From: 1 John 1:1-4
Prologue
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Commentary:
1-4. Since the time of the Fathers, these verses have been described as the pro-
logue”, like the prologue of the Fourth Gospel (Jn 1:1-18). In fact, there are many
similarities in doctrine, style and even language between the two.
Both passages sing the praises of the mystery of the Incarnation: the Word of
God who existed from all eternity, “from the beginning”, became man (has been
seen, heard, looked upon and touched) so that men might partake of divine life
— might have “fellowship”, communion, with the Father and the Son. Like the Go-
spel prologue, this one is written in a rhythmical way — “That which was..., which
we have heard..., which we have seen...”. And many of the ideas are the same —
for example, the reference to “the beginning” (cf. Jn 1:1); the term “the Word” to
refer to the second Person of the Blessed Trinity; the reference to “life” (cf. Jn 1:
4).
As St Bede points out, “from the very start of the epistle we are being taught the
divinity and, at the same time, the humanity of our God and Lord Jesus Christ”
(”In I Epist. S. Ioannis, ad loc.”).
1. “That which was from the beginning”: although the pronoun used is neuter —
as if to indicate the ineffable character of the mystery of Christ — the whole
phrase refers not to a thing or an abstract teaching, but to the divine Person of
the Son, who in the fullness of time was made manifest (v. 2), assuming a hu-
man nature. In other words, St John, as in his Gospel, is teaching that Jesus,
a historical person (the Apostles have lived with him, have seen him, have heard
him speak) is the eternal Word of God (cf. Jn 1:1 and note).
“That which we have heard,...seen...”: all those references to perception by the
senses show the Apostle’s desire to make it clear that God really did become
man. This may be because certain heretics were denying the Incarnation, or it
may simply be that he thought it necessary to spell out this fundamental truth
of our faith. He did so in the Gospel (cf., e.g., Jn 20:30-31); and in this letter we
frequently find phrases like “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (4:2); “Jesus
is the Christ” (2:22; cf. 5:1); “Jesus is the Son of God” (4:15; cf.5:1, 12,20).
We have recently been reminded that “the Church reverently preserved the mys-
tery of the Son of God, who was made man, and in the course of the ages and
of the centuries has propounded it for belief in a more explicit way”; moreover,
what the Church teaches “concerning the one and the same Christ the Son of
God, begotten before the ages in his divine nature and in time in his human na-
ture, and also concerning the eternal persons of the Most Holy Trinity, belongs
to the immutable truth of the Catholic faith” (SCDF, “Mysterium Filii Dei”, 2 and
6).
2. St John introduces this verse by way of parenthesis to explain what he means
by “the word of life”. In the Gospel he had written, “In him [the Word] was life” (Jn
1:4) and elsewhere he records Jesus’ statement, “I am the bread of life” (Jn 6:35,
48). These expressions declare that the Son of God has life in all its fullness, that
is, divine life, the source of all life, natural and supernatural. Jesus in fact identi-
fied himself with Life (cf. Jn 11:25; 14:6). By the Incarnation, the Word of God ma-
nifests true life and at the same time makes it possible for that life to be commu-
nicated to men — imperfectly, by means of grace, while they are in this world,
and perfectly in heaven, by means of the beatific vision (cf. 1 Jn 5: 12).
“And we testify to it”: the testimony of the Apostles is something unique in the
history of the Church, because (unlike those who succeed them) they know our
Lord personally, they have been “witnesses” of his life, death and resurrection
(cf. Lk 24:48; Acts 1:8).
“With the Father”: the Greek implies closeness, difference, and the mutual rela-
tionship between Father and Son, so providing a glimpse of the mystery of the
Blessed Trinity (cf. note on Jn 1:1).
3-4. This testimony about Christ is designed to lead to fellowship and complete
joy. Fellowship with the Apostles (the Greek word is “koinonia”) means, firstly,
having the same faith as those who lived with Jesus: “They saw our Lord in the
body,” St Augustine reminds us, “and they heard words from his lips and have
proclaimed them to us; we also have heard them, but we have not seen him [...].
