And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, of which you have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
All Commentaries on 1 John 4:3 Go To 1 John 4
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And every spirit which dissolves (solvit) Jesus, is not of God. (Vulg.) It means that Jesus is composed of the Godhead and the manhood by the bond of the hypostatic union. He therefore who loosens this bond, by denying that Christ is God, as do the Arians, or that He is Prayer of Manasseh , as other heretics, is not of God, but of the devil. For such deny that Christ the Son of God came from heaven in the flesh, and say that He is God only or man only. This is what is set forth to be believed in the Athanasian symbol concerning Christ. "For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Prayer of Manasseh , so God and man are one Christ;" where observe that the word as signifies union and unity, not the same but similar. For the rational soul and flesh make our composite being, our man. But the Godhead and the manhood united in Christ make one composite Being, not essentially, but substantially, or hypostatically. Nor indeed does the Godhead inform the Humanity in the same way that the soul informs the body, but subsists whole and immingled. It unites the Manhood to Itself in the same hypostasis of the Word. Wherefore Nestorius truly dissolves Christ, teaching that in Him are two Persons, as there are two Natures, and that therefore in Christ the man is diverse and distinct from God. Christ therefore as God in the Humanity is as the pearl in the shell, conceived and formed of virgin matter, and the dew of the Holy Ghost, most fair by the innocency of His life, most bright by the light of His Wisdom of Solomon , rounded by the possession of all perfection, having the weight of constancy, the polish of meekness, the price of blessedness. So Salmeron.
Observe: the Greek and Syriac read here, Every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. So also reads S. Cyprian (l2. contr. Jud.), Tertullian (lib. de Carne Christ, c24), though they, instead of does not confess, read who denies. But the rest of the Latin Fathers have generally which dissolves, as above. So S. Leo (Epist10 c5), Tertullian also (lib. contr. Psych. c1), and Irenæus (lib3 c18), and S. Augustine on this passage, who also brings forward and explains the other reading. Moreover, in the Greek, instead of ὸμολογε̃ι, i.e, confess, it was formerly read α̉ναλÏει, i.e, dissolves. This we learn from Didymus and S. Cyril (de Fide ad Regin.). And from him Socrates writes (l7 c32), speaking of Nestorius, who denied that the Blessed Virgin was the Mother of God, as follows: "He was ignorant that in ancient copies of the Catholic Epistle of John , it is written, "Every spirit which dissolves Jesus is not of God." For those who wished to separate the Godhead from the dispensation of the Manhood took away this sentence out of the ancient codices."
Allegorically: he dissolves Christ, who by schism rends the Church, which is the Body of Christ. "Christ," says S. Augustine, "came to gather together: thou comest to dissolve. How dost thou not deny that He came in the flesh, when thou breakest in pieces the Church which He gathered together?"
And this is Antichrist: The Greek reads, And this is of Antichrist; the Syriac, This is from the false Christ himself. And S. Cyprian reads (contr. Jud. lib2 c7 vol8), He who denies that He is come in the flesh is not of God, but is of the spirit of Antichrist. In a similar manner, John the Baptist is called Elias, not in person, but in office and spirit.
Because he comes (Vulg.), i.e, will surely come.
And now already he is in the world, not in person, but in spirit; that is to say, in his forerunners. This is what Paul says, "The mystery of iniquity doth already work." ( 2 Thessalonians 2:7.) Thus Luther paved the way for Mahometanism, and consequently for Antichrist, by teaching, amongst other things, that the Turk ought not to be resisted. This he attempted to prove by the following sophistical argument—We must not resist the scourge of God, for that is the same thing as resisting God scourging us. But the Turk is the scourge of God. Therefore the Turk ought not to be resisted. The same argument would prove that thieves and robbers ought not to be resisted, for they are all a scourge of God. But there are scourges that ought to be scourged by the magistrates, for they are not by the direct, but the permissive will of God. And what other effect would such an argument have but to subject all Christians to the Turks, and make them Turks? Wherefore when the Turkish Sultan Solyman asked the imperial ambassador how old Luther was, and received in reply that he was forty-eight, he said he was sorry that on account of his impending old age he would not be able to assist him as much in the time to come as he had done. Luther makes a boast of this Solyman"s good opinion of him (lib. Symposiac), and glories in his entire good-will towards him.
