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CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL 
 
 COMMENTARY 
 
 ON 
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 BY 
 HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, Te); 
 
 CONSISTORIALRATH, HANNOVER. 
 From the German, with the Sanction of the Author. 
 
 THE TRANSLATION REVISED AND EDITED BY 
 
 WiDRETAM PP. DiGK SON, DD. 
 AND 
 
 FREDERICK CROMBIE, D.D. 
 
 LENG 2 Os Ya @ & 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 VOL. L 
 
 BOUINBURGH: 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIII. 
 
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, 
 FOR 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 LONDON, . .  . «© HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 DUBLIN, . . .  . GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 WEW YORK, . . . SCRIBNER AND WELFORD, 
 
 
 
 
 
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL 
 
 HANDBOOK 
 
 TO 
 
 PHE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 IBY Pee 
 
 HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, TuD., 
 
 CONSISTORIALRATH, HANNOVER, 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE GERMAN LY 
 
 REV. WILLIAM URWICK, M.A. 
 
 TIIE TRANSLATION REVISED AND EDITED BY 
 
 FREDERICK CROMBIE, D.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM, ST. MARY’S COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 toe T CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIII. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2009 
 
 https://archive.org/details/criticalexegetic188101meye 
 

 
 PREFATORY NOTE BY THE EDITOR. 
 
 aaa translation of this first part of Dr. Meyers 
 } 24] Commentary on John has been executed from the 
 fifth edition of the original by the Rev. William 
 Urwick, already known as the translator of several 
 works published by the Messrs. Clark. It has, however, 
 been revised and carried through the press by myself at the 
 request of Dr. Dickson, who, with the assent of the publisher, 
 had asked me to join him in the editorship of the series. In 
 order to secure as great uniformity as possible between this 
 volume and the two already edited by Dr. Dickson, that 
 gentleman was kind enough to read the proofs of the first 
 few sheets, and I also had the benefit of his judgment and 
 experience upon some points of difficulty that occurred in 
 the earlier pages. References have been made not only to 
 Dr. Moulton’s translation of Winer’s Grammar of New Testa- 
 ment Greek (published by Messrs. Clark), but also to the 
 translation of Alex. Buttmann’s Grammar (New Testament 
 Greek), by Professor Thayer, of the Theological Seminary, 
 Andover, which has recently appeared. These references, it 
 is hoped, will be useful to students of the original. A list 
 of exegetical works upon the Gospel of John will be prefixed 
 to the second volume, which will complete the Commentary 
 upon the Gospel. 
 
 
 
 F. CROMBIE. 
 
 St. Mary’s COLLEGE, 
 Sr. ANDREWS, 3d August 1874. 
 

 
PREFACK. 
 
 =—@ HE Gospel of John, on which I have now for the 
 fifth time to present the result of my labours, 
 still at the present day continues to be the sub- 
 ject—recently, indeed, brought once more into the 
 very foreground—of so much doubt and dissension, and to 
 some extent, of such passionate party controversy, as to in- 
 crease the grave sense of responsibility, which already attaches 
 to the task of an unprejudiced and thorough exposition of so 
 sublime a production. The strong tendency now prevalent 
 | towards explaining on natural grounds the history of our Lord, 
 ever calling forth new efforts, and pressing into its service all 
 the aids of modern erudition, with an analytic power as acute 
 as it is bold in its free-thinking, meets with an impassable 
 barrier in this Gospel, if it really proceeds from that disciple 
 whom the Lord loved, and consequently is the only one that 
 is entirely and fully apostolic. For it is now an admitted 
 fact, and a significant proof of the advances which have been 
 eradually achieved by exegesis, that the pervading supra- 
 naturalism—clearly stamped on it in all the simplicity of 
 truth—cannot be set aside by any artifices of exposition. 
 This, however, does not prevent the work of a criticism, which 
 obeys the conviction that it is able, and that for the sake of 
 the right knowledge of the Gospel history it ought, to establish 
 the non-apostolic origin of the fourth Gospel. Accordingly, 
 in pursuance of the programme which was traced for it fifty 
 years ago by Bretschneider, and of the ampler investigations 
 subsequently added by the criticism of Bauz, unwearied efforts 
 have been made with augmented and more penetrating powers, 
 
 
 
vii PREFACE, 
 
 and to some extent also with a cordial appreciation of the 
 lofty ideas which the Gospel presents, to carry out this project 
 to completion. Such critical labour submits itself to be tried 
 by the judgment of scholars, and has its scientific warrant. 
 Nay, should it succeed in demonstrating that the declaration 
 of the Gospel’s apostolic birth, as written by all the Christian 
 centuries, is erroneous, we would have to do honour to the 
 truth, which in this case also, though painful at first, could 
 not fail to approve itself that which maketh free. There is, 
 however, adequate reason to entertain very grave doubts of the 
 attainment of this result, and to refuse assent to the prognosti- 
 cation of universal victory, which has been too hastily asso- 
 ciated with these efforts of criticism. Whoever is acquainted 
 with the most recent investigations, will, indeed, gladly 
 leave to themselves the clumsy attempts to establish a paral- 
 lelism between the Gospel of John and ancient fabrications 
 concocted with a special aim, which carry their own impress 
 on their face; but he will still be unable to avoid the 
 immediate and general duty of considering whether those 
 modern investigators who deny that it is the work of the 
 apostle have at least discovered a time in which—putting 
 aside in the meanwhile all the substantive elements of their 
 proof—the origin of the writing would be historically con- 
 ceivable. For it is a remarkable circumstance in itself, that 
 of the two most recent controversialists, who have treated the 
 subject with the greatest scientific independence, the one 
 assumes the latest, the other the earliest possible, date. If 
 now, with the first, I place its composition not sooner than 
 from 150 to 160, I see myself driven to the bold assertion 
 of Volkmar, who makes the evangelist sit at the feet of Justin 
 —a piece of daring which lands me in a historical absurdity. 
 If I rightly shrink from so preposterous a view, and prefer to 
 
 | follow the thoughtful Keim in his more judicious estimate of 
 
 the ecclesiastical testimonies and the relations of the time, 
 then I obtain the very beginning of the second century as 
 the period in which the work sprang up on the fruitful soil of 
 the church of Asia Minor, as a plant Johannine indeed in 
 spirit, but post-Johannine in origin. But from this position 
 also I feel myself at once irresistibly driven, For I am now 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 brought into such immediate contact with the days in which 
 the aged apostolic pillar was still amongst the living, and see 
 myself transported so entirely into the living presence of his 
 numerous Asiatic disciples and admirers, that it cannot but 
 appear to me an absolutely insoluble enigma how precisely 
 then and there a non-Johannine work—one, moreover, so great 
 and so divergent from the older Gospels—could have been 
 issued and have passed into circulation under the name of 
 the highly honoured apostle. Those disciples and admirers, 
 amongst whom he, as the high priest, had worn the 7éra- 
 Aov, could not but know whether he had written a Gospel, 
 and if so, of what kind; and with the sure tact of sympathy 
 and of knowledge, based upon experience, they could not but 
 have rejected what was not a genuine legacy from their 
 apostle. Keim, indeed, ventures upon the bold attempt of 
 calling altogether in question the fact that John had his 
 sphere of labour in Asia Minor; but is not this denial, in 
 face of the traditions of the church, in fact an impossibility? 
 It is, and must remain so, as long as the truth of historical 
 facts is determined by the criterion of historical testimony. 
 Turning, then, from Volkmar to Keim, I see before my eyes 
 the fate indicated by the old proverb: tov xamvdv devyovta 
 eis TO Tip éximrew. 
 
 The necessary references have been made in the Introduc- 
 tion to the substantive grounds on which in recent years the 
 assaults have been renewed against the authenticity of the 
 Gospel, and there also the most recent apologetic literature 
 upon the subject has been noticed. After all that has been 
 said for and against up to the present time, I can have 
 no hesitation in once more expressing my delight in the 
 testimony of Luther—quoted now and again with an ironi- 
 cal smile—that “John’s Gospel is the only tender, right, chief 
 Gospel, and is to be far preferred before the other three, and to be 
 _ more highly esteemed.”* In order to make the confession one’s 
 own, it is not necessary to be either a servile follower of 
 
 1 So Luther, in that section of his Preface to the New Testament containing 
 the superscription, ‘* Which are the right and noblest books of the New Testa- 
 ment?” This section, however, is wanting in the editions of the New Testament 
 subsequent to 1539, as also in the edition of the whole Bible of 1534. 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 Luther or a special adherent of the immortal Schleiermacher. 
 I am neither the one nor the other, and in particular I do not 
 share the individual, peculiar motive, as such, which underlies 
 the judgment of the former. 
 
 Since the publication of the fourth edition of my Com- 
 mentary (1862), many expository works upon John and his 
 system of doctrine, and among these several of marked im- 
 portance, have seen the light, along with many other writings 
 and disquisitions,' which serve, directly or indirectly, the pur- 
 pose of exposition. I may venture to hope that the considera- 
 tion which I have bestowed throughout upon these literary 
 accessions, in which the one aim is followed with very varying 
 gifts and powers, has not been without profit for the further 
 development of my work, probably more by way of antagonism 
 (especially towards Hengstenberg and Godet) than of agree- 
 ment of opinion. In our like conscientious efforts after truth 
 we learn from each other, even when our ways diverge. 
 
 The statement of the readings of Tischendorf’s text I was 
 obliged to borrow from the second edition of his Synopsis, 
 for the reasons already mentioned in the preface to the fifth 
 edition of my Commentary on Mark and Luke. The latest 
 part of his editio octava, now in course of appearance, was 
 published last September, and extends only to John vi. 23, 
 while the printing of my book had already advanced far 
 
 1 The essay of Riggenbach, ‘* Johannes der Apostel und der Presbyter,” in the 
 Jahrb. f. D. Theologie, 1868, p. 319 fi., came too late for me to be able to notice 
 it. It will never be possible, I believe, to establish the identity of the apostle 
 with the presbyter, and I entertain no doubt that Eusebius quite correctly 
 understood the fragment of Papias in reference to this point.—To my regret, I was 
 unable, also, to take into consideration Wittichen’s work, Ueber den geschicht- 
 lichen Charakter des Evang. Joh. The same remark applies to the third 
 edition of Ebrard’s Kritik der evangel. Geschichte, which appeared in 1868, and 
 in which I regret to observe a renewed display of the old vehemence of passion. 
 Renan’s Life of Jesus, even as it has now appeared in its thirteenth edition, I 
 have, as formerly, left out of consideration.—The first part of Holtzmann’s 
 dissertation upon ‘‘The Literary Relation of John to the Synoptics” (Hilgen- 
 feld’s Zeitschrift, 1869, p. 62 ff.) has just been published, and the conclusion is 
 still to follow. Of course, before the latter appears, no well-founded judgment 
 can be passed upon this essay of this acute theologian ; but I have doubts 
 whether it will ever be successfully shown that in the case of the fourth Gospel 
 there is any dependence of a literary kind upon the Synoptics, especially upon 
 the Gospel of Luke. 
 
PREFACE, X1 
 
 beyond that point. I may add that the deviations in the text 
 of this editio octava from that of the Synopsis in reference to 
 the various readings noticed in my critical annotations down 
 to vi. 23, are not numerous, and scarcely any of them are of 
 importance exegetically. Of such a nature are those, in par- 
 ticular, in which this highly meritorious critic had in his 
 Synopsis too hastily abandoned the Recepta, and has now 
 returned to it. I would fain think that this may also be the 
 case in future with many other of the readings which he has 
 now adopted, where apparently the Cod. Sinait. has possessed 
 for him too great a power of attraction. 
 
 In conclusion, I have to ask for this renewed labour of 
 mine the goodwill of my readers——I mean such a disposition 
 and tone in judging of it as shall not prejudice the rights 
 of critical truth, but shall yet with kind consideration weigh 
 the difficulties which are connected with the solution of the 
 task, either in itself, or amidst the rugged antagonisms of a 
 time so vexed with controversy as the present. So long as 
 God will preserve to me in my old age the necessary measure 
 of strength, I shall continue my quiet co-operation, however 
 small it may be, in the service of biblical exegesis, This 
 science has in fact, amid the dark tempests of our theological 
 and ecclesiastical crisis, in face of all the agitations and 
 extravagances to the right and left, the clear and lofty 
 vocation gradually, by means of its results——which are only 
 to be obtained with certainty through a purely historical 
 method, and which are not to be settled by any human con- 
 fession of faith_—to make such contributions to the tumult of 
 
 1], 18, where the Synopsis has uovoyevns e¢s, the editio octava has restored 
 6 wovoyevns vids: ill, 13, where 6 dy tv ra otpayg was deleted in the Synopsis, 
 these words have again been received into the text. 
 
 2 #.g. with the reading éavucéZers in v. 20; in the same way with @evys, 
 which is found only in & of all the Codd. In the great predominance of testi- 
 monies against it, I regard the former as the error of an ancient copyist, while 
 the latter appears to me as a marginal gloss, quite inappropriate to the strain 
 of tender feeling in which John speaks of Jesus, which perhaps originated in 
 a similar manner, as Chrysostom, while reading in the text dvexapnoey, says 
 by way of explanation, o 3: Xpiords Pedyes, Had Gevyes been the original reading, 
 and had it been desired to replace it by a more becoming expression, then 
 probably 22éveurev from v. 13, or d&v7Aéev in vi. 8, to which passage rdédv in ver. 
 15 points back, would have most naturally suggested themselves. 
 
xil PREFACE. 
 
 strife as must determine the course of a sound development, 
 and finally form the standard of its settlement and the regula- 
 tive basis of peace. And what writing of the New Testament 
 can in such a relation stand higher, or be destined to produce 
 a more effective union of spirits, than the wondrous Gospel of 
 John, with its fulness of grace, truth, peace, light, and life ? 
 Our Lutheran Church, which was born with a declaration of 
 war and had its confession completed amid controversy from 
 without and within, has raised itself far too little to the serene 
 
 height and tranquil perfection of this Gospel. 
 DR. MEYER. 
 
 Hanover, lst December 1868. 
 
THE GOSPEL .OF- JOHN, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 SEC. I—BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF JOHN. 
 
 9 AG|OHN’S parents were Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea 
 a B7s| of Galilee, probably not of the poorer class (Mark 
 Vey: i, 20; Luke v. 10), and Salome (Mark xv. 40; comp. 
 Matt. xxvil. 56). To his father the evangelists 
 ascribe no special religious character or personal participation 
 in the events of the Gospel history; but his mother was one 
 of the women who followed Jesus even up to His crucifixion 
 (comp. on xix. 25). To her piety, therefore, it is justly attri- 
 butable that John’s deeply receptive spirit was early fostered 
 and trained to surrender itself to the sacredly cherished, and 
 at that time vividly excited expectation of the Messiah, with 
 its moral claims, so far at least as such a result might be pro- 
 duced by a training which was certainly not of a learned 
 character. (Acts iv. 13.) If, too, as we may infer from xix. 
 25, Salome was a sister of the mother of Jesus, his near rela- 
 tionship to Jesus would enable us better to understand the 
 close fellowship of spirit between them, though the evangelists 
 are quite silent as to any early intimacy between the families ; 
 and in any case, higher inward sympathy was the essen- 
 tial source out of which that fellowship of spirit unfolded 
 itself. The entrance of the Baptist on his public ministry 
 —to whom John had attached himself, and whose prophetical 
 character and labours he has described most clearly and fully— 
 was the occasion of his becoming one of the followers of Jesus, 
 of whom he and Andrew were the first disciples (i. 35 f.). 
 Among these, again, he and Peter, and his own brother James 
 A 
 
 
 
 
Z THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 the elder, brought by himself to Jesus (see on i. 42), formed 
 the select company of the Lord’s more intimate friends; he 
 himself being the most trusted of all the one whom Jesus 
 pre-eminently loved, and to whose filial care He on the 
 cross entrusted Mary (xix. 26). Hence the ardent, impetuous 
 disposition, which led the Lord Himself to give to him and 
 his brother the name Boanerges, and which he exhibited on 
 more than one occasion (Mark iii. 17, ix. 38 ff.; Luke ix. 49 f, 
 54),—-connected even though it was with an ambition which 
 his mother had fostered by her sensuous Messianic notions, 
 Matt. xx. 20 ff.; Mark x. 35 ff.) —is by no means to be deemed 
 of such a character as to be incapable of gradually subjecting 
 itself to the mind of Jesus, and becoming serviceable to its 
 highest aims. After the ascension he abode, save perhaps when 
 engaged on some minor apostolical journey (such as that to 
 Samaria, Acts viii. 14),at Jerusalem, where Paul met with him 
 as one of the three pillars of the Christian church (Gal. ii. 1 ff). 
 How long he remained in this city cannot, amid the uncertainty 
 of tradition, be determined ; and, indeed, it is not even certain 
 whether he had already left the city when Paul was last there. 
 He is certainly not mentioned in Acts xxi. 18, but neither is 
 he in Acts xv., though we know from Gal. 11. 1 ff. that he never- 
 theless was present ; and therefore, as on the occasion of Gal. 
 i. 19, s0 on that of Acts xxi, he may have been temporarily 
 absent. In after years he took up his abode at Ephesus (Iren. 
 Haer. iii. 3. 4; Euseb. iii. 1. 23), probably only after the 
 
 1 On account of his devoted love to the person of the Lord, on which Grotius 
 finely remarks: ‘‘Quod olim Alexandrum de amicis suis dixisse memorant, 
 alium esse @iAaatZavdpoy, alium QiAcBaoiAéx, putem ad duos Domini Jesu apos- 
 tolos posse aptari, ut Petrum dicamus maxime 9:46 ypsorov, Johannem maxime 
 Qsroincour, . . . quod et Dominus respiciens illi quidem ecclesiam praecipuo 
 quodam modo, huic autem matrem commendavit.” 
 
 2 It is no argument at all against this, that Ignat. ad Ephes. 12 mentions 
 Paul, but not John; for Paul is mentioned there as the founder of the church 
 at Ephesus, and as martyr,—neither of which holds good of John. Besides, 
 this silence is far outweighed by the testimonies of Polycarp in Irenaeus, 
 Polycrates in Euseb., Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius, ete. 
 To account for these, as Keim in yprticular now attempts to do (Gesch. J. I. 
 p- 161 ff.), by supposing some confusion of John the Presbyter with the Apostle 
 John, is in my opinion futile, simply because the silence of Papias as to the 
 apostle’s residence in Asia proves nothing (he does not mention the residence of 
 any of the Lord’s apostles and disciples, to whom he makes reference), and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 destruction of Jerusalem; not by any means, however, before 
 Paul had laboured in Ephesus (Rom. xv. 20; 2 Cor. x. 16; 
 Gal. ii. 7 f.), although it cannot be maintained with certainty 
 that he had not even been there before Paul wrote his letter 
 to the Ephesians: for, in the enigmatic silence of this epistle 
 as to all personal references, such a conclusion from the non- 
 mention of his name is doubtful. 
 
 The distinguished official authority with which he was 
 invested at Ephesus, the spiritual elevation and sanctity 
 ascribed to him, cannot be better indicated than by the fact 
 that Polycrates (Euseb. ili. 31, v. 24) not only reckons him 
 among the peydda otovxeta (great fundamental elements of 
 the church; comp. Gal. ii. 9), but also calls him (epeds to 
 métadov’ mepopnxws. Of his subsequent fortunes we have 
 only untrustworthy and sometimes manifestly false traditions, 
 amonest the latter of which is one based on Rev. i. 9,” but un- 
 known even to Hegesippus (ap. Euseb. iii. 20), of his banish- 
 ment to Patmos under Domitian (first mentioned by Irenaeus 
 and Clem. Alex.),—an event said to have been preceded by 
 others of a marvellous kind, such as his drinking poison at 
 Rome without injury (see especially the Acta Johannis in 
 Tischendorf’s Acta Apocr. p. 266 ff.), and his being thrown into 
 boiling oil, from which, however, he came out “ nihil passus” 
 (Tertullian), nay, even “purior et vegetior” (Jerome). The 
 legend is also untrustworthy of his encounter with Cerinthus 
 in a bath, the falling in of which he is said to have foreseen 
 and avoided in time (Iren. Haer. i. 3. 28; Euseb. ii. 28, iv. 
 14); it is only indirectly traceable to Polycarp, and betrays 
 
 because it seems scarcely conceivable that Irenaeus should have so misinter- 
 preted what Polycarp said to him in his youth regarding his intimacy with John, 
 as to suppose he spoke of the Apostle, when in fact he only spoke of the Presbyter 
 ot thatname. It is pure caprice to assume that Eusebius ‘‘ lacked the courage” 
 to correct Irenaeus. Whyso? See, on the other hand, Steitz in the Studien w. 
 Kritiken, 1868, p. 502 ff. 
 
 1 The plate of gold worn by the high priest on his forehead. See Ewald, 
 Alterth. p. 393 f., ed. 3; Knobel on Ex. xxviii. 86. The phrase used by 
 Polycrates is not to be taken as signifying relationship to a priestly family (xviii. 
 15; Luke i. 36), but as symbolic of high spiritual position in the church, just 
 as it is also used of James the Lord’s brother in Epiphanius, Haer. xxix. 4. 
 Compare now also Ewald, Johann. Schriften, Il. p. 401f. 
 
 ® See especially Diisterdieck on the Revelation, Introduction, p. 92 & 
 
4 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 a purpose of glorifying the apostle at the expense of the 
 heretic, although there may be little ground for the assertion 
 that it is only what we should expect from the author of the 
 Apocalypse (Baur, Kanon. Evang. p. 371). The great age to 
 which John attained, which is variously stated—according to 
 Irenaeus, Eusebius, and others, about a hundred years, reaching 
 down to Trajan’s time,—gave some countenance to the saying 
 (xxi. 23) that he should not see death; and this again led to 
 the report that his death, which at last took place at Ephesus, 
 was only a slumber, his breath still moving the earth on his 
 grave (Augustine). In harmony, however, with a true idea of 
 his character, though historically uncertain, and first vouched 
 for by Jerome on Gal. vi. 10, is the statement that, in the 
 weakness of old age, he used merely to say in the Christian 
 assemblies, Pilioli, diligite alterutrum. For love was the most 
 potent element of his nature, which had been sustained by the 
 truest, deepest, and most affectionate communion in heart and 
 life with Christ. In this communion John, nurtured in the 
 heart of Jesus, discloses, as no other evangelist, the Lord’s 
 innermost life, in a contemplative but yet practical manner, 
 with a profound idealizing mysticism, though far removed 
 from all mere fiction and visionary enthusiasm ; like a bright 
 mirror, faithfully reflecting the most delicate features of the 
 full glory of the Incarnate One (i. 14; 1 John i. 1); tender 
 and humble, yet without sentimentalism, and with the full 
 and resolute earnestness of apostolical energy. In the centre 
 of the church life of Asia he shone with the splendour of a 
 spiritual high-priesthood, the representative of all true Chris- 
 tian Gnosis, and personally a very wapQévos (“ virgo mente et 
 corpore,” Augustine) in all moral purity. From the starting- 
 point of an apostle of the Jews, on which he stands in contrast 
 
 1 Earlier attested (Clemens, Quis div. salv. 42) is the equally characteristic 
 legend (Clement calls it uiéoy ob wifov, aAAw dvTe Adyov) of a young man, for- 
 merly converted by the apostle’s labours, who lapsed and became a leader of 
 robbers, by whose band John, after his return from Patmos, voluntarily allowed 
 himself to be taken prisoner in order to bring their captain back to Christ, 
 which he succeeded in doing by the mere power of his presence. The robber 
 chief, as Clement says, was baptized a second time by his tears of penitence. 
 Comp. Herder’s legend ‘‘der gerettete Jialing” in his Werke z. schén. Lit. 
 vi. p. 31, ed. 1827. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 (Gal. ii. 9) with the apostle of the Gentiles, he rose to the 
 purest universalism, such as we meet with only in Paul, but 
 with a clear, calm elevation above strife and conflict; as the 
 last of the apostles, going beyond not only Judaism, but even 
 Paul himself, and interpreting most completely out of his own 
 lengthened, pure, and rich experience, the life and the light 
 made manifest in Christ. He it is who connects Christianity 
 in its fullest development with the person of Christ,—a legacy 
 _ to the church for all time, of peace, union, and ever advancing 
 moral perfection; among the apostles the true Gnostic, in 
 opposition to all false Gnosticism of the age; the prophet 
 among the evangelists, although not the seer of the Apocalypse. 
 “The personality of John,” says Thiersch (die Kirche im 
 apostol. Zeitalt. p. 2773), “left far deeper traces of itself in the 
 church than that of any other of Christ’s disciples. Paul 
 laboured more than they all, but John stamped his image 
 most profoundly upon her;” the former in the mighty struggle 
 for the victory, which overcometh the world; the latter in the 
 sublime and, for the whole future of the gospel, decisive cele- 
 bration of the victory which has overcome it. 
 
 SEC. II.—GENUINENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 With regard to the eaternal testimonies, we remark the 
 following :— 
 
 1. Chap. xxi. could only serve as a testimony, if it pro- 
 ceeded altogether from another hand, or if the obviously 
 spurious conclusion should be made to include ver. 24. See, 
 however, on chap. xxi—2 Pet. i. 14 also, and the Gospel of 
 Mark, cannot be adduced as testimonies; since the former 
 passage cannot be shown to refer to John xxi. 18 f., while 
 the second Gospel was certainly written much earlier than the 
 fourth. . 
 
 2. In the apostolical Fathers’ we meet with no express 
 
 1 It is true that Barnabas, 4, quotes, with the formula sicut scriptum est (which 
 is confirmed, against Credner, by the Greek text of the Codex Sinaiticus), a pas- 
 sage from Matthew (xx. 16, xxii. 14; not 2 Esdr. viii. 3, as Volkmar maintains). 
 To find, however, in this alone canonical confirmation of the fourth Gospel 
 
 (Tischendorf) is too rash a conclusion, since the close joint relation of the four, 
 as composing one fourfold Gospel, cannot be proved so early as the apostolical 
 
6 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 quotation from, or sure trace of any use of, the Gospel. Bar- 
 nabas 5, 6, 12 (comp. John i. 14), and other echoes of John 
 in this confused anti-Judaizing epistle, to which too great 
 importance is attached by Keim, as well as Herm. Past. 
 Simil. 9, 12 (comp. John x. 7, 9, xiv. 6), Ignat. ad Philad. 
 (comp. John iii. 8) 9 (comp. John x. 9), ad Trall. 8 (comp. 
 John vi. 51), ad Magnes. 8 (comp. John x. 30, xi. 49, 
 xiv. 11), ad Rom. 7 (John vi. 32 ff, vil. 38 f), are so 
 adequately explained by tradition, and the common types 
 of view and terminology of the apostolical age, that it is 
 very unsafe to attribute them to some definite written source. 
 Nor does what is said in Ignat. ad Rom. 7, and ad Trall. 
 8, of Christ’s flesh and blood, furnish any valid exception 
 to this view, since the origin of the mystical conception 
 of the ocap& of Christ is not necessarily due to its dis- 
 semination through this Gospel, although it does not occur 
 in the Synoptics (in opposition to Rothe, Anfdnge d. Chr. 
 Kirch. p. 715 ff.; Huther, in Illgen’s Zeitschr. 1841, iv. p. 1 ff; 
 Ebrard, Evang. Joh. p. 102; Kritik d. evang. Gesch. ed. 2, p. 
 840 ff; Tischend. Ewald Jahrb. V. p. 188, etc.). Hence 
 the question as to the genuineness of the several epistles 
 of Ignatius, and their texts, may here be altogether left out 
 of consideration. Just as little from the testimony of Irenaeus 
 ad Florin. (ap. Eus. v. 20) to Polycarp, that in all the latter 
 
 said of Christ he spoke ctudwva tais ypadais, may we infer ~ 
 
 any use of our Gospel on Polycarp’s part, considering the 
 cenerality of this expression, which, moreover, merely sets 
 forth Irenaeus’ opinion, and does not necessarily mean Mew 
 Testament writings. When, again, Irenaeus (Her. v. 36. 
 1 f.) quotes an interpretation given by the “ presbytert apos- 
 tolorum discipuli” of the saying in John xiv. 2 (“Jn my 
 Father's house,’ etc.), it must remain doubtful whether these 
 presbytert knew that saying from our Gospel or from apos- 
 
 Fathers; nor do even Justin’s citations exhibit any such corpus evangelicum. 
 Besides, that very remarkable és yiypzrras makes it probable that the passage 
 in Matthew may have erroneously appeared to the writer of the epistle as taken 
 from the Old Testament.—Again, it is incorrect to say (with Volkmar) that the 
 citation in Barnabas 5 of Ps. xxii. 21 tells against our Gospel, since that citation 
 has no bearing on the spear-thrust spoken of in xix. 34, but simply refers to 
 death on the cross as such, in contrast with death by the sword. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 tolical tradition, since Irenaeus quotes their opinion simply 
 with the general words: Kati dia todTo eipnxévat Tov Kvptov. 
 
 3. Of indirect but decided importance, on the other hand, 
 —assuming, that is, what in spite of the doubts still raised 
 by Scholten must be regarded as certain, that the Gospel 
 and First Epistle of John are from one author,—is the use 
 which, according to Euseb. iii. 39, Papias’ made of the First 
 Epistle. That in the fragment of Papias no mention is made of 
 our Gospel, should not be still continually urged (Baur, Zeller, 
 Hilgenf., Volkmar, Scholten) as a proof, either that he did not 
 know it, or at least did not acknowledge its authority (see 
 below, No. 8). Decisive stress may also be laid on Polycarp, 
 ad Phil.'7 (ras yap os dv un oporoyh ’Inootv Xpicrov év capri 
 e\nrvbevat avtixpiotos éote), as a quotation from 1 John 
 iv. 3; Polycarp’s chapter containing it being unquestionably 
 genuine, and free from the interpolations occurring elsewhere 
 in the Epistle. It is true that it may be said, “ What can such 
 general sentences, which may have circulated anonymously, 
 prove?” (Baur, Kanon. Evangel. p. 350); but it may be an- 
 swered that that characteristic type of this fundamental article 
 of the Christian system, which in the above form is quite 
 peculiar to the First Epistle of John, points to the evangelist 
 in the case of no one more naturally than of Polycarp, who 
 was for so many years his disciple (comp. Ewald, Johann. 
 Schriften, II. p. 395). It is nothing less than an unhistorical 
 inversion of the relations between them, when some (Bret- 
 schneider, and again Volkmar) represent John’s Epistle as de- 
 pendent on Polycarp’s, while Scholten tries to make out a 
 difference in the application and sense of the respective pas- 
 sages. 
 
 4, It is true that Justin Martyr, in his citations from the 
 aTopynwovedmata Tay amoatodwy (“& KadgeiTar evayyéda,” 
 
 1 A disciple of the Presbyter John. From the fragments of Papias in Eusebius, 
 it is abundantly clear that he mentions two different disciples of the Lord called 
 John,—John the Apostle, and John the Presbyter, who was not one of the twelve, 
 but simply a disciple, like Aristion. The attempt to make the Presbyter, in the 
 quotation from Papias, no other than the Apostle, leads only to useless con- 
 troversy. See especially Overbeck in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1867, p. 35 fi. ; 
 Steitz in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1868, p. 63 ff., in opposition to Zahn in the Stud. 
 u. Krit. 1866, pp. 649 ff. 
 
8 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Apol. I. 66), which also served as church lessons,’ has not 
 used our canonical Gospels exclusively (the older view, and still 
 substantially held by Bindemann in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1842, 
 p. 355 ff., and Semisch, d. apost. Denkw. Justins, 1848 ; also 
 by Luthardt, Tischendorf, and Riggenbach) ; but neither has he 
 used merely an “ uncanonical” Gospel (Schwegler), or chiefly 
 such a one (Credner, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld), as was “a special 
 recension of that Gospel to the Hebrews which assumed so 
 many forms” (Credner, Gesch. d. Kanon, p. 9). For he used 
 not only our canonical Gospels, but also in addition other 
 evangelic writings now lost, which—rightly or wrongly — 
 he must have looked upon as proceeding from the apostles, 
 or from disciples of theirs (comp. Zryph. 103: €v yap tots 
 aTopynpoveruacw, & dnt Ud TOV awocTONMY avTOD 
 Kab TOV éxelvots TapakoXovdnoadvTw@y cvuyTEeTayOat) ; 
 and hence his variations from our canonical Gospels hardly 
 agree more than once or twice with the Clementines. His 
 Apologies certainly belong (see Apol. i 46) to somewhere 
 about the middle of the second century.? His citations, even 
 when they can be referred to our canonical Gospels, are gene- 
 rally free, so that it is often doubtful where he got them. (See 
 Credner, Beitr. I.p.151 ff.; Frank, in the Wirtemb. Stud. XVIII. 
 p. 61 ff.; Hilgenf. Krit. Untersuch. wb. die Evang. Justins, 
 ete., 1850; Volkmar weber Justin.) From Matthew and Luke 
 only five are verbally exact. He has also borrowed from 
 John? and indeed so evidently, that those who would deny 
 
 1 For the course of the discussions upon Justin’s quotations, and the literature 
 of the subject, see Volkmar, Ueb. Justin d. M. u. s. Verh. 2. uns. Evangelien, 
 1853 ; Hilgenfeld, Hvangelien, 1855 ; Volkmar, Urspr. d. Evang. 1866, p. 92 ff. 
 See also in particular, Luthardt, Justin d. M. u. d. Joh. Evang., in the Erlanger 
 Zeitschr. f. Protest. u. K. 1856, xxxi. parts 4-6, xxxii. parts 1 and 2; Ewald, 
 Jahrb. Vi. 59 ft. ; Riggenbach, Zeugn. f. d. Hv. Joh. p. 139 ff. 
 
 2 The controversy as to the date of the first Apology (Semisch, A.D. 138-139 ; 
 Volkmar, about 147 ; Keim, 155-160) need not here be discussed, since in any 
 case our Gospel is in the same position as the Synoptics, so far as Justin’s use 
 and estimate of it are concerned. 
 
 3 He has made most use of Matthew, and then of the Pauline Luke, but also of 
 Mark. That he has taken very little comparatively from John, seems to be due to 
 the same reason as his silence in respect of Paul, which is not tantamount to an 
 exclusion of the apostle of the Gentiles; for he is rich in Pauline ideas, and there 
 can be no mistake as to his knowledge of Paul’s epistles (Semisch, p. 123 ff.). 
 It is probably to be explained by prudential consideration for the antagonism of 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 this are in consistency obliged, with Volkmar, to represent John 
 as making use of Justin, which is an absurdity. See Kein, 
 Gesch. J.J. p. 137 ff. It is true that some have found in too 
 many passages references to this Gospel, or quotations from 
 it (see against this, Zeller, Theol. Jahrb. 1845, p. 600 ff); 
 still we may assume it as certain, that as, in general, Justin’s 
 whole style of thought and expression implies the existence of 
 John’s writings (comp. Ewald, Jahrb. V. p. 186 f.), so, in the 
 same way, must the mass of those passages in particular be esti- 
 mated, which, in spite of all variations arising from his Alex- 
 andrine recasting of the dogma, correspond with John’s doctrine 
 of the Logos." For Justin was conscious that his doctrine, espe- 
 cially that of the Logos, which was the central point in his 
 Christology, had an apostolic basis,’ just as the ancient church in 
 
 the Jewish Christians to Paul’s (and John’s) anti-Judaism. In the obvious pos- 
 sibility of this circumstance, it is too rash to conclude that this Gospel had not 
 yet won the high authority which it could not have failed to have, had it really 
 been a work of the apostle (Weisse, d. Evangelienfr. p. 129); or even, that ‘‘ had 
 Justin known the fourth Gospel, he would have made, not only repeated and 
 ready, but even preferential use of it. To assume, therefore, the use of only one 
 passage from it on Justin’s part, is really to concede the point” (Volkmar, 
 ib. Justin, p. 50 f.; Zeller, p. 650). The Clementine Homilies (see hereafter 
 under 5) furnish an analogous phenomenon, in that they certainly knew and 
 used our Gospel, while yet borrowing very little from it. The synoptic evangelic 
 literature was the older and more widely diffused; it had already become 
 familiar to the most diverse Christian circles (comp. Luke i. 1), when 
 John’s Gospel, which was so very dissimilar and peculiar, and if not esoteric 
 (Weizsiicker), certainly antichiliastic (Keim), made its appearance. How con- 
 ceivable that the latter, though the work of an apostle, should only very gra- 
 dually have obtained general recognition and equal authority with the Synoptics 
 among the Jewish Christians ? how conceivable, therefore, also, that a man like 
 Justin, though no Judaizer, should have hesitated to quote from it in the 
 same degree as he did from the Synoptics, and the other writings connected 
 with the Synoptic cycle of narratives? The assumption that he had no occasion 
 to refer frequently and expressly to John (Luthardt, op. cit. p. 398) is inadmis- 
 sible. He might often enough, where he has other quotations, have quoted 
 quite as appropriately from John. 
 
 1 See Duncker, d. Logoslehre Justins d. M., Gottingen 1848, and Luthardt as 
 above, xxxii. pp. 69 ff., 75 ff. ; Weizsacker in the Jahrb. 7. D. Theol. 1862, p. 
 703 ff. ; Tischendorf, wann wurden uns. Ev. verf. p. 31 ff., ed. 4; Weizsiicker, d. 
 Theol. d. M. Just., inthe Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1867, p. 78 ff. Great weight is due 
 to Justin’s doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos (Apol. i. 32, 66; ¢. Tryph. 
 100), which is foreign to the system of Philo, ete., and is specially Johannean. 
 
 2 Hence his frequent reference to the d@rouunpoveduara tov amorrorwy, 
 On one occasion led to do so casually, because he is speaking directly o1 
 Peter, he refers definitely to the dropvnwoveduara rod Merpov (c. Tryph. 106: 
 
10 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 general, either expressly or as a matter of course, traced the 
 origin of its doctrine of the Logos to John. It is therefore 
 unhistorical, in the special case of Justin, merely to point to 
 an acquaintance with Philo, and to the Logos-speculations 
 and Gnostic ideas of the age generally (against Zeller, Baur, 
 Hilgenf., Schclten, and many others), or to satisfy oneself 
 possibly with the assumption that Paul furnished him with 
 the premisses for his doctrine (Grimm in the Stud. u. Krit. 
 1851, p. 687 ff.), or even to make the fourth evangelist a 
 pupil of Justin (Volkmar). It seems, moreover, certain that 
 Apol. i. 61, nat yap Xpioros citer’ dv pn avayevynbite, 
 ov pn eloéXOnTe eis THY Bactrelav THY odvpavarv. “Ore 
 dé Kat addvatov eis Tas pyTpas TAV TEKOVTaY Tors anak 
 yevvwpévous euPivar, havepov taciv éott, is derived from 
 John iii. 3—5. See especially Semisch, p. 189 ff; Luthardt, 
 lc. XXXII. p. 93 ff.; Riggenb. p. 166 ff It is true, some 
 have assigned this quotation, through the medium of Matt. 
 xvill. 3, to the Gospel to the Hebrews, or some other un- 
 canonical evangelic writing (Credner, Schwegler, Baur, Zeller, 
 Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Scholten), or have treated it as a more 
 original form of the mere oral tradition (see Baur, against 
 Luthardt, in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 232). But in the face 
 of Justin’s free manner of quoting, to which we must attribute 
 the avayevy. instead of yevv. avwbev—davobev being taken, 
 according to the common ancient view, in the sense of denuo 
 (comp. also Clem. Recogn. vi. 9),—this is most arbitrary, especi- 
 
 eeravomaxtvas adroy Wérpoy tye trav aroororwy nal yeypuPeas ty rors amomynmoved- 
 acs avrov, x.7.a.). Here Credner (Beitr. I. p.132; Gesch. d. Kanon, p. 17) 
 quite correctly referred adrod to Mérpov (Liicke conjectures that aired is spurious, 
 or that ray arorrsawy is to be inserted, so that esrod would refer to Jesus), 
 but he understood these zou». to be the apocryphal Gospel of Peter,—the more 
 groundlessly, that the substance of Justin’s quotation is from Mark iii. 17 ; 
 Justin understood by dxsuvm. rod Merpod the Gospel of Mark. So also Luthardt, 
 op. cit. Xxxi. p. 316 fl. ; Weiss, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1861, p. 677; Riggenb. and 
 others; comp. Volkmar, Urspr. d. Evang. p. 154. According to Tertullian, c. 
 Mare. iv. 5, ‘Marcus quod edidit evangelium, Petri adfirmatur, cujus interpres 
 Marcus.” Comp. Irenaeus also, iii. 10. 6, iii. 1.1. According to this, compared 
 with what Papias says of Mark, Justin might have expressed himself exactly as 
 he has done. With respect to the controversy on the subject, see Hilgenfeld, 
 Krit. Unters. p. 23 ff., and Luthardt, lc. ; comp. on Mark, Introduction. 
 Notice also how unfavourable the passage seems to the notion that Justin’s 
 Memorials are a compilation (Ewald and others). 
 
INTRODUCTION. 12 
 
 ally when Justin himself gives prominence to the impossibility 
 of a second natural birth. Moreover, in the second half of the 
 quotation (od py eicerO. eis T. Bact. TOV ovp.), some re- 
 miniscence of Matt. xviii. 3 might easily occur ; just as, in fact, 
 several very ancient witnesses (among the Codices, x*) read 
 in John Jc. Bactielav THv ovpavav, the Pseudo-Clemens 
 (Homil. xi. 26), by quoting the second half exactly in this way, 
 and in the first half adding after dvaryevv. the words ddate Favre 
 els Ovoma TraTpos, viod, ayiov mvevparos, exhibits a free combina- 
 tion of Matt. xxviii. 19 and xviii. 3. Other passages of Justin, 
 which some have regarded as allusions to or quotations from 
 John, may just as fitly be derived from evangelic tradition 
 to be found elsewhere, and from Christian views generally ; 
 and this must even be conceded of such passages as ¢. Tryph. 
 88 (John i. 20 ff.), de res. 9 (John v. 27), Apol. I. 6 (John iv. 
 24), Apol. I. 22 and ¢. Tryph. 69 (John ix. 1), c Tryph. 17 
 (John i. 4). However, it is most natural, when once we have 
 been obliged to assume in Justin’s case the knowledge and 
 use of our Gospel, to attribute to it other expressions also 
 which exhibit Johannean peculiarities, and not to stop at Avol. 
 I. 61 merely (against Frank). On the other hand, the remark- 
 able resemblance of the quotation from Zech. xii. 10 in John xix. 
 37 and Apol. I. 52, leaves it doubtful whether Justin derived 
 it from John’s Gospel (Semisch, Luthardt, Tisch., Riggenb.), or 
 from one of the variations of the LXX. already existing at 
 that time (Grimm, lc. p. 692 f.), or again, as is most pro- 
 bable, from the original Hebrew, as is the case in Rev. i. 7. 
 It is true that the Epistle to Diognetus, which, though not 
 composed by Justin, was certainly contemporary with and 
 probably even prior to him, implies the existence of John’s 
 Gospel in certain passages of the concluding portion, which very 
 distinctly re-echo John’s Logos-doctrine (see especially Zeller, 
 lc. p. 618, and Credner, Gesch. d. neut. Kanon, p. 58 ff); but 
 this conclusion (chapp. 11, 12) is a later appendix, probably 
 belonging to the third century at the earliest. Other refer- 
 ences to our Gospel in the Epistle are uncertain. 
 
 5. To the testimonies of the second century, within the 
 church, the Clavis of Melito of Sardis certainly does not 
 belong (in Pitra, Sprczleg. Solesmense, Paris 1852), since this 
 
12 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 pretended «dels, wherein the passages John xv. 5, vi. 54, xii. 24, 
 are quoted as contained “in EHvangelio,” is a much later compila- 
 tion (see Steitz, Stud. wu. Krit. 1857, p. 584 ff.), but they include 
 the Epistle of the Churches at Vienne and Lyons (Eus. v. 1), 
 where John xvi. 2 is quoted as a saying of the Lord’s, and the 
 Spirit is designated the Paraclete: Tatian, Justin’s disciple, 
 ad Grace. 13, where John i. 5 is cited as 76 elpnuévov; chap. 
 19, where we have indications of an acquaintance with John’s 
 prologue (comp. chap. 5); and chap. 4, wvedua o Geos, compared 
 with John iv. 24; also the Diatessaron of this Tatian,) which 
 is based on the canon of the four Gospels, certainly including 
 that of John: Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christ. 10, which is based 
 
 1 According to Theodoret (Haeret. fab. i. 20), who from his account must 
 have known it accurately, and who removed it from his diocese as dangerous, it 
 was nothing else than a brief summary by way of extract of our four Gospels, 
 in which the genealogies, and all that referred to Christ as a descendant 
 of the seed of David, were left out. This account must (see also Semisch, 
 Tatiani Diatess., Vratisl. 1856) prevail against modern views of an opposite 
 kind ; it agrees also with what is said by Euseb. iv. 29, who, however, did not 
 himself exactly know the peculiar way in which Tatian had combined the four. 
 The statement of Epiphanius, Haer. xlvi. 1, ‘‘ Many called it xa# ‘EGpaioue,” is, 
 on the other hand, simply an historical remark, which decides nothing as to the 
 fact itself. According to the Jacobite bishop of the thirteenth century, Dionysius 
 Bar-Salibi (in Assemanni Bibl. Orient. i. p. 57 f., ii. p. 159), the Diatessaron 
 of Tatian, who therefore must have laid chief stress on John, began with the 
 words, In the beginning was the Word; he also reports that Ephraem Syrus 
 wrote a commentary on the Diatessaron. Credner (Beitr. I. p. 446 ff.; Gesch. d. 
 neut. Kanon, p. 19 ff.), whom Scholten follows, combats these statements by 
 showing that the Syrians had confounded Tatian and Ammonius and their 
 writings with one another. But Bar-Salibi certainly keeps them strictly apart. 
 Further, the orthodox Ephraem could write a commentary on Tatian’s Diates- 
 saron the more fitly, if it was a grouping together of the canonical Gospels. 
 Lastly, the statement that it began with John i. 1 agrees thoroughly with Theo- 
 doret’s account of the rejection of the genealogies and the descent from David, 
 whereas the work of Ammonius cannot have begun with John i. 1, since, 
 according to Eusebius (see Wetstein, Proleg. p. 68), its basis was the Gospel of 
 Matthew, by the side of which Ammonius placed the parallel sections of the 
 other evangelists in the form of a synopsis. The testimony of Bar-Salibi above 
 quoted ought not to have been surrendered by Liicke, De Wette, and various 
 others, on the ground of Credner’s opposition. What Credner quotes in his 
 Gesch. d. neut. Kanon, p. 20, from Ebed-Jesu (in Maii Script. vet. nova collect. 
 x. p. 191), rests merely on a confusion of Tatian with Ammonius on the part 
 of the Syrians ; which confusion, however, is not to be charged upon Dionysius 
 Bar-Salibi. Further, there is the less ground for excluding the fourth Gospel 
 from the Diatessaron, seeing that Tatian has made use of it in his Oratio ad 
 Giraecos. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 upon a knowledge of John’s prologue and of xvii. 21-23: 
 Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis, in a Fragment in the Paschal 
 Chronicle, ed. Dindorf, p. 14 (6 tHv dyiav mdevpav éxxevtnOets 
 6 exxéas ex THs TReupds avTov Ta Sv0 TaAW Kaldpota bowp Kal 
 aiua’ Aoyov Kk. Tvedwa, comp. John xix. 34), where Baur, of 
 course, takes refuge in a tradition older than our Gospel ; 
 also in another Fragment in the same work (ev dovpdavus 
 Té vow 4 vonoLs adTav Kal otacidtew Soxel Kat’ avtods Ta 
 evayyéa), where, if we rightly interpret it,, John’s Gospel 
 is meant to be included among the evayyéva: Polycrates of 
 Ephesus, in Euseb. v. 24, where, with a reference to John 
 xiii. 23 f., xxi. 20, he designates the Apostle John as o émi ro 
 atH00s Tod Kupiov avatecov. The Clementine Homilies (ed. 
 Dressel, Gotting. 1853) contain in xix. 22 an undeniable 
 quotation from John ix. 2, 3;? as also, in iii. 52, a citation 
 
 1 The correct explanation is the usual one, adopted by Wieseler, Ebrard, 
 Weitzel, Schneider, Luthardt, Bleek, Weizsicker, Riggenbach, and many others, 
 also by Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Scholten: ‘‘and the Gospels, according to them 
 (in consequence of their asserting that Jesus, according to Matthew, died 
 on the 15th Nisan), appear to be at variance” (namely, with one another). 
 This ground of refutation rests on the assumption (which, however, is really 
 erroneous) that there could be no disagreement among the Gospels as to the day 
 when Jesus died, while there would be such a disagreement if it were correct 
 that, according to Matthew, Jesus died on the 15th Nisan. Now it is true that 
 Matthew really has this statement; only Apollinaris does not admit it, but 
 assumes that both the Synoptics and John record the 14th Nisan as the day of 
 Christ’s death, so that on this point harmony reigns among the Gospels, as 
 in fact, generally, the real disagreement among them had not come to be con- 
 sciously observed. Comp. Clem. Al. in the Chron. Pasch.: rairy ray tspav 
 ry axpipeia. . . xalre svayytrse ovvwoe, According to Schwegler (Montanism, 
 p- 194 f.), Baur, Zeller, the sense must be: ‘‘ According to their view, the Gospels 
 are in conflict with the Law.” This, however, is incorrect, because, after having 
 given prominence to the irreconcilability with the Law, a new point is introduced 
 with craciéZev, bearing on the necessary harmony of the Gospels. Moreover, 
 there is no need whatever, in the case of craciaZeuv, of some such addition as 2» 
 taurais or the like, since ra stayyéasa represents a collective totality supposed 
 to be well known. Comp. Xen. Cyrop. viii. 8. 2, txel wévros Kopos rercirncey, 
 eidis ply wirod of waides toraciafov, Often soin Greek ; comp. also Hilgenfeld, 
 Paschastreit, p. 258. 
 
 2 See Uhlhorn in the Gétt. gel. Anz. 1853, p. 1810; Volkmar, ein neu 
 entdeckt. Zeugn. tiber d. Joh. Evang., in the theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 446 ff. In 
 spite of this clear testimony, however, Volkmar places the date of John’s 
 Gospel and of the Homilies so near each other (150-160 a.p.), that the former 
 must have been used by the author of the Homilies directly after its origination 
 ‘fas an interesting but wnapostolic Novum” (Urspr. d. Evang. p. 63). This 
 
14 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 occurs from John x. 9, 27 (see, against Zeller and Hilgent., 
 especially Uhlhorn, d. Homil. u. Recogn. des Clem. p. 223); 
 and after these undoubted quotations, there is no longer any 
 reason to question a reference also in xi. 26 (compare above, 
 under 4) to John iii. 3. On the other hand, no great stress 
 must be laid on the citations in the Recognitions, since this 
 work is to be placed (in opposition to Hilgenfeld, Merx, 
 Volkmar) somewhat later, though still in the second century, 
 and now only exists in the obviously free Latin translation 
 of Rufinus (Lecogn. vi. 9, comp. John ili. 83-5; Recogn. ui. 48, 
 comp. John v. 23; fecogn. v. 12, comp. John vii. 34). The 
 first Father who quotes our Gospel by nwme is Theophilus, 
 ad Autolyc. ii. 31 (ii. 22): “OOev SiddoKoves tds ai ayvat 
 ypadal Kal Tavtes of mvevpatopopa, €E ov "Iwdavuns réyEL 
 év &PX] Iv O Novos, «.T.A Besides this, according to Jerome 
 (Zp. 151, ad Aglas.), he composed a work comparing the four 
 Gospels together, which, like Tatian’s Diatessaron, implies the 
 recognition of John by the church. Of importance also here 
 is the testimony of Irenaeus, Haer. iii. 1 (érevta Iwavyns o 
 pabntns Tod Kupiov, o Kal émt To otHOos avTod avatrecav, Kal 
 avtos é&édmxe TO evayyériov, ev "Edéow tis ’Acias SuatpiPov), 
 comp. iii. 11. 1, 7, 8, 9, v. 10. 3, and especially ap. Eus. v. 8 ; 
 partly because in his youth Polycarp was his teacher, and 
 partly because he was an opponent of Gnosticism, which, 
 however, could easily find, and did actually find, nutriment 
 in this very Gospel. Hence the assumption is all the 
 more natural, that the Gospel so emphatically acknowledged 
 and frequently quoted by Irenaeus had Polycarp’s communi- 
 cations in its favour, either directly, in that Polycarp made 
 Irenaeus acquainted with John’s Gospel, or at any rate 
 indirectly, in that he found confirmed by that Gospel what 
 had been delivered to him by Polycarp as coming from the 
 apostle’s own mouth respecting the words and works of Jesus, 
 
 use manifestly implies dissemination and admitted apostolic authority such 
 as Matthew and Luke, and a Gospel of Peter, possibly used by him, must have 
 possessed in the opinion of the author. Comp. Luthardt as above, XXXI. p. 
 368 ff. This also tells against Baur, who, in the Zheol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 240, 
 strangely enough thinks to weaken this testimony as a ‘‘ casual and external ”’ 
 use of the Gospel; while Scholten (die dliesten Zeug. p. 60 ft.), in a precarious 
 and artificial fashion, raises doubts as to the use itself. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 and which had remained vividly impressed in his recollection 
 (Lpist. ad Florin. in Eus. v. 20).—Finally, here belong, because 
 we may take it for granted they are not later than the second 
 century, the Canon of Muratori, and the Canon of the 
 Syrian church in the Peschito, and in the Fragments of the 
 Curetonian text. The Itala also, if its origin really falls 
 within the second century (Lachmann, WV. 7. Praef. p. x. f.), 
 may be quoted among the testimonies of this century. 
 
 6. Among the heretics of the second century, besides the 
 Tatian already referred to, we must name Marcion as a wit- 
 ness for our Gospel. He rejected, according to Tertullian (c. 
 Mare. iv. 3), Matthew and John, and, according to the same 
 writer, de carne Christi 3, John,—a fact which implies their 
 apostolic authority, and that Marcion knew them to be 
 apostolic,” although Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, and Scholten, follow- 
 ing Zeller and Schwegler, assume the contrary. But he re- 
 jected the non-Pauline Gospels, not on critical grounds, but as 
 a one-sided adherent of Paul, and, as such, in Tertullian’s 
 judgement (“videtwr”), chose Luke’s Gospel, in order to shape 
 it anew for the purpose of restoring the pure gospel of Christ, 
 and in such a way, in fact, that he now “ evangelio scilicet suo 
 nullum adscribit auctorem,” Tertull. ¢. Mare. iv. 2, by which 
 he deprived Luke of his canonical position (“ Lucam vicde- 
 tur elegisse, quem caederet”). To question Tertullian’s credi- 
 bility in the above passages (Zeller, Baur, Volkmar), though 
 he too frequently judged with the hostility of a partisan those 
 whom he opposed, is yet without sufficient warrant, since he 
 states particularly (¢. Mare. iv. 3) how Marcion came to reject 
 the other canonical Gospels; that is, namely, that he strove, 
 on the ground of the Epistle to the Galatians (chap. ii.), to 
 subvert the position of those Gospels—*“ quae propria et sub 
 apostolorum nomine eduntur vel etiam apostolicorum, ut scilicet 
 fidem, quam illis adimit, suo conferat.” Comp. Weizsiicker, p. 
 
 1 Credner erroneously maintains in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 297, and Gesch. 
 d. neut. Kanon, p. 158 f., that the Canon Murat. distinguishes John the Evan- 
 gelist as a simple discipulus Christi from the Apostle. See, on the other hand, 
 Ewald, Jahrb. 1X. p. 96 ; Weiss in the Stud. u. Krit. 1863, p. 597. 
 
 ? Which certainly can be least of all doubted in the case of John’s Gospel, of 
 which Asia was the native country, The rejection of John as one of the twelve 
 apostles is easily enough explained by Marcion’s anti-Judaizing temper. 
 
16 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 250 ff. (who, however, misunderstands videtwr in the above 
 passage), and Riggenb. p.130 ff Marcion, therefore, must in 
 consistency have renounced the gain to Gnosticism with which 
 John could have furnished him. The opposite course would 
 have been inconsistent with his Paulinism. Again, that Ter- 
 tullian understood, by the “ Gospels peculiarly and specially 
 apostolical,” those of Matthew and John (against Zeller, who, 
 with Volkmar, understands the apocryphal Gospels of the 
 Jewish Christians), is clear from c. Marc. iv. 2: “ Nobis fidem ex 
 apostolis Johannes et Matthaeus insinuant, ex apostolicis Lucas 
 et Marcus.” Further, the Valentinians used our Gospel fully 
 and in many ways, in support of their fine-spun fancies (Iren. 
 Haer. iii. 11. 7); indeed, Heracleon, who is not to be rejuve- 
 nated into a contemporary of Origen,’ wrote a commentary on 
 it (see the Fragments from Origen in Grabe, Spicil. Patr. ii. p. 
 85 ff); and Ptolemaeus (in Epiphan. Haer. xxxiii. 3 ff.) cites 
 John i. 3 as an apostolical sentence, and according to Irenaeus, 
 i. 8. 5, expressly described John’s prologue as proceeding 
 from the apostle; and Theodotus also (according to the 
 extracts from his writings appended to the works of Clem. 
 Alex.) often quotes the Gospel of John. Whether Valentinus 
 himself used it, is a question on which also, apart from other 
 less evident proofs, we are not without very distinct testimony 
 since the publication of the Philosophumena Origenis, which 
 were probably composed by Hippolytus; for in the Philos. vi. 
 35, among the proof-texts used by Valentinus, John x. 8 is 
 cited: so that the subterfuge, “ Zhe author likes to transfer the 
 doctrines of the disciple to the Master” (Zeller, Hilgenfeld, 
 Volkmar, comp. Scholten), can be of no avail here, where we 
 have an instanee to the contrary lying clearly before us (see 
 Jacobi in the Deutsch. Zeitschrift, 1851, No. 28 f., 1853, No. 
 24 f.; Ewald, Jahrb. V. p. 200 f.). When, therefore, Ter- 
 tullian says, Praescr. Haer. 38, “ Valentinus integro instru- 
 mento uti videtur,” we may find this videtwr in respect of 
 John’s Gospel simply confirmed by the Philosophwmena? (see 
 
 ? Origen himself (in Joann. ii. c. 8) alleges that Heracleon was esteemed a 
 trusty disciple (yva#psmos) of Valentinus. 
 
 2 When Baur and Zeller, on the other hand, lay stress on the fact that among 
 the texts adduced by the Valentinians in proof of their doctrine of the Aeons, 
 
INTRODUCTION. Tr? 
 
 further, Bleek, Beitr. I. p. 214 ff.; Schneider, p. 27 ff.; 
 Luthardt, lc. p. 100 ff.; Tisch. Jc. p. 45 ff.; Riggenbach, p. 
 118 ff.).—That, again, even Basilides, who is not, however, to 
 be looked upon as a disciple of the Apostle Matthias (Hofstede 
 de Groot), used our Gospel,—a point which Baur even, with 
 unsatisfactory opposition on the part of Hilgenfeld, Volkmar. 
 and others, concedes,—and that he has employed as proof- 
 texts in particular John i. 9, ii. 4, is likewise proved by 
 the Phil. Orig. vii. 22, 27, with which many of the author's 
 errors in other things are quite unconnected.—The Gospel also 
 was in use among the Naassenes (Philos. Or. v. 6 ff.) and 
 Peratae (v. 12 ff), who belong to the close of the second 
 century.—It is true that Montanism had not its original root 
 in the Gospel of John, but in the doctrine of the Parousia ; 
 still, in its entire relation to the church and its doctrine (see 
 especially Ritschl, Altkathol. Kirche, p. 477 ff.), and particu- 
 larly in its ideas of prophecy, its asceticism, and its escha- 
 tology, it had no occasion to reject our Gospel, though some 
 have erroneously found some evidence to this effect in Iren- 
 aeus,| though at the same time dependence on this Gospel 
 cannot in its case be proved. There was a rejection of the 
 
 none occur from John, and hence conclude that the Valentinian system which 
 Irenaeus there describes does not imply the existence of our Gospel at that 
 time, it is still adverse to their view that Irenaeus immediately, i. 8. 5, adduces 
 quotations from John out of Ptolemaeus, and in iii. 11. 7 testifies to the most 
 ample use of our Gospel (‘‘plenissime utentes”) on the part of the Valen- 
 tinians. So, also, the fact that Irenaeus, i. 20. 2, cites among the proof-texts 
 of the Marcosians none from John, cannot serve to prove that the ‘‘ Valentinian 
 system originally stood in no connection with the fourth Gospel.” Zeller, 1845, 
 p- 635. Assuredly the whole theosophy of Valentinus was intertwined with, 
 and grew upon, the ground and soil of John’s distinctive theology. ‘‘ Valentinus 
 . non ad materiam scripturas (as Marcion), sed materiam ad scripturas ex- 
 cogitavit, et tamen plus abstulit et plus adjecit, auferens proprietates singulorum 
 quoque verborum et adjiciens dispositiones non comparentium rerum.” Tertul- 
 lian, de praescr. haer. 38. The Valentinian Gnosis, with its Aeons, Syzygies, 
 and so on, stands related to John’s prologue as a product of art and fancy to 
 what is simple and creative. Attempts to weaken the testimonies of the 
 Philosoph. Orig. as to a use of John’s Gospel on the part of Valentinus and 
 Basilides, have been very unsuccessfully made: Zeller, in the Theol. Jahrb. 
 1853, p. 144 ff.; Volkmar, ibidem, 1854, p. 125 f.; Baur, ib. p. 269 f.; Hilgenf. 
 in his Zeitschrift, 1862, p. 452 ff.; Scholten, d. dit. Zeug. p. 67 ff.; and Volk- 
 mar, Urspr. uns. Evang. p. 70 ff. 
 1 This is in answer to Bretschneider, Probab. p. 210 ff. The passage in Iren- 
 aeus, ili. 2. 9, reads thus: ‘Alii vero, ut donum Spiritus frustrentur, quod in 
 B 
 
18 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Gospel on the part of the Alogi, consequently on that of the 
 opponents of Montanism (Epiph. Haer. li. 3 f.), in the interests, 
 indeed, of dogmatic Antimontanism, though they also adduced 
 harmonistic reasons; but by this very rejection they furnish 
 an indirect testimony to the recognition in their day of our 
 Gospel as an apostolic work, both in the church and among 
 the Montanists. They ascribed it to Cerinthus, who was yet 
 a contemporary of John,—a proof how ancient they thought 
 it, in spite of their rejection of it. 
 
 7. Celsus, whom we must certainly not assign, with Volk- 
 mar, to so late a date as the third century, has been cited as a 
 witness of the second century standing outside the church,— 
 all the more important, indeed, because her enemy,—and, from 
 the Fragments of his work as cited in Origen, we may certainly 
 infer that he was to some extent acquainted with the evangelic 
 tradition and the evangelic writings, for he even alludes to the 
 designation of the Logos and other peculiar points which are 
 found in John, especially c. Céels. ii. 36, comp. John xx. 27; 
 c. Cels. i. 67, comp. John ii. 18. He assures us that he drew 
 his objections chiefly from the writings of the Christians (c. 
 Cels. ii. 74). Now it is highly probable that the Gospel of 
 John was also among them, since he (¢. Céls. ii. 13) expressly 
 
 novissimis temporibus secundum placitum patris effusum est in humanum genus, 
 illam speciem non admittunt, quae est secundum Johannis evangelium, in qua 
 Paracletum se missurum Dominus promisit ; sed simul et evangelium et pro- 
 pheticum repellunt Spiritum, infelices vere, qui pseudoprophetae quidem esse 
 volunt, prophetiae vero gratiam ab ecclesia repellunt.” He is here speaking of 
 the opponents of Montanism, who for a polemical purpose did not acknowledge 
 the characteristic Johannean nature of this Gospel, recognisable by the promise 
 of the Paraclete; by which course Irenaeus thinks they reject equally both the 
 Gospel (of John) and the prophetical Spirit also (who, in fact, was to be sent 
 precisely as the Paraclete),—‘‘ truly unhappy men, who indeed ascribe it (the 
 Gospel) to a false prophet, while they are repelling the grace of prophecy from 
 the church.”—The passage is not to be regarded, with Neander, as a Montanist 
 interpolation ; nor must we admit in the last words the conjecture ‘‘ pseudo- 
 prophetas” (so Merkel, Aufklérung d. Streitigk. der Aloger, p. 13 ; also Gieseler, 
 Kirchengesch. I. i. p. 200, and Tischendorf), or pseudoprophetae esse nolunt (so 
 Liicke), or pseudoprophetas esse nolunt (so Ritschl). Rather is pseudoprophetae 
 to be taken as genitive : that ‘‘it is the work of a false prophet.” Accordingly 
 the ‘‘ pseudoprophetae esse volunt” answers to the preceding ‘‘evangelium.. . 
 repellunt,” while the ‘‘ prophetiae vero gratiam” answers to the ‘‘ propheticum 
 repellunt Spiritum.” Hence also we must decline Volkmar’s conjecture, that 
 in Greek Yeudas rpopiiras stood instead of Pevdorpopnras. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 distinguishes the writings of the disciples of Jesus from other 
 works treating of Him, which he proposes to pass over.—A 
 weighty testimony from the oldest apocryphal literature might 
 be furnished by the Acta Pilati, which are quoted even by 
 Justin and Tertullian (see Tischendorf, Zvang. apocr. Prolegg. 
 p. liv. ff.), if their original form were satisfactorily determined, 
 which, however, cannot be successfully done. Just as little do 
 other apocryphal Gospels furnish anything which we may lay 
 hold of as certain. The labour expended by Tischendorf 
 therefore leads to no results. 
 
 8. By the end of the second century, and from the 
 beginning of the third, tradition in the church testifies so 
 clearly and uniformly in favour of the Gospel, that there is 
 no need of additional vouchers (Clem. Al, Tertull., Hippolyt 
 Orig., Dionys. Al. etc.). Euseb. ii. 25 places it among the 
 Homologumena. 
 
 From this examination of witnesses, it is clear’ that our 
 Gospel was not merely in use in the church, and recognised by 
 her as apostolical, from about 170 a.p. (Hilgenfeld, a.p. 150), 
 and composed somewhere about 150 a.p. (Hilgenfeld, 120-— 
 140), but that the continuity of the attestations to it, and 
 their growing extent in connection with the literature of the 
 church, are as evident as we ever can and do require for the 
 external confirmation of any New Testament writing. The 
 continuity in particular goes back, by means of Irenaeus 
 through Polycarp, and by means of Papias, so far as he 
 testifies to the use of John’s first Hpistle, even if not di- 
 rectly (Iren., Hieron.), yet indirectly (Euseb., Dionys.),—that 
 is, through the Presbyter John,—to the Apostle himself. That 
 
 1 Comp. the acknowledgment of Keim, Gesch. J. i. p. 137: ‘‘It is used in the 
 extant literature as early as the Synoptics.” In opposition both to the usual 
 determination of the date, which fixes on the last quarter of the first century, 
 and to the criticism of Baur, Hilgenfeld, and Volkmar, Keim (pp. 146, 155) 
 assigns the origin of the Gospel to Trajan’s time, between A.D. 100 and 117. The 
 difficulty here is, that, according to Keim, the Epistle of Barnabas necessarily 
 implies the use of our Gospel in its time. This epistle, however, he places in 
 Hadrian’s day, about 120 A.p. In this case, the interval during which the 
 Gospel had to become known and recognised is much too narrow ; and besides, the 
 date he assigns to Barnabas is by no means so certain as Keim is disposed to infer 
 from chap. 4and 16. Hilgenfeld places it under Nerva; Ewald and Weizsacker 
 even in that of Vespasian. ‘The question is, in any case, still uncertain. 
 
20 THE GISPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 the Fragment of Papias in EKuseb. iii. 39 does not mention 
 John’s Gospel, cannot be of any consequence, since it does 
 not quote any written sources at all from which the author 
 drew his accounts, but rather describes his procedure as that 
 of an inquirer after sayings of the apostles and other of the 
 Lord’s disciples (such as Aristion and John the Presbyter), 
 and expressly enunciates the principle: od yap ta é« tay 
 BiBXiwv tocoiTov pe werely vredauPavov, bcov Ta Tapa 
 feons hovns xab wevovons. Papias here throws together the 
 then existing evangelic writings (r@v BuBdAlwv), of which there 
 was a multitude (Luke i. 1), all without distinction, not 
 probably some merely apocryphal ones (Tischendorf; Riggen- 
 bach, p. 115) ; and as he included among them the Gospel of 
 Matthew and that of Mark, both of which he specially men- 
 tions subsequently, so he also may have intended to include 
 the Gospel of John among tay BiBAiwv, since he manifestly 
 does not indicate that he has any conception of canonical 
 Gospels as such (comp. Credner, Beitr. I. p. 25), and has no 
 occasion to note the distinction. When, further on, Eusebius 
 quotes two statements of Papias on the Gospels of Matthew 
 and Mark, this does not indicate that our Gospel did not exist 
 in his day (Baur), or was at any rate not recognised by him 
 (Hilgen., Credner, and Volkmar); but these two statements 
 are simply made prominent, because they contain something 
 specially noteworthy as to the origin’ of those Gospels, just as 
 Eusebius refers to it as specially worthy of remark that Papias 
 makes use of proofs from two epistolary writings? (1 John 
 
 1 When, in this statement, Papias intimates in regard to Mark: ore yap 
 Hnovee Tov xuplov ovTe rapnxoAovénsey avtw, We may observe here a contrast to 
 other evangelists who had heard the Lord and followed Him; which was not 
 the case with Mark, whose credibility depended rather on Peter. Such other 
 evangelists were Matthew and John. 
 
 2* Why Eusebius makes this prominent, we cannot tell, since we do not 
 know on what occasions Papias used these epistolary testimonies. We can hardly 
 connect this prominent reference with the question of the genuineness of the 
 epistles, to which the subsequent mention of the Gospel to the Hebrews would 
 not at all be appropriate. Probably Eusebius mentions the reference to the two 
 epistles only as an exceptional procedure on the part of Papias, who elsewhere 
 dispenses with the citation of written testimonies. Comp. the passage previously 
 adduced from the Fragment.—Scholten (d. diltest. Zeugn. p. 17) very arbitarily, 
 and without any reason, doubts whether Papias held the epistle to be a work of 
 
 the apostle, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 and 1 Peter), and has a narrative which occurs in the Gospel 
 to the Hebrews." Further, in opposition to the weighty testi- 
 mony of Justin Martyr, it is incorrectly urged that, if he had 
 known of John as evangelist, he would not have referred to 
 him as the author of the Apocalypse with the bare words (c. 
 Tryph. 81), avnp tis, & dvoya Iwavvys, els Tov atrocTOXw TOD 
 Xpictod. Justin had, in fact, no occasion at all, in the con- 
 text of this passage, to describe John as evangelist, and all 
 the less that to himself it was self-evident that in els tov 
 amocto\wy were included the authors of the drouynuovetpata 
 TOV aTOoTOAOD. 
 
 A historical argument specially adduced by some against 
 our Gospel is derived from the history of the Laster Con- 
 troversy. See, on the one side, Bretschneider, Prob. 109 f. ; 
 Schwegler, Montanism, p. 191 f.; Baur, p. 343 ff., and in the 
 Theol. Jahrb. 1844, p. 638 ff., 1847, p. 89 ff, 1848, p. 264 ff. 
 On the opposite side, Weitzel, d, christl. Passafever der drew ersten 
 Jahrb., Pforzheim 1848, and in the Theol. Stud. wu. Krit. 1848, 
 p. 806 ;—in answer to which, again, Hilgenfeld, in the Theol. 
 Jahrb. 1849, p. 209 ff, and in his Galaterbrief, p. 78 f.; Baur, 
 d. Christenth. d. drei ersten Jahrb. p. 141 ff.; Scholten, d. 
 Evang. nach Joh. krit. hist. Untersuch. p. 385 ff., and d. diltest. 
 Zeugnisse, p. 139 ff. See further, for the genuineness of John: 
 Ewald, Jahrb. V. p. 203 ff.; Schneider, p. 43 ff; Bleek, Beztr. 
 p. 156 ff., and Hinl. p. 187 ff.; Steitz, in the Stud. u. Krit. 
 1856, p. 721 ff, 1857, p. 741 ff, 1859, p. 717 ff, and in the 
 Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theologie, 1861, p. 102 ff. ;—against whom, 
 Baur, in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 242 ff, and in Hilgenfeld’s 
 Zeitschr. 1858, p. 298; Hilgenf. Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 523 ff, 
 
 1 Besides, it is not to be overlooked that Papias may somewhere else in his 
 book have mentioned the fourth Gospel, which he does not name in the Frag- 
 ment in Eusebius. We do not know, since the book is lost. See also Steitz, 
 in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 4938. It is true, a Latin Codex of the ninth 
 century, in the Vatican, expressly testifies to such a mention (see Aberle in 
 the Tiib. Quartalschr. 1864, p. 1 ff.; Tisch. as above, p. 118 f.; Zahn, in the 
 Stud. u. Krit. 1867, p. 5389 ff.); but less importance is to be attached to it, since 
 the testimony is connected with the statement that Papias put together what 
 was dictated by the apostle,—a late and worthless legend (occurring also in 
 Corder. Caten. Prooem.), which might easily enough have originated from 
 Irenaeus’ speaking of Papias as "Iwdévvou axoverns. See, moreover, Hilgenf. in 
 his Zeitschr. 1865, p. 75 ff.; Overbeck, ibidem, 1867, p. 63 ff. 
 
22 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 and in his Zeitschr. 1858, p. 151 ff., 1862, p. 285 ff, 1867, 
 p. 187 ff. On the whole course of the investigations, Hilgenf., 
 d. Paschastreit d. alt. Kirche, 1860, p. 29 ff.; Kanon wu. Krit. d. 
 N. T. 1863, p. 220 ff. Comp. also the apologetic discussion 
 by Riggenbach, d. Zeugnisse f. d. Ev. Joh. p. 50 ff. The 
 reasons derived from the Easter controversy against the 
 genuineness of the Gospel are obviated, not by forcing the 
 fourth Gospel into agreement with the Synoptics in their state- 
 ments as to the day on which Jesus died (see on xviii. 28), 
 which is not possible, but by a correct apprehension of the point 
 of view from which the Catholic Quartodecimani in Asia Minor, 
 who appealed for their observance of their festival on the 
 14th Nisan to apostolic custom, and especially to the example 
 of John (Polycarp in Eusebius v. 24; and Polycrates, zbidem), 
 regarded the observance of this particular day of the month. 
 The opponents of the Gospel, it is true, say, If the custom of 
 those in Asia Minor to celebrate the Lord’s last supper on the 
 14th Nisan,contemporaneously with the Jewish passover, mainly 
 originated with and proceeded from the Apostle John, then this 
 apostle could not have written the fourth Gospel, because that 
 custom agrees exactly with the Synoptic account of the last 
 supper and the day of Jesus’ death, while the fourth Gospel 
 states the exact opposite-—namely, that Jesus kept His last 
 supper, and therefore no true passover, on the 13th Nisan, and 
 was crucified on the 14th Nisan. But the men of Asia Minor 
 celebrated the 14th Nisan,—and that, too, by terminating the 
 fast kept upon this day in remembrance of Christ’s passion, down 
 to the hour of His death, and by a joyous celebration of the 
 Lord’s supper immediately after, in gratitude for the accom- 
 plishment of His work of redemption,—not because Jesus ate 
 the passover on that day, but because He died on that day, 
 and by His death became the real and true Paschal Lamb of 
 whom the Mosaic paschal lamb was the type (1 Cor. v. 7; John 
 x1x. 36); comp. also Ritschl, Altkath. Kirche, p. 269. Accord- 
 ingly, they might justly maintain (see Polycrates in Euseb. /.c.) 
 that their festival on the 14th Nisan was cata 76 evayyéXov 
 (for any disagreement in the Gospels in reference to the day of 
 Jesus’ death was not yet perceived, and the passover meal of 
 Jesus in the Synoptics was looked upon as an anticipation), 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 and kata Tov Kavova THs TictTews,—this latter, namely, be- 
 cause Jesus, by the observance of the passover on another day, 
 would not have appeared as the antitype of the slaughtered 
 paschal lamb. Also maca ayla ypady might be rightly 
 quoted in proof by Polycrates, since in no part of the Old 
 Testament does any other day occur as that on which the 
 paschal lamb was slaughtered, except the 14th Nisan, and 
 Jesus was in fact the true Paschal Lamb. It is self-evi- 
 dent that John’s example, which the Catholics of Asia Minor 
 urged in favour of their “Quartodecima,” perfectly agrees with 
 the account of the fourth Gospel, and that the cata 76 evay- 
 yédwov of Polycrates, though by it no single Gospel, but the 
 written evangelic history collectively, is meant, does not ex- 
 clude, but includes John’s Gospel, since its existence and 
 recognition at that time is perfectly clear from other proofs. 
 True, there was also a party of Quartodecimans in Asia 
 Minor’ who formed their judgments from a Judaistic (Ebi- 
 onite) stand-point, whose celebration of the 14th Nisan did 
 not rest on the assumption that Jesus, as the true Paschal 
 Lamb, died on this day, but on the legal injunction that the 
 passover was to be eaten on this day, and on the assumption 
 that Jesus Himself ate it on the very same day, and did not 
 suffer till the 15th Nisan (comp. Steitz, 1856, p. 776 ff.). 
 These? men stirred up the so-called Laodicean controversy, and 
 
 ' Characteristically referred to thus by Apollinaris in the Chron. Pasch. p. 
 14: vos roivuy of ds Ayvoiey Qiroverxovos repl rodTwy, cuyyyworoy mpeyua removbarEs” 
 ayvoim yap ov xarnyopiny avadixeral, aAAM Didaxns wpoodsiras, Comp. Hippolyt. 
 ibid. p.13% 6pa pty ody, brs Qiroverxing vd tpyov, x.7.A. With the mild description 
 of these people in Apollinaris agrees also Philos. Orig. viii. 18, where they are 
 simply distinguished as ¢repoi rives, and indeed as QiAdvernos env Odow and Diaras 
 viv yyaow, While it is said of them that in other points they agree with the 
 doctrine of the apostles. Against Baur and Hilgenfeld, by whom the distinc- 
 tion between Catholic and Judaic Quartodecimani is alleged to be pure fancy, 
 see Steitz, 1856, p. 782 ff., 1857, p. 764; also in Herzog’s Encyclop. xi. 
 p. 156 ff: Even the ¢o. of Apollinaris and the ¢repoi cies of Hippolytus should 
 have precluded them from thinking of the Asiatic church. On the other hand, 
 Hilgenfeld, in his Paschastreit, pp. 256, 282, 404, is evasive. 
 
 2 Whose observance is not to be regarded as a mere Jewish simultaneous 
 celebration of the passover, which John assented to, as a custom which he found 
 in existence in Ephesus (Bleek, De Wette, following Liicke). See, on the other 
 hand, Hilgenfeld, Kanon u. Krit. d. N. T. p. 224 ff. The difference rests on a 
 fundamental opposition. Comp. Ritschl, Althath. Kirche, pp. 123 f., 269 f. 
 
24 THE GOSPEL OF JONN. 
 
 had as opponents, first Melito of Sardis and Apollinaris of 
 Hierapolis, and afterwards Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement, and 
 others (Eus. iv. 26. 3). They were attacked partly by their 
 own weapon — the law — according to which Christ could 
 not have been put to death, that is, slain as the true Paschal 
 Lamb, on the first day of the feast; partly by an appeal to 
 the Gospels, in respect of which it was assumed that they 
 agree in reporting the 14th Nisan as the day of Jesus’ death 
 (Apollinaris, in the Chron. Pasch. p. 14: dovpdavas te vow 
  vonots avTaV Kal otacialew SoKel Kat’ avTOvs Ta EVAYYéALa. 
 See above, under 5, the note on this passage). Moreover, it 
 was urged by some who appealed to Matthew (Apollinaris, 
 L.c., Sunyoovtar Mar@aiov ottw dréyewv), that according to the 
 words of Jesus, ovxéts Gayouar TO macya (comp. Luke xxii. 
 16), He did not eat of the legal passover, but died as the 
 perfect Paschal Lamb on this day, and indeed before the 
 time of eating the meal appointed by the law. See Hippoly- 
 tus, in the Chron. Pasch. p. 13: 6 maXav poeirrav, Ott ovKéTe 
 payouat TO Tacyxa, eiKoOTws TO wey Seimvoy eSeirvncev TpO TOU 
 Tdoya, TO OE Tacya ovK Eparyer, GAN Erralev, ovdé yap KaLpos 
 jv THS Bpwcews avtod (ie. “because the legal period for eating 
 the passover had not even come,’—it only came several hours after 
 the death of Jesus); and just before: wemAdyytae pu) yuwdoxwr, 
 étt @ Kaip@ eracyey 6 Xpuotos, ovK epaye TO KaTa vomov 
 TdoXa, OUTOS Yap Hv TO TadaYa TO TpoKEKnpvypEévov Kal TO 
 TEAELOUPLEVOV TH wpLcpévyn Huépa (on the 14th Nisan). That, 
 however, Justin Martyr himself regarded the first day of the 
 feast as the day on which Jesus died (so Baur and Hilgenfeld), 
 is an erroneous assumption. For when he says (¢. Zryph. 
 111, p. 338), cat dre ev tuépa Tov Tacya ouvendSeTe avTov 
 kal omolws &v TH Tacya éotavpwcate, yéypaTTat, he plainly 
 means by €v 7)mépa Tob macxa, and by év 76 wacya, the day 
 on which the paschal lamb was eaten—the 14th Nisan; 
 since he shows immediately before that Christ was the true 
 Paschal Lamb, and immediately after continues: @s 8€ tods 
 év Aiyimt@m éEcwoe TO alua tod mdcya, oUTws Kal Tods 
 Tuotevoavtas pioetar éx Oavdtov To aia tod Xpictod. 
 Comp. chap. 40, p. 259. He might therefore have regarded 
 Christ not as dying on the 15th Nisan, but simply on the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 25 
 
 14th, as this is expressed in the second fragment of Apol- 
 linaris; without our needing to understand “éy yépg 7H Tod 
 macya” of the 15th Nisan.? Thus it is also said in the 
 Chron. Pasch. p. 12: év adth 6879 Tod Tacyxa Hepa, HToL 
 TH LS TOD TpwTOU pNVOS, TapacKeUTS ovons éecTa’pwoav TOV 
 Kuptov ot Iovdaior, at ToTe TO Taaya Epayov. Comp. p. 415: 
 év tyépa S€ TapacKevy atavpwOhvar Tov KUpiov diddcKovew 
 Ta Oeorvevota Oya, év TH TOD Tadcya éopTH. On this 
 fourteenth day the passover was celebrated according to the 
 practice prevailing in Asia Minor, because on that day the 
 true Paschal Lamb, Christ, was slain. Thus had Philip, John, 
 Polycarp, and other peydda octoryeia, whom Polycrates men- 
 tions, already acted, and so John’s example in this particular 
 agrees with his own Gospel. 
 
