2. “This,” He says, “is my injunction, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.” Whether we call it injunction or commandment,1406    Præceptum, sive mandatum. both are the rendering of the same Greek word, entolé (ἐντολή). But He had already made this same announcement on a former occasion, when, as ye ought to remember, I repounded it to you to the best of my ability.1407    See Tract. LXV. For this is what He says there, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”1408    Chap. xiii. 34. And so the repetition of this commandment is its commendation: only that there He said, “A new commandment I give unto you;” and here, “This is my commandment:” there, as if there had been no such commandment before; and here, as if He had no other commandment to give them. But there it is spoken of as “new,” to keep us from persevering in our old courses; here, it is called “mine,” to keep us from treating it with contempt.

2. Hoc est, inquit, praeceptum meum, ut diligatis invicem, sicut dilexi vos. Sive dicatur praeceptum, sive mandatum, ex uno verbo graeco utrumque interpretatur, quod est ἐντολή. Jamvero istam sententiam et antea dixerat, de qua me vobis, ut potui, disputasse meminisse debetis (Supra, Tract. 65). Ibi enim sic ait, Mandatum novum do vobis, ut diligatis invicem, sicut dilexi vos, ut et vos diligatis invicem (Joan. XIII, 34). Hujus itaque mandati repetitio, commendatio est: nisi quod ibi, Mandatum, inquit, novum do vobis; hic autem, Hoc est, inquit, mandatum meum: ibi, tanquam non fuerit ante tale mandatum; hic, tanquam non sit aliud ejus mandatum. Sed ibi dictum est novum, ne in vetustate nostra perseveremus: hic dictum est meum, ne contemnendum putemus.