The First Epistle of St John (1 John)

The First Epistle of St John, in the Vulgate Epistola I Ioannis, is the longest of the three letters the Apostle left to the Church, before the brief Second Epistle of St John and Third Epistle of St John. It reads like the meditation of an old man speaking to his "little children." The preface of the Douay Bible sums it up: "The same vein of divine love and charity towards our neighbour which runs throughout the gospel, written by the beloved disciple and evangelist, S. John, is found also in his epistles. He confirms the two principal mysteries of our faith: the mystery of the Trinity, the mystery of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

Who wrote 1 John?

The Church has always received the Epistle as the work of St John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, the disciple "whom Jesus loved," who also wrote the Gospel of St John and the Apocalypse. The letter does not give his name, but it opens with the claim of an eyewitness: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, of the word of life" (1 John 1).

The Fathers. St Polycarp of Smyrna, John's own disciple, echoes the words of 1 John 4 in his Epistle to the Philippians (ch. 7): "For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist." Eusebius records that Papias of Hierapolis "used testimonies from the first Epistle of John" (Ecclesiastical History III.39). St Irenaeus quotes 1 John 2:18 and 5:1 as the words of "John the disciple of the Lord" (Against Heresies III.16); The Muratorian Fragment quotes the opening verse as John's, Clement of Alexandria assigns 5:3 to John (Paedagogus III.11), and Tertullian cites the Epistle's warning against those who deny that Christ is come in the flesh (Prescription against Heretics 33).

The letter itself. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia calls the internal evidence for one author of the Gospel and the Epistle "so striking" as to be "almost universally admitted": both speak constantly of light, darkness, truth, life and love, and both use the phrases "to walk in the light," "to be of the truth," "to be of the devil," "to be of the world" and "to overcome the world."

The Pontifical Biblical Commission issued no separate decree on the Epistles, but in 1907 it upheld the Apostle as author of the fourth Gospel. Many modern scholars ascribe the Johannine writings to a "Johannine community" or to a disciple of the Apostle; we note this because readers ask, but hold to the tradition handed down.

When was 1 John written?

Near the end of the first century, most probably at Ephesus. St Irenaeus places St John's writing in Asia, where the Apostle lived on "until the times of Trajan" (Against Heresies II.22; III.1). The Catholic Encyclopedia grants that "nothing certain can be determined," but finds the arguments "probable in favour of Ephesus and also for the last few years of the first century." The Douay preface admits that the time and place are uncertain and adds: "It was written, according to Baronius's account, sixty-six years after our Lord's ascension," which brings us to the last years of the century.

Who was 1 John written to, and why?

To the Christians of the churches St John governed in Asia Minor, Ephesus and its neighbours, the region of the seven churches of the Apocalypse; the Catholic Encyclopedia calls its destination "clearly the churches which St. John evangelized." He calls them "my little children" and addresses fathers, young men and babes in turn (1 John 2). Some Latin writers, St Augustine among them, called it the Epistle "to the Parthians"; the Douay preface records the name ("to the Parthians, or Persians"), whose origin is uncertain.

He wrote for two reasons the letter itself gives. First, against false teachers who "went out from us" (2:19) and denied "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" (4:2); the Douay preface names Cerinthus, "who denied Christ's divinity," and Basilides, "who denied that Christ had a true body." Second, to confirm the faithful: "that you also may have fellowship with us and our fellowship may be with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1:3).

What is 1 John about? A summary

St John returns to the same truths in widening circles, and two sentences carry the letter: "God is light" (1:5) and "God is charity" (4:8).

Prologue: the Word of life (1:1–4)

St John bears witness to the eternal Life "which was with the Father and hath appeared to us," so that his readers may share his fellowship with the Father and the Son, "that you may rejoice and your joy may be full" (chapter 1).

God is light: walking in the light (1:5–2:29)

Because "God is light and in him there is no darkness," we cannot claim fellowship with Him and walk in darkness; yet no one may claim to be without sin, and "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us." Christ is "an advocate with the Father," "the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." We know Him if we keep His commandments, above all the commandment of love, "old" from the beginning and "new" in Christ. Then the warning: "Love not the world." It is "the last hour," "many Antichrists" have gone out, and the faithful are kept safe by "the unction from the Holy One" and by what they "heard from the beginning" (chapters 1–2, continued in 1 John 2).