 If some have also argued (see Hilgenfeld, Baur, Volkmar) 
 against the early existence of our Gospel, from the antiquity 
 and fixedness of the tradition which represented the ministry 
 of Jesus as lasting for one year only (see Homil. Clem. xvii. 
 19), it is, on the other hand, certain that this tradition occurs 
 in many writers who recognised the Gospel as the genuine 
 work of John (Clem. Al., Orig., Ptolemaeus ; and see generally 
 Semisch, Denkw. Justin’s, p. 199 f.); whence it is clear that it 
 does not imply the non-existence of the Gospel, but seemed 
 just as reconcilable with John as with the Synoptics. It may 
 have originated from the Synoptic history (see on Luke iv. 19) ; 
 but the counter statement of John, even if it actually existed, 
 did not disturb it. It is the same also with the antiquity and 
 
 1 To the same effect is p. 14: 4 163’ rd dAnbiev rod xupiou rdoxa, n bucia nv 
 Meyaan, 6 ave) cov kmvou rais O20, 6 nbcls, 6 Sioas Tov icxupov, nai 6 xpibels xpiThs 
 Lavrwy xa vexpav, xual 6 wupedobeis eis yetipus awaprwawy, iva oraupwhn, o duels 
 ix) xephtwy povoxtpwros, xal o thy aylay wAtupay ixxevendtis . . . wai Oo THupEs Ev 
 Amipa TH Tov waa a, emitebiveos TH pvnwars TOU Aibov. 
 
 2 Recently Steitz also (in Herzog’s Encyklop. xi. 1859, p. 151), who formerly 
 agreed with Baur, has admitted that Justin, agreeing with the other Fathers of 
 the second and third centuries, did not in the above passage, c. Tr. p. 338, 
 mean the 15th, but the 14th Nisan. Comp. Lev. xxiii. 5,6 ; Num. xxviii. 16 f.; 
 Ezek. xlv. 21. The 15th Nisan is called postridie paschatis, Num. xxxiii. 3, 
 Josh. v. 11. Hilgenfeld’s objection (d. Paschastr. d. alten Kirche, p. 206), that 
 the arrest mentioned by Justin as taking place likewise on the auipu rod réoxa 
 does not suit the 14th Nisan, is altogether futile. Justin correctly includes 
 the arrest in the day of crucifixion, as, c. Tryph. 99, the agony in Gethsemane 
 is already put by him +7 nwipa, yaep EmcrAAs cravpovelas 
 
26 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 fixedness of the tradition of the 14th Nisan as the day of 
 Jesus’ death, which nevertheless does not imply non-acquaint- 
 ance with the synoptic Gospels.—If, further, the reasons 
 which are alleged for a Johannean origin of the Apocalypse 
 are likewise urged, especially by the Tiibingen critics, as 
 evidence against a similar origin for the Gospel, yet, on the 
 other hand, an opposite procedure is equally justifiable ; 
 and, apart from the utter futility of those reasons in other 
 respects, the testimonies for the Apocalypse, which was 
 excluded even from the Peschito, do not attain to any such 
 general recognition as those for this Gospel. The attribu- 
 tion by the unanimous judgment of the church (alleged to 
 be erroneous) of the latter work to the apostle, would, if it 
 only originated in the first half of the second century, be the 
 result of a few decenniums, brought about as by a stroke of 
 magic; and would be, historically, the more enigmatical and 
 incomprehensible, in proportion as the contents and character 
 of our book are the more peculiar, compared with the other 
 Gospels, and the more divergent from the Apocalypse, which 
 existed long before our Gospel, and was reputed to be apostolic. 
 For in this book it is not a spiritualized apocalypse that is 
 exhibited,’ but simply an independent Gospel, set forth in pro- 
 found spiritual perfection, is to be recognised, whose linguistic 
 and other characteristics, and whose doctrinal contents, spirit, 
 and aim, are, on the whole, so specifically different from those 
 of the Apocalypse, in spite of various Christological points of 
 connection, that it can only have come from a totally different 
 author (against Hengsten., Godet, Riggenb., and others). The 
 Gnostic tendency of the time, in which some have sought for 
 the solution ot that incomprehensible enigma, does not solve 
 it, since the strong reaction in the church against Gnosticism 
 would certainly rather have condemned a Gospel furnishing the 
 Gnostics with so much apparent support, and with materials 
 so liable to be misused, than have left to opponents so rich a 
 mine, to be worked out for their designs, if its apostolic origin 
 had not been known and acknowledged as an established fact. 
 
 1 Against Baur, Schwegler, Késtlin, Hilgenf., and others. How some have 
 represented even the Synoptics as dependent on the Apocalypse, see especially in 
 Volkmar, zur Apok. u. Ursp. uns. Evang. p. 158 f. Nothing can be more futile. 
 
INTRODUCTION. ay 
 
 SEC. III.—GENUINENESS CONTINUED. 
 
 ' As an internal testimony to its apostolic origin, we have, 
 above all, the whole grand ideal peculiarity of the book, 
 wherein the wvevpatixov evayyédcov (Clem. Al.) is delineated 
 with so much character and spirit, with such simplicity, vivid- 
 ness, depth, and truth, that a later fabricator or composer— 
 who, moreover, could have occupied no other standing-point 
 than that of his own time—becomes an impossibility, when 
 we compare with it any production of Christian authorship of 
 the second century. The Gospel of John, especially through 
 the unity and completeness of its Christological idea, is no 
 artificial antithesis (Keim, Gesch. J. p. 129), but the wArjpwors 
 of the previous evangelic literature, to which the Pauline 
 Christology appears as the historical middle term. But such 
 a creation, which constitutes such a mArjpwors, without any 
 imitation of the older Gospels, is not the work of some later 
 forger, but of an immediate eye-witness and recipient.’ In it 
 there beats the heart of Christ,—as the book itself has been 
 justly named (Ernesti). But, say some (Liitzel., Baur and his 
 
 1 In order to make the unique peculiarities of the Gospel agree with a non- 
 apostolic author, neither the Epistle to the Hebrews nor the Apostle Paul 
 ought to be brought into comparison. Both of them belong to the apostolic 
 age, and the latter was called in an extraordinary manner by Christ, as a true 
 apostle, and furnished with a revelation. To suppose that the author of this 
 Gospel aiso received a revelation in a similar way, and yet to make him compose 
 his Gospel no earlier than the second century, is unhistorical ; and to attribute to 
 any one deemed worthy of such a revelation the design of passing off his work 
 as John’s, is unpsychological, and morally opposed to the spirit of truth which 
 pervades and underlies it. The originating creative energy of the Spirit had no 
 longer, in the second century, its season ordained by God, as is clearly shown 
 by the entire literature ot that later period, not excepting even the most dis- 
 tinguished (such as the Epistle to Diognetus). And the assumption of the 
 apostolic guise would have been, in the case of that creative energy, as un- 
 worthy as unnecessary. The pseudonymous post-apostolic literature of the 
 early church may be sufficiently accounted for by the custom—excusable, con- 
 sidering the defective conception at that time of literary property—of assum- 
 ing the name of any one according to whose ideas one intended to write (see 
 Kostlin in the Theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 149 ff.) ; but the deliberate purpose on 
 which this custom was founded, would, in the case especially of a book so 
 sublime, and in an intellectual point of view, so thoroughly independent as our 
 Gospel, have been wétterly incongruous—a paradox of the Holy Ghost. 
 
28 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 school), it is precisely this tender, fervent, harmonious, spiritual 
 character of the Gospel, which is as little in keeping with those 
 traits of the Apostle John himself exhibited in the other Gospels 
 (Mark iii. 17; Luke ix. 49, 54; Mark ix. 38, x. 35), as 
 the testimony borne to his anti-Pauline Judaism (Gal. -ii.) is 
 to the ideal universalism which pervades his Gospel (see 
 especially iv. 24, x. 16, xii. 20). Yet the Judaizing partisan- 
 ship which is said to be chargeable on John, is first simply 
 imported into Gal. ii, and cannot without utter arbitrariness be 
 inferred from the conflicts with Judaism in Paul’s subsequent 
 epistles. And as to the destination of an apostle of the Jews, 
 a position which John certainly, in common with Peter and 
 James, still adopted at the time of the Apostolical Council, 
 might it not afterwards (though even Keim discovers in this 
 assumption a mockery of history and psychology) expand 
 eradually into that universalism which appears in the Gospel ? 
 Might not, in particular, the fuller insight into Paul’s work 
 which John attained (Gal. ii.), and the bond of fellowship 
 which he formed with that apostle (Gal. ii), as well as his 
 entrance subsequently into the sphere of Paul’s labours in 
 Asia Minor, have contributed powerfully to that expansion 
 and transformation which went beyond that of Paul himself; 
 for the perfecting of which, down to the time when our Gospel’ 
 was composed, so long a period of church history and of per- 
 sonal experience had been vouchsafed? Moreover, like Paul, 
 he still retained his Israelitish theocratic consciousness as an 
 inalienable inheritance (iv. 22 ; his use of the Old Test.). With 
 regard to the traits of character indicated in the Synoptics, is 
 
 1 The well-known words of Polycrates, +d riradov rePopnxds, ought not to 
 have been used as a proof that, in his later ministry in Asia, John was still 
 the representative of Judaism, for they describe high-priestly dignity (see 
 sec. 1) in a Christian, spiritual sense. Again, the words which John is said to 
 have uttered, according to Irenaeus, iii. 83, when he encountered Cerinthus at 
 the bath : Qiywuev wn xal 7d Radraverov cumorton tvdov dvros Kupivbou, rod Tis aAanbeias 
 ixbpov, are alleged to be inappropriate to our evangelist. Why so? The 
 very designation of Cerinthus as ris danécias txépod in the legend points to 
 the evangelist, with whom 2avée:a was one of the great fundamental conceptions, 
 whereas the author of the Apocalypse never once uses the word. The allegation 
 that the latter, again, in Rev. xxi. 14, compared with ii. 4, testifies to the anti- 
 Pauline sentiments of the Twelve, and hence of the Apostle John also, is simply 
 foisted into the passage by a criticism on the look-out for it. 
 
INTRODUCTION, 29 
 
 not the holy fervour of spirit which everywhere pervades his 
 Gospel, and still marks his First Epistle, to be conceived as 
 the glorified transfiguration of his former fiery zeal? And as 
 to this transfiguration itself,’ who may define the limits in the 
 sphere of what is morally possible to man, beyond which, in 
 a life and labours so long continued, the development of the 
 new birth could not extend under influences so mighty as the 
 apostles experienced by means of the Spirit’s training in the 
 school of the holiest calling? What purification and growth 
 did not Peter, for example, experience between the time of his 
 smiting with the sword and denial on the one hand, and his 
 martyrdom on the other? Both his labours and his Epistle 
 bear witness on this point. Similarly must we judge of the 
 objection, that the higher, nay, philosophical (or rather Chris- 
 tian speculative) Hellenistic culture of the evangelist, espe- 
 cially his doctrine of the Logos, cannot be made to suit 
 (Bretschneider, Baur, and others) the Galilean fisherman John 
 (comp. also Acts iv. 13), for whom the fathomless hardihood 
 of modern criticism has substituted some highly cultured 
 Gentile Christian (so even Schenkel), who, wishing to lead 
 heathen readers (xix. 35, xx. 31) to Christian faith, exhibited 
 the remarkable phenomenon “ of historical evangelic author- 
 ship turning away from the existing Christian communities, 
 for whom there were already Gospels enough in existence, to 
 appeal to the educated conscience of the heathen world” (Hil- 
 genfeld, d. Evangelien, p. 349). Even the fact that John was, 
 according to xvii. 15, an acquaintance of the high priest, 
 is said to be unsuited to the circumstances of the Galilean 
 fisherman (see Scholten, p. 379),—a statement wholly without 
 adequate ground. 
 
 It is true the author does not give his name, just as the 
 other historical works of the N. T. do not designate their 
 authors. But he shows himself to have been an eye- 
 witness in the plainest possible way, both at i. 14 (comp. 1 
 John i. 1, iv. 14) and at xix. 35 (comp. xxi. 24); while the 
 
 1 Keim (p. 160) says, inappositely, of Mark and Luke : ‘Since they clearly 
 imply the death of the apostles (of all ?), they have not even allowed a possibility 
 of further developments.” Neither Mark nor Luke undertook to write in their 
 Gospels any history at all of the apostles, but of Jesus. 
 
30 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 vividness and directness of so many descriptions and individual 
 details, in which no other Gospel equals ours, as well as its 
 necessarily conscious variation from the synoptic representa- 
 tion as a whole and in particular points of great importance, 
 can only confirm the truth of that personal testimony, which is 
 not to be set aside either by interpreting éGeacdueba, i. 14, of 
 the Christian consciousness in general, or by the pretext that 
 éxeivos in xix. 35 distinguishes the evangelist from such as 
 were eye-witnesses (Kostlin, Hilgenfeld, Keim, and several 
 others). See the exegetical remarks on those passages. And 
 as a proof that the eye-witness was, in fact, no other than 
 John, the significant concealment of the name John is rightly 
 urged against Bretschneider, Baur, and others. Though allowed 
 to be one of the most intimate friends of Jesus, and though 
 the Gospel describes so many of his peculiar and delicate 
 traits of character, this disciple is never referred to by name, 
 but only in a certain masked, sometimes very delicate and 
 thoughtful way, so that the nameless author betrays himself 
 at once as the individual who modestly suppresses his name in 
 i. 35 ff. The true feeling of the church, too, has always per- 
 ceived this; while it was reserved only for a criticism which 
 handles delicate points so roughly,’ to lend to the circumstance 
 this explanation: “The author speaks of his identity with the 
 apostle, as one, simply, to whom the point was of no con- 
 sequence: his Gospel was meant to be Johannean, without 
 bearing the apostle’s name on its front; at least the author 
 had no intention of once mentioning the name in order to 
 make it his own, but the reader was merely to be led to make 
 this combination, so as to place the Apostle John’s name in the 
 closest and most direct connection with a Gospel written in his 
 spirit” (Baur, p. 379). In fact, a fraud so deliberately planned, 
 and, in spite of its attempting no imitation of the Apocalypse, 
 so unexampled in its success, a striving after apparent selt- 
 renunciation so crafty, that the lofty, true, transparent, and 
 
 1 See, besides the Tiibingen critics and Scholten, also Weisse, d. Hvangelienfr. 
 p. 61, according to whom, if John could have designated himself the disciple 
 beloved by Christ, there would be in this an offensive and impudent selt-exalta- 
 tion : comp. also Keim, Gesch. J. i. p. 157 f. See for the opposite and correct 
 view, Ewald, Johann. Schrif. i. p. 48 ff 
 
INTRODUCTION. sl 
 
 holy spirit of which tHe whole bears the impress, would stand in 
 the most marked contradiction to it! Moreover, the instances 
 of other non-apostolic works which were intended to go forth as 
 apostolic, and therefore do not at all conceal the lofty names of 
 their pretended authors, would be opposed to it. On the other 
 hand, the universal recognition which this nameless author as 
 the Apostle John obtained in the church is the more striking, 
 since a later production of ¢his kind, which had been antici- 
 pated by so well-known a work of a totally different character, 
 passing for Johannean,—that is, the Apocalypse,—in con- 
 trast to the latter recognised as apostolic, while not once 
 mentioning the name of that disciple, would be an historical 
 phenomenon hardly conceivable. At least it is far more 
 intelligible that the Apocalypse, bearing John’s name on its 
 very face, and solemnly repeating it to the end more than 
 once, should, in an uncritical age, make good its claim to 
 be an apostolic work, though not permanently (comp. Ewald, 
 Jahrb. v. p. 182 f.; Diisterd. on the Apocalypse, Introduc- 
 tion). Further, the circumstance that in our Gospel John 
 the Baptist is always mentioned simply as "Iwavvys, never 
 as o Bamtiotys, is not so weighty (in opposition to Credner, 
 Bleek, Ebrard) as to prove that the writer was the apostle, who, 
 as its author, would have had no occasion to point out the other 
 John distinctly by that appellation, for the name o Bamtictns 
 was by no means designed to mark any such distinction. 
 But we may probably be of opinion that a writer who had 
 simply to appropriate the evangelic materials in the Gospels 
 already existing, and develope them further in a peculiar way, 
 would hardly have failed to employ the surname of the Baptist 
 so commonly and formally used in the Gospels. It is, how- 
 ever, possible that our apostle, having been a personal disciple 
 of the Baptist, and having a lively recollection of his former 
 close relation to him, mentions him by his bare name, as he 
 had been wont to do when he was his disciple, and not with 
 the designation o Bamtiorys, which had come down to him 
 through the medium of history. 
 
 In the extended discourses of Jesus, in the chronological 
 arrangement of the historical materials, in the prominence 
 given to the Lord’s ministry out of Galilee, in the significant 
 
Da TUE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 and peculiar narratives omitted by the Synoptics (among which 
 the most noteworthy is that of the raising of Lazarus), in the 
 important variations from the Synopties in parallel narratives 
 (the chief of which are in the history of the last supper, and 
 in the date of the day when Jesus died), in the noticeable 
 omissions of evangelic matter (the most remarkable being the 
 silence as to the institution of the supper, and the agony in 
 Gethsemane) which our Gospel exhibits, we recognise just so 
 many indications of an independence, which renders the general 
 recognition of its apostolic authorship in the church only expli- 
 cable on the ground of the indubitable certainty of that fact. 
 It was this certainty, and the high general reputation of the 
 beloved disciple, which far outweighed all variations from the 
 form and contents of the older Gospels, nay, even subordinated 
 the credit and independence of the Synoptics (for instance, in 
 the history of the last supper, which even in them was placed 
 on the 15th Nisan). All these points of difference have there- 
 fore been wrongly urged against the apostolic authorship ; they 
 make the external attestation all the stronger, far too strong 
 to be traceable to the aims and fictions of a writer of the 
 second century (comp. Bleek, Beitr. p. 66 ff; Briickner on De 
 Wette, p. xxvii. f.). With regard especially to the discourses 
 and conversations of Jesus (which, according to Baur’s school, 
 are wanting in appropriateness of exposition and naturalness 
 of circumstances, and are connected with unhistorical facts, 
 and intended to from an explication of the Logos-Idea), they 
 certainly imply’ a free reproduction and combination on the 
 part of an intelligent writer, who draws out what is histori- 
 cally given beyond its first concrete and immediate form, by 
 farther developing and explaining it. Often the originality 
 is certainly not that of purely objective history, but savours 
 of John’s spirit (compare the First Epistle of John), which 
 was most closely related with that of Jesus. This Johannean 
 method was such that, in its undoubted right to reproduce 
 
 1 It cannot be shown that he records the experiences of the later apostolic age, 
 and makes Jesus speak accordingly (see Weizsicker, p. 285f.). The passages 
 adduced in proof (xvii. 20, xx. 29, xiv. 22, xvii. 9, xvii. 3, iii. 18, vi. 57, 
 62 f., iv. 836-38) are fully explained exegctically without the assumption of any 
 such vorspoy xparoy, 
 
INTRODUCTION. oa 
 
 and to clothe in a new dress, which it exercised many 
 decenniums after, it could not carry the mingling of the 
 objective and subjective, unavoidable as it was to the author’s 
 idiosyncrasy, so far as to merge what constituted its original 
 essence in the mere view of the individual. Thus the Adyos, 
 especially in the distinct form which it assumes in the pro- 
 logue, does not reappear in the discourses’ of Jesus, however 
 frequently the Adyos of God or of Christ, as the verbum vocale 
 (not essentiale”), occurs in them. All the less, therefore, in 
 these discourses can the form be externally separated from the 
 matter to such an extent as to treat the one as the subjective, 
 the other as the objective (Reuss in the Strassb. Denksciir. 
 p. 37 ff.)—a view which is inconceivable, especially when we 
 consider the intellectual Johannean unity of mould, unless the 
 substance of the matter is to be assigned to the sphere of the 
 subjective along with the form. The Jesus of John, indeed, 
 appears in His discourses as in general more sublime, more 
 solemn, frequently more hard to understand, nay, more enig- 
 matical, more mysterious, and, upon the whole, more ideal, than 
 the Jesus of the Synoptics, especially as the latter is seen in 
 His pithy proverbs and parables. Still, we must bear in mind 
 that the manifestation of Jesus as the divine human life was 
 intrinsically too rich, grand, and manifold, not to be repre- 
 sented variously, according to the varying individualities by 
 
 1 Although the essential conception of the Logos, as regards its substance, is 
 everywhere with John a prominent feature in the consciousness of Jesus, and is 
 re-echoed throughout the Gospel. (Comp. iii. 11, 13, 31, vi. 33 ff., vi. 62, 
 vii. 29, villi. 12, 23, 58, xvi. 28, xvii. 5, 24, and other places.) To deny that 
 John exhibits Jesus as having this superhuman self-consciousness, is exegetically 
 baseless, and would imply that (in his prologue) the evangelist had, from the 
 public life of the Lord, and from His words and works, formed an abstract idea 
 as to His nature, which was not sustained, but rather refuted, by his own repre- 
 sentation of the history,—a thing inconceivable. This, in general, against 
 Weizsacker in d. Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theologie, 1857, p. 154 fl., 1862, p. 634 ff. ; 
 Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 244. See my comments on the particular passages (also 
 against Beyschlag).—The idea of the Logos, moreover, is related to that of the 
 ¢o%, not as something accidental, but in such a way that the Logos is conceived 
 as the original and personally conscious substratum of the latter. Thus was it 
 given to the author by the history itself, and py his profoundly vivid realization 
 of that history through communion with Him in whom the Z#% dwells. The 
 
 Logos is the same fundamental conception (only in a more definite speculative 
 form) as the vids rou éeor. 
 
 2 Comp. Weizsiick. Evangel. Gesch. p. 257. 
 Cc 
 
34 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 which its rays were caught, and according to the more or less 
 ideal points of view from which those rays were reflected,— 
 variously, amid all that resemblance of essential character, 
 and peculiar fundamental type, in which it allowed itself to 
 be recognised by manifold receptivities, and under dissimilar 
 circumstances. It was on the soul of this very apostle that 
 the image of that wonderful life, with which his inspired 
 recollections were connected, was, without a single discordant 
 feature, most perfectly delineated, and in all the deep fulness of 
 its nature: it dives in him; and his own thinking and feeling, 
 with its profound contemplativeness, is so thoroughly inter- 
 twined with and transfigured by this life and the ideal it 
 contains, that each individual recollection and representation 
 becomes the more easily blended by him into harmony with 
 the whole. His very language must needs ever retain that 
 inalienable stamp which he once involuntarily received from 
 the heart and living word of Christ, and appropriated and 
 preserved in all its depth and transparency in the profoundly 
 spiritual laboratory of his own long regenerate life. (Comp. 
 Ewald, Jahrb. IIL p. 163, X. p. 90 f., and his Johan. Schriften, 
 I. p. 32 ff.; also Briickner on De Wette, p. 25 ff.) Some have 
 assioned to the Gospel the honour rather of a well-devised 
 work of art, than of a truly earnest and real history (Keim, 
 Gesch. J. I. p. 123). It is both, in the inseparable unity and 
 truth of the art of the Holy Ghost.—lIf, again, some have 
 urged that the author of the fourth Gospel appears as one 
 standing apart from any personal participation in the history 
 he was writing, and from Judaism (compare the frequent of 
 "Tovéaiou, v. 16, vii. 1, 19, 25, viii. 17, x. 34, etc.’), still we 
 should bear in mind, that if John wrote his Gospel at a later 
 time, and among a community moulded by Hellenistic culture, 
 after the liberation of his Christian nature from the Judaism 
 by which it had long been penetrated, and when he had long 
 been familiar with the purest spiritual Christianity and its 
 universalism, as well as raised through the medium of specula- 
 
 1 See Fischer in the T%ib. Zeitschr. 1840, II. p. 96 ff. ; Baur, Newt. Theol. p. 
 3901. ; Scholten and others. On the other side, Bleek, p. 246 ff. ; Luthardt, 
 I. p. 148 ft. Compare notes oni. 19, viii. 17; also Ewald, Johann. Schriften, 
 I. p. 10f, 
 
INTRODUCTION. aa 
 
 tion to a higher standpoint in his view of the Gospel history, 
 he certainly did stand much further apart than the earlier 
 evangelists, not indeed from his history strictly speaking, but 
 from its former surroundings and from Judaism. This, how- 
 ever, does not warrant the substitution in his place of a non- 
 Jewish author, who out of elements but slightly historical 
 and correlative myths wove a semblance of history. On the 
 contrary, many peculiar traits marked by the greatest vivid- 
 ness and originality, revealing a personal participation in the 
 history.) (See; by SoA th, Viel O ff, vin bet > chap ner Pier 2, 
 xu. 22 ff, xvii 15 ff, xix. 4 ff, xxi), rise up in proof, to 
 bridge over the gulf between the remoteness of the author 
 and the proximity of a former eye-witness, in whose view the 
 history throughout is not developed from the doctrine, but the 
 doctrine from the history.’ Hence, also, he it is who, while 
 he rose much higher above Judaism than Paul, yet, like 
 Matthew in his Gospel, though with more individuality and 
 independence, took pains to exhibit the connection between 
 the events of the Gospel history and Old Testament prophecy. 
 In this way, as well as by the explanations of Jewish facts, 
 views, appellations, and so on, which are interspersed, he 
 shows himself to belong to the ancient people of God, as 
 far as his spiritual renewal was, and necessarily must hav¢ 
 been, compatible with this connection. (Comp. Weizsicker, 
 Lvang. Gesch. p. 263.) Lastly, the historical contradictions 
 with the Synoptics are either only apparent (for instance, a 
 ministration on several occasions at Jerusalem is implied, 
 Matt. xxiii. 37, Luke xiii. 34), or such as cannot fairly lead 
 to the conclusion of a non-apostolic authorship, since we do 
 not possess Matthew in its original form, and therefore are 
 not prevented by the counterweight of equally apostolic evi- 
 dence from assigning to John a preponderating authority, 
 which especially must be done in regard to such very striking 
 variations as the date of the day on which Jesus died, and the 
 
 1 Compare Weizsiicker in the Jahrb. f. D. Th, 1859, p. 690 ff. See the oppo- 
 site view in Keim, p. 127. Scholten comes even to the melancholy conclusion : 
 ‘*The contents of the fourth Gospel cannot be of use as historical authority in 
 any single point.” The author threw into the form of an historical drama 
 what was subjective truth to himself, unconcerned as to its historical accuracy. 
 
36 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 account of the last supper. JBesides, if what was erroneous 
 and unhistorical might, after the lapse of so long a time, 
 have affected even the memory of an apostle, yet matters of 
 this sort, wherever found in particular passages of our Gospel, 
 are rather chargeable on commentators than on the author, 
 especially in the exceptions taken to the names of such 
 places as Bethany, i. 28, and Sychar, iv. 5. On the whole, 
 the work is a phenomenon so sublime and unique among 
 productions of the Christian spirit,’ that if it were the creation 
 of an unknown author of the second century, it would be 
 beyond the range of all that is historically conceivable. In 
 its contents and tone, as well as in its style, which is unlike 
 that of the earlier Gospels, it is so entirely without any 
 internal connection with the development and literary con- 
 ditions of that age, that had the church, instead of witnessing 
 to its apostolic origin, raised a doubt on that point, historical 
 criticism would see assigned to it the inevitable task of prov- 
 ing and vindicating such an origin from the book itself. In 
 this case, to violate the authority of the church for the sake 
 of the Gospel, would necessarily have a more happily and per- 
 manently successful result than could follow from opposing 
 the Gospel. After having stood the critical tests originated 
 by Bretschneider and Baur, this Gospel continues to shine 
 with its own calm inner superiority and undisturbed trans- 
 parency, issuing forth victorious from never-ceasing conflicts ; 
 the last star, as it were, of evangelic history and teaching, 
 yet beaming with the purest and highest light, which could 
 never have arisen amid the scorching heat of Gnosticism, or 
 have emerged from the fermentation of some catholicizing 
 
 1 Gfrorer, of course, makes it a product of dotage and fancy. Origen, on the 
 other hand, calls it ray edayysalay arapyny, and says of it, od rav vody oddels 
 Wvarc AaBeiv wh avawecov ta) cd oxides "Inood, and, rndAsmovrov Dd: yevecbas Bei viv 
 Eocpevoy HAAoY "Iwadvyny, wore oloveh tov "Iwaévyny Dery Oavee oyvra "Inoovy awd “Incov. 
 Hence, also, we can understand the constant recurrence, so as to make them 
 regulate the presentation of the history, both of the ideas lying at the basis 
 of Christ’s whole work, and of the fundamental views which John, beyond 
 any other evangelist, had derived from the history itself, in which he had 
 borne a part on the breast of Jesus. Thus, with him, the grand simple 
 theme of his book is through all its variations in harmonious and necessary 
 concord, a lively monotone of the one spirit, not a “‘leaden’’ one. (Keim, 
 Gesch. J. p. 117.) 
 
 —= 
 
INTRODUCTION, oT 
 
 process, but which rose rather on the horizon of the apostolic 
 age, from the spirit of the disciple most intimate with his 
 Lord, and which is destined never again to set,—the guide 
 to a true catholicity, differing wholly from the ecclesiastical 
 development of the second century,’ and still remaining as 
 the unattained goal of the future. 
 
 Nor can the attempt be successful to treat only a certain 
 nucleus of our Gospel as genuinely apostolical, and to assign 
 the rest to disciples of John or other later hands. The 
 reasons for this procedure are inadequate, while it is itself so 
 destitute of all historical evidence and warrant, and runs so 
 entirely into caprice and diversity of subjective judgment, 
 and hence also presents such a variety of results in the several 
 attempts which have been made, that it would be in any 
 case critically more becoming to leave still unsolved the 
 difficulties in the matter and connection of particular passages, 
 rather than to get rid of them by striking them out accord- 
 ing to an arbitrary standard. This remark applies not merely 
 to some of the older attempts of this kind by Eckermann, 
 Vogel, Ammon (Progr. quo docetur, Johannem evane. auctorem 
 ab editore huj. libri fuisse diversum, 1811), and Paulus, but 
 also to Rettig’s opinion (Ephemer. exeg. I. p. 83 ff.): “Com- 
 positum esse et digestum a seriori Christiano, Johannis 
 auditore forsitan gnosticae dedito philosophiae, qui, quum in 
 ecclesiae Ephesinae scriniis ecclesiasticis vel alio loco privato 
 plura Jesu vitae capita per Johannem descripta reperisset, 
 vel a Johanne ipso accepisset, iis compositis et ordinatis suam 
 de oy» philosophiam praefixit ;"—-and even to the more 
 thorough attempts made by Weisse (both in his Zvang. Gesch. 
 I. p. 96 ff, IL p, 184 ff, 486 ff., 520 ff; as also-in his 
 Lwangelienfrage, 1856, p. 111 ff.) and Alex. Schweizer (d. Ev. 
 Joh. nach s. innern Werthe kritisch untersucht, 1841). Accord- 
 ing to Weisse (compare, however, his partial retractation in 
 
 1 Tf the apostle, in composing his work, employed an amanuensis, which is 
 not improbable, judging from similar cases in the New Testament Epp. (see 
 especially Ewald, Jahrb. X. p. 87 ff.), though it is not proved by xix. 35, still 
 the writer must be regarded only as simply drawing up what the apostle dictated, 
 —a conclusion arising out of the peculiar character, tenderness, and profundity 
 of the book, and its entire resemblance to the First Epistle of John. 
 
 2 Comp. Holtzm. Judenth. u. Christenth. 1867, p. 713. 
 
o 
 
 38 TIE GOSPEL OF JOIN. 
 
 his Philos. Dogmat. 1855, I. p. 153), John, for the purpose of 
 setting forth his own idea of Christ and doctrinal system in 
 discourses of Jesus, selected such discourses, adding those of the 
 Baptist and the prologue. After his death, one of his adherents 
 and disciples (xix. 35), by further adding what he had learnt 
 from the apostle’s own mouth, and from the evangelic tradition, 
 but without any knowledge of the Synoptics, worked up these 
 “ Johannean Studies” into a Gospel history, the plan of which 
 was, of course, very imperfect ; so that the apostle’s communi- 
 cations consequently form only the groundwork of the Gospel, 
 though among them must be reckoned all the strictly didactic 
 _ and contemplative portions, in determining which the First 
 Epistle of John serves as a test. According to Schweizer 
 (comp. also Schenkel, previously in the Stud. u. Krit. 1840, 
 p- 753 ff, who resolves the apostolical portion into two sets 
 of discourses), such sections are to be excluded from the 
 apostle’s original work, as are “quite disconnected and abrupt, 
 interwoven with no discourses, are altogether without any im- 
 portant word of Jesus, permeated by an essentially different 
 estimate and idea of miracle, without vividness of narration, 
 and moreover are divergent in style, and agree, besides, in 
 recounting Galilean incidents.” These excluded sections, 
 along with which especially fall to the ground the turning of 
 the water into wine at Cana, the healing of the nobleman’s 
 son, the miraculous feeding (ii. 1 ff, iv. 44 ff, vi. 1 ff), are 
 said to have originated with the author of chap. xxi., who also, 
 according to Scholten, is said to have added a cycle of inter- 
 polated remarks, such as ii. 21 f, vii. 39, xil. 33, xvill. 32. 
 All such attempts at critical dismemberment, especially in the 
 case of a work so thoroughly of one mould, must undoubtedly 
 fail. Even Weizsiicker’s view (Untersuch. tib. d. evang. Gesch. 
 1864, p. 298 ff.), that our Gospel was derived from the 
 apostle’s own communications, though not composed by his 
 own hands, but by those of his trusted disciples in Ephesus, 
 is based on insufficient grounds, which are set aside by an 
 unprejudiced exegesis (see also Ewald, Jahrb. XII. p. 212 ff). 
 This hypothesis is all the more doubtful, if the Gospel (with 
 the exception of chap. xxi.) be allowed to have been composed 
 while the apostle was still living; it is not supported by the 
 
 oO? 
 
INTRODUCTION. 39 
 
 testimony of Clem. Alex. and the Canon of Muratori,’ and in 
 
 ? 
 fact antiquity furnishes no evidence in its favour. 
 
 Literature :—(1.) Against the Genuineness: Evanson, Disson- 
 ance of the Four — — Evangelists, Ipswich 1792. (Vogel), 
 d. Evangelist Joh. u.s. Ausleger vor d. guingsten Gericht, I. Lpz. 
 1801, II. 1804. Horst, in Henke’s Mus. I. 1, pp. 20 ff, 47 ff., 
 1803. Cludius, Uransichten des Christenth., Altona 1808, p. 40 ff. 
 Ballenstedt, Philo u. Joh., Gott. 1812. The most important 
 among the older works: Bretschneider, Probabilia de evangelia 
 et epistolarum Joh. apost. indole et origine, Lpz. 1820, who 
 makes the Gospel originate in the first half of the second 
 century, in the interest of Christ’s divinity. Later oppo- 
 nents: Rettig, Hphem. exeg. I. p. 62 ff. Strauss, Leben Jesu, 
 despite a half retractation in the third edition (1838), the 
 more decidedly against in the fourth (1840). Weisse, Hvang. 
 Gesch. 1838, and d. Evangelienfrage, 1856. Liitzelberger, die 
 kirchliche Tradition wb. d. Apostel Joh. 1840. B. Bauer, Krit. 
 d. evang. Gesch. d. Joh. 1840, and Kritik d. Evangelien, I. 1850. 
 Schwegler, Montanism, 1841, and nachapost. Zeitalter, 1846. 
 Baur, Krit. Untersuchungen tib. d. kanonischen Evang., Tib. 1847, 
 
 1 Clement of Alexandria, in Euseb. vi. 14, says John composed the spiritual 
 Gospel rporpartvra iad ray yywpimwy rvevuars beoopndivra. How different 
 is this statement from the above view! Just as much at variance with itisthe | 
 similar testimony of Muratori’s Fragment, which lays special stress upon the 
 composition by the apostle himself, and indeed supports it by 1 John i, 1-4. 
 Moreover, see on xviii. 15, xix. 35, xxi. 23 f. 
 
 2 According to Baur’s school, the Gospel, the existence of which is only con- 
 ceivable at the time of the church’s transition into Catholicism, originated about 
 the middle of the second century (according to Volkmar, only towards 150-160 ; 
 according to Hilgenfeld, as soon as 120-140, contemporaneously with the second 
 Jewish war, or soon after), The author, who, it is said, appropriated to himself 
 the authority of the Apostle John, the author of the Apocalypse, transfigured in 
 a higher unity into the Christian Gnosis the interests of Jewish and Pauline 
 Christianity, while going beyond both, so that the historical materials taken from 
 the Synoptics, and wrought up according to the ideas of the prologue, form merely 
 the basis of the dogmatic portions, and are the reflex of the idea. To bring the 
 new form of the Christian consciousness to a genuine apostolic expression, the 
 author, whose Gospel stands upon the boundary line of Gnosticism, and ‘‘ now and 
 then goes beyond the limits,” made an ingenious and artistic use of the relative 
 points of connection with the Apocalypse, in order to spiritualize the Apocalypse 
 into a Gospel. The relation of the Gospel to the parties of the time (whose 
 exciting questions it touches), especially to Gnosticism, Montanism, Ebionism, 
 the Easter controversy, is indeed very variously defined by Baur’s school, yet 
 always in such a way that the historical character of the contents is given up. 
 In exchange for this loss, the consolation is offered us, that ‘‘ the Christianity 
 thus fashioned into a perfect theory was simply a development of that which, 
 
40 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 p. 79 ff. (previously in the Theol. Jahrb. 1844). Zeller, in the 
 Theol. Jahrb. 1845, p. 579 ff., and 1847, p. 136 ff. Baur, cbidem, 
 1848, p. 264 ff., 1854, p. 196 ff, 1857, p. 209 ff; and in his 
 Christenth. d. drei ersten Jahrh. p. 131 ff.; also in his contro- 
 versial work, An Herrn Dr. Karl Hase, Tiib. 1855; and in his 
 treatise, “die Tiibinger Schule,” 1859. Hilgenfeld, d. Hvang. 
 u. die Briefe Joh. nach threm Lehrbegr. dargestellt, Halle 1849, 
 and in the Theol. Jahrb. 1849, p. 209 ff.: also in his works, 
 die Evangelien nach threr Entstehung u. s. w., Lpz. 1854, p. 
 227 ff.; and in his controversial treatise, das Urchristenth. in 
 d. Hauptwendepunkten seines Entwickelungsganges, Jena 1855 ; 
 also in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 498 ff., and in the Zeztschr. f. 
 wissenschaft Theol. 1859, p. 281 ff., 383 ff.; similarly in the 
 Kanon u. Krit. d. N. T. 1863, p. 218 ff, and in his Zedétschr. 
 1863, 1 and 2, 1867, p. 180 ff Kostlin, in the Theol. Jahrb. 
 1851, p. 183 ff. Tobler, die Evangelienfrage, Ziirich 1858 
 (anonymously), and in the Zettschr. 7. wiss. Theol. 1860, p. 169 ff. 
 Schenkel! in his Charakterbild Jesu, chap. 2. Volkmar, most 
 recently in his work against Tischendorf, “d. Ursprung uns. 
 Evangel.” 1866. Scholten, d. dltest. Zeug. betr. d. Schriften d. N. T., 
 translated from the Dutch by Manchot, 1867 (compare his Lvang. 
 according to John, translated by Lang). Keim, Greschichte Jesu, 
 1867, I. p. 103 ff. (2.) For the Genwineness, and especially 
 against Bretschneider (comp. the latter’s later confession in his 
 Dogmat. ed. 3, I. p. 268: “ The design which my Probabilia had 
 —namely, to raise a fresh and further investigation into the 
 authenticity of John’s writings—has been attained, and the 
 doubts raised may perhaps be now regarded as removed”): Stein, 
 Authentia ev. Joh. contra Bretschn. dubia vindicat., Brandenb. 
 
 according to its most primitive and credible representation, the religious con- 
 sciousness of Jesus contained in creative fulness,’’—Hilgenfeld (d. Hvangelien, 
 p. 349), who even makes John’s theology stand in the same relation to the 
 religious consciousness of Jesus, ‘‘as, according to the promise in John xvi. 12, 
 the work of the Paraclete, as the Spirit leading the church into all truth, was 
 to stand to the teachings of its Founder.” The most extravagant judgment 
 is that of Volkmar: the Evangelist ‘‘ starts from the Gospel of the dualistic 
 anti-Judaical Gnosis of Marcion, and overcomes it by the help of Justin’s 
 doctrine of the Logos with its Monism.”—Tobler, though attributing the first 
 Epistle to the apostle, makes the author of our Gospel to be Apollos, whom 
 he also regards as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and of First and 
 Second John. See against this error, which makes the Gospel to have been 
 intended for the Corinthians, Hilgenf. in the Zeitschr. /. wiss. Theol. 1859, 
 p- 411 ff. Moreover, what Tobler has subsequently advanced in the Zeiischr. f. 
 wiss. Theol. 1860, p. 169 ff., cannot support his hypothesis. 
 
 1 According to this modern notion of Schenkel, our Gospel originated about 
 110-120 a.p., under the influence of the Christian doctrine of wisdom preyail- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 41 
 
 1822. Calmberg, Diss. de antiquiss. patrum pro ev. Joh. authentia 
 testim., Hamb. 1822. Hemsen, die Authent. der Schriften des 
 Ev. Joh., Schleswig 1823. Usteri, Comment. crit.,in qua ev. Joh. 
 genuinum esse ex comparatis quatuor evangelior. narrationib. de 
 cocna ultima et passione J. Ch. ostenditur, Turici 1823. Crome, 
 Probabilia haud probabilia, or Widerlegung der von Dr. BLret- 
 schneider gegen die Aechtheit des Ev. u. d. Briefe Joh. erhobenen 
 Zweifel, Lpz. 1824, Rettberg, an Joh. in exhibenda Jesu natura 
 reliquis canonicis seriptis vere repugnet, Gott. 1826. Hauff, die 
 Authent. u. der hohe Werth des Ev. Joh., Niirnberg 1831.—Against 
 Weisse: Frommann, in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1840, p. 853 ff; Hul- 
 genfeld, in the Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1859, p. 397 ff—Against 
 Schweizer: Luthardt, i. p. 6 ff—Against Baur and his school : 
 Merz, in the Wiirtemb. Stud. 1844, ii. Ebrard, d. £v. Joh. u. die 
 neweste Hypothese tid. s. Entstehung, Ziirich 1845; and in his Kritik 
 d. evang. Gesch. ed. 2, 1850, p. 874 ff. Hauff, in the Stud. u. 
 Krit. 1846, p. 550 ff. Bleek, Beitrdge z. Ev. Krit. 1846, p. 92 ff., 
 u. Linl. p. 177 ff. Weitzel, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1848, p. 806 ff., 
 1849, p. 578; also De Wette, Zinl., whose final judgment, how- 
 ever (§ 110g), only declares against the view which would 
 deny to the apostle any share in the composition of the Gospel. 
 See, besides, Niermeyer, Verhandeling over de echtheid d. Jo- 
 hanneischen Schriften, s’ Gravenhage 1852. Mayer (Catholic), 
 Aechtheit d. Ev. nach Joh., Schaffh. 1854. Schneider, Aechth. 
 des Joh. Ev. nach den cusseren Zeugen, Berl. 1854. Kahnis, 
 Dogmat. I. p. 416 ff. Ritschl, Altkath. K. p. 48. Tischendorf, 
 wann wurden uns, Ev. verfasst? 1865; 4th enlarged edition, 
 1866. Riggenbach, d. Zeug. f. d. Hv. Joh. new unters. 1866. 
 Dr. Pressensé, Jes. Christus, son Temps, etc., 1866. Oosterzee, d. 
 
 ing in Asia Minor. The author, he says, certainly did not write a work of fiction 
 or fancy, but separated a cycle of evangelic traditions from their historical frame- 
 work, and forced them up into the region of eternal thought, ete. Thus, Jesus 
 was such, as the author depicts Him, not always in reality, but in truth. 
 At this result Keim also substantially arrives: he attributes the Gospel to a 
 Jewish Christian of liberal opinions and friendly to the Gentiles, probably one of 
 the Diaspora in Asia Minor about the beginning of the second century, who pub- 
 lished it under the name of the Apostle John. He wrote with the just convic- 
 tion that the apostles and John would have so written, had they been living in 
 his time, and did not aim at establishing an external history, but at exhibiting 
 the spirit which sits enthroned in every history of the life of Jesus. According 
 to Scholten, the Gospel was written about 150 a.p., by a philosophically en- 
 lightened Gentile Christian, assuming the guise of an ideal apostle, setting 
 aside what was untrue in the various tendencies of the day (Gnosticism, An- 
 tinomianism, Montanism, Quartodecimanism), but recognising the correlated 
 truths, and expressing them in appropriate forms, though it was recognised as 
 apostolic only towards the close of the second century. 
 
43 THE GOSPEL OF JOIN, 
 
 Johannes-evang., vier Vortrdge, 1867 [Eng. trans.]; also Hofstede 
 de Groot (against also the previously mentioned work of 
 Scholten), Basilides als erster Zeuge fiir Alter und Auctorit. 
 neutest. Schr., German edition, 1868. Jonker, het evang. v. 
 Joh. 1867. Compare generally, besides the Commentaries, 
 Ewald, Jahrb. III. p. 146 ff, V: p. 178 ff, X. p. 83 ff, XIL 
 p. 212 ff. Grimm, in the Hall. Encyhl. ii. 22, p. 5 fi. 
 
 SEC. IV.mDESIGN OF THE GOSPEL, 
 
 John himself, xx. 31, tells us very distinctly the purpose of 
 the Gospel which he wrote for the Christians of his own day. 
 It was nothing else than to impart the conviction that Jesus 
 was the Messiah, by describing the history of His appearance 
 and of His work; and through faith in this, to communicate 
 the Messianic life which was revealed in Jesus when on earth. 
 While it has this general purpose in common with the other 
 Gospels, it has as its special and definite task to exhibit in 
 Jesus the Messiah, as in the highest sense the Son of God, that is, 
 the Incarnate Divine Logos ; and hence John places the section 
 on the Logos at the very beginning as his distinctive pro- 
 gramme, therewith furnishing the key for the understanding 
 of the whole. In the existing name and conception of the 
 Logos, he recognises a perfectly befitting expression for his 
 own sublime view of Christ, the humanly manifested divine 
 source of life; and accordingly, he has delineated the human 
 manifestation and the historical life of the divine in Christ 
 with creative spirit and vividness, in order that the eternal 
 and highest power of life, which had thus entered bodily into 
 the world, might be appropriated by faith. Even the Gospel 
 of Matthew (and of Luke) grasps the idea of the Son of God 
 metaphysically, and explains it by the divine generation. John, 
 however, apprehends and explains it by raising it into the 
 premundane and eternal relation of the Son to the Father, who 
 sent the Son; just as Paul also earnestly teaches this pre- 
 existence, though he does not conceive of it under the form of 
 the Logos, and therefore has nothing about a beginning of 
 divine Sonship by a divine generation in time. John there- 
 fore occupies a far higher standing-point than Matthew ; but, 
 like the other evangelists, he developes his proof historically, 
 
 — 
 
INTRODUCTION. 43 
 
 not sacrificing historic reality and tradition to idealism (against 
 Baur and his school), but now selecting from the materials 
 furnished by the extant tradition and already presented in 
 the older evangelic writings, now leaving these, and carefully 
 selecting solely from the rich stores of his own memory and 
 experience. In this way, it is quite obvious how important 
 the discourses of Jesus, especially upon His divine Messianic 
 dignity in opposition to the unbelief of the Jews, were as 
 elements of John’s plan; and further, how necessary it was 
 that the testimonies of the Baptist, the prophetical predictions, 
 and the select miraculous proofs,—the latter forming at the 
 same time the bases of the more important discourses,—should 
 co-operate towards his purpose. The general similarity of his 
 aim with that of the current Galilean tradition on the one 
 side, and on the other hand its special distinctiveness, which 
 is due to his own more sublime and spiritual intuition and 
 his purpose to delineate Jesus as the Incarnate Logos, the 
 possessor and imparter of divine and eternal life, as well as 
 his independence in both these respects, as a most intimate 
 eye and ear witness, of all the previous labours of others, 
 and his original peculiar arrangement and reproduction of the 
 doctrines of Jesus as from a centre, determining every detail 
 and binding them into one,—this, and the primary destina- 
 tion of the work for readers who must have been acquainted 
 with Graeco-Judaic speculations, gave the book the charac- 
 teristic form which it possesses. The intellectual unity, which 
 thus runs through it, is the reflection of the author’s peculiar 
 “view of the whole, which was not formed &@ priori, but as the 
 result of experience (i. 14; comp. Hauff, in the Stud. u. Kriz. 
 1846, p. 574 ff), the fruit of a long life in Christ, and of a 
 fulness and depth of recollection such as he only, among the 
 living, could possess. Written after the destruction of Jeru- 
 salem, and by that disciple who had long advanced beyond 
 Jewish Christianity, and in the centre of Asiatic culture was 
 still labouring amidst the highest esteem, as probably the 
 only aged apostle remaining, this Gospel could not have an 
 eye to Palestinian readers,’ as had been formerly the case with 
 
 1 Hence the interpretations and explanations which presuppose the reaiers 
 to be non-Palestinian, i. 38, 41 f., iv. 25, v. 2, al. 
 
44 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Matthew’s Collection of Logia, and the Gospel which originated 
 from it. It was very naturally destined, first of all, for those 
 Christian circles among which the apostle lived and laboured, 
 consequently for readers belonging to churches originally 
 founded by Paul, and who had grown up out of Jewish and 
 Gentile Christian elements, and had been carried on by John 
 himself to that higher unity for which Paul could work only 
 amidst continual conflict with yet unconquered Judaism. The 
 Gospel of John, therefore, is not a Pauline one, but one more 
 transfigured and spiritual, plainly rising more sublimely above 
 Judaism than Paul, more tender and thoughtful than his, and 
 also more original, but agreeing as to its main ideas with the 
 doctrine dialectically wrought out by Paul, though exhibiting 
 these ideas at a calmer height above the strife of opposing 
 principles, and in harmony with the full perfection of funda- 
 mental Christian doctrine; and thus communicating for all 
 time the essence, light, and life of the eminently catholic ten- 
 dency and destination of Christianity. It represents the true 
 and pure Christian Gnosis, though by this we are not to sup- 
 pose its design was a polemical one against the heretical G'nostics, 
 as even Irenaeus in his day (ii. 11. 1) indicates the errors of 
 Cerinthus and of the Nicolaitans as those controverted by John, 
 to which Epiphanius (Haer. li. 12, lxix. 25) and Jerome (de 
 vir. illustr.) added also those of the Lbionites, while even 
 modern writers have thought that it controverted more or less 
 directly and definitely the Gnostic doctrine, especially of 
 Cerinthus (Erasmus, Melanchthon, Grotius, Michaelis, Storr, 
 Hug, Kleucker, Schneckenburger, Ebrard, Hengstenberg, and 
 several others). It is decisive against the assumption of any 
 such polemical purpose, that, in general, John nowhere in 
 his Gospel allows any direct reference to the perverted ten- 
 dencies of his day to appear; while to search for indirect and 
 hidden allusions of the kind, as if they were intentional, would 
 be as arbitrary as it would be repugnant to the decided 
 character of the apostolic standpoint which he took up when 
 in conscious opposition to heresies. In his First Epistle the 
 apostle controverts the vagaries of Gnosticism, and it is im- 
 probable that these came in his way only after he had already 
 written his Gospel (as Ewald, Jahrb. IIL. p. 157, assumes) ; 
 
INTRODUCTION. 45 
 
 but the task of meeting this opposition, to which the apostle 
 set himself in his Epistle, cannot have been the task of his 
 Gospel, which in its whole character keeps far above such con- 
 troversies. At any rate, we see from his Epistle how John 
 would have carried on a controversy, had he wished to do so 
 in his Gospel. The development of Gnosticism, as it was in 
 itself a movement which could not have failed to appear, lay 
 brooding then, and for some time previously, in the whole 
 atmosphere of that age and place; it appears in John pure, 
 and in sententious simplicity and clearness, but ran off, in the 
 heresies of the partly contemporaneous and partly later formed 
 Gnosticism, into all its varied aberrations, amid which it seemed 
 even to derive support by what it drew from John. That it 
 has been possible to explain many passages as opposed to the 
 Guostics, as little justifies the assumption of a set purpose of 
 this kind, as the interpretation favowrable to Gnosticism, 
 which is possible in other passages, would justify the in- 
 ference of an irenical purpose (Liicke) in respect of this 
 heresy, since any express and precise indication of such ten- 
 dencies does not appear. Similarly must we judge the as- 
 sumption of a polemical purpose against the Docetae (Semler, 
 Bertholdt, Eckermann; Niemeyer, de Docetis, Hal. 1823; 
 Schneckenburger, Schott, Ebrard), for which some have adduced 
 i. 14, xix. 34, xx. 20, 27; or an opposition to Ebionism and 
 Judaism (Jerome, Grotius; Lange, die Judenchristen, Ebioniten 
 und Nikolaiten d. apost. Zeit., Lpz. 1828; Ebrard, and many 
 others); or to the plots of the Jews who had been restored 
 after the destruction of Jerusalem (Aberle in the Tub. 
 Quartalschr. 1864, p. 1 ff). At the same time, it seems 
 quite arbitrary, nay, injurious to John’s historical fidelity and 
 truth, to set down his omissions of evangelic circumstances 
 to the account of a polemical purpose; as, for example, 
 Schneckenburger, Beitr. p. 60 ff, who regards the omission of 
 the agony as based on an anti-Gnostic, and the silence as to 
 the transfiguration on the mount on an anti-Docetic interest. 
 A controversial reference to the disciples of John (Grotius, 
 Schlichting, Wolzogen; Overbeck, dber d. Ev. Joh. 1784; 
 Michael., Storr, Liitzelberger, and others, even Ewald) is not 
 supported by such passages as i. 6-8. 15, 19-41. iii. 22 ff, 
 
46 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 v. 33-36, x. 40 f., since the unique sublimity of Jesus, even 
 when contrasted with John who was sent by God, must have 
 been vindicated by the apostle in the necessary course of his 
 history and of his work; but in these passages no such special 
 purpose can be proved, and we must assume that, with any 
 such tendency, expressions like that in Matt. xi. 11 would 
 not have been overlooked. Besides, those disciples of John 
 who rejected Christ (Recogn. Clem. 1. 54,60), and the Zabacans 
 or Mendeans (Gieseler, Kirchengesch. I. 1, p. 76, Eng. trans. 
 vol. I. p. 58), who became known in the seventeenth century, 
 were of later origin, while those who appear in Acts xviii. 
 25, xix. 1 ff, were simply not yet accurately acquainted 
 with Christ, and therefore as regards them we should have 
 to think only of a tendency to gain these over (Herder, vom 
 Sohne Gottes, p. 24; also De Wette) ; but we cannot assume 
 even this, considering the utter want of any more precise 
 reference to them in our Gospel. 
 
 Moreover, in general, as to the development of heresy, so 
 far as it was conspicuous in that age, and especially in Asia 
 (comp. the Epistles to the Galatians and Colossians), we must 
 assume as an internal necessity that John, in opposition to its 
 errors, especially those of a Gnostic and Judaizing character 
 (according to Hengstenberg, to the inundation of wench errors 
 into the “chureli), must have been conscious that his Gospel 
 ought to set forth the original ¢ruth, unobscured by those errors. 
 We must therefore admit generally, that the influence of the 
 existing forms of opposition to the truth, for which he had 
 to testify, practically contributed to determine the shape of his 
 treatise, but only to the extent that, while abiding solely by 
 his thesis, he provided therein, by its very simplicity, the 
 weightiest counterpoise against errors (comp. Reuss, Denkschr. p. 
 27), without stooping to combat them, or even undertaking the 
 defence of the Gospel against them (Seyffarth, Specialcharak- 
 terist. p. 39 £.; Schott, Teag. § 40; De Wette, Hengstenberg, 
 and many others), his task Daa elevated far above the fied 
 existing conflicts of opinion.’ This must be maintained, lest 
 
 1 Even Baur, p. 373, acknowledges that ‘‘ John’s Gospel stands amid all the op- 
 
 positions of the age, without anywhere exhibiting the definite colour of a temporary 
 or local opposition.” But this is really only conceivable if the Gospel belongs to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 47 
 
 on the one hand we decrade the Gospel, in the face of its 
 whole character, into a controversial treatise, or on the other 
 hand withdraw it, as a product of mere speculation, from its 
 necessary and concrete relations to the historical development 
 of the church of that age. 
 
 Seeing that our Gospel serves in manifold ways not only 
 to confirm, but moreover, on a large scale (as especially by 
 relating the extra-Galilean journeys, acts, discourses) as well 
 as in particulars, to complete the synoptic accounts, nay, even 
 sometimes (as in determining the day of the crucifixion) in 
 important places to correct them, it has been assumed very 
 often, from Jerome (comp. already Euseb. iii. 24) downwards, 
 and with various modifications even at the present day (Ebrard, 
 Ewald, Weizsiicker, Godet, and many others), that this relation 
 to the Synoptics was the designed object of the work. So re- 
 garded, however, this view cannot be supported; for there is 
 not the slightest hint in the Gospel itself of any such purpose ; 
 and further, there would thus be attributed to it an historico- 
 critical character totally at variance with its real nature and 
 its design, as expressly stated, xx. 30, 31, and which even as a 
 collateral purpose would be quite foreign to the high spiritual 
 tone, sublime unity, and unbroken compactness of the book. 
 Moreover, in the repetition of synoptical passages which John 
 gives, there are not always any material additions or correc- 
 tions leading us to suppose a confirmatory design, in view 
 of the non-repetition of a great many other and more 
 important synoptical narrations. Again, where John diverges 
 from parallel synoptical accounts, in the absence of contra- 
 dictory references (in ili. 24 only does there occur a passing 
 note of time of this kind), his independence of the Galilean 
 tradition fully suffices to explain the divergence. Finally, in 
 very much that John has not borrowed from the synoptical 
 history, and against the truth of which no well-founded doubt 
 can be urged, to suppose in such passages any intentional 
 
 the apostolic age, and its author stands upon an apostolic elevation ; it is incon- 
 ceivable if it originated in the second century, when those oppositions were 
 . developing, and had already developed into open and deep-seated divisions, and 
 where the conditions necessary for the production of such a Formula Concordiae 
 were utterly wanting in the bosom of the time. 
 
43 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 though silent purpose on his part to correct, would be equiva- 
 lent to his rejection of the statements. In short, had the 
 design in question exercised any determining influence upon 
 the apostle in the planning and composition of his work, he 
 would have accomplished his task in a very strange, thoroughly 
 imperfect, and illogical manner. We may, on the contrary, take 
 it for granted that he was well acquainted with the Galilean 
 tradition,’ and that the written accounts drawn from the cycle 
 of that tradition, numbers of which were already in circula- 
 tion, and which were especially represented in our Synoptics, 
 were likewise sufficiently known to him; for he presupposes 
 as known the historical existence of this tradition in all its 
 essential parts.” But it is just his perfect independence of 
 this tradition and its records—keeping in view his aim to bring 
 fully out the higher Messianic proof, and the abundant material 
 from which his own recollection could so fully draw—which 
 enables us to understand the partial coincidence, and still greater 
 divergence, between him and the Synoptics, and his entire re- 
 lation to them generally, which is not determined by any special 
 design on his part; so that the confirmation, correction, and en- 
 largement of their narratives often appear as a result of which 
 he is conscious, but never as the olject which he had sought to 
 accomplish in his treatise. As to any design, so understood, of 
 correcting the Synoptics, the silence of John upon many portions 
 of the cycle of synoptic narrative is undoubtedly very signifi- 
 cant, in so far as the historical truth of these in their traditional 
 form would have been of special value for the apostle’s purpose. 
 This holds true particularly of the account of the temptation, 
 the transfiguration, and the ascension as actual occurrences, as 
 well as of the cure of demoniacsas such. As criticism, however, 
 
 1 According to Ewald, John only compared and made use of what is assumed 
 by Ewald to be the ‘‘oldest Gospel,” ‘‘the collection of discourses,” and ‘‘ the 
 original Mark.” But a limitation to these three books, considering the number 
 already existing (Luke i. 1), is in itself improbable, and is all the less demon- 
 strable, that the first and third treatises named by Ewald have themselves only 
 a very problematical existence. 
 
 2 See Weizsicker in the Jahrb. fiir Deutsche Theol. 1859, p. 691 ff. He goes, 
 however, too far, when (Hvang. Gesch. p. 270) he calls the fourth Gospel, 
 without enlargement from other sources, ‘‘a misty picture without reality.” 
 
 Taken all in all, it contains even more concrete history than the Gospels whose 
 range is limited to Galilea. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 49 
 
 is here pledged to special caution, so the opposite conclusion— 
 viz. that facts which would have been of great importance even 
 for the synoptical Messianic proof, but,which are recorded only 
 in John, cannot be regarded as originally historical in the form 
 in which he gives them—is everywhere inadmissible, especially 
 where he speaks as an eye-witness, in which capacity he must 
 be ranked above Matthew: for Matthew did indeed compose 
 the collection of discourses which is worked up into the Gospel 
 that bears his name, but not the Gospel itself as it lies before 
 us in its gradually settled canonical form. If, while taking all 
 into account, the complete, unbiassed independence of John in 
 relation to the Synoptics, above whom he stands distinguished 
 by his exact determination of the succession of time, must be 
 preserved intact; we must at the same time bear in mind 
 that, as the last evangelist and apostle, he had to satisfy the 
 higher needs of Christian knowledge, called forth by the 
 development of the church in this later stage, and thus had 
 boldly to go beyond the range of the whole previous Gospel 
 literature.’ This higher need had reference to that deeper and 
 uniform insight into the peculiar eternal essence of Christianity 
 and its Founder, which John, as no other of his contemporaries, 
 by his richly stored experience was fitted and called to impart. 
 He had thus, indeed, as a matter of fact, supplemented and 
 partly corrected the earlier evangelists, though not to such 
 an extent as to warrant the supposition that this was his 
 deliberate object. For, by giving to the entire written history 
 its fullest completion, he took rank far above all who had worked 
 betore him; not doctrinally making an advance from miotis 
 to yvaots (Liicke), but, in common with the Synoptics, pur- 
 suing the same goal of miorus (xx. 31), yet bringing the sub- 
 ject-matter of this common faith to a higher, more uniform, 
 and universal stage of the original yvaous of its essence than 
 was possible in the earlier Gospel histories, composed under 
 diverse relations, which had now passed away, and with 
 different and (measured by the standard of John’s fellowship 
 with Jesus) very inferior resources. 
 
 John prosecutes his design, which is to prove that Jesus is 
 the Messiah in the sense ot the incarnate Logos, by first of 
 1Comp. Keim, Gesch. Jesu, p. 106 f. 
 
 D 
 
50 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 all stating this leading idea in the prologue, and then ex- 
 hibiting in well-selected’ historical facts its historical realiza- 
 tion in Jesus. This idea, which belongs to the very highest 
 Christological view of the world, guided his choice and treat- 
 ment of facts, and brought out more clearly the opposition— 
 which the author had constantly in view—with unbelieving 
 and hostile Judaism; but so far from detracting from the 
 historical character of the Gospel, it appears rather only to be 
 derived from the actual experience of the history, and is in 
 turn confirmed thereby. To defend the Gospel against the 
 suspicion of its being a free compilation from synoptical 
 materials, used merely to subserve some main idea, is, on the 
 one hand, as unnecessary for him who recognises it as of 
 necessity apostolic, and as a phenomenon conceivable only 
 upon this supposition; as it is, on the other hand, impossible, 
 as experience shows, to do so successfully, considering the total 
 difference of presuppositions, in the face of the man who can 
 place it in the second century, and ascribe to so late a period 
 so great a creative power of Christian thought. 
 
 SEC. V.mSOURCES, TIME AND PLACE OF WRITING. 
 
 The main source is John himself (1 John i. 1 f), his own 
 inalienable recollection, his experience, his life of fellowship 
 with Christ, continued, increased, and preserved in its fresh- 
 ness by the Spirit of truth, together with the constant impulse 
 to preach and otherwise orally communicate that sublime view 
 of the nature and life of Jesus, which determined the essential 
 
 1In connection with this, the selection made of the miracles of Jesus is spe- 
 cially noteworthy. Only one of each kind is chosen, viz. one of transformation, 
 ii. 1 ff. ; one fever cure, iv. 47 ff. ; one cure of lameness, v. 1 ff. ; one feeding, vi. 
 4 ff. ; one walking on the sea, vi. 16 fl. ; one opening the eyes of the blind, ix. 
 1 ff. ; one raising from the dead, xi. 1 ff. The number seven is hardly accidental, 
 nor yet the exclusion ot any instance of the casting out of demons. That a 
 paragraph containing an account of an instance of casting out has fallen out 
 after chap. v. (Ewald), finds no support in the connection of chap. v. and vi. 
 or elsewhere, and has left no trace appreciable by criticism in evidence of its 
 existence ; while that completed number seven, to which an eighth miracle 
 would thus be added, is against it. This number seven is evidently based 
 upon 3 + 3 + 1,—viz. three miracles of nature, three of healing, and one of 
 raising the dead. An eighth miracle was only added in the appendix, chap. 
 xxi., after the book was finished. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 51 
 
 contents of his work, as a whole and in details. Accordingly, 
 the credibility of the work asserts itself as being relatively the 
 highest of all, so that it ought to have the deciding voice in 
 case of discrepancies in all essential portions, where the author 
 speaks as an eye and ear witness. This also applies to the 
 discourses of Jesus, in so far as their truthfulness is to be 
 recognised, not indeed to all their details and form,—for they 
 were freely reproduced and resuscitated by his after recol- 
 lection, and under the influence of a definite and determining 
 point of view, after the Lord’s thoughts and expressions had 
 by a lengthened process of elaboration been blended with his 
 own, which thus underwent a transfigurationn—but as to the 
 subject-matter and its characteristic clothing and thoughtful 
 changes and variations, in all their simplicity and dignity. 
 Their truthfulness is, I say, all the more to be recognised, 
 the more inwardly and vividly the apostle in particular stood 
 in harmony with his Lord’s mind and heart. So familiar 
 was he with the character and nature of Christ’s discourses, 
 and so imbued with His spirit, that even the reflections of 
 his own which he intertwines, as well as his Epistle, nay, 
 even the discourses of the Baptist, bear one and the same 
 stamp; a fact, however, which only places the essential ori- 
 ginality of the Johannean discourses so much the more above 
 suspicion.’ 
 
 In those portions in which we have no vouchers for per- 
 sonal testimony, the omission is sufficiently supplied, by the 
 author’s connection with Christ and his fellow-apostles (as 
 well as with Mary), and by the investigations which we may 
 assume he made, because of his profound interest in the sub- 
 ject ; and by the living, harmonious, and comprehensive view 
 of Christ’s life and work with which he was inspired, and 
 
 1 Ewald, Jahrb. III. p. 163 f. : ‘*As, under the Old Covenant, it is just the 
 earliest prophets who are the strictest and purest interpreters of Him who, though 
 never visible in bodily form, yet moves, lives, and speaks in them as if He were ; 
 so at the very close of the New Testament a similar phenomenon reappears, when 
 the Logos comes on the scene in bright and clear manifestation. The Spirit of 
 the historical Christ was concentrated in His former familiar disciple in the 
 most compact strength and transparent clearness, and now streams forth from 
 him over this later world, which had never yet so understood Him. The mouth 
 of John is for this world the mouth of the glorified Christ, and the full historical 
 resuscitation of that Logos who will not reappear till the end ot all things,” 
 
52 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 which of itself must have led to the exclusion of any strange 
 and interpolated features. 
 
 The supposition that in his own behoof he made use of 
 notes taken by himself (so Bertholdt, Wegscheider, Schott, 
 and others), does not, indeed, contradict the requirements of 
 a living apostolic call, but must be subordinated so as to be 
 compatible with the unity of spirit and mould of the whole 
 work; a unity which is the gradually ripened and perfected 
 fruit of a long life of recollection, blending all particulars in 
 one true and bright collective picture, under the guidance of 
 the Divine Spirit as promised by Christ Himself (xiv. 26). 
 
 The synoptical tradition was known to John, and his Gospel 
 presupposes it. He was also certainly acquainted with the 
 evangelic writings which embodied it—those at least that were 
 already widely spread and held in esteem; but all this was not 
 his sowrce properly so called: his book itself is proof enough 
 that, in writing it, he was independent of this, and stood above 
 all the then existing written and traditional authorities. He 
 has preserved this independence even in the face of Matthew's 
 collection of discourses and Mark’s Gospel, both of which 
 doubtless he had read, and which may have suggested to him, 
 unintentionally and unsought for on his part, many expressions 
 in his own independent narrative, but which can in no way 
 interfere with its apostolic originality. Comp. Ewald, Gesch. 
 Christi, p. 127 ff. We cannot determine whether he likewise 
 knew the somewhat more recent Gospel of Zuke (Keim and 
 others) ; for the points of contact between the two are con- 
 ceivable upon the supposition of their writing independently 
 side by side, especially as Luke had a rich range of sources, 
 which are to us for the most part unknown. That John like- 
 wise knew the Gospel of the Hebrews is not made probable by 
 the saying which he records concerning “the birth from above.” 
 The combination, on that account, of this saying with the cor- 
 responding quotation made by Justin and the Clementines 
 (see above, sec. ii.) rests upon the very precarious premiss that 
 both of these cite from the Gospel of the Hebrews. 
 
 As to the question whence John derived his represen- 
 tation of the divine element in Christ as the Zogos, see on 
 chap. 1 1. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 53 
 
 As to the PLACE where the Gospel, which was certainly 
 written in Greek, not in Aramaic (against Salmasius, Bolten, 
 and partly Bertholdt), was composed, the earliest tradition 
 (already in Iren. iii. 1, Clement of Alex., Origen, Eusebius, etc.) 
 distinctly names Lphesus; and the original document is said to 
 have been preserved there to a late period, and to have been 
 the object of believing veneration (Chron. Pasch. p. xi. 411, 
 ed. Dind.). By this decision as to the place we must abide, 
 because the Gospel itself bears upon its very face proofs of 
 its author’s remoteness from Palestine, and from the circle of 
 Jewish life, along with references to cultured Greek readers ; 
 and because the life of the apostle himself, as attested by the 
 history of the church, speaks decidedly for Ephesus. The 
 tradition that he wrote at Patmos (Pseudo-Hippolytus, Theo- 
 phylact, and many others, also Hug) isa later one, and owes 
 its origin to the statement that the Apocalpyse was written 
 on that island. With this, the tradition which tries to recon- 
 cile both, by supposing that John dictated his Gospel in 
 Patmos and published it at Ephesus (Pseudo - Athanasius, 
 Dorotheus), loses all its value—The assumption that a long 
 time elapsed before it gained any wide circulation, and that it 
 remained within the circle of the apostle’s friends in Ephesus, 
 at whose request, according to a very ancient tradition (Canon 
 Muratori, Clement of Alexandria, in Euseb. vi. 14), he is 
 said to have written it, is not indeed sanctioned by the 
 silence of Papias concerning it (Credner), but receives con- 
 firmation by the fact that the appendix, chap. xxi. is found 
 in all the oldest testimonies,—leading us to conclude that 
 its publication in more distant circles, and dissemination 
 through multiplication of copies, did not take place till after 
 this addition. 
 
 As to the TIME of its composition, the earliest testimonies 
 (Irenaeus, Clement of Alex., Origen) go to prove that John 
 wrote subsequently to the Synoptics, and (Irenaeus) not till 
 after the deaths of Peter and Paul. A later and more precise 
 determination of the time (Epiphanius, Haer. li. 12),. in the 
 
 1 ,«@ 2 , \. o« ~ Aas , , > 7 
 Aio ugTEpoy avaynales To ayioyv TVEVILA Tov Twavyny Th purroumLeyoy svayyericncbas 
 
 >) ’ > sy ‘ , MoE , > ney , \ 47 2 , 
 4 evAagPeimy HOS TUM EVOPPOTUYNY, £7s v, Ynpersa auTov NAIKIO, METH ETN EVEYNKOVT ES 
 
 THs taurov Curis, were thy adToy awd THs Ldrpou imdvodoy tiv tri KAavdiov yevee 
 
5A "THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 advanced old age of the apostle, is connected with the desire 
 to ascribe to the Gospel an anti-heretical design, and therefore 
 loses its critical weight. The following points may perhaps 
 be regarded as certain, resulting as they do trom a compari- 
 son of this tradition with historical circumstances and with 
 the Gospel itself. As John certainly did not settle in Ephesus 
 until after St. Paul’s removal from his Asiatic sphere of labour, 
 nor indeed, doubtless, until after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 where until then John resided; as, further, the distance from 
 Palestinian circumstances, so evident in the Gospel, implies 
 an already prolonged residence away from Palestine; as the 
 elaborate view of the Logos is a post-Pauline phase of the 
 ‘apprehension and exposition of Christ’s higher nature, and 
 suggests a longer familiarity with philosophical influences; as 
 the entire character and nature of the book, its clearness and 
 depth, its calmness and completeness, most probably indicate 
 the matured culture and clarifying influence of riper years, 
 without, however, in the least degree suggesting to us the 
 weakness of old age,—we must put the composition not before 
 the destruction of Jerusalem (Lampe, Wegscheider), but a con- 
 siderable time after; for if that catastrophe had been still 
 fresh in the recollection of the writer, in the depths ot its first 
 impression, it could hardly, on psychological grounds, have 
 escaped express mention in the book. No such express 
 reference to it occurs; but if, notwithstanding, Jerusalem 
 and its environs are to be regarded, and that rightly, as in 
 ruins, and in the distant background of the apostle’s view, 
 the 7v in xi. 18, xviii. 1, xix. 41, reads more naturally 
 than if accounted for from the mere context of historical 
 narration, while on the other hand the éor in v. 2 may 
 retain its full appropriateness. If a year is to be definitely 
 kivny Kaiccpos, eal mera inava ten Tov diarpias airdy aad Tis "Acins 
 avayxadleras sxbicbas ro svayytaAsov These last words are not corrupt, 
 nor is éx%d rzs ’Acizs to be joined with dvayxal:ra: as if it meant ab Asiae 
 
 episcopis (Liicke) ; but we must render them, ‘‘and many years afterwards, 
 after he had lived tar from Asia, he was obliged,” etc.,—thus taking the words 
 
 in their necessary sense, ‘‘many years after his extra-Asiatic sojourn,” many 
 years after his return from Patmos. The genitive, rod Biarpipas airir 
 amo vr. ’Acias, denotes that the time spent is the point of departure from 
 which the ixavé tem begin to run. See Kiihner, II. pp. 164, 514. Comp. 
 
 Bernhardy, p. 138. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 55 
 
 named, A.D. 80’ may be suggested as neither too far back nor 
 too far on.” 
 
 Note—As to PLAN, the Gospel divides itself into the follow- 
 ing sections:—After the prologue, i. 1-18, which at once sets 
 before the reader the lofty point of view of the most sacred 
 history, the revelation of the glory of the only-begotten Son of 
 the Father (which constitutes the theme of the Gospel, i. 14) 
 begins, first through John the Baptist, and its self-revelation 
 onwards to the first miracle, and as yet without any opposition 
 of unbelief, down to ii. 11. Then (2) this self-revelation passes 
 on to publicity, and progresses in action and teaching amid the 
 antithesis of belief and unbelief, onwards to another and greater 
 miracle, ii. 12-1v. 54. Further, (3) new miracles of the Lord’s - 
 in Judea and Galilee, with the discourses occasioned thereby, 
 heighten that antithesis, so that there arises among the Jews a 
 desire to persecute and even to kill Him, while among His 
 disciples many fall away, v—vi. 71. After this, (4) unbelief 
 shows itself even among the brothers of Jesus; the self-revela- 
 tion of the Only-begotten of the Father advances in words and 
 deeds to the greatest miracle of all, that of the raising of the 
 dead, by which, however, while many believe upon Him, the 
 hostility of unbelief is urged on to the decisive determination 
 to put Him to death, vii-ix.57. There ensues, (5) in and upon 
 the carrying out of this determination, the highest self-revela- 
 tion ot Christ’s divine glory, which finally gains its completed 
 victory in the resurrection, xii—xx. Chap. xxi. is an appendix. 
 Many other attempts have been made to exhibit the plan of the 
 
 1 There therefore lies between the Apocalypse and the Gospel a space of from 
 ten to twelve years. Considering the maturity of mind which the apostle, who 
 was already aged in the year 70, must have attained, this space was too short to 
 effect such a change of view and of language as we must suppose if the apoca- 
 lyptist was also the evangelist. This also against Tholuck, p. 11. 
 
 ? It is evident from the distinctive and internal charactertstics of the Gospel, 
 and especially from the form of its ideas, that it was written after the downfall 
 of the Jewish state and the labours of St. Paul; but we cannot go so far as to 
 find reflected in it the beginning of the second century (i.e. a time only 20 or 30 
 years later), nor to argue therefrom the non-apostolic origin of the Gospel (and of 
 the Epistle). The interval is too short, and our knowledge of church movements, 
 especially of Gnosticism, is not direct and precise enough, so far as they may be 
 said to belong, at least in their stages ot impulse and development, to the begin- 
 ning only of the new century, and not to the two or three preceding decades of 
 years. This tells, at the same time, against Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 147 ff. How 
 can it be said, on any reliable grounds, that ‘‘the Gospel discloses the state 
 of the church just about the year 100, but not the state of the church about 
 the year 80”? 
 
56 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 book; on which see Luthardt, I. p. 255 ff., who (comp. also his 
 treatise, De composit. ev. Joh., Norimb. 1852; before this Kostln, 
 in the Theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 194 ff, and afterwards Keim, Gesch. 
 J. 1. p. 115 f.) endeavours on his part to carry out a threefold 
 division of the whole and of the several parts; and in Godet, 
 Comment. I. p. 111. The arrangement which approaches most 
 nearly to the above is that of Ewald, Jahrb. III. p. 168, comp. 
 VIII. 109, and Johann. Schr. I. p. 18 ff. In every method of 
 
 - division, the opposition of the world’s ever-increasing unbelief 
 
 and hatred to the revelation of the divine glory in Christ, and 
 to faith in Him, must ever be held fast, as the thread which 
 runs systematically through the whole. Comp. Godet,’ as 
 before. 
 
 1 Who (p. 121) gives what he calls the ‘‘ photographie de U'histoire” as follows: 
 ‘* La foi nait, i.-iv. ; l'incrédulité domine, v.-xii.; la foi atteint sa perfection 
 relative, xili.-xvii.; l’incrédulité se consomme, xviiil., xix. ; la foi triomphe, 
 xx. (xxi.).” Such special abstract designations of place give too varied play to 
 the subjectivities, still more so the subdivision of the several main parts, as by 
 Ewald especially, and Keim, with different degrees of skill; but the latter con- 
 siders that his threefold division and subdivision of the two halves (i.-xii., 
 xiii.-xx.) ‘‘has its root in the absolute ground of the divine mystery of the 
 number three,” —a lusus ingenié, 
 
CHAP. L 57 
 
 Evayyértov cata "Iwavyny 
 
 B. 8. have merely cata "Iwavy. Others: 7d kata “Iwavy. 
 (ayvov) evayy. Others: é« Tod x. ’Iwdvy, Others: evayy. éx 
 tov Kata "Iwavy. See on Matthew. 
 
 CHAP TEE 
 
 Ver. 4. @w4 7v] D. 8. Codd. in Origen and Augustine, It. 
 (Germ. Foss. excepted), Sahidic, Syr.* Clem. Valentt. in Ir. 
 Hilary, Ambrose, Vigil.: (#4 égorw. So Lachm. and Tisch. 
 Generalization in connection with the words: 6 yéy. @ wird, Ca 
 7v,and perhaps in comparison with 1 John v. 11.— Ver. 16. xa? 
 éx] B. C.* D. L. X. 8. 33. Copt. Aeth. Arm. Ver. Vere. Corb. Or. 
 and many Fathers and Schol.: éz: x. So Griesb., Lachm., Tisch.; 
 éz1 is to be preferred on account of the preponderating evidence 
 in its favour, and because ver. 16 was very early (Heracl. and 
 Origen) regarded as a continuation of the Baptist’s discourse, 
 and the directly continuous x«/ naturally suggested itself, and 
 was inserted instead of the less simple ér.— Ver. 18. vids] B. 
 C.* L. 8. 33. Copt. Syr. Aeth. and many Fathers: é¢és. Dogmatic 
 gloss in imitation of ver. 1, whereby not only vids, but the 
 article before wovoy. (which Tisch. deletes), was also (in the Codd. 
 named) suppressed. The omission of viss (Origen, Opp. TV. 102; 
 Ambrose, ep. 10) is not sufficiently supported, and might easily 
 have been occasioned by ver. 14.— Ver. 19. After dzéorcinuy, B. 
 C.* Min. Chrys. and Verss. have zpig airov. So Lachm., an 
 addition which other Codd. and Verss. insert after Acviras.— 
 Ver. 20. od eiwi cya] A.B. C.* L. X. A. 33. Verss. and 
 _ Fathers have: éya ot eju. So Lachm., Tisch. Rightly, on account 
 of the preponderating evidence. Comp. iii. 28, where odx iui 
 éyw is attested by decisive evidence. — Ver. 22. The ody after 
 eirov (Lachm. Tisch. read sfray) is deleted by Lachm., following 
 B. C. Syr.*",—testimonies which are all the less adequate, con- 
 sidering how easily the ov», which is not in itself necessary, 
 might have been overlooked after the final syllable of sizov,1— 
 
 1 Matthaei, ed. min. ad x. 39, well says: ‘In nullo libro scribae ita vexarunt 
 particulas xa, 3% ov», ré%. . » quam in hoc evangelio. Modo temere incul- 
 
58 THE GOSPEL OF JOIN. 
 
 Ver. 24. The article before dzecradu. is wanting in A.* B. C.* 
 L. 8.* Origen (once), Nonn. Perhaps a mere omission on the 
 part of the transcriber, if dreor. jouv were taken together; but 
 perhaps intentional, for some (Origen and Nonn.) have here 
 supposed a second deputation. The omission is therefore 
 doubly suspicious, though Tisch. also now omits the art. — Ver. 
 25. Instead of the repeated odre, we must, with Lachm., Tisch., 
 following A. B.C. L. X. 8. Min. Origen, read 0id2.— Ver. 26. 6é 
 after uéoog must, with Tisch., on weighty testimony (B. C. L. 8. 
 etc.), be deleted, having been added as a connecting particle. 
 — Ver. 27. Against the words wirés éorsy (for which G. Min. 
 Chrys. read oirés gor) and o¢ tumpoodév mov yéyovey the testi- 
 monies are so ancient, important, and unanimous, that they 
 must be rejected together. Lachm. has bracketed them, Tisch. 
 deletes them. «airés gorw is an unnecessary aid to the con- 
 struction, and %¢ Zu«rp. mov yéyovev (though defended by Ewald) is 
 a completion borrowed from vv. 15, 30.— Ver. 28. Bydavig.] 
 Elz.: BydaSapeé (adopted of late by Hengstenberg), against con- 
 clusive testimony, but following Syr.“ and Origen (Opp. II. 130), 
 who himself avows that oyediv év whos ros dyrirypépos is found 
 Bydavig, yet upon geographical grounds decides in favour of 
 Byda8apé,—a consideration by which criticism cannot be bound. 
 See the exegetical notes. — Ver. 29. After Saére: Elz. has 6 
 "Iwdw., against the best testimonies. Beginning of a church 
 lesson. — Ver. 32. ws] Elz.: aoe, against the oldest and most 
 numerous Codd. See Matt. ii. 16; Luke ii. 22.— Ver. 37. 
 qxove, adrod] Tisch., following B. &., puts aired after wadgr.; C.* 
 L. X. T. have it after duo. The Verss. also have this variation 
 of position, which must, however, be regarded as the removal of 
 the «iro3, made more or less mechanically, in imitation of ver. 
 35.— Ver. 40. 7dere] B.C.* L. T.” Min. Syr. utr. Origen, Tisch. : 
 éeode. Correctly; the words which immediately follow and 
 ver. 47 (comp. xi. 34) make it much more likely that the tran- 
 scriber would write 7éere for oeode, than vice versa. After dpa 
 Elz. has 62, against which are the weightiest witnesses, and which 
 has been interpolated as a connecting link.— Ver. 43. “Iwvé] 
 Lachm. : ’Iwévou, after B.; the same variation in xxi. 15-17. We 
 must, with Tisch., after B.* L. 8.33, read ’Iwdvvov. Comp. Non- 
 nus: vidg Iwdvweo. The Textus Receptus has arisen from Matt. 
 xvi. 17. — Ver. 44. After 7:Ayoev Elz. has 6 "Inoots, which the 
 best authorities place after «ir@. Beginning of a church lesson. 
 — Ver. 52. &rdprs] wanting in B. L. 8. Copt. Aeth. Arm. Vulg. 
 
 carunt, modo permutarunt, modo omiserunt, modo transposuerunt. Accedunt 
 interpretes, qui cum demum locum aliquem tractant, illas particulas in principio 
 modo addunt, modo omittunt.” 
 
