67 - 1Jn 4:19
Ἡμεῖς ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτὸν, ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς. The nineteenth verse resumes what was said in 1Jn 4:8 ff. From this it at once follows that we must not read. ἡμεῖς ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν [“we love him”], but only ἡμεῖςἀγαπῶμεν [“we love”]. Here primarily love is demanded in its universality: that we generally must love follows from the anticipating love of God; that this our love must have two directions, towards God and towards the brethren, is then explained in what follows. Similarly, it is plain from the point of view in which we have sought to place what follows, that ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν [“we love him”] is not in the indicative, but in the conjunctive. The sense is: I have told you that we, as the result of the love of God manifested to us, must ourselves also love.