Note 1 — PREFACE.

I venture to call attention to the rendering "very." It enables the translator to mark the important distinction between two words: αληθης, factually true and real, as opposed to that which in point of fact is mendacious; αληθινος, ideally true and real, that which alone realizes the idea imperfectly expressed by something else. This is one of St. John's favourite words. In regard to αγαπη I have not had the courage of my convictions. The word "charity" seems to me almost providentially preserved for the rendering of that term. It is not without a purpose that ερως is so rigorously excluded from the New Testament. [So also from the Epp. of Ignatius.] The objection that "charity" conveys to ordinary English people the notion of mere material alms is of little weight. If "charity" is sometimes a little metallic, is not "love" sometimes a little maundering? I agree with Canon Evans that the word, strictly speaking, should be always translated "charity" when alone, "love" when in regimen. Yet I have not been bold enough to put "God is charity" for "God is love."