— 
 
 CHAP. I. 1, 59 
 
 Tt. and some Fathers, also in Origen. Deleted by Lachm. Tisch. 
 Omitted, because it seemed inappropriate to the following 
 words, which were taken to refer to actual angelic appear- 
 ances. 
 
 Ver. 1. ’Ev apy4] John makes the beginning of his Gospel 
 parallel with that of Genesis;’ but he rises above the historical 
 conception of N'Wx72, which (Gen. i. 1) includes the beginning 
 of time itself, to the absolute conception of anteriority to time: 
 the creation is something subsequent, ver. 3. Prov. viii. 23, év 
 apxh mpo Tod THY Yyhv Tohoas, is parallel; likewise, mpo Tod 
 Tov Koopov elvat, John xvii. 5; mpo xataBorjs Kocpov, Eph. 
 i. 4. Comp. Nezach Israel, f. 48, 1: Messias erat inn °359 
 (ante Tohu). The same idea we find already in the book of 
 Enoch, xlviii. 3 f., 6 f., lxii. 7,—a book which (against Hilgen- 
 feld and others) dates back into the second century B.c. (Dilm., 
 Ewald, and others). The notion, in itself negative, of ante- 
 riority to time (aypovos jv, axiyntos, év appyt@ oyos apy}, 
 Nonnus), is in a popular way affirmatively designated by the 
 év apxn as “primeval ;” the more exact dogmatic definition 
 of the apyy as “eternity” (Theodor. Mopsuest., Euthym. Zig. ; 
 comp. Theophylact) is a correct development of John’s mean- 
 ing, but not strictly what he himself says. Comp. 1 Johni. 1; 
 Rey. iii. 14. The Valentinian notion, that apy was a divine 
 Hypostasis distinct from the Father and the doyos (Iren. Haer. 
 i. 8. 5), and the Patristic view, that it was the divine cofia 
 (Origen) or the everlasting Father (Cyril. Al.), rest upon specu- 
 lations altogether unjustified by correct exegesis.’— jv] was 
 present, existed. John writes historically, looking back from the 
 later time of the incarnation of the Adyos (ver. 14). But he 
 does not say, “In the beginning the Adyos came into existence,” 
 for he does not conceive the generation (comp. povoryeriys) 
 according to the Arian view of creation, but according to that 
 of Paul, Col. i. 15.—6 Adyos] the Word; for the reference 
 
 1 See Hoelemann, de evangelii Joh. introitu introitus Geneseos augustiore effigie, 
 Leipsic 1855, p. 26 ff. 
 
 2 Quite opposed to correct exegesis, although in a totally different direction, 
 is the rendering of the Socinians (see Catech. Racov. p. 185, ed. Oeder), that i» 
 a&px% signifies in initio evangelii. 
 
60 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 to the history of the creation leaves room for no other meaning 
 (therefore not Reason). John assumes that his readers under- 
 stand the term, and, notwithstanding its great importance, 
 regards every additional explanation of it as superfluous. 
 Hence those interpretations fall of themselves to the ground, 
 which are unhistorical, and imply anything of a quid pro quo, 
 such as (1) that 6 Adyos is the same as 6 Aeyouevos, “the 
 promised one” (Valla, Beza, Ernesti, Tittm., etc.); (2) that it 
 stands for o A€ywyv, “the speaker” (Storr, Eckerm., Justi, and 
 others). Not less incorrect (3) is Hofmann’s interpretation 
 (Schriftbeweis, I. 1, p. 109 f.): “o Adyos is the word of God, the 
 Gospel, the personal subject of which however, namely Christ, 
 is here meant:” against which view it is decisive, first, that 
 neither in Rev. xix. 13, nor elsewhere in the N. T., is Christ 
 called 6 Xoyos merely as the subject-matter of the word ; 
 secondly, that in John, o Adyos, without some additional defi- 
 nition, never once occurs as the designation of the Gospel, 
 though it is often so used by Mark (ii. 2, iv. 14, al.), Luke 
 G. 2; Acts xi. 19, a/.), and. Paul (Gal. vi. 6; 1 Theceaaae 
 thirdly, that in the context, neither here (see especially ver. 
 14) nor in 1 John i. 1 (see especially 6 éwpdxapev . . . Kal at 
 xelpes tua evynradynoav) does it seem allowable to depart in 
 6 Aoyos from the immediate designation of the personal sub- 
 ject, while this immediate designation, ae. of the creative 
 Word, is in our passage, from the obvious parallelism with the 
 history of the creation, as clear and definite as it was appro- 
 priate it should be at the very commencement of the work. 
 These reasons also tell substantially against the turn which 
 Luthardt has given to Hofmann’s explanation: “o Adyos is the 
 word of God, which in Christ, Heb. i. 1, has gone forth into the 
 world, and the theme of which was His own person.” See, on 
 the other hand, Baur in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 206 ff. ; 
 Lechler, apost. u. nachapost. Zeit. p. 215; Gess, v. d. Person 
 Chr. p. 116; Kahnis, Dogmat. I. p. 466. The investigation 
 _ of the Logos idea can only lead to a true result when pursued 
 
 by the path of history. But here, above all, history points us 
 
 1 See, with reference to 1 John i. 1 (in opposition to Beyschlag’s impersonal 
 interpretation), besides Diisterdieck and Huther, Johansson, de aeterna Christi 
 pracexist, sec. ev. Joh., Lundae 1866, p. 29 f. 
 
CHAP. I. 1. 61 
 
 to the O. T.) and most directly to Gen. i, where the act of | 
 creation is effected by God speaking. The reality contained 
 in this representation, anthropomorphic as to its form, of the 
 revelation of Himself made in creation by God, who is in His | 
 own nature hidden, became the root of the Logos idea. The 
 Word as creative, and embodying generally the divine will, is ( 
 personified in Hebrew poetry (Ps. xxxili. 6, evil. 20, cxlvii. » 
 15; Isa. lv. 10, 11); and consequent upon this concrete and 
 independent representation, divine attributes are predicated of | 
 it (Ps. xxxiv. 4; Isa. xl. 8; Ps. cxix. 105), so far as it was/ 
 at the same time the continuous revelation of God in law and | 
 prophecy. A way was thus paved for the hypostatizing of ~ 
 the Adyos as a further step in the knowledge of the relations 
 in the divine essence; but this advance took place gradually, 
 and only after the captivity, so that probably the oriental 
 doctrine of emanations, and subsequently the Pythagorean- 
 platonic philosophy, were not without influence upon what 
 wasjalready given in germ in Gen.i. Another form of the con- 
 ception, however, appears,—not the original one of the Word, 
 but one which was connected with the advanced development of 
 ethical and teleological reflection and the needs of the Theodicy, 
 —that of wisdom (237), of which the creative word was an 
 expression, and which in the book of Job (xxviii. 12 ff.) and 
 Proverbs (viii, ix.), in Ecclus. i, 1-10, xxiv. 8, and Baruch 
 iii. 37-iv. 4, is still set forth and depicted under the form 
 of a personification, yet to such a degree that the portrayal 
 more closely approaches that of the Hypostasis, and all the 
 more closely the less it is able to preserve the elevation and 
 boldness characteristic of the ancient poetry. The actual 
 transition of the co¢/a into the Hypostasis occurs in the book 
 of Wisdom vii. 7—xi., where wisdom (manifestly under the in- 
 fluence of the idea of the Platonic soul of the world, perhaps 
 also of the Stoic conception of an all-pervading world-spirit) 
 appears as a being of light proceeding essentially from God, 
 —the true image of God, co-occupant of the divine throne, 
 —a real and independent principle revealing God in the 
 world (especially in Israel), and mediating between it and 
 Him, after it has, as His organ, created the world, in asso- 
 1 See Rohricht in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 299 ff. 
 
62 TIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 ciation with a spirit among whose many predicates povoyevés! 
 also is named, vii. 22. The divine Aoyos also appears again 
 in the book of Wisdom, ix. 1, comp. ver. 2, but only in the 
 O. T. sense of a poetically personified declaration of God’s 
 will, either in blessing (xvi. 12, comp. Ps. cvii. 20) or in 
 punishing (xvill. 15). See especially Grimm, zn locc.; Bruch, 
 Weisheitslehre d. Hebr. p. 347 ff. Comp. also Ecclus. xliii. 46. 
 While, then, in the Apocrypha the Logos representation retires 
 before the development of the idea of wisdom? it makes itself 
 the more distinctly prominent in the Chaldee Paraphrasts, 
 especially Onkelos: see Gfrorer, Gesch. d. Urchristenth. I. 1, p. 
 501 ff; Winer, De Onkel. p. 44 f.; Anger, De Onkel. IL. 
 1846. The Targums, the peculiarities of which rest on older 
 traditions, exhibit the Word of God, 822) or S135, as the 
 divinely revealing Hypostasis, identical with the 72.2% which 
 was to be revealed in the Messiah. Comp. Schoettg. Hor. II. 
 p- 5; Bertholdt, Christol. p. 121. Thus there runs through 
 the whole of Judaism, and represented under various forms 
 | (comp. especially the nin NPD in the O. T. from Gen. xvi. 
 | Ex. xxiii. downwards, frequently named, especially in Hosea, 
 Zechariah, and Malachi, as the representative of the self-reveal- 
 ing God), the idea that God never reveals Himself directly, 
 but mediately, that is, does not reveal His hidden invisible 
 essence, but only a manifestation of Himself (comp. especially 
 Ex. xxxili. 12-23) ; and this idea, modified however by Greek 
 and particularly Platonic and Stoic speculation, became a main 
 feature in the Judaeo-Alexandrine philosophy, as this is set forth 
 in PHILO, one of the older contemporaries of Jesus. See espe- 
 cially Gfrorer, I. 243 ff.; Dahne, Jiidisch-Alex. Religionsphil. 
 I. 114 ff.; Grossmann, Quaestion. Philon., Lpz. 1829 ; Scheffer, 
 Quaest. Phil. Marb. 1829,1831; Keferstein, Philo’s Lehre von 
 dem gottl. Mittelwesen, Lpz. 1846; Ritter, Gesch. d. Philos. 1V. 
 
 1 Comp. vii. 25, where it is said of wisdom, daxéppucw iis rod ravroxpdropos doens 
 ciAsxpivis.  Movoyevés should not have been rendered single (Bauerm., Liicke, 
 Bruch, after the early writers), which it neither is nor is required to be by the 
 merely formal contrast to roavuepts. This idea single, as answering to the fol- 
 lowing roavuepis, would have been expressed by “ovouepis (Luc. Calumn. 6). Even 
 Grimm (exeget. Handb. p. 152) has now rightly abandoned this interpretation. 
 
 2 Wisdom as appearing in Christ is mentioned in N. T. also, in Luke xi. 49, 
 comp. Matt. xi. 19. 
 
GHAR. 1) 15 63 
 
 418 ff.; Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, III. 2; Lutterb. newt. 
 Lehrbegr. I. 418 ff.; Miller in Herzog’s Encykl. XI. 484; 
 Ewald, apost. Zeit. 257; Delitzsch in d. Luther. Zeitschr. 
 1863, ii, 219; Riehm, Hebr. Brief, p. 249; Keim, Gesch. J. 
 I. 212. Comp. also Langen, d. Judenth. 2. Zeit Christi, 1867 ; 
 Rohricht as formerly quoted. According to the intellectual ) 
 development, so rich in its results, which Philo gave to the | 
 received Jewish doctrine of Wisdom, the Logos is the com- | 
 prehension or sum-total of all the divine energies, so far as 
 these are either hidden in the Godhead itself, or have come 
 forth and been disseminated in the world (Aoyos omreppartixés). 
 As immanent in God, containing within itself the archetypal 
 world, which is conceived as the real world -ideal (von7ds 
 Koco), it is, while not yet outwardly existing, like the im- 
 manent reason in men, the Adyos évduaGeTos; but when in 
 creating the world it has issued forth from God, it answers 
 to the Aoyos mpodpopexos, just as among men the word 
 when spoken is the manifestation of thought. Now the doyos 
 mpodopexos is the comprehension or sum-total of God’s active 
 relations to the world; so that creation, providence, the com- 
 munication of all physical and moral power and gifts, of all 
 life, light, and wisdom from God, are its work, not being essen- ; 
 tially different in its attributes and workings from cod/a and 
 the Divine Spirit itself. Hence it is the image of the God- 
 head, the eldest and first-begotten (apeoButatos, mpwrtéyoves) 
 Son of God, the possessor of the entire divine fulness, the 
 Mediator between God and the world, the Aoyos Topeds, Sype- 
 oupyos, apxsepevs, ixétns, mpeaRevtis, the dpydyyedos, the 
 Sevtepos eos, the substratum of all Theophanies, also the 
 Messiah, though ideally apprehended only as a Theophany, 
 not as a concrete humanized personality; for an incarnation Ge 
 the Logos is foreign to Philo’s system (see Ewald, p. 284 ff. ; 
 Toor, Entwiclekine ete I. 50). There is no doubt that 
 Philo has often designated and described the Logos as a 
 Person, although, where he views it rather as immanent in 
 God, he applies himself more to describe a power, and to pre- 
 sent it as an attribute. There is, however, no real ground 
 for inferring, with some (Keferst., Zeller), from this variation 
 in his representation, that Philo’s opinion wavered between 
 
a 
 
 64 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 personality and impersonality; rather, as regards the ques- 
 tion of subsistence in its bearing upon Philo’s Logos (see 
 especially Dorner, Lntwickelungsgesch. I. 21; Niedner, de sub- 
 sistentia TO Oeiw Aoyo apud Philon. tributa, in the Zeitsch. f. 
 histor. Theol. 1849, p. 337 ff.; and Holemann, de evang. Joh. 
 introitu, etc. p. 39 ff.), must we attribute to him no separation 
 between the subsistence of God and the Logos, as if there 
 came forth a Person distinct from God, whenever the Logos is 
 described as a Person; but, “ea duo, in quibus cernitur tod 
 évtos Kai Covros Oeod essentia s. deitas plenum esse per suam 
 ipsius essentiam et implere cuncta hac sua essentia, primo 
 diserte wnt substantiae tribuuntur, deinde distribuuntur, sed 
 tantum inter essentiam et hujus actionem, quemadmodum 
 nomina Tod Qeod et tod Adyouv -hujus ipsius dei” (Niedner). 
 
 - Accordingly, Philo’s conception of the Logos resolves itself 
 
 into the sum-total and full exercise of the divine energies; so 
 that God, so far as He reveals Himself, is called Logos, while 
 the Logos, so far as he reveals God, is called God. That John 
 owed his doctrine of the Logos—ain which he represents the 
 divine Messianic being as pre-existent, and entering into 
 humanity in a human form—solely to the Alexandrine philo- 
 sophy, is an assertion utterly arbitrary, especially considering 
 the difference between Philo’s doctrine and that of John, not 
 only in general (comp. also Godet, I. 233), but also in respect 
 to the subsistence of the Logos in particular.’ The form which 
 John gave to his doctrine is understood much more natu- 
 rally and historically thus, without by any means excluding 
 the influence of the Alexandrine Gnosis upon the apostle ; 
 —that while the ancient popular wisdom of the Word of 
 God, which (as we have above shown) carries us back to 
 Gen. i. 1, is acknowledged to be that through which the 
 idea of the Logos, as manifested in human form in Christ, 
 was immediately suggested to him, and to which he appended 
 and unfolded his own peculiar development of this idea with 
 all clearness and spiritual depth, according to the measure 
 of those personal testimonies of his Lord which his memory 
 
 1 It tells also against it, that in John the name ayes is undoubtedly derived 
 from the divine speaking (Word) ; in Philo, on the other hand, from the divine 
 thinking (Reason). See Hoelemann as before, p. 43 fi. 
 
CHAP. I. 1. 65 
 
 vividly retained, he at the same time allowed the widespread 
 Alexandrine speculations, so similar in their origin and theme, 
 to have due influence upon him, and used’ them in an inde- 
 pendent manner to assist his exposition of the nature and 
 working of the divine in Christ, fully conscious of their 
 points. of difference (among which must be reckoned the cos- 
 mological dualism of Philo, which excluded any real incarna- 
 tion, and made God to have created the world out of the Urn). 
 Whether he adopted these speculations for the first time while 
 dwelling in Asia Minor, need not be determined, although it 
 is in itself very conceivable that the longer he lived in Asia, 
 the more deeply did he penetrate into the Alexandrine theo- 
 logoumenon which prevailed there, without any intermediate 
 agency on the part of Apollos being required for that end 
 (Tobler). The doctrine is not, however, on account of this 
 connection with speculations beyond the pale of Christendom, 
 by any means to be traced back to a mere fancy of the day. 
 The main truth in it (the idea of the Son of God and His 
 incarnation) had, long before he gave it its peculiar form, been 
 in John’s mind the sole foundation of his faith, and the highest 
 object of his knowledge; and this was no less the case with 
 Paul and all the other apostles, though they did not formally 
 adopt the Logos doctrine, because their idiosyncrasies and the 
 conditions of their after development were different. Tha 
 main truth in it is to be referred simply to Christ Himself, 
 whose communications to His disciples, and direct influence 
 upon them (i. 14), as well as His further revelations and 
 leadings by means of the Spirit of truth, furnished them with 
 the material which was afterwards made use of in their various 
 
 Comp. Delitzsch, /.c., and Psychol. p. 178 [E. T. pp. 210, 211]; Beyschlag, 
 Christol. d. N. T. p. 156 ; Keim, Gesch. J. 1. p. 112 ff. If some attempt to 
 deny the influence of the Judaeo-Alexandrine Gnosis on the Logos doctrine of 
 John (Hoelemann, Weiss, J. Késtlin, Hengstenberg), they at the same time 
 sever, though in the interests of apostolic dignity, its historical credibility from 
 its connection with the circumstances of the time, as well as the necessary pre- 
 sumption of its intelligibility on the part of the readers of the Gospel. But it 
 is exactly the noble simplicity and clearness of the Prologue which shows with 
 what truly apostolic certainty John had experienced the influence of the specu- 
 lations of his day, and was master of them, modifying, correcting, and utilizing 
 them according to his own ideas. This is also in answer to Luthardt, p. 200, 
 and Rohricht, lc. 
 
66 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 modes of representation. This procedure is specially apparent 
 also in John, whose doctrine of the divine and pre-existent 
 nature of Christ, far removed from the influences of later 
 Gnosticism, breaks away in essential points from the Alex- 
 andrine type of doctrine, and moulds itself in a different 
 shape, especially rejecting, in the most decided manner, all 
 dualistic and docetic elements, and in general treating the 
 form once chosen with the independence of an apostle. That 
 idea of a revelation by God of His own essence, which took 
 its rise from Gen. i, which lived and grew under various 
 forms and names among the Hebrews and later Jews, but was 
 moulded in a peculiar fashion by the Alexandrine philosophy, 
 was adopted by John for the purpose of setting forth the 
 abstract divinity of the Son,—thus bringing to light the reality 
 which lies at the foundation of the Logos idea. Hence, 
 according to John,’ by o Adyos, which is throughout viewed 
 by him (as is clear from the entire Prologue down to ver. 18)? 
 under the conception of a personal® subsistence, we must under- 
 stand nothing else than the self-revelation of the divine essence, 
 before all time immanent in God (comp. Paul, Col. i. 15 ff), 
 but for the accomplishment of the act of creation proceeding 
 hypostatically from Him, and ever after operating even in the 
 spiritual world as a creating, quickening, and wluminating 
 personal principle, equal to God Himself in nature and glory 
 (comp. Paul, Phil. ii. 6); which divine self-revelation appeared 
 
 1In the Apocalypse also, chap. xix. 18, Christ is called the 2syoz, but (not 
 so in the Gospel) 6 Adyos rod éeov. The writer of the Apocalypse speaks of the 
 whole Person of the God-man in a different way from the evangelist,—in fact, 
 as in His state of exaltation. (See Diisterdieck, z. Apok. Hinl. p. 75 ff.) But 
 the passage is important against all interpretations which depart from the meta- 
 physical view of the Logos above referred to. Comp. Gess, v. d. Person Chr. 
 Pallant. 
 
 2 Comp. Worner, d. Verhéiltn. d. Geistes zum Sohne Goties, 1862, p. 24; also 
 Baur, neutest. Theol. 352; Godet, U.c. 
 
 3 That is, the subsistence as a conscious intelligent Ego, endued with voli- 
 tion. Against the denial of this personal transcendency in John (De Wette, 
 Beyschlag, and others), see in particular Késtlin, Lehrbegr. 90 ; Briickn. 7 f. ; 
 Liebner, Christol. 155 f.; Weiss, Lehrbegr. 242 f. When Dorner (Gesch. d. 
 prot. Theol. 875 ff.) claims for the Son, indeed, a special divine mode of existence 
 as His eternal characteristic, but at the same time denies Him any direct partici- 
 pation in the absolute divine personality, his limitation is exegetically opposed 
 to the view of John and of the Apostle Paul. 
 
\ 
 
 CHAP. I. 1. 67 
 
 bodily in the man Jesus, and accomplished the work of the 
 redemption of the world. John fashions and determines his 
 Gospel from beginning to end with this highest christological 
 idea in his eye; this it is which constitutes the distinctive 
 character of its doctrine. Comp. Weizsicker, wb. d. evang. 
 Gesch. pp. 241 ff., 297; also his Abh. tiber d. Joh. Logoslehre, in 
 d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1862, pp. 619 ff., 701 f. The Synoptics 
 contain the fragments and materials, the organic combination 
 and ideal formation of which into one complete whole is the 
 pre-eminent excellence of this last and highest Gospel. Paul 
 has the Logos, only not in name.—The second and third jv 
 is the copula; but al o Noyos, as the repetition of the great 
 subject, has a solemnity about it.— mpos tov Oeor] not 
 simply equivalent to mapa 7@ Oe@, xvii. 5, but expressing, as 
 in 1 John i. 2, the existence of the Logos in God in respect of 
 intercourse (Bernhardy, p. 265). So also in all other passages 
 where it appears to mean simply with, Mark vi. 3, ix. 19; 
 Matt. xiii. 56, xxvi. 55; 1 Cor. xvi. 6, 7; Gal. i. 18, iv. 18; 
 and in the texts cited in Fritzsche, ad Mare. p. 202.1 Upon 
 the thing itself, comp. concerning Wisdom, Prov. viii. 30, 
 Wisd. ix. 4. The moral essence of this essential fellowship 
 is love (xvii. 24; Col. i. 13), with which, at the same time, 
 any merely modalistie conception is excluded. — Kal eds 
 Hv 6 Novos] and the Logos was God. This Qeos can only be 
 the predicate, not the subject (as Rohricht takes it), which 
 would contradict the preceding jv mwpods Tov Oedv, because the 
 conception of the Adyos would be only a periphrasis for God. 
 The predicate is placed before the subject emphatically (comp. 
 iv. 24), because the progress of the thought, “He was with 
 God, and (not at all a Person of an inferior nature, but) pos- 
 sessed of a divine nature,’ makes this latter—the new element 
 to be introduced—the naturally and logically emphasized 
 member of the new clause, on account of its relation to mpos 
 
 1 The expressions, in the language of the common people, in many districts 
 are quite analogous: ‘* he was with me,” ‘‘he stays with you” (bei mich, bei 
 dich), and the like. Comp. for the Greek, Kriiger, § 68. 39. 4. — As against 
 all impersonal conceptions of the Logos, observe it is never said ty r@ ésa. 
 Rohricht (p, 312), however, arrives at the meaning éy c@ é@, and by unwar- 
 rantably comparing the very different usage of zp¢;, takes exception to our 
 explanation of apis rev deay, 
 
68 THE GOSPEL OF JOIN. 
 
 cov Geov." ‘Whe omission of the article was necessary, because 
 6 Oecs after the preceding mpos Tov Gedy would have assigned 
 to the Logos identity of Person (as, in fact, Beyschlag, p. 162, 
 construes Geos without the art.). But so long as the question 
 of God’s self-mediation objectively remains out of considera- 
 tion, 0 Oce0s would have been out of place here, where zpos 
 \rov Oecv had laid down the distinction of Person; whereas 
 Qcos without the article makes the unity of essence and nature 
 to follow the distinction of Person.? As, therefore, by @eds 
 without the article, John neither desires to indicate, on the 
 one hand, identity of Person with the Father; nor yet, on 
 the other, any lower nature than that which God Himself 
 possesses: so his doctrine of the Logos is definitely dis- 
 tinguished from that of Philo, which predicates @eds with- 
 out the article of the Logos in the sense of subordination 
 in nature, nay, as he himself says, év xataypyoes (I. 655, ed. 
 Mang.); see Hoelemann, I. 1, p. 34. Moreover, the name 
 o SevTEpos Geos, which Philo gives to the Logos, must, accord- 
 ing to II. 625 (Euseb. praep. ev. vii. 13), expressly designate 
 an intermediate nature between God and man, after whose 
 image God created man. This subordinationism, according 
 to which the Logos is indeed eb optds Tus Geod huats, but Tob 
 \. peév €XaTTOD, Sone 5é xpeittwv (I. 683), is not that of the 
 “SN. 'T., which rather assumes (comp. Phil 1. 6, Col. i, 15, 16) 
 the pannel unity of being of the Father aaa the Son, and 
 places the subordination of the latter in His dependence on 
 the Father, as it does the subordination of the Spirit in His 
 dependence on the Father and the Son. eds, therefore, is 
 not to be explained by help of Philo, nor is it to be con- 
 verted into a general qualitative idea— divine,” “ God-like” 
 (B. Crusius),—which deprives the expression of the precision 
 which, especially considering the strict monotheism of the N. T. 
 (in John, see in particular xvii. 3), it must possess, owing 
 
 1There is something majestic in the way in which the description of the 
 Logos, in the three brief but great PERppSInEES of ver. 1, is unfolded with in- 
 creasing fulness. 
 
 2 «*The last clause, the Word 2 was God, is against Arius ; the aiken the Word 
 was with God, against Sabellius.”—LuTHER. See also Thomasius, Chr. Pers. 
 u. Werk, I. 83 ff. 
 
_ 
 
 i 
 
 CHAP. I. 2, 3. 69 
 
 to the conception of the personal Logos as a divine being. 
 Comp. Schmid, 0701. Theol. II. 370. On Sam. Crell’s con- 
 jecture (Artemonit initiwm ev. Joh. ex antiquitate eccl. restitut. 
 1726) that @cod is a mere anti-trinitarian invention, see 
 Bengel, Appar. crit. p. 214 ff. 
 
 Ver. 2 again emphatically combines the first and second 
 clauses of ver. 1, in order to connect with them the work of 
 creation, which was wrought by the Adyos.’ In this way, 
 however, the subject also of the third clause of ver. 1 is 
 included in and expressed by otros. On this obrtos—to 
 which, then, wdvra standing at the beginning of ver. 3 signi- 
 ficantly corresponds—lies the emphasis in the continuation 
 of the discourse. In ver. 2 is given the necessary premiss 
 to ver. 3; for if it was this same Logos, and no other than He, 
 who Himself was God, who lived in the beginning in fellow- 
 ship with God, and consequently when creation began, the 
 whole creation, nothing excepted, must have come into existence 
 through Him. ,Thus it is assumed, as a self-evident middle 
 term, that God/ created the world not immediately, but, accord- 
 ing to Gen. i., through the medium of the Word. 
 
 Ver. 3. I[dvra] “grande verbum, quo mundus, i.e. uni- 
 versitas rerum factarum denotatur, ver. 10,” Bengel. Comp. 
 Gen. i.; Col. i. 16; Heb. i 2. Quite opposed to the context 
 is the view of the Socinians: “the moral creation is meant.” 
 Comp. rather Philo, de Cherub. I. 162, where the Adyos appears 
 as the dpyavov & of (comp. 1 Cor. viii. 6) KatecxevacOn (6 
 koouos). The further speculations of Philo concerning the 
 relation of the Xoyos to the creation, which however are not 
 to be imputed to John, see in Hoelemann, lc. p. 36 ff. John 
 might have written ta wdvra (with the article), as in 1 Cor. 
 vill. 6 and Col. i. 16, but he was not obliged to do so. 
 Comp. Col. i 17, John iii. 35. For his thought is “all” 
 (unlimited), whereas ta wavra would express “the whole of 
 what actually exists.” —xat ywpis avtod, «.7.r.] an em- 
 phatic parallelismus antitheticus, often occurring in the classics 
 (Dissen, ad Dem. de Cor. p. 228; Maetzner, ad Antiph. p. 
 157), in the N. T. throughout, and especially in John (ver. 
 Oe 28; 1 John’ ii. 4, “27, al.). We are not to suppose 
 
 1 Who accor ordingly now Worked as Adyos rpodopixog. 
 
70 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 that by this negative reference John meant to exclude (so 
 Liicke, Olshausen, De Wette, Frommann, Maier, Baeumlein) 
 the doctrine of a dAm having an extra-temporal existence 
 (Philo, Z.c.), because éyévero and yéyovey describe that which 
 exists only since the creation, as having come into existence, 
 and therefore #A7 would not be included in the conception. 
 John neither held nor desired to oppose the idea of the tA; 
 the antithesis has no polemical design—not even of an anti- 
 gnostic kind—to point out that the Logos is raised above the 
 series of Aeons (Tholuck); for though the world of spirits is 
 certainly included in the wavra and the ovdé &, it is not 
 specially designated (comp. Col.i.16). How the Valentinians 
 had already referred it to the Acons, see in Iren. Huer. i. 8. 
 5; Hilgenfeld, d. Hv. u. d. Briefe Joh. p. 32 ff. —od6dé &] 
 ne unum quidem, ve. prorsus nihil, more strongly emphatic 
 than ovdé&. Comp. 1 Cor. vi. 5; see Stallbaum, ad Plat. 
 Sympos. p. 214 D; Kihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 2. As to 
 the thing itself, comp. Philo, II. p. 225: 8? ob ctpmas o 
 Koopos ednutoupyetro. — 6 yéyovev] Perfect: what has come 
 into being, and now ts. Comp. éxtiotas, Col. i. 16. This 
 belongs to the emphatic fulness of the statement (Bornemann, 
 Schol. in Lue. p. xxxvii.), and connects itself with what pre- 
 cedes. The very ancient connection of it with what follows 
 (C. D. L. Verss., Clem. Al, Origen, and other Greeks, Hera- 
 cleon, Ptolemaeus, Philos. Orig. v. 8, Latin Fathers, also Augus- 
 tine, Wetst., Lachm., Weisse), by putting the comma after 
 either yéy. or avté (so already the Valentinians),’ is to be 
 rejected, although it would harmonize with John’s manner of 
 carrying forward the members of his sentences, whereby “ ex 
 proximo membro sumitur gradus sequentis” (Erasmus) ; but 
 in other respects it would only be Johannean if the comma 
 
 1 «Whatever originated in Him (self) is life.” The latter is said to be the 
 Zoé, which with the Logos formed one Syzygy. Hilgenfeld regards this view 
 as correct, in connection with the assumption of the later Gnostic origin of the 
 Gospel. But the construction is false as regards the words, because neither 
 ieri nor ?yévero stands in the passage; and false also as regards the thought, 
 because, according to vv. 1-3, a principle of life cannot have first originated 
 in the Logos, but must have existed from the very beginning. Even Bunsen 
 (Hypol. II. 291, 357) erroneously preferred the punctuation of the Alexandrines 
 and Gnostics. 
 
CHAP. I. 4 gl 
 
 were placed after yéy. (so also Lachm.). The ground of 
 rejection lies not in the ambiguity of 9, which cannot 
 surprise us in John, but in this, that the perfect yéyover, as 
 implying continuance, would have logically required éoté in- 
 stead of 7 after Son; to mv not yéyovey but éyévero would 
 have been appropriate, so that the sense would have been: 
 “what came into existence had in Him its ground or source 
 of life.” 
 
 Ver. 4. An advance to the nature of the Logos’ as life, and 
 thereby as light.—év adtod Con Hv] in Him was life, He 
 was yi Cons (Philo). Life was that which existed in Him, 
 of which He was full. This must be taken in the most com- 
 prehensive sense, nothing that is life being excluded, physical, 
 moral, eternal life (so already Chrysostom),—all life was con- 
 tained in the Logos, as in its principle and source. No limi- 
 tation of the conception, especially as €w7 is without the 
 article (comp. v. 26), has any warrant from the context ; 
 hence it is not to be understood either merely of physical life, 
 so far as it may be the sustaining power (B. Crusius, comp. 
 Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, Calvin), or of spiritual 
 and eternal life—of the Johannean {7 aiwvios (Origen, Mal- 
 donatus, Lampe, Kuinoel, Kostlin, Hengstenberg, Weiss), where 
 Hengstenberg drags in the negative notion that the creature 
 was excluded from life until Christ was manifested in the 
 flesh, and that down to the time of His incarnation He had 
 only been virtually life and light.—x«al 7 fw), «.7.r.] and 
 the life, of which the Logos was the possessor, was the light of 
 ‘men. The exposition then passes over from the universal to 
 the relation of the Logos to mankind ; for, being Himself the 
 universal source of life to the world made by Him, He was 
 as such unable to remain inactive, least of all with respect 
 to men, but shows Himself as operating upon them con- 
 formably to their rational and moral nature, especially as the 
 light, according to the necessary connection of life and light 
 
 1 The Logos must necessarily be taken as in vv. 1-3, but not from ver. 4 
 onwards in Hofmann’s sense, as no longer a person but a thing, viz. the Gospel, 
 as Rohricht (p. 315) maintains, as if the verbum vocale were now a designation 
 of Christ, who is the bearer of it. No such change of meaning is indicated in 
 
 the text, and it only brings confusion into the clear advance of the thought. 
 
72 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 in opposition to death and darkness. (Comp. viii. 12; Ps. 
 xxxvi. 10; Eph. v. 14; Lukei. 78, 79.) The light is truth 
 pure and divine, theoretical and moral (both combined by an 
 inner necessity, and not simply the former, as Weiss main- 
 tains), the reception and appropriation of which enlightens the 
 man (vidos wos, xii. 36), whose non-appropriation and non- 
 acceptance into the consciousness determines the condition of 
 darkness. The Life was the Light of men, because in its 
 working upon them it was the necessary determining power 
 of their wlwmination. Comp. such expressions as those in 
 xi. 25, xiv. 6, xvii. 3. Nothing as yet is said of the working 
 of the Logos after His incarnation (xiv. 6), but (observe the 
 7v) that the divine truth in that primeval time came to man 
 from the Logos as the source of life; life in Him was for 
 mankind the actively communicating principle of the divine 
 ad7Geva, in the possession of which they lived in that fair morn- 
 ing of creation, before through sin darkness had broken in upon 
 them. This reference to the time when man, created after 
 God’s image, remained in a state of innocency, is necessarily 
 required by the 7, which, like the preceding 7v, must refer to 
 the creation-period indicated in ver. 3. But we are thus at 
 the same time debarred from understanding, as here belonging 
 to the enlightening action of the Logos, God’s revelations to 
 the Hebrews and later Jews (comp. Isa. il 5), by the pro- 
 phets, etc. (Ewald), or even from thinking of the elements of 
 moral and religious truth to be found in heathendom (Adyos 
 omepwarixos). In that fresh, untroubled primeval age, when 
 the Logos as the source of life was the Light of men, the 
 antithesis of light and darkness did not yet exist; this tragic 
 antithesis, however, as John’s readers knew, originated with 
 the fall, and had continued ever after. There follows, there- 
 fore, after a fond recalling of that fair bygone time (ver. 4), 
 the painful and mournful declaration of the later and still en- 
 during relation (ver. 5), where the light still shines indeed, but 
 in darkness,—a darkness which had not received it. If that 
 reference, however, which is to be kept closely in view, of 7 
 to the time of the world’s creation, and also this representation 
 of the onward movement of our narrative, be correct, it cannot: 
 also be explained of the continuous (ver. 17) creative activity 
 
CHAP. L. & 75 
 
 of the Logos, through which a consciousness and recognition of 
 the highest truth have been developed among men (De Wette); 
 and just as little may we find in To $@s tT. avOp. what belongs 
 to the Logos in His essence only, in which case the reading 
 éorit would (against Briickner) be more appropriate; comp. 
 dwrtiter, ver. 9. As in év adte Cor Hv, so also by jv 70 das T. 
 avOp. must be expressed what the Logos was in His historical 
 activity, and not merely what He was virtually (Hengstenberg). 
 Comp. Godet, who, however, without any hint from the text, 
 or any historical appropriateness whatever, finds in “/zfe and 
 light” a reminiscence of the trees of life and of knowledge in 
 Paradise. 
 
 Ver. 5. Relation of the light to the darkness. — «al ro 
 has] and the light shineth ;+ not “and thus, as the light, the 
 Logos shineth” (Liicke). The discourse steadily progresses 
 link by link, so that the preceding predicate becomes the sub- 
 ject—gaivec] Present, ze. uninterruptedly from the beginning 
 until now ; it embraces, therefore, the illuminating activity 
 of the Aoyos doapKos” and évoapxos. As it is arbitrary to 
 supply the idea of “ stlJ present” (Weiss), so also is its limita- 
 tion to the revelations by the prophets of the O. T., which 
 would make daivec merely the descriptive praesens historicum 
 (DeWette). For the assumption of this, however, in connection 
 with pure preterites there is no warrant ; comp. rather ¢wri€ee, 
 ver. 9. According to Ewald, Jahrb. V. 194 (see his Johann. 
 Schr. I. 121), daives represents as present the time in which 
 the Light, which since the creation had enlightened men only 
 from afar, had now suddenly come down into the world, which 
 without it is darkness, and was shining in the midst of this 
 darkness. An antithetic relation is thus assumed (“only from 
 afar,—but now suddenly in the midst”) which has no support 
 
 1 geiver, lucet, not interchangeable with @z/veras, which means apparet. See 
 on Phil. ii. 15. Godet’s criticism of the distinction is erroneous. 
 
 2 Godet thinks that the law written in the heart, the light of conscience, is 
 meant (Rom. ii. 14), which the Logos makes use of ; and this His relation to 
 all mankind is essential and permanent. But this would be utterly inadequate 
 to the fulness of meaning expressed by gas, especially in its antithesis to cxoria. 
 - The gas shines as divine light before Christ (by revelation and prophecy), and 
 after Him. It is supernatural, heavenly. Comp. 1 John ii. 8. There is no 
 mention here of the Adyos oxepuarixos. \ 
 
74, THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 in the present tense alone, without some more distinct intima- 
 tion in the text. The stress, moreover, is not on gaives, but 
 the (tragic) emphasis is laid on the é€v tH oxotia, which with 
 this object precedes it. It is the continuation of the discourse, 
 ver. 7 ff., which first leads specially to the action of the Incar- 
 nate One (this also against Hengstenb.).— The oxorv/a is the 
 negation and opposite of the ¢as, the condition and order 
 of things in which man does not possess the divine dA7Oea, 
 but has become the prey of folly, falsehood, and sin, as a god- 
 less ruling power, with all its misery. Here the abstract term 
 “darkness,” as the element in which the light shines, denotes 
 not the individual subject of darkness (Eph. v. 8), but, as the 
 context requires, that same totality which had been pre- 
 \) viously described by tov avOpeérwv, consequently mankind in 
 general, in so far as in and for themselves they have since 
 the fall been destitute of divine truth, and have become cor- 
 rupt in understanding and will. Melancthon well says, “ genus 
 humanum oppressum peccato vocat tenebras.” Frommann 
 is altogether mistaken in holding that cxoria differs in the 
 two clauses, and means (1) humanity so far as it yet lay 
 beyond the influence of the light, and (2) humanity so far as 
 it was opposed thereto. But Hilgenfeld is likewise in error, 
 when, out of a different circle of ideas, he imports the notion 
 that “light and darkness are primeval opposites, which did 
 not first originate with the fall;” see on vill. 44.— ov katé- 
 NaBev] apprehended tt not, took not possession of it; it was not 
 appropriated by the darkness, so that thereby the latter might 
 have become light, but remained aloof and alien to it. Comp. 
 Phil. i, 12, 13, 1 Cor. ix. 24, and especially Rom. ix. 30; 
 also expressions like catadauB. codiav, Ecclus. xv.1,7. The 
 explanation apprehended, i.e. @yvw, ver. 10 (Eph. iii. 18; Acts 
 x. 34, iv. 13; Plato, Phaedz, p. 250 D; Phil. p.16 D; Polyb. 
 viii. 4. 6), is on one sidé arbitrarily narrowing, on another 
 anticipatory, since it foists in the individual subjects of the 
 oxotia, which is conceived of as a realm. It is erroneous 
 to interpret, as Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius 
 Zigabenus, Bos., Schulthess, Hoelemann, p. 60, also Lange: 
 “The darkness did not hem it in, oppress it; it was invincible 
 before it.” Linguistically this is allowable (see Schweighaiiser, 
 
CHAP. I. 6. To 
 
 Lex. Herod. Il. p. 18), but it nowhere so occurs in the N. T., 
 and is here opposed to the parallels, vv. 10, 11.—— Observe 
 that od xaTéXaBev, which presupposes no Gnostic absolutism, 
 but freedom of moral self-determination (comp. vv. 11, 12), 
 reflects the phenomenon as a whole, and indeed as it presented 
 itself to John in history and experience; hence the aorist. 
 Comp. iii. 19. 
 
 Ver. 6. In the painful antithesis of ver. 5 which pervades 
 the entire Gospel, was included not merely the pre-human 
 relation of the Logos to mankind, but His relation thereto 
 after His incarnation likewise (see on dative). This latter is 
 now more minutely unfolded as far as ver. 11, and indeed in 
 such a way that John, to strengthen the antithesis, adduces 
 first the testimony of the Baptist (vv. 6-8) to the Light, on the 
 eround of which he then designates the Logos as the true 
 Light (ver. 9); and finally, thus prefaced, makes the antithesis 
 (vv. 10, 11) follow with all the more tragic effect. The 
 mention of John’s. testimony here in the Prologue is not there- 
 fore a mere confirmation of the reality of the appearance of 
 the Logos (Briickner), which the statements of vv. 9, 10 did 
 not require ; still less is it a pressing forwards of the thought 
 to the beginning of the Gospel history (De Wette), nor even 
 the representation of the idea of the first intervention in the 
 antithesis between light and darkness (Baur), nor “an illus- 
 trious exception” (Ewald) to the preceding 7 oxortia, x.7.d.; 
 but introducing a new paragraph, and therefore beginning 
 without a particle, it forms a historical preparation, answering 
 to what was actually the fact, for that non-recoynition and 
 rejection (vv. 10, 11) which, in spite of that testimony of the 
 Baptist, the light shining in the darkness had experienced. 
 Ver. 15 stands to ver. 7 in the relation of a particular definite 
 statement to the general testimony of which it is a part. — 
 éyéveto] not wea was (jy, iil. 1), but denoting the cuppear ing, 
 the historical manifestation. See on Mark i. 4; Luke 5; 
 Phil. u. 7. Hence not with Chrys.: éyévero imdananee: 
 vos avtl Tov ameotaddy; which Hengstenberg repeats. — 
 Observe in what follows the noble simplicity of the narrative : 
 we need not look out for any antithetical reference (éyévero — 
 avOpwros —ameot. 1. Oeod) to ver. 1 (B. Crusius, Luthardt, 
 
76 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 and older expositors). With areotadp. m. Ocod, comp. iii. 
 28; Mal. iii. 1, 23. Description of the true prophet; comp. 
 also Luke iii. 2, 3. 
 
 Ver. 7. Eis paptuplav] to bear witness ; for John testified 
 what had been prophetically made known to him by divine 
 revelation respecting the Light which had come in human 
 form. Comp. ver. 33.—tva mdvtes, x.7.d.] Purpose of the 
 paptupjon, final end of the 7Oev.— mecreda.] we. in the 
 light; comp. vv. 8, 9, xii. 36.— 6? adrod] by means of 
 John, so far as he by his witness-bearing was the medium of 
 producing faith: “and thus John is a servant and guide to the 
 Light, which is Christ” (Luther); not by means of the light 
 (Grotius, Lampe, Semler), for here it is not faith in God 
 (1 Pet. i. 21) that is spoken of. 
 
 Ver. 8. #v is emphatic, and is therefore placed in the front: 
 he was not the Light, but he was to bear witness of the Light ; 
 and hence, in the second clause, waptupyjon emphatically 
 takes the lead. The object of making this antithesis pro- 
 minent is not controversy, nor has it the slightest reference 
 to the disciples of John (see the Introduction), but to point 
 out? the true position of the Baptist in face of the historical 
 fact, that when he first appeared, men took him for the Messiah 
 Himself (comp. ver. 20; Luke iii. 15), so that his witness 
 shall appear in its proper historical aspect. Comp. Cyril. — 
 aX iva, «.7.X.] From what precedes, we must understand 
 7rXOev before iva; a rapid hastening away to the main thought 
 (comp. ix. 3, xiii. 18, xv. 25; 1 John 11. 19; Fritzsche, ad 
 Matt. 840 f.; Winer, p. 297 [E. T. p. 398]); not imperative 
 (De Wette), nor dependent upon ww (Liicke, Lange, Godet) : 
 not the latter, because elvas, wa (instead of efs ro), even if it 
 were linguistically possible, is here untenable on account of 
 the emphasis placed upon the 7; while to take 4v in the sense 
 of aderat, as again understood before iva (Godet), would be 
 more forced and arbitrary than to supply 7A @ev from ver. 7. 
 
 Ver. 9. For the correct apprehension of this verse, we must 
 
 1 Not: to bring more fully to light the greatness of Christ, through the 
 subordination to Him of the greatest men and prophets, as Hengstenb. asserts. 
 In this case John ought to have been described according to his own greatness 
 and rank, and not simply as in ver. 6. 
 
CHAP. I. 9. ee 
 
 observe, (1) that 7 has the main emphasis, and therefore is 
 placed at the beginning: (2) that 7d as To aAnO. cannot 
 be the predicate, but must be the subject, because in ver. 8 
 another was the subject; consequently without a todo, or 
 some such word, there are no grounds for supposing a subject 
 not expressed: (3) that épyou. eis tov xdcpov (with Origen, | 
 Syr., Copt., Euseb., Chrys., Cyril., Epiph., Nonnus, Theophyl., 
 Euth. Zig., It, Vulg., Augustine, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, 
 Calvin, Aret., and most of the early expositors’) can only be 
 connected with rdavta dvOpwrov, not with %v; because when 
 John was bearing witness the Logos was already in the world 
 (ver. 26), not simply then came into the world, or was about to 
 come, or had to come. We should thus be obliged arbitrarily 
 to restrict épy. els tT. Koop. to His entrance upon His public 
 ministry, as Grotius already did (from whom Calovius differs), 
 and because the order of the words does not suggest the con- 
 necting of #v with épyou.; rather would the prominence given 
 to jv, and its wide separation from épyow., be without any 
 reason. Hence the connection by the early church of épyop. 
 with 7. avOp. is by no means to be regarded, with Hilgenfeld, 
 as obsolete, but is to be retained,—to be explained, however, 
 thus: “ The true Light was existing, which lighteth every man 
 that cometh into the world.” This, together with the following 
 év TO Koon@ Hv onwards to éyéveto, serves, by preparing the 
 way, to strengthen the portentous and melancholy antithesis, 
 kal 0 Koop. adtov ov« &yvw. The usual objection that épydu. 
 eis T. K., When referred to tavta avOp., is a superfluous by- 
 clause, is inept. There is such a thing as a solemn redun- | 
 dance, and that we have here, an epic fulness of words. Hence 
 we must reject (1) the usual interpretation by the older 
 writers (before Grotius), with whom even Kaeuffer sides: 
 “ He (or even that, namely 70 ¢as) was the true Light which 
 lighteth all men who come into this world” (Luther), against 
 which we have already remarked under (1) and (2) above; 
 again, (2) the construction which connects épydu. with dds 
 as an accompanying definition (so probably Theod. Mopsu. ; 
 some in Augustine, de pecc. mer. et rem. i. 253; Castalio,- 
 
 ‘So of late Paulus also, and Klee, Kaeuffer in the Sdchs. Stud. 1844, p. 
 116, Hoelemann, and Godet. 
 
78 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 Vatablus, Grotius; Schott, Opuse. I. p. 14; Maier): “He was 
 the true Light, which was at that time to come into the world;”* 
 also, (3) the connecting of %v with é€pydpevor, so as to inter- 
 pret it either in a purely historical sense (Bleek, Kostlin, B. 
 Crusius, Lange, Hengstenberg: “ He came,” with reference to 
 Mal. iii. 1; and so already Bengel); or relatively, as De Wette, 
 Liicke: “when John had appeared to bear witness of Him, 
 even then came the true Light into the world,’ comp. Hauff in 
 the Stud. uw. Krit. 1846, p. 575; or as future, of Him who 
 was soon to appear: venturum erat (Rinck, Tholuck), according 
 to Luthardt (comp. Baeuml.): “it had been determined of God 
 that He should come ;” or more exactly, of an unfulfilled state 
 of things, still present at that present time: “ J¢ was coming” 
 (Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. p. 517); and according to Ewald, who 
 attaches it to vv. 4,5: “It was at that time always coming 
 into the world, so that every human being, if he had so wished, 
 might have let himself be guided by Him;” comp. Keim: 
 “He was continually coming into the world.” As to details, 
 we have further to remark: 7] aderat, as in vii. 39 and 
 often; its more minute definition follows in ver. 10: & Te 
 Koop Av. The Light was already there (in Jesus) when John 
 bore witness of Him, ver. 26. The reference of vv. 9-135 to 
 the working of the Logos before His incarnation (Tholuck, 
 Olshausen, Baur, also Lange, Leben J. III. p. 1806 ff.) entirely 
 breaks down before vv. 11-13, as well as before the com- 
 parison of the Baptist with the Logos, which presupposes the 
 personal manifestation of the latter (comp. also ver. 15); and 
 therefore Baur erroneously denies that there is any distinction 
 made in the Prologue between the working of the Logos before 
 Christ and im Christ. Comp. Bleek in the Stud wu. Krit. 1833, 
 
 1 The interpretation of Schoettgen, Semler, Morus, Rosenmiiller, as if instead 
 of ipxou. we had 7A¢ey, is quite erroneous. Luther’s explanation down to 1527 
 was better: ‘‘ through His advent into this world.” 
 
 2 That is, during the time before His baptism; the man Jesus (according 
 to the Valentinian Gnosis) did not become the organ of the Logos until His 
 baptism, and accordingly through that rite the Logos first came into the world. 
 The birth of Jesus was only introductory to that coming. Briickner, while re- 
 jecting this importation of Gnosticism, agrees in other respects with Hilgenfeld. 
 — Philippi (der Eingang d. Joh. Ev. p. 89): ‘‘ He was to come, according to the 
 promises of the O. T.;” and ver. 10: ‘‘These promises had now received their 
 fulfilment.” 
 
CHAP. I. 10. 79 
 
 p. 414 ff —7d dd Acv0v] Because it was neither John nor 
 any other, but the true, genuine, archetypal Light, which cor- 
 responds to the idea—the idea of the light realized... Comp. 
 iv. 23, 37, vi. 32, vii. 28, xv. 1. See, generally, Schott, 
 Opusc. I. p. 7 ff.; Frommann, Lehrbegr. p. 130 ff; Kluge in 
 the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1866, p. 333 ff; also Hoelemann, J.c., p. 
 63, who, however, supposes an antithesis, which is without 
 any support from the connection, to the cosmic light (Gen. i.). 
 —o gatifes mdavra avOp.] a characteristic of the true 
 light ; it illumines every one. This remains true, even though, 
 as a matter of fact, the illumination is not received by many 
 (see on Rom. ii. 4), so that every one does not really become 
 what he could become, a child of light, das év xupiw, Eph. v. 8. 
 The relation, as a matter of experience, resolves itself into this : 
 “quisquis illuminatur, ab hac luce illuminatur,” Bengel; comp. 
 Luthardt. It is not this, however, that is expressed, but the 
 essential relation as it exists on the part of the Logos.” Bengel 
 well says: “numerus singularis magnam hic vim _habet.” 
 Comp. Col. i. 15; Rom. iii. 4.— épyopevov eis tT. Kocpor] 
 every man coming into the world; rightly without the article ; 
 comp. 2 John 7. The addition of the predicative clause gives 
 emphatic prominence to the conception of wdvta. There is no 
 need to compare it with the Rabbinic poiya Nia (see Lightfoot 
 and Schoettgen). Comp. xvi. 21, and see on xviii. 37. 
 
 Ver. 10. What here follows is linked on to the preceding 
 by évy T6 Kocpo 7», following upon es tT. oop. This isa 
 fuller definition of the emphatic 7v of ver. 9: “Jt was in the 
 world,” viz. in the person of Jesus, when John was bearing 
 witness. There is no mention here of its continual presence 
 in humanity (B. Crusius, Lange), nor of the “lumiére innée” 
 (Godet) of every man; see on ver. 5. The repetition of koopos 
 three times, where, on the last occasion, the word has the 
 
 1 In the classics, see Plato, Pol. i. p. 347 D (ra dves &anbivos), vi. p. 499 C3 
 Xen, Anab. i. 9. 17; Oec. x. 33 Dem, 113. 27, 1248. 22; Theocrit. 16 
 (Anthol.) ; Pindar, Ol. ii. 201; Polyb. i. 6. 6, et al. Riick., Abendm. p. 266, 
 erroneously says, ‘‘the word seldom occurs in the classics.” It is especially 
 common in Plato, and among later writers in Polybius. 
 
 2 Luther: ‘* Of what avail is it that the clear sun shines and lightens, if I 
 shut my eyes and will not see his light, or creep away from it beneath the 
 earth?” Comp. also Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 348 [E. T. p. 410]. 
 
80 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 ' narrower sense of the world of mankind, gives prominence to 
 “the mournful antithesis; Buttm. newt. Gr. p. 341 [E. T. p. 
 398].—7v] not pluperfect (“It had been already always in 
 the world, but was not recognised by it”), as Herder, Tholuck, 
 Olshausen, and Klee maintain, but like 7v in ver. 9.—x«ai 
 0 koopos 82 avtod éyév.] Further preparation, by way of 
 ‘climax, for the antithesis with reference to ver. 3. If the 
 Light was in the world, and the world was made by it, the 
 latter could and ought all the more to have recognised the 
 former: it cowld, because it needed only not to close the inner 
 eye against the Light, and to follow the impulse of its original 
 necessary moral affinity with the creative Light; it ought, 
 because the Light, shining within the world, and having even 
 given existence to the world, could demand that recognition, 
 the non-bestowal of which was ingratitude, originating in 
 culpable delusion and moral obduracy. Comp. Rom. 1. 19 ff. 
 We need not attach to the «ai, which is simply conjunctive, 
 either the signification although (Kuinoel, Schott), nor the 
 force of the relative (which was made by it, Bleek). —adrov] 
 the Logos, which is identified with the Light, which is being 
 spoken of as its possessor, according to vv. 4 ff.; avtod was 
 still newter, but the antithesis passes over into the masculine, 
 because the object which was not recognised was this very 
 personal manifestation of the Logos.—With regard to the last 
 cai, observe: “cum vi pronuntiandum est, ut saepe in senten- 
 tiis oppositionem continentibus, ubi frustra fuere qui Kairov 
 requirerent,” Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p. 29 B. Comp. Har- 
 tung, Partikell. p. 147. Very often in John. 
 
 Ver, 11. More particular statement of the contrast. Observe 
 the gradual ascent to still greater definiteness: vy, ver. 9; év 7@ 
 Koop nv, ver. 10; eds Ta idva HAOe, ver. 11.—eis Ta id.a] to 
 His own possession, is, with Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, 
 Bengel, Lampe, and many expositors, also Liicke, Tholuck, 
 Bleek, Olshausen, De Wette, B. Crusius, Maier, Frommann, 
 Kostlin, Hilgenfeld, Luthardt, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Godet, 
 and most interpreters, to be explained of the Jewish people as 
 specially belonging to the Messiah (Ecclus. xxiv. 7 ff.), as they 
 are called in Ex. xix. 5, Deut. vii. 6, Ps. cxxxv. 4, Isa. xxxi 
 9, Jehovah’s possession; from Israel salvation was to spread 
 
CHAP. I. 12. 81 
 
 over all the world (iv. 22; Matt. viii, 12; Rom. i. 16). This 
 interpretation is required by the onward progress of the dis- 
 course,.which by the use of 7A@e excludes any reference to 
 the world (Corn. a Lapide, Kuinoel, Schott, Reuss, Keim), 
 as was proposed along with this by Chrysostom, Ammonius, 
 Theophylact, Euth. Zig., and conjoined with it by Augustine 
 and many others. “He was in the world;” and now follows 
 His historical advent, “ He came to His own possession.” There- 
 fore the sympathy of God’s people, who were His own people, 
 should have led them to reach out the hand to Him.—oé 
 idcoc] the Jews. tapéraBRovr] they received Him not, 2c. not 
 as Him to whom they peculiarly belonged. Comp. Matt. i 
 20, xxiv. 40, 41; Herod. 1. 154, vi. 106; Plato, Soph. p. 
 218 B. Observe that the special guilt of Israel appears still 
 greater (od trapédaPov, they despised Him) than the general 
 guilt of mankind (ov« éyvw). Comp. the ov« 70edjoate of 
 Matt. xxiii. 37; Rom. x. 21. In the negative form of ex- 
 pression (vv. 10, 11) we trace a deeply elegiac and mournful 
 strain. 
 
 Ver. 12. The mass of the Jews rejected Him, but still not 
 all of them. Hence, in this fuller description of the relation 
 of the manifested Logos to the world, the refreshing light is 
 now (it is otherwise in ver. 5) joyfully recognised and placed 
 over against the shadow. — édraBov] He came, they received 
 Him, did not reject Him. Comp. v. 43; Soph. Phil. 667, 
 idav te Kal AaBav irov.—The nominative dcoz is emphatic, 
 and continues independent of the construction that follows. 
 See on Matt. vii. 24, x. 14, xiii. 12, xxiii. 16; Acts vii. 40. 
 — éfoveiav] neither dignity, nor advantage (Erasmus, Beza, 
 Flacius, Rosenmiiller, Semler, Kuinoel, Schott), nor even pos- 
 sibility (De Wette, Tholuck), nor capability (Hengstenberg, 
 Briickner), fully comes up to the force of the word,’ but He 
 gave them full power (comp. v. 27, xvii. 2). The rejection of 
 the Logos when He came in person, excluded from the attain- 
 ment of that sacred condition of fitness—received through 
 Him—for entering into the relationship of children of God, 
 they only who received Him in faith obtained through Him 
 this warrant, this title (éutpom vopou, Plato, Defin. p. 415 B). 
 
 1 Comp. Godet : ‘‘il les a mis en position.” 
 EF 
 
82 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 It is, however, an arrangement in the gracious decree of God ; 
 neither a claim of right on man’s part, nor any internal ability 
 (Liicke, who compares 1 John v. 20; also Lange),—a meaning 
 which is not in the word itself, nor even in the connection, 
 since the commencement of that filial relationship, which is 
 the consummation of that highest theocratic éfouc/a, is con- 
 ceived as a being born, ver. 13, and therefore as passive (against 
 B. Crusius). — téxva @eov] Christ alone zs the Son of God, 
 manifested as such from His birth, the povoyevns. Believers, 
 from their knowledge of God in Christ (xvii. 3), become chil- 
 dren of God, by being born of God (comp. ui. 3; 1 John ii. 
 9), ze. through the moral transformation and renewal of their 
 entire spiritual ‘nature by the Holy Ghost; so that now the 
 divine element of life rules in them, excludes all that is 
 ungodly, and permanently determines the development of this 
 moral fellowship of nature with God, onwards to its future 
 glorious consummation (1 John iii. 2; John xvii. 24). See also 
 1 John ii. 9 and 1 Pet.i 23. Itis thus that John represents 
 the idea of filial relationship to God, for which he always uses 
 téxva from the point of view of a spiritual genesis ;1 while Paul 
 apprehends it from the legal side (as adoption, Rom. viii. 15 ; 
 Gal. iv. 5), regarding the spiritual renewal connected therewith 
 (regeneration), the caworns Swfs (Rom. vi. 4), as a new creation 
 (2 Cor. v.17; Gal. vi. 15), a moral resurrection (Rom. vi.), 
 and the like; while the Synoptics (comp. also Rom. vii. 23) 
 make the vioGecia appear as first commencing with .the king- 
 dom of the Messiah (see on Matt. v. 9, 45; Luke vi. 35), as 
 conditioned, however, by the moral character. There is no 
 
 * Hilgenfeld, indeed, will have it that those spoken of are already regarded 
 as originally céxva éeod (comp. iii. 6, viii. 44, xi. 52), and attempts to escape 
 the dilemma into which yevécéas brings him, by help of the interpretation : 
 “*the power by which the man who is born of God realizes this, and actually 
 becomes-what he is in himself according to his nature!” Thus we should have. 
 here the Gnostic semen arcanum electorum et spiritualium. See Hilgenfeld, 
 Evangelien, p. 283. The reproach of tautology which he also brings against the 
 ordinary explanation (in his Zeitschr. 1863, p. 110) is quite futile. The great 
 conception of the réxwe éeev, which appears here for the first time, was in John’s 
 eye important enough to be accompanied by a more detailed elucidation. 
 Generally, against the anthropological dualism discovered in John by Hilgen- 
 feld (also by Scholten), see Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 128 ff. ; also Weizsicker in the 
 Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1862, p. 680 f. ; and even Baur, newtest. Theol. p 359 fi. 
 
CHAP. IL. 13. 83 
 
 difference as to the thing itself, only in the manner of appre- 
 hending its various sides and stages. — Tols wiuotevovowy, 
 K.T.r.] quippe qui credunt, is conceived as assigning the reason; 
 for it is as believers that they have fulfilled the subjective 
 condition of arriving at sonship, not only negatively, since 
 they are no longer under the wrath of God and the condem- 
 nation of the law (iii. 36, 16, 17, v. 45), but also positively, 
 inasmuch as they now possess.a capacity and susceptibility 
 for the operation of the Spirit (vii. 38, 39). John does not 
 say miotevcacw, but Tiotevoucsy, for the faith, the entrance 
 of which brought about the é\aBov, is thenceforth their endur- 
 ing habitus. —eis To dvopa avtod] not essentially different 
 from eis avrov, but characterizing it more fully; for the entire 
 subject-matter of faith les in the name of the person on whom 
 we believe; the uttered name contains the whole confession of 
 faith, Comp. i. 23, 11.18, 1 John i. 23, v.13. The name 
 itself, moreover, is no other than that of the historically mani- 
 fested Logos—Jesus Christ, as is self-evident to the conscious- 
 ness of the reader. Comp. ver. 17; 1 John v. 1, i. 22. 
 
 Ver. 13. Of] refers to téxva Oeod (the masculine in the 
 well-known constructio cata ctvecw, 2 John 1, Philem. 10 
 Gal. iv. 19; comp. Eurip. Suppl. 12, Androm. 571); not to 
 Tols muctevovow, because the latter, according to ver. 12, are 
 said to become God’s children, so that éyevvj@noav would not 
 be appropriate. The conception “children of God” is more 
 precisely defined as denoting those who came into existence not 
 after the manner of natural human generation, but who were 
 begotten of God. The negative statement exhibits them as 
 those in whose coming into existence human generation (and 
 consequently also Abrahamic descent) has no part whatever. — 
 This latter brings about no divine sonship, ill. 6.— ov« é& 
 aipatwv] not of blood, the blood being regarded as the seat 
 and basis of the physical life (comp. on Acts xv. 20), which is 
 transmitted by generation.’ Comp. Acts xvii. 26; Hom. JI. 
 vi. 211; xx. 241; Soph. 47. 1284, HI. 1114; Plato, Soph. p. 
 268 D; Liv. xxxviii. 28. Kypke and Loesner on the passage, 
 Interpp. ad Virg. Aen. vi. 836; Horace, Od. ii. 20. 6; Tib. i. 
 
 1 
 
 as TOD ortpuuros bAny ro aluaros Zxovros, Eustath. ad Hom. Ji. vi. 211. 
 
 Comp. Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 246 [E. T. p. 290, and note]. 
 
84 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 6. 66. The plural is not to be explained of the commingling 
 of the two scaes (“ex sanguinibus enim homines nascuntur 
 maris et feminae,’ Augustine; comp. Ewald), because what 
 follows (avépes and the corresponding é« @eod) points simply 
 to generation on the man’s side; nor even of the multiplicity 
 of the children of God (B. Crusius), to which there is no refer- 
 ence in what follows; quite as little does it refer to the 
 continuos propagationum ordines from Adam, and afterwards 
 from Abraham downwards (Hoelemann, p. 70), which must 
 necessarily have been more distinctly indicated. Rather is the 
 plural used in a sense not really different from the singular, 
 and founded only on this, that the material blood is repre- 
 sented as the sum-total of all its parts (Kihner, II. p. 28). 
 Comp. Eur. Jon. 705, d\dov tpadels af? aiudrov; Soph. Ant. 
 121, and many places in the Tragedians where aiwata is used 
 in the sense of murder (Aesch. Eum. 163, 248; Eur. £7. 137; 
 Or. 15477, al.); Monk, ad Eur. Ale. 512; Blomf. Gloss. Choeph. 
 60. Comp. Ecclus. xxii. 22, xxxi. 21; 2 Mace. xiv. 18; also 
 Plato, Legg. x. p. 887 D, érs év yaraks tpepouevor—The nega- 
 tion of human origination is so important to John (comp. iii. 6), 
 that he adds two further parallel definitions of it by ovd6é—ovdé 
 (which he arranges co-ordinately) ; nor even—nor even, where 
 capxos designates the flesh as the substratum of the generative 
 impulse, not “the woman” (Augustine, Theophylact, Rupertus, 
 Zeger, Schott, Olshausen),—an interpretation which is most 
 inappropriately supported by a reference to Gen. ii. 22, Eph. 
 v. 28, 29, Jude 7, while it is excluded by the context (dvdpos, 
 and indeed by what follows). The man’s generative will is 
 meant, and this is more exactly, z.e. personally, defined by éx 
 Ger. dvSpos, to which the contrasted é« @eod is correlative ; and 
 hence avyp must not be generalized and taken as equivalent 
 to advOpwiros (Liicke), which never occurs—even in the 
 Homeric watip avdpav te Oeav ze only apparently y—but hee 
 least of all, because the act of generation is the very thing 
 spoken of. The following are merely arbitrary glosses upon the 
 points which are here only rhetorically accumulated to produce 
 an ever increasing distinctness of description ; e.g. Baumgarten 
 Crusius: “There is an advance here from the most sensual 
 to the most noble” (nature, inclination, will—in spite of the 
 
CHAP, I. 14, i 85 
 twice repeated @eNjuaros !); Lange (LZ. J. III. p. 548): “ There 
 is an onward progress from natural generation to that which 
 is caused by the will, and then to that consummated in 
 theocratic faith ;’ Hoelemann: “odp£, meant of both sexes, 
 stands midway between the universalis humani generis pro- 
 pagatio (aiwara) and the proprius singularis propagationis 
 auctor (dvyp).” Even Delitzsch refines upon the words, 
 finding in GcAnpu. capKos the unholy side of generation, though 
 John-has only in view the antithesis between the human and 
 the divine viewed in and by themselves.—é« @eod éyevvn8.] 
 were begotten of God, containing the real relation of sonship to 
 God, and thus explaining the former réxva @eod, in so far as 
 these were begotten by no human being, but by God, who 
 through the Holy Spirit has restored their moral being and 
 life, ii, 5. Hence €« @eod éyevy. is not tautological. ’Ex 
 indicates the issuing forth from God as cause, where the rela- 
 tion of immediateness (in the first and last points) and of 
 mediateness (in the second and third) lies in the very thing, 
 and is self-evident without being distinctively indicated in the 
 simple representation of John. 
 
 Ver. 14. Kai] and; not assigning a reason for the sonship 
 just mentioned (Chrys., Theophyl., Jansen, Grotius, Lampe, and 
 several others); nor even=ovv (Bleek), nor in the sense of 
 namely (Frommann), nor yea (Godet), but simply carrying / 
 forward the discourse, like every cai in the Prologue; and not 
 therefore pointing back to ver. 4 (Maldonatus) or to ver. 9 
 (De Wette), nor joining on to ver. 11 (Liicke: “The Logos 
 came not only to His own possession, but appeared visibly ;” so, 
 substantially, also Baur and Hilgenfeld), which would be a 
 merely apparent advance in the exposition, because the visible 
 manifestation is already intimated by daivec in ver. 5 and in 
 vv. 9-13. No; after having in vv. 4-13 spoken of the Logos 
 as the light, of the melancholy opposition of the darkness of 
 unbelief to that true light which had been attested by the 
 Baptist as divine, and of the exceedingly blessed effects which 
 He exercised on believers through the bestowal of the gift of 
 sonship, the evangelist, on arrivingat this last point, which 
 expresses his own deepest and most blessed experience, can no 
 longer hesitate formally and solemnly again to proclaim the 
 
86 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 great event by which the visible manifestation of the Logos— 
 previously so frequently presupposed and referred to—had, 
 with all its saving power, been brought about; and this by 
 an outpouring of speech, which, prompted by the holiest 
 recollections, soars involuntarily upwards until it reaches the 
 highest height, to set forth and celebrate the How of that 
 manifestation of the Logos which was attended with such 
 blessed results (vv. 12, 13), and which he had himself ex- 
 perienced. The transition, therefore, is from what is said in 
 vv. 12, 13 of the efficacy of the manifested Logos, to the 
 nature and manner of that manifestation ttself, a.e. consequently 
 to the incarnation, as a result of which He, as Jesus Christ, 
 exhibited the glory of the Only-begotten, and imparted the 
 fulness of grace and truth,—that incarnation which histori- 
 cally determined what is recorded of Him in wv. 12, 13. 
 Accordingly xai is not definitive, “under such circumstances, 
 with such consequences” (Briickner, who inappropriately com- 
 pares Heb. iii. 19, where xat connects the answer with the 
 question as in continuous narration), but it carries the discourse 
 onwards, leading up to the highest summit, which even from 
 ver. 5 showed itself as in the distance. We must interpret 
 it: and—to advance now to the most momentous fact in the 
 work of redemption, namely, how He who had come and 
 wrought so much blessing was manifested and was able to 
 accomplish such a work—the Word was made flesh, etc. — 
 6 Novos] John does not simply say cai cap& éyévero, but he 
 names the great subject as he had done in ver. 1, to complete 
 the solemnity of the weighty statement, which he now felt 
 himself constrained still to subjoin and to carry onwards, as 
 if in joyful triumph, to the close of the Prologue.—capé 
 éyéveto| The word cdpé is carefully chosen, not indeed in 
 any sort of opposition to the divine idea of hwmanity, which 
 in this place is very remote,’ but as opposed to the purely 
 divine, and hence also to the purely immaterial nature” of the 
 
 1 Acainst Beyscizlag in the Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 459. 
 
 2 Hence also op is selected for the purpose of expressing the full antithesis, 
 and not caua, because there might be a caue without cap% (1 Cor. xv. 40, 44); 
 and besides, the expression 6 Asyos capa tyivero would not necessarily include 
 the possession of a human soul. John might also have written a@»épuwos iyée 
 
CHAP. I. 14. 87 
 
 Logos (Clem. ad Cor. II. 9, dv pev To mpatov mrvetua éyévero 
 odp€; comp. Hahn, Theol. d. N. T. I. 197), whose transition, 
 however, into this other form of existence necessarily pre- 
 supposes that He is conceived of as a personality, not as a 
 principle (Beyschlag, Christol. p. 169); as is, besides, required 
 by the whole Prologue. The actual incarnation of a principle 
 would be for John an unrealizable notion. Just as decidedly 
 is 0 Noyos capE éyévero opposed to the representation that the 
 Logos always became more and more completely oap& (Bey- 
 schlag) during the whole wnfolding of His earthly life. The 
 6 Aoyos cap& éyévero is a definite act in the consummation of 
 His history. He became flesh, 7.c. a corporeal material being, 
 visible and tangible (1 John i. 2), which He was not before,’ 
 and by which it is self-evident that the human mode of exist- 
 ence in which He appeared, which we have in the person of 
 Jesus, and which was known to the reader, is intended. °Ev 
 capkt édndvOev (1 John iv. 2; 2 John 7; comp. 1 Tim. in. 
 16) is, in fact, the same thing, though expressed from the 
 point of view of that modality of His coming which is con- 
 ditioned by the cap& éyévero. As, however, éyévero points 
 out that He became what He was not before, the incarnation 
 cannot be a mere accident of His substantial being (against 
 Baur), but is the assumption of another real existence, whereby 
 out of the purely divine Logos-Person, whose specific nature 
 at the same time remained unaltered, and in order to accom- 
 plish the work of redemption (chap. vi.; Rom. vil. 3; Heb. 
 ii. 14, 15), a really corporeal personality, 2c. the God-man 
 Jesus Christ (ver. 17), came into existence. Comp. on the 
 point, L John iv. 2; Phil: iiy,7; 1 Tim. ut. 16; Heb. nucle 
 v. 7. Since odp£ necessarily carries with it the idea only of 
 the wWvy7 (see Schulz, Abendm. p. 94 ff.; Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 
 256), it might seem as if John held the Apollinarian notion, 
 
 vero (v. 27, viii. 40), but o%p% presented the antithesis of both forms of exist- 
 ence most sharply and strikingly, and yet at the same time unquestionably 
 designates the human personality (xvii. 2). According to Baur, indeed, it is 
 sail to be impossible to understand by the incarnation any proper assumption of 
 humanity. 
 
 1Comp. the well-known ‘‘Sum quod eram, nec eram quod sum, nune dicor 
 utrumque.” In Jesus Christ we have the absolute synthesis of the divine and 
 the human. 
 
88 TIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 that in Christ there was no human vods, but that the Aoyos 
 took its place.’ But it is not really so (see, on the other side, 
 Mau, Progr. de Christolog. N. T., Kiel 1843, p. 13 ff.), because 
 the human yvyy does not exist by itself, but in necessary 
 connection with the mvedwa (Beck, bibl. Seelenl. § 13; Hahn, 
 Theol. d. N. T. I. § 154), and eke the N. T. (comp. viii. 
 40) knows Jesus only as perfect man.? In fact, John in par- 
 ticular expressly speaks of the vy (xii. 27) and mvedua 
 of Christ (xi. 33, xii. 21, xix. 30), which he does not identify 
 with the Logos, but designates as the substratum of the 
 human self-consciousness (xi. 38).2 The transcendental cha- 
 racter, however, of this self-consciousness, as necessarily given 
 in the incarnation of the Logos, Weizsiicker has not succeeded, 
 as 1s plain from his interpretation of the passages referred to, 
 in explaining away by anything Jesus Himself says in this 
 Gospel. The conception of weakness and susceptibility of 
 suffering (see on Acts ii. 17), which Luther, Melancthon, 
 Calvin, Olshausen, Tholuck, Henestenberg, Philippi, and others 
 
 1 Of late, Zeller in particular (in the Theol. Jahrb. 1842, I. 74) has limited 
 the Johannean doctrine of the human element in the person of Jesus simply 
 to His corporeity, excluding any special human anima rationalis. Comp. also 
 Kostlin, p. 148 ff., and Baur, neutest. Theol. p. 362. That cap$ was the merely 
 formal non-personal clothing of the Logos-subject (Pfleiderer, in Hilgenfeld’s 
 Zeitschr. 1866, p. 260), does not correspond with the conception of dvépuros, 
 under which Christ represents Himself (viii. 40). This is also in answer to 
 Scholten, who in like manner comes to the conclusion that, in John’s view, Jesus . 
 was man as to His body only, but the Logos as.to His spirit. 
 
 * So John in particular. See Hilgenfeld, Lehkrbegr. p. 234 ff., who, however, 
 explains the cap% tyévere from the Valentinian system, and attributes to the 
 evangelist the notion of a corporeity, real indeed, but not fettered by the 
 limitation of a material body, appealing to vi. 16 ff., vii. 10, 15, viii. 59, ii. 19 ff. 
 Baur’s view is similar, though he does not go so far. Baur, p. 367. 
 
 3 Rightly has the church held firmly to the perfection (perfectio) of the divine 
 and human natures in Christ in the Athanasian sense. No change and no 
 detect of nature on the one side or the other can be justified on exegetical 
 grounds, and especially no such doctrine as that of Gess, that by the incarnation 
 the Logos became a human soul or a human spirit (comp. also Hahn, Theol. d. 
 N. 7.1. 198 f.). This modification, which some apply to the xévwos, is un- 
 scriptural, and is particularly opposed to John’s testimony throughout his Gospel 
 and First Epistle. How little does Gess succeed in reconciling his view with 
 John v. 26, for example,—a passage which is always an obstacle in his way! 
 Further, according to Worner, Verhélin. d. Geistes zum. Sohne Gott. p. 27, the 
 Logos became a soul. Against Hahn, see Dorner in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 
 1856, p. 393 ff 
 
CHAP. I. 14 89 
 
 find in cdpé, is quite remote from this verse (comp. 1 John 
 
 iv. 2), where the point in question is simply the change in 
 the divine mode of existence, while the odp& is that which © 
 bears the 60a; and so also is any anti-Docetic reference, such 
 as Frommann and others, and even De Wette and Lechler, 
 imagine. — The supernatural generation of Jesus is neither 
 presupposed nor included (as even Godet maintains), nor ex- 
 cluded, in John’s representation o Adyos capE éyévero, for 
 the expression contains nothing as to the manner of the 
 incarnation; it is an addition to the primitive apostolical 
 Christology, of which we have no certain trace either in the 
 oldest Gospel (Mark), or in the only one which is fully apostolic 
 (John), or even anywhere in Paul: see on Matt. 1. 18; comp. 
 John v. 27, Rom. i. 3, 4. —xal éoxynvacerv év nutv] and 
 tabernacled, i.e. took up His abode, among us: éoxivecev here 
 is chosen merely to draw our attention to the manifestation of 
 the incarnate Logos, whose holy cxjvmpa (2 Pet. i. 13) was in 
 fact His human substance,” as the fulfilment of the promise of 
 God’s dwelling with His people (Ex. xxv. 8,xxix. 45; Lev. 
 
 / xxvi. 11; Joel iii. 24; Ezek. xxxvii. 27; Hagg. ii. 8: comp. 
 
 Ecclus. xxiv. 8; Rev. xxi. 3), and therefore as the Shekinah 
 which formerly revealed itself in the tabernacle and in the 
 temple (see on Rom. ix. 4); an assumption which the context 
 justifies by the words: éOeac. r. S0£av aitod. The Targums, 
 in like manner, represent the Word (s1n'») as the mr2v, and 
 the Messiah as the manifestation of this. —év wiv] refers 
 to the cou édaPov avtov, vv. 12, 13, to whom John belongs, 
 not simply to the Twelve (Tholuck), nor to the Christian con- 
 sciousness (Hilgenfeld), nor to mankind generally ; comp. ver. 
 16. The believers whom Jesus found are the fellowship who, 
 as the holy people, surrounded the incarnate Word, and by 
 
 1 For assuredly the same Subject, which in His divine essence was pre-existent 
 as the eternal Logos, may as a temporal human manifestation come into existence 
 and begin to be, so that in and by itself the manner of this origination, natural 
 or supernatural, makes no difference in the conceivableness of the fact (against 
 Baur in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 222). 
 
 2 In this He tabernacled among us not merely as a divine principle (Bey- 
 schiag), but as ray co rAnpwua cis bcornros (Col. ii. 9), i.e. exactly what He 
 was as the personal Logos. Thus His body was the temple of God (ii. 19), 
 the true special dwelling of God’s gracious presence, 
 
90 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 whom His glory was beheld (comp. 1 John i. 1).— kai é6e- 
 acdpeOa, x.t.r.]| We must not (as most expositors, even 
 Liicke, Frommann, Maier, De Wette) take this clause as far 
 as matpos to be a lively insertion, interrupting the narrative ; 
 for the having beheld the dd£a is the essential element in the 
 progress of the discourse. It is an independent part in the con- 
 nection ; so that wAjpns yap. x. ad., Which is usually joined 
 erammatically with o Adyos, is to be referred to adtod in an 
 irregular combination of cases, determined by the logical 
 subject (B. Crusius, Briickner, Weiss, comp. Grotius), by which 
 the nominative instead of the dependent case (Augustine read 
 mArjpous) sets forth the statement more emphatically without 
 any governing word. See especially Bernhardy, p. 68; Heind. 
 ad Plat. Theaet. 89, Soph. 7; Winer, p. 524 [E. T. p. 705]. 
 — Hv do£av aditod] the Majesty (1122) of the Logos, we. of 
 necessity the divine glory (in the O. T. symbolically revealing 
 itself as the brilliant light which surrounded the manifestation 
 of Deity, Ex. xxiv. 17, xl. 34 ff; Acts vii. 2), so far as the Logos 
 from His nature (see what follows) essentially participated 
 therein, and possessed it in His pre-human state and onwards.’ 
 It presented itself to the recognition of believers as a reality, in 
 the entire manifestation, work, and history of Him who became 
 man; so that they (not unbelievers) beheld it? (intuebantur), 
 because its rays shone forth, so as to be recognised by them, 
 through the veil of the manhood, and thus it revealed itself 
 visibly to them (1 John i. 1; comp. chap. ii, 11). The idea of 
 an inner contemplation is opposed to the context (against Baur). 
 The d0£a tod Aoyou, which before the incarnation could be 
 represented to the prophet’s eye alone (xii. 41), but which 
 otherwise was, in its essence, Incapable of being beheld by man, 
 became by means of the incarnation an object of external obser- 
 vation by those who were eye-witnesses (Luke i. 2; 1 John iv. 
 14) of His actual self-manifestation. We must, however, bear 
 in mind that the manifestation of this divine glory of the Logos 
 in His human state is conceived of relatively, though revealing 
 
 1 Comp. Gess, Person Chr. p. 123. 
 
 * All limitations to individual points, as e.g. to the miracles, or even specially 
 to the history of the transfiguration (Luke ix. 32; Wetstein, Tittmann), are 
 arbitrary. . 
 
