And the world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of God abides forever.
All Commentaries on 1 John 2:17 Go To 1 John 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And the world passeth away and the lust thereof. See Matthew 24:35; 1 Corinthians 7:31; 2 Peter 3:11. See also Wisdom v7; S. Bernard, Epist. cvii, &c.
As S. Jerome says (Epist. iii.): "If we were granted the years of Methusalem, yet the previous length would be nothing when it ceased to be, for when the end of life arrives, there will be no difference between the child of ten and the man of a thousand years, except that the old man goes out of life bearing a heavier burden of sin." S. Cyprian (ad. Demetriad) shows at great length that the world is growing old: "The labourer is failing in the field, the mariner at sea, the soldier in camp, honesty in the market, justice in the courts, firmness in friendships, skill in arts, discipline in morals, for the sentence has been passed on the world that all things born should die, all things which have grown up should wax old, strong things should become weak, great things become small, and when they are thus weakened and diminished they come to an end." And S. Anselm, in Rom. xii, says, "Be not constant in love for the world, for, since that which thou lovest abideth not, it is in vain for thee to fix thy heart firmly on it, while that which thou lovest is flying away." This is the reason a posteriori; but the a priori reason is that the world is created from nothing, and therefore tends to become nothing, returning to that from whence it came. But, on the other hand, eternity belongs only to God, He having an uncreated, unchangeable, and eternal nature. Again, the world is not simple, but compounded of various elements; but everything which is so composed is resolved into its own elements or component parts. And the final cause of its being so is that we should turn our thoughts from transient and changing creatures to the Creator, who is unchangeable, and always the same. All creatures silently proclaim this by their changeableness, and our own heart also, as S. Augustine says (Confess. i1), "Thou hast made us, 0 Lord, for Thyself, and our heart is restless till it rests in Thee." S. John adds,
But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. Because the soul which doeth the will of God will, on leaving the body, be blessed for ever, and the body will after death rise immortal and glorious. See Psalm 119:96, and John 5:52. The reason is that love, like the chameleon, conforms the one who loves into the pattern of the thing which he loves, love being an impulse of the mind, and a going out of itself towards the beloved object, whereas understanding and knowledge are, on the contrary, the entering of the thing which is known into the understanding which embraces it. As S. Augustine says, "Every one is like the object he loves. Thou lovest the earth: thou wilt be earthy. Thou lovest God. What shall I say? Wilt thou be God? I dare not say it of myself. Let us hear the scriptures, "I have said ye are gods, and are all the children of the Most Highest." If then ye wish to be gods and sons of the Most Highest, love not the world, nor the things that are in the world." The object which is here loved is God, and the will of God which is stable and eternal, and therefore he that loveth it becomes eternal. See Hos. ix10 , and Sam. i8 , and note. Dost thou wish to be eternal? love eternal good. Dost thou wish to enjoy for ever the beloved object? Love that which is eternal. For if thou lovest a perishable thing, thou wilt perish together with it. But if thou fixest thy mind on an object which is stable, heavenly, divine, and eternal, thou wilt become the same. This is true Wisdom of Solomon , the wisdom of Saints. Fools then are lovers of the world, who in the place of these love transitory and perishable things, and accordingly they pass away, and in truth perish with them for ever. "0 ye sons of men, why do ye love vanity and seek after a lie?" ( Psalm 4.) Why follow ye after—not real things, but—the empty and fleeting shadows of things? Ye cannot grasp a shadow, nor yet hold fast shadowy wealth and honours. Grant us, Lord, this Wisdom of Solomon , "that among all the changes of the world our hearts may there be fixed where there are true joys." S. Augustine says beautifully (in loc.), "Why should not I love that which God made? But what dost thou wish? to love temporal things, and to pass away with them, or not to love the world, and to live for ever with God?" He then compares lovers of the world to a bride who loves the ring her husband has given her, more than she does her husband himself; which is assuredly a spurious love, since he gave it in order that he might be loved in his gift. God gave thee all these things: love Him that made them. He wishes to give thee something more, namely Himself; but if thou lovest these things (though God made them) and neglectest thy Maker, and lovest the world, will it not be regarded as a spurious love?
And Didymus says, "Whosoever despises all things will be above the world. For righteousness endureth for ever, for it is so written." See also Proverbs 10:25. The old Philosophers had some shadowy notion of this. See Seneca, Ep. lix.
