Vers. 19, 20, 21. These verses probably present more difficulties than any other portion of this Epistle. (1) For their construction. The following note from a _fasciculus_ (now no longer to be procured) written by a master of sacred studies seems to us to say all that can be said for a rendering different from that of the R. V. and our own. "Ver. 20: ὁτι εαν καταγινωσκη ἡμων ἡ καρδια, ὁτι μειζων εστιν ὁ Θεος. The difficulty is in the second ὁτι, which is ignored by the Vulgate and A. V. The Revisers (after Hoogeveen, _De Partic._ p. 589, ed. Schütz. and others) point ὁ,τι εαν in the first clause, which they join with the preceding verse: 'and shall assure our heart before him, whereinsoever our heart condemn us; because God' etc. But this is quite inadmissible, since nothing can be plainer than that εαν καταγινωσκη (ver. 20) and εαν μη καταγινωσκη (ver. 21) are both _in protasi_, and in strict correlation with each other. Dean Alford suggests an ellipsis of the verb substantive before the second ὁτι, and would translate: 'Because if our heart condemn us, (it is) because God' etc. He instances such cases as ει τις εν Χριστω, (he is) καινη κτισις, which are quite dissimilar; but the following from St. Chrysostom (T. X. p. 122 B) fully bears out this construction; Ὁ ζυγος μου χρηστος κ.τ.ἑ. ει δε ουκ αισθανη της κουφοτητος, ὉΤΙ προθυμιαν ερρωμενην ουκ εχεις; where I have expunged δηλον before ὁτι on the authority of three out of four MSS. collated for these Homilies, the fourth, with the old Latin version, for ὁτι προθυμιαν reading μη θαυμασης, προθυμιαν γαρ. In my note on that place I have pointed out that the ellipsis is not of δηλον, but of το αιτιον, _causa est, quia_. So in the present instance we might translate: 'For if our heart condemn us, (the reason is) because God is greater,' etc., were it not for the difficulty of explaining how the fact of God's being greater than our heart can be a valid reason for our heart condemning us. I would, therefore, take the second ὁτι for _quod_, not _quia_, and suppose an ellipsis of δηλον, as in 1 Tim. vi. 7, where see note."--_Otium Norvicense_, by Frederic Field, M.A., LL.D. (pp. 153, 15). Dr. Field s rendering then is: "For if our heart condemn us, (it is evident) that God is greater than our heart."