CHAP Ts 14 $1 
 
 beyond doubt the divine nature of the Logos, and nothing 
 else than that, yet as limited and conditioned on the one hand 
 by the imperfection of human intuition and knowledge, and 
 on the other by the state of humiliation (Phil ii. 6 ff) which 
 was entered upon with the cap éyévero. For the d0£a abso- 
 lutely, which as such is also the adequate poppy Geod, was 
 possessed by Him who became man—the Logos, who entered 
 upon life in its human. form—only in His pre-existent state 
 (xvil. 5), and was reswmed only after His exaltation (xii. 41, 
 xvii. 5, xxti, 24); while during His earthly life His doa as 
 the manifestation of the ica evar Ge@ was not the simply 
 divine, but that of the God-man. See on Phil. ii. 8, note, and 
 chap. xvii. 5. No distinction is hereby made between God’s 
 dofa and the Sofa of the God-man (as objected by Weiss) ; 
 the difference is simply in the degrees of manifestation and 
 appearance. Still Weiss is quite right in refusing, as against 
 Kostlin and Reuss, to say that there is in John no idea what- 
 ever of humiliation (comp. xii. 32, 34, xvii. 5).— d0d£&av] 
 more animated without dé Comp. Hom. Od. a, 22 f.; Dem. 
 de. cor. 143 (p. 275, Reisk.): moAeuov eis 7. "AttiKny eicd- 
 gels... TOAEHOv ’Audixtvoixov. See Kriiger, § 59, 1. 3, 4. 
 —@s povoyevods] as of an only-begotten, ae. as belongs to 
 such an one,” corresponds to the nature of one who is povo- 
 yevns Tapa matpos; Chrysostom: olay émpere Kal eixos éyew 
 Hovoyevh Kal yvyjcuov viov dvta, K.t.A. The idea of reality 
 (Euthymius Zigabenus: év7ws) lies as little in @s as in the 
 erroneously so-called 3 veritatis (against Olshausen, Klee, and 
 earlier writers); there is rather the supposition of a compari- - 
 son, which approaches the meaning of quippe (Ellendt, Lez. 
 Soph. IL. p. 1002); see Kiihner, § 330. 5.— wovoyevis] of 
 Christ, and regarded, indeed, in His divine nature, is Johan- 
 nean, expressing the apostle’s own idea of Christ’s unique 
 
 1 Which indeed, even after His exaltation, is and ever continues to be that of 
 the God-man, though without limitation and perfect.—According to Weiss 
 (Lehrbegr. p. 261), the 3s%« of the Logos cannot be that of the originally divine 
 essence itself, but one vouchsafed to Christ for the purpose of His works. This, 
 however, is contrary to the express meaning of the word here, where by the ri» 
 028. airod, x.7.2., we can only understand His proper glory brought with Him 
 by the Logos into His incarnate life. As to xvii. 22, see on that passage, 
 
 * Therefore govoy. is without the article. The expression is qualitative. 
 
92 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 relationship as the Son of God, i. 18, ii. 16, 18, 1 John iv. 
 9, though it is put into the mouth of Christ Himself in in. 
 16,18. Comp. the Pauline mpwrordxos, Col. i. 15, Heb. i. 6, 
 which as to the thing certainly corresponds with the Johan- 
 nean povoyerys, but presents the idea in the relation of time 
 to the creation, and in Rom. viii, 29 to Christendom. Movoy. 
 designates the Logos as the only Son (Luke vii. 12, viii. 42, 
 ix. 38; Heb. xi.17; Tob. viii, 17; Herod. vil. 220>)Piate. 
 Legg. IIL. p. 691 D; Aesch. Ag. 898; Hes. épy. 378), besides 
 whom the Father has none, who moreover did not become 
 such by any moral generation, as in the case of the téxva 
 Geov, vv. 12, 13, nor by adoption, but by the metaphysical 
 relation of existence arising out of the divine essence, whereby 
 He was év apy7 with God, being Himself divine in nature and 
 person, vv. 1, 2. He did not first become this by His incar- 
 nation, but He zs this before all time as the Logos, and He 
 manifests Himself as the povoy. by means of the incarnation, 
 so that consequently the povoy. vios is not identical (Beyschlag, 
 *», 151 ff.) with the historical person Jesus Christ, but presents 
 Himself in that person to believers; and therefore we are not 
 to think of any interchange of the predicates of the Logos and 
 the Son, “who may be also conceived of retrospectively” 
 (Weizsiicker, 1862, p. 699). In other respects the designation 
 corresponds to human relations, and is anthropomorphic, as is 
 vios Qeod itself—a circumstance which, however, necessarily 
 limited its applicability as an expression of the metaphysical 
 relation, in apprehending which we must also leave out of 
 view the conception of birth as such, so far as it implies the 
 idea of the maternal function. Origen well remarks: 76 dé 
 @s povoy. Tapa Tatp. voc tmoBadre, éx THs ovalias TOD 
 Tatpos evar Tov viov . . . Eb yap Kal GAA Tapa TaTpos EXEL 
 viv tmapéw, pataiws 7 ToD povoyevods exevto Pwv1.— Ta- 
 +pos] without the article (Winer, p. 116 [E. Tr. p. 151)). 
 IIapa matp. must be joined to povoy., to which it adds the 
 definite idea of having gone forth, t.e. of having come from the 
 Father (vi. 46, vii. 29, xvi. 27). Correlative with this is ver. 
 18, 6 dv els 7. KOATOY Tov Tatpos, where the only-begotten 
 Son who came forth from the Father is viewed as having again 
 returned to the Father. The conception of having been be- 
 
CHAP. I. 14. 93 
 
 gotten, consequently of derivation from the essence, would be 
 expressed by the simple genitive (wartpos) or by the dative, or 
 by é« or azo, but lies in the word povoyevods itself; since this 
 expresses the very generation, and therefore the é« ths ovcias 
 Tod matpos elvat (Origen). Its connection with dofav (Eras- 
 mus, Grotius, Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 120, Weiss; already 
 Theophyl. ?) is in itself grammatically admissible (Plut. Agis, 
 2; Plato, Phaedr. p. 232 A; Acts xxvi. 12), but is not favoured 
 here either by the position of the words or by the connection, 
 from which the idea of the origin of the do&a lay far remote, 
 the object being to designate the nature of the do&a; more- 
 over, the anarthrous povoy. requires a more precise definition, 
 which is exactly what it has in wapa matpds.—adnpns 
 yap x. ad7@.] To be referred to the subject, though that 
 (avTov) stands in the genitive. See above. It explains how the 
 Logos, having become incarnate, manifested Himself to those 
 who beheld His glory. Grace and truth’ are the two efficaciously 
 saving and inseparable factors of His whole manifestation 
 and ministry, not constituting His S0£a (Luthardt),—a notion 
 opposed to ii, 11 and xvii.—but displaying it and making it 
 known to those who beheld that glory. Through God’s grace to 
 sinful man He became man; and by His whole work on earth 
 up to the time of His return to His Father, He has been the 
 instrument of obtaining for believers the blessing of becoming 
 the children of God. Truth, again, was what He revealed in 
 the whole of His work, especially by His preaching, the theme 
 of which was furnished by His intuition of God (ver. 18), and 
 which therefore must necessarily reveal in an adequate manner 
 God’s nature and counsel, and be the opposite of cxotia and 
 yedoos. Comp. Matt. xi 27. The adjPeva corresponds 
 formally to the nature of the Logos as light (das); the 
 xdpts, which bestows everlasting life (iii. 15), to His nature 
 as life (fw), vv. 4, 5. That the yapus «. adnfeva with which 
 He was filled are divine grace and truth, of which He was the 
 
 1 Where, according to Hilgenfeld, the author must have had in view the 
 female Aeons of the two first Syzygies of the Valentinian system. John un- 
 doubtedly has the word yépis only in the Prologue, but Matthew and Mark also 
 do not use it ; while Luke does not employ it in the sense of saving Christian 
 grace, in which sense it first occurs in the Acts and in Paul. 
 
94 TIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 possessor and bearer, so that in I{im they attained their com- 
 plete manifestation (comp. xiv. ©), is self-evident from what 
 has preceded, but is not specially iadicated, as would neces- 
 sarily have been done by the use of the article, which would 
 have expressed the grace and truth (simply) kar’ é£oynp. 
 Ver. 16 f. is decisive against the construction of wAnpys with 
 what follows (Erasmus, Paulus). Whether John, moreover, 
 used the words wAnp. xapetos x. adn O. with any reference to 
 Ex, xxxiv. 6 (Hengstenberg) is very doubtful, for N28 in that 
 
 passage has a different meaning (truthfulness, fidelity). John 
 
 -is speaking independently, from his own full experience and 
 authority as a witness. Through a profound living experience, 
 he had come to feel, and here declares his conviction, that all 
 salvation depends on the incarnation of the Logos. 
 
 Ver. 15. It is to this great fact of salvation to which the 
 Baptist bears testimony, and his testimony was confirmed by 
 the gracious experience of us all (ver. 16). — waprupet] Repre- 
 sentation of it as present, as if the testimony were still sound- 
 ing forth. — Kéxpaye] “clamat Joh. cum fiducia et gaudio, uti 
 magnum praeconem decet,” Bengel. He crieth, comp. vil. 28, 
 37, xii. 44; Rom. ix. 27. The Perfect in the usual classical 
 sense as a present (Bo@v ... Kal xexpayos, Dem. 271, 11; 
 Soph. 47. 1136; Arist. Plut. 722, Vesp. 415). Not so else- 
 where in the N. T. Observe, too, the solemn circumstantial 
 manner in which the testimony is introduced: “John bears 
 witness of Him, and cries while he says.” — obtos Hv] jv is used, 
 because John is conceived as speaking at the present time, and 
 therefore as pointing back to a testimony historically past: 
 “This was He whom I meant at the time whenI said.” With 
 elmety Tuva, “to speak of any one,’ comp. x. 36; Xen. Cyr. vii. 
 3.5; Plato, Crat. p.432 C; Hom. Zl.€ 479. See on viii. 27. 
 — 06 dmlow mov épxou. Eutpoabév jbov yéyovev] “ He who 
 cometh after me is come before me ;’—Lin how far is stated in 
 the clause éte mpa@tos pov Hv, which assigns the reason. The 
 meaning of the sentence and the point of the expression de- 
 pend upon this,—namely, that Christ in His human mani- 
 festation appeared after John, but yet, as the pre-mundane 
 Logos, preceded him, because He existed before John. On 
 yivecOae with an adverb, especially of place, in the sense of 
 
 ee 
 
CHAP. I. 13. 95 
 coming as in vi. 25, see Kriiger on Xen. Anad. i. 2. 7; 
 Kiihner, II. p. 39; Nagelsbach, note on Jliad, ed. 3, p. 295. 
 Comp. Xen. Cyrop. vii. 1. 22, éyévero dmricbev THY dppauakar ; 
 Anab. vi. 1. 10; 1. 8. 24. Both are adverbs of place; so 
 that, however, the time is represented as local, not the rank 
 (€vttpmorepos od éort, Chrysostom ; so most critics, even Liicke, 
 Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier, De Wette),’ which would involve 
 a diversity in the manner of construing the two particles (the 
 first being taken as relating to tume), and the sentence then 
 becomes tiivial, and loses its enigmatical character, since, in- 
 deed, the one who appears later need not possess on that 
 account any lower dignity. Origen long ago rightly under- 
 stood both clauses as relating to time, though the second is 
 not therefore to be rendered “ He was before me” (Luther ana 
 many, also Briickner, Baeumlein), since 7 is not the word ;? 
 nor yet: “He came into being before me,’ which would not be 
 referable “to the O. T. advent of Christ” (Lange), but, in 
 harmony with the idea of povoyevyjs, to His having come forth 
 from God prior to all time. It is decisive against both, that 
 67 TpaTos jou Hv would be tautological—an argument which 
 is not to be set aside by any fanciful rendering of wparos (see 
 below). Nonnus well remarks: mpa@rtos eueto BéBnxev, dtric- 
 Tepos daTis ixavet. Comp. Godet and Hengstenberg; also in 
 his Christol. III. 1, p. 675, “my successor is my predecessor,” 
 where, however, his assumption of a reference to Mal. iii. 1 is 
 without any hint to that effect in the words. According to 
 Luthardt (comp Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. II. 256), what is 
 meant to be said is: “He who at first walked behind me, as if ~ 
 he were my disciple, has taken precedence of me, 7¢. He has 
 become my master.” But the enigma of the sentence lies just 
 in this, that 0 omicw pou épyou. expresses something still 
 future, as this also answers to the formal épyecOas used of the 
 Messiah’s advent. Hofmann’s view, therefore, is more correct, 
 Schrifibew. II. 1, p. 10 ff,—namely, that the meaning of the 
 
 ' This rendering is not ungrammatical (in opposition to Hengstenberg), if it 
 only be maintained that, even while adopting it, the local meaning of tuxpocésy is 
 not changed. (Comp. Gen. xlviii. 20; Baruch ii. 5.) 
 
 ? So, too, in Matt. xix. 8 and John ¥x 27, yivecéas does not mean esse, but 
 Jiervi (against Baeumlein) ; so also in passages such as Luke i. 5, 2 Pet. ii. 1. 
 
96 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Baptist is, “while Jesus ts coming after him, He is already 
 before him.” But even thus é€uap. wou yéy. amounts to a 
 figurative designation of rank, which is not appropriate to the 
 clause 67s patos wou Hv, which assigns the reason, and mani- 
 festly refers to time. — 67s mp@Tos ov Hr] isa direct portion 
 of the Baptist’s testimony which has just been adduced (against 
 Hengstenberg), as ver. 30 shows, presenting the key to the 
 preceding Oxymoron: for before me He was in existence. The 
 reference to rank (Chrysostom, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, 
 and most comm., also B. Crusius and Hofmann), according to 
 which we should construe, “ He was more than TI,” is at once 
 overthrown by vy, instead of which we ought to have éotiv. 
 Comp. Matt. iii, 11. Only a rendering which refers to time 
 (i.e. only the pre-existence of the Logos) solves the apparent 
 opposition between subject and predicate in the preceding 
 declaration. — apatos in the sense of mporepos, answering to 
 the representation, “ first in comparison with me.”* See Herm. 
 ad Viger. p. 718; Dorvill. ad Charit. p. 478; Bernhardy, 
 Eratosth. 42, p. 122. We must not, with Winer and Baur, 
 force in the idea of absolute priority.2 Comp. xv. 18; and 
 Buttmann, newt. Gr. p. 74 [E. T. p. 84]. This also against 
 Ewald (“far earlier”), Hengstenberg, Briickner, Godet (“the 
 principle of my existence”). To refuse to the Baptist all idea 
 of the pre-existence of the Messiah, and to represent his state- 
 ment merely as one put into his mouth by the evangelist 
 (Strauss, Weisse, B. Bauer, De Wette, Scholten, and many 
 others), is the more baseless, the more pointed and peculiar is 
 the testimony; the greater the weight the evangelist attaches 
 to it, the less it can be questioned that deep-seeing men were 
 able, by means of such O. T. passages as Mal. iii. 1, Isa. vi. 
 1 ff., Dan. vii. 13 ff, to attain to that idea, which has even 
 Rabbinical testimony in its support (Bertholdt, Christol. p. 131), 
 and the more resolutely the pioneer of the Messiah, under the 
 influence of divine revelation, took his stand as the last of the 
 prophets, the Elias who had come. 
 
 1 Comp. the genitive relation in rpuréroxes xdéons xrictws, Col. i. 15. 
 
 2 Philippi, d. Hingang d. Joh. Ev. p. 179: ‘* He is the unconditioned first (i.¢. 
 the eternal), in relation to me.” The comparison of A and © in the Revelation is 
 inapplicable here, because we have not the absolute 6 rpares, but xparis mov. 
 
CHAP. I. 15. 97 
 
 Ver. 16. Not the language of the Baptist (Heracleon, 
 Origen, Rupertus, Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, Lange), against 
 which sets mates is decisive, but that of the evangelist con- 
 tinued. — éru (see critical notes) introduces the personal and 
 superabounding gracious experrence of believers, with a retro- 
 spective reference indeed to the Ap. ydputos x. dd7O., ver. 14, 
 and in the form of a confirmation of John’s testimony in ver. 
 15: this testimony is justified by what was imparted to usall 
 out of the fulness of Him who was borne witness to.— €x Tod 
 TANP@-. avTod] out of that whereof He was full, ver. 14; 
 TANpwwa in a passive sense; see on Col.i.19. The phrase 
 and idea were here so naturally furnished by the immediate 
 context, that it is quite far-fetched to find their source in 
 Gnosticism, especially in that of the Valentinians (Schwegler, 
 Hilgenfeld).— ets] we on our part, giving prominence to 
 the personal experience of the believers (which had remained 
 unknown to unbelievers), vv. 10, 11.—advtes] None went 
 empty away. Inexhaustibleness o the mArjpwpa. — érXd Roper] 
 absolute: we have received. — kai] and indeed. See Winer, 
 p. 407 [E. T. p. 546]; Hartung, Partikell. I. 145.— ydpuv 
 avtTt yapitos] grace for grace, is not to be explained (with 
 Chrysostom, Cyril, Severus, Nonnus, Theophylact, Erasrnus, 
 Beza, Aretius, Calovius, Jansen, Wolf, Lampe, and many 
 others, even Paulus), WV. 7. instead of O. T. grace (Euthyn ius 
 Zigabenus: tiv Kawyv SiaOnkny avtt THs tadavds), or instead 
 of the original grace lost in Adam (see especially Calovius), since 
 in ver. 17 6 vowos and 1) yapis are opposed to each other, and 
 since in the N. T. generally ydpis is the distinctive essence 
 of Christian salvation (comp. especially Rom. vi. 14, 15); but, 
 as Beza suggested, and with most modern expositors# “ so that 
 ever and anon fresh grace appears in place of that already 
 recewed.”  “ Proximam quamque gratiam satis quidem magnam 
 gratia subsequens cumulo et plenitudine sua quasi obruit,” 
 Bengel. So superabundant was the AauBavew! This render- 
 ing is sufficiently justified linguistically by Theogn. Sent. 344, 
 
 1 Among whom, however, Godet regards the phrase with dvri as a play upon 
 words, referring to the O. T. law of retaliation, according to which ‘‘ chaque 
 grace était la récompense d’un mérite acquis.” But such an allusion would be 
 inappropriate, since yéps in dvi yépsros is not something human, but divine. 
 
 G 
 
98 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 av7 dviav avias; Philo, de poster. Caini, I. p. 254; Chrys. de 
 sac. vi. 13,—as it is generally by the primary meaning of avti 
 (grace interchanging with grace); and it corresponds, agreeably 
 to the context, with the idea of the wA7jpwya, from which it is 
 derived, and is supported further by the increasingly blessed 
 condition of those individually experiencing it (justification, 
 peace with God, consolation, joy, illumination, love, hope, and 
 so on: see on Rom. v. 1 ff.; Gal. v.22; Eph. v. 9). John 
 might have written ydpw émi yapute or yapuv emt yapw (Phil. 
 ii. 27), but his conception of it was different. Still, any 
 special reference to the fulness of the special yapiocpara, 1 
 Cor. xii—xiv. (Ewald), lies remote from the context here (ver. 
 17); though at the same time they, as in general no evAoyia 
 mvevpatixyn (Eph. i. 3), wherewith God in Christ has blessed 
 believers, are not excluded. 
 
 Ver. 17. Antithetical confirmation of ydpuw ayti yapitos ; 
 “for how high above what was formerly given by Moses, does 
 that stand which came through Jesus Christ!” Comp. Rom. 
 iv. 15, x. 4; Gal. ni. 10 ff, al. The former is the Jaw, 
 viewed by Paul as the antithesis of grace (Rom. vi. 14, vii. 3 ; 
 Gal. iv. 4,and many other passages), in so far as it only lays 
 us under obligation, condemns us, and in fact arouses and 
 intensifies the need of grace, but does not bestow peace, which 
 latter gift has been realized for us through Christ. The anti- 
 thesis without wéev—sdé has rhetorical force (iv. 22, vi. 63); 
 Buttm. WV. 7. Gk. p. 344 [E. T. p. 364].— 7 yadpes] in the 
 definite and formal sense of redemption, saving grace, ae. the 
 grace of the Father in the Son. Hence also «at 7) adyOea 
 is added with a pragmatical reference to ver. 14; this, like all 
 Christ’s gifts of grace, was regarded as included in the universal 
 xapw avtt xapitos of ver. 16. Moreover, the 4d eva was not 
 given in the law, in so far as its substance, which was not 
 indeed untrue, but an outflow of the divine will for salvation 
 (Rom. vii. 10 sqq.; Acts vii. 38), was yet related only as type 
 and preparation to the absolute revelation of truth in Christ ; 
 and hence through its very fulfilment (Matt. v. 17) it had 
 come to be done away (Rom. x. 4; Col. i 14; Heb. x. 1 ff, 
 vil. 18). Comp. Gal. iii, 24. Grace was still wanting to the 
 law, and with it truth also in the full meaning of the word. 
 
CHAP, I. 18, 99 
 
 See also 2 Cor. iii. 13 ff.— éyévero] The non-repetition of 
 €600n is not to point out the independent work of the Logos 
 (Clemens, Paedag. i. 7), to which 6a would be opposed, or of 
 God (Origen), whose work the law also was; but the change 
 of thought, though not recognised by Liicke, lies in this, that 
 each clause sets forth the historical phenomenon as 2 actually 
 occurred. In the case of the law, this took place in the his-’ 
 torical form of being given, whereas grace and truth o7igi- 
 nated, came into being, not absolutely, but in relation to man- 
 kind, for whom they had not before existed as a matter of 
 experience, but which now, in the manifestation and work of 
 Christ, unfolded their historical origin. Comp. 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 —Observe how appropriately, in harmony with the creative 
 skilful plan of the Prologue, after the incarnation of the 
 Logos, and the revelation of His glory which was therewith 
 connected, have been already set forth with glowing animation, 
 there is now announced for the first time the great historical 
 Name, Jesus Christ, which designates the incarnate Logos 
 as the complete concrete embodiment of His manifestation. 
 Comp. 1 John i. 1-3. Only now is the Prologue so fully 
 developed, that Jesus Christ, the historical person of the Adyos 
 évoapxos (who therefore is all the less to be understood 
 throughout, with Hofmann and Luthardt, under the title Adyos), 
 comes before the eye of the reader, who now, however, knows 
 how to gather up in this name the full glory of the God-man. 
 Ver. 18 furnishes an explanation of what had just been said, 
 that 7 ddAjOeva bia “I. X. eyévero ;' for that there was required 
 direct knowledge of God, the result of experience, which 
 His only-begotten Son alone possessed. — odde/s] no man, 
 not even Moses. “ Besides is no doctor, master, or preacher, 
 than the only Teacher, Christ, who is in the Godhead in- 
 wardly,” Luther; comp. Matt. xi. 27. — éwpaxe] has seen, 
 beheld (comp. iii. 11), of the intuition of God’s essence (Ex. 
 xxxill. 20), to the exclusion of visions, theophanies, and the 
 like. Comp. 1 John iv.12; also Rom. i 20; Col. i, 15; 
 1 Tim.i.17. Agreeably to the context, the reference is to 
 1 Not including any explanation of 4 yépis also (Luthardt), because idpaxeand 
 
 iEnyicaro answer only to the conception of the truth in which the vision of God 
 is interpreted. 
 
100 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 the direct vision of God’s essential glory, which no man could 
 have (Ex. J.¢.), but which Christ possessed in His pre-human 
 condition as Adyos (comp. vi. 46), and possesses again ever 
 since His exaltation. —o @y eis Tov KoAT. TOD TaTPpOS] 
 As éEnyno. refers to the state on earth of the Only-begotten, av 
 consequently, taken as an imperfect, cannot refer to the pre- 
 human state (against Luthardt, Gess, pp. 123, 236, and others) ; 
 yet it cannot coincide with é&yyn. in respect of time (Beyschlag), 
 because the elvae eis Tov KoN. T. 7. Was not true of Christ 
 during His earthly life (comp. especially i. 52). The right 
 explanation therefore is, that John, when he wrote o wp eis 7. 
 k.T. 7., expressed himself from his own present standing-point, 
 and conceived of Christ as in His state of exaltation, as having 
 returned to the bosom of the Father, and therefore into the 
 state of the elvas mpos tov Ocov. So Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 
 120, II. 23; Weiss, Lehrbegr. 239. Thus also must we ex- 
 plain the statement of direction towards, eis Tov xorm., Which 
 would be otherwise without any explanation (Mark ii. 1, xiii. 
 16; Luke xi. 7); so that we recognise in eés as the prominent 
 element the idea of having arrived at (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. 
 I. p. 537; Jacobs, ad Anthol. XIII. p. 71; Buttm. MV. 7. Gr. 
 p. 286 [E. T. p. 333]), not the notion of leaning upon (Godet, 
 after Winer, Liicke, Tholuck, Maier, Gess, and most others), 
 nor of moving towards, which is warranted neither by the 
 simple @y (in favour of which such analogies as in aurem 
 dormire are inappropriate) nor by eis, instead of which zpos 
 (Hom. Jl. vi. 467) or éwé with the accusative ought rather to 
 be expected.” This forced interpretation of e’s would never 
 have been attempted, had not #y been construed as a timeless 
 
 1 Hence we must not say, with Briickner, comp, Tholuck and Hengstenberg, 
 that a relation of the “ovoyvés is portrayed which was neither interrupted nor 
 modified by the incarnation. The communion of the Incarnate One with God 
 remained, He in God, and God in Him, but not in the same manner metaphysi- 
 cally as before His incarnation and after His exaltation. He while on earth was 
 still in heaven (iii. 13), yet not de facto, but de jure, because heaven was His 
 home, His ancestral seat. 
 
 2 Philippi’s objections (Glaubensl. IV. 1, p. 409f.) to my rendering are quite 
 baseless. For an explanation of the a» tis rdy xsAx. which occurs to every un- 
 prejudiced expositor as coming directly from the words themselves cannot be 
 ** arbitrary.” And it is not contrary to the connection, as both Godet and Bey- 
 schlag hold, because what the words, as usually interpreted, say, is already cons 
 
CHAP. I. 18, 101 
 
 Present, expressing an iherent relation, and in this sense 
 applied (Liicke, Tholuck, De Wette, Lange, Briickner, Heng- 
 stenberg, Philippi, and most expositors) also to the earthly 
 condition of the Son; comp. Beyschlag, pp. 100, 150. So 
 far as the thing itself is concerned, the eivae els Tov KOAT. 
 does not differ from the etvas mpods tov Oecv of ver. 1; only 
 it expresses the fullest fellowship with God, not before the 
 
 incarnation, but after the exaltation, and at the same time 
 exhibits the relation of Jove under a sensuous form (KéAzov) ;, 
 not derived, however, from the custom (xii. 23) of reclining’ 
 
 at table (thus usually, but not appropriately in respect of 
 fellowship with God), but rather from the analogy of a father’s 
 embrace (Luke xvi. 22). In its pragmatic bearing, o dv is the 
 historical scal of the éEnyjoaro; but we must not explain it, 
 with Hilgenfeld, from the Gnostic idea of the wAnjpaya.— 
 éxetvos] strongly emphatic, and pointing heavenwards.’ — 
 éEnynoato] namely, the substance of His intuition of God; 
 comp. vill. 38. The word is the usual one for denoting the 
 exposition, interpretation of divine things, and intuitions. Plato, 
 
 —e 
 
 Pol. iv. p. 427 C; Schneid. Theag. p. 131; Ken. Cyr. viii. | 
 
 3. 11; Soph. Hl. 417; comp. the é&nynraé in Athens: 
 
 Ruhnken, ad Tim. p. 109 ff.; Hermann, gottesd. Alterth. § 1, 
 12. It does not occur elsewhere in John, and hence a special 
 
 reference in its selection here is all the more to be presumed, 
 the more strikingly appropriate it is to the context (against 
 Liicke, Maier, Godet). Comp. LXX. Lev. xiv. 57. 
 
 Note—tThe Prologue, which we must not with Reuss restrict 
 to vv. 1-5, is not “A History of the Logos,’ describing Him 
 
 tained in the 6 povoyevis vics, Whereupon 6 ay, x.7.a. sets forth the exaltation of the 
 Only-begotten—just as in 6 wovoy- vids were given the ground and source of the 
 tEnyioaro—as the infallible confirmation hereof. This also against Gess, p. 124. 
 My interpretation is quite as compatible with earnest dealing in regard to the 
 deity of Christ (Hengstenberg) as the usual one, while both are open to abuse. 
 Besides, we have nothing at all to do here with the earnestness referred to, but 
 simply with the correctness or incorrectness of the interpretation. Further, I 
 have not through fear of spiritualism (as Beyschlag imagines) deviated from the 
 usual meaning, which would quite agree with iii. 13. 
 
 ? As with Homer (see Nitzsch, p. 37, note 1), so in the N. T. John pre- 
 eminently requires not merely to be read, but to be spoken. His work is the 
 epic among the Gospels, 
 
102 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 down to ver. 13 as He was before His incarnation, and from 
 ver. 14 ff. as encarnate (Olshausen). Against this it is decisive 
 that vv. 6-13 already refer to the period of His human exist- 
 ence, and that, in particular, the sonship of believers, vv. 12, 
 13, cannot be understood in any other than a specifically 
 Christian sense. For this reason, too, we must not adopt the 
 division of Ewald: (1) The pre-mundane history of the Logos, 
 vv. 1-3; (2) The history of His first purely spiritual working 
 up to the time of His incarnation, vv. 4-13; (3) The history 
 of His human manifestation and ministry, vv. 14-18. John 
 is intent rather on securing, in grand and condensed outline, 
 a profound comprehensive view of the nature and work of the 
 Logos; which latter, the work, was in respect of the world 
 creative, in respect of mankind «dluminative (the Light). As 
 this working of the Logos was historical, the description must 
 necessarily also bear an historical character ; not in such a way, 
 however, that a formal history was to be given, first of the 
 Abyos Koupxos (Which could not have been given), and then of the 
 réyos evoupxos (Which forms the substance of the Gospel itself), 
 but in such a way that/the whole forms a historical pictwre, in 
 which we see, in the world which came into existence by the 
 creative power of the Logos, His light shining before, after, and 
 by means of His incarnation. / This at the same time tells 
 against Hilgenfeld, p. 60 ff, according to whom, in the Pro- 
 logue, “the Gnosis of the absolute religion, from its immediate 
 foundation to its highest perfection, runs through the series of 
 its historical interventions.” According to Kostlin, p. 102 ff., 
 there is a brief triple description of all Christianity from the 
 beginning onwards to the present; and this, too, (1) from the 
 standing-point of God and His relation to the world, vv. 1-8; 
 then (2) from the relations of the Logos to mankind, vv. 
 9-13; and lastly, (3) in the individual, vv. 14-18, by which the 
 end returns to the beginning, ver. 1. But a triple beginning 
 (which Kaeuffer too assumes in the Sdchs. Stud. 1844, p. 108 fi.) 
 is neither formally hinted at nor really made: for, in ver. 9, 6 
 Aéyos is not the subject to jy, and this 7v must, agreeably to the 
 context, refer to the time of the Baptist, while Késtlin’s con- 
 struction and explanation of j»—épyéuevov is quite untenable; and 
 because in the last part, from ver. 14 onwards, the antithesis 
 between receiving and not receiving, so essential in the first two 
 parts, does not at all recur again. The simple explanation, in 
 harmony with the text, is as follows: The Prologue consists of 
 three parts,—namely, (1) Joln gives a description (a) of the 
 primeval existence of the Logos, vv. 1, 2, and (6) of His 
 creative work, ver. 3 (with the addition of the first part of ver. 
 
CHAP. I. 19, 20. 103 
 
 4, which is the transition to what follows). Next, (2) he repre- 
 sents Him in whom was life as the Light of mankind, ver. 4 ff., 
 and this indeed (a) as He once had been, when still without 
 the antithesis of darkness, ver. 4, and (0) as He was in this 
 antithesis, ver. 5. This shining in the darkness is continuous 
 (hence gaiver, ver. 5), and the tragic opposition occasioned there- 
 by now unfolds itself before our eyes onwards to ver. 13, in the 
 following manner: “Though John came forward and testified 
 of the Light, not being himself the Light, but a witness of the 
 Light (vv. 6—8),—though He, the true Light, was already eaist- 
 ing (ver. 9),—though He was in the world, and the world was 
 made by Him, still men acknowledged Him not; though He 
 came to His own, His own received Him not (vv. 10, 11); 
 whereas those who did receive Him obtained from Him power 
 to become the spiritual sons of God (vv. 12, 13).” Lastly, 
 (3) this blessedness of believers, due to the Logos who had his- 
 torically come, now constrains the apostle to make still more 
 prominent the mode and fashion in which He was manifested 
 in history (His incarnation), and had revealed His glory, vv. 
 14-18. Thus the Prologue certainly does not (against Baur) lfé 
 the historical owt of its own proper soil, and transfer it to the 
 sphere of metaphysics, but rather unveils its metaphysical side, 
 which was essentially contained in and connected with it, as 
 existing prior to its manifestation, and in the light of this its 
 metaphysical connection sums it up according to its essence and 
 antithesis, its actual development and the proof of its historical 
 truth being furnished by the subsequent detailed narrative in the 
 Gospel. We may distinguish the three parts thus: (1) The pre- 
 mundane existence and creative work of the Logos, vv. 1-4a; (2) 
 His work as the Light of men, and the opposition to this, vv- 4-13; 
 (3) The revelation of His glory which took place through the in- 
 carnation, vv. 14-18. Or, in the briefest way: the Logos (1) 
 as the creator ; (2) as the source of light; (3) as the manifes- 
 tation of the God-man. ‘This third part shows us the Incarnate 
 One again, ver. 18, where as éoupxog He was in the beginning— 
 6 ay cic +. xOAr. rod warpés; and the cycle is complete. 
 
 Vv. 19, 20. The historical narrative, properly so called, 
 now begins, and quite in the style of the primitive Gospels 
 (comp. Mark i.; Acts x. 36, 37, xiii. 23-25), with the testi- 
 mony of the Baptist. — «al] and, now first of all to narrate 
 the testimony already mentioned in ver. 15; for this, and not 
 ‘another borne before the baptism, is meant; see note foll. 
 ver. 28. atrn] “The following is the testimony of John, 
 
104 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 which he bore when,” etc.’ Instead of 67z, the evangelist 
 puts dre, because the idea of time was with him the predomi- 
 nant one. Comp. Pflugk, ad Hee. 107; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. 
 p. 393. Had he written 671, his thought would have been: 
 “ Herein did his testimony consist, that the Jews sent to him, 
 and he confessed,” etc. — ot "Iovdaiou] means, even in such 
 passages as this, where it is no merely indifferent designation 
 of the people (as in ii. 6, 18, iii 1, iv. 22, v. 1, xviii. 33 ff, 
 and often), nothing else than the Jews; yet John, writing 
 when he had long severed himself from Judaism, makes the 
 body of the Jews, as the old religious community from which 
 the Christian Church had already completely separated itself, 
 thus constantly appear in a hostile sense in face of the Lord 
 and His work, as the ancient theocratic people in corporate 
 opposition to the new community of God (which had entered 
 into their promised inheritance) and to its Head. How little 
 may be deduced from this as ground of argument against the 
 age and genuineness of the Gospel, see my Introd. a For 
 the rest, in individual passages, the context must ee show 
 who, considered more minutely as matter of history, the persons 
 in question were by whom oé ’Iovéaiou are represented, as in this 
 place, where it was plainly the Sanhedrim” who represented 
 the people of the old religion. Comp. v. 15, ix. 22, xviii. 12, 
 31, etc. — xat Aevitas] priests, consequently, with their 
 subordinates, who had, however, a position as teachers, and 
 aspired to priestly authority (see Ewald and Hengstenberg). 
 The mention of these together is a trait illustrative of John’s 
 precision of statement, differing from the manner of the Synop- 
 tics, but for that very reason, so far from raising doubts as to 
 the genuineness, attesting rather the independence and origi- 
 nality of John (against Weisse), who no longer uses the phrase 
 so often repeated in the Synoptics, “the scribes and elders,’ 
 because it had to him already become strange and out of date. 
 — ovis et] for John baptized (ver. 25), and this baptism 
 had reference to Messiah’s kingdom (Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26, 
 
 ! Following Origen and Cyril, Paulus and B. Crusius suppose that ¢rs begins 
 a new sentence, of which xa/ apordynze, etc., is to be takenas the apodosis—con- 
 trary to the simplicity of John’s style. 
 
 * Comp. ’Ayaioi in Homer, which often means the proceres of the Greeks. 
 
CHAP. I. 21. 105 
 
 xxxiii. 23; Zech. xiii. 1). He had, generally, made a great 
 sensation as a prophet, and had even given rise to the opinion 
 that he was the Messiah (Luke iii 15; comp. Acts xiii. 25); 
 hence the question of the supreme spiritual court was justified, 
 Deut. xviii. 21, 22, Matt. xxi. 23. The question itself is not 
 at all framed in a captious spirit. We must not, with Chry- 
 sostom and most others, regard it as prompted by any malicious 
 motive, but must explain it by the authoritative position of 
 the supreme court. Nevertheless it implies the assumption 
 that John regarded himself as the Messiah ; and hence his 
 answer in ver. 20, hence also the emphatic precedence given 
 to the ov; comp. viii. 25. Lwuthardt too hastily concludes 
 from the form of the question, that the main thing with them 
 was the person, not the call and purpose of God. But they 
 would have inferred the call and purpose of God from the 
 person, as the question which they ask in ver. 25 shows, — 
 e& ‘Iepoo.] belongs to arécteskav, — Kal @pondory.] still de- 
 pendent on the é7e. — ®puor. kal ovdK« Hpvyjo.] emphatic pro- 
 minence given to his straightforward confession; @s dd7yO7s> 
 kal oteppos, Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Eur. Zl. 1057: 
 Pypi Kai ovK atrapvotpar; Soph. Ant. 443; Dem. de Chers. 
 108. 73: rAEEw mpos tuas Kal ovK atroxpiouar. See Bremi 
 in loc.; Valcken. Schol. ad Act. xiii. 11.— «al ®ponr.] The 
 first «x. @por. was absolute (Add. ad Esth. i. 15, and in the 
 classics) ; this second has for subject the following sentence 
 (dre recitative). Moreover, “ vehementer auditorem commovet 
 ejusdem redintegratio verbi,” ad Herenn. iv. 28. There is, 
 however, no side glance here at the disciples of John (comp. 
 the Introd.). To the evangelist, who had himself been the 
 pupil of the Baptist, the testimony of the latter was weighty 
 enough in itself to lead him to give it emphatic prominence. 
 — According to the right order of the words (see crit. notes), 
 éy@ ovK« eiul o X., the emphasis lies upon éyw ; I on my part, 
 which implies that he knew another who was the Messiah. 
 Ver. 21. In consequence of this denial, the next point was 
 to inquire whether he was the lias who, according to Mal. 
 iv. 5, was expected (back from heaven) as the immediate fore- 
 runner of the Messiah. —ré ody] not, quid ergo es (Beza 
 et al.), but as tés does not again occur (vers. 19, 22): what 
 
106 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 then ts the case, if thou art not the Messiah? what is the real 
 state of the matter ?— Art thou Elias? So put, the question 
 assumes it as certain that John must give himself out to be 
 Elias, after he had denied that he was the Messiah. — ov« 
 eit] He could give this answer, notwithstanding what is 
 said in Luke i. 17, Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 10 (against Hilgenfeld), 
 since he could only suppose his interrogators were thinking of 
 the literal, not of the antitypical Elijah. Bengel well says: 
 “omnia a se amolitur, ut Christum confiteatur et ad Christum 
 redigat quaerentes.” He was conscious, nevertheless, according 
 to ver. 23, in what sense he was Elias; but taking the question 
 as literally meant, there was no occasion for him to go beyond 
 that meaning, and to ascribe to himself in a special manner 
 the character of an antitypical Elias, which would have been 
 neither prudent nor profitable. The ov« ets is too definite an 
 answer to the definite question, to be taken as a denial in 
 general of every externally defined position (Briickner) ; he 
 would have had to answer evasively. — 6 mpogrns et ov; ] 
 The absence of any connecting link in the narrative shows the 
 rapid, hasty manner of the interrogation. o mpodpyrys is 
 marked out by the article as the well-known promised prophet, 
 and considering the previous question ’Hdéas ef ov, can only 
 be a nameless one, and therefore not Jeremias, according to 
 Matt. xvi. 14 (Grotius, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Klee, Lange), but 
 the one intended in Deut. xviii. 15, the reference of whom to 
 the Messiah Himself (Acts iii. 22, vii. 37; John i. 46, vi. 14) 
 was at least not universal (comp. vil. 40), and was not adopted 
 by the interrogators here. Judging from the descending climax 
 of the points of these questions, they must rather have thought 
 of some one inferior to Elias, or, in general, of an individual 
 undefined, owing to the fluctuation of view regarding Him 
 who was expected as “the prophet.”1 Nonnus well expresses 
 the namelessness and yet eminence of this 6 mpogyjrns: pa) ov 
 Lol, Ov KadéovaeL, Oenyopos éool rpodyrns, ayyEros Ecoomévwr ; 
 
 1 Luthardt thinks of the prophet in the second portion of Isaiah. Comp. 
 Hofmann, Weissag u. Hrf. Il. p. 69. It would agree with this, that John 
 immediately gives an answer taken from Isa. xl. Butif his interrogators had 
 had in mind Isa. xl. ff., they would probably have designated him whom they 
 meant more characteristically, viz. as the servant of Jehovah. 
 
CHAP. I. 22-27. 107 
 
 Observe how the rigid denials become shortened at last to the 
 bare o¥, Here also we have a no on the Baptist’s lips, because 
 in his view Jesus was the prophet of Deut. xviil 
 
 Vv. 22, 23. Now comes the question which cannot be met 
 by a bare negative; iva as in ix. 36. — The positive answer to 
 this is from Isa. xl. 3 according to the LXX., with the varia- 
 tion ev@vvare instead of érouwacare, in unison with the second 
 half of the words in the LXX. For the rest, see on Matt. iii. 3. 
 The designation of himself, the herald of the coming Messiah 
 calling men to repentance, as a voice, was given in the words 
 of the prophet, and the accompanying Powvtos év TH épjuw 
 excludes the idea which Baur entertains, that John here 
 intended to divest himself, as it were, of every personal charac- 
 teristic. According to Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 236, the evan- 
 gelist has put the passage of Scripture applied to the Baptist 
 by the Synoptics (who, however, have not ¢hzs account at all) 
 “ at last into the Baptist’s own mouth.” 
 
 Ver. 24 ff. The inquiry, which proceeds still further, finds 
 a pragmatic issue in pharisaic style (for the Sanhedrim had 
 chosen their deputies from this learned, orthodox, and crafty 
 party). From their strict scholastic standing-point, they could 
 allow (odv) so thoroughly reformatory an innovation as that of 
 baptism (see on Matt. iii, 5), considering its connection with 
 Messiah’s kingdom, only to the definite personalities of the 
 Messiah, Elias, or the promised prophet, and not to a man 
 with so vague a call as that which the Baptist from Isa. xl. 3 
 ascribed to himself,—a passage which the Pharisees had not 
 thought of explaining in a Messianic sense, and were not accus- 
 tomed so to apply it in their schools. Hence the parenthetical 
 remark just here inserted: “ And they that were sent belonged 
 to the Pharisees,” —a statement, therefore, which points forwards, 
 and does not serve as a supplementary explanation of the 
 hostile spirit of the question (Euthymius Zigabenus, Liicke, 
 and most others). — The reply corresponds to what the Baptist 
 had said of himself in ver. 23, that he was appointed to prepare 
 the way for the Messiah. His baptism, consequently, was not 
 the baptism of the Spirit, which was reserved for the Messiah 
 (ver. 33), but a baptism of water, yet without the elementum 
 cocleste ; there was already standing, however, in their midst the 
 
108 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 far greater One, to whom this preparatory baptism pointed) 
 The first clause of the verse, éy@ Barr. év USare, implies, there- 
 fore, that by Ais baptism he does not lay claim to anything 
 that belongs to the Messiah (the baptism of the Spirit); and this 
 portion refers to the ef od ov« ef 0 Xpioros of ver. 25. The 
 second clause, however, pécos, etc., implies that this prelimi- 
 nary baptism of his had now the justification, owing to his 
 relation to the Messiah, of a divinely ordained necessity (ver. 
 23); since the Messiah, unknown indeed to them, already 
 stood in their midst, and consequently what they allowed to 
 Elias, or the prophet, dare not be left unperformed on his 
 part; and this part of his answer refers to the ovdé ’"HXias 
 ovdé 6 mpodytns in ver. 25. Thus the question ti ody 
 Barrifers is answered by a twofold reason. There is much 
 that is inappropriate in the remarks of expositors, who have 
 not sufficiently attended to the connection: eg., De Wette 
 overlooks the appropriateness of the answer to the Elias 
 question; Tholuck contents himself with an appeal to the 
 “laconic-comma style” of the Baptist; and Briickner thinks 
 that “John wished to give no definite answer, but yet to in- 
 dicate his relation to the Messiah, and the fact of his pointing, 
 to Him;” while Baumlein holds that the antithetical clause, ds 
 Bartices év mvevp. ay., which was already intended to be here 
 inserted, was forgotten, owing to the intervening sentences ; and 
 finally, Hilgenfeld, after comparing together Matthew and Luke, 
 deduces the unhistorical character of the narrative. Heracleon 
 already was even of opinion that John did not answer accord- 
 ing to the question asked of him, but as he adros éSovAero. 
 In answer to him, Origen.— éyo#] has the emphasis of an 
 antithesis to the higher Baptizer (uwéaos 6é, etc.), not to tpmeis 
 (Godet). Next to this, the stress lies on év ddarTt. This is 
 the element (see on Matt. ii. 11) in which his baptism was 
 performed. This otherwise superfluous addition has a limiting 
 force, and hence is important. — wéoos] without the spurious 
 dé is all the more emphatic; see on ver. 17. The empha- 
 sizing of the antithesis, however, has brought this wécos to the 
 front, because it was the manifestation of the Messiah, already 
 taking place in the very midst of the Jews, which justified John 
 in baptizing. Had the Messiah been still far off, that baptism 
 
CHAP. I. 28. 109 
 
 would have lacked its divine necessity ; He was, however, 
 standing in their midst, 1c. dvayeprypévos ToTe TS AAD (Euthy- 
 mius Zigabenus). — dv tmets ovK oldare] reveals the reason 
 why they could question as they had done in ver. 25. The 
 emphasis is on tpeis, as always (against Tholuck); here in 
 contrast with the knowledge which he himself had (see on 
 ver. 28, note) of the manifested Messiah: you on your part, 
 you people, have the Messiah among you, and know Him not 
 (that is, as the Messiah). In ver. 27, after rejecting the 
 words avtos éotw and 0s Eusmpoc. wou yéyovev (see the critical 
 notes), there remains only 0 67icw pov épxowevos (ver. 15), 
 and that in fact as the subject of wécos Errnxev, which subject 
 then receives the designation of its superiority over the Bap- 
 tist in the od éym ov« eiul a&os, «.7.X. Concerning this desig- 
 nation, see on Matt. iii. 11.— éyo] I for my part. — dEvos 
 tva| worthy that I should loose ; tva introduces the purpose of 
 the afwrns. Comp. ixavos iva, Matt. viii. 8, Luke vii. 6. — 
 avtov| placed jirst for emphasis, and corresponding to the éyo. 
 On avrod after ov, see Winer, p. 140 [E. T. p. 184]. Tovrou 
 would have been still more emphatic. 
 
 Ver. 28. On account of the importance of His public 
 appearance, a definite statement of its locality is again given. 
 —A place so exactly described by John himself (xi. 18), 
 according to its situation, as Bethany on the Mount of Olives, 
 cannot be meant here; there must also have been another 
 Bethany situated in Peraea, probably only a village, of which 
 nothing further is known from history. Origen, investigat- 
 ing both the locality and the text, did not find indeed any 
 Bethany, but a Bethabara instead’ (comp. Judg. vii. 24 2), 
 which the legends of his day described as the place of 
 
 1 To suppose, with Possinus, Spicil. Evang. p. 32 (in the Catena in Marc. 
 p: 382 f.), that both names have the same signification ry nya, domus tran- 
 
 situs, ford-house ; MIN na, domus navis, ferry-house),—a view to which even 
 
 Lange inclines, L. goin 461,—is all the more untenable, seeing that this etymo- 
 logy i is not at all appropriate to the position of Bethany on fhe. Mount of Olives. 
 Origen himself explains the name Bethabara with an evident intention to allego- 
 Tize : olxes xaraoxsuys (NUN). The derivation of the name Bethany (Lightfoot : 
 3 13, house of dates; Simon: m3) m2, locus depressionis; others: 
 
 NY Ma, domus miseri) is doubtful. 
 
110 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 baptism; the legend, however, misled him. For Bethany in 
 Peraea could not have been situated at all in the same latitude 
 with Jericho, as the tradition represents, but must have lain 
 much farther north; for Jesus occupied about three days in 
 travelling thence to the Judaean Bethany for the raising of 
 Lazarus (see on xi. 17). Yet Paulus (following Bolten) 
 understood the place to be Bethany on the Mount of Olives, 
 and puts a period after éyévero, in spite of the facts that 77 
 érravptov (comp. ver. 35) must begin the new narration, and that 
 é7rov nv "Iwavy. Barr. oust clearly refer to ver. 25 ff. Baur, 
 however, makes the name, which according to Schenkel must 
 be attributed to an error of a non-Jewish author, to have been 
 invented, in order to represent Jesus (?) as beginning His public 
 ministry at a Bethany, seeing that He came out of a Bethany 
 at its close. Against the objection still taken to this name 
 even by Weizsicker (a name which a third person was certainly 
 least of all likely to venture to insert, seeing that Bethany on 
 the Mount of Olives was so well known), see Ewald, Jahrb. 
 XII. p. 214 ff As to the historic truth of the whole accownt 
 in vv. 19-28, which, especially by the reality of the situa- 
 tion, by the idiosyncrasy of the questions and answers, and 
 their appropriateness in relation to the characters and circum- 
 stances of the time, as well as by their connection with the 
 reckoning of the day in the following verses, reveals the recol- 
 lections and interest of an eye-witness, see Schweizer, p. 100 ff.; 
 Bleek, Beitr. p. 256. — daov hv ’Iwavy. Bamt.| where John 
 was employed in baptizing. 
 
 Note—(1.) Seeing that, according to vv. 26, 27 (comp. espe- 
 cially tv bwets odx ofdure, Which imphes his own personal 
 acquaintance), the Baptist already knows the Messiah, while 
 according to vv. 31-33 he first learned to recognise Him at 
 His baptism by means of a divine onueiov, it certainly follows 
 that the occurrences related in vv. 19-28 took place after the 
 baptism of Jesus; and consequently this baptism could not have 
 occurred on the same or the following day (Hengstenberg), 
 nor in the time between vv. 31 and 32 (Ewald). Wieseler, 
 Ebrard, Luthardt, Godet, and most expositors, as already Liicke, 
 Tholuck, De Wette, following ‘the older expositors, rightly 
 regard the events of ver. 19 ff. as subsequent to the baptism. 
 It is futile to appeal, as against this (Brickner), to the “7inde- 
 
CHAP. I. 28 ne la 
 
 finiteness” of the words Gy tues odx ofdure, for there is really no 
 indefiniteness in them; while to refer them to a merely pre- 
 liminary knowledge, in opposition to the definite acquaintance 
 which began at the baptism, is (against Hengstenberg) a mere 
 subterfuge. That even after the baptism, which had already 
 taken place, John could say,“ Ye know Him not,” is sufficiently 
 conceivable, if we adhere to the purely historical account of the 
 baptism, as given in vv. 31-34. See on Matt p.111ff. (2.) 
 Although, according to Matt. iii. 14, John already knows Jesus 
 as the Messiah when He came to be baptized of him, there is in 
 this only an apparent discrepancy between the two evangelists ; 
 see on ver. 31. (3.) Mark i. 7, 8, and Luke ui. 16 ff, are not 
 at variance with John; for those passages only speak of the 
 Messiah as being in Himself near at hand, and do not already 
 presuppose any personal acquaintance with Jesus as the Mes- 
 siah. (4.) The testimonies borne by the Baptist, as recorded in 
 the Synoptics, are, both as to time (before the baptism) and 
 occasion, very different from that recorded in John 1. 19 ff., 
 which was given before a deputation from the high court; and 
 therefore the historic truth of both accounts is to be retained 
 side by side,’ though in details John (against Weisse, who attri- 
 butes the narrative in John to another hand; so Baur and 
 others) must be taken as the standard. (5.) To deny any 
 reference in ver. 19 ff. to the baptism of Jesus (Baur), is 
 quite irreconcilable with vv. 31 and 33; for the evangelist 
 could not but take it for granted that the baptism of Jesus 
 (which indeed Weisse, upon the whole, questions) was a well- 
 known fact. (6.) Definite as is the reference to the baptism of 
 Jesus, there is not to be found any allusion whatever in John’s 
 - account to the history of the temptation with its forty days, which 
 can be brought in only before ver. 19, and even then involving 
 a contradiction with the Synoptics. The total absence of any 
 mention of this—important as it would have been in connection 
 with the baptism, and with John’s design generally in view of 
 his idea of the Logos (against B. Crusius)—does not certainly 
 favour the reality of its historic truth as an actual and outward 
 event. Comp. Schleiermacher, Z. J. p. 154. If the baptism of 
 
 1 Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 522, sees in John’s account not so much an historical 
 narrative, as rather (?) a ‘* very significant literary introduction to the Baptist, 
 who to a certain extent (2) is officially declaring himself. According to Scholten, 
 the Baptist, during his ministry, did not at all recognise Jesus as Messiah, and 
 Matt. iii. 14, 15 is said to be an addition to the text of Mark ;” while the 
 fourth Gospel does not relate the baptism of Jesus, but only mentions the revela- 
 tion from heaven then made, because to narrate the former would not be appro- 
 priate to the Gnosis of the Logos, 
 
rez THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Jesus be placed between the two testimonies of ver. 19 ff. and 
 ver. 29 ff. (so Hilgenfeld and Briickner, following Olshausen, 
 B. Crusius, and others), which would oblige us still to place it 
 on the day of the first testimony (see Briickner), though Baum- 
 lein (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1846, p. 389) would leave this uncer- 
 tain ; then the history of the temptation is as good as expressly 
 excluded by John, because it must find its place (Mark i. 12; 
 Matt. iv. 1; Luke iv. 1) immediately after the baptism. In 
 opposition to this view, Hengstenberg puts it in the period after 
 i. 22, which is only an unavailing makeshift. 
 
 Ver. 29. TH érravptov] on the following day, the next after 
 the events narrated in vv. 19-28. Comp. vv. 35, 44 (ii. 1), 
 vi. 22, xii. 12. — épyop. pds avdt.] coming towards him, not 
 coming to him, v.e. only so near that he could point to Him 
 (Baur). He came, however, neither to take leave of the Bap- 
 tist before His temptation (Kuinoel, against which is ver. 35), 
 nor to be baptized of him (Ewald, Hengstenberg ; see the 
 foregoing note) ; but with a purpose not more fully known to 
 us, which John has not stated, because he was not concerned 
 about that, but about the testimony of the Baptist. If we were 
 to take into account the narrative of the temptation,—which, 
 however, is not the case——Jesus might be regarded as here 
 returning from the temptation (see Euthymius Zigabenus, 
 Liicke, Luthardt, Riggenbach, Godet).—iSe 0 awvos Tod Geod, 
 «.t.r.| These words are not addressed to Jesus, but to those 
 who are around the Baptist, and they are suggested by the 
 sight of Jesus ; comp. ver. 36. As to the use of the singular 
 toe, When nevertheless several are addressed, see on Matt. x. 
 16. The article denotes the appointed Lamb of God, which, 
 according to the prophetic utterance presupposed as well 
 known, was expected in the person of the Messiah. This cha- 
 racteristic form of Messianic expectation is based upon Isa. 
 lili. 7. Comp. Matt. viii. 17; Luke xxii. 37; Acts viii. 32; 
 1 Pet. ii. 22 ff; and the dpviov in the Apocalypse. On the 
 force of the article, see ver. 21, 0 mpodyrns; also 7 pita Tob 
 ’Teccat, Rom. xv. 12; 6 A€wv o ex Ths duds Iovda, Rev. v. 
 5. The genitive is that of possession, that which belongs to 
 God, i.e. the lamb appointed as a sacrifice by God Himself. 
 This interpretation follows from the entire contents of Isa. li, 
 and from the idea of sacrifice which is contained in 0 aipw», 
 
CHAP. I. 29. 113 
 
 x.7.X. We must not therefore render: “the Lamb given by 
 God” (Hofmann, Luthardt). But while, according to this 
 view, the lamb, designated and appointed by God, is meant,— 
 the lamb already spoken of in holy prophecies of old, whose 
 fulfilment in Jesus was already recognised by the Baptist,— 
 it is erroneous to assume any reference to the paschal lamb 
 (Luther, Grotius, Bengel, Lampe, Olshausen, Maier, Reuss, 
 Luthardt, Hofmann, Hengstenberg ; comp. Godet). Such an 
 assumption derives no support from the more precise definition 
 in 0 aipay, «.7.r., and would produce a detepov mpdrepov ; for 
 the view which regarded Christ as the paschal lamb first arose 
 ex eventu, because He was crucified upon the same day on which 
 the paschal lamb was slain (see on xviii. 28 ; 1 Cor.v. 7). He 
 certainly thus became the antitype of the paschal lamb, but, 
 according to the whole tenor of the passage in Isaiah, He was 
 not regarded by the Baptist in this special aspect, nor could He 
 be so conceived of by his hearers. The conception of sacrifice 
 which, according to the prophecy in Isaiah and the immediate 
 connection in John, is contained ino duvos Tod Oeod, is that of 
 the trespass-offering, OVS, Isa. lili. 10 ;’ 1 John ii. 2, iv. 10,i. 7. 
 It by no means militates against this, that, according to the law, 
 lambs were not as a rule employed for trespass-offerings (Lev. 
 xiv. 2, Num. vi. 12, relate to exceptional cases only ; and the 
 daily morning and evening sacrifices, Ex. xxix. 38 ff., Num. 
 XXviil., which Wetstein here introduces, were prayer- and thank- 
 offerings), but for sacrifices of purification (Lev. v. 1-6, xiv. 12; 
 Num. vi. 12):? for in Isaiah the Servant of Jehovah, who makes 
 atonement for the people by His vicarious sufferings, is repre- 
 sented as a lamb; and it is this prophetic view, not the legal 
 prescription, which is the ruling thought here. Christ was, as 
 the Baptist here prophetically recognises Him, the antitype of 
 the O. T. sacrifices: He must therefore, as such, be represented 
 in the form of some animal appointed for sacrifice ; and the ap- 
 propriate figure was given not in the law, but by the prophet, who, 
 
 1 As to the distinction between trespass or guilt and sin offerings, myn, 
 see Ewald, Alterth. p. 76 ft.; and for the various opinions on this distinction, 
 especially Keil, Arch. I. § 46; Oehler in Herzog’s Encykl. X. p. 462 ff.; Saal- 
 schiitz, Mf. R. p. 321 ff. 
 
 ® Concerning OWS, Lev. v. 6, see Knobel in loc, 
 
 H 
 
114 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 contemplating Him in His gentleness and meekness, represents 
 
 *) Him as a sacrificial Jamb, and from this was derived the form 
 
 which came to be the normal one in the Christian manner of 
 
 _ view. The apostolic church consequently could apprehend Him 
 
 as the Christian Passover; though legally the passover lamb, as 
 a trespass-offering, which it certainly was, differed from the ordi- 
 nary trespass-offerings (Ewald, Alterth. p. 467 f.; Hengstenberg 
 takes a different view, Opfer. d. h. Schr. p. 24 ff.). This Christian 
 method of view accordingly had a prophetical, and not a legal 
 foundation. To exclude the idea of sacrifice altogether, and to 
 find in the expression Lamb of God the representation merely 
 of a divinely consecrated, innocent, and gentle sufferer (Gabler, 
 Melet. in Joh. i. 29, Jen. 1808-1811, in his Opuse. p. 514 ff; 
 Paulus, Kuinoel), is opposed to the context both in Isaiah and 
 in John, as well as to the view of the work of redemption 
 which pervades the whole of the N. T. Weiss, Lehrbegr. 
 p. 159 ff.— 6 aipwy t. aduapt. T. Kocpov] may either sig- 
 nify, “ who takes away the sin of the world,” or, “ who takes 
 upon himself, etc., ae. in order to bear it. Both renderings 
 (which Flacius, Melancthon, and most others, even Baumlein, 
 combine) must, according to Isa. lili, express the idea of 
 atonement; so that in the first the cancelling of the guilt is 
 conceived of as a removing, a doing away with sin (an aboli- 
 tion of it); in the second, as a bearing (an expiation) of it. 
 The latter interpretation is usually preferred (so Liicke, B. 
 Crusius, De Wette, Hengstenberg, Briickner, Ewald, Weber, 
 v. Zorne Gottes, p. 250), because in Isa. lili. the idea is cer- 
 tainly that of bearing by way of expiation (nw: LXX. ¢déper, 
 avéveyke, avoice). But since the LXX. never use aipew to 
 express the bearing of sin, but always dépew, etc., while on 
 the other hand they express the taking away of sin by aipew 
 (1 Sam. xv. 25, xxv. 28; Aq. Ps. xxxi 5, where Symm. has 
 adédys and the LXX. d¢jxas); and as the context of 1 John 
 iii. 5, in like manner, requires us to take Tas: duaptias 7)uav 
 dpn, there used to denote the act of expiation (comp. li. 2), as 
 signifying the taking away of sins; so 0 aipwy, etc., here is to 
 be explained in this sense,—not, indeed, that the Baptist ex- 
 presses an idea different from Isa. liii., but the expiation there 
 described as a bearing of sins is represented, according to its 
 
CHAP. I. 29. 115 
 
 necessary and immediate result, as the abolition of sins by 
 virtue of the vicarious sacrificial suffering and death of the 
 victim, as the a@érnovs duaptias, Heb. ix. 26. Comp. already 
 Cyril: ta tod Kocpov thy dpaptiay dvédn; Vulgate: qui 
 tollit ; Goth.: afnimith. John himself expresses this idea in 
 1 John i. 7, when referring to the sin-cleansing power of 
 Christ’s blood, which operates also on those who are already 
 regenerate (see Diisterdieck 7m loc., p. 99 ff.), by ca@apifer Huds 
 amo Tdaons auaptias. The taking away of sins by the Lamb 
 presupposes His taking them upon Himself. The interpreta- 
 tion “ to take away,’ in itself correct, is (after Grotius) misused 
 by Kuinoel: “ removebit peccata hominum, zc. pravitatem e 
 terra;”* and Gabler has misinterpreted the rendering “ to bear:” 
 “qui pravitatem hominum ... ze. mala sibi inflicta, patienti 
 et mansueto animo swstinebit.” Both are opposed to the neces- 
 sary relation of the word to o dures Tt. Oeod, as well as to the 
 real meaning of Isa. liii.; although even Gabler’s explanation 
 would not in itself be linguistically erroneous, but would have 
 to be referred back to the signification, to take wpon oneself, to 
 take over (Aisch. Pers. 544; Soph. Zr. 70; Xen. Mem. iv. 4. 
 14; 1 Mace. xiii. 17; Matt. xi. 29, al.).— The Present o 
 aipwyv arises from the fact that the Baptist prophetically views 
 the act of atonement accomplished by the Lamb of God as 
 present. This act is ever-enduring, not in itself, but in its 
 effects (against Hengstenberg). Luthardt holds that the words 
 are not to be understood of the future, and that the Baptist 
 had not Christ’s death in view, but only regarded and desig- 
 nated Him in a general way, as one who was manifested in a 
 body of weakness, and with liability to suffering, in order to 
 the salvation of men. But this is far too general for the con- 
 crete representation of Christ as the Zamb of God, and for the 
 express reference herein made to sin, especially from the lips of 
 a man belonging to the old theocracy, who was himself the son 
 of a sacrificing priest, a Nazarite and a prophet. — 72)v dmuap- 
 7/av] the sins of the world conceived of as a collective unity; 
 
 Comp. Baur, V. T. Theol. p. 396 : ‘‘In a general sense, He bears away and 
 removes sin by His personal manifestation and ministry throughout.” This 
 is connected with the error that we do not find in John the same significance 
 attached to Christ’s death which we find in Paul. 
 
116 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 “ una pestis, que omnes corripuit,” Bengel. Comp. Rom. v. 20. 
 — Tov xocpov] an extension of the earlier prophetic repre- 
 sentation of atonement for the people, Isa. liu, to all mankind, 
 the reconciliation of whom has been objectively accomplished by 
 the irkacriHpiov of the Lamb of God, but is accomplished swb- 
 jectively in all who believe (iii. 15, 16). Comp. Rom. v. 18. 
 
 Note.—That the Baptist describes Jesus as the Messiah, who 
 by His sufferings makes expiation for the world’s sin, is to be 
 explained by considering his apocalyptic position, by which his 
 prophecies, which had immediate reference to the person and 
 work of Jesus, were conditioned ; comp. vv. 31 ff. It was not 
 that he had obtained a sudden glimpse of light in a natural 
 manner (Hofmann, Schweizer, Lange), or a growing presenti- 
 ment (De Wette), or a certitude arrived at by reason and deep 
 reflection (Ewald) ; but a revelation had been made to him 
 (comp. ver. 33). This was necessary in order to announce the 
 idea of a suffering Messiah with such decision and distinctness, 
 even according to its historical realization in Jesus ;—an idea 
 which, though it had been discovered by a few deep-seeing 
 minds through prophetic hints or divine enlightenment (Luke 
 ii. 25, 34, 35), nevertheless undoubtedly encountered in general 
 expectations of a kind diametrically opposite (xii. 34; Luke 
 xxiv. 26),—and in order likewise to give to that idea the impress 
 of world-embracing universality, although the way was already 
 prepared for this by the promise made to Abraham. The 
 more foreign the idea of a suffering Messiah was to the people 
 in general, the more disinclined the disciples of Jesus showed 
 themselves to aceept such a view (Matt. xvi. 21; Luke xxiv. 25); 
 the more certain that its dissemination was effected by the 
 development of the history, while even thus remaining a con- 
 stant oxdvdaro to the Jews, the more necessary and justifiable 
 does it appear to suppose a special divine revelation, with which 
 the expression borrowed from Isa. liii. may very well be con- 
 sistent. And the more certain it is that the Baptist really 
 was the subject of divine revelations as the forerunner of the 
 Messiah (comp. Matt. iii, 14), all the more unhistorical is the 
 assumption that the evangelist divests the idea of the Messiah 
 of its historical form (Keim) by putting his own knowledge 
 into the Baptist’s mouth (Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Hilgenfeld, 
 Scholten; comp. De Wette’s doubt, but against this latter, 
 Briickner). This view receives no support from the subsequent 
 vacillation of the Baptist (Matt. xi. 3), because the revelation 
 which he had received, as well as that made to him at the 
 baptism (ver. 32), would not exclude a subsequent and tempo- 
 
CHAP. I. 30, 81. LL7 
 
 rary falling into error, and because this was not caused by any 
 sufferings which Jesus underwent, but by his own sufferings in 
 face of the Messianic works of Jesus, whereby the divine light 
 previously received was dimmed through human weakness and 
 impatience. It is only by surrendering the true interpretation 
 (see 6 aipwy above) that Luthardt avoids such a supposition as 
 this. The notion of a spiritualizing legend (Schenkel) is of 
 itself excluded by the genuineness of the Gospel, whose author 
 had been a disciple of the Baptist. Moreover, Jesus Himself, 
 according even to the testimony of the Synoptics (Mark u. 20 ; 
 Matt. xii. 39, etc.), was sufficiently acquainted from the very 
 first with the certainty of His final sufferings, 
 
 Ver. 30 does not refer to vv. 26, 27, where John bears his 
 witness before the deputies from the Sanhedrim, but to an 
 earlier testimony borne by him before his disciples and hearers, 
 and in this definite enigmatic form, to which ver. 15 likewise 
 refers. So essential is this characteristic form, that of itself it 
 excludes the reference to vv. 26, 27 (De Wette, Hengstenberg, 
 Ewald, Godet, and others). The general testimony which John 
 had previously borne to the coming Messiah, here receives its 
 definite application to the concrete personality there standing 
 before him, ze. to Jesus. — éort] not Hv again, as in ver. 15, 
 for Jesus is now present. — éy#] possesses the emphasis of a 
 certain inward feeling of prophetic certitude. — avyp] as 
 coming from the Baptist, more reverential and honourable than 
 avOpwros. Acts xvii. 31; Zech. vi. 12; Dem. 426. 6; 
 Herod. vii. 210; Xen. Hier. vii: 3. 
 
 Ver. 31. Kayo] not J also, like all others, but and J, 
 resuming and carrying forward the éy# of ver. 30. Though 
 the Baptist had borne witness in a general way concerning 
 the Messiah, as ver. 30 affirms, Jesus was, at the time when 
 he bare that witness, still unknown to him as in His own 
 person the historic Messiah. Ver. 34 shows that «al in Kayo 
 is the simple and; for the thrice repeated xayo, vv. 31-34, 
 can only be arbitrarily interpreted in different senses. The 
 emphasis of the éy#, however (J on my part), consists in his 
 ignorance of the special individuality, in the face of the divine 
 revelation which he had received. —ov« 7d5evv avdtov] that 
 is, as the Messiah, see ver. 33; not “as the manifestation of a 
 pre-existent personality” (Hilgenfeld); still not denying, in 
 
118 THE GOSPEL OF JOIN. 
 
 general, every kind of previous acquaintance with Jesus 
 (Liicke, Godet), which the following ta gavepwOj and ov 
 vpeis ove oldate in ver. 26 forbid. This ov« dev leaves it 
 quite uncertain whether the Baptist had any personal acquaint- 
 ance generally with Jesus (and this is by no means placed 
 beyond doubt by the legendary prefatory history in Luke i. 
 36 ff., which is quite irreconcilable with the text before us). 
 That Jesus was the Messiah became known to the Baptist only 
 at the baptism itself, by the sign of the descending dove; and 
 this sign was immediately preceded only by the prophetic 
 presentiment of which Matt. iii. 14 is the impress (see on that 
 passage). Accordingly, we are not to assume any contradiction 
 between our text and Matt. /.c. (Strauss, Baur, and most others), 
 nor leave the ov« 7de with its meaning unexplained (Briick- 
 ner); nor, again, are we to interpret it only comparatively as a 
 denial of clear and certain knowledge (Neander, Maier, Riggen- 
 bach, Hengstenberg, Ewald).— ar tva havepwOh, x.7.r.] 
 occupying an emphatic position at the beginning of the clause, 
 and stating the purpose of the Baptist’s manifestation as re- 
 ferring to Messiah, and as still applying notwithstanding the 
 Kayo ovx joe, and being thus quite independent of his own 
 intention and choice, and purely a matter of divine ordination. 
 — iva davepwy] This special purpose, in the expression 
 of which, moreover, no reference can be traced to Isa, xl. 5 
 (against Hengstenberg), does not exclude the more generally 
 and equally divine ordinance in ver. 23, but is included in it. 
 Comp. the tradition in Justin, ¢. Zryph. 8, according to which 
 the Messiah remained unknown to Himself and others, until 
 Elias anointed Him and made Him manifest to all (favepor 
 Tact Toujon).—év TO VOaTL Bartifwy] a humble description 
 of his own baptism as compared with that of Him who baptizes 
 with the Spirit, ver. 33; comp. ver. 26. Hence also the eye, I 
 on my part. For the rest, we must understand év 7. 06. Barr. of 
 John’s call to baptize in general, in which was also included the 
 conception of the baptizing of Jesus, to which ver. 32 refers.’ 
 
 1 For ty ra #21, Lachmann (now also Tischendorf), following B. C. G. L. 
 P. A. N., cursives, and some of the Fathers, reads év #3271; but the article after 
 ver. 26, comp. ver. 33, would be more easily omitted than inserted. It is 
 demonstrative, for John as he speaks is standing by the Jordan. 
 
‘CHAP. I. 32. : 119 
 
 Ver. 82. What John had said in ver. 31, viz. that though 
 Jesus was unknown to him as the Messiah, yet his commission 
 was to make Him known to the people, needed explanation ; 
 and that as to the way in which he himself had come to recognise 
 Him as the Messiah. This was, indeed, a necessary condition 
 ‘before he could make the ¢avépwors to the people. This ex- 
 planation he now gives in the following testimony (not first 
 spoken upon another occasion, Ewald) concerning the divine 
 onpectov, which he beheld. And the evangelist considers this 
 testimony so weighty, that he does not simply continue the 
 words of the Baptist, but solemnly and emphatically introduces 
 the testimony as such: cal éwaptipycey, x.7.r., words which 
 are not therefore parenthetical (Bengel, Liicke, and most), but 
 from an impressive part of the record: “And a testimony did 
 John bear, when he said.” The following étz is simply recita- 
 tive. — teOéapac] I have seen; Perfect, like é#paxa in ver. 
 34, which see. The phenomenon itself took place at the 
 baptism, which is assumed as known through the Gospel 
 tradition, and is referred to in ver. 33 by 0 méurpas pe Bar- 
 Tigeww év vdoate, which implies that the onetov was to take 
 place at the baptism of the person spoken of. This is in 
 answer to Baur, p. 104 ff, according to whom there is no 
 room here for the supposition that Jesus was baptized by 
 John,—an assertion all the more groundless, because if we 
 insert the baptism of Jesus before ver. 19, there is no place 
 in the plan of this Gospel for the narration of a fact which is 
 assumed as universally known.—The sight ctself here spoken 
 of was no mere production of the imagination, but a real 
 sight; it indicates an actual event divinely brought about, 
 which was traditionally worked up by the Synoptics into a 
 visible occurrence more or less objective (most unhesitatingly 
 
 Yoy Luke), but which can be the subject of testimony only 
 by virtue of a Gewpia vontixy (Origen). See on Matt. iii. 17, 
 note. —@s mepiotepav] we. shaped like a dove: avtitvTov 
 Hiunua medevddos, Nonnus. See on Matt. iii. 16. According 
 to Ewald, “the sudden downward flight of a bird, coming near 
 to Him at the moment, confirmed the Baptist’s presentiment,” 
 etc. Conjectures of this kind are additions quite alien to the 
 prophetic mode of view. — «Kali éuevvev én’ adrov] The 
 
120 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 transition here to the finite verb is owing to the importance 
 of the fact stated. Bernhardy, p. 473; Buttmann, WV. 7. Gk. 
 p. 327 [E.T. p. 382]. éw adtov, however, is not synony- 
 mous with é’ avrod (xix. 31); the idea is, “7t remained 
 (‘fluttered not away, Luther) directed towards Him.” We 
 are to suppose the appearance of a dove coming down, and 
 poising itself for a considerable time over the head of the 
 person. See on éwi with the acsusative (iii. 36; 1 Pet. iv. 
 14), seemingly on the question “where?” Schaef. ad Long. 
 p. 427; Matthiae, p. 1375; Kiihner, ad Xen. Anab. i. 2. 2. 
 Ver. 33. John’s recognition of Jesus as the Messiah (whom 
 he had not before known as such) rested upon a revelation 
 previously made to him with this intent; and this he now 
 states, solemnly repeating, however, the declaration of his own 
 ignorance (Kkayw ovK yOev adtov). — éxeivos] in emphatic 
 contrast with his own reflection. — eiwev] ze. by express reve- 
 lation. We cannot tell the precise time or manner of this 
 prior revelation. By it John was referred to some outwardly 
 visible onpetoy (tSys) of the Spirit, in a general way, without 
 any definition of us form. He was to see it descending, and 
 this descent took place in the form of a dove, and after that 
 divine intimation there was no room for doubt. Comp. on 
 Matt. iii. 17, note. —éq@ dv dv dns] that is, when thou 
 baptizest Him with water. This is not expressly stated in 
 the divine declaration, but John could not fail so to under- 
 stand it, because, being sent to baptize, he would naturally 
 expect the appearance of the promised sign while fulfilling his 
 mission ; comp. ver. 31. He therefore describes the giver of 
 the revelation as o méuapas ye, x.7.r., and the evangelist puts 
 the statement in the conditional form: 颒 ov dy, x.7.r., we., 
 according to the connection of the narrative: “ When, in the 
 Julfilment of this your mission, you shall see the Spirit descend- 
 ing upon one of those whom thow baptizest, this is He,’ etc. — 
 év mvevm. ayl@] by communicating it to those who believe 
 upon Him. See on Matt. ii.11. The designation of this 
 communication as a baptism very naturally arose from its close 
 relation te the work of the Baptist’s mission (comp. Matt. 111. 
 11; Marki. 8; Luke iii. 16; Actsi. 5, xi. 16), because the gift 
 of the Spirit, according to the prophetic figure (Joel iii. 1; Isa, 
 
CHAP, I. 34 P21 
 
 xliv. 3), had been promised under the form of an outpouring 
 (comp. Acts 11. 33). The contrast itself distinctly sets before 
 us the difference between the two baptisms: the one was a 
 preparation for the Messianic salvation by weravo.a; the other, 
 an introduction thereto by the divine principle of life and 
 salvation, the communication of which presupposes the for- 
 giveness of sins (see on Mark i. 4). 
 
 Ver. 34. A still more distinct and emphatic conclusion of 
 what John had to adduce from ver. 31 onwards, in explana- 
 tion of the obrés éotw mentioned in ver. 30.—xayo] and I 
 on my part, answering triumphantly to the double «ayo in vv. 
 31, 33.— édpaxa] zie. as the divine declaration in ver. 33 
 had promised (/éys). This having seen is to the speaker, as 
 he makes the declaration, an accomplished fact. Hence the 
 Perfect, like reSéapac in ver. 32. Nor can the wewaptvpyKa 
 be differently understood unless by some arbitrary rendering ; 
 it does not mean: “I shall have borne witness” (De Wette, 
 Tholuck, Maier), as the aorist is used in the classics (see on 
 vi. 36); or, “Z have borne witness, and do so still” (Grotius, 
 Liicke), or “testis sum factus” (Bengel, comp. Bernhardy, p. 
 378 ff.); but, J have borne witness, that is, since I saw that 
 sight; so that, accordingly, John, immediately ayter the baptism 
 of Jesus, uttered the testimony which he here refers to as an 
 accomplished fact, and by referring to which he ratifies and 
 confirms what he now has testified (ver. 30). Comp. also 
 Winer, p. 256 [E. T. p. 341].—6te otros, «.7.r.] the sub- 
 ject-matter of the pweuapt.—o vios tod Oeod] the Messiah, 
 whose divine Sonship, however, had already been apprehended 
 by the Baptist in the metaphysical sense (against Beyschlag, 
 67), agreeably to the testimony borne to His pre-existence in 
 vv. 30, 15: drte Peod yovos ovtos, devkworo toxhos, Nonnus. 
 The heavenly voice in Matt. iii. 17,in the synoptic account of 
 the baptism, corresponds to this testimony. All the less on 
 this account are the statements of the Baptist concerning 
 Jesus to be regarded as unhistorical, and only as an echo of 
 the position assigned to the former in the Prologue (Weiz- 
 sicker). The position of the Baptist in the Prologue is the 
 result of the history itself. That the meaning attaching to 
 vios 7. Oeod in the fourth Gospel generally is quite different 
 
£22 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 from that which it has in the Synoptics (Baur), is a view 
 which the passages Matt. xi. 27, xxvill. 19, should have pre- 
 vented from being entertained. 
 
 Note-—On vv. 32-34 we may observe in general: (1.) The 
 Aéyos and the aveJua ayiov are not to be regarded as identical 
 in John’s view (against Baur, bibl. Theol. d. N. T. II. 268; J. E. 
 Chr. Schmidt, in d. Bibl. f. Krit. u. Hxeg. I. 3, p. 361 ff; Eich- 
 horn, Hind. II. 158 ff.; Winzer, Progr., Lps. 1819), against which 
 the 6 Adyos oxpS éyévero in ver. 14 is itself conclusive, in view of 
 which the «veiju« in our passage appears as an hypostasis dis- 
 tinct from the Aédyos, an hypostasis of which the cap éyévero could 
 not have been predicated. The adyos was the substratum of the 
 divine side in Christ, which having become incarnate, entered 
 upon a human development, in which the divine-human subject 
 needed the power and incitement of the seize. (2.) He was of 
 necessity under this influence of the Spirit from the very outset 
 of the development of His divine-human consciousness (comp. 
 Luke ii. 40, 52, and the visit when twelve years old to the 
 temple), and long before the moment of His baptism, so that the 
 avesue was the awakening and mediating principle of the con- 
 sciousness which Jesus possessed of His oneness with God; 
 see on x. 36. Accordingly, we are not to suppose that the Holy 
 Ghost was given to Him now for the first time, and was added 
 consciously to His divine-human life as a new and third ele- 
 ment; the text speaks not of a receiving, but of a manifestation 
 of the Spirit, as seen by John, which in this form visibly came 
 down and remained over Him, in order to point Him out to 
 the Baptist as the Messiah who, according to O. T. prophecy 
 (Isa. xi. 2, xlii. 1), was to possess the fulness of the Spirit. 
 The purpose of this divine one% was not, therefore (as Matthew 
 and Mark indeed represent it), to impart the Spirit to Jesus 
 (which is not implied even in iii. 34), but simply for the sake 
 of the Baptist, to divinely indicate to him who was to make 
 Him known in Israel, that individuality who, as the incarnate 
 Logos, must long before then have possessed the powers of the 
 Spirit in all their fulness (comp. iii. 34). The avedua in the 
 symbolic form of a dove hovered over Jesus, remained over Him 
 for a while, and then again vanished (comp. Schleiermacher, 
 L.J.p. 150). This the Baptist saw; and he now knows, through 
 a previously received revelation made to him for the purpose 
 who it is that he has to make known as the Messiah who bap- 
 tizes with the Spirit. To find in this passage a special stimulus 
 imparted through the Spirit to Jesus Himself, and perceived 
 by the Baptist, tending to the development or opening up of 
 
CHAP. L 34, | 123 
 
 His divine- human consciousness and life (Liicke, Neander, 
 Tholuck, Osiander, Ebrard, De Wette, Riggenbach, and others ; 
 comp. Lange, and Beyschlag, p. 103), or the equipment of the 
 Logos for a coming forth out of a state of ammanence (From- 
 mann), or the communication of oficial power (Gess, Pers. Chi. 
 p. 374; comp. Worner, Verhdltn. d. Geistes, p. 44), as the prin- 
 ciple of which the Spirit was now given in order to render the 
 cap fit to become the instrument of His self-manifestation 
 (Luthardt, after Kahnis, vom hezligen Geiste, p. 44; comp. also 
 Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 191, II. 1, 166; Godet; and Weisse, 
 Lehrbegr. p. 268, who connects with ver. 52),—as in a similar 
 way 5B. Crusius already explained the communication of the 
 Spirit as if the w<tue (in distinction from the Adyos) were 
 now received by Jesus, as that which was ¢o be further com- 
 municated to mankind ; —these and all such theories find no 
 justification from our Gospel at least, which simply records a 
 manifestation made to the Baptist, not a communication to 
 Jesus; and to it must be accorded decisive weight when brought 
 face to face with those other diverging accounts. Thus, at 
 the same time, this whole manifestation must not be regarded as 
 an empty, objectless play of the imagination (Liicke) : it was 
 an objective and real oyu: divinely presented to the Baptist’s 
 spiritual vision, the design of which (iva pavepwdy roi’ Iopaura, ver. 
 31, that is, through the Baptist’s testimony) was sufficiently 
 important as the yidpiouwe of the Messiah (Justin. ¢. Zryph. 88), 
 and the result of which (ver. 34) corresponded to its design ; 
 whereas, upon the supposition that we have here a record of 
 the receiving of the Spirit, there is imported into the expo- 
 sition something quite foreign to the text. If this suppo- 
 sition be surrendered, then the opinion loses all support 
 that the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at His baptism 
 is a mythical inference of Ebionitism (Strauss), as well as the 
 assertion that here too our Gospel stands upon the boundary 
 line of Gnosticism (Baur) ; while the boldness of view which 
 goes still further, and (in the face of the Burrifav 2 avebuars 
 ayiw) takes the avedua to be, not the Holy Spirit, but the Logos 
 (in spite of 1. 14), which as a heavenly Aeon was for the first 
 time united at the baptism with Jesus the earthly man (so 
 Hilgenfeld, following the Valentinian Gnosis), does not even 
 retain its claim to be considered a later historical analogy. There 
 remains, however, in any case, the great fact of which the Bap- 
 tist witnesses—“ the true birth-hour of Christendom” (Ewald) : 
 for,on the one hand, the divinely sent forerunner of the Messiah 
 now received the divinely revealed certainty as to whom his 
 work as Elias pointed; and, on the other hand, by the divinely 
 
124 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 assured testimony which he now bore to Jesus before the people, 
 the Messianic consciousness of Jesus Himself received not only 
 the consecration of a heavenly ratification, but the warrant of 
 the Father’s will, that now the hour was come for the holy apn 
 of His ministry in word and work. It was not that now for the 
 first time the Messiah’s resolve was formed; rather was it the 
 entrance (comp. Acts xiii. 23) upon His great work, the com- 
 mencement of its realization, which was the great event in the 
 world’s history that marked this hour, when the fulness of time 
 was come for the accomplishment of the counsel of God. 
 
