Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

1 John 4:10

10. For ἠγαπήσαμεν ([728]3[729]) we should perhaps read ἠγαπήκαμεν ([730]): [731]1 has the impossible ἠγάπησεν.

[728] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[729] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.
[730] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[731] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

10. ἐν τούτῳ. This again refers to what follows: Love in its full perfection is seen, not in man’s love to God, but in His to man, which reached a climax in His sending His Son to save us from our sins. The superiority of God’s love does not lie merely in the fact of its being Divine. It is first in order of time and therefore necessarily spontaneous: ours is at best only love in return for love. His love is absolutely disinterested; ours cannot easily be so. Comp. Titus 3:4. For ἱλασμός and περὶ τῶν ἁμ. see on 1 John 2:2; ἱλασμὸς περὶ τ. ἀμ. is parallel to ἵνα ζήσωμεν διʼ αὐτοῦ in the previous verse, but an advance on it. It is by being a propitiation for our sins that He wins life for us. Bede tells us that some MSS. had the reading ‘Et misit Filium suum litatorem pro peccatis nostris, adding Litator autem sacrificator est. But litator is more than sacrificator, it is ‘one who sacrifices with favourable results’. Augustine has litator, Lucifer expiator, the Vulgate propitiatio.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

1 John 4:10

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