1 John 5:17
All iniquity is sin. And there is a sin unto death.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Omnis iniquitas, peccatum est : et est peccatum ad mortem.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- πᾶσα ἀδικία ἁμαρτία ἐστίν, καὶ ἔστιν ἁμαρτία οὐ πρὸς θάνατον.
Haydock's commentary
All iniquity4 is sin. The sense here is, that sin is always an injury or an injustice done to God; but though every sin implies such an injury and an offence against God, yet there are different degrees in such injuries, which are not always such an injustice as St. John calls the sin unto death. (Witham)
4 Omnis iniquitas, pasa adikia, properly injustitia. It is not here anomia, as in Chap. iii. 4.
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, Chapter XV. On the Different Kinds of Voluntary Actions, and the Sins Thence Proceeding
Mistake is a sin contrary to calculation; and voluntary sin is crime ( ἀδικία ); and crime is voluntary wickedness. Sin, then, is on my part voluntary. Wherefore says the apostle, “Sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Addressing those who have believed, he says, “For by His stripes we were healed.” Mistake is the involuntary action of another towards me, while a crime ( ἀδικία ) alone is voluntary, whether my act or another’s. These differences of sins are alluded to by the Psalmist, when he calls those blessed whose iniquities ( ἀνομίας ) God hath blotted out, and whose sins ( ἁμαρτίας ) He hath covered. Others He does not impute, and the rest He forgives. For it is written, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered. …
Tertullian On Modesty, Chapter XIX
Thus John’s rule of diversity will be established; arranging as he does a distinction of sins, while he now admits and now denies that the sons of God sin. For (in making these assertions) he was looking forward to the final clause of his letter, and for that (final clause) he was laying his preliminary bases; intending to say, in the end, more manifestly: “If any knoweth his brother to be sinning a sin not unto death, he shall make request, and the Lord shall give life to him who sinneth not unto death. For there is a sin unto death: not concerning that do I say that one should make request.” He, too, (as I have been), was mindful that Jeremiah had been prohibited by God to deprecate (Him) on behalf of a people which was committing mortal sins. “Every unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin unto death. …
Socrates Scholasticus Book IV, Of Novatus and his Followers. The Novatians of Phrygia alter the Time of keeping Easter, following Jewish Usage
About this time the Novatians inhabiting Phrygia changed the day for celebrating the Feast of Easter. How this happened I shall state, after first explaining the reason of the strict discipline which is maintained in their church, even to the present day, in the provinces of Phrygia and Paphlagonia. Novatus, a presbyter of the Roman Church, separated from it, because Cornelius the bishop received into communion believers who had sacrificed during the persecution which the Emperor Decius had raised against the Church. …
Socrates Scholasticus Book VII, Christian Benevolence of Atticus Bishop of Constantinople. He registers John's Name in the Diptychs. His Fore-knowledge of his Own Death
Thus did Atticus consider even the poor who were at a distance from him. He labored also to abolish the superstitions of certain persons. For on being informed that those who had separated themselves from the Novatians, on account of the Jewish Passover, had transported the body of Sabbatius from the island of Rhodes, for in that island he had died in exile, and having buried it, were accustomed to pray at his grave, he caused the body to be disinterred at night, and deposited in a private sepulchre; and those who had formerly paid their adorations at that place, on finding his tomb had been opened, ceased honoring that tomb thenceforth. Moreover he manifested a great deal of taste in the application of names to places. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).