1 John 2:8
Again a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true both in him and in you; because the darkness is passed, and the true light now shineth.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Iterum mandatum novum scribo vobis, quod verum est et in ipso, et in vobis : quia tenebræ transierunt, et verum lumen jam lucet.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- πάλιν ἐντολὴν καινὴν γράφω ὑμῖν, ὅ ἐστιν ἀληθὲς ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν, ὅτι ἡ σκοτία παράγεται καὶ τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ἤδη φαίνει.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 7 to 8
An old commandment....and again, a new commandment. He means the commandment of charity, or of the love of God and the love of our neighbour. This he calls both an old and a new precept. It may be called old, not only as being a precept of the law of nature, and always obligatory, but because St. John and the other apostles had delivered it to them long ago, i.e. when these persons were first converted. It may also be called a new precept, St. John recommending it anew to them in this epistle, and declaring it to be enjoined in a particular manner by our Saviour Christ, after it had been misconstrued and neglected, especially as it regards our neighbour, that is, every one without exception; so that if any one hate another, it is in vain that he pretends to walk in the light of the gospel. (Witham)
A new commandment; viz. the commandment of love, which was given in the old law, but was renewed and extended by Christ. See John xiii. 33. (Challoner)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus
Ver. 8 . “This is the commandment; for the darkness” of perversion, that is, “has passed away, and, lo, the true light hath already shone,”, that is, through faith, through knowledge, through the Covenant working in men, through prepared judgments.
St Augustine Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John, 1 John I. 1, II. 11
10. “Dearly beloved, I write unto you no new commandment, but the old commandment which ye had from the beginning.” What commandment calls he “old? Which ye had,” saith he, “from the beginning. Old” then, in this regard, that ye have already heard it: otherwise he will contradict the Lord, where He saith, “A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another.” But why an “old” commandment? Not as pertaining to the old man. But why? “Which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard.” Old then, in this regard, that ye have already heard it. And the selfsame he showeth to be new, saying, “Again, a new commandment write I unto you.” Not another, but the selfsame which he hath called old, the same is also new. Why? “Which thing is true in Him and in you.” Why old, ye have already heard: i.e. , because ye knew it already. …