1 John iv. 8, 9, 10. Modern theological schools of a Calvinistic bias have tended to overlook the conception of the nature of God as essential or substantive Love, and to consider love only as _manifested_ in redemption. Socinianising interpreters understand the proposition to mean that God is simply and exclusively benevolent. (On the inadequacy of this, see Butler, _Anal._, Part I., ch. iii., and Dissertation II. of the Nature of Virtue.) The highest Christian thought has ever recognised that the proposition 'God is Love' necessarily involves the august truth that God if _sole_ is not _solitary_. ("Credimur et confitemur omnipotentem Trinitatem--unum Deum _solum_ non _solitarium_." Concil. Tolet., vi. 1.) "Let it not be supposed," said St. Bernard, "that I here account Love as an attribute or accident, but as the Divine essence--no new doctrine, seeing that St. John saith 'God is love.' It may rightly be said both that _Love_ is _God_, and that love is _the gift of God_. For Love gives love; the essential Love gives that which is accidental. When Love signifies the Giver, it is the name of His essence; when it signifies His gift, it is the name of a quality or attribute." (_S. Bernard., de dil. Deo_, xii.). "This is nobly said. God is love. Thus love is the eternal law whereby all things were created and are governed--wherewith He who is the law of all things is unto Himself His own law, and that a law of love--wherewith He bindeth His Trinity into Unity." (_Thomassin. Dogm. Theol._, lib. iii., 23.) NOTE B. ἡ ῥιζα της αθανασιας και ἡ πηγη της αφθαρσιας· ὁ την ερημον και αγριωθεισαν φυσιν ἡμων ηρεμον και ἡσυχιον ποιησας, ὁ της προσκαιρου φαντασιας ῥυσαμενος με και εις την αει μενουσαν φρουρησας (_Acta Johannis_, 21). These sentences are surely not without freshness and power. One other passage is worth translating, because it seems to have just that imaginative cast which makes the Greek Liturgies, like so much else that is Greek, stand midway between the East and West; and because it apparently refers to St. John's Gospel. "Jesus! Thou who hast woven this coronal with Thy plaiting, who hast blended these many flowers into the flower of Thy presence, not blown through by the winds of any storm; Thou who hast scattered thickly abroad the seed of these words of Thine"--(_Acta Johannis_, 17). FOOTNOTES: [87] Apoc. xxi. 19, 20. [88] 1 John i. 6, cf. John iii. 21. In the LXX. the phrase is only found once, and is then applied to God: αληθειαν εποιησας (Neh. ix. 33). It is characteristic of St. John's style that _doing a lie_ is found in Apoc. xxi. 27, xxii. 15. [89] Apoc. xxii. 8. [90] 1 John v. 18. [91] Ibid. 19. [92] ἡκει, "has come,--and is here."--Ibid. 20. [93] _S. Joann. Chrysost., in Johan._, Homil. iii., Tom. viii., 25, 36, Edit. Migne.