2 John 1:9

For παραβαίνων ([891][892][893]) read προάγων ([894][895][896]). After the second διδαχῇ omit τοῦ Χριστοῦ with [897][898][899] against [900][901].

[891] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[892] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[893] 9th century. A palimpsest. All three Epistles excepting 1 John 3:19 to 1 John 5:1. There is a facsimile of a portion in Hammond’s Outlines of Textual Criticism showing the late leaning uncial letters of the 9th century (Acts 4:10-15), with cursives of the 13th (Hebrews 7:17-25) written over them.

[894] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[895] 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.
[896] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[897] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.
[898] 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.
[899] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.
[900] 9th century. All three Epistles.
[901] 9th century. All three Epistles.

9. Explains more fully what is at stake; no less than the possession of the Father and the Son.

πᾶς ὁ προάγων. See on 1 John 3:16. Everyone that goeth before, or, that goeth onwards. Προάγειν is fairly common in the Synoptists and the Acts, but occurs nowhere else in S. John’s writings. It may be interpreted in two ways: 1. Every one who sets himself up as a leader; 2. Every one who goes on beyond the Gospel. The latter is perhaps better. These antichristian Gnostics were advanced thinkers: the Gospel was all very well for the unenlightened; but they knew something higher. This agrees very well with what follows; by advancing they did not abide. There is an advance which involves desertion of first principles; and such an advance is not progress but apostasy.

ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ. ‘In the teaching’, as R.V., is no improvement on ‘in the doctrine’. Of the two words used in N.T., διδαχή (as here) and διδασκαλία (which S. John does not use), the former should be rendered ‘doctrine’, the latter, as being closer to διδάσκαλος and διδάσκειν, should be rendered ‘teaching’. But no hard and fast line can be drawn.

τοῦ Χριστοῦ. The doctrine which He taught (John 18:19; Revelation 2:14-15), rather than the doctrine which teaches about Him.

Θεὸν οὐκ ἔχει. This must not be watered down to mean ‘does not know God’: it means that he has Him not as his God; does not possess Him in his heart as a Being to adore, and trust, and love.

ὁ μένων. The opposite case is now stated, and as usual the original idea is not merely negatived but expanded. Τοῦ Χριστοῦ in this half of the verse has been inserted in some authorities to make the two halves more exactly correspond. Καὶ τ. πατέρα καὶ τ. υἱὸν ἔχει shews that ‘hath not God’ implies ‘hath neither the Father nor the Son’. See on 1 John 2:23.