Note 28 — DISCOURSE I.

1 John ii. 7, ii. 24, iii. 11; 2 John vv. 5, 6. The passage in ii. 24 is a specimen of that simple emphasis, that presentation of a truth or duty under two aspects, which St. John often produces merely by an inversion of the order of the words. "Ye—what ye heard from the beginning let it abide in you. If what from the beginning ye heard abide in you" (ὁ ηκουσατε απ' αρχης ... ὁ απ' αρχης ηκουσατε). The emphasis in the first clause is upon the fact of their having heard the message; in the second upon this feature of the message—that it was given in the beginning of Christianity amongst them, and kept unchanged until the present time. Cf. εντολη παλαια (ii. 7) with αρχαιος = "of the early Christian time," in Polycarp, Ep. ad Philipp., i.