 Vv. 35, 36. dav eiornjxec] pointing back to ver. 29. 
 — Svo] One was Andrew, ver. 41. The other? Certainly 
 John himself, partly on account of that peculiarity of his 
 which leads him to refrain from naming himself, and partly on 
 account of the special vividness of the details in the’ following 
 account, which had remained indelibly impressed upon his 
 memory ever since this first and decisive meeting with his 
 Lord. — éuBréxpas] denoting fixed attention. Comp. ver. 43 ; 
 Mark x. 21, 27, xiv. 67; Luke xx.17,xxii.61. The profoundest 
 interest led him to fix his gaze upon Him. — ide 0 dpvos T. 
 Ge0d] These few words were quite sufficient to direct the un- 
 divided attention of both to Him who was passing that way ; 
 for, beyond a doubt (against De Wette, Ewald,—because the 
 fact that nothing is now added to the o dpvos rt. Geod gives the 
 words quite a retrospective character), they had been witnesses 
 the day before of what is recorded in vv. 29-34. The as- 
 sumption of a further conversation not here recorded (Kuinoel, 
 Liicke, and most) is unnecessary, overlooks the emphasis of 
 the one short yet weighty word on which hangs their recol- 
 lection of all that occurred the day before, and moreover is 
 not required by ver. 37. — We need not even ask why Jesus, 
 who was now walking along (aepiar.) in the same place, 
 
 1 Already Chrysostom (according to Corderius, Cat.; Theodore of Mopsuestia) 
 mentions the same view, but along with it the other: dvs txsives obj) ra» txionpewy 
 iv, which he seems to approve of. — But if John is here already (and see on 
 ver. 42) indicated, though not by name, and afterwards (ver. 46) Bartholomew 
 under the name Nathanael ; if, again, ver. 42 implies that James is brought to 
 Jesus by his brother John, and that he therefore has his place after John ; then 
 we certainly cannot say, with Steitz (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 497): ‘*The 
 order in which Papias, in Euseb. iii. 39, quotes the six apostles, Andrew, Peter, 
 
 Philip, Thomas, James, John, exactly corresponds with that in which these 
 names occur in succession in the fourth Gospel.” 
 
CHAP. I. 37—40. 25 
 
 had not been with John, because the text says nothing about 
 it. Answers have been devised; eg. Bengel: “Jesus had suffi- 
 ciently humbled Himself by once joining Himself with Joln;” 
 Lampe: “He wished to avoid the suspicion of any private 
 understanding with the Baptist.” Equally without warrant 
 in the text, B. Crusius and Luthardt: “Jesus had already 
 separated Himself from the Baptist to begin His own proper 
 ministry, while the Baptist desired indirectly to command his 
 disciples to join themselves with Jesus;’ as Hengstenberg also 
 supposes, judging from the result, and because he at the same 
 time regards the two as representatives of all John’s disciples. 
 
 Vv. 37-40. And the two disciples heard (observed) him 
 speak. For he had not addressed the words ide 6 dvds Tt. 
 Geod directly to them, but in general (comp. ver. 29) to those 
 round about him. — 7xod0vOnoar] not the following of dis- 
 cipleship, nor in a “sens profondément symbolique ” (Godet), 
 but simply: “ they went after Him”. (6rriotepot AOov odiras 
 Xpictod verccopuévoro, Nonnus), in order to know Him more 
 intimately (aetpay daSeiv avtod, Euthymius Zigabenus). 
 Nevertheless Bengel rightly says: primae origines ecclesiae 
 Christianae. — otpadets| for He heard the footsteps of those 
 following Him. — ri €nreire] what do you desire? He antici- 
 pates them by engaging in conversation with them, not exactly 
 because they were shy and timid (Euthymius Zigabenus). 
 But no doubt the significant @eacapevos, «.7.r. (intuitus), was 
 accompanied by a glance into their hearts, i. 25.—7ro0d pévecs| 
 correlative to the zepiatovvts, ver. 36; therefore: “ where 
 dost thow sqourn?” Polyb. xxx. 4.10; Strabo, iii. p. 147. 
 They regarded Him as a travelling Rabbi, who was lodging 
 in the neighbourhood at the house of some friend. — épyec Ge 
 K. OeoGe (see the critical notes); a friendly invitation to 
 accompany Him at once.’ They had sought only to know 
 where the place was, so that they might afterwards seek Him 
 out, and converse with Him undisturbed. We have not here 
 the Rabbinical form of calling attention, AN Na (Buxt. Lez. 
 Talm. p. 248; Lightfoot, p. 968), nor an imitation of Rev. 
 
 1 There is nothing to indicate whether the place where He was lodging was 
 near or at a distance, although Ewald would infer the latter from the reading 
 syicd:, 
 
126 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 vi. 1 (Weisse), nor yet an allusion to Ps. Ixvi. 5, 9, and a gentle 
 reference on the part of Jesus to His Godhead (Hengstenberg), 
 for which there was no occasion, and which He could not 
 expect to be understood. — 7A @ov, «.7.d.] shows the simplicity 
 of the narrative. — wéver] instance of insertion of the direct 
 address, common in dependent clauses. Kiihner, II. 594; 
 Winer, p. 251 [E. T. p. 335].— rv jpép. ex] te. the 
 remainiag part of that day, not at once from that day onwards 
 (Credner, against whom is Ebrard). — dexa7n] that is, at the 
 beginning of their stay with Him. We have no reason to 
 suppose in John, as Rettig does in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1830, 
 p. 106, as also Tholuck, Ebrard, Ewald, the Roman mode of 
 counting the hours (from midnight to midnight, therefore ten 
 oclock in the morning) instead of the Jewish, which is fol- 
 lowed elsewhere in the N. T. and by Josephus (even Vt. 54), 
 z.e. four o’clock in the afternoon ; because there is time enough 
 from 4 P.M. till late in the evening to justify the popular ex- 
 pression TH juép. éx.; because, moreover, in xi. 9 it is plainly 
 the Jewish method which is followed ; and because even in iv. 
 6 the same method best suits the context, and is not excluded 
 in iv. 52, while in xix. 14 it is with a harmonistic view that 
 the Roman method of reckoning is resorted to. The Romans 
 themselves, moreover, frequently measured the day after the 
 Babylonian computation of the hours, according to the twelve 
 hours from sunrise to sunset ; and the tenth hour especially is 
 often named, as in our text, as the hour of return from walk- 
 ing, and mention of it occurs as a date hour in the day, when 
 eg. the soldiers were allowed to rest (Liv. ix. 37), or when 
 they went to table (Martial, vii. 1), ete. See Wetstein. — 
 The great significance of this hour for John (it was the first of 
 his Christian life) had indelibly impressed it on his grateful 
 recollection, and hence the express mention of it here. This 
 consideration forbids our giving, with Hilgenfeld and Lichten- 
 stein, to the statement of time an onward reference to the 
 incident next mentioned, the finding by Andrew of his brother 
 Simon. Briickner, too, imports something that is foreign into 
 this statement of time, when he says that it indicates, in close 
 connection with ver. 41 ff, how rapidly faith developed itself 
 in these disciples. 
 
CHAP, -I- 41-435 127 
 
 Vv. 41-43. Still on the same day (not on the following, as, 
 after the early expositors, De Wette, Baur, Luthardt, Ewald, 
 and most others suppose; see, on the contrary, the ésravpiov 
 which again appears, but not till ver. 44), Andrew first meets 
 his brother Simon.—mp@ros|] We must understand the 
 matter thus: Both disciples go out from the lodging-place (at 
 the same time, or perhaps Andrew first), still in the first fresh 
 glow of joy at having found the Messias,’ in order that each 
 of them may seek his own brother (we must assume that both 
 brothers were known to be in the neighbourhood), in order to 
 inform him of the new joy, and to bring him to Christ. Andrew 
 is the first (rp@ros, not mp@rTov, an inelegant change adopted by 
 Lachmann, after A. B. M. X. s**) who finds his brother. John, 
 however, does not say that he also sought his brother James, 
 found him, and brought him to Jesus; and this is in keeping 
 with the delicate reserve which prevents him from naming 
 either himself or those belonging to him (even the name of 
 James does not occur in the Gospel). Still this may be clearly 
 seen from the patos, and is confirmed by the narrative of the 
 Synoptics, in so far that both James and John are represented 
 as being called at the same time by Jesus (Mark i. 19 and 
 parallels). Bengel, Tholuck, De Wette, Hengstenbers, wronely 
 say that Andrew and John had both sought out Simon. The 
 tov idvov is against this; as it neither here nor elsewhere 
 (comp. v. 18) occurs as a mere possessive (against Liicke, 
 Maier, De Wette, and others), but in opposition to that which 
 is foreign. Any antithetic relation to the spiritual brother- 
 hood in which John as well as Andrew stood to Simon 
 (Hengstenberg), is quite remote from the passage. — evpyxa- 
 ev] placed emphatically at the beginning of the clause, and 
 presupposing the feeling of anxious desire excited by the Bap- 
 tist. The plural is used because Andrew had in mind the 
 other disciple also. — éuBréwWas, «.7.r.| This fixed look (ver. 
 36) on the countenance of Simon pierces his inner soul. 
 
 1 John’s use here and in iv. 25 of ¢¢v Mecaiay (MWD) is accounted for by the~, 
 depicting of the scene exactly as it occurred ; whereas in i. 20, 25, when he | 
 simply writes historically, he uses the ordinary translation Xperts. The 
 genre picture is specially minute ; so here. According to Baur, NV. 7. Theol. 
 
 p. 393, the author has given an antiquarian notice, as it were, of this Hebrew 
 name. which occurs nowhere else in the N. T. 
 
me 
 i 
 (oe) 
 
 TIIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Jesus, as the Searcher of hearts (ii. 25; Weiss, Lehrbegr. 
 p. 263), sees in him one who should hereafter be called to be 
 the rock of the church, and calls him by the name which he 
 was henceforth to bear as His disciple (not first in Matt. xvi. 
 18, as Luthardt thinks). <A rock is the emblem of firmness 
 as early as Homer (Od. xvii. 463); comp. Ezek. iii. 9. There 
 _ is no contradiction here with Matt. xvi. 18 (itis otherwise with 
 Mark iii. 16), as if John had transferred the giving of the 
 name to this place (Hilgenfeld, comp. Baur and Scholten), for 
 in Matt. xvi. 18 the earlier giving of the name is really pre- 
 supposed, confirmed, and applied. See on Matt.—ovd ei ¥ (por, 
 «.T.r.] This belongs to the circumstantiality of the solemn 
 ceremony of the name-giving; it is first said who he is, and 
 what in future he should be called. Comp. Gen. xxxii. 28, 
 xxxv. 10, xvii. 5. Sd ef Yiuwr is not, as Ewald thinks, a 
 question ; and there is no ground whatever for supposing that 
 Jesus immediately recognised him (Cyril, Chrysostom, Augus- 
 tine, Aretius, Maldonatus, Cornelius a Lapide, Bengel, Luthardt, 
 and many, comp. Strauss), for Andrew introduced his brother 
 to Jesus. Grotius and Paulus’ give arbitrary explanations of 
 the reading ’Iwva, but see the critical notes. For the rest, we 
 must not say, with Hilgenfeld, “ Peter here attains the pre- 
 eminence of the first called disciple ;” but Peter is first given 
 this pre-eminence in the synoptical accounts (Matt. iv. 18 
 and parallels); the personal recollection of John, however, 
 must take precedence of these. See especially the note fol- 
 lowing ver. 52. 
 
 Vv. 44,45. TH émavp.] wc. after the last-mentioned day, 
 ver. 39, which is the same with the 77 ézavp. of ver. 35, 
 consequently the fourth day from i. 19. —70érAncev, K.7.r.] 
 He was just desiring to go forth, and findeth, etc.; therefore still 
 at the lodging-place, ver. 40, for é&eAOety refers to the stay 
 there (wéver, ver. 40).— edpionxec] as if accidentally, but see 
 xvii. 5 ff, — The statement, instead of being hypotactic in form 
 
 1 The fantastic play upon the words in Lange’s L. J. Il. 469, is of this sort. 
 He renders : ‘* Now thou art the son of the timid dove of the rock; in future 
 shalt thou be called the sheltering rock of the dove (the church).” According 
 to the true reading of the passage, the name of Peter's father contained in 
 
 Bapiwvé Which occurs in Matthew, must be regarded as an abbreviation for John, 
 end has nothing whatever to do with dove. See on Matt. xvi. 17. 
 
CHAP. I. 46. 129 
 ‘e So Ye ht) 
 
 (“ when he would go out, he findeth *), is paratactic, as often in 
 Greek from Homer downwards (Niagelsbach, z. J/ias, p. 65, ed. 
 3; Kuhner, II. p. 416), and in the N. T.; Buttmann, WV.7. Gr. 
 p. 249 [E. T. p. 196]. We must place the scene at the com- 
 mencement of the journey homeward, not on the road during 
 the journey (Liicke).— dor. por] of following as disciples. 
 Comp. Matt. iv. 19, 20, ix. 9; see also ver. 46, 1. 2. The 
 invitation to do this (not merely to go with Him) is explained 
 by ver. 45, as brought about by the communications of Andrew 
 and Peter, though certainly the heart-piercing look of Jesus 
 Himself, and the impression produced by His whole bearing, 
 must be regarded as the causes which mainly led Philip to 
 come to a decision. John does not record the further conver- 
 sations which of course ensued upon the axor. por, and the 
 obedience which followed, because his‘aim was to narrate the 
 call. —éx T. TONES, K.T.r.] see on Matt. viii. 14. 
 
 Ver. 46. Evpicxec] when and where in the course of the 
 journey we are not told—perhaps at some distance from the 
 road, so that Philip, observing him, quitted the road, and went 
 towards him. According to Ewald, “ not till after their arrival 
 in the village of Cana, which nevertheless is named for the first 
 time in ii. 1, and to which Nathanael belonged ” (xxi. 2). The 
 supposition, however, that Nathanael was on his way to John’s 
 baptism (Godet) is quite groundless. — Na@avann, Ox2m), 
 ae. Theodorus (Num. i. 8; 1 Chron. il. 14), is identical with 
 Bartholomaeus. For, according to this passage, in the midst 
 of calls to the apostleship, comp. xxi. 2, he appears as one of the 
 twelve ; while in the lists of the apostles (Matt. x. 3; Luke 
 vi. 14; Mark i. 18; Acts i. 13), where his name is wanting, 
 we find Bartholomacus, and placed, moreover, side by side with 
 Philip (only in Acts i. 13 with Matthew;* comp. Constitt. Aol. 
 
 1 Hilgenfeld regarded him as identical with Matthew ; but how much opposed 
 is this view to the history ot Matthew’s call! though the meaning of his name 
 is not different from that of Matthew’s. Very recently, however, Hilgenfeld has 
 supposed that the name answers to the Matthias who was appointed in the place 
 of Judas (N. 7. extra canon. IV. p. 105). Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 368, con- 
 siders it very doubtful whether Nathanael belonged to the twelve at all. Chry- 
 sostom, Augustine, and others, long ago denied that he did, but this is already 
 assumed in the ‘‘ duae viae” (Hilgenfeld, NV. 7. extra canon. IV.). According 
 to Spaeth, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 168 tf., Nathanael is to be taken 
 
 I 
 
130 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 vi.14.1). This identity is all the more probable, because Bar- 
 tholomew is only a patronymic, and must have become the 
 ordinary name of the individual, and that in most frequent 
 use; and thus it came to pass that his own distinctive name 
 does not appear in the synoptic narrative. — dv éypawe] of 
 whom, etc. See on Rom. x. 5. — Maions] Deut. xviii. 15, and 
 generally in his Messianic references and types. See on ver. 46. 
 — Tov avo Nafapér] for Nazareth, where Jesus had lived with 
 His parents from infancy upwards, passed for His birth-place. 
 Philip may have obtained his knowledge from Andrew and 
 Peter, or even from Jesus Himself, who had no occasion at 
 this time to state more fully and minutely his relation to 
 Nazareth ; while the tov viov tod ’Iwond, which must rest upon 
 a communication from Jesus, leaves His divine Sonship un- 
 disturbed. To attribute to Philip knowledge of the facts of 
 the case with regard to both points (Hengstenberg) is in itself 
 improbable, and is not in keeping with the simplicity of his 
 words. But it is a groundless assumption to suppose that 
 John knew nothing of the birth at Bethlehem; for it is Philip's 
 own words that he records (against Strauss, De Wette). See 
 on vil. 41. 
 
 Ver. 47. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? A 
 question of astonishment that the Messiah should come out 
 of Nazareth. But Nathanael asks thus doubtingly, not be- 
 cause Nazareth lay in Galilee, vii. 52 (the Fathers, Luther, 
 Melancthon, Ebrard, and many), nor because of its smallness, 
 as too insignificant to be the birth-place of the Messiah 
 (Liicke, De Wette, Hug, Krabbe, Ewald, Lange, Brickner, 
 and others), nor from both reasons together (Hengstenberg) ; 
 nor, again, because the prophecy did not speak of Nazareth as 
 the Messiah’s birth-place (Godet); but, as the general expres- 
 sion tl dyadv proves (it is not the more special 6 Xpuotos), 
 because Nathanael, and probably public opinion likewise, 
 looked upon the little town as morally degenerate: it must 
 have been so regarded at least in the narrow circle of the 
 
 as a symbolical name, invented by the writer, under which the Apostle John 
 himself is said to be represented. The author of the Appendix, chap. xxi. 2, 
 where Nathanael is expressly distinguished from the sons of Zebedee, is said to 
 have made a mistake, 
 
CHAP. L 48, 49 131 
 
 surrounding villages (Nathanael belonged to Cana). We have 
 no historical proof that this was so; outside the N. T. the 
 place is not mentioned, not even in Josephus; nevertheless 
 Mark vi. 6, and the occurrence recorded Luke iv. 15 ff., well 
 correspond with Nathanael’s judgment as to its disrepute in a 
 moral point of view. — dya@ov] which yet must above all 
 be the case if the Messiah were to come therefrom,—He 
 whose coming must be a signally holy and sublime mani- 
 festation. —épyov «. ide] “optimum remediwm contra opi- 
 qiones pracconceptas,” Bengel. 4 
 
 Ver. 48. ITepi avrod] therefore to those journeying with 
 Him, but so that the approaching Nathanael hears it, ver. 49. 
 — ads] truly an Israelite, not merely acccerding to out- 
 ward descent and appearance, but in the moral nature which 
 really corresponds to that of an upright Israelite. Comp. 
 Rom. ix. 6, ii. 29. "Ev & d0Xos ovk ear tells by what means 
 he is so. Thus sincere and honest, thus inwardly true, should 
 every Israelite be (not simply free from self-righteousness, but 
 possessing what essentially belongs to truth); and Nathanael 
 was all this. This virtue of guilelessness, as the character- 
 istic of the true Israelite, is not named as belonging generally 
 to the ancient ideal of the nation (Liicke, De Wette; this 
 view arbitrarily passes by the reference to the nation histo77- 
 cally which lay much nearer); but in view of the venerable 
 and honourable testimonies which had been uttered concern- 
 ing the people of Israel (e.g. Num. xxii. 10), whose father was 
 himself already designated 07 vx, LXX. darAaotos,' Gen. xxv. 
 27; Ag. didobs,” Symm. duwpos—Jesus here also, as in vv. 
 43, 44, appears as the searcher of hearts. 
 Y Ver, 49. The approaching Nathanael heard the testimony 
 of Jesus, and does not decline His commendation,— itself a 
 proof of his guileless honesty; but he asks in amazement 
 how Jesus knew him.— évra b7d +. cvehjv] belongs, as ver. 
 51 shows, not to dwvicas, but to ciddv oe. Therefore, before 
 Philip, vv. 46, 47, met and called (dwvijoas, comp. ii. 9, iv. 
 16, xi. 28, xviii. 33), Nathanael had been under a fig-tree; 
 
 1 Comp. Plato, Legg. I. p. 642D: &anbas wal ors wracras ticiv ayabol, 
 
 Soph. 216C: of un rraoras, GAN Gyews Cirdzohos. 
 * Comp. Aristoph. Plut. 1159: ob yap doaeu viv tpyov, GAA’ &awrwy cporwy, 
 
132 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 whether the fig-tree of his own house (Mic. iv. 4; Zech. iii. 
 10), whether meditating (possibly upon thé Messianic hope of 
 the people), praying, reading—which, according to Rabbini- 
 eal statements (see in Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Wetstein), were 
 employments performed beneath such trees,—we are not in- 
 ‘formed. He had just come from the tree to the place where 
 Philip met him.’— eZSo0v we] is usually taken as referring to 
 a glance into the depth of his soul? but contrary to the simple 
 meaning of the words, which affirm nothing else than: J saw 
 thee, not éyvwy ce, or the like. Comp. also Hengstenberg. 
 The miraculous element in the eidov oe, which made it a 
 onpeccov to Nathanael, and which led to his confession which 
 follows in ver. 50, must have consisted in the fact that the 
 fig-tree either was situated out of sight of the place, or so far 
 off that no one with ordinary powers of sight could have dis- 
 cerned a person under it. Hidov ce thus simply interpreted 
 gives the true solution to Nathanael’s question, because there 
 could not have been this rapport of miraculous far-seeing on 
 the part of Jesus, had it not just been brought about by the 
 immediate recognition of the true Israelite when he was at that 
 distance. This spiritual elective affinity was the mediwm of 
 the supernatural eféov oe. Nonnus well says: dupact kal 
 mpatridecot TOV ov mapeovTa Soxevwv. Jesus would not have 
 seen an ordinary Jew, who, being therefore without this 
 spiritual affinity, was beyond the limits of sight.— vo tv 
 aovx.| with the article: “under that well-known fig-tree, 
 beneath which you were,” or, if the tree was within the range 
 of vision, pointing towards tt. De Wette also rightly abides 
 by the simple meaning, J saw thee, but thinks that what 
 caused the astonishment of Nathanael was the fact that Jesus 
 saw him when he believed himself to be unobserved (though John 
 regarded this seeing as supernatural). But this does not give 
 an adequate motive psychologically for the confession of ver. 
 50; and we must further assume, with Ewald, that the words 
 
 1 The reference of the <7dav ve to the same place where Philip called him (so, 
 after the Greek Fathers, B. Crusius) must be rejected, because neither the rpé 
 * 00—Qwvacas nor the dvre tad xiv ovxyv would thus have their appropriate and 
 necessary point. 
 
 2 Where it is imagined, though without the slightest hint to that effect in the 
 text, that Jesus had a short time before passed by the fig-tree unobserved. 
 
CHAP. I. 50, 51. 133 
 
 of Jesus reminded Nathanael of the deep and weighty thoughts 
 which he was revolving when alone under the fig-tree, and 
 he thus perceived that the depths of his soul were laid open 
 before the spiritual eye of Jesus, though this is not indicated 
 in the text. 
 
 Ver. 50. The double designation is uttered in the excite- 
 ment of joyful certainty. The simple faith in the Messiah, 
 expressed in ver. 41, is here intensified, not as to its subject- 
 matter, but in its outward expression. Comp. Luthardt, p. 
 344, The second designation is the more definite of the 
 two; and therefore the first, in the sense in which Nathanael 
 used it, is not as yet to be apprehended metaphysically 
 (against Hengstenberg) in John’s sense, but is simply theo- 
 cratic, presupposing the national view (Ps. i. 7; John xi. 27) 
 of the promised and expected theocratic King (comp. Riehm 
 in the Stud. u. Krit. 1865, p. 63 ff), and not perhaps imply- 
 ing the teaching of the Baptist (Olshausen). The early occur- 
 rence of such confessions therefore conflicts the less with that 
 later one of Peter’s in Matt. xvi. zx which implies, however, 
 a consciousness of the higher import of the words (against 
 Strauss). 
 
 Ver. 51. Iuorevecs is, with Chrysostom and most others 
 (even Lachmann and Tischendorf, not Godet), to be taken in- 
 terrogatively; see on xx. 29.1 But the question is not uttered 
 in a tone of censure, which would only destroy the fresh bloom 
 of this first meeting (Theophylact: “he had not yet rightly 
 believed in Christ’s Godhead”); nor is it even the expression 
 of slight disapproval of a faith which was not yet based upon 
 adequate grounds (De Wette, comp. Ewald); but, on the con- 
 trary, it is an expression of surprise, whereby Jesus joyfully 
 recognises a faith in Nathanael which could hardly have been 
 expected so soon. And to this faith, so surprisingly ready in 
 its beginning, He promises something greater (és éAmiéa dép- 
 Tepov €Axwv, Nonnus) by way of further confirmation. — rov- 
 tov] Plural of the category: “than this which you now have 
 
 1 As to the paratactic protasis, which may be read interrogatively or not 
 according to the character of the discourse, see C. F. Hermann, Progr. 1849, 
 p. 18; Scheibe in Schneidew. Philolog. 1850, p. 362 ff. Comp. also Niigels- 
 bach’s note on the Iliad, p. 350, ed. 3. 
 
134 °° THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 met with, and which has become the ground of your faith.” 
 —xal Néyer avTo@] specially introduces the further state- 
 ment of the pel tovtwv as a most significant word. — apnjv 
 apny Aéyo bpiv] The double dyjv does not occur in other 
 parts of the N. T., but we find it twenty-five times in John, 
 and only in the mouth of Jesus,—therefore all the more cer- 
 tainly original.—dpiv] to thee and Andrew, John, Peter 
 (James, see in ver. 42), and Philip.—daaaprte] from now 
 onwards, for Jesus was about to begin His Messianic work. 
 See chap. ii. Thus, in this weighty word He furnishes His 
 disciples with the key for the only correct understanding of 
 that work. — d\eo@e, «.7.r.] The “opened heaven” is not 
 intended to be taken in its literal sense, as if it stood alone, 
 but is part of the figurative moulding of the sentence in keep- 
 ing with the following metaphor. Observe here the perfect 
 participle: heaven stands open; comp. Acts vii. 56. The 
 ascending and descending angels are, according to Gen. xxviii. 
 12, a symbolical representation of the wrinterrupted and living 
 intercourse subsisting between the Messiah and God,—an inter- 
 communion which the disciples would clearly and vividly 
 recognise, or, according to the symbolic form of the thought, 
 would see as a matter of experience throughout the ministry 
 of Jesus which was to follow." The angels are not therefore 
 to be regarded as personified divine powers (Olshausen, De 
 Wette, and several), or as personal energies of God’s Spirit 
 (Luthardt and Hofmann), but as always God’s messengers, 
 who brought to the Messiah God’s commands, or executed 
 them on Him (comp. Matt. iv. 11, xxvi. 53; Luke xxii. 43), 
 and return to God again (dvaS8aivovras), while others with 
 new commissions came down (xataBaiv.), and so on. We are 
 not told whether, and if so, to what extent, Nathanael and his 
 companions now already perceived the symbolic meaning of the 
 declaration. It certainly is not to be understood as having 
 reference to the actual appearances of angels in the course of 
 the Gospel history (Chrysostom, Cyril., Euthymius Zigabenus, 
 
 1 This expression tells us nothing concerning the origin of Christ’s knowledge 
 of God, which ver. 18 clearly declares, and which cannot therefore be attributed 
 to a series of progressive revelations (Weizsicker); the expression rather presup- 
 poses that origin. Comp. also Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 286 ff. 
 
CHAP. I. 51. 135 
 
 and most of the early expositors), against which dzdprte is 
 conclusive; nor merely to the working of miracles (Storr, 
 Godet), which is in keeping neither with the expression 
 itself, nor with the necessary reference to the Messiah’s 
 ministry as a whole, which must be described by amapre 
 decbe, etc. —avaPaiv.] is placed first, in remembrance of 
 Gen. xxvili. 12, without any special purpose, but not inappro- 
 priately, because when the éyeoGe takes place, the intercourse 
 between heaven and earth does not then begin, but is already 
 going on. We may supply ao Tod viod tod avOp. after dava- 
 Baiv. from the analogy of what follows. See Kiihner, II. p. 
 603.— Concerning 6 vids Tod avOp., see on Matt. viii. 20; 
 Mark ii. 8, note. In John likewise it is the standing Mes- 
 sianic designation of Jesus as used by Himself; here, where 
 angelic powers are represented as waiting upon Him who 
 bears the Messianic authority, it corresponds rather with the 
 prophetic vision of the Son of man (Dan. vii. 14), and forms 
 the impressive conclusion of the whole section, confirming and 
 ratifying the joyous faith and confession of the first disciples, 
 as the first solemn self-avowal on the part of Jesus in their 
 presence. It thus retained a deep and indelible hold upon the 
 recollection of John, and therefore it stands as the utterance 
 of the clear Messianic consciousness of Jesus unveiled before 
 us at the outset of His work. It is exactly in John that the 
 Messiahship of Jesus comes out with the greatest precision, 
 not as the consequence and result, but as already, from the 
 beginning onwards, the subject-matter of our Lord’s self-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Note.—The synoptical account of the call of the two pairs of 
 brothers, Matt. iv. 18 ff. and parallels,is utterly irreconcilable with 
 that of John as to place, time, and circumstances; and the usual 
 explanations resorted to—that what is here recorded was only 
 a preliminary call,? or only a social union with Christ (Luther, 
 Liicke, Ebrard, Tholuck ; comp. also Ewald and Godet), or only 
 
 1 The historic accuracy of this relation, as testified by John, stands with the 
 apostolic origin of the Gospel, against which even the objections of Holtzmann 
 in his investigation, which are excellent in a historical point of view (Jahrb. f. 
 D. Theol. 1867, p. 389), can have no effect. 
 
 2 So, most recently, Marcker, Uebereinstimm. der Evang. d. Matt. u. Joh., 
 Meiningen 1868, p. 10 ff. The rev Acyowevoy Iirpov, Matt. iv. 18, furnishes no 
 
136 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 the gathering together of the first believers (Luthardt), but not 
 their call—fall to the ground at once when we see how the 
 narrative proceeds ; for according to it the paéyrai, 11. 2, are with 
 Jesus, and remain with Him. See on Matt. iv. 19,20. The 
 harmony of the two accounts consists in this simply, that the 
 two pairs of brothers are the earliest apostles. To recognise 
 in John’s account not an actual history, but a picture of the 
 author’s own, drawn by himself for the sake of illustrating his 
 idea (Baur, Hilgenfeld, Schenkel),—that, viz., the knowledge of 
 the disciples and that of Jesus Himself as to His Messianic 
 call might appear perfect from the outset,—is only one of the 
 numerous self-deceptions in criticism which form the premisses 
 of the unhistorical conclusion that the fourth Gospel is not the 
 work of the apostle, but of some writer of much later date, who 
 has moulded the history into the form of his own ideal. On the 
 contrary, we must here specially observe that the author, if he 
 wished to antedate the time and place of the call, certainly did 
 not need, for the carrying out of his idea, to invent a totally 
 different sitwation from that which was before his eyes in the 
 Synoptics. Over and above this, the assumption that, by pre- 
 viously receiving John’s baptism, Jesus renounced any inde- 
 pendent action (Schenkel), is pure imagination. Weizsacker (p. 
 404) reduces John’s account to this: “The first acquaintance 
 between Jesus and these followers of His was brought about by 
 His meeting with the Baptist; and on that occasion, amid the 
 excitement which the Baptist created, Messianic hopes, how- 
 ever transitory, were kindled in this circle of friends.” But 
 this rests upon a treatment of the fourth Gospel, according to 
 which it can no longer claim the authority of an independent 
 witness; instead of this witness, we have merely the poet of a 
 thoughtful Idyll. And when Keim (I. p. 553) finds here only 
 the narration of an age that could no longer endure the humble 
 and human beginnings of Jesus, but would transplant into the 
 time of His first appearance that glory which, as a matter of 
 history, first distinguished His departure and His exaltation, 
 this is all the more daring a speculation, the more closely, 
 according to Keim, the origin of the Gospel verges upon the 
 lifetime of the apostle, and must therefore present the most 
 vivid recollections of His disciples. 
 
 proof, as is plain from the parallel in Mark i. 16, which is the source of Mat- 
 thew’s account, but has not those words. They are simply a personal notice 
 added from the standing-point of the writer, as in Matt. x. 2. 
 
CHAP, Il 1 Lov 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 Ver. 10. rére is wanting in B. L. 8.* Min. Verss.; deleted by 
 Tisch. But how easily might it, in itself superfluous, have 
 been passed over before riv!— Ver. 11. The jv before dpyqu 
 we must delete, with Lachm. and Tisch., following A. B. L. a. 
 Min., Origen, and other Fathers. —Ver. 12. twenwav A. F.G. aA. 
 Min. Copt. Arm. Pers. p. Ver. Nonn.: gueve. In keeping 
 with the preceding xaré8y and the following dvé@4—Ver. 15. 
 For rd xépwa, B. L. T®. X. 33. Copt. Arm. Ver. Origen: ra xép- 
 ware (explanatory).— Ver. 17. 6¢ is wanting in B. L. X. &. Copt.; 
 bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. Added for connection 
 sake. For xarapdéyera: Elz. has xarépuye, against all the 
 Uncials, from the LXX.—Ver. 22. After zaeye Elz. has airo7s, 
 an addition feebly supported. 
 
 Ver. 1. T pity] is, with Origen, c. Cels. vi. 30, to be reckoned 
 from the last-named day, i. 44, not from the coming to Cana 
 (Ewald), which has not yet been alluded to. Thus we have 
 in all six days from i. 19, not seven (see on i. 41), in which 
 number Luthardt would find this symbolic meaning: “It is a 
 Sabbath, as it were, which Jesus here is keeping.”— By ts 
 Tanrsraias the village of Cana (now not Kafar kenna, as 
 Hengstenberg and Godet still think, but Kana el-Jelil: see 
 Robinson, III. p. 443; Ritter, XVI. 753 ff.), about three hours 
 N.W. from Nazareth, is distinguished from another Cana; for in 
 ver. 11, iv. 46, xxi. 2, THs TandcAadas is also added, and hence it 
 must be taken as a standing descriptive addition, as if belong- 
 ing to the name (like our “Freiburg im Breisgau” and the 
 like), and not here as a mere allusion to the arrival in Galilee 
 (B. Crusius). The other Cana lay in the tribe of Asher, Josh. 
 xix. 28 (S.E. from Tyre; comp. Robinson, III. 657), and 
 though also to be considered as belonging to Galilee, was yet 
 so near to Phoenicia, that the designation of our Cana as K. 
 7s TadtXaias, in distinction from the other, is justified on 
 geographical grounds. Ewald distinguishes our Cana from the 
 
158 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Kanath lying east of the river district, but the name (M3), 
 Num. xxxii. 42, 1 Chron. 11. 23; and Bertheau on the word; 
 Kava LXX., Kava@a Josephus) does not correspond. — xati 
 Fv pyntnp, «.T.r.] Mary was already there when Jesus and 
 His disciples arrived in Cana, no doubt arranging and helping 
 (see vv. 3, 5) in the friend’s house where the wedding was to 
 take place. That shortly before the baptism of Jesus she had 
 come to live at Cana (Ewald), but soon after removed thence 
 to Capernaum (ii. 12), is without specific intimation both here 
 and in iv. 46. That Joseph was not there with her, is in 
 keeping with his entire disappearance (equally unaccountable 
 as it is) from the Gospel narrative after Luke i. 41 ff. It 
 is usually assumed, though without proof (see vi. 42), that he 
 was already dead. 
 
 Ver. 2. Jesus also and His disciples (those won in chap. 1.) 
 were invited, z.e. when, in the meanwhile, He had come to 
 Cana! To take ékr7On as pluperfect is objectionable both in 
 itself (see on xviii. 24), and also because the disciples had 
 been first won by Jesus on the way. But there is nothing 
 against the supposition that Jesus had journeyed not to Naza- 
 reth, but to Cana, on account of the wedding ; for He may have 
 known (through Nathanael, Godet thinks) that His mother 
 was there, and because, considering the friendly relations with 
 the family, He did not need a previous invitation. This is at 
 the same time in answer to Weisse, II. 203, who finds an in- 
 vitation inconceivable ; to Lange, who holds that Jesus found 
 the invitation awaiting Him at Nazareth (?); also to Schleier- 
 macher, who makes the invitation to have preceded even His 
 baptism. Of the disciples, Nathanael, moreover, was himself 
 a native of Cana (xxi. 2). But even apart from this, the 
 friendly invitation of the disciples along with Jesus by no 
 means implies a previous extended ministry of Jesus in Galilee 
 (Schenkel), or even such a ministry at all before His baptism 
 (Schleiermacher).—As to the sing. xd, see Kiihner, § 433, 
 1; Buttmann, WV. 7. Gk. 110 [E. T. p. 126 ff]. 
 
 Ver. 3. ‘Lorepyo. olvov] because a scarcity of wine had 
 occurrcd,—on what day of the marriage feast (it usually lasted 
 
 1 Schenkel thoughtlessly says, that, ‘according to our Gospel, Jesus was to 
 all appearance transported to Cana by a miracle of almighty power.” 
 
CHAP. II. 3 139 
 
 seven, Gen. xxix. 27; Judg. xiv. 14; Tob. ix. 12, x. 1) we are 
 not told... The expression torepe? tt, something fails or runs 
 short, belongs to later Greek (Mark x. 21; Isa. li. 14; Neh. 
 ix. 21; Dios. v. 86).— ofvov od« Exouvcr] they are short of 
 wine, they, t.e. the family of the bridegroom, who provided the 
 feast. They might be disgraced by the failure of the wine. 
 The words, however, are not only an expression of interest, 
 which was all the more reasonable, as the deficiency was 
 accelerated by the invitation of her Son and His disciples ; 
 but they also contain, as Jesus Himself understood (ver. 4), 
 an indirect appeal for help, as is confirmed by ver. 5, which 
 was prompted by thoughtful consideration for the credit of 
 the house providing the feast. Some find herein a call to 
 work a miracle. But wrongly, because this would imply 
 either that Mary had inferred from the conception, birth, ( 
 etc., of her Son, His power of working miracles, which she’ 
 now expected Him to display, or that Jesus had already, on 
 some previous occasion, though in a narrower circle, done 
 some wonderful works (the former hypothesis in Chrysostom, 
 Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Baumgarten, Maier, Godet, 
 Hengstenberg, and many more; the latter in Liicke and 
 others),—assumptions which are equally incapable of proof. 
 Wrongly too, because the supply of this want of itself so little 
 suggested the need of a miracle, that the thought of so dis- 
 proportionate a means occurring to Mary’s mind without any 
 adequate reason, even by the recollection of such traits as are 
 related in Luke ii. 49 ff. (Briickner), or by the miracle at His 
 baptism, or by the call of the disciples, or by the declaration 
 of i. 52, of which she would be informed at the marriage 
 (Godet), is quite inexplicable, even supposing that she had 
 observed more clearly than any others the change which had 
 taken place in her Son, and had therefore with fuller expecta- 
 tion looked up to Him as the Messiah (Ewald’s view, comp. Tho- 
 luck). Far rather did she wish to prompt Jesus in @ general 
 1 The text does not say that it lasted only one day, as Hengstenberg finds 
 expressed in ver. 1, where we are simply told that the marriage began on the 
 third day,—which has nothing to do with its duration. Nor is there any hint 
 in the text of ‘‘ poor circumstances,” for it speaks of the master of the feast and 
 
 of servants. Least of all does the inviting of Jesus’ disciples along with Himself 
 imply poverty. This also in answer to Godet. 
 
140 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 way to render help; and this she would suppose He would do 
 in the most natural manner (by furnishing wine), which must 
 have appeared as obvious a way as that of miracle was remote. 
 But Jesus, in the feeling of His divine call (ver. 4), intended 
 to render help in a special and mzraculous manner; and accord- 
 ingly, with this design of His own in view, returns the answer 
 contained in ver. 4. In this way the obscurity of the words 
 is removed (which Lampe and De Wette dwell upon), and at 
 the same time the objection raised from ver. 11 (by Strauss, 
 B. Bauer, Schweizer, Scholten) against the entire narrative, 
 upon the assumption that Mary (from the Logos standing- 
 point of the evangelist, it is supposed !) expected a miracle. 
 Lastly, it is purely gratuitous to suppose that Mary wished to 
 give a hint to Jesus and His disciples to go away (Bengel, 
 Paulus); yet Ebrard (on Olshausen) has brought this view 
 forward again, explaining afterwards “mine hour” of the time 
 of His death, when Jesus would have to leave the marriage 
 (the marriage figuratively representing the period of His 
 earthly ministry). This is not profundity, but a mere play- 
 ing with exegesis. 
 
 Ver. 4. Jesus understands His mother’s wish, but He has 
 in His mind a method of help altogether different from what 
 she meant. He therefore repels her interference, in the con- 
 sciousness of the call which here is given Him to begin His 
 Messianic ministry of miracles, and holds out the prospect 
 of rendering help at a later period.—rié éwot cai coi;] a re- 
 jection of fellowship (Ae) ‘m9, Josh. xxii. 24; Judg. xi. 12, al; 
 Matt. viii. 29, xxvii. 19; Mark i. 24; Luke vii. 28; also in 
 the classics ; see Bernhardy, p. 98), here with reference to the 
 help to be rendered, which He Himself, without His mother’s 
 assistance, and independently of her, would accomplish, accord- 
 ing to His own divinely determined call and will, and in a 
 miraculous manner. Godet well says: “Sa devise sera désor- 
 mais: mon pere et mot.” Comp. Dorner, Jesu siindlose Voll- 
 kommenh. p.11. The appellation y¥vas added to the ti—cot 
 (which Hofmann thinks should be joined to what follows; 
 but why?) does not contain anything unfriendly (“duriter 
 respondet,” Melancthon), as is clear already from xix. 21; see 
 also Wetstein. Comp. xx. 15. But His not saying pijrep 
 
 — 
 
CHAP. II. 4. 341 
 
 followed involuntarily from the consciousness of His higher 
 wonder-working capacity and will, by virtue of which, as an 
 auntwp, He rejected any interference proceeding from feminine 
 weakness, even such as was presented here before Him in His 
 mother. The remark of Euthymius Zigabenus is not happy 
 (comp. Augustine): “He spoke thus as God ;” while that of 
 Epiphanius, Beza, Calvin, and many others, is singular: “ His 
 aim was to oppose that future Mariolatry which He foresaw.” 
 Still, the passage tells against that worship. Schenkel says 
 erroneously, quoting Mark ui. 21, “He was at variance with 
 the members of His family.” @pa pov] can only mean, 
 the moment when it will be for me to help. So also Hengsten- 
 berg, in keeping with the context. Jesus, conscious of His 
 close communion with the Father, sees clearly that this His 
 first manifestation of Himself as Messiah in the working of 
 miracles stands, even with reference to the time when it is to 
 begin, in close connection with the divine appointment; and 
 He feels that the moment (7) @pa=o «atpos, as in xvi. 21, 
 and often in the N. T. and the classics) for this first Messianio 
 display of power is not yet present when His mother refers to 
 the want of wine. How He was conscious of the exact horas 
 et moras for working, cannot be more precisely determined. 
 Euthymius Zigabenus is substantially right: 7 tod Oavpatoup- 
 yhoat; and Ewald: “the hour of full Messianic sense of power.” 
 Strangely attributing to Mary thoughts of that kind, Baumgarten 
 Crusius remarks, “the moment of my public appearance as 
 Messiah;” and Godet: “Vheure de lavénement royal.” Antici- 
 pating ver. 11, Liicke, Tholuck, Briickner, Maier, Baur, Baum- 
 garten render: “the moment of the revelation of my glory.” Comp. 
 Luthardt: “This miracle, as the figurative prolepsis of Christ’s 
 subsequent full revelation of Himself before the eyes of men, 
 
 'It is an error to suppose that % apa wov in John always signifies the hour of 
 Christ's death. Its reference depends entirely upon the context, as in vii. 30, 
 viii. 20, where it means the hour of Christ’s seizure ; and xiii. 1, where the more 
 precise definition is expressly given. Already cwis in Chrysostom, Ebrard, and 
 many, take it here as meaning the hour of Christ’s death. Hilgenfeld under- 
 stands it of the hour of the glorification of Jesus, the culminating point of which 
 was certainly the crucifixion ; and that Jesus, according to John, gives expression 
 to the full consciousness of the Logos, and its superhuman independence of all 
 human counsel, 
 
142 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 was of significance only for that narrow circle, and was intended 
 to lead Jesus on from it into public life,”’—of which, however, 
 the text contains no hint either in ver. 5 or elsewhere. 
 
 Ver. 5. The words of Jesus last spoken implied that He 
 intended to help, though not immediately. Hence Mary’s 
 direction to the servants, whose service she supposed Jesus 
 would require (perhaps to go and fetch wine). Any allusion 
 to Gen. xli. 55 (Hengstenberg) is remote from the text. 
 Ebrard finds it implied in the passage, that Jesus, after He 
 had spoken, ver. 4, rose and turned towards the servants. 
 
 Ver. 6. "Exet] Whether in the feast chamber, or possibly 
 in the vestibule, we are not told. —wdédplac] water-pitchers 
 for carrying water, iv. 28; often in the LXX.; Dem. 1155. 6; 
 Arist. Vesp. 926; Lysistr. 327, 858; Lucian, Dem. ene. 29. 
 — €&] Not stated as explanatory of the Jewish custom, but as 
 vividly describing the exact circumstances, yet not with any 
 symbolic significance (six, Lange thinks, was the number of 
 
 poverty and labour). — ceiwevar] positae, set down, placed 
 there. Comp. xix. 29; Jer. xxiv. 1; Xen. Occ. vill. 19: yurpas 
 . EUKPWOS Keywévas. — KaTa TOV KaDap. TaV "Iovd.] we. 
 
 for the sake of cleansing (the hands and vessels, Matt. xv. 2; 
 Mark vii. 3 ff.; Luke xi. 39; Lightfoot, p. 974), which the 
 Jews practised before and after meals. On «ata, in which, as 
 in 2 Tim. i. 1, “notio secundum facile transit in notionem 
 propter” (Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 3.12). Comp. Winer, p. 
 376 [E. T. p. 602].—petpnras] In conformity with his 
 Hellenic tendency, John gives the Attic measure, which, how- 
 ever, 1s equal to the Hebrew M2 (Josephus, Antt. viii. 2. 9). 
 The Attic metretes contained 12 yoes or 144 Kotvra, 14 
 Roman amphorae, ue. about 21 Wiirtemburg measures (see 
 Wurm, de ponderum ete. rationib. 126), and about 33 Berlin 
 quarts, in weight eighty pounds of water [about 8% gallons] 
 (Bertheau, Gesch. d. Israel, p. 77). Comp. Béckh, Staatshaush. 
 I. 127; Hermann, Privatalterth. § 46.10. ach pitcher con- 
 tained “ae or three metretae (which are not, with Ammon, to 
 be referred to a smaller measure, nor even, with Ebrard, to that 
 of an amphora); for as a row of six pitchers is named, ava 
 can, consistently with the context, only be taken in a dis- 
 tributive sense, not in the signification—which is, besides, lin- 
 
CHAP, IL. 7, 8. 143 
 
 guistically untenable (see Winer, p. 372 [E. T. pp. 496-7])—of 
 circiter, according to which all six must have held only about 
 two or three metretae (Paulus, Hug). The great quantity of 
 water thus turned into wine (252-378 Wiirtemburg measures, 
 106-160 gallons) seems out of all proportion, and is used by 
 Strauss and Schweizer to impugn the historic character of the 
 narrative; but it is conceivable if we consider the character of 
 the miracle as one of blessing (compare the miraculous Feed- 
 ings), and that we are to suppose that what was left over may 
 have been intended by Jesus as a present for the married pair, 
 while the possible abuse of it during the feast itself was pre- 
 vented by the presence of the Giver. We must also bear in 
 mind that the quantity was suggested to Him by the six 
 pitchers standing there; and therefore, if the blessed Wonder- 
 worker had not merely to measure the amount of the need, 
 He had occasion ali the more not to keep within t\e exact 
 quantity which the circumstances demanded, by changing 
 the contents of only one or two pitchers into wine, and 
 omitting the rest. The blessing conferred by the Wonder- 
 worker has also, considering the circumstances, its appropriate~ 
 ness and decorum, in keeping with which He was not to act in 
 a spirit of calculation, but, on the contrary, to give plentifully, 
 especially when, as was here the case, this abundance was 
 suggested by the vessels which were standing there. 
 
 Vv. 7, 8. The transformation is accomplished in the time 
 between ver. 7 and ver. 8.1 — avdrois] the servants, who 
 obeyed Him according to the direction of Mary, ver. 5; not, 
 as Lange’s imagination suggests, “under the influence of a 
 miraculously excited feeling pervading the household.” — 
 yeutoate] The most natural supposition from this and ver. 6 
 is that the pitchers had been empty, the water in them having 
 been used up before the feast began, and were to be filled 
 afresh for use after meat. Observe, moreover, that Christ 
 
 1 The commencement of the transformation might indeed be also placed after 
 the drawing out, and consequently after ver. 8, so that only that portion of 
 water which was drawn was converted into wine. But the minute statement of 
 the number and large size of the vessels in ver. 6, by which it is manifestly 
 intended to draw attention to the greatness in a quantitative point of view of the 
 miracle of transformation, presupposes rather that all the water in the pitchers 
 was converted into wins. 
 
144 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 does not proceed creatively in His miracles, neither here nor 
 in the feedings. — €#s dvw] This is stated for no other 
 purpose than to give prominence to the quantity of the wine 
 which Jesus miraculously produced. — dyvtAnocate] Alto- 
 gether general, without specifying any particular pitcher— 
 showing that as all were filled, the water in all was turned 
 into wine (in answer to Semler and Olshausen). From the 
 nature of the case, no olject is appended, and we therefore can 
 only understand the general word i¢. The drawing out was 
 done by means of a vessel (a tankard, rpoyoos, Hom. Od. xviii. 
 397), out of which the master of the feast would fill the cups 
 upon the table (comp. Nitzsch on Hom. Od. 7. 183). — The 
 apxetpixrtvos, table-master (Heliod. vii. 27), in Petron. 27 
 triclinarches, elsewhere also called tpazefozrods (Athen. iv. 
 p-170 DE; Beck. Char. II. 252), is the chief of the waiters 
 at table, upon whom devolved the charge of the meats and 
 drinks, and the entire arrangement of the repast. See Walch, 
 De architriclino, Jena 1753. Comp. Fritzsche on Ecclus. 
 xxxv. 1, where he is designated as syovmevos. He was at 
 the same time the taster of the meats and drinks, and is not 
 to be confounded with the cuyrrociapyos, modimperator, arbi- 
 ter bibendt, who was chosen by the guests themselves from 
 among their own number (Xen. Anabd. vi. 1.30; Herm. Privat- 
 alterth. § 28, 29; Mitscherlich, ad Hor. Od. i. 4. 18). 
 
 Vv. 9,10. The parenthesis, usually made to begin with 
 k. ovx et, must be limited to of 5é Stdxovor— bdwp, be- 
 cause not only does the construction run on with kal ov« 7Oet, 
 but a reason is also assigned for the @wvet tov vuudiov, «.7.X., 
 which follows ; for had the man known whence the new wine 
 had come, he would not in surprise have called the bride- 
 groom, etc. — Td Udwp olv. yeyev.] not the wine which had 
 been water (Luther), but the water which had become wine (and 
 now was wine). Observe the force of the perfect. If the To 
 had been repeated, this water, as that which had been made 
 wine, would have been distinguished from other water (aguam, 
 eam dico quae, etc.). See Kiihner, ad Xen. Anab. iv. 6.1. The 
 ro not being repeated, the ddwp oiv. yeyev. expresses one com- 
 plete conception. — moOev éoriv] whence tt comes, zc. that it 
 had been drawn out of the water-pitchers. This is evident 
 
CHAP. II. 11. 145 
 
 from the following of nveAnKotes TO VOwp. The table-master. 
 therefore, cannot have been present at the drawing out of the 
 water, ver. 8. Concerning the present éoriv, see i. 40. — The 
 insertion of the words ot dé dudkovor, «.7.r., serves to give pro- 
 minence to the reality of the miracle. — jdercar] te. wo0ev 
 eoriv, but they did not know that it was wine which they 
 brought. — ¢dwvet] He called him to him (comp. i. 49), and 
 said to him. Whether the bridegroom was just outside at the 
 time (as Nonnus represents), or was reclining at the table, or 
 is to be supposed.as employed in the chamber, does not appear. 
 — 0 apxitpixr.] a superfluous repetition, but suggested by the 
 parenthesis, as is often the case in Greek.— ras advOpwmTos, 
 k.T.X.] spoken under the impression that the bridegroom had 
 kept the good wine in reserve, and had not allowed it to be 
 put forth (ré@nov), but now was regaling them with it. We 
 may suppose the words to have been spoken jocularly, in joyous 
 surprise after tasting the wine. The general custom, however, 
 to which the table-master refers, is not elsewhere with any 
 certainty confirmed (the proof in Wetstein is doubtful) ; nor, 
 indeed, considering the playful way in which it was spoken, 
 does it need any voucher. — dtav pwe@vabadar]| when they 
 have become intoxicated, so that they can no longer appreciate 
 the goodness of the wine. The word does not mean anything 
 else ; not when they have well drunk (Tholuck, De Wette, and 
 several, e.g. Beza, Cornelius a Lapide, and others), because 
 intoxication is the essential though relative conception (see 
 also Gen. xliii. 34; Hag. 1.6; Rev. xvii. 2). The man says 
 only in joke, as if it were a general experience, what he cer- 
 tainly may often have observed, and no inference can there- 
 fore be drawn from his words that the guests at Cana were 
 already intoxicated ; especially as “ws dpre simply means Zill 
 now, after they had been drinking so long at the table, in 
 antithesis with the mpa@rov. 
 
 Ver. 11. The 7+7v before dpynv being spurious (see critical 
 notes), we must translate: This, as beginning of His miracles, 
 did Jesus at Cana. See on iv. 54, and Bernhardy, p. 319; 
 Stallbaum, ad Plat. Gorg. p.510 D. From this it is clear 
 that it is the first miracle 7m general, and not merely the first 
 of those that were wrought in Cana (iv. 46 sqq.), that is 
 
 K 
 
116 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 meant (so already twés in Chrysostom and Paulus). This 
 concluding remark of John’s simply serves to express, on occa- 
 sian of the first of them, the teleological nature of the miracles 
 of Jesus generally. — rv d0€av adtod] not “ His excellent 
 humanity” (Paulus), but Mis divine Messianic majesty, as in 
 i.14. The miracles of Jesus, as He Himself testified, had 
 for their object not only the d0fa of the Father, but also His 
 own, xi. 4 (in opposition to Weizsicker, Jahrb. f. Deutsche 
 Theol. 1857, p. 165). The former is really the latter, and the 
 latter the former. Observe how in John (as well as in the 
 Synoptics) Jesus begins His Messianic ministry in Galilee, 
 even in this His first miracle. — nal éwiorevoay, «.7.r.] 
 and His disciples became believers in Him. The faith which 
 they already had (i. 35-52) was only introductory, belonging 
 to the commencement of their connection with Jesus; now, 
 upon the basis of this manifestation of His glory (i. 14), came 
 the more advanced and fuller decision, a new epoch in their 
 faith, which, moreover, still continued susceptible of and re- 
 quiring fresh additions even to the end (xi. 15, xiv. 11). 
 There is no hint here of any contrast with the unbelief after- 
 wards manifested by the people (Briickner), nor can this be 
 inferred from ver. 12 ff. Comp. Weiss, Lehrbegriff, p. 102. 
 
 Note.—This turning of the water into wine must be regarded 
 as an actual miracle, for John as an eye-witness (see on i. 41, 
 42), in the most simple and definite manner (comp. iv. 46), 
 represents it as such, and as the first manifestation of the 
 divine glory dwelling in Christ in the direction of miraculous 
 working (not as portraying beforehand the heavenly marriage 
 supper, Rev. xix. 8, Matt. xxvi. 29, as Hofmann, Schriftbewers, 
 II. 2, p. 407, and Baumgarten, p. 99, take it). Every exposition 
 which explains away the miraculous element contradicts the 
 words and the purpose of St. John, infringes on his credi- 
 bility and capacity for simple observation, and places even the 
 character of Jesus in an ambiguous light. The physical incon- 
 ceivability, which nevertheless is not identical with absolute 
 impossibility (against Scholten, p. 215), pertains to this work in 
 common only with every miracle ;+ and hence the appeal made 
 
 1 It does not become more conceivable by Lange’s fiction (LZ. J. II. p. 479), 
 which is quite unsupported by the text, viz. that the company were elevated to 
 a higher tone of feeling, as the disciples were at a later time upon the mount of 
 
CHAP. IL 11 147 
 
 toa supposed accelerated process of nature (Olshausen, comp. 
 already Augustine and Chrysostom), which must have been at 
 the same time an artificial process, is only a superfluous crutch 
 on which the representation is made to lean, inapplicable to the 
 other miracles, and as arbitrary as it is (in the absence of a vine) 
 inadequate. Its inconceivableness in a telic point of view John 
 himself removes in ver. 11; and remembering its design as there 
 stated, the miracle was not an act of luxury (De Wette), but 
 of abounding human kindness in blessing (see on ver. 6). To 
 suppose another design, viz. that Jesus wished to show how 
 opposed He was to the strict asceticism of the Baptist (Flatt, 
 Olshausen), is pure and arbitrary invention, in opposition to 
 ver. 11. Further, the fact that the Synoptics have not the nar- 
 rative really amounts to nothing, because John selected and 
 wrote independently of the synoptical series of narrations; and 
 as they have not the first, so neither have they the last and 
 ereatest miracle. We must, after all, abide by the simple state- 
 ment that there was a change of substance (ver. 9), effected by 
 the power of Jesus over the sphere of nature, in conformity with 
 a higher law of causation. Granting this power, which the 
 whole range of the Gospel miracles demands, there is no ground 
 whatever for contenting oneself (against ver. 9) with the as- 
 sumption of a change of attributes merely in the water, whereby 
 (after the analogy of mineral waters) it may have received the 
 colour and taste of wine (Neander). It is levity of an equally 
 objectionable kind, and a wronging ofa writer so serious as John, 
 to explain what occurred as a wedding joke, as Paulus (Jesus had 
 a quantity of wine brought into the house, and had it mixed 
 with water out of the pitchers and put upon the tables, ver. 4 
 having been spoken jestingly) and Gfrorer (Mary brought the 
 wine with her as a wedding present, and during the feast, at 
 the right moment, she gave her son a sign to bring out and 
 distribute the gift) have agreed to do. Thus, instead of the 
 transmutation of the water, we have a frivolous transmutation 
 of the history. Lastly, the mythical explanation contradicts 
 the trustworthiness and genuineness of the Gospel. According 
 to it, fact is resolved into legend—a legend derived from the 
 
 transfiguration, and that Christ, from the full spring of His highest life-power, 
 made them drink creatively ‘‘in the element of the higher feeling.” 
 
 1 Ammon also, L. J. I., falls back upon an erroneous idea and representation 
 on the part of John : ‘‘ What took place in the intervening time, when the water- 
 pitchers were empty, and soon after were filled to the brim, is unknown to us.” 
 The miracle is thus reduced into a natural event behind the scenes. Schenkel 
 simply enough removes every miraculous element from the history, as being 
 legendary adornments, 
 
148 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 analogies of the histories of Moses (Ex. xv. 23 sqq.) and Elisha 
 (2 Kings ii. 19), as Strauss will have it, or from a misunderstood 
 parable, as Weisse thinks; while De Wette—without, however, 
 adopting the mythical view, but not fully recognising the his- 
 toric character of the narrative—regards the dispensing of the 
 wine as an act corresponding with the dispensing of the bread, 
 and both as answering to the bread and wine in the Lord’s 
 Supper. This he holds to be the most appropriate explanation ; 
 but it is all the more inept, because there is not the least hint 
 of it in the narrative, and because the Lord’s Supper is not once 
 mentioned in John. According to Schweizer and Weisse, the 
 paragraph is to be reckoned among certain interpolations which 
 have been added to the genuine Johannean nucleus,—an arbi- 
 trary assertion ; whereas Baur, whose criticism rejects the whole 
 Gospel, transforms the narrative into an allegory, wherein water 
 is the symbol of the Baptist, wine of the Messiah’s dignity (ze. 
 the bridegroom’s), and the transformation typifies the transition 
 from the preparatory stage of the Baptist to the epoch of Mes- 
 sianic activity and glory (comp. Baumgarten Crusius, p. 82) ; 
 while Hilgenfeld (Zvang. p. 248) looks upon the turning of the 
 water into wine as intended as a counterpart to the synoptical 
 narrative of the temptation, and to illustrate how Jesus was 
 raised above all narrow asceticism. Thus, too, some of the 
 Fathers (Cyril, Augustine, and many others) allegorize the 
 miracle, without, however, surrendering its objective and histo- 
 rical character as a fact; whereas Ewald, while renouncing any 
 investigation into the historic probability of the narrative, re- 
 gards it as the gilding of the idea of the beneficent power of the 
 Messianic spirit, whereby even now water ought to become wine. 
 Luthardt holds, indeed, the objective historical reality, but re- 
 gards the manifestation of the 6s&a to have been in contrast with 
 that given in the O. T.,—the gift of God occupying the place of 
 the command, and the higher life, which Jesus the bridegroom 
 makes known in this miracle, the place of outward purification. 
 Similarly Scholten, p. 164. But while the representation of 
 Christ as bridegroom is quite remote from the narrative, John 
 gives no support or sanction to the idea that the miracle was 
 symbolical, either in the remark of ver. 6 (xar& +. xabup. +. oud.) 
 or in that of ver. 11 (éoavép. r. dd&. airod).—The miracle at 
 Cana is, finally, the only one to which the Synoptics have no 
 one that corresponds. Therefore the miracles in John are all 
 the less to be used in support of the assertion that, in John, 
 Christ, after the manner of the Gnostics, announces another and 
 higher God than the God of the O. T. (Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. 
 281). According to Keim, the marriage in Cana, the first great 
 
beaming forth of the divine glory, stands in John as “ a loving 
 portrait” of Christ, and designedly in place of the painful 
 temptation in the wilderness. But this glory beamed forth 
 still more grandly and more significantly in its bearing upon the 
 Saviour’s whole ministry in the threefold triumph over Satan. 
 
 Ver. 12. Meta todto KatéBn, «.7.r.] Direct from Cana? 
 
 or from Nazareth (i. 46), whither Mary, Jesus, and the dis- 
 ciples had returned? The latter must be assumed as the 
 correct view, because the brothers of Jesus (His brothers lite- 
 rally, not His cousins, as Hengstenberg again maintains; see 
 vil. 8, 5, and on Matt. 1 25, xii. 46, 1 Cor. ix. 5) had not 
 been with Him at the wedding. It is quite arbitrary to sug- 
 gest that they were accidentally omitted to be mentioned in 
 ver. 2 (Baumgarten Crusius, following earlier commentators). 
 —xatéB8n]| down, for Kadapvaovp (to be written thus, 
 with Lachmann and Tischendorf, in John likewise) lay on the 
 shore of the lake of Tiberias. —avtos x. } wtp, «.7.r] A 
 common ézavdpOwcts (correction). See Fritzsche, Conject. 
 p. 25; ad Matt. p.420; ad Mare. p. 70; Stallbaum, ad Plat. 
 Crit. p.50 E. John does not tell us why they went down to 
 Capernaum* (Matt. iv. 13 is in a totally different connection). 
 The settlement of the family at Capernaum is left uncertain by 
 John; the fact had but little interest for the Judaistic stand- 
 ing-point of his history, and is neither recorded here, as Ewald 
 maintains (the x. ‘xed Euewav ov Torr. Hw. which follows is 
 against this), nor even presupposed (Wieseler, De Wette, 
 Tholuck), for the mention of the brothers who were not with 
 Him at the marriage forbids this. Nor is the settlement 
 attested either by iv. 3, 43, or by vi. 17, 59.— od woAXads 
 nwépas| because the Passover was at hand, ver. 13, which 
 Jesus (and the disciples, i. 22) attended; not, therefore, on 
 account of misconstruction and hostility (Ewald). 
 
 Vv. 13-16. Kai] Simply the continuative and, i.e. during 
 this short stay at Capernaum. — For vv. 14-16, see on Matt. 
 
 1 Hengstenberg supposes that John mentions this only from a feeling of 
 personal interest ; that he himself had belonged to Capernaum, and Jesus had 
 stayed at his father’s house. Anutterly groundless conjecture, made for the sake 
 of harmonizing (i. 45; comp. Luke iv. 38, Mark i. 29), according to which we 
 should have to regard Bethsaida as a suburb of Capernaum ; see, on the con- 
 trary, Matt. xi. 21, 23. 
 
 —. 
 
150 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 xxi. 12, 13.—ravtas] refer not to the persons, but to the 
 animals named immediately afterwards with the ré—xai, 1.c. 
 not only, but also (see Bauml. in loc., and Partik. 225). Thus 
 the unseemliness which some have found in the wse of the 
 scourge,—certainly intimated by the connection of srowjoas and 
 e&éBarev,—and along with it every typical explanation of the 
 scourge (Grotius, Godet, and others regard it as the symbol 
 of God’s wrath), disappear.—’E&éyee] uncontracted form, 
 to be taken as the aor. Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 222.— 70 
 Képwa| coin, especially small coin. Mostly in the plural in 
 Greek. The singular here is collective. — Kal Tots Tas TeEpt- 
 oTepas, «.7.r.] He could not of course drive out the doves 
 like the other animals, and He therefore says to those who 
 sold them, dpate tadra évrevfev. John is here more minute 
 than the Synoptics; but we must not regard the words as 
 indicating greater mildness towards the sellers of the doves, 
 because these were used by the poor (Rupertius, De Wette). 
 The command yp) sroveire, x.7.r., addressed to them applied to 
 all.— tod Twatpos pov] Admiranda auctoritas, Bengel; the 
 full consciousness of the Son manifested itself already (as in 
 Luke ii. 49) in the temple.— otk. éumropiov] a house of, a 
 place of, merchandise. The holy temple house had, in the 
 Lord’s view, become this, while the temple court had been 
 made a place of buying and marketing (éuzropiov, Thue. i. 13. 
 3; Dem. 957, 27; Xen. de red. iii. 3; Herodian. viii. 2. 6; 
 Ezek. xxvii. 3; Isa. xxiii. 17, not the same as éwzropia). Pos- 
 sibly Zech. xiv. 21 was in His thoughts. 
 
 Ver. 17. "EpvyjcOncav| At the very time of the occur- 
 rence, and not (as Olshausen asserts) after the resurrection, a 
 circumstance which has to be stated in ver. 22 (comp. xii. 
 16). — The text quoted is Ps. lxix. 10; the theocratic sufferer 
 in this psalm, a psalm written during the exile, is a type of the 
 Messiah; see xv. 25, xix. 28 ff. Comp. Rom. xv. 3, xi 9; 
 Acts i. 20.—xataddyerai pe] will devour or conswme me, 
 is to be understood of a power which wears one out internally, 
 Ps. cxix. 139, not to be referred to the death of Jesus (Bengel, 
 Olshausen, Hofmann, Weissag. wu. Erf. p. 111; Luthardt, comp. 
 Briickner), for the disciples could at that time have thought of 
 anything but His death; comp. ver. 22. In this wrathful zeal, 
 
CHAP. IL iy. 152 
 
 which they saw had taken hold of Jesus, they thought they 
 saw the Messianic fulfilment of that word in the psalm, wherein 
 the speaker declares his great zeal for God’s house, which was 
 yet to wear him out. The fulfilment relates to the o &ros 
 Tov oixov cov, whereof the cataduyeras indicates only the 
 violence and permanence; and there is therefore no ground 
 for imagining already any gloomy forebodings on the part of 
 the disciples (Lange). For éo@éecv and édev, used of con- 
 suming emotions (as in Aristophanes, Vesp. 287), see Jacobs, 
 ad Anthol. VI. 280; Del. epigr. p. 257. As to the future 
 ¢ayouat, which belongs to the LXX. and Apocrypha, see 
 Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 327; like the classical doas, it never 
 stands as present (against Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Godet, and 
 others). 
 
 Note.—If there was but one cleansing of the temple, then 
 either John or the Synoptics have given an erroneous narrative. 
 But if it happened twice, first at the beginning, and then at 
 the end of the Messianic ministry of Jesus,—a supposition which 
 in itself corresponds too well to the significance of the act (in 
 so far as its repetition was occasioned by the state of disorder 
 remaining unchanged after so long an interval had elapsed) to 
 be inconceivable (as has been asserted by some), or even merely 
 to pass the limits of probability,—it is then, on the one hand, 
 conceivable that the Synoptics do not contain the first cleans- 
 ing, because Christ’s early labours in Jerusalem do not belong 
 to the range of events which they generally narrate; and, on 
 the other hand, that John passes over the second cleansing, 
 because he had already recorded the Messianic oyu of the 
 same kind. We are not therefore to suppose that the one 
 account is true, and the other false, but to assume that the act was 
 repeated. See on Matt. xxi. 12,13. So the Fathers and most 
 subsequent writers; also Schleiermacher, Tholuck, Olshausen, 
 B. Crusius, Maier, Ebrard, Luthardt, Riggenbach, Lange, Baum- 
 garten, Hengstenberg, Godet,etc. Others, on the contrary, admit- 
 ting only one ‘temple-cleansing, decide in favour, some of the 
 synoptical account (Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Scholten, 
 Schenkel’), and some in favour of John’s (Liicke, De Wette, 
 
 1 «* Whether it took place before or after, once or twice, it takes nothing from 
 our faith.’”—LUTHER. 
 
 * Comp. also Luther: ‘‘It seems to me that John here skips over the three 
 first years.” 
 
152 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Ammon, Krabbe, Briickner, Ewald, Weizsicker, and many 
 others ; Biumlein hesitatingly). The latter would be the correct 
 view, because John was an eye-witness ; although we are not to 
 suppose, as Baur, in keeping with his view of the fourth Gospel, 
 thinks, that John derived the facts from the Synoptics, but fixed 
 the time of the transaction independently, in consistency with 
 the idea of reformatory procedure. See also Hilgenfeld, who 
 traces kere the “idiosyncrasy of John,” who, with reference 
 at least to the knowledge of the disciples and the relations of 
 Jesus to the Jews, begins where the Synoptics leave off; and thus 
 his narrative is merely a peculiar development of synoptical 
 materials. Besides, upon the supposition of two distinct cleans- 
 ings of the temple, any essential difference between the two acts 
 themselves is not to be discovered. Luthardt, indeed, follow- 
 ing Hofmann (comp. Lichtenstein, p. 156), thinks that, in the 
 synopt'cal account, Jesus as prophet protects the place of divine 
 worship, but that in John’s He as Son exercises His authority 
 over the house; but the 6 o7xés wou of the Synoptics, as the declara- 
 tion of God, exactly corresponds with riv ofxov rod warpég jwov In 
 John as the word of Christ. The distinction, moreover, that 
 the first cleansing was the announcement of reformation, and 
 the second that of judgment (Hengstenberg), cannot be made 
 good, separates what is clearly connected, and attaches too much 
 importance to collateral minutiae. This remark in answer to 
 Go let, who regards the first cleansing as “wn appel,” the second 
 as “une protestation.” The essential element of difference in 
 
 | John’s account lies in the very striking declaration of Jesus 
 
 '|about the temple of His body, ver. 19, of which the Synoptics 
 \have not a word, and which possesses great prophetic signi- 
 ficance as uttered at the very outset of His Messianic ministry, 
 but has no special fitness at the end of it. Jesus accordingly 
 did not utter it again at the second cleansing, but only at the 
 first, though upon that second cleansing also, occasion was 
 given for so doing (Matt. xxi. 23). It is this very declaration, 
 however, which marks unmistakeably the Messianic character 
 of the appearance of Jesus in Jerusalem from the very first 
 (against Weizsicker, Evang. Gesch. p. 260). Chap. vil. 3 is not 
 the first place which treats of that Messianic appearance. 
 
 Vv. 18,19. The same question as in Matt. xxi. 23, but 
 how totally different an answer! It cannot therefore be used 
 to confirm the supposed identity of the two events. — d7re- 
 xpv0.} As in Matt. xi. 25 (which see), and often, denoting 
 what is said wpon occasion of Christ’s act, and with reference 
 
 rT 
 
CHAP. II. 18, 19. 153 
 
 thereto. — ti’ onpetov] If what He had done was to be 
 recognised as appropriate to Him, it must be based upon a 
 really prophetic é€ovcda, and consequently upon divine autho- 
 rization; in proof of this, they desired a special miraculous 
 sign or act, accrediting Him as a divine messenger, and which 
 was to be wrought by Him before their eyes, nix, onpetov Tijs 
 avOevtias, Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. vi. 30. — devcvvers| 
 dost thow bring before us, lettest us see; comp. Hom. JI. v. 
 244: Kpovwwv—becxvds ofa Bpotoicw. Od. y. 174. — 671] 
 eis éxetvo, Ort, ix. 17, xi. 51, xvi. 9; Mark xvi. 14; 2 Cor. 1. 
 18, xi. 10. See Fritzsche ad Matt. p. 248. Consequently 
 in the sense of guatenus, see Ast, Lex. Plat. Il. 485. — 
 motets] The present denotes the act just performed, but which 
 is still regarded as present.— Ver. 19. XUcaTe TOV vaov 
 TouUTOP, x.T.A.] refers, according to the apostle’s explanation 
 in ver. 21, to the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that he 
 consequently means His body as the dwelling-place of God, 
 who was in Christ (x. 38, xiv. 10, 11, 20, xvii. 21,1. 14), 
 ae. as the antitype of the temple,’ and, in conformity with this, 
 His violent death as the pulling down, and His resurrection as 
 the rebuilding of it. We must therefore, according to John, 
 suppose that Jesus, with the temple buildings before Him, to 
 which He points (this temple here), sees in them the sacred 
 type of His body, and with that directness of expression 
 characteristic of the old prophets (such as we often see, eg., 
 in Isaiah), straightway substitutes the image for that which 
 it represented, so that these sharp, vivid strokes, dashed down 
 without any explanation, contain, as in a pictorial riddle, a 
 symbolic and prophetic announcement of His resurrection,’ as 
 
 1 Considering the oft-recurring representation of the indwelling of God in 
 Christ, it is very far-fetched to derive the temple comparison here from the 
 Valentinian Christology concerning a higher body of the Messiah appropriate 
 for union with the Logos (in answer to Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. 247). Seeing, 
 further, that Christ (ver. 16) calls the literal temple ‘‘ His Father’s house,” 
 how can the Demiurge be conceived of as the God of the Jews? How can we 
 reconcile with that expression even ‘‘a milder Gnosticism” (Hilgenfeld, in the 
 Theol. Jahrb. 1857, p. 516)? Simply to admit that ‘‘a weak reference to the 
 highest God was not wanting even in Judaism,” is both incorrect in itself, and 
 altogether unsuited to solve the palpable contradiction. 
 
 ? It is assumed (with Bengel) still in my 4th edition, that Jesus indicated the 
 teference to His body ‘‘nutw gestuve,” but that the Jews did not notice it. 
 
Tod THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 in Matt. xii. 59, xvi. 4, and in keeping with what we are to 
 assume throughout, viz. that He never foretold His resurrec- 
 tion in so many words, but only by figures and in obscure 
 terms. The thought accordingly, divested of this figurative 
 envelope, is, according to John, no other than this: kill me, and 
 within three days (év, see Bernhardy, p. 209; Winer, p. 361 
 [E. T. p. 482]) I will rise again. The imperative in the 
 protasis is not permissive merely, which weakens the emotion, 
 but contains a challenge; it springs from painfully excited 
 feeling, as He looks with heart-searching gaze upon that im- 
 placable opposition which was already beginning to show 
 itself, and which would not be satisfied till it had put Him 
 to death. Comp. wAnpwcate, Matt. xxiii. 32. John’s ex- 
 planation is adopted by the ancients, and among modern 
 expositors by Kuinoel, Tholuck, Hildebrand (in Hiiffell’s 
 Zeitschr, II. 1), Kling (in d. Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 127), 
 Krabbe, Klee, Olshausen (at least as to their ¢nner meaning, 
 while the words, he thinks, were apparently simply a repelling 
 paradox), Maier, Hasert (Ueb. d. Vorhersagungen Jesu von 
 seinem Tode, Berlin 1839, p. 81), Hauff in the Stud. u. 
 Krit. 1849, p. 106 ff.; Briickner (against De Wette), Lauril- 
 lard, de locis ev. Joh. in quibus ipse auctor verba J. interpretat. 
 est, Lugd. B. 1853, p. 1 ff.; Baumgarten, Maier, Baeumlein, 
 Godet, even Luthardt (though bringing in a double meaning ; 
 by putting Jesus to death, Israel destroyed itself as the house 
 of God, while the resurrection was the setting up of God’s 
 spiritual house; comp. Ebrard, Lange, Riggenbach, Hengsten- 
 berg); similarly Baur, p. 137 ff., who, however (and with him 
 Hilgenfeld), traces the expression to synoptic elements much 
 later in point of time. But John’s explanation is abandoned, 
 since the time of Herder (vom Sohne Gottes) and Henke (Pro- 
 gramm 1798, in Pott, Sylloge, I. p. 8 ff), by Eckermann, 
 Paulus, Liicke, Schweizer, Bleek, B. Crusius, Ammon, Strauss, 
 Gfrorer, De Wette, Ewald, Weizsiicker, Schenkel, Scholten, 
 
 This is inadmissible, because thus the rodrev would have no reference whatever 
 to the temple of stone, whereas the entire scene in the temple court shows that 
 this reference is contained in it. Besides, such a gesture would be inappropriate 
 while using an enigmatical word, for it would at once give the key to its solution. 
 The intellectual point would be quite lost. 
 
CHAP. II. 18, 19. g 505) 
 
 and many others, who, with various modifications, explain 
 the pulling down of the temple of the decay of the old temple 
 religion, and the setting up in three days of the new spiritual 
 theocracy so soon to be established; thus the imperative is 
 taken by some as a challenge (as above) (Herder, Henke, 
 Ewald), by some again as a concession (Schenkel), and by 
 some as an hypothesis (Liicke, B. Crusius, De Wette: 
 “Granted that ye destroy”)—according to De Wette, with 
 allusion perhaps to the late partial pulling down of the 
 temple by Herod. But (1) before we can assume that John 
 of all men, who yet elsewhere was so deeply imbued with the 
 mind of Jesus, wholly misunderstood Him, and that too at the 
 time when he wrote his Gospel, when, consequently, the old 
 degenerate religion had been long ago overthrown, and the 
 new spiritual sanctuary long ago set up,—the most decisive 
 evidence of such a misunderstanding is requisite. If this be 
 not forthcoming, we are bound to seek the ¢rwe interpretation 
 of any saying of Jesus from him, and especially in this case, 
 where he distinctly gives his own explanation in opposition to 
 the misconception of the Jews, and gives it not only as his 
 own, but as that of the rest of the disciples likewise. (2) The 
 accusation in Matt. xxvi. 61, Mark xiv. 58 (comp. Acts vi. 
 13) is no argument in favour of the modern interpretation, 
 for it is based only upon the Jewish misunderstanding of the 
 saying. (3) The place and occasion alike suggested the 
 temple as an illustration, but they determined nothing as to 
 the subject-matter of the comparison ; a onpetoy in general was 
 asked for, not one bearing specially upon the temple. (4) The 
 setting up of the spiritual temple was an event not at all 
 dependent upon a previous Avewv of the old economy; on the 
 contrary, a beginning had already been made, the further 
 development of which was not the effect but the cause (the 
 fermenting element) of the dissolution of the old theocracy: 
 hence the relation of the protasis to the apodosis of the 
 sentence would be neither logically nor historically correct. 
 (5) This spiritual building up was so far from being a 
 momentary act, and was to so great a degree a gradual 
 development, that neither the conception of a onyeloy in 
 general, nor the words €v rpotv 1yépats, which belong essen- 
 
156 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 tially to this conception, have any corresponding relation 
 thereto; the latter expression, even if taken in a proverbial 
 sense (Hos. vi. 2, not Luke xii. 32; but see Dissen ad Dem. 
 de cor. p. 362), could only mean “in a few days,” and there- 
 fore would be quite unsuited to the comparison, and would 
 even have the appearance of grandiloquence. Moreover, as 
 the three days joined to the éyep@ were always the fixed cor- 
 relative of Christ’s resurrection, this ought itself to have ex- 
 ciuded the modern explanation. (6) A new temple would of 
 necessity have been spoken of as another (comp. Mark xiv. 
 58), but éyepd adrov can only mean the same; and thus the 
 Jews as well as John rightly understood it, for Jesus did not 
 say éyep@ adXov or Erepor, or the like.’ (7) It is only a 
 seeming objection to John’s explanation, that according to N. 
 T. theology Christ did not raise Himself from the dead, but 
 was raised by the Father; comp. ver. 22; Acts u. 24, 31 ff, 
 i. 15, av.10, v.30, al.; Rom. iv, 24, vii. 11; 1 Cor sige 
 2 Cor. iv. 14; Gal. ‘i. 1; Eph. i, 21; Col: a. 12; 2 Ehessam 
 10; 1 Pet. i. 21. Any such contradiction to the Christian 
 mode of view, if real, must have prevented John himself above 
 every one from referring the words to the resurrection. But 
 the objection disappears if we simply give due weight to the 
 ficurative nature of the expression, which rests upon that 
 visible contemplation of the resurrection, according to which 
 the Subject that arises, whose resurrection is described as the 
 re-erecting of the destroyed temple, must also be the Subject 
 that erects the temple,—without affecting the further doctrine, 
 which, moreover, does not come under consideration, that the 
 causa efficiens, ae. the actual revivifying power, is the Father. 
 Christ receiving His life again from the Father (x. 17) and rising 
 again, Himself raises up by His very resurrection the destroyed 
 temple. See, moreover, Briickner, p. 57, and Godet. Comp. 
 Ignat. Smyrn. 2: adnOas avéotnoev éavtov. — For éyelper 
 as used of erecting buildings, see Ecclus. xlix. 11; 3 Esdras 
 
 
 
 1 Appeal is wrongly made to Matt. x. 39, where Yux%v denotes earthly life 
 merely, and then airy life eternal. ux» as well as air#y there means nothing 
 but the soul; and the enigma of the expression lies not in a different sense being 
 applied to these two words, but in the different meaning as respects duration of 
 sipov and a&roricts 
 
od 
 
 CHAP. II. 20. 154 
 
 v. 44, viii. 81; Ael. V. H. 12, 238; Herodianus, 3, 15. 6; 
 Jacobs ad Anthol. XII. p. 75 
 
 Note.—It cannot perplex us in John’s explanation, that the 
 answer which Jesus gave was rightly understood neither by 
 the Jews nor by the disciples at the time. It was the manner 
 of Jesus, as especially appears in John, to throw out seeds of 
 thought for the future which could not take root at the time. 
 Comp. Chrysostom: rorrd romira pbeyyeras rors uv rére dxovouory 
 on bvra O7AGa, Tors Of mere Tara eodmeva. Tivos Of Evexey rovro roles; 
 iva Oeiyb% rposidws cvwbev rae merc ratra, drav ecérAdn nal rH wpop- 
 phoews rd Feros 0 On nal Exl Tig Kpopnreing radrns yéeyove. And 
 that from His very first public appearance He foresaw the 
 development of the opposition of this seemingly guileless 
 party, onwards to its goal in the destruction of the temple 
 of His body, can be regarded as an unhistorical presupposition 
 of the Logos doctrine only by one who, on the one hand, can 
 by critical doubts* get rid of the early references of Jesus to 
 His death which are contained in the Synoptics (e.g. Matt. x. 
 38, xl. 39, x. 23), and, on the other hand, does not sufficiently 
 estimate Christ’s higher knowledge, and especially His acquaint- 
 ance with the heart which John unfolds, by virtue of which He 
 apprehends the full intent (vi. 64) of this seemingly justifiable 
 requirement of a sign. 
 
