1 John 3:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What then? If someone considered hatred of a brother a slight sin, would anyone consider murder slight in his heart? He does not even move his hand to kill a man, but before God he is already numbered among murderers. The one is alive, yet the other is counted as a murderer. “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

Also, what is said in Scripture does not apply only to men: “He who hates his brother is a murderer.” The commandment for the male sex, which God created first, also applies to the female sex.

Learn from the Apostle John what hatred is, when he says, "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life." He casts out from life the one who hates his brother, as a murderer, and even directly calls hatred murder. For if anyone destroys and ruins love for his neighbor within himself, becoming an enemy instead of a friend, such a man is counted among those who do not have eternal life. This is because he keeps and cherishes within himself hidden enmity toward his neighbor. It is interesting to note that Abba Isaiah distinguishes two kinds of hatred. One is inherent in us according to nature, τό νοός εστ τό μίσος πατά φύσίν. Such hatred, as it were praiseworthy, was shown by Elijah, who slew the prophets of Baal (3 Kgs 18:40). The second hatred is against nature and blameworthy. It is manifested above all as hatred of one's neighbor.

Question: What sin, besides heresy, is the gravest?

Answer: As love is higher than all the virtues, so among all sins the gravest is to hate one’s brother. For “he who hates his brother is a murderer,” as the Apostle said. Whoever hates his brother hates God Himself. “He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 Jn 2:11). See how many evils hatred causes. But love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8). Envy is difficult to heal, or altogether incurable.

The Apostle John compares hatred with murder: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” He compares hidden hatred of a brother with murder.

If we wish to receive the highest divine reward, then anger must be restrained not only in our actions. It must be torn out by the root from the hidden places of the soul. For “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer,” precisely because in his heart he desires to kill him.

In this passage one should understand every man as a brother, for we are all brothers in Christ.

Another man preserves bodily chastity and watches himself vigilantly, lest he admit anything outwardly blameworthy. He is content with what he has and does not seize what belongs to another. Yet perhaps he hides hatred against his neighbor in his heart. When it is written, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer,” he thinks about how pure he is outwardly and in deed. He does not think about how cruel he is in heart. Is he not absent from himself, when he walks in the darkness of his own heart and does not know it?

If someone has received into his soul a feeling of hatred toward his brother, does he not become a murderer in his heart? He has not raised his hand against a man, yet God already regards him as a murderer. The victim is alive, but the executioner is already condemned.

“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.” Hatred of neighbors leads to murder. Jesus Christ condemns even those who are angry with their neighbors as murderers (Mt 5:21-22). In the Apostle’s understanding, the man who hates his brother has already killed him in his heart. If he does not commit outward murder, it is only because fear of judgment or other motives restrain him (Mt 5:26).

"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer" (1 Jn 3:15), it is said directly. Whatever the source of this hatred may be, it is murderous in relation to another. It may come from hidden envy of one's neighbor, from awareness of many offenses suffered from him, from acquiring a hateful character among hateful people, or from a false conviction that a certain person deserves hatred. In every case, hatred is murderous toward another. The person against whom it is directed and openly shown cannot be at peace. He knows that he is hated, and unjustly so, while he is trying to please and honestly deserve the love of others. Such awareness troubles him and crushes his spirit. In this very thing lies murder. In general, hatred is the beginning of murder.

"Everyone who hates his brother," and so forth: one who does not love his brother is spiritually dead and incapable of spiritual enlivening until love for his brother is opened in his heart by God's grace. But one who hates his brother is not only spiritually dead himself. He is also a murderer, like Cain, or more precisely like the devil, a murderer from the beginning (Jn 8:44). Murder here means not so much physical murder, like Cain's murder of Abel, as spiritual murder, of which Christ speaks (Mt 5:21-22). It is the murder of one's neighbor in the heart, by hidden anger, by a malicious word, by spiteful indifference, and by everything through which one man can spiritually kill another out of hatred. "You know": from the law of Moses, and from the divine law in general (cf.

Deriving the birth of Christians from the incorruptible seed of God, and pointing to the fruit of this spiritual seed in love, the Apostle John could naturally say that love is not only a sign of life, but life itself. It is eternal life, since it has received its beginning from the eternal love of God (v. 16). Conversely, having recognized hatred as the fruit of the devil's seed, the Apostle could naturally say that death is seen in hatred itself, and that hatred itself leads to death, and indeed to eternal death. He explains how hatred leads to eternal death by calling the one who lives by hatred a murderer. One who hates another deprives the hated person of the joy of life. By tempting him through his evil example, he also completely kills him morally.