Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

1 John 2:25

καὶ αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἐπ. ἣν αὐτὸς ἐπ. ἡμῖν. And the promise which He Himself promised us is this. As in 1 John 1:5; 1 John 3:23; 1 John 5:11; 1 John 5:14, αὕτη is the predicate and refers to what follows, not to what precedes: comp. 1 John 2:22. ‘This is what His promise amounted to—no less than eternal life’. But the connexion with what precedes is close; for eternal life is only another name for abiding in the Son and the Father. Ἐπαγγελία, frequent in the Acts, S. Paul, and Hebrews, occurs here only in S. John: ἐπαγγέλλεσθαι also is used nowhere else by him. For the promise itself see John 3:15; John 4:14; John 6:40; John 6:51; John 6:54; John 6:58, &c. Αὐτός, as commonly in the nominative, is emphatic: et haec est repromissio quam ipse pollicitus est nobis (New Vulgate). Augustine has pollicitatio; the Old Vulgate promissio and vobis. Comp. 1 John 2:2. Of course αὐτός means Christ, “who in this passage forms the centre round which the statements of the Apostle move” (Huther). [577] reads ὑμῖν for ἡμῖν, but the other Uncials and almost all Versions are unanimous for ἡμῖν, which has internal evidence strongly on its side. Note the double article, τὴν ζ. τὴν αἰών., as in 1 John 1:2 and nowhere else in this phrase: but see on 1 John 1:3. Note also that the substantive placed after a relative clause is attracted to the case of the relative: comp. Acts 21:16; Philippians 3:18; Philemon 1:10.

[577] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

1 John 2:25

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