1 John 2:13

He now subdivides τεκνία into ποτέρες, i.e., mature believers with a long and ever-deepening (ἐγνώκατε) experience behind them, and νεανίσκοι, who, though ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκός is strong within them, have conquered the Evil One by the aids of grace an evidence of the reality of their interest in Christ. ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς. as in 1 John 1:1. The ancient interpreters took τεκνία, πατέρες, νεανίσκοι as a threefold classification, according to age (Aug., Athan.) or according to Christian experience, κατὰ τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον (Euth. Zig.); but the order would then be either τεκνία, νεανίσκοι, πατέρες or πατέρες, νεανίσκοι, τεκνία. According to the variant γράφω ὑμῖν, παιδία, τεκνία is a general appellation subdivided into πατέρες, νεανίσκοι, παιδία. 1 John 2:14 should begin with ἔγραψα ὑμῖν, παιδία. The aor. ἔγραψα is most simply and reasonably explained as a reference to the Apostle's Gospel (see Introd. p. 154). Having assured them of his present conviction of the sincerity of their faith, he now goes on to assure them that he had entertained a like opinion when he wrote the Gospel for their instruction. His tone is much like that of 2 Peter 1:12. Other explanations: (1) The reference is to a former epistle (cf. 3 John 1:9) a gratuitous and unnecessary hypothesis. (2) The Apostle resumes after a pause whether in composition or in thought, and reiterates what he “has written”. (3) An emphatic form of expression, like “we decree and have decreed”. (4) Calvin, reading γράφω ὑμῖν, παιδία, regards πατέρες … πονηρόν as an interpolation. This is to cut the knot instead of untying it. παιδία, a general appellation for all the Apostle's readers, practically identical with τεκνία. Strictly τεκνία carries the idea of relationship by birth-regeneration; cf. Aug.: “ Quia remittuntur vobis peccata per nomen ejus, et regeneramini in novam vitam, ideo filii”. παιδία, on the other hand, are merely “children,” pueri (Aug.), infantes (Vulg.), and the distinction is ὅτι ἐγνώκατε τὸν Πατέρα. All men are children of God, believers are children who “have got to know the Father'