They saw him, we do not see him, and yet we have fellowship with them, be-
cause we have the same faith” (”In Epist. Ioann. ad Parthos”, 1, 3).
To have fellowship with the Father and the Son we need to have the same faith
as the Apostles: “St John openly teaches that those who desire to partake of
union with God must first partake of union with the Church, learn the same faith
and benefit from the same sacraments as the Apostles received from the full-
ness of Truth made flesh” (St Bede, “In I Epist. S. Ioannis, ad loc.”). The Church,
the Second Vatican Council teaches, is not simply a collection of people who
think the same way; it is the people of God “whom Christ established as a com-
munion of life, love and truth” (”Lumen Gentium”, 9).
Fellowship, communion, with the Apostles, with the Church, has as its purpose
to bring about union with God (”with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”);
this is a subject St John develops over the course of this letter, as he previously
did in his Gospel (cf., e.g., Jn 17:20ff). Here he uses expressions such as “to
have the Son”, and, in respect of the Son, “to have the Father” (2:23; 5:11ff); “to
be in God” (2:5; 5:20); “to abide in God” (2:6, 24; 3:24; 4:13, 15, 16). This deep,
intimate communion means that, without losing his personality, man shares in
a wonderful and real way in the life of God himself. If Sacred Scripture uses ma-
ny different expressions in this connection, it is due to the fact that the human
mind, because it is so limited, cannot fully grasp the marvelous truth of commu-
nion with God.
Complete joy is the outcome of this communion. Most manuscripts say “our
joy”; others, including the Vulgate, say “your joy”. The difference is not impor-
tant, because “our” involves the Apostles and the faithful, particularly in view of
the mutual fellowship previously mentioned (cf. Jn 15:11; 17:13). This joy, which
will reach its fullness in the next life, is already in this life in some sense com-
plete, insofar as knowledge of Jesus is the only thing that can satisfy man’s
aspirations.
1:5-2:29. This section describes what communion with God is, and the demands
it makes on us. We can say there are two parts in the section: the first (1:5 - 2:
11) teaches that communion with God means walking in the light and, therefore,
rejecting sin and keeping the commandments. The second (2:12-19) warns the
readers to guard against worldly concupiscence and not trust false teachers.
St John is writing as a pastor of souls who has lived the life of the Lord and reflec-
ted deeply upon it. His teaching interweaves truths of faith with moral and asceti-
cal demands because he wants Christians to live in a way consistent with their
faith. Therefore, the text does not really divide into a doctrinal section and a mo-
ral section.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.
From: John 20:1a, 2-8
The Empty Tomb
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Commentary:
1-2. All four Gospels report the first testimonies of the holy women and the dis-
ciples regarding Christ’s glorious resurrection, beginning with the fact of the emp-
ty tomb (cf. Matthew 28:1-15; Mark 16:1ff; Luke 24:1-12) and then telling of the
various appearances of the risen Jesus.
Mary Magdalene was one of the women who provided for our Lord during His jour-
neys (Luke 8:1-3); along with the Virgin Mary she bravely stayed with Him right
up to His final moments (John 19:25), and she saw where His body was laid
(Luke 23:55). Now, after the obligatory Sabbath rest, she goes to visit the tomb.
The Gospel points out that she went “early, when it was still dark”: her love and
veneration led her to go without delay, to be with our Lord’s body.
4. The Fourth Gospel makes it clear that, although the women, and specifically
Mary Magdalene, were the first to reach the tomb, the Apostles were the first
to enter it and see the evidence that Christ had risen (the empty tomb, the linen
clothes “lying” and the napkin in a place by itself). Bearing witness to this will be
an essential factor in the mission which Christ will entrust to them: “You shall be
My witnesses in Jerusalem ... and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8; cf. Acts 2:
32).