 Ver. 20. An intended deductio ad absurdum. Teooapak. 
 k. && €recwv] length of time named without €v. Bernhardy, 
 p. 81; Winer, p. 205 [E. T. p. 273]. The great number of 
 years stands emphatically first. — éxodopu@n] ze. so far as 
 it was already complete. The proposed enlargement and 
 renewal of the temple of Zerubbabel was begun in the 18th 
 year of Herod the Great’s reign (autumn of 734-5; see 
 Joseph. Antt. xv. 11. 1), and was first completed, according 
 to Josephus, Antt. xx. 9. 7, under Herod Agrippa I, A.D. 64. 
 How the 46 years named here prove that the passover then 
 being held was that of the year 782 (A.D. 29), corresponding 
 with the year of the Baptist’s appearance according to Luke 
 iii, 1 (August 781—2), see on Acts, Introd. § 4. Wieseler, 
 p. 166, reckoning onwards from Nisan 735, places the end 
 of the 46th year exactly in Nisan 781;? comp. also Wieseler 
 in Herzog’s Encykl. XXI. 546. 
 
 1 Comp. Keim, Geschichtl. Christus, pp. 35, 36, ed. 3. 
 * Ewald reckons from B.c. 20 to A.D. 28, and, counting only the full inter 
 
158 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Vv. 21, 22. Tod céparos]' Genitive of apposition; see 
 Winer, p. 494 [E. T. p. 666].— Ver. 22. odv] represents 
 the recollection as answering to the true meaning of that 
 declaration. — éwvnaOncav| they became mindful of, ver. 17, 
 xii. 16. The saying came afresh to their remembrance when 
 it was explained as a fact by the resurrection; previously, 
 because not understood, it had been forgotten. With yyép@n 
 comp. éyep@, ver. 19. — nal éwictevcav, x72] As the 
 result of this recollection, they believed the Scripture (felt con- 
 vinced of the truth of its statements)—observing, that is, the 
 harmony of its prophecies concerning the resurrection of 
 Jesus (Ps. xvi. 10; Isa. lil; cf. Luke xxiv. 26; Acts xiii. 33 ff; 
 1 Cor. xv. 4; Matt. xii. 40) with that saying of Christ’s——and 
 the word which Jesus had (then, ver. 19) spoken, which now, as 
 fulfilled in the resurrection, presented itself to them in its full 
 prophetic truth. Upon weortedvery tive in St. John, comp. 
 Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 20. — Schweizer (whom Scholten follows) 
 regards vv. 21, 22 as spurious, quite groundlessly. The 
 statement is the exact outcome of St. John’s inmost personal 
 experience. 
 
 Ver. 23. 4é] introducing a characteristic summary state- 
 ment (to ver. 25) regarding this stay of Jesus at the feast, in 
 order next to give prominence to a special scene, the story of 
 Nicodemus in iii, 1 ff — év 1. ‘Iepoo. év t. madaxa év TH 
 éopt| The latter clause is not added as an explanation for 
 Greek readers (that should have been done at ver. 13), but 
 “He was at Jerusalem during the passover in the feast (engaged 
 in celebrating the feast);” thus the first év is local, the second 
 refers to time, and the third joins on with #v, and expresses 
 
 vening years, he gets the 46, thus omitting B.c. 20, the year in which the 
 rebuilding began, and A.D. 28, the year of the passover named in our text. — 
 For the rest, it must be remembered (in opposition to Keim’s doubts in his 
 Gesch. J. I. p. 615) that the statement in the text does not necessarily oblige 
 us to suppose an oixodouciodas without any interruptions. The building had 
 been going on now for 46 years. 
 
 1 John explains the saying so simply and definitely, that there is no room for 
 the double meaning which Luthardt, Hengstenberg, and others import into it. 
 With equal simplicity and definiteness does he represent the meaning given as 
 that of Jesus Himself (against Weizsicker, p. 266). In like manner vii. 38, 
 xii. 82, xxi. 19. In none of these passages is any distinction drawn between 
 the sense given and the meaning intended by Jesus Himself, 
 
CHAP. II. 24, 25. T59 
 
 the surroundings, that in which a person is engaged (versari 
 in aliqua re). See, concerning eivae év here, Bernhardy, p. 
 210; Ast, Lex. Plat. I. 623. — Oewpodvrtes, «.7.r.] while they 
 beheld His miracles, ete. On avtod, comp. Lycurg. 28: tadra 
 é€uod ewpyjcare, and Kiihner, § 528, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1. 11. 
 Euthymius Zigabenus rightly says: éxeivos yap axpBéorepov 
 émlatevoy, door pn Sud TH GNMELa MOVOV, GAA Kal Sia THY Sidac- 
 Kadiav avtod érictevoy, Their faith in His name (as that of 
 the Messiah) did not yet amount to any decision of their inner 
 life for Jesus, but was only an opinion, produced by the sight 
 of His miracles, that He was the Messiah; comp. vill. 30, vi. 
 26. Luther calls it “milk facth.”- Comp. Matt. xii. 20. On 
 Ta onmeta, comp. ili. 2. None of the miracles of this period 
 has been recorded; xx. 30, comp. iv. 45. Consequently, not 
 only the Synoptics, but John also speaks summarily of mwti- 
 tudes of miracles, without relating any of them individually 
 (against Schleiermacher, Z. J. p. 201). 
 
 Vv. 24, 25. Adrtos 8é, «.7.r.] But He on His part, though 
 they on their part, on account of His miracles, believed on 
 Him. — ov« émiot. éavtov] an intentional antithesis to the 
 preceding émiot. eis TO dvowa avtod. Observe the emphatic 
 éavrov: it must not be taken as meaning “He kept back His 
 doctrine from them” (Chrysostom, Kuinoel, and many), or “His 
 work” (Ebrard); but He did not trust Himself, ic. His own 
 person, to them; He refrained from any closer personal inter- 
 course with them. Without any such reserve on His part, 
 rather with confident self-surrender, had He given Himself to 
 His intimate Galilean friends. Towards the Jews in Jerusalem, 
 on whom, from His knowledge of the human heart, He could 
 not bestow this self-devotion, because there were wanting in 
 them the inward moral conditions necessary thereto, His bear- 
 ing was more strange and distant. Observe the perfects 
 émiotevey and éyivwoxe. — Sia TO adTov yLveoK. TavT.| 
 because He Himself (as in the following adres) knew all men, 
 universal. Respecting none did His personal knowledge fail Him 
 with regard to the state of his moral feeling. — cal 671, «.7.A.] 
 negative expression of the same thought in the popular form 
 of a still further reason. — ¢'va] not instead of the infinitive 
 construction (Matt. iii, 14 aJ.), but the object of the need is 
 
160 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 conceived of in the form of a purpose which the person need- 
 ing guidance entertains. Comp. xvi. 30; 1 John ii. 27. — 
 wept Tod avOp.| does not apply to Jesus Himself (“ concern- 
 ing Him as man,” Ewald), but concerning any man with whom 
 He had at any time to do. See Bernhardy, p. 315; Winer, 
 p. 109 [E. T. p. 143]. — adros] of Himself, ie. adrodi- 
 daxtos, Nonnus. See Herm. ad Viger. p. 733; Kriiger, Anab. 
 ii, 3. 7; comp. Clementine Homil. ili. 13: arelpm rapuyiis 
 oplarue. — Ti hy év To avOp.] the inward, though not out- 
 wardly indicated capacity, character, disposition, and so on; 
 TO KpuTTOV Tov vods, Origen. Comp. Nonnus: éca dpevos 
 évdobev aviyp etyev aknpvxT@ KeKaduppéva pdpei ouyhs. To 
 this supernatural and immediate discernment, as possessed by 
 Jesus, special prominence is often given by John. Comp. 
 149, 50, iv. 19,29, vi. 615 64)001.-4, 15, xi. 11 aye 
 xxi 17. It is the life expression of His divine essence (Ps. 
 vil. 10, cxxxix. 2; Acts xv. 8), like the working of miracles, 
 
CHAP, IM, 1, 2. 161 
 
 CHAPTER [11 
 
 Ver. 2. Instead of airéy, the Elzevir has riv ’Ijootv, in the face 
 of decisive testimonies. The beginning of a new section and of 
 a church lesson. — Ver. 2. The position of divara: immediately 
 after yép (Lachm. Tisch.) is supported by preponderating testi- 
 mony. — Ver. 5. For +. és0d Tisch. reads ray odpavay, upon 
 ancient but yet inadequate testimony (x* Inst. Hippol. etc.). — 
 Ver. 13. 6 wy év +. odp.] wanting in B. L. Ty. 33. Eus. Naz. 
 Origen; deleted by Tisch. But these mysterious words may 
 easily have been regarded as objectionable or superfluous, be- 
 cause not understood or misunderstood; and there was nothing 
 to suggest the addition of them. — Ver. 15. uj drérnras, 
 ax] is deleted by Tisch. after B. L. T°. x. Min. Verss. Fathers. 
 Rightly so; it is an addition borrowed from ver. 16. — The 
 readings éa’ airéy (Lachm.), éx’ aire and é air (Tisch.), have 
 indeed less support than the received e/g airév, but this latter 
 forced itself in as the most current form of expression, and é 
 air@ is, following B. T®. Codd. It. to be preferred. — Ver. 19. 
 The order awirav rovqpé has preponderating evidence in its 
 favour.— Ver. 25. The Elzevir has ’Iovda/wy instead of ’Iov- 
 éafov, in the face of decisive testimony. ‘The plural evidently 
 was inserted mechanically.— Ver. 31 f. The second érdavw 
 wdvrwy gors has against it very weak testimony, viz. D. ». Min. 
 and some Verss. and Fathers. But the following x«/ (bracketed 
 by Lachm., deleted by Tisch.) is omitted not only by the same 
 testimonies, but also by B. L. Min. Copt. Pers., and must be 
 regarded as an interpolation, the absence of which originally 
 led more easily to the omission of érdéyw 7. 2 — Ver. 34. 6 deds 
 after d/éwov is wanting in B. C.* L. T°. x. Min. Ver. Brix. Cyr.; 
 bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. A supplying of the 
 subject, which seemed uncertain. 
 
 Vv. 1, 2. Prominence is now given to a specially important 
 narrative, connected by the 5é which continues the discourse, 
 —a narrative belonging to that first sojourn in Jerusalem,— 
 viz. the conversation with Nicodemus, wherein Jesus more fully 
 
 L 
 
162 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 explains His person and work. No intimation is given of 
 any inner connection with what precedes (Liicke: “now 
 comes an instance of that higher knowledge possessed by 
 Jesus ;” De Wette, Lange, Hengstenberg: “an illustration of 
 the entire statement in ii. 23-25;” Tholuck: “an instance of 
 the beginnings of faith just named;” Luthardt: “from the 
 people collectively, to whom Jesus had addressed Himself, a 
 transition is now made to His dealing with an individual ;” 
 Ewald: “ Nicodemus appears desirous to make an exception to 
 the general standing aloof of men of weight in Jerusalem”). 
 — dv@pw7os] in its most ordinary use, simply equivalent to 
 tis; not “un exemplaire de ce type humain que Jésus con- 
 naissait si bien” (Godet). It is quite independent of 1. 25, 
 introducing a new narrative. — Nixodnpos, a frequent name 
 as well among the Greeks (Demosth. 549. 23, and later 
 writers) as among the Jews (0772 or fiP"1P2, see Lightfoot and 
 Wetstein). We know nothing certain of this man beyond 
 the statements concerning him in St. John (comp. vu. 50, 
 xix. 39).* The Nicodemus of the Talmud was also called 
 Bunai, must have survived the destruction of Jerusalem, and 
 was known under this latter name as a disciple of Jesus. See 
 Delitzsch in the Zeitschr. f. Luther. Theol. 1854, p. 648. The 
 identity of the two is possible, but uncertain. The so-called 
 Evangelium Nicodemi embraces, though in a doubtful form, 
 two different treatises, viz. the Acta Pilati and the Descensus 
 Christi ad inferos. See Tischendorf, Zvang. Apocr. p. 203 ff. 
 —dpxwv] He was a member of the Sanhedrim, vii. 50; 
 
 1 According to Baur, p. 173, he is a typical person, representing the believing 
 and yet really unbelieving Judaism, just as the Samaritan woman (chap. iy.) 
 represents believing heathendom ; thus leaving it uncertain how far the narrative 
 is to be taken as fact. According to Strauss, the whole owes its origin to the 
 reproach that Christianity made way only among the common people (notwith- 
 standing 1 Cor. i. 26, 27). Weisse rejects at least the truth of the account, 
 which De Wette designates ‘‘a poetical, free, and highly spiritualized repro- 
 
 - duction.” See on the other hand Briickner. According to Hilgenfeld, the 
 
 whole conversation cannot be understood ‘‘ unless we view it from the evange- 
 list’s standing-point ;” according to which, we see that the design is simply and 
 solely to explain how Christianity essentially distinguished itself from Judaism. 
 According to Scholten, we have here set forth the power of Christianity triumph- 
 ing over the slowness of heart and prejudices of the learned,—this merely, with- 
 out any historical basis of fact in the story. 
 
CHAP, Tt. 15/2. 163 
 
 Luke xxiii. 13, xxiv. 20.— He came to Jesus by night, 
 being still undecided, in order to avoid the suspicion and 
 hostility of his colleagues. He was not a hypocrite (as Koppe 
 in Pott, Sylloge, IV. p. 31 ff., holds), who pretended to be simple 
 in order to elicit from Jesus some ground of accusation; a 
 circumstance which, if true, John would not have failed to 
 state, especially considering what he says of him in vii. 50 
 and xix. 39: he was, on the contrary, though of a somewhat 
 slow temperament, a man of honourable character, who, together 
 with others (o/Sayev, comp. duds, ver. 7), was in a general way 
 convinced by the miracles of Jesus that He must be a divinely 
 commissioned and divinely supported Teacher, and he there- 
 fore sought, by a confidential interview, to determine more 
 exactly his to that extent half-believing judgment, and especi- 
 ally to find out whether Jesus perhaps was the very Messiah. 
 His position as a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrim 
 shows how strongly and honestly he must have felt this need. 
 Comp. xii. 42. — For the entire section see Knapp, Scripta 
 var. arg. I. 183; Fabricius, Commentat. Gott. 1825; Scholl in 
 Klaiber’s Studien, V. 1, p. 71; Jacobi in the Stud. wu. Krit. 
 1835, 1; Hengstenberg in the Evang. K. 7.1860, 49; Stein- 
 fass in the Meklenb. Zeitschr. 1864, p. 913. — That the dis- 
 ciples, and John in particular, were with Jesus during the 
 interview, has nothing against it (as De Wette and most others 
 think), for Nicodemus came to Jesus by night only through 
 fear of the Jews; and the vivid and peculiar features, with the 
 harmonious characteristics of the narrative, even if touched 
 up by the pen of John, confirm the supposition that he was a 
 witness. If not, he must have received what he relates from 
 the Lord Himself, as it impressed itself deeply and indelibly 
 upon his recollection. As to the result of the interview, 
 nothing historically to be relied upon has come down to us, 
 simply because there was no immediate effect apparent in 
 Nicodemus. But see vii. 50, xix. 39.—6re amd Oeod 
 EAHA SLdOadoKaXros] that thou art come from God as teacher. 
 The expression implies the thought of one divinely sent, but 
 not the idea of the Logos (as Bretschneider holds).—tadta ra 
 
 1 A symbolical reference to ‘‘ the still benighted mind” must not be attributed 
 to this simple historical statement (against Hengstenberg), 
 
164 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 oneta] emphatic, haecce tanta signa. —éav pi 7 6 Oeds 
 MET avTOD] Ore ovK €& oiKxelas Suvvdpews TadTa Toei, GAN EK 
 THs tov cod, Euthymius Zigabenus. From the miracles (ii. 
 23) Nicodemus thus infers the assistance of God, and from 
 this again that the worker of them is one sent from God. 
 
 Ver. 3. In ver. 2 Nicodemus had only uttered the preface 
 to what he had it in his mind to ask; the question itself was 
 to have followed. But Jesus interrupts him, and gives him 
 the answer by anticipation. This question, which was not (as 
 Lange thinks, in contradiction of the procedure of Nicodemus 
 on other occasions) kept back with remarkable prudence and 
 caution, is to be inferred solely from the answer of Jesus; 
 and it was accordingly no other than the general inquiry, 
 “What must a man do in order to enter the Messiah’s kingdom?” 
 not the special one, “Is the baptism of John sufficient for 
 this?” (Baeumlein), for there is no mention of John the 
 Baptist in what follows; comp. rather Matt. xix. 16. The 
 first is the question which the Lord reads in the heart of 
 Nicodemus, and to which He gives an answer,—an answer in 
 which He at once lays hold of the anxiety of the questioner 
 in its deepest foundation, and overturns all Pharisaic, Judaistic, 
 and merely human patchwork and pretence. To suppose that 
 part of the conversation is here omitted (Maldonatus, Kuinoel, 
 and others), is as arbitrary as to refer the answer of Jesus to 
 the words of Nicodemus. Such a reference must be rejected, 
 because Jesus had not given him time to tell the purpose of 
 his coming. We must not therefore assume, either that Jesus 
 wished to lead him on from faith in His miracles to that faith 
 which effects a moral transformation (Augustine, De Wette, 
 comp. also Luthardt and Ebrard); or that “He wished to 
 convince Nicodemus, who imagined he had made a great 
 confession in his first words, that he had not yet so much 
 as made his way into the porticoes of true knowledge” 
 (Chrysostom); or that “He wished to intimate that He had 
 not come merely as a Teacher, but in order to the moral 
 renewal of the world” (Baumgarten Crusius, comp. already 
 Cyril, and Theophylact); or, “ Videris tibi, O Nicodeme, videre 
 aliquod signum apparentis jam regni coelorum in hisce mira- 
 culis, quae ego edo; amen dico tibi: nemo potest videre regnum 
 
CHAP. III. 3. 165 
 
 Dei, sicut oporict, si non, etc.” (Lightfoot, approved by Liicke, 
 and substantially by Godet also), — éav py Tes yevv. dve- 
 Gev| except a man be born from above, 2.c. except a man be 
 transformed by God into a new moral life. See on i. 13. 
 What is here required answers to the peravoeire, etc., with 
 which Jesus usually began His preaching, Mark i. 15. dvo- 
 @ev, the opposite of xatwOev, may be taken with reference to 
 place (here equivalent to é« Tod ovpavod; comp. Xen. Mem. iv. 
 3. 14; Symp. vi. 7; Thue. iv. 75. 3; Soph. #1. 1047; Eur. 
 Cycl. 322; Baruch vi. 63; James i. 17, iii. 15), or with 
 reference to time (equivalent to €& dpyis); Chrysostom gives 
 both renderings. The latter is the ordinary interpretation— 
 Syriac, Augustine, Vulgate, Nonnus, Luther, Castalio, Calvin, 
 Beza, Maldonatus, etc. (so likewise Tholuck, Olshausen, 
 Neander, and substantially Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Godet)— 
 because Nicodemus himself (ver. 4) thus understood it. Ac- 
 cordingly, dvwGev would be equivalent to iterwm, again, anew, 
 as Grimm (on Wisd. xix. 6) also thinks. But this is already 
 unjustifiable upon linguistic grounds, because avwfey when 
 used of time does not signify ierwm or denuo, but throughout, 
 from the beginning onwards’ (and so Ewald and Weiss interpret 
 it), Luke i. 3; Acts xxvi. 5; Gal. iv. 9; Wisd. xix. 6; Dem. 
 539, 22. 1082, 7. 13; Plat. Phil. 44 D; and, conformably 
 with Johannean usage, the only right rendering is the Jocal, 
 not only linguistically (ver. 31, xix. 11, 23), but, considering 
 the manner of representation, because John apprehends regene- 
 ration, not according to the element of repetition, a being born 
 
 1 This, and not ‘‘again from the beginning,” as Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II. 
 11) arbitrarily renders it, is the meaning of é@vwéev. Itis self-evident that the 
 conception from the beginning does not harmonize with that of being born. 
 Nor, indeed, would ‘‘ again from the beginning,” but simply ‘‘ again,” be appro- 
 priate. Again from the beginning would be rdéaw avaéev, as in Wisd. xix. 6; 
 Gal. iv. 9. The passage, moreover, from Josephus, Anét. i. 18. 3, which 
 Hofmann and Godet (following Krebs and others) quote as sanctioning their 
 
 friendship from the beginning onwards,” not implying the continuance of a 
 friendship before unused, nor an entering again upon it. Artemidorus also, 
 Oneirocr. i. 14, p. 18 (cited by Tholuck after Wetstein), where mention is made 
 of a dream of a corporeal birth, uses avwéey in the sense not of again, but as 
 equivalent to coelitus with the idea of a divine agency in the dream (Herm. 
 Gotiesd. Alterth. § 37. 7. 19). 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 - 
 
 ee 
 
 ia 
 ° ative ° 3 a € 
 rendering, is inconclusive. For there we read Q:Aiav dvwdev rosiras: ‘he makes Faw 
 
 i 
 
 wow 
 ae 
 
166 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 again, but as a divine birth, a being born of God; see i. 13; 
 1 John ii. 29, iii. 9, iv. 7, v. 1. The representation of it as 
 a repeated, a renewed birth is Pauline (Tit. iii. 5, comp. Rom. 
 xii, 2; Gal. vi 15; Eph. iv. 23, 24; Col. iii. 9) and Petrine 
 (1 Pet. iii, 23). “AvwOev, therefore, is rightly taken as 
 equivalent to é« @eov by Origen, Gothic Vers. (iwpathré), Cyril, 
 Theophylact, Arethas, Bengel, etc.; also Liicke, B. Crusius, 
 Maier, De Wette, Baur, Lange, Hilgenfeld, Baeumlein, Weiz- 
 siicker (who, however, adopts a double sense), Steinfass. — 
 idety] ie. as a partaker thereof. Comp. eicedOeiv, ver. 5, and 
 see ver. 36, also (dey Odvarov (Luke ii. 26; Heb. xi. 5), 
 SuapOopav (Acts ii. 27), juépas ayaPds (1 Pet. iii. 10), wévOos 
 (Rev. xviii. 7). From the classics, see Jacobs ad Del. epigr. 
 p. 387 ff; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. 343. Not therefore: 
 “simply to see, to say nothing of entering,”’ Lange; comp. 
 Ewald on ver. 5. It is to be observed that the expression 
 Bac. tod Oeod does not occur in John, save here and in ver. 5;* 
 and this is a proof of the accuracy with which he has recorded 
 this weighty utterance of the Lord in its original shape. 
 In xviii. 36 Christ, on an extraordinary occasion, speaks of 
 His kingdom. The conception of “the kingdom” in John does 
 not differ from its meaning elsewhere in the N. T. (see on 
 Matt. iii. 2). Moreover, the necessary correlative thereto, the 
 Parousia, is not wanting in John (see on xiv. 3). 
 
 Ver. 4. The question does not mean: “If the repetition of 
 a corporeal birth is so utterly impossible, how am I to under- 
 stand thy word, dvwOev yevynOva 2” (Liicke); nor: “How can 
 this dvwGev yevv. take place, save by a second corporeal birth?” 
 as if Nicodemus could not conceive of the beginning of a 
 new personal life without a recommencement of natural life 
 (Luthardt, comp. Hofmann); nor: “ How comes it that a Jew 
 must be born anew like a proselyte?” (Knapp, Neander, comp. 
 Wetstein ; for the Rabbins liken proselytes to new-born babes, 
 Jevamoth, f. 62. 1; 92. 1); nor again: “This requirement is 
 as impossible in the case of a man already old as for one to 
 enter again, etc.” (Schweizer, B. Crusius, Tholuck, comp. 
 Baumgarten and Hengstenberg). These meanings are not in 
 
 1 The expression, moreover, fac, ray otgavey (comp. the Critical Notes) is 
 pot found in John. 
 
CHAP. III. 4. 167 
 
 the words, they are simply zmported into them. But the opinion 
 that Nicodemus here wished to “entangle Jesus in His words” 
 (Luther), or that, under excited feelings, he intentionally took 
 the requirement in a literal sense in order to reduce it ad 
 absurdum (Riggenbach), or “ by a stroke of Rabbinical clever- 
 ness in argumentation” to declare it to be too strongly put 
 (Lange, Life of Jesus p. 495), is opposed to the honourable 
 bearing of this straightforward man. According to the text, 
 what Nicodemus really asks is something preposterous. And this 
 is of such a nature, that it is only reconcilable with the even 
 scanty culture of a Jewish theologian (ver. 10), who could 
 not, however, be ignorant of the O. T. ideas of circumcision of 
 heart (Deut. xxx. 6; Jer. iv. 4), of a new heart and a new 
 spirit (Ex. xi. 19, 20, xxxvi. 26, 27; Ps. li. 12, Ixxxvi. 4 ff), 
 as well as of the outpouring of the Spirit in the time of the 
 Messiah (Joel ii.; Jer. xxxi.), upon the assumption that, being 
 a somewhat narrow-minded man, and somewhat entangled by 
 his faith in the miracles, he was taken aback, confused and 
 really perplexed, partly by the powerful impression which Jesus 
 produced upon him generally, partly by the feeling of surprise 
 at seeing his thoughts known to Him, partly by the unex- 
 pected and incomprehensible dvwev yevynOjvat, in which, 
 however, he has an anticipation that something miraculous is 
 contained. In this his perplexity, and not “in an ironical 
 humour” (as Godet thinks, although out of keeping with the 
 entire manifestation), he asks this foolish question, as if Jesus 
 had spoken of a corporeal birth and not of a birth of one’s 
 moral personality. Still less can there be any suspicion of 
 this question being an invention, as if John merely wished to 
 represent Nicodemus as a very foolish man (Strauss ; comp. De 
 Wette and Reuss),—a notion which, even on the supposition 
 of a desire to spin out the conversation by misapprehensions 
 on the part of the hearers, would be too clumsy to be enter- 
 tained. — yépwv wv] when he is an old man; Nicodemus 
 added this to represent the impossibility with reference to him- 
 self in a stronger light. — dSevtepov] with reference to being 
 for a time in the mother’s womb before birth. He did not 
 take the dvw@ev to mean Sevrepov, he simply did not wnder- 
 stand it at all. 
 
168 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Ver. 5. Jesus now explains more fully the dvwOev yevvn- 
 Ojvat onwards to ver. 8. —é£ bdaTos kK. TWvEvpaTos] water, 
 inasmuch as the man is baptized therewith (1 John v. 7, 8; 
 Eph. v. 26) for the forgiveness of sins (Acts ii. 38, xxii. 16; 
 $1Cor. vi. 11), and spirit, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost is 
 given to the person baptized in order to his spiritual renewal 
 and sanctification; both together'\—the former as causa medians, 
 the latter as causa efficiens—constitute the objective and 
 causative element, out of which (comp. 1.13) the birth from 
 above is produced (éx), and therefore baptism is the Aeutpov 
 mTanuyyevesias (Tit. li, 5; comp. Tertullian ¢ Mare. i. 28). 
 But that Christian baptism (ver. 22, iv. 2), and not that of 
 John (B. Crusius; Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, II. 2. 12; Lange, 
 who, however, generalizes ideally; and earlier comm.), is to be 
 thought of in Uéaros, is clear from the x. mvetuatos joined 
 with it, and from the fact that He who had already appeared 
 ns Messiah could no longer make the baptism of His fore- 
 runner the condition, not even the preparatory condition, of 
 His Messianic grace; for in that case He must have said ov« 
 e£ vdatos povov, GddrAa Kai. If Nicodemus was not yet able to 
 understand téatos as having this definite reference, but simply 
 took the word in general as a symbolical designation of 
 Messianic expiation of sin and of purification, according to 
 O. T. allusions (Ezek. xxxvi. 25; Isa. i. 16; Mal. iii. 3; Zech. 
 xiii. 1; Jer. xxxiii. 8), and to what he knew of John’s baptism, 
 still it remained for him to look to the immediate future for 
 more definite knowledge, when the true explanation could not 
 escape him (iv. 2, ili, 22). We are not therefore to conclude 
 from this reference to baptism, that the narrative is “a pro- 
 leptic fiction” (Strauss, Bruno Bauer), and, besides Matt. xviii. 3, 
 to suppose in Justin and the Clementines uncanonical develop- 
 ments (Hilgenfeld and others ; see Introduction, § 2). Neither 
 must we explain it as if Jesus were referring Nicodemus not 
 to baptism as such, but only by way of allusion to the symbolic 
 
 1 Weisse, who does not regard the rite of baptism by water as having origi- 
 nated in the institution of Christ, but considers that it arose from a misappli- 
 cation of His words concerning the baptism of the Spirit, greatly errs when he 
 declares that to make regeneration depend upon baptism by water ‘‘is little 
 better than blasphemy” (Evangelienfrage, p. 194). 
 
CHAP. III. 6. 169 
 
 import of the water in baptism (Liicke; Neander, p. 910). 
 This latter view does not satisfy the definite yevyvn?7 é€, upon 
 which, on the other side, Theodore of Mopsuestia and others, 
 in modern times Olshausen in particular, lay undue stress, 
 taking the water to be.the female principle in regeneration 
 (the Spirit as the male)—-water being, according to Olshausen, 
 “the element of the soul purified by true repentance.” All 
 explanations, moreover, must be rejected which, in order to do 
 away with the reference to baptism,’ adopt the principle of an 
 év dua Svoiv, for water and Spirit are two quite separate con- 
 ceptions. This is especially in answer to Calvin, who says: 
 “of water, which is the Spirit,” and Grotius: “ spiritus aqueus, 
 Le. aquae instar emundans.” It is further to be observed, (1) 
 that both the words being without the article, they must be 
 taken generically, so far as the water of baptism and the Holy 
 Spirit are included in the general categories of water and 
 Spirit; not till we reach ver. 6 is the concrete term used ;—(2) 
 that tdatos is put first, because the gift of the Spirit as a rule 
 (Acts 11. 38) followed upon baptism (Acts x. 47 is an excep- 
 tional case) ;—(3) that believing in Jesus as the Messiah is < 9 c a, 
 presupposed as the condition of baptism (Mark xvi. 16);—(4) ~ 
 that the necessity of baptism in order to participation in the 
 Messianic kingdom (a doctrine against which Calvin in par- 
 ticular, and other expositors of the Reformed Church, contend) 
 has certainly its basis in this passage, but with reference to 
 the convert to Christianity, and not extending in the same 
 way to the children of Christians, for these by virtue of their 
 Christian parentage are already dyoe (see on 1 Cor. vil. 14). 
 Attempts to explain away this necessity—eg. by the com- 
 parative rendering: “not only by water, but also by the 
 Spirit” (B. Crusius; comp. Schweizer, who refers to the 
 baptism of proselytes, and Ewald)—are meanings imported 
 into the words. 
 
 Ver. 6. A more minute antithetic definition of this birth, 
 in order further to elucidate it.— We have not in what 
 follows two originally different classes of persons designated 
 
 1 Krummacher, recently, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1859, p. 509, understands by 
 
 the water the working of the Holy Spirit. How untenable! for the Spirit is 
 named as a distinct factor side by side with water. 
 
Leo THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 (Wilgenfeld), for the new birth is needed by all (see ver. 7; 
 comp. also Weiss, Lehrbegriff, p. 128), but two different and 
 successive epochs of life.— To yeyevvnpu.] neuter, though 
 designating persons, to give prominence to the statement as 
 general and categorical. See Winer, p. 167 [E. T. p. 222]— 
 éx THs capKos] The cadp€é is that human nature, consisting of 
 body and soul, which is alien and hostile to the divine, influ- 
 enced morally by impulses springing from the power of sin, 
 whose seat it is, living and operating with the principle of 
 sensible life, the wvy7. See on Rom. iv. 1. “ What is born 
 of human nature thus sinfully constituted (and, therefore, not 
 in the way of spiritual birth from God), is a being of the same 
 sinfully conditioned nature,’ without the higher spiritual moral 
 life which springs only from the working of the divine Spirit. 
 Comp. 1.12, 13. Destitute of this divine working, man is 
 merely capxixds, yuyixds (1 Cor. ii. 14), wempapévos bd Thy 
 apaptiav (Rom. vii. 14), and, despite his natural moral con- 
 sciousness and will in the vovs, is wholly under the sway of 
 the sinful power that is in the odp& (Rom. vii. 14-25). The 
 odpé, as the moral antithesis of the mvedua, stands in the 
 same relation to the human mvedua with the voids, as the 
 prevailingly sinful and morally powerless life of our lower 
 nature does to the higher moral principle of life (Matt. xxvi. 
 41) with the will converted to God; while it stands in the 
 same relation to the divine mvedua, as that which is determi- 
 nately opposed to God stands to that which determines the 
 new life in obedience to God (Rom. vii. 1-3). In both 
 relations, cdp£ and mvedua are antitheses to each other, Matt. 
 xxvl. 41; Gal. v. 17 ff.; accordingly in the unregenerate we 
 have the lucta carnis et MENTIS (Rom. vi. 14 ff), in the 
 regenerate we have the Jucta carnis et Spiritus (Gal. v. 17). 
 —éx Tod mvevpartos] that which is born of the Spirit, ve. 
 that whose moral nature and life have proceeded from the 
 
 1 The sinful constitution of the ez in itself implies the necessity of a being 
 born of the Spirit (vv. 3, 7); comp. 1 John ii. 16. The above exposition cannot 
 therefore be considered as attributing to John a Pauline view which is strange 
 to him. This is in answer to Weiss, according to whom Jesus here merely says, 
 ‘*as the corporeal birth only produces the corporeal sensual part.” Similarly 
 
 J. Miiller on Sin, vol. I. p. 449, II. 382. See on the other hand, Luthardt, 
 v. freien Willen, p. 393, 
 
Lad 
 
 CHAP. TEL 273) 8 alg 
 
 operation of the Holy Spirit,’ as a being of a spiritual nature, 
 free from the dominion of the cdp&, and entirely filled and 
 governed by a spiritual principle, namely by the Holy Spirit 
 (Rom. viii. 2 ff.), walking év xawornte mvevpatos (Rom. vii. 
 6). — The general nature of the statement forbids its limita- 
 tion to the Jews as descendants of Abraham according to the 
 flesh (Kuinoel and others), but they are of course included in 
 the general declaration; comp. ver. 7, judas. — In the apodoses 
 the substantives odp& and wvedya represent, though with 
 stronger emphasis (comp. vi. 63, x1. 25, xii. 50; 1 John iv. 8; 
 Rom. viii. 10), the adjectives capxuxds and mvevpatixes, and 
 are to be taken qualitatively. 
 
 Vv. 7, 8. To allay still more the astonishment of Nico- 
 demus (ver. 4) at the requirement of ver. 3, Jesus subjoins 
 an analogy drawn from nature, illustrating the operation of 
 the Holy Spirit of which He is speaking. The man is seized 
 by the humanly indefinable Spirit, but knows not whence He 
 cometh to him, and whither He leadeth him. — byas] in- 
 dividualizing the general statement: “te e¢ cos, quorum nomine 
 locutus es,” Bengel. Jesus could not have expressed Himself 
 in the jirst person. — 76 mvedua] This, as is evident from 
 mvet, means the wind (Gen. vill. 1; Job xxx. 15; Wisd. xiii. 
 2; Heb. i. 7; often in the classics), not the Spirit (Steinfass). 
 It is the double sense of the word (comp. ™) which gave 
 rise to this very analogy from nature. For a similar com- 
 parison, but between the Auman soul, so far as it participates 
 in the divine nature, and the well-known but inexplicable 
 agency of wind, see, eg., Xen. Mem. 4. 3.14. Comp. also 
 Eccles. xi. 5; Ps. exxxv. 7.. On the expression 76 rvedua trvel, 
 see Lobeck, Paral. 503.— émov OéXet] The wind blowing 
 now here, now there, is personified as a free agent, in keeping 
 with the comparison of the personal Holy Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 
 2).2— vod] with a verb of motion. Comp. Hom. J/. 13. 219; 
 Soph. Trach. 40: xeivos 8 S7rov BéBnxev, ovdels oide; and see 
 
 1 The 2x i Mane, implying the éx ee ee (after ver. 5), and the mean- 
 ing of which is clear in itself, is not repeated by Jesus, because His aim now 
 is simply to let the contrast between the odp% and the rvevu« stand out clearly. 
 
 * Concerning the personality of the Holy Spirit as taught in John, see espe- 
 cially xiv.-xvi. 
 
W 
 
 Tez THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Lobeck ad Phryn. 45; Miitzn. ad Antiph. 169,§ 8. Express- 
 ing by anticipation the state of rest following upon the move- 
 ment. Often in the N. T. as in John (vii. 35, viii. 14, xii. 
 35) and Heb. xi. 8.—ottws éort was, «7.X.] A popular 
 and concrete mode of expression (Matt. xiii. 19, etc.): so ds tt, 
 ae. with reference experimentally to the course of his higher 
 birth, with every one who has been born (perfect) of the Spirit. 
 The points of resemblance summed up in the odtws are: (1) 
 the free self-determining action of the Holy Spirit (G7ov Ore, 
 comp. 1 Cor. xii. 11; John v. 21), not merely the greatness 
 of this power, Tholuck; (2) the felt experience of His opera- 
 tions by the subject of them (tv dwrnv aidtod ax.) ; and (3) 
 yet their tncomprehensibleness as to their origin and their end 
 (@2XX’ ovx otdas, «.7.r.), the latter pertaining to the moral 
 sphere and reaching unto eternal life, the former proceeding 
 from God, and requiring, in order to understand it, the previ- 
 ously experienced workings of divine grace, and faith ensuing 
 thereupon. The man feels the working of grace within, 
 coming to him as a birth from above, but he knows not 
 whence it comes; he feels its attraction, but he knows not 
 whither it leads. These several elements in the delineation 
 are so distinctly indicated by Jesus, that we cannot be satis- 
 fied with the mere general point of incomprehensibleness in the 
 comparison (Hengstenberg), upon the basis of Eccles. xi. 5. 
 Vv. 9, 10. The entire nature of this birth from above 
 (raidra) is still a puzzle to Nicodemus as regarded its pos- 
 sibility (the emphasis being on Svvaraz); and we can easily 
 understand how it should be so to a learned Pharisee bound 
 to the mere form and letter. He asks the question in this 
 state of ¢gnorance (hacsitantis est, Grotius), not in pride 
 (Olshausen). Still, as one acquainted with the Scriptures, he 
 might and ought to have recognised the possibility; for the 
 power of the divine Spirit, the need of renewal in heart and 
 mind, and the fact that this renewal is a divine work, are often 
 mentioned in the O. T. Jesus therefore might well ask in 
 wonder: Art thou the teacher, etc.? The article o dudacx. and 
 the tod Icp. following designate the man not merely in an 
 official capacity (Ewald), which would not mark him out in- 
 dividually from others, but as the well-known and acknowledged 
 
CHAP. III. 11. ie 
 
 teacher of the people. See Bernhardy, p. 315; Winer, p. 110 
 [E. T. p. 143]. Hengstenberg puts it too strongly: “the con- 
 crete embodiment of the zdeal teacher of Israel ;” comp. Godet. 
 But Nicodemus must have held a position of influence as a 
 teacher quite inconsistent with this proved ignorance; there 
 is in the article a touch of irony, as in the question a certain 
 degree of indignation (Nagelsbach on the Iliad, ed. 3, p. 
 424), 
 
 Ver. 11. Jesus now discloses to the henceforth silent 
 Nicodemus, in growing excitement of feeling, the sowrce of 
 his ignorance, namely, his wnbelief in what He testifies, and 
 which yet is derived from His own knowledge and intuition. 
 — The plurals o/dawpey, etc., are, as is clear from the singulars 
 immediately following in ver. 12, simply rhetorical (plurals of 
 category; see Sauppe and Kiihner ad Xen. Mem. 1. 2. 46), 
 and refer only to Jesus Himself. Comp. iv. 38, and its 
 frequent use by St. Paul when he speaks of himself in the 
 plural. To include the disciples (Hengstenberg, Godet), or to 
 explain them as refering to general Christian consciousness as con- 
 trasted with the Jesh (Hilgenfeld), would be quite inappro- 
 priate to what has been stated (see especially 6 éwpdx. papt.). 
 To understand them as including John the Baptist (Knapp, Hof- 
 mann, Luthardt, Weizsiicker, Weiss, Steinfass), or him along 
 with the prophets (Luther, Beza, Calvin, Tholuck), or even God 
 (Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, Rupertus, Calovius, etc.), 
 or the Holy Ghost (Bengel), is quite arbitrary, and without a 
 trace of support in the text, nay, on account of the éwpdx., 
 opposed to it, for the Baptist especially did not by i. 34 
 occupy the same stage of éwpaxévat with Christ. It is, more- 
 over, quite against the context when B. Crusius says: “men 
 generally are the subject of the verbs oidauev and éwpak.,” so 
 that human things—what one sees and knows (ra ézréyeva, ver. 
 12)—are meant. — Observe the gradual ascent in the parallel- 
 
 ism, in which éwpdxapev does not refer to the knowledge \ 
 attained in this earthly life (Weizsicker), but to the vision of ‘ 
 
 God enjoyed by Christ in His pre-existent state. Comp. ver. 
 32, 1 18, vi. 46, villi. 38, xvii. 5.—ovd AauBaverte] ye 
 Jews: comp. tov Icpanx, ver. 10; and for the fact itself, i. 11, 
 12. The reproach, like the od mvuorevere of ver. 12, refers to 
 
 a 
 
174 THE GOSPEL OF JOIIN. 
 
 the nation as a whole, with a reference also to Nicodemus 
 himself. To render this as a question (Ewald) only weakens 
 the tragic relation of the second half of the verse to the 
 first. 
 
 Ver. 12. How grievous the prospect which your unbelief 
 regarding the instructions I have already given opens up as to 
 the future! — ra émiyeva] what ts on earth, things which take 
 place on earth (uot in heaven). We must strictly adhere to 
 this meaning of the word in this as in all other passages 
 (1 Cor.. xv. 40; 2 Corivi 1; Phil) n, V0) 1/19 5.Sasneme 
 15. Comp. Wisd. ix. 16, and Grimm, Handbuch, p. 189). 
 To the category of these earthly things belonged also the birth 
 from above (against Baeumlein), because, though brought 
 about by a power from heaven, zz is accomplished on earth; 
 and because, proceeding in repentance and faith, it is a change 
 taking place on earth within the earthly realm of our moral 
 life; and because it is historically certain that Christ every- 
 where began His work with this very preaching of petavota. 
 The Lord has in His mind not only the doctrine of regenera- 
 tion just declared to Nicodemus, but, as the plural shows, all 
 which thus far He had taught the Jews (eizov viv); and this 
 had been hitherto only éméyeva, and not ézoupava, of which 
 He still designs to speak.’ It is therefore wrong to refer the 
 expression to the comparison of the wind (Beza) or of corporeal 
 birth (Grotius), as prefiguring higher doctrine; for the relation 
 to the faith spoken of did not lie in these symbols, but in the 
 truths they symbolized. The meaning of the words is quite 
 altered, moreover, if we change the word é7éyeva into “human 
 and moral” (B.Crusius), or take it as meaning only what is stated 
 in the immediate context (Liicke), or, with De Wette, make the 
 point of difference to be nothing more than the antithesis be- 
 tween man’s susceptibility of regeneration as a work within him 
 and his susceptibility of merely believing. — The counterpart 
 of the éméyeva are the émovpadvia, of which Jesus intends to 
 
 1 ¢Trov is dixi, not dixerunt, as Ewald thinks, who regards the ancients in 
 the O. T. as the subject, and upon too feeble evidence reads irsredcare instead 
 of wiredsrs. This new subject must have been expressed, and an ?y# should 
 have stood over against it in the apodosis. Comp. Matt. v. 21, 22. The earthly 
 
 might be appropriate to the daw (follow:ng Col. ii. 17; Heb. ix. 5, x. 1), but 
 not to the prophets, 
 
CHAP. III. 13 75 
 
 speak to them in future, things which are wm heaven (so in all 
 places, Matt. xviii, 35; 1 Cor. xv. 40, 48, 49; Eph. i. 3; 
 Phil. ii. 10, ete). To this category belong especially the 
 Messianic mysteries, 2.¢. the divine decrees for man’s redemption 
 and final blessedness. These are éroupavia, because they have 
 their foundation (Wisd. ix. 16, 17) in the divine will, though 
 their realization commences in the present aiwv, through the 
 entire work, and in particular through the death of Jesus and 
 the faith of mankind; but while still unaccomplished, belongs 
 to the divine counsel, and shall be first consummated and fully 
 revealed in the kingdom of the Messiah by the exalted Christ, 
 when the Sw aiwvios will reveal itself at the goal of perfection 
 (Col. iii. 4), and “it will appear what we shall be.” To the 
 érroupavio.s, therefore, does not first belong what is to be said 
 of His exaltation, Matt. xxvi. 64 (Steinfass); but that very 
 statement, and indeed as the first and main thing, which Jesus 
 immediately after delivers in ver. 14 ff., where the heavenly 
 element, 2.c. what is in the counsels of God (vv. 15, 16), is clearly 
 contained. According to the connection, it is to be inferred that 
 what is heavenly is difficult to be understood; but this difficulty 
 has nothing to do with the word itself, as Liicke holds. 
 
 Ver. 13. “And no other than I can reveal to you heavenly 
 things.” This is what Jesus means, if we rightly take His 
 words, not an assertion of His divinity as the first of the 
 heavenly things (Hengstenberg), which would make the nega- 
 tive form of expression quite inexplicable. Comp. i. 18, vi. 46. 
 —The «ai is simply continuative in its force, not antithetic 
 (Knapp, Olshausen), nor furnishing a basis, or explanatory of 
 the motive (Beza, Tholuck; Liicke, Lange). — ovdels avaBé- 
 By«ev, x.7.r.] which, on account of the perfect tense, obviously 
 cannot refer to the actual ascension of Christ’ (against Augus- 
 tine, Beda, Theophylact, Rupertus, Calovius, Bengel, etc.); nor 
 does it give any support to the unscriptural rapitus in coclum 
 of the Socinians (see Oeder ad Catech. Racov. p. 348 ff.) ; nor 
 is it to be explained by the wnio hypostatica of Christ's human 
 nature with the divine, by virtue of which the former may be 
 
 1 So also Weizsiicker, who assumes that we have here an experience belonging 
 to the apostolic age, carried back and placed in the mouth of Christ. An ana- 
 chronism which would amount to literary carelessness. 
 
1 iG THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 said to have entered into heaven (Calovius, Maldonatus, Stein- 
 fass, and others). It is wswally understood in a figurative 
 sense, aS meaning a spiritual elevation of the soul to God in 
 order to knowledge of divine things, a coming to the per- 
 ception of divine mysteries, which thus were brought down, 
 as it were, by Christ from heaven (see of late especially 
 Beyschlag); to support which, reference is made to Deut. 
 xxx. 12, Prov. xxx. 4; Baruch*m. 29; Rom. x.6;0 j2aeeean 
 this is incorrect, because Christ brought along with Him 
 out of His pre-existent state His immediate knowledge of 
 divine things (ver. 11, i. 18, viii. 26, al), and pos- 
 sesses it in uninterrupted fellowship with the Father; 
 consequently the figurative method of representation, that 
 during His earthly life He brought down this knowledge 
 through having been raised up into heaven, would be inappro- 
 priate and strange. ‘“O é« rod ovp. xataf. also must be taken 
 literally, of an actual descent; and there is therefore nothing 
 in the context to warrant our taking dvaB. eis 7. ovp. sym- 
 bolically. Hengstenberg rightly renders the words literally, 
 but at the end of the verse he would complete the sense by 
 adding, “who will ascend up into heaven.” This in itself is 
 arbitrary, and not at all what we should look for in John; it 
 is not in keeping with the connection, and would certainly 
 not have been understood as a matter of course by a person 
 like Nicodemus, though it were the point of the declaration : 
 consequently it could not fitly be suppressed, and least of all as 
 a saying concerning the futwre. Godet does not get beyond 
 the explanation of essential communion with God on the part 
 ot Jesus /rom the time of His birth. The only rendering true 
 to the words is simply this: Instead of saying, “No one has 
 been in heaven except,” etc., Jesus says, as this could only 
 have happened to any other by his ascending thither, “No 
 one has ascended into heaven except,” etc.; and thus the e¢ u7 
 refers to an actual existence in heaven, which is implied in the 
 avaBéBnxev. And thus Jansenius rightly renders: Nullus 
 hominum in coelo fuit, quod ascendendo fieri solet, ut ibi 
 coelestia contemplaretur, nisi, etc.; and of late Fritzsche the 
 elder in his Novis opusc. p. 230; and now also Tholuck, and 
 likewise Holtzmann in Hilgenfield’s Zeitschr. 1865, p, 222, 
 
CHAP. III. 12. 177 
 
 —o éx Tov ovp. KataBas| which took place by means of the 
 incarnation. These words, like 6 dy év 7. ovp., are argumenta- 
 tive, for they necessarily imply the fact of existence in heaven; 
 but 6 &v, which must be taken as an attributive definition of o 
 vids T. avOp., and not as belonging to xata@ds, and therefore 
 taking the article, cannot be equivalent to os 7 (Luthardt ; 
 Hofmman, I. 134; Weiss, etc.), as if wore, 7d mporepov or the 
 like were there, but is equivalent to 6s éori, whose existence is 
 in heaven, who has there His proper abode, His home.W— o 
 vios Tov avO@p.| a Messianic designation which Christ applies 
 to Himself, in harmony with the fulfilment of the prophetic 
 representation in Dan. vii. 13, which began with the xataBas 
 (comp. on 1. 52). Nicodemus could understand this only by 
 means of a fuller development of faith and knowledge. 
 
 Note.—According to Beyschlag, p. 99 ff. this verse is utterly 
 opposed to the derivation of Christ’s higher knowledge from the 
 recollection of a pre-existent life in heaven. But we must bear 
 in mind, (1) that the notion of an ascent to God to attain a 
 knowledge of His mysteries (which Beyschlag considers the only 
 right explanation) never occurs in the N. T. with reference to 
 Jesus—a circumstance which would surprise us, especially in 
 John, if it had been declared by Jesus Himself. But it was 
 not declared by Him, because He has it not, but knows His 
 knowledge to be the gift of His Father which accompanied 
 Him in His mission (x. 36). (2) He could not have claimed 
 such an ascent to heaven for Himself alone, for a like ascent, 
 though not in equal degree, must belong to other men of God. 
 He must, therefore, at least have expressed Himself compara- 
 tively: oddeig otrms dvaPEnuev é 7. odp. ws 6, x7.A. Even the 
 church now sings: 
 
 ‘* Rise, rise, my soul, and stretch Thy wings 
 Towards heaven, Thy native place.” 
 
 But something distinct and more than this was the case with 
 Christ, viz. as to the past, that He had His existence in 
 heaven, and had come down therefrom; and as to His earthly 
 presence, that He zs in heaven. 
 
 YNonnus: dorepéeves percbpw wxerpiov obdus ?xwv.—IX. 25 is similar: rupads 
 av: blind from one’s birth. Schleiermacher refers the coming down from heaven 
 to the conception of His mission, and the being in heaven to the continuity of 
 His God-consciousness. See e.g. his Leben Jesu, p. 287 ff. 
 
 M 
 
178 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Vv. 14, 15. Jesus, having in ver. 13 stated the grownd of 
 faith in Him, now proceeds to show the Oblessedness of the 
 believer—which was the design of His redemptive work—in 
 order the more to incite those whom He is addressing to fulfil 
 the fundamental condition, contained in faith, of participating 
 in His kingdom. That this is the logical advance in the 
 discourse, is clear from the fact that in what follows it is 
 the blessedness of faith which is dwelt upon; see vv. 15, 16, 
 18. We have not here a transition from the possibility to the 
 necessity of communicating heavenly things, ver. 13 (Liicke) ; 
 nor from the zdeal unveilings of divine things to the chief 
 mystery of the doctrine of salvation which was manifested in 
 historical reality (De Wette, comp. Tholuck and Briickner); 
 nor from the first of divine things, Christ’s divinity, to the 
 second, the atonement which He was to establish (Hengsten- . 
 berg, comp. Godet); nor from the Word to His manifestation 
 (Olshausen); nor from the work of enlightenment to that of 
 blessing (Scholl); nor from the present want of faith to its 
 future rise (Jacobi: “faith will first begin to spring up when 
 my vUywous is begun”); nor from Christ’s work to His person 
 (B. Crusius) ; nor from His person to His work (Lange).—The 
 event recorded in Num. xxi. 8 is made use of by Jesus as a 
 type of the divinely appointed manner and efficacy of His 
 coming death,’ to confirm a prophecy still enigmatical to 
 Nicodemus, by attaching it to a well-known historical illus- 
 tration. The points of comparison are: (1) the being lifted up 
 (the well-known brazen sepent on the pole, and Jesus on the 
 cross) ; (2) the being saved (restored to health by looking at 
 the serpent, to eternal {7 by believing on the crucified One). 
 Comp. Wisd. xvi. 6, and, in the earliest Christian literature, 
 Epist. of Barnabas, c. 12; Ignatius ad Smyrn. 2, interpol. ; 
 Justin, Apol. 1. 60, Dial. c. Tr. 94. Any further drawing 
 out of the illustration is arbitrary, as, for instance, that of 
 Bengel: “ut serpens ille fuit serpens sine veneno contra 
 serpentes venenatos, sic Christus homo sine peccato contra 
 serpentem antiquum,” comp. Luther and others, approved by 
 Lechler in the Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 826. Lange goes 
 
 1 Which, consequently, He had clearly foreseen not for the first time in vi. 51 
 (Weizsicker) ; comp. on ii. 19, 
 
CHAP. III. 14, 15. GO 
 
 furthest in this direction; comp. Ebrard on Olshausen, p. 104. 
 There is, further, no typical element in the fact that the 
 brazen serpent of Moses was a dead representative (“as the 
 sign of its conquering through the healing power of the Lord,” 
 Hengstenberg). For, apart from the fact that Christ was 
 lifted up alwe upon the cross, the circumstance of the brazen 
 serpent being a lifeless thing is not made prominent either in 
 Num. xxi. or here. — tywOjvac] not glorified, acknowledged 
 in His exaltation (Paulus), which, following twee, would be 
 opposed to the context, but (comp. vill. 28, xii. 32, 33) shall be 
 lifted up, that is, on the cross,'—answering to the Aramaean 5)?! 
 (comp. the Heb. ‘it, Ps. exlv. 14, cxlvi. 8), a word used of the 
 hanging up of the malefactor upon the beam. See Ezra vi. 
 11; Gesenius, Thes. I. 428; Heydenreich in Hiiffell’s Zettschr. 
 II. 1, p. 72 ff.; Briickner, 68, 69. Comp. Zest. XYIT. pair. p. 
 739: Kxvpios bBpicOjcetat Kal emt Evrouv trwOjcetar. The 
 express comparison with the raising up of the brazen serpent, 
 a story which must have been well known to Nicodemus, does 
 not allow of our explaining tehjo., as =o, of the exalta- 
 tion of Jesus to glory (Bleek, Beitr. 231), or as ineluding 
 this, so that the cross is the stepping-stone to glory (Lechler, 
 Godet); or of referring it to the near coming of the kingdom, 
 by which God will show Him in His greatness (Weizsiicker); 
 or of our abiding simply by the idea of an exhibition (Hofmann, 
 Weissag. u. Erf. II. 143), which Christ underwent in His 
 public sufferings and death; or of leaving wholly out of 
 account the form of the exaltation (which was certainly 
 accomplished on the cross and then in heaven), (Luthardt), 
 and conceiving of an exaltation for the purpose of being 
 visible to all men (Holtzmann), as Schleiermacher also held 
 (Leben Jesu, 345); or of assuming, as the meaning which 
 was intelligible for Nicodemus, only that of removing, where 
 Jesus, moreover, was conscious of His being lifted up on 
 
 ‘The higher significance imparted to Christ’s person and work by His death 
 (Baur, Neutest. Theol. 379) is not implied in the word sYwaézvas, but in the 
 comparison with the serpent, and in the sentence following, which expresses the 
 object of the lifting up. This passage (comp. i. 29) should have prevented Baur 
 from asserting (p. 400) that the Pauline doctrine concerning such a significance 
 in Christ’s death is wholly wanting in St. John’s doctrinal view. See alsc 
 Wi. D1, 53, 54. 
 
180 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 the cross and up to God (Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, 301). 
 —6e?] according to the divine decree, Matt. xvi. 21, Luke 
 xxiv. 26, does not refer to the type, but only to the anti- 
 type (against Olshausen), especially as between the person 
 of Christ and the brazen serpent as such no typical relation 
 could exist. — Lastly, that Jesus should thus early make, 
 though at the time an enigmatic, allusion to His death by 
 crucifixion, is conceivable both on the ground of the doctrinal 
 peculiarity of the event, and of the extraordinary importance 
 of His death as the fact of redemption. See on ii 19. And 
 in the case of Nicodemus, the enigmatic germ then sown bore 
 fruit, xix. 39. Adopting the reading év avr@ (see Critical 
 Notes), we cannot refer it to muctevwv, but, as wu amroAnTat, 
 GX is spurious (see Critical Notes), to éyy: “every believer 
 shall in Him (ae. resting upon Him as the cause) have eternal 
 life.” Comp. xx. 31, v. 39, xvi. 33, xiii. 31.— Conv aio- 
 veov] eternal Messianic life, which, however, the believer 
 already has (éyy) as an internal possession in aiwy odtos, viz. 
 the present self-conscious development of the only true moral 
 and blissful &«, which is independent of death, and whose 
 consummation and full glory begin with the second advent. 
 (Comp. vi. 40, 44, 45, 54, 58, xiv. 3, xvii. 24; 1 John i. 14, 
 av. 9.) 
 
 Ver. 16. Continuation of the address of Jesus to Nicodemus, 
 onwards to ver. 21) not, as Erasmus, Rosenmiiller, Kuinoel, 
 Paulus, Neander, Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier think (see also 
 Baumlein), an explanatory meditation of the evangelist’s own; 
 an assumption justified neither by anything in the text nor by 
 the word povoyevys, a word which must have been transferred 
 from the language of John to the mouth of Jesus (not vice 
 _ versa, as Hengstenberg thinks), for it is never elsewhere used 
 by Christ, often as He speaks of His divine sonship. See on 
 i. 14. The reflective character of the following discourse is so 
 fully compatible with the design of Christ to instruct, and the 
 preterites yamrnoav and Hv so little require to be explained 
 from the standing-point of a later time, that there does not 
 
 1 Luther rightly praised ‘‘the majesty, simplicity, clearness, expressiveness, 
 truth, charm” of this discourse. He ‘exceedingly and beyond measure loved” 
 this text. 
 
CHAP, III. 16, 181 
 
 seem any sufficient basis for the intermediate view (of Liicke, 
 De Wette, Briickner), that in this continued account of the 
 discourse of Jesus, vv. 16 ff., John inserts more explanations 
 and reflections of his own than in the preceding part, how 
 little soever such a supposition would (as Kling and Heng- 
 stenberg think) militate against the trustworthiness of John, 
 who, in recording the longer discourses, has exactly in his own 
 living recollection the abundant guarantee of substantial cer- 
 tainty. — otTw] so much; see on Gal. iii. 3.—-ydp] reason 
 of the purpose stated in ver. 15.—ydrnoev] loved, with 
 reference to the time of the éwxev.— tov Koocpor] ie. man- 
 kind at large, comp. was, ver. 15, xvii. 2; 1 John ii. 2. — 
 TOV sovory.| to make the proof of His love the stronger, 1 John 
 iv. 9; Heb. xi. 17; Rom. viii. 32.— &dwxev] He did not 
 reserve Him for Himself, but gave Him, 2. to the world. The 
 word means more than dazréoreiAev (ver. 17), which expresses?” 
 the manner of the &wxev, though it does not specially denote 
 the giving up to death, but the state of humiliation as a 
 whole, upon which God caused His Son to enter when He 
 left His pre-existent glory (xvii. 5), and the final act of which 
 was to be His death (1 Johniv. 10). The Indicative following, 
 wate, describes the act objectively as something actually done. 
 See on Gal. ii. 13; and Klotz ad Devar. 772.— wy amornrTat, 
 x.7..| Concerning the subjunctive, representing an object as 
 present, see Winer, 271 [E. T. p. 377]. The change from the 
 Aorist to the Present is to be noted, whereby the being utterly 
 ruined (by banishment to hell in the Messianic judgment) is 
 spoken of as an act in process of accomplishment; while the 
 possession of the Messianic fw is described as now already 
 
 1 This declaration is the rock upon which the absolute predestination doctrine 
 goes to pieces, and the supposed (by Baur and Hilgenfeld) metaphysical dualism 
 of the anthropology of St. John. Calovius well unfolds our text thus: (1) 
 salutis principium (nyér.); (2) dilectionis objectum (the xécpos, not the electi) ; 
 (3) donum amplissimum (His only-begotten Son); (4) pactum gratiosissimum 
 (faith, not works) ; (5) finem missionis Christi saluberrimum. 
 
 ? Weizsicker in the Zeitschr. f. Deutsche Theol. 1857, p. 176, erroneously 
 finds wanting in John an intimation on the part of Christ that He is the Logos 
 who came voluntarily to the world. Heis, however, the Logos sent of God, who 
 undertook this mission in the feeling of obedience. Thus the matter is presented 
 throughout the N. T., and the thought that Christ came wirotcars is quite 
 foreign thereto, 
 
182 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 existing (commencing with regeneration), and as abiding for 
 ever. Comp. on ver. 15. 
 
 Ver. 17. Confirmation of ver. 16, in which daréoreirev 
 answers to the édwxev, xpivy to the dmodAntra, and cw67 to 
 the éyn Cwnv aiwvov of ver. 16, Considering this exact 
 correspondence, it 1s very arbitrary with modern critics (even 
 Liicke, B. Crusius) to understand the second tov xocpor differ- 
 ently from the first, and from the +. xdopov of ver. 16, as 
 denoting in the narrow Jewish sense the Gentile world, for 
 whose judgment, z.e. condemnation, the Messiah, according to 
 the Jewish doctrine, was to come (see Bertholdt, Christol. pp. 
 203, 223). Throughout the whole context it is to be uni- 
 formly understood of the world of mankind as a whole. Of a . 
 Jesus says, that He was not sent to judge it,—a judgment 
 which, as all have sinned, must have been a judgment of con- 
 demnation,—but to procure for it by His work of redemption 
 the Messianic ow Tnpia. “Deus saepe ultor describitur in 
 veterl pagina; itaque conscii peccatorum merito expectare 
 poterant, filium venire ad poenas patris nomine exigendas,” 
 Grotius. It is to be remembered that He speaks of His 
 coming in the state of humiliation, in which He was not to 
 accomplish judgment, but was to be the medium of obtaining 
 the owfecGa: through His work and His death. Judgment 
 upon the finally unbelieving was reserved to Him upon His 
 Second Advent (comp. v. 22, 27), but the «pia which was to 
 accompany His works upon earth is different from this (see on 
 ix. 39).—The thrice-repeated xocpos has a tone of solemnity 
 about it. Comp. i. 10, xv. 19. 
 
 Ver. 18. More exact explanation of the negative part of 
 ver. 17. Mankind are either believing, and are thus delivered 
 from condemnation (comp. v. 24), because if the Messiah had 
 come to judge the world, He would only have had to condemn 
 sin; but sin is forgiven to the believer, and he already has 
 everlasting Sw ;—or they are unbelieving, so that condemnation 
 has already been passed upon them in idea (as an internal 
 fact),' because they reject the Only-begotten of God, and there 
 
 1 Hence it is clear that the signification of xpiveuw as meaning condemnatory 
 
 judgment is correct, and not the explanation of Weiss, Lehrbegriff, p. 184, 
 according t9 whom the ‘‘judgment”’ here means in general only a decision either 
 
CHAP. III. 19. 183 
 
 is no need of a special act of judgment to be passed on them 
 on the part of the Messiah; their own unbelief has already 
 passed upon them the sentence of condemnation. “He who 
 does not believe, already has hell on his neck,’ Luther; he is 
 avtToxataxpitos, Tit. iii, 11. Ver. 18 does not speak of the 
 last judgment which shall be the solemn and ultimate com- 
 pletion of this temporal judgment, but it does not call it 
 in question, in opposition to the Jewish Messianic belief (Hil- 
 genfeld). See on v. 28-30, xu. 31. Well says Euthymius 
 Zigabenus: % amiotia Katéxpwe Tpo THs Kataxpicews. Comp. 
 ver. 36.— wemlotevKer] has become a believer (and remains 
 so); the subjective negation in the causal clause (contrary to 
 the older classical usage), as often in Lucian, etc., denoting the 
 relation as one presupposed in the view of the speaker. See 
 Herm. ad Viger. p. 806; Winer, p. 442 [E. T. p. 602]. 
 Otherwise in 1 John v. 10.— Tod povoy. viod r. Beod] very 
 impressively throwing light upon the 75) Kéxpitas, because 
 bringing clearly into view the greatness of the guilt. 
 
 Ver. 19. The 46n xéxpirac is now more minutely set forth, 
 and this as to its moral character, as rejection of the light, ze. 
 of God’s saving truth,—the possessor and bringer in of which 
 was Christ, who had come into the world,—and as love of 
 darkness. “ But herein consists the condemnation (as an inner 
 moral fact which, according to ver. 18, had already occurred), 
 that,” etc. 7 xpicus is the judgment in question, to be under- 
 stood here also, agreeably to the whole connection, of condem- 
 natory judgment. But in airy... 6re (comp. 1 John v. 11) we 
 have not the reason (Chrysostom and his followers), but the 
 characteristic nature of the judgment stated.—6ére Td das, 
 
 for life ordeath. In that case, not od xpiveras, but 73 xéxpiras, must apply also to 
 the believer. But this very distinction, the od xpiveras used of the believer and 
 the wdn xéxpras of the unbeliever, places the explanation of a condemnatory 
 xpivesy beyond doubt. This is also against Godet, who with reference to the 
 believer hits upon the expedient of supposing that the Lord here anticipates the 
 judgment (viz. the ‘‘constater l’état moral”). But according to the words of 
 Jesus, this suggestion would apply rather to the case of the unbeliever. 
 
 1 This temporal judgment of the world is the world’s history, the conclusion 
 of which is the last judgment (v. 27), which, however, must not (as Schleier- 
 macher, I. J. 355) be dissipated by means of this text into a merely natural 
 issue of the mission of Jesus. See on v. 28. Seealso Croosin the Stud. u. Krit. 
 1868, p. 251. 
 
184 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 etc., cal nyamnoav] The first clause is not expressed in the 
 dependent form (67: dre To Pas, etc., or with Gen. abs.), but 
 as an independent statement, in order to give emphatic pro- 
 minence to the contrast setting forth the guilt. See Kiihner, 
 II. 416; Winer, p. 585 [E. T. pp. 785-6]. — Hyaanoar] 
 after it had come. Jesus could now thus speak already from 
 experience regarding His relations to mankind as a whole; the 
 Aor. does not presuppose the consciousness of a later time. 
 See ii. 23, 24. For the rest, #yd7. is put first with tragic 
 emphasis, which object is also served by the simple xaé (not 
 and yet). The expression itself: they loved the darkness rather 
 (potius, not magis, comp. xii. 43; 2 Tim. iii. 4) than the light, 
 —wpandXov belonging not to the verb, but to the noun, and 4 
 comparing the two conceptions (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 51; 
 Bauml. Partik. p. 136),—is a mournful meiosis; for they did 
 not love the light at all, but hated it, ver. 20. The ground of 
 this hatred, however, does not lie (comp. ver. 6,1.12) in a 
 metaphysical opposition of principles (Baur, Hiigenfeld, Colani), 
 but in the light-shunning demoralization into which men had 
 sunk through their own free act (for they might also have 
 done adGeva, ver. 21). The source of unbelief is immorality. 
 —v yap avtayv, x.t.r.] The reason why “they loved the 
 darkness rather,” etc. (see on i. 5), was their immoral manner 
 of life, in consequence of which they must shun the light, nay, 
 even hate it (ver. 20). We may observe the growing emphasis 
 from avtav onwards to movypa, for the works which they (in 
 opposition to the individual lovers of the light) did were evil; 
 which sovnpa does not in popular usage denote a higher 
 degree of evil than ¢adda, ver. 20 (Bengel), but answers to 
 this as evil does to bad (worthless) ; Fritzsche ad Rom. p. 297. 
 Comp. v. 29; Rom. ix 11; 2 Con,v..10; Jas. ainpioe 
 gadAa Epya in Plat. Crat. p. 429 A.; 3 Mace. iii. 22. 
 
 Ver. 20. I'dp] If by the previous ydp the historical basis 
 for the statement jydmrnoav of avOpwrrot, x.7.r., was laid, then 
 this second yap is related to the same statement as explanatory 
 thereof (see on Matt. vi. 32, xviii. 11; Rom. viii. 6), intro- 
 ducing a general elucidation, and this from the psychological 
 and perfectly natural relation of evil-doers to the light which 
 was manifested (in Christ) (76 das not different from ver. 19), 
 
CHAP, III. 21. 185 
 
 which they hated as the principle opposed to them, and te 
 which they would not come, because they wished to avoid the 
 ékeyyos which they must experience from it. This “coming 
 to the light” is the believing adherence to Jesus, which, how- 
 ever, would have to be brought about through the peravora.' — 
 iva wn é€dreyxOH] Intention. This édrgeyyos is the chastening 
 censure, Which they shunned both on account of their being 
 put to shame before the world, and because of the threatening 
 feeling of repentance and sorrow in their self-consciousness. 
 Comp. Luke iii. 19; John vill. 8; Eph. v. 11,13. “Gravis 
 malae conscientiae lux est,” Senec. ep. 122.14. This dread 
 is both moral pride and moral effeminacy. According to 
 Luthardt (comp. B. Crusius), the édéyyeo@az refers only to the 
 psychological fact of an znner condemnation. But against this 
 is the parallel pavepwO7, ver. 21.—Observe, on the one hand, 
 the participle present (for the rpafas might turn to the light), 
 and, on the other, the distinction between rpdocwv (he who | 
 presses on, agit, pursues as the goal of his activity) and zrovdr, | 
 ver. 21 (he who does, facit, realizes as a fact). Comp. Xen. 
 Mem. iii. 9. 4: émictapévos pév & Set mpartrev, trovobvTes 
 dé Tavavtia, also iv. 5. 4, al.; Rom. i. 31, ii. 3, vii. 15, xiii. 4. 
 See generally, Franke, ad Dem. Ol. iii. 15. 
 
 Ver. 21. ‘O d€ moray tiv adHO.] The opposite of o 
 gavra Tpacowr, ver. 20, and therefore aAGea is to be taken 
 in the ethical sense: he who does what 7s morally true, so that 
 his conduct is in harmony with the divine moral standard. 
 Comp, Isa, xxvi- 10:;; Ps:-exix. 30; Neh. ix. 33 > Jobe iva 6, 
 mits G3) Ie Johneie-6 > BPoCor ‘v. ‘Sie-Ephy vii9)2: Phill amet: 
 Moral truth was revealed before Christ, not only in the law 
 (Weiss), but also (see Matt. v. 17) in the prophets, and, out- 
 side Scripture, in creation and in conscience (Rom. i. 19 ff., ii. 
 14 ff.). Comp. Groos, p.255.— iva davep. adtod ta épya] 
 gavep. is the opposite of the ux) éAeyy6y of ver. 20. While the 
 wicked wishes his actions not to be reproved, but to remain, ” 
 in darkness, the good man wishes his actions to come to the light 
 and to be made manifest, and he therefore épyetas mpds TO Pas ; 
 for Christ, as the personally manifested Light, the bearer of 
 
 1 In opposition to Colani, who finds a circle in the reasoning of vv. 19, 20, 
 See Godet. 
 
186 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 divine truth, cannot fail through His working to make these 
 good deeds be recognised in this their true nature. The mani- 
 festation of true morality through Christ must necessarily throw 
 the true light on the moral conduct of those who come to 
 Him, and make it manifest and show it forth in its true 
 nature and form. The purpose wa gavep., «.7.r., does not 
 spring from self-seeking, but arises from the requirements, 
 originating in a moral necessity, of moral satisfaction in itself, 
 and of the triumph of good over the world. — adrod] thus 
 put before, for emphasis’ sake, in opposition to the evil-doer, 
 who has altogether a different design with reference to his acts. 
 — 67t év Oe, «.7.X.] the reason of the before-named pur- 
 pose. How should he not cherish this purpose, and desire the 
 davépwats, seeing that his works are wrought in God! Thus, 
 so far from shunning, he has really to strive after the mani- 
 festation of them, as the revelation of all that is divine. We 
 must take this év 0e@, like the frequent év Xpior@, as denot- 
 ing the element in which the épyafeo@a: moves; not without 
 and apart from God, but living and moving in Him, has the 
 good man acted. Thus the cata to OéXnua Tod Oeod, 1 John 
 v. 14, and the cara Oeov, Rom. viii. 27, 2 Cor. vii. 10, also the 
 els Ocov, Luke xii. 21, constitute the necessary character of the 
 év Oem, but are not the év Oe@ itself.— épya cipyacpéeva] 
 as in vi. 28, ix. 4, Matt. xxvi..10, e¢ al., and often in the 
 classics.—Observe from ver. 21, that Christ, who here ex- 
 presses Himself generally, yet conformably to experience, 
 encountered, at the time of His entering upon His ministry 
 of enlightenment, not only the ¢atAa mpacoovtes, but also 
 those who practised what is right, and who were living in 
 God. To this class belonged a Nathanael, and the disciples 
 generally, certainly also many who repented at the preaching 
 of the Baptist, together with other O. T. saints, and perhaps 
 Nicodemus himself. They were drawn by the Father to 
 come to Christ, and were given to Him (vi. 37); they were 
 of God, and had ears to hear His word (viii. 47, comp. xviil 
 57); they were desirous to do the Father’s will (vii. 17); 
 they were His (xvii. 6). But according to ver. 19, these were 
 exceptions only amid the multitude of the opposite kind, and 
 even their piety needed purifying and transfiguring into true 
 
CHAP, III. 22, 23. 187 
 
 dixatocvvn, which could be attained only by fellowship with 
 Christ; and hence even in their case the way of Christian 
 penitence, by the davépwous of their works wrought in God, 
 brought about by the light of Christ, was not excluded, but 
 was exhibited, and its commencement brought about, because, 
 in view of this complete and highest light, the sincere Old 
 Testament saint must first rightly feel the need of that 
 repentance, and of the lack of moral satisfaction. Con- 
 sequently the statement of vv. 3, 5, still holds true. 
 
 Vv. 22, 23. After this interview with Nicodemus! (werd 
 tavta) Jesus betook Himself with His disciples from the 
 capital into the country of Judea, in a north-easterly direction 
 towards Jordan. “Iovéda/ayv is, as in Mark i. 5, Acts xvi. 1, 
 Pace: sik 23) xive:'3.3;(3'7, 2-Maec.. v.23, 8 Esr. owe 
 Anthol. vii. 645, an adjective. — éBamrelev] during His stay 
 there (Jmperf.), not Himself, however, but through His dis- 
 ciples, iv. 2. Baur, indeed, thinks that the writer had a definite 
 purpose in view in this mode of expression; that he wished 
 to bring Jesus and the Baptist as closely as possible together 
 in the same work. But if so, the remark of iv. 2 would be 
 strangely illogical; see also Schweizer, p. 194. The baptism 
 of Jesus, besides, was certainly a continuation of that of John, 
 and did not yet possess the new characteristic of Matt. xxviii. 
 19 (for see vii. 39); but that it already included that higher 
 element, which John’s baptism did not possess (comp. Acts xix. 
 2, 3),—namely, the operation of the Spirit, of which Christ was 
 the bearer (ver. 34), for the accomplishment of the birth from 
 above,—is manifest from ver. 5, a statement which cannot be a 
 prolepsis or a prophecy merely. — jv dé nal "Iwavy, x.7.r.] 
 but John was also employed in baptizing, namely in Aenon, ete. 
 This name, usually taken as the intensive or adjectival form 
 of PY, is rather=y» sy, dove spring; the place itself is other- 
 wise unknown, asis also the situation of Salim, though placed 
 by Eusebius and Jerome eight Roman miles south of Scytho- 
 polis. This is all the more uncertain, because Aenon, accord- 
 ing to the mention of it here (comp. iv. 3), must have been 
 in Judaea, and not in Samaria, and could not therefore have 
 
 1 To interpose a longer interval, e.g. a return to and sojourn in Galilee, is 
 quite gratuitous. Not before iv. 3 does Jesus return to Galilee, 
 
188 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 been the Ainun discovered by Robinson (Later Explorations, 
 p. 400). Ewald thinks of the two places py ondv in Josh. xv. 
 32. So also Wieseler, p. 247. In no case could the towns 
 have been situated on the Jordan, for in that case the state- 
 ment drt data modkAa would have been quite out of place. 
 Comp. Hengstenberg, who likewise refers to Josh. xv. 32, while 
 Pressel (in Herzog’s Encykl. XIII. 326) prefers the statement 
 of Eusebius and Jerome. For the rest, the narrative of the 
 temptation, which Hengstenberg places in the period after 
 ver. 22, has nothing to do with the locality in this verse; it 
 does not belong to this at all—The question why John, after 
 the public appearance of Jesus, still continued to baptize, with- 
 out baptizing in His name, is answered simply by the fact 
 (against Bretschneider, Weisse, Baur) that Jesus had not yet 
 come forth as John expected that the Messiah would, and that 
 consequently the Baptist could not have supposed that his 
 work in preparing the way for the Messiah’s kingdom by his 
 baptism of repentance was already accomplished, but had to 
 await for that the divine decision. This perseverance of John, 
 therefore, in his vocation to baptize, was by no means in conflict 
 with his divinely received certainty of the Messiahship of Jesus 
 (as Weizsicker, p. 320, thinks), and the ministry of both of them 
 side by side must not be looked upon as improbable, as “ in it- 
 self a splitting in sunder of the Messianic movement” (Keim). 
 Ver. 24 corrects, in passing, the synoptic tradition,’ which 
 John knew as being widely spread, and the discrepancy in 
 which is not to be explained either by placing the imprison- 
 ment between John iv. 2 and 3, and by taking the journey of 
 Jesus to Galilee there related as the same with that mentioned 
 in Matt. iv. 12 (Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, B. Crusius, 
 Ebrard, Hengstenberg, and many others), or by making the 
 journey of Matt. iv. 12 to coincide with that named in 
 John vi. 1 (Wieseler). See on Matt. iv. 12. Apart from 
 that purpose of correction, which is specially apparent if we 
 compare Matt. iv. 17 (subtleties to the contrary in Ebrard), 
 the remark, which was quite intelligible of itself, would be, 
 
 1 It is supposed, indeed, that John simply wishes to intimate that what he 
 records, vv. 22-36, must be placed before Matt. iv. 12 (Hengstenberg). But 
 in the connection of Matthew, there is no place for it before iv. 12. 
 
CHAP. III. 25, 26. 189 
 
 - i 
 to say the least, superfluous——unnecessary even to gain space 
 for bringing Jesus and the Baptist again alongside each other 
 (Keim), even if we were to venture to propose the suggestion, 
 of which the text says nothing, that Jesus felt himself obliged, 
 as the time of the Baptist was not yet expired, to bring the 
 kingdom of God near, in keeping with the form which the 
 Baptist had adopted (Luthardt, p. 79). 
 