Children of God: justice and brotherly love (3:1–24)

"Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God." The children of God do justice; "he that committeth sin is of the devil," and "the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil." Cain is the type of hatred (Genesis 4); "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." True love lays down its life and opens its hand to the brother in need (1 John 3).

God is charity: testing the spirits (4:1–21)

"Try the spirits if they be of God": the spirit that confesses Christ come in the flesh is of God, the spirit that "dissolveth Jesus" is of Antichrist. Then the summit of the letter: "God is charity." He sent His only begotten Son "to be a propitiation for our sins"; "he hath first loved us"; "perfect charity casteth out fear"; and no one can love God whom he sees not while hating the brother whom he sees (1 John 4).

Faith that overcomes the world (5:1–21)

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and "this is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith." Christ "came by water and blood," and three bear witness. The letter ends with confidence in prayer, the sin "not to death" and the "sin unto death," the profession that the Son "is the true God and life eternal," and a last word: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5).

Themes and the Catholic reading of 1 John

God is charity. Deus caritas est (4:8, 16) is the deepest thing Scripture says of God, and the Douay keeps the Vulgate's caritas as "charity," the supernatural love poured into the soul with grace. It is the queen of the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, and the heart of what God says about love. St Augustine preached ten homilies on the Epistle during the Easter days, and in the seventh gave his famous rule: "Love, and do what you will" (Homily 7.8).

Confession of sins. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1:8) answers every claim of sinlessness in this life; when St John says the just man "sinneth not," Challoner explains, "viz., mortally" (3:6). "If we confess our sins" (1:9) is read by the Church together with Our Lord's gift to the Apostles, "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them" (John 20), in which the Council of Trent recognises the institution of the sacrament of Penance (Session XIV), the reason why Catholics confess to a priest.

Faith working by charity. St John joins believing and doing at every step: "he that doth justice is just" (3:7). On 5:4 Challoner writes: "Not a bare, speculative, or dead faith; but a faith that worketh by charity," and Trent cites "his commandments are not heavy" (5:3) to teach that the just can keep God's law (Session VI, ch. 11), the doctrine also of the Epistle of St James.

The Incarnation and Antichrist. The test of every spirit is the confession "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." Challoner explains the "many Antichrists" of 2:18 as "many heretics, enemies of Christ and his church, and forerunners of the great Antichrist," already in the world "not in his person, but in his spirit, and in his precursors" (on 4:3). 1 John and 2 John are the only books of Scripture that use the word, and they ground all the Church teaches on what God says about the Antichrist.

Famous verses from 1 John

1 John 1:7–9. "If we walk in the light, as he also is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity" (1 John 1).

1 John 2:15–17. "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world... For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life... but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever" (1 John 2). St Thomas Aquinas teaches that every sin springs from these three concupiscences.

1 John 3:1–2 and 3:18. "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God... we shall see him as he is"; and "My little children, let us not love in word nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3).

1 John 3:16. "In this we have known the charity of God, because he hath laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." The Cross is the measure of the love we owe one another.

1 John 4:4. "You are of God, little children, and have overcome him. Because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4); the One in the faithful is God.

1 John 4:7–8 and 4:16. "Dearly beloved, let us love one another: for charity is of God... He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is charity"; and "he that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him."

1 John 4:18–20. "Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain... Let us therefore love God, because God first hath loved us. If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar." Verse 19 gives the order of all charity: our love is only an answer to His, and the fear it casts out is the servile and anxious fear treated in what God says about fear.

1 John 5:14–15. "And this is the confidence which we have towards him: That, whatsoever we shall ask according to his will, he heareth us. And we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask: we know that we have the petitions which we request of him." Challoner adds that we obtain what we ask "according to his will, when we ask what is for our good, with perseverance, and in the manner we ought."

1 John 5:7–8. "And there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit and the water and the blood" (1 John 5). Verse 7, the "Johannine Comma," stands in the Clementine Vulgate and the Douay but is absent from the older Greek manuscripts; the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) quoted it. The Holy Office declared in 1897 that its authenticity could not safely be denied, and in 1927 clarified that Catholic scholars may study the question, subject to the judgment of the Church. The doctrine it states is the faith of the Church in the Holy Trinity.

1 John in the canon and in the liturgy

1 John belongs to the New Testament, one of the seven Catholic Epistles with James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude. It bears the same name and five chapters in Catholic and Protestant Bibles, after 2 Peter and before 2 John. Its canonicity was never doubted: Eusebius lists it among the books received by all, the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) and the Council of Florence list three Epistles of John, and the Council of Trent (Session IV, 1546) names "three of John the apostle." Written in Greek, it reached the West in the Latin Vulgate, from which the Douay-Rheims Bible was translated.