John, who reached the tomb first (perhaps because he was the younger), did not
go in, out of deference to Peter. This is an indication that Peter was already re-
garded as leader of the Apostles.
5-7. The words the Evangelist uses to describe what Peter and he saw in the
empty tomb convey with vivid realism the impression it made on them, etching on
their memory details which at first sight seem irrelevant. The whole scene inside
the tomb in some way caused them to intuit that the Lord had risen. Some of the
words contained in the account need further explanation, so terse is the transla-
tion.
“The linen clothes lying there”: the Greek participle translated as “lying there”
seems to indicate that the clothes were flattened, deflated, as if they were em-
ptied when the body of Jesus rose and disappeared — as if it had come out of the
clothes and bandages without their being unrolled, passing right through them
(just as later He entered the Cenacle when the doors were shut). This would ex-
plain the clothes being “fallen”, “flat” “lying”, which is how the Greek literally tran-
slates, after Jesus’ body — which had filled them — left them. One can readily un-
derstand how this would amaze a witness, how unforgettable the scene
“The napkin...rolled up in a place by itself”: the first point to note is that the nap-
kin, which had been wrapped round the head, was not on top of the clothes, but
placed on one side. The second, even more surprising thing is that, like the
clothes, it was still rolled up but, unlike the clothes, it still had a certain volume,
like a container, possibly due to the stiffness given it by the ointments: this is
what the Greek participle, here translated as “rolled”, seems to indicate.
From these details concerning the empty tomb one deduces that Jesus’ body
must have risen in a heavenly manner, that is, in a way which transcended the
laws of nature. It was not only a matter of the body being reanimated as hap-
pened, for example, in the case of Lazarus, who had to be unbound before he
could walk (cf. John 11:44).
8-10. As Mary Magdalene had told them, the Lord was not in the tomb; but the
two Apostles realized that there was no question of any robbery, which was what
she thought had happened, because they saw the special way the clothes and
napkin were; they know began to understand what the Master had so often told
them about His death and resurrection (cf. Matthew 16:21; Mark 8:31; Luke
9:22; etc.; cf. also the notes on Mt. 12:39-40 and Lk 18:31-40).
The empty tomb and the other facts were perceptible to the senses; but the re-
surrection, even though it had effects that could be tested by experience, re-
quires faith if it is to be accepted. Christ’s resurrection is a real, historic fact: His
body and soul were reunited. But since His was a glorious resurrection unlike La-
zarus’, far beyond our capacity in this life to understand what happened, and out-
side the scope of sense experience, a special gift of God is required — the gift of
faith — to know and accept as a certainty this fact which, while it is historical, is
also supernatural. Therefore, St. Thomas Aquinas can say that “the individual ar-
guments taken alone are not sufficient proof of Christ’s resurrection, but taken to-
gether, in a cumulative way, they manifest it perfectly. Particularly important in
this regard are the spiritual proofs (cf. specially Luke 24:25-27), the angelic testi-
mony (cf. Luke 24:4-7) and Christ’s own post-resurrection word confirmed by mi-
racles (cf. John 3:13; Matthew 16:21; 17:22; 20:18)” (St. Thomas Aquinas, “Sum-
ma Theologiae”, III, q. 55, a. 6 ad 1).
In addition to Christ’s predictions about His passion, death and resurrection (cf.
John 2:19; Matthew 16:21; Mark 9:31; Luke 9:22), the Old Testament also fore-
tells the glorious victory of the Messiah and, in some way, His resurrection (cf.
Psalm 16:9; Isaiah 52:13; Hosea 6:2). The Apostles begin to grasp the true mea-
ning of Sacred Scripture after the resurrection, particularly once they receive the
Holy Spirit, who fully enlightens their minds to understand the content of the
Word of God. It is easy to imagine the surprise and elation they all feel when
Peter and John tell them what they have seen in the tomb.
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.