My little children, this is the last hour. The time is now at hand for the coming of Antichrist, as ye have often heard. Many antichrists have already come, which is a sign that the world is waxing old, and that your life in it cannot be long. Tear your mind away from the world, its vain and perishing pleasures, fix it entirely on heavenly and eternal things, and on God Himself (see Romans 13:11). And be also on your strict guard against all heretics and impostors. For this, says Å’cumenius and Didymus very properly, leads every one to think about his own end as if his own last hour were at hand, and thus sobriety and purity of living prevail among Christians. See 1 Peter 3:14.
By the last hour is meant the last age of the world. See S. Augustine, Ep. lxxx. to Hesychius. It is the last age in regard to the duration of the world and its division into the three parts of the law of Nature, the law of Moses, and the law of grace, after which no other law or state is to be looked for, as the Jews still expect their Messiah. Å’cumenius (after S. Chrysostom) adds it may mean the "worst" age, as we say of a sick man that he is in extremis. And so too Ribera (in Heb. ix. num. cxiii. seq.) says, that it is the time of impostors and heretics. This exposition is most fitting and appropriate. So says the Gloss, Cajetan, Dionysius, and others.
But the word must be taken in a very wide sense. Some wrongly conjecture that as the first, under the law of nature, lasted for2000 years, and so also the second period under the law, that it will be the same under the Gospel. The early Christians considered that Nero was Antichrist, and S. Cyprian thought that the end of the world was near in his time. See Epist. lib. iv6; and so too S. Jerome, de Monog.; S. Gregory, Epist. iv38; and Lactantius, lib. vii. cap25. See notes on Revelation 20
The word "hour" is used indefinitely. The phrase was familiar to S. John , who called the period an "hour," because it was very short. But in classic authors it signifies a period of time of any length, a season, e.g, as well as the hour of the day. See Is. xxxviii8.
Morally. Hence learn the shortness of life. For if this age of the world is only an hour, what a very small part of it is the life of any one! We are all creatures of an hour. The old have but a part of an hour to live; the young hope for a whole hour, but yet are cut off in its very beginning. As S. Jerome says, "A youth may die soon, an old man cannot live very long."
This word then warns us to be very diligent in employing the time which is allotted us. Suppose a physician or a judge were to tell you to prepare to die—"you will certainly die an hour hence," how anxiously would you clear your conscience, what acts of contrition and charity would you exercise, how would you expend all your goods in good works. Do the same now, for your life is but an hour. Or again, you are afflicted, are sick, are calumniated. Wait a while. It is but for an hour, and after that you pass to a blessed eternity. See1Cor. i29. Melania, a very wealthy noble lady, persuaded her people, by this text of S. John , to sell all they had, and to go to the Holy Land. For she used frequently to say (as indeed she thought) that the world was about to perish. She went to Jerusalem, and died forty days after, and the Barbarians laid waste the city. This took place under Alaric, A.D410.
S. Basil (in Moral. Reg. lxxx cap21) says, "It is the duty of a Christian to watch every day and hour, and to be thus ready for that perfection by which he can please God, as knowing that the Lord will come at an hour he expects not."
Antichrist cometh. See on this the notes on 2 Thessalonians 2:7.
Even now are there many antichrists. Those who are against Christ and true forerunners of Antichrist, because they impugn equally with the faith, the Church, the sacraments of Christ, nay His very nature and person. As Ebion, Cerinthus, &c, and their followers, of whom S. Paul says "the mystery of iniquity is already working" ( 2 Thessalonians 2:7). See note on passage. Rabanus (apud S. Augustine) [vol. vi. append.] says, "Antichrist has many ministers of his malignity. For every one, layman or canon or monk, who lives not righteously, and violates the authority of his order, and speaks against that which is good, is an antichrist, a minister of Satan." Heretics are antichrists, as S. Hilary called Constantius. See note on 1 Peter 3:14.