In the 1962 Missal, Low Sunday, the octave of Easter, takes 1 John 5:4-10, "this is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith." The Mass of the First Sunday after Pentecost, said on the weekdays after Trinity Sunday, reads 1 John 4:8-21, "God is charity"; the Second Sunday after Pentecost reads 1 John 3:13-18, "Wonder not, brethren, if the world hate you"; and the feast of St Polycarp, John's disciple, on 26 January, reads 1 John 3:10-16. Follow these days in our liturgical calendar.

How to read 1 John

Read it first at one sitting. Then read it beside the Gospel of St John, especially the Last Supper discourse that begins in John 13, where the "new commandment" was given. Then take one chapter a day, the Latin beside the English. Before Confession, pray over chapter 1; in fear or scruple, over chapter 4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who wrote the book of 1 John?

St John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, the beloved disciple who also wrote the fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse. The author writes as an eyewitness who saw and handled "the word of life," and the Fathers from St Polycarp, Papias and St Irenaeus onward received the letter as his. Many modern scholars attribute it to a Johannine circle, but the tradition of the Church holds it to be the Apostle's.

When was 1 John written?

Near the end of the first century, at Ephesus, probably around AD 95–100, after the Gospel of John. Challoner, following Baronius, dates it "sixty-six years after our Lord's Ascension," and the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia judges the last years of the first century most probable.

Who was 1 John written to?

To the Christians of the churches St John governed in Asia Minor, around Ephesus. He calls them his "little children" and writes to strengthen them against teachers who denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, and to assure them that, believing in the Son of God, they have eternal life.

What is 1 John about?

It teaches that God is light and God is charity, so that His children must walk in the light, confess their sins, keep His commandments, love one another in deed, and hold fast to faith in Jesus Christ, true God and true man. It also gives the signs by which the children of God are told from the children of the devil, and true teachers from the "many Antichrists" who had gone out from the Church.

How many chapters are in 1 John?

1 John has 5 chapters and 105 verses, in the Douay-Rheims, the Latin Vulgate and Protestant Bibles alike. Read it here from 1 John 1, Latin and English side by side.

Where is 1 John in the Bible?

In the New Testament, among the seven Catholic Epistles, after 2 Peter and before 2 John, 3 John and Jude. Catholic and Protestant Bibles place it in the same position and give it the same name.

What does 1 John 1:9 mean?

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity." God, true to His promise, forgives those who humbly avow their sins. The Church reads the verse with Christ's gift to the Apostles of the power to forgive sins (John 20:23), exercised in the sacrament of Penance.

What does 1 John 4:18 mean?

"Perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain." Challoner explains that perfect charity banishes the fear of men, the anxious fear that despairs of God's mercy, and the servile fear that dreads punishment more than offending God. It "no way excludes the wholesome fear of God's judgments," which Scripture often commends.

What does 1 John 5:16-17 mean?

St John asks us to pray for a brother who sins "a sin which is not to death," but of "a sin unto death" he says: "For that I say not that any man ask." Challoner explains that interpreters commonly understand the sin unto death as "a wilfull apostasy from the faith" hardened into final impenitence, and that St John does not say it cannot be forgiven, only that we cannot pray for such sinners with the same confidence. He warns that the distinction is not simply that of mortal and venial sin, and concludes that "no sinner need despair of pardon."

Who wrote 1 John and 2 John?

The same author, St John the Apostle. In 2 and 3 John he calls himself "the ancient" (the presbyter), and the Church received all three letters as his: the Council of Trent lists "three of John the Apostle" in the canon.

Read the whole First Epistle of St John verse by verse, Latin and English, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. The First Epistle of St John, Latin Vulgate and Douay-Rheims (Challoner revision, 1749-1752), with Challoner's notes and the preface of the Haydock edition (Witham, Challoner); St Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians; the Muratorian Fragment; St Irenaeus, Against Heresies; St Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus; Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History; St Augustine, Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John; St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 77; Fourth Lateran Council (1215); Council of Trent, Sessions IV (1546), VI (1547) and XIV (1551); Holy Office, decrees on 1 John 5:7 (13 January 1897; 2 June 1927); Pontifical Biblical Commission, response on the Fourth Gospel (29 May 1907); The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "Epistles of Saint John"; Missale Romanum (1962).