 Vv. 25, 26. Ovv] in consequence of the narration of 
 ver. 23 (ver. 24 being a parenthetical remark). Nothing is 
 known more particularly as to this question (&ryows) which 
 arose among John’s disciples (éyévero ek tav pal. "Iwavr., 
 comp. Lucian. Alex. 40; Herod. v. 21). The theme of it 
 was “concerning purification” (aept xa8apiopod), and, according 
 to the context, it did not refer to the usual prescriptions and 
 customs in general (Weizsiicker), but had a closer reference 
 to the baptism of John and of Jesus, and was discussed with 
 a Jew, who probably placed the baptism of Jesus, as being 
 of higher and greater efficacy with regard to the power of 
 purifying (from the guilt of sin), above that of John. Comp. 
 ver. 26. Possibly the prophetic idea of a consecration by 
 purification preceding the Messiah’s kingdom (Ezek. xxxvi. 25 ; 
 Zech, xiii. 1; Hofm. Weissag. wu. Erf. II. 87) was spoken of. 
 Who the ’Iovdaios was (Hofmann, Tholuck, a Pharisee) cannot 
 be determined. A Jewish Christian (Chrysostom, Euthymius 
 Zigabenus, and others; also Ewald) would have been more 
 exactly designated. According to Luthardt, it was an wn- 
 Sriendly Jew who declared that the baptism of John might 
 now at length be dispensed with, and who wished thus to 
 beguile the Baptist to become unfaithful to his calling, by 
 which means he hoped the better to work against Jesus. An 
 artificial combination unsupported by the text, or even by 6 ov 
 ewaptupyKas, ver. 26. For that this indicated a perplexity 
 on the part of the disciples as to the calling of their master finds 
 no support in the words of the Baptist which follow. There 
 is rather expressed in that 6 od weuapr., and in all that John’s 
 disciples advance,—who therefore do not name Jesus, but only 
 indicate Him,—a jealous irritation on the point, that a man, 
 who himself had just gone forth from the fellowship of the 
 Baptist, and who owed his standing to the testimony borne 
 
199 TIIE GOSPEL OF JOIIN. 
 
 by the latter in his favour (#), should have opened such a 
 competition with him as to throw him into the shade. 
 Through the statements of the Jew, with whom they had 
 been discussing the question of purification, there was awakened 
 in them a certain feeling of envy that Jesus, the former pupil 
 (as they thought), the receiver of a testimony at the hand of 
 their master, should now presume to put himself forward as 
 his superior rival. They saw in this a usurpation, which 
 they could not reconcile with the previous position of Jesus 
 in relation to the Baptist. But he, on the contrary, vindicates 
 Jesus, ver. 27, and in ver. 28 brings into view His far higher 
 position, which excluded all jealousy.— 6s jv peta cod, 
 K.T.r.] 1. 28, 29.— ide and odtos have the emphasis of some- 
 thing unexpected; namely, that this very individual should 
 (according to their view) interfere with their master in his 
 vocation, and with such results !—«at waves, an exaggeration 
 of excited feeling. Comp. xii. 19. Not: “all who submit 
 to be baptized by Him” (Hengstenberg),. 
 
 Vv. 27, 28. The Baptist at first answers them, putting his 
 reply in the form of a general truth, that the greater activity 
 and success of Jesus was given Him of God, and next reminds 
 them of the subordinate position which he held in relation to 
 Jesus. The reference of the general affirmation to the Baptist 
 himself, who would mean by it: “non possum mihi arrogare 
 et rapere, quae Deus non dedit,” Wetstein (so Cyril, Rupertus, 
 Beza, Clarius, Jansen, Bengel, Liicke, Maier, Hengstenberg, 
 Godet, and others), is not in keeping with the context ; for the 
 petty, jealous complaint of the disciples, ver. 26, has merely 
 prepared the way for a vindication of Jesus on the part of the 
 Baptist ; and as in what follows with ¢his intent, the compari- 
 son between the two, as they, in vv. 27, 28, according to 
 our interpretation, stand face to face with each other, is 
 thoroughly carried out; see vv. 29, 30, 31; so that Jesus 
 is always jirst characterized, and then John. We must not 
 therefore take ver. 27 as referring to both (Kuinoel, Tholuck, 
 Lange, Briickner, Ewald, Luthardt’).— od dvvarar] relatively, 
 ae. according to divine ordination. — dv@pw7ros] quite general, 
 
 1 Who, in keeping with his view of ver. 26, takes ver. 27 to mean: ‘‘ The 
 work of both of us is divinely ordained, and therefore I, for my own part, am 
 
CHAP. III. 29, 80. ib gk 
 
 a@ man, any one; not as Hengstenberg, referring it to John, 
 renders it: “ because I am merely a man.” —dapBavecv] not 
 arrogate to himself (éav7d AawP., Heb. v. 4), but simply to 
 receive, answering to be given. — avTot vets] though you aie 
 so irritated about him. — waprup.]| Indic: ye are yourselves my 
 witnesses, see 1. 19-28, the substance of which John sums up 
 in the words ov« eiui, etc. They had themselves appealed 
 (ver. 26) to his waprupia concerning Jesus, but he wepitpézres 
 tavTny Ka? avtav, Euthymius Zigabenus. — aX 67] Transi- 
 tion to dependent speech. Winer, p. 539 [E. T. p. 679 f.].— 
 éxeivou] referring not to the appellative o Xpicrds, but to 
 Jesus as the Xpuotos. 
 
 Vv. 29, 30. Symbolical setting forth of his subordinate 
 relation to Jesus. The bridegroom is Jesus, John is the friend 
 who waits upon Him; the bride is the community of the 
 Messianic kingdom; the wedding is the setting up of that 
 kingdom, now nigh at hand, as represented in the picture 
 which the Baptist draws (comp. Matt. ix. 15, xxv. 1 ff). 
 The O. T. figure of God’s union with His people as a mar- 
 riage (Isa. liv. 5; Hos. i. 18, 19; Eph. v. 32; Rev. xix. 
 7, xxi. 2, 9) forms the basis of this comparison. It may 
 reasonably be doubted whether Solomon’s Song (especially v. 
 1, 6) was likewise in the Baptist’s thoughts when employing 
 this illustration (Bengel, Luthardt, Hengstenberg); for no 
 quotation is made from that book in the N. T., and therefore 
 any allegorical interpretation of this Song with Messianic 
 references cannot with certainty be presupposed in the N. T. 
 Comp. Luke xiii. 31, note—He to whom the bride (the bride- 
 elect of the marriage feast) belongs is the bridegroom, — 
 therefore it is not 1—TZhe friend of the bridegroom (xar’ 
 e£oxnv: the appointed friend, who serves at the wedding) is 
 the mapavipudios, who is also, Sanhedr. f. 27, 2, called am, 
 but usually j2wmw. Lightfoot, p. 980; Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. s.v. ; 
 Schoettgen, p. 335 ff; and see on 2 Cor. xi. 2.— 6 éotynKas 
 kK. @KoUM@Y avTov] who standeth (tanquam apparitor, Bengel) 
 and attentively heareth him, i.e. in order to do his bidding.” 
 
 justified in continuing my work after the appearance of Jesus, so long at least 
 as the self-witness of Jesus is not believed.” 
 
 1 The working of Jesus was so manifest, and now so near to the Baptist, that 
 
192 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Contrary to the construction (at), and far-fetched, is the ren- 
 dering of B. Crusius: “ who is waiting for him (éornx,), and 
 when he hears him, viz. the voice of the approaching bride- 
 eroom. (?)” Tholuck also, following Chrysostom, brings in 
 what is not there when he renders: “who standeth, having 
 finished his work as forerunner.’ The Baptist had still to 
 work on, and went on working. The éornx. must be regarded 
 as taking place at the marriage feast, and not before that, 
 during the bridal prozession (Ewald, who refers to the frequent 
 stoppages which took place in it); but it does not mean 
 standing at the door of the wedding chamber, nor ax. avtov the 
 audible pleasure of the newly married pair. An indelicate 
 sensualizing (still to be found in Kuinoel) unwarranted by the 
 text. — yapa yatper] he rejoiceth greatly ; see Lobeck, Paralip. 
 p. 524; Winer, p. 424 [E. T. p. 584]. Comp. 1 Thess. 
 iil. 9, where, in like manner, éva stands instead of the classical 
 ert, év, or the dative. — da tHVv Povnv Tod vuyd.] This is 
 not to be understood of his loud caresses and protestations of 
 love (Grotius, Olshausen, Lange), nor of the command of the 
 bridegroom to take away the cloth with the signum virgini- 
 tatis (thus debasing the beautiful figure, Michaelis, Paulus), 
 nor of the conversing of the bridegroom with the bride 
 (Tholuck and older expositors)—all of which are quite out of 
 keeping with the general expression; the reference is merely 
 to the conversation and joy of the bridegroom amid the marriage 
 mirth. Comp. Jer. vii. 34, xvi. 9, xxv. 10. The expla- 
 nation, also, which makes it the voice of the approaching 
 bridegroom who calls the bride to fetch her home, would need 
 to be more precisely indicated (against B. Crusius and 
 Luthardt), and is not in keeping with o éornKos ;* the acti- 
 this feature of the comparison is fully explained by it. Neither in this place nor 
 elsewhere is there any answer to the question, whether and what personal inter- 
 course the Baptist had already had with Him (Hengstenberg thinks ‘‘through 
 intermediate persons, especially through the Apostle John”). In particular, the 
 assumption that the interview with Nicodemus became known to the Baptist 
 (through the disciples of Jesus who had previously been the Baptist’s disciples) 
 is quite unnecessary for the understanding of the words which here follow 
 (against Godet). 
 
 1 For the rapaviugios does not stand there waiting for the bridegroom, but 
 
 accompanies him on his way to the bride’s house. The standing and waiting 
 pertain to the female attendants on the bride, Matt. xxv. 1 ff. 
 
CHAP. III. 31, $2. 193 
 
 vity of Jesus, moreover, was already more than a call to the 
 bringing home, which might have symbolized His irst 
 appearing. Comp. Matt. ix. 15.— Note, besides, how the 
 ardent expression of joy stands contrasted with the envious 
 feelings of John’s disciples. —atrn odv  yapa, x.7.r.] ody 
 infers the avtn from the application of the figure: this joy, 
 therefore, which is mine, viz. at the bridegroom’s voice. — 
 meTAnpwTas| has been fulfilled completely, so that nothing 
 more is wanting to it. The Baptist, with prophetic antici- 
 pation, sees, in the successful activity of Jesus, and in the 
 flocking of the people to Him, the already rising dawn of 
 the Messiah’s kingdom (the beginning of the marriage). On 
 memAnp. comp. xv. 11, xvi. 24, xvii. 13; 1 John i. 4. — Se7] 
 as in ver. 14. This noble self-renunciation was based upon 
 the clear certainty which he had of the divine purpose.— 
 avédvetv] in influence and efficiency. — €XatTodcGac] the 
 counterpart of increase: to become less, Jer. xxx. 16; Symm.; 
 2 Sam. i. 1; Ecclus. xxxv. 23, al.; Thuc. il. 62. 4; Theophr. 
 fH, pl. vi. 8. 5; Josephus, Anté. vii. 1.5. Comp. Plat. Leg. iii. 
 p. 681 A: av&avopévar ex tév édatTOVer. 
 
 Vv. 31, 32, down to ver. 35, is not the comment of the 
 evangelist (so Wetstein, Bengel, Kuinoel, Paulus, Olshausen, 
 Tholuck, Klee, Maier, Biiumlein). Ver. 32, comp. with vv. 29, 
 30, seems to sanction the notion that it is; but as no intimation 
 to this effect is given in the text, and as the thread of dis- 
 course proceeds uninterruptedly, and nothing in the subject- 
 matter is opposed to it, we may regard it as the continued 
 discourse of the Baptist, though elaborated in its whole style 
 and colouring by John,—not, however, to such an extent that 
 the evangelist’s record passes almost entirely into a comment of 
 his own (Liicke, De Wette, comp. also Ewald). We perceive how 
 the Baptist, as if with the mind of Jesus Himself, unveils 
 before his disciples, in the narrower circle of whom he speaks, 
 with the growing inspiration of the last prophet, the full 
 majesty of Jesus; and therewith, as if with his swanlike song, 
 completes his testimony before he vanishes from the history." 
 Even the subsequent momentary perplexity (Matt. xi.) is 
 
 1 Tt is self-evident, that all that is said in ver. 31 f. was intended to incite the 
 disciples of John to believe in Jesus, and to scare them from unbelief. 
 N 
 
194 TIIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 psychologically not irreconcilable with this (see on i. 29), simply 
 because John was 逫 THs yfs. But the Baptist, notwith- 
 standing his witness concerning Jesus, has not gone over to 
 Him, because the calling of forerunner had been once divinely 
 committed to him, and he felt that he must continue to fulfil 
 it so long as the Messianic kingdom was not yet established. 
 These remarks tell, at the same time, against the use which is 
 made of this passage to prove that the entire scene is unhistori- 
 cal (Strauss, Weisse, Reuss, Scholten, following Bretschneider). 
 —o dvobev épyop.] He who cometh from above, i.e. Christ 
 (comp. ver. 13, viii. 23), whose coming, .e. whose coming forth 
 from the divine glory in human form as Messiah, is here 
 regarded as still in the course of its actual self-manifestation 
 (cf. viii. 14), and consequently as a present phenomenon, and 
 as not ended until it has been consummated in the establish- 
 ment of the kingdom.—advtav] Mase. John means the 
 category as a whole to which Jesus belonged—all interpreters 
 of God, as is clear from what follows, vv. 31, 32.—o dv é« 
 THs ys] we. the Baptist, who, as an ordinary man, springs 
 from earth, not heaven.— éx THs ys Eats] as predicate de- 
 notes the natwre conditioned by such an origin. He is of no 
 other kind or nature than that of one who springs from 
 earth ; though withal his divine mission (i. 6), in common with 
 all prophets, and specially his divinely conferred baptismal 
 vocation (Matt. xxi. 25, 26), remain intact.— «al é« tT. yis 
 Narel] and he speaketh of the earth. His speech has not 
 heaven as its point of departure, like that of the Messiah, 
 who declares what He has seen in heaven (see ver. 32); but it 
 proceeds from the earth, so that he utters what has come to 
 his knowledge upon earth, and therefore under the limitation 
 of earthly conditions,—a limitation, however, which as little 
 excluded the reception of a revelation (i. 33; Luke ii. 2), as 
 it did in the case of the saints of the O. T., who likewise 
 were of earthly origin, nature, and speech, and afterwards eg. 
 in that of the Apostle Paul." The contents of the discourse 
 
 1 The Fathers rightly perceived the relative character of this self-assertion. 
 Euthymius Zigabenus : mos ovyxpiory ray omeppuay Aoywy Tov Xpiorov. Hofmann, 
 Schriftbew. IJ. 1, p. 14, misapprehends this, supposing that this ver. 31 has no 
 reference to the Baptist. 
 
 
 
CHAP, III. 33. 195 
 
 need not therefore relate merely to ta éséyea (iii. 12), as 
 Weisse thinks, but may also have reference to ésovpdvia, the 
 knowledge and promulgation of which, however, do not get 
 beyond the é« uépous (1 Cor. xiii. 9 ff). The expression éx 
 THs yns Aad. must not be confounded with é« Tod Kdcpou 
 Nareiv, 1 John iv. 5.—o éx trod ovp. épy., «.7.r.] A solemn 
 repetition of the first clause, linking on what follows, viz. the 
 antithesis still to be brought out, of the é« tis yijs Nadret. — 
 0 EWpake, Kal }Kouce] 4. during His pre-existence with God, 
 i.15,18, iii 11. From it He possesses immediate knowledge 
 of divine truth, whose witness (waptupe?) He accordingly is. 
 Note the interchange of tenses (Kiihner, II. p. 75). — rodro] 
 this and nothing else. —x«. 7. papt. avtov ovdels AapP.] 
 tragically related to what preceded, and introduced all the 
 more strikingly by the bare cat. Comp.i. 10, iii, 11. The 
 expression ovdels Aap. is the hyperbole of deep sorrow on 
 account of the small number of those—small in comparison of 
 the vast multitude of unbelievers—who receive His witness, 
 and whose fellowship accordingly constitutes the bride of the 
 marriage. John himself limits the ovde’s by the following 
 6 AaBov, «7A. Comp. i. 10, 11, 12. The concourse of 
 hearers who came to Jesus (ver. 26), and the Baptist’s joy 
 on account of His progress (vv. 29, 30), could not dim his 
 deep insight into the world’s unbelief. Accordingly, his joy 
 (ver. 29) and grief (ver. 32) both forming a noble contrast to 
 the jealousy of his disciples (ver. 26). 
 
 Ver. 33. Avtod] placed before for emphasis: His witness, 
 correlative with the following 6 eds. — éogppdyscer] has, by 
 this receiving, sealed, 2.e. confirmed, ratified as an act. For this 
 figurative usage, see vi. 27; Rom. iv. 11, xv. 28; 1 Cor.ix. 2; 
 2 Cor. i. 22; Eph. i.13; Jacobs, ad Anthol. ix. pp. 22, 144, 
 172.—ére 6 Oeds adnO. éotev] In the reception of the 
 witness of Jesus there is manifested on man’s part the practical 
 ratification of the truthfulness of God, the human “ yea verily” 
 
 Decisive against Beyschlag, p. 96, who understands the words only of a pro- 
 phetic sight and hearing through the Spirit, is the antithesis with the Baptist 
 (who was yet himself a prophet), running through the whole context, as also 
 the irdvw révrwy ivriv, Which ranks Jesus above the prophets. Comp. also Heb. 
 xii, 25. 
 
196 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 in answer to the proposition “God is true,” because Jesus (see 
 ver. 34) is the ambassador and interpreter of God. The non- 
 reception of that witness, whereby it is declared untrue, would 
 be a rejection of the divine truthfulness, the “nay” to that 
 proposition, Comp. 1 John v. 10. Reference to O. T. pro- 
 mises (Luthardt) is remote from the context. 
 
 Ver. 34. The first ydp serves to state the reason for the 
 éofpayicev, Ott, etc.; the second, for the Ta pnuata 7. Oeod 
 Aanre?, so far, that is, as it would be doubtful, if God gave the 
 Spirit é« wétpov, whether what God’s ambassador spoke was 
 a divine revelation or not; it might in this case be wholly 
 or in part the word of man—dv yap améot. 6 Oe0s] nota 
 general statement merely, appropriate to every prophet, but, 
 following ver. 31, to be taken more precisely as a definition 
 of a heavenly (dvwOev, x Tod ovpavod) mission, and referring 
 strictly to Jesus. This the context demands. But the fol- 
 lowing ov yap é« métpou, x.T.A., must be taken as a general 
 statement, because there is no avt@. Commentators would 
 quite arbitrarily supply avr,’ so as to render it, not by 
 measure or limitation, but without measure and in complete 
 JSulness, God gives the Holy Spirit to Christ. This supplement, 
 unsuitable in itself, should have been excluded by the present 
 didwow, because we must regard Christ as possessing the Spirit 
 long before. The meaning of this general statement is rather: 
 “ He does not give the Spirit according to measure” (as if it 
 consequently were out of His power, or He were unwilling to 
 give the Spirit beyond a certain quantitative degree, deter- 
 mined by a definite measure); He proceeds herein indepen- 
 dently of any wérpov, confined and limited by no restricting 
 standard. The way in which this is to be applied to Jesus 
 thus becomes plain, viz. that God must have endowed Him? 
 when He sent Him from heaven (ver. 31), in keeping with 
 His nature and destination, with the richest spiritual gifts, 
 namely, with the entire fulness of the Spirit (wav To TAnpwpa, 
 Col. i. 19), more richly, therefore, than prophets or any others; 
 —which He could not have done had He been fettered by a 
 
 1 The subterfuge of Hengstenberg is no better: ‘‘we must supply, in the case 
 before us.” See also Lange. 
 
 2 ob yap wirpa Acyuo [or rather rveduaros] Pipes Adyes.—Nonnus, 
 
CHAP. III. 35, 36. 197 
 
 measure in the giving of the Spirit.’ — é« wérpov] éx used 
 of the rule. See Bernhardy, p. 230; comp. on 1 Cor. xii. 27. 
 Finally, the ov yap é« wérpov must not be regarded as pre- 
 senting a different view to ver. 32 (comp. Weiss, p. 269) ; 
 for the Spirit was in Christ the principle whereby He com- 
 municated (the Aadey) to men that which He had beheld 
 with God. See on vi. 63, 64; Acts i. 2. 
 
 Ver. 35. A further description of the dignity of Christ. 
 The Father hath given wnlimited power to His beloved Son. 
 —aryat.| the ground of the dée«.—advra] neut. and 
 without limitation. Falsely Kuinoel: omnes doctrinae suae 
 partes (comp. Grotius: “omnia mysteria regni”)! Nothing is 
 exempted from the Messianic *fovcia, by virtue of which 
 Christ is kefari tmép mavta, Eph. i. 22, and mavtwr kiptos, 
 Acts x. 36; comp. xiii. 3, xvii. 2; Matt. xi. 27; 1 Cor. xv. 
 27; Heb. ii. 8.— év 7H yerpi avrov| Result of the direction 
 of the gift, a well-known constructio praegnans. Winer, p. 
 385 (EH. T. p. 454). 
 
 Ver. 36. All the more weighty in their results are faith in 
 the Son and unbelief! Genuine prophetic conclusion to life 
 or death. — éyeu € ai.] “he has eternal life,” 7c. the Messianic 
 fen, which, in its temporal development, is already a present 
 possession of the believer; see on vv. 15,16. At the Second 
 Advent it will be completed and glorified; and therefore the 
 antithesis od« dyetau Cwxy, referring to the future ais, is 
 justified, because it presupposes the ov« éyer & —amei0av] 
 not: “he who does not believe on the Son” (Luther and the 
 Fathers), but: “he who zs disobedient to the Son ;” yet, accord- 
 ing to the context, so far as the Son requires faith. Comp. 
 
 1 Hitzig, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1859, p. 152 ff., taking the first half of 
 the verse as a general statement, applicable to every prophet, would read the 
 relative od instead of o¢, ‘‘ according to the measure, that is, in which He gives 
 the Spirit.” Considering the yp, this rendering is impossible.—Ewald and 
 Briickner come nearest to our interpretation. B. Crusius and Ebrard (on 
 Olshausen) erroneously make oy drier. x.7.a. the subject of didwow (6 es is 
 spurious, see the critical notes); but this yields a thought neither true in itself, 
 nor in keeping with the context. Godet puts an antithetical but purely im- 
 ported emphasis upon 3/we. : to other messengers of God the Spirit is not given, 
 but only dent by a ‘‘ visite momentanée ;”’ but when God gives the Spirit, He does 
 so without measure, and this took place on the first occasion at the baptism of 
 Jesus. This is exegetical poetizing. 
 
198 TIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Acts xiv. 2, xix. 9; Rom. xi. 30; Fritzsche, ad Rom. I. p. 17. 
 Contrasted herewith is the taxon wictews, Rom. i. 5. — 7 
 épy7] not punishment, but wrath, as the necessary emotion of 
 holiness; see on Rom. i. 18; Eph. ii. 3; Matt. iii, 7.— 
 pévet] because unreconciled, inasmuch as that which appro- 
 priates reconciliation, z.e. faith (iii. 16), is rejected; comp. ix. 41. 
 This péves (it is not termed épyeraz) implies that the person 
 who rejects faith is still in a moral condition which is subject 
 to the divine wrath,—a state of subjection to wrath, which, 
 instead of being removed by faith, abides upon him through his 
 unbelief. The wrath, therefore, is not first awakened by the 
 refusal to believe (Ritschl, de wa Dei, pp. 18, 19; Godet), 
 but is already there, and through that refusal remains.’ 
 Whether or not this wrath rests upon the man from his birth 
 (Augustine; Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. p. 289), this 
 text gives no information. See on Eph. ii. 3.— That the 
 Baptist could already speak after this manner, is evident from 
 chap. i 29.— ém’ adrov] as ini. 32, 33. 
 
 1 This is also against Hengstenberg. But certainly the «ve: must, according 
 to the context, be an eternal abiding, if the iraxon ricrews Hever occurs. 
 
 - ~—— 
 
CHAP. IV. 199 
 
 CHiAT IER. Ly. 
 
 Ver. 3. +éAsv] wanting in A. and many other Uncials and 
 Cursives, Syr. p. Pers. p. Or. Chrys. It is found, indeed, in B. 
 (in the margin) C. D. L. M. T®. &., but was probably added to 
 denote the return. — Ver. 5. 04] Elz, Tisch. é, against C.* D. L. 
 M. 8. Curss. Chrys., an inelegant correction. — Ver. 6. dce/] 
 Lach. Tisch. read «ws, for which the testimonies are decisive.— 
 Vv. 7-10. For zie7v, Tisch. foll. B.* C.* D. 8.* reads a7, for 
 which also zi occurs. ei is to be adopted on account of the 
 preponderating testimony. — Ver. 14. The words 0b wi—éduow 
 aJrg are wanting in C.* Curss. and some Verss. and Fathers, 
 even Or.; bracketed by Lach. The testimonies are too weak 
 to warrant our striking them out, and how easily might their 
 omission have occurred through éosoreAevr.! — For 61.407 Lach. 
 and Tisch. read é-)joz, following preponderating evidence. But 
 the Future seems to be connected with an early omission of 474 
 (which we still find in D.).— Ver. 15. tpxwuwas] the Indicative 
 Epyouas OY Siépyxoucr (So Tisch.) is bad Gk., and has witnesses 
 enough against it (A. C.D. U. V. A.; even &.*, which has é:épyw- 
 war) to be regarded as a transcriber’s error; comp. Xvil. 3.— 
 Ver. 16. 6 ’Ijcods is wanting in B. C.* Heracl. Or.; an addition. 
 The position sov rdv é&vdpa (Tisch.) is too weakly attested by 
 B. Curss. Or. (three times) Chrys. — Ver. 21. yivas, riorevody 
 wot] Lach.: y. wiorsvé w.; Tisch.: aioreve w. ye Amid manifold 
 diversities of testimony the last must be adopted as the best 
 authenticated, by B. C.* L.s. Ver. Sahid. Heracl. Or. Ath. Cyr. 
 Chrys. Hilar.— Ver. 27. For 26atuafov Elz. has édabuaouy, against 
 decisive testimony. — Ver. 30. After ¢&72dov Elz. has ov, against 
 decisive testimony. Added for the purpose of connection, instead 
 of which 6: also occurs, and C. D. Verss. have x«/ before 2&%éoy, 
 and accordingly Lachm. puts this x«/ in brackets. — Ver. 34. 
 wow] B.C.D.K.L.T®. m. Cursives, Clem. Heracl. Or. Cyr. 
 Chrys.: zo:7jow; recommended by Griesb., adopted by Lachm. ; 
 a co-ordination with what follows. — Ver. 35. For rerpaunvos 
 Elz. has rerpéwnvov, against almost all the Uncials. A clumsy 
 emendation.. Comp. Heb. xi. 23.— Ver. 36. Before 6 depéZ. 
 Elz. has xa? (bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch.), condemned 
 by B. C.* D. L, T®. 8. Cursives, Verss. and Fathers. Through 
 
 \yrk 
 
200 ' 'TITE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 the very ancient variation, which joins 74, either with what 
 follows (A.C. D. Cyr.) or with what precedes (Or.), the insertion 
 of zai is the result of the latter mode of connection. If za/ 
 were genuine, neither of the two constructions would have 
 prompted its omission. — Ver. 42. After xéouov Elz. has 6 Xpso- 
 cés, Which Lachm. Tisch., following important witnesses, have 
 deleted as an exegetical addition. — Ver. 43. zai dxjrdev] 
 wanting in B.C. D. T°. 8. Cursives, Codd. It. Copt. Or. Cyr. 
 Bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. ; supplementing addition 
 after ver. 3, not in keeping with John’s mode of expression. — 
 Ver. 45. Instead of & we must adopt éo«, with Lachm. Tisch., 
 following A. B. C. L. Cursives, Or. Cyr. Chrys. As the concep- 
 tion expressed by éca is already in rdévra, & would seem more 
 appropriate, which therefore we find in vy. 29, 39, in Codd. — 
 Ver. 46. After ody Elz. has 6 ’Ijoo%s, which is altogether wanting 
 in important witnesses, and in others stands after cédw (so 
 Scholz). A common addition.— Ver. 47. wiréy after 7p. is 
 wanting in B.C. D. L. T®. &. Cursives, Verss. Or. Aug. Bracketed 
 by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. Supplementary. — Ver. 50. o] 
 Lachm. Tisch., following A. B. C. L.s.**, read &. An unskilful 
 emendation. — Ver. 51. &rqvrnoay|] B.C. D. K. L. x. Cursives: 
 isquenoav. So Lachm. and Tisch.; rightly, for John elsewhere 
 always has iravr. (xi 20, 30, xii. 18).—6 razg cov] Lachm. 
 Tisch.: 6 7. airo%, upon such weighty evidence that the received 
 reading must be regarded as a mechanical alteration in imita- 
 tion of ver. 50.— Ver. 52. Instead of 42, we must, with 
 Lachm. and Tisch., following the majority of Codd., adopt éx é¢. 
 
 Vv. 1-3. ‘Ds ody éyvo, «.7.2.] ody, igitur, namely, in 
 consequence of the concourse of people who flocked to Him, 
 and which had been previously mentioned. Considering this 
 concourse, He could not fail to come to know (éyva, not 
 supernatural knowledge, but comp. ver. 53, v. 6, xi. 57, xii. 9) 
 that it had reached the ears of the Pharisees, how He, ete. 
 This prompted Him, however, to withdraw to Galilee, where 
 their hostility would not be so directly aroused and cherished as 
 in Judaea, the headquarters of the hierarchy. To surrender 
 Himself to them before the time, before His hour arrived, and 
 the vocation of which He was conscious had been fulfilled, was 
 opposed to His consciousness of the divine arrangements and 
 the object of His mission. He contented himself, therefore, for 
 the present with the interest which He had already excited in . 
 Judaea on behalf of His work, and withdrew, for the time being, 
 
CHAP. IV. 1—3. 20K 
 
 to His own less esteemed country.’ As to the date of this 
 return, see ver. 35; it is an arbitrary invention to say (Lange, 
 L. J. V1. p. 515), that upon leaving Judaea He gave up baptizing 
 because John’s imprisonment (?) brought a ban of uncleanness 
 upon Israel (515 sq.). The performance of baptism must be 
 supposed as taking place subsequent to this, when conver- 
 sions are spoken of (eg. ver. 53), comp. iii. 5; and Matt. xxvii. 
 19 does not contain a wholly new command to baptize, but 
 its completion and extension to all times and nations. — oi 
 Papic.| It is only this party, the most powerful and most 
 dangerous of the Jewish sects, that is still named by John, the 
 evangelist who had become furthest removed from Judaism. — 
 é7u “Incovs, «.7.r.]a verbatim repetition of the report ; hence 
 the name (1 Cor. xi. 23), and the present tenses. Comp. Gal. 1. 
 23.— 1% ’Iwadvvns] whom they had moreover less to fear, on 
 account of his legal standpoint, and his declarations in 1. 19 ff, 
 than Jesus, whose appearance was in Jerusalem at once so 
 reformatory, miraculous, and rich in results, and who was 
 so ominously attested by John. — Ver. 2 is not to be put 
 in a parenthesis, for the construction is not interrupted. — 
 Kaitou ye] quanquam quidem, and yet ; see Baeumlein, Partih. 
 p. 245 ff.; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 654 f. The thing is thus 
 expressed, because “semper is dicitur facere, cui praemini- 
 
 1 According to Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 168 f., whom Lichtenstein fol- 
 lows, Jesus withdrew, because He was apprehensive lest what had come to the 
 Pharisees’ ears should be made use of by them to throw suspicion on the Baptist. 
 But this is all the less credible, when we remember that Jesus certainly, as well 
 as John himself (iii. 30), knew it to be a divine necessity that He should increase 
 and the Baptist decrease, and therefore would hardly determine his movements 
 by considerations of the kind supposed. He could more effectually have met 
 any such suspicions, by testifying on behalf of the noble Baptist in the neigh- 
 bourhood where he was, than by withdrawing from the scene. No; Jesus went 
 out of the way of the danger that threatened Himself, and which He knew it 
 was not yet time for Him to expose Himself to; comp. vii. 1, x. 40, xi. 54. 
 Nonnus: Qevyov Avocay arioroy axnanroy Bepioaiay, Still, however, we must 
 not, with Hengstenberg and most others, suppose that this retirement to Galilee 
 aros? from the fact that John had already fallen a prey to pharisaic persecution, 
 and that Jesus had all the more reason to apprehend this persecution. There is 
 no hint whatever of the supposed fact that the Pharisees had delivered John 
 over to Herod. This explanation is based merely upon an attempt at har- 
 -monizing, in order to make this journey tack to Galilee the same with that 
 named in Matt. iv. 12. See on iii. 24. 
 
202 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 stratur,” Tertullian. A pretext for this lay in the fact that 
 John did himself baptize. But why did not Jesus Himself 
 baptize? Not because it was incumbent on Him only to 
 preach (1 Cor. 1. 17); there must have been a principle 
 underlying His not baptizing, seeing that John, without 
 limitation, made it so prominent (against Thomas, Lyra, 
 Maldonatus, and most); not, again, because He must have 
 baptized unto Himself (so already Tertull. de bapt. 11), for He 
 could have done this; not even for the clear preservation of 
 the truth: “that it is He who baptizes all down to the pre- 
 sent day” (Hengstenberg), an arbitrarily invented abstraction, 
 and quite foreign even to the N.T. WNonnus hits upon the 
 true reason: ov yap dvak& PBanrilev év USaTs. Bengel well 
 says: “baptizare actio ministralis, Acts x. 48, 1 Cor.i1.17; 
 Johannes minister sua manu baptizavit, discipuli ejus ut 
 videtur neminem, at Christus baptizat Spiritu sancto,’ which 
 the disciples had not power to do until afterwards (vii. 39). 
 Comp. Ewald. For the rest, ver. 2 does not contain a cor- 
 rection of himself by the evangelist (Hengstenberg and early 
 expositors),—for we must not omit to ask why he should not 
 at once have expressed himself correctly,—but, on the contrary, 
 a correction of the form of the rwmour mentioned in ver. 1. 
 Comp. iii. 26. Nonnus: ér7tupos ob mwéde Gyuy. In this 
 consists the historical interest of the observation (against Baur 
 and Hilgenfeld), which we are not to regard as an unhistorical 
 consequence of transporting Christian baptism back to the 
 time of Jesus. 
 
 Vv. 4, 5. "Edec] from the geographical position ; and hence 
 the usual way for Galilaean travellers lay through Samaria 
 (Josephus, Antt. xx. 6. 1), unless one chose to pass through Perea 
 to avoid the hated land, which Jesus has at present no occasion 
 to do. Comp. Luke ix. 52.— els roduv] towards a city (not 
 into, ver. 28 ff.). Comp. Matt. xxi. 1; see Fritzsche, ad Mare. 
 p. 81.— Fvydp] (not Zuydp, as Elz. has, against the best 
 witnesses) is, according to the usual opinion,—though, indeed, 
 the Aeyowévnv, comp. xi. 54, pointing to an unknown place, 
 does not tally with it,—the same town as that called D2 (LXX. 
 Svyéu, comp. Acts vii. 16; also Sikywa, comp. Josephus) in 
 Gen. xxxili. 18, Josh. xx. 7, Judg. ix. 7, e al.; after the 
 
CHAP. IV. 6. 203 
 
 time of Christ, however, called Weapolis (Joseph. Bell. iv. 8. 1), 
 and now Nablus. See Crome, Beschreib. von Pal. I. p. 102 ff. ; 
 Robinson, III. 336; Rosen, in the Zeztschr. d. morgenl. Gesel a 
 1860, p. 634 ff Upon the remnant of the Samaritans still 
 in this town, see Rogers on the Modern Samaritans, London 
 1855; Barges, les Samaritains de Naplouse, Paris 1855. The 
 name Svydp, which Credner quite arbitrarily tries to refer to 
 a mere error in transcription, was accordingly a corruption of 
 the old name, perhaps intentional, though it had come into 
 ordinary use, and signifying drunken town (according to Isa. 
 xxviii. 1), or town of lies, or heathen town, after Hab. iii. 18 
 (pw). Reland takes the former view, Lightfoot and Hengsten- 
 berg the latter, Hengstenberg supposing that John himself made 
 the alteration in order to describe the lying character of the 
 Samaritans—quite against the simplicity of the narrative in 
 general, and the express Aeyouévnv in particular. This Aeyop., 
 and the difference in the name, as well as the following 7A7- 
 ciov, etc., and ver. 7, suggest the opinion that Sychar was a 
 distinct town in the neighbourhood of Sychem (Hug, Luthardt, 
 Lichtenstein, Ewald, Briickner, Baeumlein). See especially 
 Delitzsch, in Guericke’s Luth. Zeitschr. 1856, p. 244 ff.; Ewald, 
 Jahrb. VIII. 255 ff, and in his Johann. Schr. I. 181. The 
 name may still be discovered in the modern al Askar, east of 
 Nablus. Schenkel still sees here an error of a Gentile-Christian 
 author. — The ywpiov belonged to Sychem (Gen. xxxiii. 19, 
 xlviii. 22, LXX. Josh. xxiv. 32)? but must have lain in the 
 direction of Sychar.—mAnoiov] the town lay in the neigh- 
 bowrhood of the field, etc. Here only in the N. T., very often 
 in the classics, as a simple adverb. 
 
 Ver. 6. ny rod "Iaxwf] a spring-well (ver. 11), the 
 making of which tradition ascribed to Jacob. It is still in 
 existence, and regarded with reverence, though there is no 
 spring-water init. See Robinson, IIL. p. 330; Ritter, XVI. 634. 
 The ancient sacredness of the spot made it all the more worthy 
 of being specially noted by John. — ottws] thus, without 
 
 1 Concerning the Talmudic name 45 }p, see Wieseler, Synopse, p. 256 ff. 
 
 ? The LXX. inGen. xlviii. 22 render Daw by 2ixima, the error being that they 
 took the Hebrew word directly as a name, whereas it is only an allusion to the 
 town Sichem, 
 
204 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 further ado, just as He was, without any ceremony or prepara- 
 tion, “ut locus se obtulerat,’ Grotius; amas ws Eruvye, Chry- 
 sostom. See Ast, Lew. Plat. II. p. 495; Nagelsbach, z. Llias, 
 p. 63, ed. 3. The rendering “ tired as He was” (Erasmus, Beza, 
 Winer, Hengstenberg), so that the preceding participle is 
 repeated in meaning (see Bornemann in Losenmiiller’s Rep. II. 
 p. 246 ff, Ast, Ze; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Protag. p. 314 C), 
 would require the oitws to be placed before, as in Acts xxvii. 
 17, xx. 11.—éai 7H wny7] at the well, denoting immediate 
 proximity to it, ver. 2; Mark xii. 29; Ex. u. 15. See 
 Bernhardy, p. 249; Reisig, ad Oed. Col. 281; Ellendt, Lez. 
 Soph. I. 541. —@pa...&«tn] noon, mid-day; Sdiywos &pn, 
 Nonnus. Here again we have not the Roman reckoning 
 (see on i. 40), though the evening’ was the more usual time 
 for drawing water. Still we must not suppose that, because the 
 time was unusual, it was intended thereby that Jesus might 
 know, in connection therewith, “ that the woman was given Him 
 of the Father” (Luthardt, p. 80). Jesus knew that, indepen- 
 dently of the hour. But John could never forget the hour, so 
 important in its issues, of this first preaching to the Samaritan 
 woman, and therefore he names it. Comp. i. 40. 
 
 Vy. 7-9. Tuvy é« t. Sapap.] to be taken as one desig- 
 nation, a Samaritan-woman. John gives prominence to the 
 country to which she belonged, to prepare the way for the 
 characteristic features of the following interview. It is not 
 the town two miles distant (Sebaste) that is meant, but the 
 country. —avtrAhoat tdmp| The modern Nablus lies half 
 an hour distant from the southern well, and has many wells 
 of its own close by ; see Robinson, III. 333. It is therefore ali 
 the more probable that Sychar, out of which the woman came,” 
 was a separate town. As tothe forms vrety and zp (so Jacobs, 
 Del. epigr. vi. 78), see Herm. Herodian. § 47; Buttmann, WV. 
 
 l If it had been six o’clock in the evening (as even Isenberg in the Luther. 
 Zeitschr. 1868, p. 454 ff., maintains, for the sake of xix. 14), how much too short 
 would the remainder of the day be for all that follows down to ver. 40! We 
 must allowa much longer time, in particular, for vv. 28-30, and yet ver. 35 still 
 presupposes bright daylight. 
 
 2 That, considering the sacred character of the water, she did not hesitate about 
 the distance of the well from Sychem (Hengstenberg), is without any hint in the 
 text. 
 
CHAP, IV. 10. 205 
 
 T. Gr. p. 58 [E.T. p. 66], who prefers wiv, though this is 
 regarded by Fritzsche (de conform. Lachm. p. 27) as the mis- 
 take of a copyist. As to the phrase Siwy metv, without any 
 object expressed, see Kriiger, § 55. 3. 21. It is an arbitrary 
 supposition in itself, to imagine, as Hengstenberg does, that 
 this “ Give me to drink” had underlying it “a spiritual sense,” 
 “Give me spiritual refreshment (by thy conversion),’ and is 
 opposed to ver. 8, which by no means gives a general reason 
 why Jesus entered into conversation with the woman ; for He 
 might have done this in the apostles’ presence, though, ac- 
 cording to Hengstenberg, He must have sent them away (all 
 excepting John’), on purpose to have an undisturbed interview 
 with the woman. All this is mere imagination. — Ver. 8. 
 yap] The reason why he asked the services of the woman; 
 the disciples, whose services he would otherwise have claimed, 
 were absent. — va tpodas ayop.]| According to later tradition 
 (“Samaritanis panem comedere aut vinum bibere prohibitum 
 est,” Raschi, ad Sota, 515), this would not have been allowed. 
 But the separation could not have been so distinctly marked 
 at that time, especially as to commercial dealings and inter- 
 course with the Galileans, since their road lay through Samaria. 
 Jesus, moreover,.was raised above these hostile divisions which 
 existed among the people (Luke ix. 52).— Ver. 9. The woman 
 recognised that Jesus was a Jew by His language, and not by 
 His accent merely.k—7@s] qui fit ut. The words of the 
 woman indicate the pert feminine caprice of national feeling. 
 There is no ground whatever for supposing (Hengstenberg) 
 that the woman had at this stage any presentiment that He 
 who addressed her was any other than an ordinary Jew. — ov 
 yap, «.7.X.] not a parenthesis, but the words of the evangelist. 
 —Jews with Samaritans, without the article. 
 
 Ver. 10. Jesus certainly recognised at once the susceptibility 
 of the woman ; allowing, therefore, His own need to stand in 
 abeyance, He began the conversation, which was sufficiently 
 striking to excite at once the full interest of her sanguine 
 temperament, though at the outset this interest was nothing 
 
 1 Who must, according to Godet also, have remained with Him. A gratui- 
 tous addition, made for the »urpose of securing a guarantee for the accuracy of 
 the narrative, 
 
206 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 but feminine curiosity. — tv Swp. 7. Oeod] the gift of God, 
 which—-you may now partake of by conversation with me. 
 Not certainly the person of Jesus Himself (the Greek Fathers, 
 Erasmus, Beza, and most others, even Hengstenberg and 
 Godet), to which he refers only as the discourse advances 
 with the «ai of closer definition. —ovd adv #rnoas] thou 
 wouldest have prayed Him (i.e. to give you to drink), and He 
 would have, etc. Observe the emphatic ov (the request would 
 have come from you).—tdwp fav] The woman takes this 
 to mean spring-water, OY DMD, Gen. xxvi. 19, Lev. xiv. 5, 
 Jer. ii. 13, as opposed to water in a cistern. Comp. vivi fontes 
 and the like among the Romans; see Wetstein. Christ does 
 indeed mean spring-water, but, as in vil. 38, in a spiritual 
 sense (comp. ver. 14), namely, God’s grace and truth (1. 14), 
 which He, who is the possessor of them, communicates by His 
 word out of His fulness, and which in its living, regenerating, 
 and, for the satisfying of spiritual need, ever freshly efficacious 
 power, is typified by water from the spring. Comp. analogous 
 passages, Ecclus. xv. 3, xxiv. 21; Baruch ii. 12; Buxtorf, 
 Lex. Talm. p. 2298. He does not mean Himself, His own 
 life (Olshausen, Godet, following Epiphanius and most others), 
 in the same manner as He speaks of Himself as the bread of 
 life, vi. 35, for this is not indicated in any part of the present 
 colloquy ; nor does He mean faith (iii. 15), as Liicke thinks, 
 nor the Spirit (Calovius, Baumgarten Crusius, Luthardt, Hof- 
 mann), the gift of which follows the communication of the 
 living water. Any reference to baptism (Justin, Cyprian, 
 Ambrose, and most others) is quite remote from the text. 
 Calvin is substantially right when he sees typified totam 
 renovationis gratianr. 
 
 Vv. 11, 12. “Thou canst not mean the spring-water here 
 in this well; you could not give this to me, for thou hast no 
 bucket, which is needed on account of the depth of the well; 
 whence hast thou, therefore, the spring-water you speak of ?” — 
 
 | Zyranuc, elsewhere the drawing of water, is used in the sense of haustrum. 
 Nonnus explains it xaédov taxveriipa (a bucket to draw water).—The woman had 
 with her a sdpiz, ver. 28 (comp. ii. 6), but she must also have had an éyrayuz, 
 provided with a long handle or rope to draw the water up, or at least some con- 
 trivance for letting down the ddpia itself, 
 
CHAP. IV. 13, 14. 207 
 
 kvpte] The tis éotw 0 Aéyav cot, etc., ver. 10, has given 
 the woman a momentary feeling of respect, not unmixed with 
 irony.—ovte followed by «ai is rare, 3 John 10; see Winer, 
 p. 460 [E. T. p. 619]; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 222; Klotz, 
 ad Devar. 714.— wn od peifar, «.7.r.] Notice the emphatic 
 ov coming first: “thow surely art not greater,” etc. ; “ thou dost 
 not look like that!” Comp. viii. 53.— welfwr] ie. more able, 
 in a position to give what is better. By him was the well 
 given us, and for him it was good enough for him and his 
 to drink from ; yet thou speakest as if thou hadst another and 
 a better spring of water! The woman dwells upon the enig- 
 matical word of Christ at first, just as Nicodemus did, iii. 4, 
 but with more cleverness and vivacity, at the same time more 
 pertly, and with feminine loquacity.—t0d matpos yar] 
 for the Samaritans traced their descent back to Joseph. 
 Josephus, Anté. vii. 7. 3, vill. 14. 3, xi. 8. 6. They certainly 
 were not of purely heathen origin (Hengstenberg) ; see Keil 
 on 2 Kings xvii. 24; Petermann in Herzog’s Encykl. XIII. 367. 
 — ds €dwxer, x.7.r.] a Samaritan tradition, not derived from 
 the O. T. — «al avrtos, x.7.X.] cal is simply and, neither for 
 Kab os, nor and indeed. The Opépmpara are the cattle (Plato, 
 Polit. p. 261 A; Xen. Occ. xx. 23; Ages. ix. 6; Herodian. 
 iii. 9. 17; Josephus, Anit. vil. 7. 3), not servants (Majus, 
 Kypke),’ whom there was no need specially to name; the 
 mention of the herds completes the picture of their nomadic 
 progenitor.—-Td tdwp Td fv] which thou hast to give ; 
 ver. 10. 
 
 Vv. 13, 14. Not an explanation, but (comp. ili. 5) a carry- 
 ing out of the metaphor, to lead the woman nearer to its 
 higher import.—tovtov] referring to the well.—ovd p1) 
 du. eis 7. ai@va| “will certainly not thirst for ever,” 
 antithesis to fleeting bodily refreshment, ver. 13. Comp. 
 vi. 34. That heavenly grace and truth which Christ communi- 
 cates, when received by faith into the inner life, for ever swpplies 
 what we need in order to salvation, so that the lack of this 
 
 1 The word, the general meaning of which is quicquid enutritur, is found on 
 inscriptions as applied to slaves ; it is used of children likewise in the classics 
 (Valck. Diatr. p. 249), asin Soph. Phil. 243; comp. Oed. Rex, 1143. It does 
 not occur in the LXX. or Apocryphe. 
 
208 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 satisfaction is never felt, because the supply is always there. 
 Bengel admirably remarks: “Sane aqua illa, quantum in se 
 est, perennem habet virtutem; et ubi sitis recurrit, hominis. 
 non aquae defectus est.” The expression in Ecclus. xxiv. 20: 
 of wrivovrés we (Wisdom) ére Sujoovor, rests upon a different 
 view of the continuity of enjoyment, namely, that of the in- 
 dividual moments passing in the continual alternation of desire 
 and satisfaction, and not of the unity which they make up, 
 and of their condition as a whole.—-yevycetas év avTa, 
 x.T.r.] the positive effect following the negative (and hence 
 TO Uap 6 décw avT®@ is emphatically repeated): divine grace 
 and truth appropriated by faith will so energetically develope 
 their life in him in inexhaustible fulness, that its full impelling 
 power endures unto eternal Messianic life. Upon his entrance 
 into the Messiah’s kingdom (comp. ii. 3, 5), the man takes 
 along with him this inner living power of divine yapis Kai 
 arnOea, vi. 27.— &rrec Oat eis, to spring up into, often also 
 in the classics (Hom. Jl. a. 537; Xen. Mem. i. 3. 9), but 
 with reference to water here only. A Greek would say mpopety 
 els ; still the word in the text is stronger and more vivid. 
 The €«2) aiwyv. is conceived of locally, in keeping with the 
 comparison of a widespreading spring ; to render ets “ reaching 
 to everlasting life” (B. Crusius, Luthardt, Briickner, Ewald), 
 arbitrarily lets go the concrete comparison, one of the main 
 features in which is endless power of springing up. This 
 description of the well springing up into everlasting life is the 
 finishing touch of the picture. On eis & ai, see ver. 36, 
 
 Vv. 15, 16. The woman as yet having no apprehension of 
 the higher meaning of the water spoken of (against B, Crusius, 
 Lange), yet being in some degree perplexed, asks, not in irony, 
 as Lightfoot and Tholuck think, but sincerely, for this wonder- 
 ful water, which at any rate must be of great use to her.— 
 Jesus breaks off suddenly, and commences, by a seemingly 
 unimportant request, “ Call thy husband,” to lay hold of the 
 woman in her inner life, so that the beginnings of faith in 
 Him might be connected with His supernatural knowledge of 
 her peculiar moral relations. This process must be accom- 
 panied with the awakening in her of a sense of quilt (see ver. 
 29), and thus pave the way for werdvova; and who dare deny 
 
 
 
CHAP, IV. 17, 18. 209 
 
 that, besides the ¢mmediate object, this may have been in- 
 cluded in the purposes of Jesus ? though He does not directly 
 rebuke, but leaves the feeling to operate of itself (against 
 Strauss and most others).— davyc. t. dvdpa cov] We are 
 not to ask here what the husband was to do (Chrysostom, 
 Kuthymius Zigabenus: “that he might partake with her of 
 the gift of salvation that was before her ;” so also Liicke) ; 
 because the command was only an apparent one, not seriously 
 intended, for Jesus knew the relations of the woman, and did 
 not merely discover His prophetic gift by the answer she gave, 
 as Liicke and Godet quite gratuitously assume. The tr. dvdpa 
 cou was the sore spot where the healing was to begin. Accord- 
 ing to Lange, Z. J. II. p. 530 f.,it would have been unseemly 
 if Jesus, now that the woman showed a willingness to become 
 His disciple (?), had continued to converse longer with her in 
 her husband’s absence; His desire, therefore, was in keeping 
 “with the highest and finest sense of social propriety.” But 
 the husband was nothing more than a paramour !— éd@é] in 
 the sense of come back, as the context shows. See Hom. Od. a. 
 A038, 8.'30; Xen. Anab: i. 1. 1, v. 1°43 Baruch iv. 37; 
 Tobit 1.18; Heind. ad Plat. Prot. p. 310 C. Comp. xiv. 18; 
 Luke xix. 13. 
 
 Vv. 17,18. The woman is taken aback; her licht, naive, 
 bantering manner is now completely gone, and she quickly 
 seeks to shun the sensitive point with the answer, true only 
 in words, ov« éyw dvdpa; but Jesus goes deeper still. — 
 Karos] rightly, truly; viii. 48; Matt. xv. 7; Luke xx. 39. 
 Hlow far truly, what follows shows,—namely, only relatively, 
 and therefore the approval is only apparent, and in some 
 degree ironical. — advdpa ovx xa] “a husband I have not ;” 
 as it is the conception of avjp which Jesus has to emphasize, 
 it stands first.— mévre yap, «.7.r.] It is doubtful whether 
 she really had five successive husbands, from whom she had 
 been separated either by death or by divorce, or whether 
 Jesus included paramours, using dvépas in a varying sense 
 according to the varying subjects ; or whether, again, He meant 
 that all five were scortatores (Chrysostom, Maldonatus, and 
 most others). The first supposition is to be adopted, because 
 the present man, who is not her husband, stands in contrast 
 
 Oo 
 
210 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 with the former husbands. She had been therefore five times 
 married (such a history had already seared her conscience, ver. 
 29; how? is not stated), and now she was either a widow or 
 a divorced wife, and had a paramour (voOov axoirnv, Nonnus), 
 who lived with her as a husband, but really was not her 
 husband (hence the ov« éors is emphatically put first), To 
 interpret the story of the five husbands as a whole as a sym- 
 bolical history of the Samaritan nation (according to 2 Kings 
 xvii. 24 ff. ; Josephus, Anti. ix. 14. 3: wévte €Ovn ... Exaotov 
 idvov Oeov eis Sawap. Kouicaytes), either as a divinely intended 
 coincidence (Hengstenberg, Koéstlin, comp. Baumgarten and 
 Scholten), or as a type in the mind of the evangelist (Weiz- 
 sicker, p. 387), so that the symbolic meaning excludes any 
 actual fact (Keim, Gesch. J. p. 116), or again as fiction (B. 
 Bauer), whose mythical basis was that history (Strauss), is 
 totally destitute of any historical warrant. For the man 
 whom the woman now had must, symbolically understood, 
 represent Jehovah; and He had been the God of the Samari- 
 tans before the introduction of false gods, and therefore it 
 would have been more correct to speak of six husbands 
 (Heracleon actually read é£). But how incredible is it, that 
 Jesus would represent Jehovah under the similitude of a 
 paramour (for the woman was now living in concubinage), 
 and the “fivefold heathenism” of the nation under the 
 type of real marriages !— For the rest, the knowledge which 
 Jesus had of the woman’s circumstances was immediate and 
 supernatural. To assume that He had ascertained her history 
 from others (Paulus, Ammon), is opposed to the Johannean 
 view; while the notion that the disciples introduced into the 
 history what they afterwards discovered (Schweizer, p. 139) 
 is psychologically groundless, if once we admit that Jesus 
 possessed a knowledge of the moral state of others (and here 
 we have not merely a knowledge of outward circumstances,— 
 against De Wette) beyond that attainable by ordinary means." 
 Lange invents the strange and unnecessary (ii. 24 f.) addition, 
 that “the psychical effects produced by the five husbands 
 upon the woman were traceable in her manner and mien, and 
 
 1 We must not therefore suppose, as Ewald does, that Jesus named simply a 
 round number of husbands, which in a wonderful manner turned out to be right, 
 
CHAP. IV. 19, 20. vp 
 
 these were recognised by Jesus.” —arnOés] as something true. 
 See Winer, p. 433 [E. T. p. 582]. Comp. Plato, Gorg. p. 
 493 D: todr’ adnOéotepov eipneas ; Soph. Phil. 909; Lucian, 
 Dea: 3s Tins 20; 
 
 Vv. 19, 20. The woman now discerns in Jesus the man of 
 God endowed with higher knowledge, a prophet,’ and puts to 
 Him accordingly—perhaps also to leave no further room for 
 the unpleasant mention of the circumstances of her life which 
 had been thus unveiled—the national religious question ever in 
 dispute; a question which does not, indeed, imply a presenti- 
 ment of the superiority of the Jews’ religion (Ewald), but one, 
 the decision of which might be expected from such a prophet 
 as she now deemed Him to be. The great national interest 
 in this question (see Josephus, Ant. xiil. 3. 4) is sufficient to 
 remove any apparent improbability attaching to it as coming 
 from the lips of this morally frivolous woman (against Strauss, 
 B. Bauer). Luthardt thinks that she now wished to go in 
 prayer for the forgiveness of her sins to the holy place ap- 
 pointed, and only desires to know where? on Gerizim or in 
 Jerusalem. But she has not arrived at this stage yet; she 
 does not give any intimation of this, she does not call the 
 place a place of expiation (this also against Lange) ; and Jesus, 
 in His answer, gives no hint to that effect. Her seeking after 
 religious information is still theoretical merely, laying hold 
 upon a matter of popular controversy, naive, without any depth 
 of personal anxiety, as also without any thought about the 
 fundamental difference between the two nations, which Heng- 
 stenberg attributes to her as a representative of the Samari- 
 tans, one who first wished to remove the stumbling-block 
 between the nations; see ver. 25.— Oewp@] mepicKorretrat 
 Kat Gavpater, Chrysostom. — ot marépes jy.] As duets stands 
 opposed, we must not go back to Abraham and Jacob (accord- 
 ing to a tradition based upon Gen. xii. 6 ff., xiii. 4, xxxiii. 20), 
 as Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, and many others, even 
 Kuinoel and Baumgarten Crusius, do; we must simply take 
 the reference to be to the ancestors of the Samaritans as far 
 back as the building ot the temple on Mount Gerizim in the 
 
 1Comp. 1 Sam. ix. 9; in Greek and Latin writers : Hom. Jl. i. 70 ; Hesiod, 
 Theog. 38 ; Virgil, Georg. iv. 392 ; Macrobius, Sat. i. 20. 5. 
 
212 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 time of Nehemiah. — év 76 dpet TodTw] pointing to Gerizim, 
 between which and Ebal the town of Sychem (and Sychar) 
 lay. The temple there had already been destroyed by John 
 HHyrcanus ; but the site itself, which Moses had already fixed 
 as that wherein the blessings of the law were to be spoken 
 (Deut. xi. 29, xxvil. 12, 13), was still held sacred by the 
 people (comp. Josephus, Ant. xviii. 4. 1; Bell. iii. 7. 32), 
 especially also on account of Deut. xxvii. 4 (where the Sama- 
 ritan text has DW} instead of Say), and is so even at the 
 present day. See Robinson, III. p. 319 ff; Ritter, Lrdk. 
 XVI. p. 638 ff; Abulfathi, Annab. Samar. arab. ed., ed. 
 Vilmar, 1865, Proleg. 4. Concerning the ruins on the top 
 of the mountain, see especially Bargés, as before, p. 107 ff. 
 
 Ver. 21. Jesus decides neither for the one place nor for 
 the other; nor, on the other hand, does He pronounce both 
 wrong (B. Crusius) ; but now that His aim is to give her the 
 living water, divine grace and truth, He rises to the higher 
 point of view of the future, whence both the local centres and 
 limitations of God’s true worship disappear ; and the question 
 itself no longer arises, because with the triumph of His work 
 all outward localizing of God’s worship comes to an end, not 
 indeed absolutely, but as fettering the freedom of the outward 
 service. — mpooxuvyo.] As spoken to the woman, this refers 
 not to mankind generally (Godet), nor to the Israelites of both 
 forms of religion (Hilgenfeld, comp. Hengstenberg), but to the 
 future conversion of the Samaritans, who thus would be freed 
 from the ritual on Mount Gerizim (which is therefore named 
 first), but were not to be brought to the ritual in Jerusalem, 
 and therefore €v ‘Iepocon. has its warrant with reference to 
 the Samaritans (against Hilgenfeld in the Theol. Jahrb. 1857, 
 p 517; and in his Zettschr. 1863, p. 103). The divine 
 ordainment of the temple service was educational. Christ 
 was its aim and end, its wA*pwoss; the modern doctrine of 
 the re-establishing of Jerusalem in its grandeur is a chiliastic 
 dream (see Rom. xi. 27, note). —7@ martpt] spoken from the 
 standing-point of the future converts, to whom God, through 
 their faith in the Reconciler, would be Father: “Tacite novi 
 foederis suavitatem innuit,” Grotius. 
 
 Ver. 22. Jesus has answered the question as to the where 
 
 
 
CHAP. IV. 23, 213 
 
 of worship; He now turns, unasked, to the olject of worship, 
 and in this He pronounces in favour of the Jews. The chain 
 of thought is not: “as matters now stand,’ and so on (Liicke 
 and most others); such a change of time must have been in- 
 dicated. —6 ovx oidate] ye worship what ye know not. God 
 is meant, who is named not personally, but by the neuter, 
 according to His essence and character, not as He who is wor- 
 shipped, but as that which is worshipped (comp. the neuter, 
 Acts xvil. 23, according to the more correct reading); and 
 this is simply God Himself, not ta tod Ocod or ta tpos tov 
 Geov (Liicke), which would not be in keeping with the con- 
 ception expressed in mpooxvuveiy; for what is worshipped is 
 not what pertains to God, but God (comp. vv. 21, 23, 24). 
 The ov« oidate is to be understood relatively ; comp. vii. 28. 
 As the Samaritans received the Pentateuch only, they were 
 without the developed revelation of God contained in the 
 subsequent books of the O.T., particularly in the Prophets, 
 especially the stedfast, pure, and living development of | 
 Messianic hope, which.the Jews possessed, so also they had | 
 lost, with the temple and its sacred shrines, the abiding pre- | 
 sence of the Deity (Rom. iil. 2, ix. 4, 5). Jesus, therefore, 
 might well speak of their knowledge of God, in comparison 
 with that of the Jews (jets), who possessed the full revelation 
 and promise, as ignorance; and He could regard this great 
 superiority ot the Jews as unaffected by the monotheism, how- 
 ever spiritual, of the Samaritans. According to de Wette, 
 whom Ebrard follows, the meaning is: “ye worship, and in 
 so doing, ye do what ye know not,’—which is said to refer to 
 the arbitrary and unhistorical manner in which the Samaritan 
 worship originated. According to this, the 6 would have to 
 be taken as in 0 6€ viv 0, Gal. ii. 20 (comp. Bengel), so that it 
 would denote the zpooxvvyors itself, which is accomplished in 
 the zpooxvvety (see Bernhardy, p. 106). But in that case it 
 would have been more logical to write 6 tpueis mpookuvelite, ovK 
 oiéare. Tittmann, Morus, Kuinoel, also erroneously say that 6 
 stands for xa 6, pro vestra ignorantia. It is the accusative 
 of the object, in which is included the dative, or even the 
 accusative of the demonstrative (for wpooxdy. is construed in 
 both ways; see Lobeck, ad Phyrn. p. 463).— pets] we. 
 
214 "TIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Jews, without a conjunction, and hence all the more emphatic. 
 According to the whole connection, it must mean we Jews, not 
 Christians, as if sets were intended in the Gnostic sense to 
 denote, as something altogether new, the distinctively Chris- 
 tian consciousness, as contrasted with the unconscious worship 
 of the Israelitish race in its Samaritan and Jewish branches 
 (Hilgenfeld, comp. his Zeztschr. 1863, p. 213 ff). That Jesus, 
 being Himself a Jew (Gal. iv. 4; John i. 11), should reckon 
 Himself among the Jews, cannot be thought strange in the 
 antithesis of such a passage as this. But in what follows, 
 the Lord rises so high above this antithesis between Samaritan 
 and Jew, that in the future which He opens up to view 
 (vy. 23, 24), this national distinctiveness ceases to have any 
 significance. Still, in answer to the woman’s question, He 
 could simply and definitely assign to the Jews that superiority 
 which historically belonged to them before the manifestation 
 of that higher future; but He could not intend “to set her 
 free from the unreality of her national existence” (Luthardt), 
 but rather, considering the occasion which presented itself, 
 could make no concession to the injury of the rights of His 
 patriotism as Messiah, based as this was upon historical fact 
 and upon the divine purpose (Rom. i. 16).— 67s 9 cor., 
 «.7.r.] because salvation (of course, not without the owrijp, 
 though this is not named) proceeds from the Jews (not from 
 the Samaritans),—a general doctrinal statement, incontestably 
 true, based upon the promise to Abraham, Gen. xii. (comp. 
 Isa. ii. 3; Mic iv. 2), concerning the cwrnpia of the Messiah’s 
 kingdom, whose future establishment is represented as present, as 
 is natural in such an axiomatic statement of historic fact. As 
 salvation is of the Jews, this design of their existence in the 
 economy of grace constitutes the reason (67) why they, as a 
 nation, possessed the true and pure revelation of God, whose 
 highest culmination and consummation is that very ow7ypia ; 
 comp. Rom. ix. 4, 5. It must not, indeed, be overlooked that 
 ‘pels... oloapev was not true of every individual of the mets 
 (not of those who rejected the owrnpia), but refers to the nation 
 as a whole in its ideal existence as the people of God, whose 
 prerogative as such could not be destroyed by empirical excep- 
 tions. Thus the invisible church is hidden in the visible. 
 
 
 
CHAP, IV, 23,24.” 215 
 
 Vy. 23, 24. But? this antithesis will also disappear (comp. 
 ver. 21) by the mpooxvveiy of the true (ze. answering to the 
 ideal of such, comp. i. 19) worshippers of God, whose time 
 is coming, yea, already is present (inasmuch as Jesus had 
 already gathered round Him a small band of such worship- 
 pers). He could not add kai viv éotw to the épy. dpa of 
 ver. 21.—év mvevmate x. &d7nO.] expresses the element 
 wherein the tpooxuveiv is carried on in its two closely con- 
 nected parts, viz.: (1) In spirit ; 2.e. the worship does not consist 
 in outward acts, gestures, ceremonies, limitations of time and 
 place, or in anything pertaining to the sphere of sense; it has 
 to do with that higher spiritual nature in man which is the 
 substratum of his moral self-consciousness, and the seat of 
 his true moral life, manifesting itself in thoughts, feelings, 
 efforts of will, moods of elevation, excitements, etc. ; otherwise 
 the mpooxvvnous would belong to the sphere of the cdp£ merely, 
 which is the opposite of true worship. Comp. Rom. i. 9: 
 @® Natpevw &v TO TvevpaTi pov. It is self-evident, from both 
 the O. T. and N. T. view, that the mvedua in which this takes 
 place is influenced by the divine zvedua (comp. Rom. viii. 
 14-16, 26); but we must not take év mvevuate (ver. 24) to 
 denote objectively the Divine Spirit (Luthardt, Briickner, 
 Baumlein, following the early expositors). The mpocxvvnats 
 év mvevp. is Noyixy}, Rom. xii. 1; it does not in itself exclude 
 the ritus externos, but it does exclude all mechanical ritualism, 
 and all opus operatum. (2) In truth, not “in sincerity, 
 honesty,” which would be greatly too weak a ‘meaning after 
 of adnOwol, but, so that the worship harmonizes with its 
 object, not contradicting but corresponding with God’s nature 
 and attributes. Otherwise it belongs to the sphere of the 
 weddos, either conscious or unconscious ; this yeddos, and not 
 oxida or TUTot, is the antithesis of dAnOeia. —mpocKvvyTys, 
 save only in Eustathius and MHesychius, occurs only in 
 Inscript. Chandl. p. 91.— «ai yap, «.1.r.] for the Father 
 
 ‘arr, yet, as contrasted, not with the 4 cwrnpia tx r. lovduiwy ieriy (Hilgen- , 
 
 feld, as if wiv... 3 were there), but, as is clear from what follows (the true zpee- 
 xuveiv), With the dusis... of3auev, Baeumlein regards it as an intensified addition 
 to ver. 21, ‘yea, the hour is coming.” But thus ver. 22 would be arbitrarily 
 overleaped. 
 
 AL ee 
 Yt U 
 
216 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 also, ete. The xaé denotes that what the tpockvyyntat do on 
 their part is also what the Father Himself desires. Luther, 
 B. Crusius, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, and most others, errone- 
 ously render it as if it were Kal yap TovovTous or Kal yap 
 Enter. The emphasis given by xat in xal yap always rests 
 upon the word immediately following (even in 1 Cor. xiv. 8); 
 Stallbaum, ad Plat. Gorg. p. 467 B. It does not elsewhere 
 occur in John. Usually the «ai has been overlooked ; but 
 the Vulgate rightly renders: “ nam et pater.” — €nret] accord- 
 ingly He desires. Comp. Herod. i. 94; John i. 39, iv. 27, al. 
 Totovtous is with marked emphasis put first: of this charac- 
 ter He desires His worshippers to be. — rvedma o Oeds, x.7.r.] 
 The predicate emphatically stands first (comp. i. 1: @cds Fv o 
 Aoyos): a Spirit is God, etc. Here God’s nature is added to 
 His will (ver. 23), as a further motive for true worship,’ to 
 which the nature and manner of the tpooxivnois on man’s 
 part must correspond. How utterly heterogeneous would be a 
 carnal and spurious worship with the perfectly pure and holy 
 nature of God, completely raised above every limit of sense, 
 of place, of particularism, and of all need of gifts, simply 
 because He is Spirit! whereas a spiritual and true worship 
 is Ocompenns K. KaTdddndos, Euthymius Zigabenus, and is 
 homogeneous with the idea of God as Spirit. 
 
 Vv. 25, 26. The woman is struck by Christ’s answer, but 
 she does not yet wnderstand it, and she appeals to the Messiah ; 
 Xpist@ Xpioctov EdeEev, Nonnus. Well says Chrysostom : 
 eihuyyiacev 1) yuvn (she grew dizzy) mpos Ta AexyOevTa, Kat 
 amnyopevae Tpos TO tnvos THY cipnucvar, Kal Kap“ovoa aKoucoV 
 ti dnow, x.7.X. The presentiment that Jesus Himself was 
 
 1 Tiyedue 6 26s is not to be conjoined with the assumption of a corporeity be- 
 longing to God (in answer to the concessions of Hamberger in the Jahrb. f. D. 
 Th. 1867, p. 421). Jesus might take it for granted that every one who belonged to 
 the O. T. monotheism understood that God is a Spirit, according to Ex. xx. 4, 
 Jer, xxxi. 3; and it is by no means necessary to refer to the traces ot Samaritan 
 spiritualism, in order to make the expression more intelligible as addressed to 
 the woman (Gesenius, de T'heol. Sam. p. 12; de Pentat. Sam. orig. p. 58 ff.). 
 IIved~a must not be regarded as indicating something new in comparison with 
 the O. T. (Lutz, bibl. Dogm. p. 45 ; Késtlin, Lehrbegr. p. 79), but as something 
 known, and emphasized with corresponding impressiveness on account ot its 
 importance. Comp. Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 68 fi. ; Weiss, Lehrbegr. pp. 54, 55. 
 
CHAP. IV. 25, 23. p25 
 
 the Messiah is not to be recognised in her words (against 
 Luthardt) ; yet these are neither evasive nor abrupt (Liicke, 
 de Wette), but the expression of the need of the manifestation 
 of the Messiah, which was deeply felt in this moment of 
 profound impression—a need which Jesus perceived, and 
 immediately satisfied by the declaration that followed. The 
 Samaritans, sharing the national hope of the Jews, and taking 
 their stand upon the Messianic passages in the Pentateuch 
 (such as Gen. xv., xlix. 10, Num. xxiv., and especially Deut. 
 xviil. 15), were expecting the Messiah,’ whom they called 3707 
 or 373 (now el Muhdy; see Robinson, III. 320), whose mission 
 they apprehended less in a political aspect, though also as the 
 restoration of the kingdom of Israel, and the re-establishment of 
 the Gerizim-worship, yet merely as the result of human work- 
 ing. See Gesen. de theol. Sam. p. 41 ff., and ad carmina Sam. 
 p. 75 f.; Barges, passim; Vilmar, passim. Against B. Bauer's 
 unhistorical assertion, that at that time the Samaritans had 
 no Messianic belief (Hvang. Gesch. Joh. Beil. p. 415 ff), see 
 B. Crusius. Meooias (without the article, as in i. 42) is 
 uttered by the woman as a proper name, and thus she adopted 
 the Jewish title, which was doubtless well known in Samaria, 
 and the use of which might be so closely connected with a 
 feeling of respect for the highly gifted Jew with whom she was 
 conversing, that there is no adequate ground for the assumption 
 that the evangelist puts the word into her mouth (Ammon). 
 —mdavra] used in a popular indefinite sense. — éy@ eiuc] 
 I am He, we. the Messiah, ver. 25, the simple usual Greek 
 expression, and not in imitation of Deut. xxxil. 39. Observe 
 the plain and direct avowal, in answer to the guilelessness of 
 the Samaritan woman, whose faith was now ready to acknow- 
 ledge Him (comp. Chrysostom). The consideration of the 
 special circumstances, and of the fact that here there was no 
 danger of a political abuse of the avowal (vi. 15), obviates the 
 seeming contradiction between this early confession and Matt. 
 viii. 4, xvi. 20. 
 
 ?The Samaritan name 37M or 3AM is by some rendered the converter (so 
 Gesenius and Ewald), and by others the returning one (Moses), as Sacy, Juyn- 
 boll (Commentar. in hist. gentis Sam. L. B. 1846), Hengstenberg. Both are 
 
 linguistically admissible ; the latter, considering Deut. xviii. 15, is the most 
 probable. 
 
218 TIIE GOSPEL OF JOUN. 
 
 Ver. 27. ’Emi tov7»] Hereupon, while this was going on. 
 See Bernhardy, p. 250; Winer, p. 367 [E. T. p. 489]. 
 Often in Plato. — é@avpafovr] the descriptive imperfect alter- 
 nates with the simply narrative Aor. See Kiihner, II. 74. — 
 peta yuvarkos] with a woman; for they had yet to learn 
 the fact that Jesus rose above the Rabbinical precepts, teach- 
 ing that it was beneath the dignity of man to hold converse 
 with women, and the directions of the law upon the subject 
 (see Lightfoot, Schoettgen, and Wetstein).—ovdets mévrou, 
 k.7.r.] reverential fear.—ré €nrets] what desirest thou? die. 
 what was it that led you to this strange conversation? (i. 
 39). There is no reason to warrant our taking per’ avtijs as 
 referring by fevyya (aap’ adrijs) also to {ntets (Liicke, de 
 Wette); and just as little to render retv, contrary to its 
 ordinary meaning, to contend, as if the disciples thought there 
 was a discussion prompted by national hostility going on 
 (Ewald). — 7] or, ze. if you want nothing. 
 
 Vy. 28-30. Odv] in consequence of the disciples’ coming, 
 which interrupted the interview with Jesus. — adjjcey, x.T.X.] 
 ovtas avnpOn TO Tupl TOV TrevpaTiKaY vapdtov, os Kab TO 
 ayyos adetvar Kal tHv xpelav, OV? iv wapeyévero, Euthymius 
 Zigabenus. How great the power of the decisive awakening 
 of the new life in this woman!—sdyvrta éca] often thus 
 used together in the classics; Xen. Anab. ii. 1. 2; Soph. £7. 
 370, 880, 884; Bornem. ad Anab. i. 10. 3. — érrolnca] 
 thus from a sense of guilt she described what Jesus had 
 said to her. His words were therefore the summary of 
 her moral history. — wre obTos, K.T.r.] not must he not be 
 really the Messiah? as if the question implied an affirmation. 
 So Liicke, but against the constant use of ware as simply 
 interrogative, in keeping with which we should rather render 
 the words, yet is not perhaps this man the Messiah 2? which 
 supposes a negative answer ; to be explained, however, as arising 
 psychologically from the fear and bashfulness of surprise at 
 the newly discovered fact, too great for belief. The woman 
 believes it; but startled at the greatness of the discovery, she 
 does not trust herself, and ventures modestly only to ask as 
 one in doubt. See on Matt. xii. 23; Baeumlein, Partik. 302. 
 Observe in ver. 30 the change from €&4A@ov to the vividly 
 
CHAP, IV. 31—35. 219 
 
 descriptive #}pyovro (see on ver. 27, xx. 3). In the latter 
 word the reader sees the crowd coming. Comp. ver. 40, where 
 they arrive. 
 
 Vv. 31-34. “Ev 76 peta£&v] in the meantime (Xen. Symp. 
 i, 14; Lucian, V. H..i. 22, D. D. x, 1); after the woman 
 had gone, and before the Samaritans came.—Ver. 32. Jesus, 
 making the sensuous the clothing of the supersensuous (the 
 pastus animt), speaks from a feeling of inner quickening and 
 satisfaction, which He had just experienced from the change 
 He had wrought in the Samaritan woman,—a feeling which He 
 was to experience still more strongly throughout His divinely 
 appointed work onwards until its completion. This inner 
 satisfaction now prompts Him to refuse bodily sustenance. 
 Observe the emphatic antithesis of éyé and dels. — As to 
 Bpacts, and Bpopa, ver. 34, see on Col. ii. 16.— Ver. 33. In 
 the question wT 1s, x.7.r., prompted by a misunderstanding of 
 His words, the emphasis is upon #veyxev, “ surely no one has 
 brought Him,” ete. — Ver. 34. éwov Bpdpa] ie. without a 
 figure, “what gives me satisfaction and enjoyment is this: I 
 have to do what God desires of me, and to accomplish that 
 work of redemption which He (av7od emphatically placed 
 first) has committed to me” (xvii. 4). Observe (1) that ta 
 is not the same as 671, which would express objectively the 
 actual subject-matter of éuov Bp.; it rather indicates the 
 nature of the Beda viewed as to its end, and points to the 
 aim and purpose which Jesus pursues,—a very frequent use 
 of it in John. (2) The present zou denotes continuous 
 action, the Aor. tedewwoa the act of completion, the future 
 goal of the vrouw. Comp. xvii. 4. 
 
 Ver. 35. The approaching townspeople now showed how 
 ereatly already the iva mow was in process of accomplishment. 
 They were coming through the corn-field, now tinged with 
 green; and thus they make the fields, which for four months 
 would not yield the harvest, in a higher sense already white 
 harvest-fields. Jesus directs the attention of His disciples to 
 this; and with the beautiful picture thus presented in nature, 
 He connects further appropriate instructions, onwards to ver. 
 38.—ovx tmets Névere] that is, at the present season of 
 the year (é7v). The dpets stands contrasted with what Jesus 
 
pale | TIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 was about to say, though the antithesis is not expressed in 
 what follows by éy#, because the antithesis of the time stands 
 in the foreground.’ The supposition that the disciples had, 
 during their walk, made an observation of this kind to each 
 other (and this in a theological sense with reference to hoping 
 and waiting), as Hengstenberg suggests, is neither hinted at, 
 nor is in harmony with the Praesens Néyere. — OTe ETL... EpyXe- 
 tat| Harvest began in the middle of Nisan (Lightfoot, v. 101), 
 Ze. in April. Consequently the words must have been spoken 
 in December, when Jesus, as the seed-time fell in Marchesvan 
 (the beginning of November), might be surrounded by sown 
 fields already showing tints of green, the harvest of which, 
 however, could not be expected for four months to come. We 
 render therefore: there are still four months (to wait, wntzl) the 
 harvest comes. As to the paratactic expression with «al instead 
 of a particle of time, see Stallbaum, ad Plat. Symp. p. 220 C; 
 Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. 881. Concerning the bearing of the 
 passage upon the chronology, see Wieseler, Synopse, p. 214 ff. 
 The taking of the words as proverbial (Lightfoot, Grotius, 
 Tittmann, etc., even Liicke, Tholuck, de Wette, Krafft, Chronol. 
 p. 75), as if the saying were a general one: “from seed-time to 
 harvest is four months” (seed-time would thus be made to ex- 
 tend into December ; comp. Bava Mezia, f. 106, 2), is forbidden, 
 not only by the fact that such a proverb occurs nowhere else, 
 but by the fact that seed-time is not here mentioned, so that 
 évt (comp. the following 767) does not refer to a point of time 
 to be understood, but to the time then present, and by the 
 fact, likewise, that the emphasized vets would be inexplicable 
 and strange in an ordinary proverb (comp. rather Matt. xvi. 2).? 
 It is worth while to notice how long Jesus had been in Judaea 
 (since April).—tetpdpnvos] sc. xpovos; see Lobeck, ad 
 Phryn. p. 549. — tas yopas] regiones. They had just been 
 sown, and the young seed was now springing up, and yet in 
 1 The versatility of thought often in Greek changes the things contrasted as 
 the sentence proceeds. See Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. 163; Schaef. ad Timocr. 
 ». 763, 18. 
 * This also is in answer to Hilgenfeld, who takes ¢z: with reference to the pre- 
 sent, and not the future, and interprets it: four months are not yet gone, and 
 
 yet the harvest is already here. This strange rendering derives no support 
 whatever from xi. 39, 
 
CHAP. IV. 36. ye | 
 
 another sense they were white for being reaped; for, by the 
 spectacle of the townspeople who were now coming out to 
 Christ across these fields, it appeared in concrete manifes- 
 tation before the eyes of the disciples (hence édpate tovs 
 opGarpouvs, «.7.d.), that now for men the time of conversion 
 (of ripeness) was come in the near establishment of the 
 Messiah’s kingdom, into which, like the harvest produce, 
 they might be gathered (comp. Matt. ii, 12). Jesus, there- 
 fore, here gives a prophetic view, not only of the near 
 conversion of the Swmaritans (Acts viii. 5 ff); but, rising 
 above the concrete fact now before them, consequently from 
 the people of Sychar who were flocking through the fields 
 of springing green, His prophetic eye takes in all mankind, 
 whose conversion, begun by Him, would be fully accom- 
 plished by His disciples. See especially ver. 38. Godet 
 wrongly denies this wider prophetic reference, and confines 
 the words to the immediate occurrence, as an improvised 
 harvest feast. Such an explanation does not suffice for what 
 follows, vv. 36-38, which was suggested, indeed, by the pheno- 
 menon before them, but embraces the whole range of service 
 on the part of Christ’s disciples in their relation to their Lord. 
 If we do not allow this wider reference, ver. 38 especially 
 will be of very strange import. — 671] not for, but according 
 to common at’raction (Winer, p. 581 [E. T. p. 781 f.]), that 
 they are, etc. — 767] even now, at this moment, and not after 
 four months; put at the end for emphasis (Stallbaum, ad Plat. 
 Phaedr. p. 256 E; ad Menez. p. 235 A). Comp. 1 Johniv.3; 
 Kiihner, ad Xen. Anab. i. 8.16. Not, therefore, to be joined 
 with what follows (A. C.* D. E. L.x* Codd. It. ai., Schulz, 
 Tisch., Ewald, Ebrard, Godet), which would make the correla- 
 tion with é7z inappropriate. For the rest, comp. Ovid, Fust. 
 v. 357: “maturis albescit messis aristis.” 
 
 Ver. 36. This harvest—/ow full of recompense for the reapers 
 (i.e. for you, my disciples)! The wages for the reaper’s labour 
 consist in this, that («ai explicative) he gathers fruit into life 
 eternal (this is spoken locally, as denoting the granary, as is 
 clear from cuvayet, against Luthardt, who takes eis to denote 
 the result) ; comp. ver. 14, without any figure: “He converts 
 men, and thus secures for them an entrance into the Messiah’s 
 
222 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 kingdom.” Thereupon, as well the sower (Christ) as the reaper 
 rejoice together, according to God’s ordinance (iva). Chrysos- 
 tom and many others wrongly take oze(pwy to denote the 
 prophets. For ood, with one verb in the singular and two 
 subjects, comp. Hom. J7. &. 61: ef 8) opod worepds te Sapa 
 Kat rowwos ’Ayatods; Soph. Aj. 1058. Here, however, it 
 certainly signifies the simultancousness of the joy, not simply 
 joy in common (B. Crusius, Luthardt); for it is the joy of 
 harvest, which the Sower also shares in time of harvest, on 
 account of the blessing with which His toil in sowing is now 
 crowned. 
 
