but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old command- ment is the word which ye heard. Again, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you—a thing which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the light, the true light, is already shining. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in the darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no stumbling-block in his way; but he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not where he is going, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”
St. John has lately discovered the supremacy of Love in the Christian revelation (see Introd. pp. 157 f.). His im- perfect realisation of this has been the defect of his teaching hitherto, and he would now repair it: “It is not a new commandment that I am writing to you; it is part of the Gospel which I have been preaching to you all along. But I have never adequately understood it, and therefore it is new to your ears as it is to my heart.”
Ver.7. ἀγαπητοί, St. John’s favourite Style (οὗ πμ, ο \20,) τν. 1,7, τα)”. About to enjoin love, he begins by loving. Katvds, “novel,” ‘new in kind” (novus) as distinguished from véos, “new in time” (vecens). am ἀρχῆς, here not as in i. 1, but ‘‘ from the beginning of your Christian life”. ἡ évroAn ἡ παλαιά, cf. i. 2: τὴν Conv τὴν αἰώνιον.
Ver. 8. πάλιν, “again,” 1.6. in an- other sense, from another point of view, not in itself but in our recognition of it, “itis a new commandment”. 6 ἐστιν ἀληθές, in apposition to ἐντολήν---''α thing which is true,” viz., the paramount
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