They went out from us, for they were not of us (either real or pretended) Catholics; and a heretic is one who apostatises from the faith of Christ which he once embraced, and lapses into heresy. See S. Cyprian, Epist. i8 , and de Unit. Eccl.: "Bitterness cannot co-exist with sweetness, darkness with light, rain with clear weather, strife with peace, barrenness with fertility, drought with gushing water, storm with calm. Let none imagine that good men can forsake the Church; the wind does not sweep away the wheat, nor does the storm throw down a tree which is firmly rooted—the chaff is blown away with the storm, and trees weakly rooted are cast down by the violence of a whirlwind," &c. And S. Jerome says [Lib. i. in Jerem.], "They go out in order that they may openly worship that which they used to venerate in secret." And S. Augustine (in loc.) "Ye will understand, from the Apostle"s own exposition, that none can go away but antichrists, but that they who are not contrary to Christ can in no wise go out. For he who is not contrary to Christ abideth in His Body, and is counted a member of it." "They are (he adds afterwards) as evil humours, and just as the body is relieved when they are removed, so is the Church relieved when they go forth, and when the body casts them forth it says, They were not of me, they only weighed on my chest when they were within me."
Whereby we know that it is the last time. For we see the heretics who are his forerunners, just as when we see a king"s outrider, we know that he is near, or that the dawn shows that the sun is about to rise. "Many antichrists," as Å’cumenius says, "go before the one Antichrist, and prepare for him the way."
They were not of us, for had they been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us. They were not genuine Christians. They had not Christian virtue and constancy boldly to resist all temptations, so that when persecution came on them, they gave up the faith and became apostates, as grass is dried up by the heat of the sun. As was said of Joseph and Azarias ( 1 Maccabees 5:62), that "they were not of the seed of those by whom deliverance was wrought in Israel." As the Romans said of traitors that they were not Romans , or as Saul reviled Jonathan
( 1 Samuel 20:30). As S. Augustine says here, "Temptation proves that they are not of us, for when it comes they fly away as not being sound grain." As he says of Judas (Tract1. on John), "He did not at that particular time become wicked when he betrayed the Lord. He was a thief even when he followed the Lord, for he followed Him with the body only, and not in heart." And again (in. loc.), "Every one is of his own will either an antichrist, or in Christ; either one of His members, or among the evil humours. He that changeth himself for the better is a member of the Body, but he that abideth in his wickedness is an evil humour, and when he is gone out, they who were oppressed will be relieved."
2. Many explain these words, "they were not of us," as referring to the free knowledge and predestination of God. They were not thus predestinated and elected, because it was foreseen that they would fall, for everything future is foreseen by God. This does not refer to election to eternal blessedness. S. John did not wish to touch on this mystery, especially because so many who have fallen from the faith have in the end returned to it. And on the other hand there are many reprobates who are still in the Church who are not predestined to glory. But S. Augustine (de bono persever. cap. viii.) understands it of those who are predestined to glory, and of those who (it is foreseen) will perish. Now almost all heresiarchs (excepting only Berengarius), when they have once left the Church, never return to it again, and are consequently foreknown to be reprobates. But we must avoid the error of those who infer from this that the reprobation of God is the cause of their leaving the Church, and subsequent condemnation: a charge which the Semipelagians falsely urged against S. Augustine. He defends himself thus, "They went out voluntarily, they fell voluntarily, and because it was foreseen they would fall, they were not predestinated; but they would have been predestinated, if so be they were to return, and abide in holiness. And in this way predestination is to many a cause of their remaining stedfast, to none is it a cause of their falling." (Art. xii. in art. sibi falso impositis).
3. Some explain the words thus, "They were not of us," because, before they openly withdrew from the Church they had secretly withdrawn from it. Heresy is the very height of impiety, and is reached but gradually. See S. Cyprian, Epist. i8 , and de Unit. Eccl.; and S. Cyril, Catech. vi.
Catherinus and Melchior Canus take the word "us" to mean the Apostles. But this is too narrow a meaning. & John speaks of Christians in general. S. John here warns his disciples not to be alarmed if they saw even bishops become apostate (see Acts 20:3O). Salmeron thinks that of the hundred and twenty who received the Holy Ghost at the day of Pentecost fourteen became heresiarchs. See, too, S. Vincent of Lerius and Tertullian, de Prscript. ch. i. And at the same time he warns them to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. See also Romans 11:20.
But that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. God allowed this to show their inconsistency and want of faith, and to teach the faithful to avoid them. See 1 Corinthians 11:19.
Beza has no ground for inferring from this that the faithful could never fall away. It means only that their falling away was a sign that they were not firmly rooted in the faith. S. Augustine says their apostacy was a sign that they were not of the number of the predestinate and elect.
