between Domitian and St. John--not without interest, in spite of some miraculous embellishment. _Acta. Apost. Apoc._ Tischendorf, 266-271.