 Vv. 37, 38. “ As well the sower as the reaper, I say, for in 
 this case they are different persons.” —év yap TovTa, K.7.A.] 
 for herein, in this relation of sowing and reaping, the saying 
 (the proverb of ordinary life, 7d Aeyouevov, Plato, Gorg. p. 
 447 A; Phaed.p.101D; Pol. x.p. 621 C; comp. o mandates 
 Aoyos, Phaed. p. 240 C; Gorg. p. 499 C; Soph. Trach. 1.) 
 has its essential truth, ae. its proper realization, setting forth 
 its idea. Comp. Plat. Zim. p. 26 E: pi maracbévta piddor, 
 ANN a@dnOwop (i.e. a real) Aoyov. The reference of the Aoyos 
 to the words of the servant, Matt. xxv. 24, which Weizsiicker 
 considers probable, would be very far-fetched ; the rendering 
 of dd\nOuwos, however, as equivalent to adAnOyns, 2 Pet. ii. 22 
 (de Wette and many others), is quite opposed to the idiosyn- 
 erasy of John (so also xix. 35). The article before aryé., 
 which through want of attention might easily have been 
 omitted (B. C.* K. L. T.° 4. Or.), marks off the predicate with 
 exclusive definiteness. Comp. Bernhardy, p. 322; Kiihner, 
 II. 140. With respect to other relations (not év tovr@), the 
 proverb does not express its proper idea—dAs to the proverb 
 itself, and its various applications, see Wetstein. The adrn@wov 
 of it is explained in ver. 38.— éy#] with emphasis: J, con- 
 sequently the sower in the proverb.—The preterites améo- 
 retna and efoedna. are not prophetic (de Wette, Tholuck), but 
 
 1 Weizsiicker, in his harmony of the words of John with those of the Synoptics, 
 in which the latter are dealt with very freely (p. 282 ff.), brings in general much 
 that is far-fetched into parallelisms which cannot be demonstrated. The intel- 
 lectual independence of personal recollection and reproduction in John raises him 
 above any such search after supposed borrowings. 
 
CHAP. IV. 39-42. 25 
 
 the mission and calling of the disciples were already practically 
 involved in their reception into the apostolate." Comp. xvii. 8. 
 — a@doe and adtor refer to Jesus (whom Olshausen, indeed, 
 according to Matt. xxiii. 34, even excludes!), not to the 
 prophets and the Baptist, nor to them together with Christ. (so 
 the Fathers and most of the early writers, also Lange, Luthardt, 
 Ewald, and most others), nor in a general way to all who 
 were instrumental in advancing the preparatory economy 
 (Tholuck). They are plurals of category (see on Matt. 11. 20 ; 
 John iii. 11), representing the work of Christ, into which the 
 disciples entered, as not theirs, but others’ work, 2.¢. a distinct 
 and different labour. But the fact that Jesus was the labourer, 
 while self-evident from the connection, is not directly ex- 
 pressed, but with intentional self-renunciation, half concealed 
 beneath the plural dAdo. He it was who introduced the 
 conversion of mankind; the disciples were to complete it. 
 He prepared and sowed the field; they were called upon to do 
 what was still further necessary, and to reap. The great toil 
 of the apostles in fulfilling their call is not denied; but, when 
 compared with the work of Jesus Himself, it was the easier, 
 because it was only the carrying on of that work, and was en- 
 couragingly represented under the cheerful image of harvesting 
 (comp. Isa. ix. 3; Ps. exxvi. 6). If dXox is to be taken as re- 
 ferring to Philip’s work in converting the Samaritans, Acts vill. 
 52, upon which Peter and John entered (Baur), or to Paul’s 
 labour among the heathen, the fruit of which is to be attributed 
 to the first apostles (Hilgenfeld), any and every exegetical impos- 
 sibility may be with equal right allowed by a torepov mportepov 
 of critical arbitrariness. 
 
 Ver. 39 ff. Resumption of the historical narrative of ver. 30, 
 which here receives its elucidation, to which then the con- 
 
 1 According to Godet, &xéer. is to be taken as referring to a summons, dis- 
 covered by him in ver. 36, to the work of reaping among the approaching 
 Sycharites. He then takes @aau xsxox. to refer to the labour of Jesus in His 
 interview with the woman. The latter words are said to have been spoken to 
 the disciples, who thought He had been resting during their absence, with a 
 ‘‘finesse qu’on oserait presque appeller légérement malicieuse,” and with an 
 ‘‘aimable sourire.” Such weighty thoughts as arooroay and xores represent 
 are utterly incompatible with such side hints and passing references. And it 
 is a pure invention to find in ver. 26 an ‘‘ invitation 4 prendre la faucille,” 
 
224 TUE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 tinuation of the history attaches itself, vv. 40-42. As to the 
 position of the words woAXol ém. eis ait. Tav Sap, see 
 Buttmann, NV. 7. Gr. p. 332 [E. T. p. 388].—6re eiwé por 
 mavTa, «.7...] Indication of conscience ratifying ver. 18. — 
 Sua Tov Aoyou avTod] on account of His own word (teaching). 
 No mention is made of miracles, but we must not infer from 
 this that there was no need of miracles among the Samaritans ; 
 see, on the other hand, Acts viii. 6 ff. Jesus found that in 
 this case His word sufficed, and therefore upon principle (see 
 ver. 48) He forbore to work miracles, and His mighty word 
 was all the mightier among the unprejudiced people. — dra 
 THY oY AadLaV] on account of thy discourse. This is the 
 meaning of Aad invariably in classical Greek. The term is 
 purposely chosen, as from the standing-point of the speaker ; 
 whereas John, as an impartial narrator, with equal appro- 
 priateness, writes Tov Adyov in ver. 39. As to AaNsd in viii. 43, 
 where Jesus thus designates His own discourse, see in loc. 
 Observe, besides, the emphatic ov as contrasted with the 
 Aoxyos of Jesus which they themselves (avro/) have now heard. 
 — axnkoaper] the following 67: refers to both verbs, They 
 have heard that Jesus was the Messiah, for this became 
 evident to them from His words.—o c@typ Tod Kocpov] 
 not due to the individuality of John (1 John iv. 14), and put 
 into the mouths of the people, as Liicke and Tholuck are in- 
 clined to suppose, but a confession quite conceivable as the 
 result of the two days’ ministry of Jesus; universalism, more- 
 over, being more akin to the Messianic faith of the Samari-_ 
 tans (see Gesenius, de Samar. theol. p. 41 ff.) than to that of 
 the Jews, with their definite and energetic feeling of nationality. 
 
 Note.—The prohibition in Matt. x. 5 militates neither 
 against this narrative of John iv. in general, nor in particular 
 against the promise of ver. 35 ff. It had merely a temporary 
 force, and was abrogated again by Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, and 
 Acts i. 8; and, moreover, it presented no insuperable barrier to 
 restrict Jesus in His work (for He did not wholly exclude even 
 Gentiles from His teaching). Acts viii. 5 ff. is no proof what- 
 ever that this history in John is of mythical origin; it is, on 
 the contrary, the fulfilment of the promise given here. Its 
 several features are so original, and so pyschologically true, and 
 the words of Jesus (see especially vv. 21-24) come so directly 
 
CHAP. IV, 48, 44. Papi 
 
 from the living depths of His soul, that the exceptions taken 
 against certain particulars (as, for instance, against the mis- 
 understandings on the part of the woman; against the words 
 concerning the food, ver. 32 ; against the command of Jesus, “ Go, 
 call thy husband ;” against the woman’s question concerning the 
 place of worship ; against the faith of the Samaritans, which is 
 said to contradict Luke ix. 53) are of no real weight, and are 
 explicable only by the very authenticity of the narrative, not 
 by the supposition of an intentional poetizing. This is in 
 answer to Strauss, B. Bauer, and partly Weisse; also to Scholten, 
 who considers that the author’s object was to describe in a 
 non-historical picture the spirit which actuated Jesus even 
 towards the Samaritans. As a full guarantee for that part of 
 the narrative, which the disciples, being absent, could not have 
 witnessed, we may, considering the vivid impress of genuine- 
 ness which marks it, fairly assume that Jesus Himself com- 
 municated it to the evangelist, and there is no need for the 
 unfounded supposition that (ver. 8) John was left behind with 
 Jesus (Hengstenberg, Godet). When, finally, Baur (p. 145 ff. ; 
 comp. also Hilgenfeld) resolves our history into a typus—* the 
 Samaritan woman being a figure of heathendom, susceptible, 
 readily opening itself to faith, and presenting a wide harvest 
 field,” a contrast to Nicodemus, the type of unsusceptible 
 Judaism,—with all this arbitrariness on the part of the inventor, 
 it is passing strange, if this were his object, that he cid not bring . 
 Jesus into contact with a real heathen woman, for this would 
 have been quite as easy to invent ; and that he should keep the 
 words of the woman so free from the least tinge of anything 
 of a heathen nature (ver. 20 ff.), and have put into her mouth so 
 clear an expression of Messianic hope (vv. 25, 42),—this bung- 
 ling is quite out of character on the part of such an inventor. 
 
 Vv. 43, 44.1 Tas 80 %mépas] The article is to be ex- 
 plained by ver. 40.—adros] ipse, not merely others with 
 reference to Him, but “ He Himself did not hesitate to testify,” 
 etc. As to the fact itself, see Matt. xiii, 57; Mark vi. 4; 
 
 1 See Ewald, Jahrb. X. 1860, p. 108 ff. He agrees for the most part with my 
 rendering ; comp. also his Johann. Schr. I. p. 194; in like manner Godet, who, 
 however, without the slightest hint of it in the text, supposes a purpose on the 
 writer’s part, in connection with iii. 24, to correct the synoptical tradition. John 
 wishes ‘‘ constater l’intervalle considérable qui sépara du baptéme de Jésus son 
 retour définitif et son établissement permanent en Galilée.” In iii. 24 he states 
 the fact, and here he gives the motive. Scholten puts the emphasis which 
 prompts the following yép upon éxsi#ev, a word which is quite unessential, and 
 might just as well have been omitted. 
 
 P 
 
226 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Luke iv. 24. When Schenkel concludes from rpodjrys 
 that Jesus did not yet regard Himself as the Messiah, this is 
 a misuse of the general term within the category of which the 
 conception of Messiah is embraced. — éuwaprtvp.] not in the 
 sense of the Pluperfect (Tholuck, Godet; see on xviii. 24), 
 but then, when He returned to Galilee. — ydp is the ordinary 
 for; and warpéé. is not the native town, but, as is clear from 
 Tariraiav, vv. 43, 45, the native country. So also usually 
 in Greek writers, from Homer downwards. The words give 
 the reason why He did not hesitate to return to Galilee. The 
 cist of the reason lies in the antithetical reference of év 7H 
 idia matpisv. If, as Jesus Himself testified, a prophet had no 
 honour in his own country, he must seek it abroad. And this 
 Jesus had done. Abroad, in Jerusalem, He had by His mighty: 
 works inspired the Galilaeans who were there with that respect 
 which they were accustomed to deny to a prophet at home. 
 Thus He brought the prophet’s honour with Him from abroad." 
 Accordingly (ver. 45) He found a reception among the Gali- 
 laeans also, because they had seen His miracles in Jerusalem 
 (ii. 23). It is therefore obviously incorrect to understand 
 Tartdaiav specially of Upper Galilee, as distinct from Lower 
 . Galilee, where Nazareth was situated. So Lange, in spite of 
 the fact that [advr. here must be the universal and popular 
 name for the whole province, as distinct from Samaria (éxeifev), 
 whether we retain xai am\Oev as in the Elzevir or not. It 
 is further incorrect, and an utterly arbitrary gloss, to inter- 
 pret watpis as meaning Nazareth, and ydp as referring to the 
 fact that He had gone, indeed, to Galilee, but not to Nazareth 
 (Chrysostom and even Euthymius Zigabenus: to Capernaum). 
 So Cyril, Nonnus, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Aretius, Grotius, 
 Jansen, Bengel, and many; also Kypke, Rosenmiiller, Olshau- 
 sen, Klee, Gemberg in Stud. u. Krit. 1845, I.; Hengstenberg, 
 Baumlein. It is also incorrect, because not in keeping with 
 the context, nor with the general view, which is also that of 
 John, which regards Galilee as Christ's home (i. 46, ii. 1, vii. 
 3, 41, 52), to take warzpis as denoting Judea, and yap as 
 1 Baeumlein urges, against my explanation: ‘‘ We cannot believe that, after the 
 
 words ‘ He betook Himself to Galilee,’ there should follow the reason why He 
 had before left Galilee.” This, however, is not the logical connection at all. 
 
; CHAP. IV. 43, 44. 227 
 
 stating the reason (in the face of the quite different reason 
 already given, vv. 1-3) why Jesus had left Judea (Origen, 
 Maldonatus, B. Bauer, Schwegler, Wieseler, B. Crusius, 
 Schweizer, Kostlin, Baur, Hilgenfeld, and formerly also Ebrard) ; 
 whence some, ¢g. Origen and Baur, take wazpis in a higher 
 sense, as signifying the native land of the prophets,’ and there- 
 fore of the Messiah also, and most, like Hilgenfeld, as having 
 reference to the birth at Bethlehem. Liicke has rightly, in his 
 3d ed., abandoned this interpretation; but, on the other hand, 
 he takes yap as equivalent to namely, and explains it as 
 referring not to what precedes, but to what follows (so substan- 
 tially also Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier, de Wette), so that ver. 
 44 gives an explanation in passing on the point: “that the 
 Galilaeans on this occasion received Jesus well, but only on 
 account of the miracles which they had seen in Jerusalem” 
 (de Wette). It is against this, however, that though in the 
 classics yap explicative often precedes the sentence to be ex- 
 plained (see Hartung, Partzkell. I. p. 467; Baumlein, Partik. 
 p. 75 ff.), especially in parenthesis (see Bremi, ad Lys. p. 66 ; 
 Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. 338), yet this form of expression is quite 
 without precedent in the N.T. (Rom. xiv. 10, Heb. i. 8, are 
 not instances in point), and especially would be quite foreign 
 to John’s simple progressive style of narration; moreover, the 
 “qndecd,—but only,’ put into ver. 45, is quite obtruded on 
 the words, inasmuch as John wrote neither pév after édé£., nor 
 thereafter a povoy 8é, nor any such expression.” According to 
 
 1So also B. Crusius, who compares vii. 52. Quite erroneously, when the 
 general and proverbial character of the statement is considered. After iv. 3, 
 however, the reader can expect no further explanation of the reason why Jesus 
 did not remain in Judea. Schwegler and B. Bauer suppose that here Judea is 
 meant as the native land of Jesus, and make use of this as an argument against ~ 
 the genuineness and historical truth of the Gospel. Comp. also Kostlin in the 
 Theol. Jahrb. 1851, p. 186. Hilgenfeld, Hvang. p. 266: ‘a remarkable in- 
 version of the synoptical statement, wherein the Gospel appears as a free com- 
 pilation by a post-apostolic author” (Zeitschr. 1862, p. 17). Schweizer also finds 
 it such a stumbling-block, that he regards it as proving the following narrative 
 to be a Galilean interpolation. Gfrorer, heil. Sage, II. 289, rightly indeed 
 understands the words as referring to Galilee, but considers that we should supply 
 the following : ‘‘ save very slowly and reluctantly, for,” etc. 
 
 2 Weizsicker also, in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1859, p. 695, regards yp 
 not as introducing a reason, but as demonstrative. Jchn intimates that he 
 
228 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 Briickner, Jesus came to Galilee because (but see vv. 1-3) He 
 had supposed that He would find no honour there, and con- 
 sequently with the intention of undertaking the conflict for the 
 recognition of His person and dignity. According to Luthardt, 
 whom Ebrard now follows (comp. Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. I. 
 88, also Schrifibew. II. 1, p. 171), the words imply the hope 
 entertained by Jesus of being able to remain in rest and silence 
 in Galilee more easily than anywhere else. But both expla- 
 nations are incompatible with the following éte ody, «.7.2X., 
 which certainly means that the Galileans received Him with 
 honour, as He was called immediately thereafter to perform 
 a miracle. We should certainly expect 6é or addAd (comp. 
 Nonnus) to introduce the statement, and not ody. In what 
 follows, moreover, regarding the residence in Galilee, we are 
 told neither about conflict nor about the repose of Jesus, but 
 simply of the healing at a distance of the nobleman’s son. 
 Lastly, it is contrary to the words (because éte ody 7AGev in 
 ver. 45 directly resumes the eds 7. Ian. of ver. 43, and admits 
 of no interval), when Hauff, in the Stud. wu. Krit. 1849, p. 
 117 ff, makes the train of thought to terminate with ver. 44, 
 and takes ver. 44 itself as a general description of the result of 
 Christ’s Galilean ministry. Thus €dé£av7o is said to indicate 
 that He did and taught much there; which is clearly a gloss 
 foisted into the text. 
 
 Vy. 45, 46. ’"EdéEavro avrov] The reception which He 
 found among them was one of faith, for He now brought with 
 Him from Jerusalem the honour which the prophet had not 
 in his own country; therefore wavta éwpaxéres, x.7.d., because 
 they had scen, etc., and in this we have the key to the right 
 understanding of ver. 44. Ver. 46. odv] in consequence of 
 this reception, which encouraged Him to go farther into the 
 
 will not narrate much of Christ’s ministry in Galilee ; he refers to that saying 
 as if shrinking from unpleasant recollections. But this is not in the text, nor 
 is it compatible with the connection in ver. 45, and the history that follows. 
 Weizsicker, indeed, thinks (comp. his Unters. ib. d. ev. Gesch. p. 276) that in 
 this synoptic saying John refers to the synoptic account of that Galilean mini- 
 stry, which he would not himself describe. Who ever could imagine that? espe- 
 cially when John at once goes on to narrate the good reception given to Jesus in 
 Galilee, and His miracle of blessing there. Did the Lord betake Himself to ‘‘a 
 voluntary obscurity,”’ concerning which John wishes fo be silent ? 
 
CHAP. IV. 47, 48 229 
 
 country. He goes again straight to Cana, because here He had 
 relatives, and might hope in consequence of His first miracle to 
 find the soil prepared for further labour on His part.—«. 7 
 Tus BactNLKos, K.T.r.] €v Kadapvaotp should be joined to 7. 
 BactrrKos, a royal person, is, according to the frequent use of 
 the word in Josephus (see Krebs, p. 144) and other writers 
 (Plutarch, Polyb., etc. ; see Wetstein), not a relation of the king 
 (so Baronius, Bos, and many, also allowed by Chrysostom), but 
 one in the service of the king (Herod Antipas); whether a 
 military man (thus very often in Josephus; Nonnus: iddvwv 
 otpatinv), or civilian, or court retainer, is uncertain. — 
 6 vids] according to ver. 49, still young. The article indi- 
 cates, perhaps, that he was the only one. 
 
 Vv. 47, 48. "AmfdOe wpos adrov] from Capernaum to 
 Cana. — va] the subject of the request is its purpose. — 
 HwerreE] in co erat, ut. Comp. Luke vii. 2; Hemsterhuis, 
 ad Lucian. D. M. Il. p. 546.— The man’s prayer is conceiv- 
 able partly from the first miracle at Cana, and partly from the 
 fame of Jesus which had followed Him from Jerusalem. — 
 “If ye are not witnesses of signs and wonders, ye will certainly 
 ~ not believe,’ is spoken in displeasure against the Galileans 
 generally (ver. 45), but tneluding the suppliant; Jesus fore- 
 seeing that the healing of his son would make him believe, 
 but at the same time that his faith would not be brought 
 about without a miracle. The Lord’s teaching was in His own 
 view the weightiest ground of faith, especially according to 
 John (comp. ver. 41), though faith based on the miracles was 
 not rejected, but under certain circumstances was even re- 
 quired by Him (x. 38, xiv. 11, xv. 24), though not as the 
 highest, but as of secondary rank, according to the purpose of 
 the miracles, which were intended as a divine confirmation of 
 the teaching. It is incorrect to put the emphasis upon iéyre, 
 unless ye see with your own eyes, etc., condemning the prayer 
 following. According to this, not only would iénte have to 
 be put first (against Bengel and Storr), but tots of@arpots or 
 the like must be supplied ; yet the man saw the miracle, and 
 a greater one than if Jesus had gone with him. — onpeta 
 kat Tépata] see on Matt. xxiv. 24; Rom. xv. 19. As to 
 the reproach itself, comp. 1 Cor. i. 22. 
 
230 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Vv. 49, 50. Then follows a still more urgent entreaty of 
 the father’s love, tried by the answer of Jesus; the To wac- 
 dfov pov, my child, being in keeping with the father’s tender 
 affection. Comp. Mark v. 23.— Jesus rewards his confidence 
 with the short answer, Go thy way, thy son liveth; thus an- 
 nouncing the deliverance from death accomplished at that 
 very moment by an act of His will through miraculous power 
 operating at a distance (not by magnetic healing power, against 
 Olshausen, Krabbe, Kern, thus resorting to a sphere as foreign 
 to the miracles of healing as it is inadequate by way of an 
 explanation). As little can Christ’s word be regarded as a 
 medical prognosticon (Paulus, comp. Ammon). No more is 
 there any trace in the text of an effect resulting from faith in 
 general, and the spiritual movement of the masses (Weiz- 
 sicker). According to the text, Jesus speaks from a conscious 
 knowledge of the crisis of the sickness, effected that moment 
 at a distance by Himself: “ Zhy son is not dead, but liveth !” 
 —émict. TO AOyw@] Thus he now overleaps the limit of 
 faith which supposed Christ’s presence necessary to the work- 
 ing of the cure ; he believed the word, i.e. had confidence in its 
 realization. 
 
 Vv. 51-54. Avrod cata... .av7o] see Buttmann, WV. 
 T. Gr. p. 270 [E. T. p. 315].—75y] belongs to xataB., not 
 to bmnvt. (B. Crusius): when he was already going down, and 
 now was no longer in Cana, but upon his journey back. — 
 of dodo, x.T.r.] to reassure the father, and to prevent the 
 now unnecessary coming of Jesus. — 7] he is not dead, but 
 the sickness has the opposite issue: he lives ! — xopr»potepor| 
 Jiner, prettier, as in common life we are wont to say, “he is 
 pretty well.” Exactly so in Arrian. Zpict. iii. 10 of the sick: 
 Kourpas éxets, and its opposite Kaxkds eyes. Comp. the Latin 
 Uelle habere. Here it is an “amoenum verbum” (Bengel) of 
 the father’s heart, which apprehends its good fortune still with 
 feelings of tenderness and anxiety. — éy@és] see Lobeck, ad 
 Phryn. p. 323.—@pav é8Sounv] He had therefore been on 
 the way since one o’clock the day before, because we must 
 suppose from ver. 50 that he set out immediately after the 
 assurance of Jesus. This also seems strange to us, considering 
 the distance from Cana to Capernaum, not exactly known to us 
 
 
 
CHAP. IV. 51-54 Dee AA 
 
 indeed, but hardly three geographical miles. That in his firm | ** ¥ ; : 
 
 faith he travelled “ non festinans” (Lampe) is unnatural; the /° | 
 impulse of parental love would hurry him home; and so is 
 also the idea that he stayed the night somewhere on the way, 
 or at Cana (Ewald assumes the latter, making the seventh 
 hour seven in the evening, according to the Roman reckoning). 
 We may suppose some delay not named, on the journey back, 
 er (with Hengstenberg, Briickner, and others) take the to-day 
 in the mind of the Jewish servants as denoting the day which 
 began at six P.M. (sunset). According to Baur and Hilgen- 
 feld, this noting of the time is to be attributed, not to the 
 genuineness and originality of the account, but to the subjec- 
 tive aim of the writer, which was to make the miracle as great 
 and pointed as possible (comp. ver. 54, note). — év éx. T. dpa] 
 sc. adnkev avTov o mupetos. Observe, with reference to 
 é€xetvos, that it does not mean zdem, but is the simple relative 
 ille. —«. éwictevcev, K.T.r.] upon Jesus as the Messiah. 
 Kands ody xabippato avtod o Ti Kapdiay avToD ywooKov 
 Xpioros, eimov: ote éav pi) onpeta, K.7.r., Euthymius Zigabenus. 
 Observe how faith here attains its realization as to its object, 
 and further, the importance of this xal 4 oixia avtod (the 
 first household), which now occurs for the first time. Comp. 
 Acts xvi. 14, 15, 34, xviii. 8.— TodTo wddwv SevrTepor, 
 k.T.X.| Referring back to i 11. Literally inaccurate, yet 
 true as to its import, is the rendering of Luther: “ Zhis is the 
 second miracle that Jesus did ;” tovro stands by itself, and the 
 following Sevt. onu. supplies the place of the predicate (this 
 Jesus did as the second miracle), hence no article follows todvo. 
 See on ii. 11, and Bremi, ad Lys. Exc. II. p. 436 f.; Ast, 
 Lex. Plat. II. 406 ; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. pp. 18 A, 24 B. 
 ITa\uv, however, must not be overlooked, nor is it to be joined 
 with Sevtepov (so usually) as a current pleonasm (see on Matt. 
 xxvi. 42; comp. John xxi. 15, Acts x. 15), for devrepor is 
 not an adverb, but an adjective. It rather belongs to ézro/ncev, 
 thus affirming that Jesus now again did this as a second 
 miracle (comp. Beza) upon His return from Judea to Galilee 
 (as in ii. 1). Thus the idea that the miracle was a second 
 time wrought upon His coming out of Judea into Galilee is 
 certainly doubly expressed,—once adverbially with the verb 
 
Zoe THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 (adw éroincev), and then adjectivally with the noun (Sevrepov 
 on.) ; both receive their more minute definition by é\deav, 
 K.T.X Schweizer (p. 78) quite arbitrarily considers the refer- 
 ence to the first miracle at Cana unjohannean. 
 
 Note.—The Baoirrxég is not the same with the Centurion of 
 Matt. vii. 5 ff; comp. Luke vii. 2 ff. (Origen, Chrysostom, 
 Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, and most others). On 
 the assumption of their identity (Irenaeus, Eusebius, Semler, 
 Seyffarth, Strauss, Weisse, B. Bauer, Gfrorer, Schweizer, Ammon, 
 Baumgarten Crusius, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Ewald, Weizsiicker), 
 which thus attributes the greater originality on the one hand 
 to Matthew and Luke (Strauss, B. Bauer, Weisse, Baur, Hilgen- 
 feld), on the other to John (Gfrorer, Ewald), and to the latter 
 an adjusting purpose (Weizsiicker), the discrepancies as to place, 
 time, and even as regards the sick person, constitute lesser 
 difficulties, as well as the entirely different character in which 
 the suppliant appears in John and in the two Synoptics. In 
 these latter he is still a heathen, which, according to John, 
 he cannot be (against Cyril, Jerome, Baur, and Ewald) ; see 
 ver. 48, which represents him as associated with Galileans, and 
 therefore Jews; and this alone suffices to establish the differ- 
 ence of the two miracles, apart from the fact that there is no 
 more objection against the supposition of two healings wrough* 
 at a distance than against one. This is at the same time against 
 Schweizer’s view, that the section in John is an interpolation. 
 Indeed, a single example of healing at a distance, the historical 
 truth of which, moreover, even Ewald maintains, might more 
 easily be resolved by the arbitrariness of criticism into a my yth 
 borrowed from the history of Naaman, 2 Kings ix. 5, 9 ff 
 (Strauss), or be explained away as a misunderstanding of a 
 parable (Weisse), or be dissolved into a subjective transposition 
 and development of the synoptical materials on John’s part for 
 his own purpose, which would make the belief in miracles 
 plainly pass beyond the Jewish range of view (Hilgenfeld), and 
 appears in its highest form as a siorevew d:& rdv Aéyov (Baur, 
 p. 152);? although aiorevew rH Aéyw, ver. 41, is something quite 
 different from aiorevew dO: riv Aéyov, and the écisrevcey in ver. 53 
 took place, not dia& riv Aéyov, but did +d onweior. 
 
 1 Tf John had really derived his matter from the Synoptics, it would be quite 
 inconceivable how, according to the design attributed to him by Baur, he could 
 have left unused the statement of Matt. viii. 10, especially if the facies is 
 taken to be a Gentile. See Hase, T'itbingen Schule, pp. 32, 38. 
 
CHAP. V. 233 
 
 CHAP TLE R V. 
 
 Ver. 1. gop74] C. E. F. H. L. M. a. 11. 8. Cursives, Copt. Sahid. 
 Cyr. Theophyl.: 4 éopr7. So Tisch. But the witnesses against the 
 article are still stronger (A. B. D. etc. Or.) ; and how easily might 
 the insertion have occurred through the ancient explanation of 
 the feast as that of Easter !— Ver. 2. éxi rj wpoBariny| vr. ap. 
 is more weakly attested (though sanctioned by A. D.G. L. &.**). 
 Only &.* Cursives, some Verss. and Fathers have simply zpo- 
 Baring. A change following another construction (sheep-pool). 
 Unnecessary, and unsupported on critical grounds, is the con- 
 jecture of Gersdorf: 4 arpoBuriny xorvuSjdpa 4 Acyoutvn EBp. Bnd. 
 Tisch. following &.* has +d Aeyéuevov instead of 4 érsAeyowevn. — 
 Ver. 3. soAd] wanting in B.C. D. L. 8. Cursives, and some verss. 
 Bracketed by Lachmann, deleted by Tisch. A strengthening 
 addition that might easily present itself. — The words éxdexou. 
 rhv ro Ydarog xivnosv, together with the whole of ver. 4, are 
 wanting in B. C.* D. &. 157, 314, Copt. Ms. Sahid. Syr™ Those 
 words are wanting only in A. L. 18; the fourth verse only in 
 D. 33, Arm. Mss. Codd. It. Aug., Nonnus (who describes the 
 stirring, but does not mention the angel), and is marked as 
 doubtful in other witnesses by an obelus or asterisks. There 
 is, moreover, great variation in particular words. For xauréGmuev, 
 A. K. Verss. have even édovero, which Grotius approves. The 
 entire passage from éxdeyou. to the end of ver. 4, though recog- 
 nised by Tertullian (Origen is silent), is a legendary addition 
 (so also Liicke, Olshausen, Baeumlein, and now even Briickner, 
 reject it), though left in the text by Lachmann in con- 
 formity with his principles, but deleted by Tisch.; by de Wette 
 not decidedly rejected ; vindicated on various grounds by B. 
 Crusius, Hahn, Theol. N. T. I. 303, Lange, Reuss, and Heng- 
 stenberg ; left doubtful by Luthardt. Had the passage been 
 genuine, its contents would have led more easily to its being 
 retained than to its being omitted ; moreover, the comparatively 
 numerous déra& Acyéueva In it make it suspicious, viz. zion, 
 rapayn, Onrore (instead of @ dyrore Lachmann has oiwdyzorody), 
 vionua. When it is judged (de Wette) that John would hardly 
 have ended the sentence with pd, and then have immediately 
 
aa4 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 proceeded with jv 62 ris, ete., this is really arbitrary, for we 
 would miss nothing if nothing had been there; érav rupaydy 
 rd Udwp, ver. 7, by no means makes a preceding explanation 
 “almost necessary,” but probably states the original form of 
 the popular belief, out of which the legend soon developed 
 itself and found its way into the text. This also against 
 Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. 327 f., whose vindication of ver. 4 
 is approved by Hilgenfeld, Zvang. p. 268. Ewald (so also 
 Tholuck and Godet) rejects ver. 4, but defends the words 
 exdexouevay ... xivnow In ver. 3 for the sake of ver. 7; Hofmann, 
 in loc., follows an opposite course. But the critical witnesses 
 do not sanction such a separation. — Ver. 5. xa! is wanting in 
 the Elz., and is bracketed by Lachmann, but adopted by Tisch., 
 and this upon preponderating evidence. — d&adev.] B. C.* D. L. 
 s. Cursives, Codd. It. Vulg. Copt. Sahid. Arm. Cyr. Chrys. 
 append aired, which Lachmann puts in brackets, and Tisch. 
 receives. Rightly; between dodevesA and TOYroy the super- 
 fluous AYTOY might easily escape notice. — Ver. 7. For Baan 
 Elz. has 6éaay, against decisive evidence. — Ver. 8. zyezpe] 
 Elz. : zyepoi, against the best Codd. See the critical notes on 
 Mark u. 2.— Ver. 12. riv xpé@8. cov is wanting in B.C.* L.&. 
 Sahid. An addition from vv. 8,11. Deleted by Tisch. — Ver. 
 13. fadefs] Tisch., following D. and Codd. of the It. reads 
 aobevav, apparently original, but inappropriate after r@ redepa- 
 wevaevy In ver. 10; to be regarded as a subject added to ver. 7, 
 and besides this too weakly supported.—Ver. 15. dvqjyyesre] 
 C. L. 8. Syr. Syr™ Copt. Cyr. read civev; D. K. U. D. Cursives, 
 Chrys.: drqyy. The latter reading might easily arise by joining 
 aunyy. With a&r7rdev; but this makes the testimonies against 
 eizevy, Which Tisch. adopts, still stronger.— Ver. 16. After 
 *Iovdaios, Elz., Scholz (bracketed by Lachmann), read xa? é{yrowy 
 airiy droxreieu, against decisive witnesses. A supplement bor- 
 rowed from ver. 18.— Ver. 20. Tisch.: davuéZere, which is far 
 too weakly supported by L. 8. — Ver. 25. @joovras] Lachmann 
 and Tisch.: Cjoovov, following B. D. L. &. Cursives, Chrys. 
 Rightly ; the more usual form crept in.— Ver. 30. After we Elz. 
 has sarpis, an addition opposed by decisive witnesses. — Ver. 
 32. o76a] Tisch. oféare, following only D.&. Codd. It. Syr™ Arm. 
 — Ver. 35. The form éyarAradjvas (Elz., following B.: éyaa- 
 rracdjvas) has preponderating evidence in its favour. 
 
 Ver. 1. Mera tadra] after this stay of Jesus in Galilee ; 
 an approximate statement of time, within the range of which the 
 harmonist has to bring much that is contained in the Synoptics. 
 The distinction made by Liicke between this and pera TodTo, 
 
CHAP. V. 1. foo 
 
 according to which the former denotes indirect, and the latter 
 immediate sequence, is quite incapable of proof: peta tadra 
 is the more usual in John; comp. ver. 14, i. 22, vi. 1, vii. 1. 
 —éopt? Tav Iovdaiar] a feast of the Jews ; John does not 
 describe it more definitely. But what feast is meant appears 
 with certainty from iv. 35; comp. vi. 4. For in iv. 35 Jesus 
 spoke in December, and it is clear from vi. 4 that the Passover 
 was still approaching ; it must therefore’ be a feast occurring 
 in the interval between December and the Passover, and this 
 is no other than the feast of Purim (0°27 "9, Esth. ix. 24 ff, 
 iii. 7), the feast of lots, celebrated on the 14th and 15th of 
 Adar (Esth. ix. 21), consequently in March, in commemora- 
 tion of the nation’s deliverance from the bloody designs of 
 Haman. So Keppler, dOutrein, Hug, Olshausen, Wieseler, 
 Krabbe, Anger, Lange, Maier, Baeumlein, Godet, and most 
 others. So also Holtzmann (Judenth. u. Christenth. p. 3'74) 
 and Miarcker (Uebereinst. d. Matth. u. Joh. 1868, p. 11). In 
 favour of this interpretation is the fact that, as this feast was 
 by no means a great one, but of less importance and less 
 known to Hellenistic readers, the indefinite mention of it on 
 John’s part is thoroughly appropriate; while he names the 
 greater and well-known feasts——not only the Passover, but 
 the oxnvornyia in vii. 2, and the éyxcaiwa in x. 22. To 
 suppose, in explanation of the fact that he does not give the 
 name, that he had forgotten what feast it was (Schweizer), is 
 compatible neither with the accuracy of his recollection in 
 other things, nor with the importance of the miracle wrought 
 at this feast. It is arbitrary, however, to suppose that John 
 did not wish to lay stress upon the name of the éop77, but 
 upon the fact that Jesus did not go up to Jerusalem save on 
 occasion of a feast (Luthardt, Lichtenstein) ; indeed, the giving 
 of the name after "Iovdaiwy (comp. vii. 2) would in no way 
 have interfered with that imaginary design. It is objected 
 
 1 Tf this feast itself is taken to be the Passover, we are obliged, with the most 
 glaring arbitrariness, to put a spatium vacuum of a year between it and the Pass- 
 over of vi. 4, of which, however, John (vi. 1-4) has not given the slightest hint. 
 On the contrary, he lets his narrative present the most uninterrupted sequence. 
 Hengstenberg judges, indeed, that the gap can appear strange only to those 
 who do not rightly discern the relation in which John stands to the Synoptics. | 
 But this is nothing more than the dictum of harmonistic presuppositions. ey 
 
236 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 that the feast of Purim, which was not a temple feast, 
 required no journey to Jerusalem (see especially Hengsten- 
 berg, Christol. III. p. 187 f., Liicke, de Wette, Briickner) ; and 
 the high esteem in which it is held in Gem. Hier, Megill. i. 8 
 cannot be shown to refer to the time of Jesus. But might 
 not Jesus, even without any legal obligation, have availed 
 Himself of this feast as an occasion for His further labours in 
 Jerusalem? And are we to suppose that the character of the 
 feast—a feast for eating and drinking merely—should hinder 
 Him from going to Jerusalem? The Sabbath (ver. 9), on 
 which apparently (but see Wieseler, p. 219) the feast could 
 never occur, may have been before or after it; and, lastly, 
 what is related of Jesus (vi. 1 ff.) between this festival and 
 the Passover, only a month afterwards, may easily have 
 occurred within the space of that month. In fine, it can 
 neither have been the Passover (Cod. A., Irenaeus, Eusebius’ 
 Chron., Rupertus, Luther, Calovius, Grotius, Jansen, Scaliger, 
 Cornelius a Lapide, Lightfoot, Lampe, Paulus, Kuinoel, Siiss- 
 kind, Klee, Neander, Ammon, Hengstenberg), nor Pentecost 
 (Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Eras- 
 mus, Melancthon, Beza, Calvin, Maldonatus, Bengel), nor the 
 feast of Tabernacles (Cod. 131, Cocceius, Ebrard, Ewald, 
 Hilgenfeld, Lichtenstein, Krafft, Riggenbach), nor the feast of 
 the Dedication (a possible surmise of Keppler and Petavius) ; 
 nor can we acquiesce in leaving the feast wndeterminable 
 (Liicke, de Wette, Luthardt, Tholuck, Briickner. Baumgarten 
 Crusius hesitates between Purim and the Passover, yet in- 
 clines rather to the latter). 
 
 Vv. 2, 3. "Eore] is all the less opposed to the composition 
 of the Gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem, as what is 
 mentioned is a bath, whose surroundings might very naturally 
 be represented as still existing. According to Ewald, the 
 charitable uses for which the building served might have 
 saved it from destruction. Comp. Tobler, Denkbldtt. p. 53 ff., 
 who says that the porches were still pointed out in the fifth 
 century. — éwl TH mpoBatexy] is usually explained by wry 
 supplied: hard by the sheep-gate; see on iv. 6. Concerning 
 the jNsn yw, Neh. iii 1, 32, xii. 39, so called perhaps 
 because sheep for sacrifice were sold there, or brought in there 
 
CHAP. V. 2, 3. 23h 
 
 at the Passover, nothing further is known. It lay north-east 
 of the city, and near the temple. Still the word supplied, 
 “ gate,’ cannot be shown to have been in use; nor could it 
 have been self-evident, especially to Gentile Christian readers, 
 not minutely acquainted with the localities. I prefer, there- 
 fore, following Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ammonius, Nonnus, 
 to join KoAvpB. with mpoBatixy, and, with Elz. 1633 and 
 Wetstein, to read xodvyPHOpa as a dative (comp. already 
 Castalio): “ Now there is in Jerusalem, at the sheep-pool, [a place 
 called] Bethesda, so called in the Hebrew tongue.” According 
 to Ammonius, the sheep used for sacrifice were washed in the 
 sheep-pool.—émurey.] “ this additional name being given to it.” 
 On ézvdéyewv, elsewhere usually in the sense of selecting, see 
 Plat. Legg. iii. p.'700 B. The pool was called Bethesda, a cha- 
 racteristic swrname which had supplanted some other original 
 name. — BnOecda] NIDN N32, locus benignitatis, varieule 
 written in Codd. (Tisch., “following s. 33, BeO fad), not ye 
 ring elsewhere, not even in J osephus ; not “ house of pillars,” 
 
 as Delitzsch supposes. It is impossible to decide with cer- 
 tainty which of the present pools may have been that of 
 Bethesda See Robinson, II. 136 f,158 £ To derive the 
 healing virtue of the (according to Eusebius) red-coloured 
 water, which perhaps was mineral, as Eusebius does, from the 
 blood of the sacrifices flowing down from the temple, and the 
 name from NIN, effusio (Calvin, Aretius, Bochart, Michaelis), 
 is unwarranted, and contrary to ver. 7. The jive porches served 
 
 1 Probably it was the present ebbing and flowing ‘‘ Fountain of the Virgin 
 Mary,” an intermittent spring called by the inhabitants ‘‘ Mother of Steps.” See 
 Robinson, II. 148 f. According to Wieseler, Synopse, p. 260, it may have been 
 the pool ’Azsydar2 mentioned in Josephus, Antt. v. 11. 4, as was already 
 supposed by Lampe and several others, against which, however, the difference 
 of name is a difficulty ; it has no claim to be received on the ground of 
 etymology, but only of similarity of sound. Ritter, Hrdk. XVI. pp. 329, 448 ff., 
 describes the pool as now choked up, while Krafft, in his Topogr. p. 176, thinks 
 it was the Struthion of Josephus. It certainly was not the ditch, now pointed 
 out by tradition as Bethesda, at the north of the temple wall. See also Tobler 
 as before, who doubts the possibility of discovering the pool. As to the meaning 
 of the name (House oy Mercy), it is possible that the arrangement for the pur- 
 poses of a bath together with the porches was intended as a charitable foundation 
 (Olshausen, Ewald), or that the divine favour, whose effects were here manifested, 
 gave rise to the name. This latter is the more probable, and perhaps gave 
 occasion to the legend of the Angel in the Received Text. 
 
238 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 as a shelter for the sick, who are specially described as tuddav, 
 etc., and those afflicted with diseases of the nerves and muscles. 
 On Enper, “ persons with withered and emaciated limbs,” comp. 
 Matt. xii. 10 ; Mark iii. 1; Luke vi. 6, 8. Whether the sick 
 man of ver. 5 was one of them or of the ywdAois is not stated. 
 
 Ver. 5. Tptdxovta, x.7.r.] 1.0. “having passed thirty-eight 
 years in his sickness,’ so that €ywv belongs to Tp. K. dxT@ érn 
 (viii. 57, xi. 17; Josephus, Arch. vii. 11.1; Krebs, p. 150), and 
 év tT. ac@. avr. denotes the state in which he spent the thirty- 
 eight years. Against the connection of éyev with év 7. dob. 
 a. (being im his sickness thirty-eight years; so Kuinoel and 
 most others) ver. 6 is decisive, as also against the perversion 
 of Paulus, who puts a comma after éywy (“ thirty-eight years 
 old”). The duration of the sickness makes the miracle all the 
 more striking; comp. Luke viii. 43. There is no intimation 
 of any reference to the sentence of death pronounced upon 
 Israel in the wilderness (Baumgarten, p. 139 f.; comp. 
 Hengstenberg). 
 
 Vv. 6, 7. Totrov... &xec] two points which excited the 
 compassion of Jesus, where yvovs, however (as in iv. 1), does 
 not denote a supernatural knowledge of this external (other- 
 wise in ver. 14) and easily known or ascertained fact (against 
 Godet and the early expositors). — @yev] i. év doGevela, ver. 
 5. — OéNeus, K.7.r.] Wilt thow become whole? The self-evident 
 nature of this desire made the question an appropriate one to 
 rouse the sufferer’s attention and expectation, and this was the 
 object Jesus had in view in order to the commencement of 
 His miraculous work. This question was inappropriate for 
 the purpose (de Wette thinks) of merely beginning a conver- 
 sation wpon the subject. Paulus falsely supposes that the man 
 might have been a dishonest beggar, feigning sickness, and 
 that Jesus asks him with reproving emphasis, “Wt thou be 
 made whole ? art thow in earnest?” So, too, Ammon ; while 
 Lange regards him as simply languid in will, and that Christ 
 again roused his dormant will; but there is nothing of this 
 in the text, and just as little of Luthardt’s notion, that the 
 question was meant for all the people of whom the sick man 
 is supposed to be the type. his miracle alone furnishes an 
 example of an unsolicited interrogation upon Christ’s part (a 
 
CHAP, V. 8, 9. 239 
 
 feature which Weisse urges against it); but in the case of the 
 man born blind, chap. ix., we have also an unsolicited healing. 
 — dvOpwrov ovK Ex] ad morbum accedebat inopia, Grotius ; 
 dvOp. emphatically takes the lead; the épyopas éy that follows 
 answers to it.—értav tapaxOn To Udwp] The occasional 
 and intermittent disturbance of the water is not to be under- 
 stood as a regular occurrence, but as something sudden and 
 quickly passing away. Hence the man’s waiting and com- 
 plaint.— Bary] throw, denoting a hasty conveyance before 
 the momentary bubbling was over. — €pyopar] he therefore 
 was obliged to help himself along, but slowly. — aAXos mpo 
 €yod| so that the place where the bubbling appeared was 
 occupied by another. Observe the sing. ; the short bubbling 
 is to be regarded as occurring only in one fixed springing-point 
 in the pool, so that one person only could let it exert its 
 influence upon him. The apocryphal ver. 4 has perverted 
 this circumstance, in conformity with a popular superstition, 
 which probably reaches as far back as the time of Christ. 
 
 Vv. 8, 9. Comp. Matt. ix. 6; Mark i. 9, 11.— wepiratei] 
 walk, go; hitherto he had lain down there, ver. 6. The 
 command imples the man’s faith, which had been recognised 
 by Christ. — «al 7pe] simply and emphatically told in the 
 very words which Jesus had spoken—Some (Strauss) quite 
 arbitrarily regard this story as a legendary exaggeration of the 
 healing of the paralytic in the Synoptics (Matt. ix.; Mark i); 
 time, place, circumstances, and what ensues, especially its 
 essential connection with the healing on the Sabbath-day, are 
 all original and independent, as is also the whole account, so 
 full of life and psychologically true, and very different from 
 that in the Synoptics. Notwithstanding, Baur again (p.243 ff.) 
 would make the story in John a composition out of synop- 
 tical materials, appealing especially to Mark ui. 9,10; and 
 Hilgenfeld, Evang. 269 f., adopts the same course, finding the 
 “jnner peculiarity” of the narrative in the idea that the 
 omnipotence of the Logos cannot be controlled by any earthly 
 law or human custom; whilst Weisse (Hvangelienfr. 268) 
 sees in the man’s lameness the helplessness of one morally 
 sick, and attributes the origin of the entire narrative to what 
 was originally a parable. Thus they themselves complete the 
 
240 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 fiction, and then pass it off on the evangelist, while the 
 simplest as well as the most distinctive and characteristic 
 historical features are now interwoven into his supposed plans. 
 See, on the contrary, Briickner, zm Joe. 
 
 Vv. 10-13. Of ‘Iovdaior] The Sanhedrim are here meant; 
 see vv. 15, 33. They never once mention the healing; with 
 hostile coldness they only watch for their point of attack; 
 “Quaerunt non quod mirentur, sed quod calumnientur,” 
 Grotius.—o 7rotnoas, etc., and éxetvos are in the mouth of the 
 man who was healed an appeal to the authority which, as a 
 matter of fact, his Saviour must possess; there is something 
 defiant in the words, so natural in the first realization of his 
 wonderful cure. —o dv@pwros]| contemptuous. Ast, Lez. 
 Plat. I. p. 178.— é€évevoev] He withdrew (see Dorvill. ad 
 Char. p. 273; Schleusner, Zhes, II. 293), 2e. when this 
 encounter with the Jews began. As He wished to avoid the 
 scene which would occur with the crowd who were in the 
 place, He conveyed Himself away (not pluperfect). 
 
 Vv. 14,15. Mera radzta] whether or not on the same 
 day does not appear. But it is psychologically probable that 
 the new feeling of restored health led the man at once into 
 the sanctuary. —pnKéte aduadpt.] Jesus therefore knew (by 
 direct intuition) that the sickness of this sufferer had been 
 brought about (see on Matt. ix. 2, 3) by special sim (of what 
 kind does not appear); and this particular form of sin is what 
 He refers to, not generally to the universal connection between 
 sin and physical evil (Neander, following the early expositors), 
 or between sin and sickness (Hengstenberg), which would not 
 be in keeping with the character of this private interview, the 
 design of which was the good of the man’s soul. The man’s 
 own conscience would necessarily give an individual application 
 to the pnKéts adudpr. Comp. viii. 11.—yetpov] to be left 
 indefinite ; for if the dwaptdvev recurred, it might bring with 
 it a worse sickness (so Nonnus), and other divine punishment, 
 even the loss of eternal salvation. See generally Matt. xii. 
 45; 2 Pet. ii. 20.— Ver. 15. dvnyyesre, «.7.r.] The motive 
 was neither malice (Schleiermacher, Paulus, comp. Ammon), 
 nor gratitude, to bring Jesus into notice and recognition 
 among the Jews (Cyril, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius 
 
CHAP. V. 16, 17. 241 
 
 Zigabenus, Grotius, and many early writers; also Maier and 
 Hengstenberg), nor obedience to the rulers (Bengel, Liicke, de 
 Wette, Luthardt), under the influence of stupidity (Tholuck) 
 or fear (Lange), but, in keeping with ver. 11, and the designa- 
 tion 6 trouoas avrov tryih (comp. ver. 11): the supplementary 
 vindication of the authority in obedience to which he had acted, 
 though it was the Sabbath (vv. 9, 10), and which he was 
 unable to name to the Jews. This authority is with him 
 decidedly higher than that of the Sanhedrim; and he not 
 only employs it for his own acquittal, but even defies them 
 with it. Comp. the man born blind, ix. 17, 31 ff But for 
 this purpose how easily could he ascertain the name of Jesus! 
 
 Vv. 16, 17. Mua todro] on account of this notice referring 
 to Jesus, and then 674, because He that is. See on x. 17.— 
 €di@x.| not judicially, by means of the law (Lampe, Rosen- 
 miiller, Kuinoel), of which the sequel says nothing, but in a 
 general way: they made Him the object of their persecutions. 
 —tavta] these things, such as the healing of the paralytic. 
 — étrotet] he did, not éroinoev. —atexpivato| The means 
 by which He met the Ss@xew of the Jews, whether that then 
 showed itself in accusations, reproaches, machinations, or other- 
 wise in overt acts of hostility. This Aorist occurs in John 
 only here, ver. 19, and xii. 23.— 0 matyp pov, «.t.r.] My 
 Father is working even to this moment; I also work. This 
 expression is not borrowed from Jhilo (Strauss); Jesus 
 alludes to the unresting activity of God for human salvation’ 
 since the creation was finished, notwithstanding the divine 
 rest of the Sabbath (Gen. ii. 1-3) observed after the six days’ 
 
 ! Jesus accordingly does not deny that God rested on the seventh day after the 
 six days of creation (against Ammon) ; but He affirms that since then He is ever 
 active, even on the Sabbath-days, for man’s redemption. Nor does He speak of 
 the law concerning the Sabbath as not of divine institution (Baur), as of no 
 obligation, or as abrogated ; but He as the Son stands above it, and is as little 
 bound by it as the Father, who ever continues to work, even on the Sabbath. 
 This against Hilgenfeld (Lehrbegrif, p. 81; Evang. p. 270; and inhis Zeitschrift 
 1863, p. 218), who considers that, according to this Gospel, Jesus, passing by 
 the O. T. representation of God, rises to the absolutely transcendental essence, 
 exalted above all contact with the finite, and manifest only to the Son ; and that 
 the evangelist, following the Gnostics, refers the history of the creation to the 
 Demiurge, as distinct from the most high God. This is not the ‘‘eagle height” 
 of John’s theology. 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 work. This distinct reference (not generally “to the sustain- 
 ing and government of the world”) is presented in the activity 
 of Christ answering to that of God the Father. “ As the 
 Father,’ that is, says Jesus, has not ceased from the beginning 
 to work for the world’s salvation, but ever works on even to 
 the present moment,’ so of necessity and right, notwithstand- 
 ing the law of the Sabbath, does He also, the Son, who as such 
 (by virtue of His essentially divine relationship of equality 
 with the Father) cannot in this His activity be subject to the 
 sabbatical law, but is ord of the Sabbath (comp. Matt. xii. 8 ; 
 Mark u. 28). Olshausen and de Wette import this in the 
 words: “As in God rest and action are united, so in Christ 
 are contemplation and activity.” But there is no mention of 
 rest and contemplation. According to Godet, Jesus says, 
 “ Jusqua chaque dernier moment ou mon pére agit, j’agis aussi;” 
 the Son can only cease His work when He sees the Father 
 cease. But in this case we should have simply €ws (ix. 4), 
 and not €ws dptt; €ws apts means nothing more nor less than 
 usque adhue (ii. 10, xvi. 24; 1 John ii. 9), the now limiting 
 it still more distinctly than &ws tod viv (Lobeck, ad Phryn. 
 pp. 19, 20). — nay épyadfopar] is not to be again supple- 
 mented by €ws dptu. TI also (do not rest, but) work. The 
 relation of both sentences is not that of zmitation (Grotius), 
 nor of example (Ewald), but of necessary equality of will and 
 procedure. The asyndeton (instead of “ because my Father,” 
 etc.) makes the statement all the more striking. See on 
 1 Cor.ox. ali, 
 
 Ver. 18. 41a todro] because He said this, and 67s as in 
 ver. 16. “ Apologiam ipsam in majus crimen vertunt,” Bengel. 
 —pad2orv] neither potiws nor amplius (Bengel: “modo per- 
 
 1¥a¢ apes carries our view of God’s working, which began with the creation, 
 onwards to the present moment, the moment wherein Jesus has to defend Him- 
 self on account of Sabbath-breaking. In conformity with this redemptive work 
 of God the Father onwards until now, and which was interrupted by no rest, He 
 also works. The inference that herein is implied a divine rest at a futwre period, 
 as Luthardt thinks,—who regards the day of Christ’s resurrection as the then 
 approaching Sabbath of God’s redemptive work,—is quite remote from the text. 
 “Ews «prs includes the survey of the entire past down to the moment then present, 
 without any intimation of a change in the future, which, if intended, should 
 appear in the context, as in xvi. 24. 
 
CHAP. V. 19, 2A3 
 
 sequebantur, nunc amplius quaerunt occidere’’) ; but, as accord- 
 ing to its position it necessarily belongs to éfyj7., magis, “ they 
 redoubled their endeavours.” It has a reference to édiwxoy in 
 ver. 16, so far as this general expression includes the desire 
 to kill. Comp. for the nrety amoxtetvat, vil. 1, 19, 25, vill. 
 37, 40, xi 53.—martépa idvov, «7.2r.] patrem proprium. 
 Comp. Rom. viii. 32. They rightly interpreted o watyp pov 
 as signifying peculiar and personal fatherhood, and not what is 
 true also with reference to others, “sed id misere pro blas- 
 phemia habuerunt,” Bengel. Comp. x. 33.—Jtaov éavtoy, 
 k.T..] not an explanation, nor exactly (B. Crusius) a proof of 
 what precedes, which the words themselves of Jesus, 0 watnp 
 pov, supply; but what Jesus says of God’s relation to Him 
 (watépa tduov), declares at the same time, as to the other side 
 of the relationship, what He makes Himself out to be in His 
 relation to God. We must translate: “since He (at the same 
 time) puts Himself on the same level with God,” te. by that Kaya 
 épyafouae of ver. 17, wherein He, as the Son, claims for Him- 
 self equality of right and freedom with the Father. Comp. 
 also Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p.153. The thought of claim- 
 ing equality of essence (Phil. ii. 6), however, lies in the back- 
 ground as an indistinct notion in the minds of His opponents. 
 
 Ver. 19 ff. Jesus does not deny what the Jews attributed 
 to Him as the capital offence of blasphemous presumption, 
 namely, that He made Himself equal with God ; but He puts the 
 whole matter in its true light, and this from a consideration of 
 His whole present and future work, onward to ver. 30; where- 
 upon, onwards to ver. 47, He gives vent to an earnest denuncia- 
 tion of the unbelief of the Jews in the divine witness to Himself. 
 
 Ver. 19. Ov Sdvartac] denies the possibility, on account 
 of an iner necessity, involved in the relationship of the Son 
 to the Father, by virtue of which it would be ¢mpossible for 
 Him to act with an individual sel/-assertion independent ot the 
 Father, which He could then only do if He were not the Son. 
 Comp. Bengel, im loc., and Fritzsche, nova opuse. p. 297 f. In 
 ad’ éavtov, as the subject of the reflexive is the Son in His 
 relation to the Father, there does not lie any opposition be- 
 tween the human and divine wills (Beyschlag), nor an indis- 
 tinct and onesided reference to the human element in Christ 
 
244 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 (de Wette); but it is the whole subject, the God-man, the 
 incarnate Logos, in whom the Aseietas agendi, the self-determina- 
 tion of action independently of the Father, cannot find place ; 
 because otherwise He must either be divine only, and there- 
 fore without the subordination involved in the economy of 
 redemption (which is the case also with the wvetpa, xvi. 13), 
 or else simply human; therefore there is no contradiction 
 between what is here said and the prologue (Reuss; comp. on 
 the other side, Godet).— ¢av jy re, «.7.r.] refers simply to 
 motety ovoev, and not also to af’ éavrov. See on Matt. xii. 
 4; Gal. ii, 16.— Préry 7. Tat. wovodyta| a familiar 
 description, borrowed from the attention which children give 
 to the conduct of their father—of the inner and immediate 
 intuition which the Son perpetually has of the Father’s work, 
 in the perfect consciousness of fellowship of life with Him. 
 This relation, which is not only religious and moral, but founded 
 on a transcendental basis, is the necessary and immediate 
 standard of the Son’s working. See on ver. 20.—a&@ yap ay 
 éxetvos, K.T.X.| Proof of the negative assertion by means of 
 the positive relationship subsisting. — onolws] equally, propor- 
 tionately, qualifying movet, indicating again the reciprocity or 
 sameness of action already expressed by tavra, and thus more 
 strongly confirming the perfect equality of the relationship. 
 It is, logically speaking, the pariter (Mark iv. 16; John xxi. 
 13; 1 Pet. iii. 1) of the category mentioned. 
 
 Ver. 20. Moral necessity in God for the aforesaid @ yap dv 
 éxeivos, etc. Comp. iii. 35.—rydap refers to the whole of 
 what follows down to qove?, of which cai peifova, etc., gives 
 the result. — gire7] “qui amat, nil celat,’ Bengel. The dis- 
 tinction between this and ayaa (which D., Origen, Chry- 
 sostom here read), diligit (see Tittmann, Synon. p. 50), is to be 
 retained even in John, though he uses both to denote the same 
 relationship, but with varying definiteness of representation. 
 Comp. iii. 35, xxi. 15. del is always the proper affection 
 of love. Comp. xi. 3, 36, xvi. 27, xx. 2, e¢ al. But this 
 love has its basis in the metaphysical and eternal relation of 
 the Father to the Son, as His povoyevys vids (i. 14, 18), and 
 does not first begin in time. Comp. Luthardt. — rdvta 
 Seixvuciy] He shows Him all, permits Him to see in imme- 
 
CHAP, V. 21. 245 
 
 diate self-revelation all that He Himself doeth, that the Son also 
 may do these things after the pattern of the Father. Descrip- 
 tion of the inner and essential intimacy of the Father with the 
 Son, according to which, and indeed by virtue of His love to 
 the Son, He makes all His own working an object of intuition 
 to the Son for His like working (comp. ver. 17),—the humanly 
 conditioned continuation of what He had seen in His pre- 
 human existence, iii, 11, vi. 46..— «al peifova, x.t.r] a 
 new sentence, and an advance in the discourse, the theme of 
 all that follows down to ver. 30: and greater works than these 
 (the healings of the sick spoken of) will He show Him ; He will 
 give Him His example to do them also. —‘va] the divine 
 purpose of this,—not in the sense of wore (Baeumlein). — 
 wpets| ye unbelievers, Jesus does not say mictednte; He 
 means the surprise of shame, viz. at the sight? of His works. 
 
 Ver. 21. Jesus now specifies these pelfova épya, namely, 
 the quickening of the dead, and judgment (vv. 21-30) ; épya 
 accordingly is a broader conception than miracle, which, how- 
 ever, is included in the category of the Messianic épya. See 
 especially ver. 36. 
 
 Ver. 21. He speaks of the operation of His power in 
 judging and raising the dead, first im an ethical sense down 
 to ver. 27, and then, vv. 28, 29, subjoins the actual and 
 universal awakening of the dead as the completion of His 
 entire life-giving and judicial work as the Messiah. Augustine 
 anticipated this view (though illogically apprehending ver. 21 
 in a moral sense, and ver. 22 in a physical), and it is adopted 
 among the older writers, especially by Rupertius, Calvin, 
 Jansen, Calovius, Lampe, and more recently by Liicke, 
 Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier, de Wette, Lange, Hilgenfeld, 
 Lechler, Apost. Zeitalt. p. 225 f., Weiss, Godet. Others have 
 
 1 This intimate relationship is to be regarded as one of uninterrupted continuity, 
 and not to be limited merely to occasional crises in the life of Jesus (Gess, Pers. 
 Chr. p. 237), of which there is not the slightest indication in John’s Gospel. 
 Comp. i. 52. This very continuous consciousness depends upon the continuance 
 of the Logos consciousness (viii. 29, 59, xvii. 5, xvi 32),—a view which is to 
 be maintained against Weizsicker, who introduces even visions (evang. Gesch. 
 p. 485) in explanation of this passage, in the face of the known history of Jesus. 
 
 2 For the astonishment connected with the @¢@céas is implied in the context. 
 See Nagelsbach, z. Ilias, p. 200, ed. 3. 
 
246 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 extended the ethical interpretation even as far as vv. 28, 29 
 (so Deysing in the Bibl. Brem. i. 6, Eckermann, Ammon, and 
 many others ; recently, Schweizer, B. Crusius, Reuss), which, 
 however, is forbidden by the language and contents of vy. 28, 
 29; see on vv. 28, 29. Further, when Luthardt (comp. 
 Tholuck on vv. 21-23, and Hengstenberg on vv. 21-24, also 
 Briickner on ver. 21) understands Cwoz7roveity generally of the 
 impartation of life, he must take both kinds of quickening as 
 the two sides of the {w7, which appears quite irreconcilable 
 with the right understanding of ods @éde, and with the 
 distinct separation between the present and the future (the 
 latter from ver. 28 onwards). The fwozrovety of the Messiah 
 during His temporal working concerns the morally dead, of 
 whom He morally quickens whom He will; but at a future 
 day, at the end of all things, He will call forth the physically 
 dead from their graves, etc., vv. 28, 29. The carrying out of 
 the double meaning of fworrotety onwards to ver. 28 (for vv. 
 28, 29 even Luthardt himself takes as referring only to the 
 jinal future) leads to confusion and forced interpretation (see 
 on ot axovoavtes, ver. 25). Further, most of the Fathers 
 (Tertullian, Chrysostom and his followers, Nonnus, and others), 
 most of the older expositors (Erasmus, Beza, Grotius, Bengel, 
 and many others), and recently Schott in particular (Opuse. i. 
 p. 197), Kuinoel, Baumeister (in the Wéartemb. Stud. II. 1), 
 Weizel (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 636), Kaeuffer, de Cais 
 aiwv not. p. 115 ff, also Baeumlein and Ewald, have taken 
 the entire passage vv. 21-29 in a literal sense, as referring to 
 the resurrection and the final judgment. Against this it is 
 decisive: (a) that ta tpets Cavydfnte in ver. 20 represents 
 the hearers as continuous witnesses of the works referred to, 
 and these works, therefore, as successive developments which 
 they will see along with others ; (0) that ods @éXeu is in keep- 
 ing only with the ethical reference; (c) that va mavtes Tysdor, 
 etc., ver. 23, expresses a continuing result, taking place in the 
 present (in the aiay odtos), and as divinely intended ; (d) 
 that in ver. 24, é« tod Oavarov cannot be explained of physical 
 death ; (e) that in ver. 25, cal viv éotw and of dxovcartes are 
 compatible only with reference to spiritual awakening. To 
 this may be added, (f) that Jesus, where He speaks (vv. 28. 
 
CHAP. V. 21. 247 
 
 29) of the literally dead, very distinctly marks out the 
 resurrection of these latter from that of the preceding as 
 something greater and as still future, and designates the dead 
 not merely with great definiteness as such (wavtes ot év Tots 
 pvnpeiots), but also makes their dvdotacis fwis conditional, 
 not, as in ver. 24, upon faith, but, probably seeing that thev 
 for the most part would never have heard the gospel, upon 
 having done good,—thus characteristically — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 quickening of the dead from that spoken of im ely 
 before. — Bomep ... Cwomore?] The awakening and reviving 
 of the dead is represented as the essential and peculiar busiz, 
 ness of the Father (Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6; Tobit xii. 
 2; Wisd. xvi. 13); accordingly the Present tense is used, 
 because the statement is general. Comp. Rom. iv. 17. 
 Observe, however, that Jesus here speaks of the awakening of 
 the dead, which is peculiar to the Father, without making any 
 distinction between the spiritual and literal dead ; this separa- 
 tion first appears in the following reference to the Son. The 
 awakening of both springs from the same divine source and 
 basis of life.— éyel/pes and €womroret we might expect in 
 reverse order (as in Eph. i. 5, 6); but the Cwozrovety is the 
 key-note, which resounds through all that follows, and 
 accordingly the matter is regarded in accordance with the 
 popular view, so that the making alive begins with the 
 awakening, which therefore appears as the immediate ante- 
 cedent of the Gwo7rovetv, and is not again specially named in 
 the apodosis.—ovs Oérex] for He will not quicken others 
 because they believe not (ver. 24); this, and not an absolute 
 decree (Calvin, Reuss), is the moral condition of His self- 
 determination, just as also His xpiows (ver. 22) is in like 
 manner morally determined. That this spiritual resurrection 
 is independent of the descent fvom Abraham, is self-evident 
 from the fact of its being spiritual; but this must not be 
 taken as actually stated in the ods Oéde. Many, who take 
 Cworroret literally, resort to the historical accounts of the 
 raising of individuals from the dead (Lazarus, etc.), for which 
 few cases the ods Oédev is neither appropriate nor adequate. 
 See, besides, ver. 25. Ewald takes God as the subject of 0éXez, 
 which is neither logical (on account of the «at, which places 
 
248 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 both subjects in the same line), nor possible according to the 
 plain words, though it is self-evident that the Son acts only 
 in the harmony of His will with that of the Father; comp. 
 ver. 30, vii 40.—fwomoret] ethically, of the spiritual 
 quickening to the higher moral fw, instead of that moral 
 death in which they were held captive when in the uncon- 
 verted state of darkness and sin. See on Luke xv. 24; Matt. 
 iv. L65 Eph. v.14; Rom. vi. 13; Isa. xxvii 19. Without 
 thigiigrovaess, their life would remain ethically a fo7 &Btos 
 (Jacobs, ad Anthol. VII. p. 152), Blos aBiwros (Xen. Mem. iv. 
 8. 8). The Present, for He does it now, and is occupied with 
 ‘this Cworrovety, that is, by means of His word, which is the 
 life-giving call (vv. 24, 25). The Futwre follows in ver. 28. 
 
 Ver. 22 does not state the ground of the Son’s call to 
 bestow life (Luthardt, comp. Tholuck and Hengstenberg), but 
 is a justification of the ods OéXer,—hbecause the «pious refers 
 cnly to these whom He will not raise to ife,—in so far as it 
 is implied that the others, whom the Son will xot make alive, 
 will experience in themselves the judgment of rejection (the 
 anticipatory analogon of the decisive judgment at the second 
 advent, ver. 29). It is given to no other than the Son to 
 execute this final judgment. The xpives ovdéva should have 
 prevented the substitution of the idea of separation for that of 
 judgment (comp. iii. 17, 18).—ovdé yap o 7.] for not even 
 the Father, to whom, however, by universal acknowledgment, 
 judgment belongs.' Consequently it depends only upon the 
 Son, and the ods Meret has its vindication. Concerning ovdé, 
 which is for the most part neglected by commentators, comp. 
 vil. 5, viii. 42, xxi. 25. The antithesis add, «.7.X., tells how 
 far, though God is the world’s Judge, the Father does not 
 judge, etc.—xplves] the judgment of condemnation (iii. 17, 
 18, v. 24, 27, 29), whose sentence is the opposite of fwozroveiv, 
 the sentence of spiritual death.— tv cplowv tacav] judg- 
 ment altogether (here also to be understood on its condemnatory 
 side), therefore not only of the last act on the day of judg- 
 ment (ver. 27), but of its entirety (see on xvi. 13), and con- 
 sequently in its progress in time, whereby the ods Oédev is 
 decided. 
 
 1 Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 185, explains it as if it ram; ob3: yap xpives o rarnp, ete. 
 
CHAP. V. 28-25. 249 
 
 Ver. 23. The divine purpose which is to be attained in the 
 relation of mankind to this judicial action of the Son. Observe 
 the Present Subjunctive. —«a@es] for in the Son, who judges, 
 we have the appointed representative of the Father, and thus 
 far (therefore always relatively, xiv. 23) He is to be honoured 
 as the Father. Comp. what follows. How utterly opposed 
 to this divine intention was the procedure of the Jews, ver. 
 18! It is incorrect, however, to take xaos, as Baeumlein 
 does, as causal (see on xill. 34, xvii. 2), because the whole 
 context turns upon the equality of the Father and the Son. — 
 ov TLud Tov TaTépa] %.e.in this very respect, that he does 
 not honour the Son, who is the Sent of the Father. 
 
 Ver. 24. The ods Oérex Sworroret now receives—and that, 
 too, with increasing solemnity of discourse—its more minute 
 explanation, both as to the subjects whom it specifies (o Tov 
 Aoyov pov axkovwy, K.T.Ar.), and as to the Cwo7olnois itself 
 (éyet Swnv).—axovwy is simply heareth, but is closely con- 
 nected with the following cai mictevwv (comp. Matt. xiii.19 ff.), 
 and thereby receives its definite reference. For the opposite, 
 see xii, 47.— éyee €. ai.] The Sworrovety is accomplished in 
 him; he has eternal life (iii. 15), ze. the higher spiritual Sw, 
 which, upon his entrance into the Messiah’s kingdom, reaches 
 its consummation in glorious Messianic fw7. He has, in that 
 he is become a believer, passed from the spiritual death (see 
 on ver. 21) into the eternal life (the fan nar é€oxnv), and 
 cometh not into (condemnatory, comp. 111. 18) judgment, because 
 he has already attained unto that life. The result of this is: 
 Odvatov od pi Ocwpyoy, viii. 51. On the Perfect peraBEp., 
 see lil. 18; 1 John i. 14. 
 
 Ver. 25. Jesus re-affirms what He had already asserted in 
 ver. 24, but in the more concrete form of allegorical expres- 
 sion.—«xal vodv éoTev] we. in its beginning, since Christ’s 
 entrance upon His life-giving ministry. Comp. iv. 23. The 
 duration of this épa, however, continues till the second advent ; 
 
 1Melancthon : ‘‘ Postquam illuxit fides seu fiducia Christi in corde, qua 
 agnoscimus nos vere a Deo recipi, exaudiri, regi, defendi, sequitur pax et 
 laetitia, quae est inchoatio vitae aeternae et tegit peccata, quae adhue in 
 imbecillitate nostra haerent.” Baur is wrong in concluding from such passages 
 
 (comp. viii. 51, xi. 26) that our evangelist verges closely on the doctrine of the 
 Gnostics, 2 Tim. ii. 18. 
 
250 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 already had it begun to be present, but, viewed in its com- 
 pleteness, it still belonged to the future. The expositors who 
 take the words to denote the literal resurrection (see ver. 25, 
 even Hengstenberg), refer kai viv éoiw to the individual 
 instances of raising from the dead which Jesus wrought (John 
 xi.; Mark v. 41; Luke vi. 14; Matt. xi. 5); but this is as 
 inappropriate in general as it is out of keeping with John’s 
 Gospel, for those individuals were not at all awaked to Cw% in 
 the sense of the context, but only to the earthly life, which 
 was still liable to death. Olshausen, who illogically explains 
 ver. 25 as referring to the resurrection of the body, appeals to 
 Matt. xxvii. 52, 53. — oi vexpot] the spiritually dead; Matt. 
 vil. 22; Rev. ii 1; and see on ver. 21.—7iHs davis] 
 according to the context, the resurrection summons (ver. 28), 
 which is here really, in the connection of the allegory, the 
 morally life-giving preaching of Christ. The spiritually dead, 
 generally, according to the category of vexpol, will hear this 
 voice, but all will not awake to its call; only of dxovcavtes, 
 which therefore cannot be taken in the same _ sense as 
 axovoovtai, but must signify: those who will have given ear 
 thereto. Comp. viii. 43,47. In Latin: “ Mortui audient... 
 et qui audientes fuerint,’ etc. It is the dkovew KadodyTos, 
 Plut. Sert. 11, al., dxovew mapayyédXovtos, and the like, 
 aKovewy Tod mpootdypatos (Polyb. xi 19. 5). If we under- 
 stand the words of bodily awakening, of dxovcavtes with the 
 article is quite inexplicable. Chrysostom: davis axovoavtes 
 éritattovens ; Grotius: “simul atque audierint.” All such 
 renderings, as also the vague explanation of Hengstenberg, 
 would require adxovcavtes merely without the article ;? and 
 Ejcovew would, in opposition to the entire context, signify 
 “to live” generally, in an indifferent sense. Olshausen, indeed, 
 supplements axovcavtes—which, nevertheless, must of neces- 
 sity refer to THs pwvis—by tov Aoyov from ver. 24: “ they 
 who in this life hear the word of God.” It is just as 
 impossible to hold, with Luthardt (so far as he would include 
 
 1 The article is said to indicate the inseparable connection between hearing 
 and life. 
 
 *See Eurip. Hec. 25, 26, and Pflugk thereon. But of dxovcuvres with the 
 article is: quicunque audiverunt. 
 
CHAP. V. 26, 27. 251 
 
 the literal resurrection), that of dxovcaytes refers to those 
 “who hear the last call of Jesus differently from others, 7... 
 joyfully receiving it, and therefore attain to life.” This is an 
 imported meaning, for there is no such modal limitation in the 
 teat ; but of axovcavtes alone, which, so far as it must differ 
 from the general dxovcovrat, can only designate those who 
 give ear, and by this the literal resurrection is excluded. For 
 this double meaning of dxovew in one sentence, see Plat. Legg. 
 p. 712 B: Ocdv... érixaropcba: o b€é axovoeé Te Kal dkovoas 
 (cum exaudiverit) ... €\@ov, and also the proverbial expression 
 GKOVOVTA pn) AKOvELY, 
 
 Vv. 26, 27. The life denoted by the aforesaid fjaovcw, 
 seeing the subjects of it were dead, must be something which 
 is in process of being zmparted to them,—a life which comes 
 from the Son, the quickener. But He could not impart it if 
 He had not in Himself a divine and independent fountain of 
 life, like the Father, which the Father, the absolutely living 
 One (vi. 57), gave Him when He sent Him into the world to 
 accomplish His Messianic work; comp. x. 36. The following 
 édwxev (ver. 27) should itself have prevented the reference to 
 the eternal generation (Augustine and many others, even 
 Gess). Besides (therefore ver. 27), if only the dxovcavres 
 (comp. ods Oédex, ver. 21) are to live, and the other vexpod 
 not, the Son must have received from the Father the warrant 
 and power of judging and of deciding who are to live and 
 who not. This power is given Him by the Father because He 
 is the Son of man; for in His incarnation, 7c. in the fact that 
 the Son of God (incarnate) is a child of man (comp. Phil. ii. 7 ; 
 Gal. iv. 4; Rom. i. 3, viii. 3), the essence of His nature as 
 Redeemer consists, and this consequently is the reason in the 
 history of redemption why the Father has equipped Him for 
 the Messianic function of judgment. Had the Son of God not 
 become a child of man, He could not have been the fulfiller 
 of the Father’s decree of redemption, nor have been entrusted 
 with judicial power. Luthardt (comp. Hofmann, Schriftbew. 
 II. 1, p. 78) says incorrectly: “for God desired to judge the 
 world by means of a man,’ which is a thought much too vague 
 for this passage, and is borrowed from Acts xvii. 31. De 
 Wette, with whom Briickner concurs (comp. also Reuss), more 
 
252 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 correctly says: “It denotes the Logos as a human manifesta- 
 tion,’ and in. this lies the reason why He judges, for the 
 hidden God could not be judge.” But this negative and refined 
 definition of the reason given, “ because He is the Son of 
 man,” can all the less appropriately be read between the 
 lines, the more it savours of Philonic speculation, and the 
 more current the view of the Deity as a Judge was among 
 the Jews. So, following Augustine, Luther, Castalio, Jansen, 
 and most others, B. Crusius (comp. also Wetstein, who adduces 
 Heb. iv. 15): “because executing judgment requires direct 
 operation upon mankind.”? Others (Grotius, Lampe, Kuinoel, 
 Liicke, Olshausen, Maier, Biumlein, Ewald, and most others, 
 now also Tholuck): “vids avOp. is He who is announced in 
 Dan. vii. and in the book of Enoch as the Messiah” (see on 
 Matt. viii. 20), where the thought has been set forth succes- 
 sively in various ways; Liicke (so also Baeumlein): “because 
 He is the Messiah, and judgment essentially belongs to the 
 work of the Messiah” (comp. Ewald). Tholuck comes nearest 
 to the right sense: “because He is become man, ze. is the 
 Redeemer, but with this redemption itself the xpiovs also is 
 given.” MHengstenberg: “as a reward for taking humanity 
 upon Him.” Against the whole explanation from Dan. vi. 13, 
 however, to which Beyschlag, Christol. p. 29, with his expla- 
 nation of the zdeal man (the personal standard of divine 
 judgment), adheres, it is decisive that in the N. T. throughout, 
 wherever “Son of man” is used to designate the Messiah, 
 both words have the article: 0 vids tod avOpeé7ov (in John 
 1. 52, iii. 13, 14, vi. 27, 52, 62, viii. 28, xii. 23, 34, xiii. 31): 
 
 ? Or the relative humanity ot Him who is God’s Son. The expression is there- 
 fore ditterent from: ‘‘ because He 1s man.” 
 
 2? Comp. also Baur in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1860, p. 276 ff., 
 and NV. 7. Theol. p. 79 fi. ; Holtzmann in the same, 1865, p. 234 f. Akin 
 to this interpretation is that ot Weiss, p. 224: ‘‘so far as He is a son of man, 
 and can in human form bring near to men the life-giving revelation of God.” 
 Even thus, however, what is said to be the point of the reason given has to be 
 supplied. This holds also against Godet, who confounds things that differ: 
 ““On one side judgment must proceed from the womb of humanity as an ‘ hom- 
 mage & Dieu,’ and on the other it is entrusted by God’s love as a, purification 
 ot humanity to Him who voluntarily became man.” Groos (in the Stud. u. Krit. 
 1868, p. 260) substantially agrees with Beyschlag. 
 
CHAP. V. 28-30. 25% 
 
 vids avOperov without the article’ occurs in Rev. i. 13, xiv. 
 14, but it does not express the idea of the Messiah. Thus 
 the prophecy in Daniel does not enter into consideration here ; 
 but “son of a human being” is correlative to “ son of God” (of 
 the Father, vv. 25, 26), although it must frankly be acknow- 
 ledged that the expression does not necessarily presuppose 
 birth from a virgin” The Peshito, Armenian version, Theophy- 
 lact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Paulus, connect the words—rightly 
 taking vids av6p. to mean man—with what follows: “ Marvel 
 not that He is a man.” This is not in keeping with the con- 
 text, while todro witnesses for the ordinary connection. — 
 Conv yew év éavt@] in Himself. “Est emphasis in hoc 
 dicto: vitam habere in sese, i. e. alio modo quam creaturae, 
 angeli et homines,” Melancthon. Comp. i. 4, xiv. 6.2 The 
 words kal viv éotw are certainly decisive against Gess (Pers. 
 Chr. p. 301), who ascribes the gift of life by the Father to the 
 Son as referring only to His pre-existent glory and His state of 
 exaltation, which he considers to have been “ suspended” during 
 the period of His earthly life. The prayer at the grave of 
 Lazarus only proves that Christ exercised the power of life, 
 which was bestowed upon Him as His own, in accordance 
 with the Father’s will, See on ver. 21. 
 
 Vv. 28-30. Marvel not at this (comp. iii. 7), viz. at what I 
 have asserted concerning my life-giving and judicial power ; 
 
 ' Weizsiicker (Unters. iib. d. evang. Gesch. p. 431) cuts away this objection 
 by the statement, without proof, that vics dvép. without the article belongs to 
 the explanatory exposition of the fourth Gospel. Baeumlein and Beyschlag, to 
 account for the absence of the article, content themselves with saying that vids 
 avép, is the predicate, and therefore (comp. Holtzmann) the point would turn on 
 the meaning of the conception. But the formal and unchanging title, 6 vids rod 
 av4p,, would not agree with that ; and, moreover, in this way the omission only 
 of the first article, and not of the second (red), would be explained ; vids dvépaarav 
 can only mean son of a man. Comp. Barnabas, Hp. xii. (Dressel.) 
 
 2 He who is Son of God is son of a man—the latter xardz cdpxa, i. 14; the 
 former zara rvedux a yiwovvns, Rom. ix. 5, i. 3. 
 
 3 Quite in opposition to the tv éevr@, Weizsicker, in the Jahrb. f. Deutsche 
 Theol. 1857, p. 179, understands the possession of life as brought about ‘‘ by 
 transference or communication from the Father.” Chap. vi. 57 likewise indicates 
 life as an essential possession, brought with Him (i. 4) from His pre-existent 
 state in His mission from the Father, and according to the Father’s will and 
 appointment, Col. i. 19, ii. 10, 
 
254 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 for’ the last and greatest stage of this my Messianic quickening 
 work (not the work of the Aoyos as the absolute fo7, to whom 
 Baur refers the whole passage, vv. 20 ff.; see, on the contrary, 
 Briickner) is yet to come, namely, the raising of the actually 
 dead out of their graves, and the final judgment? Against 
 the interpretation of this verse (see on ver. 21) in a figurative 
 sense (comp. Isa. xxvi. 19; Ex. xxxvil. 12; Dan. xii. 2), it is 
 decisive that ot éy Tots uvnpeiows would have to mean merely 
 the spiritually dead, which would be quite out of keeping with 
 oi Ta aya0a Toujcaytes. Jesus Himself intimates by the words 
 oi év Tots uvnweios that He here is passing from the spiri- 
 tually dead, who thus far have been spoken of, to the actual 
 dead. — 6Te] argumentum a majori; the wonder at the less 
 disappears before the greater, which is declared to be that 
 which is one day to be accomplished. We are not to supply, 
 as Luthardt does, the condition of faithful meditation on the 
 latter, for the auditors were unbelieving and hostile ; but the 
 far more wonderful fact that is told does away with the wonder 
 which the lesser had aroused, goes beyond it, and, as it were, 
 causes it to disappear. — €pyetat dpa] Observe that no xat 
 vov é€orw, as in ver. 25, could be added here.— ravtes] 
 Here it is as little said that all shall be raised at the same 
 time, as in ver. 25 that all the spiritually dead shall be 
 quickened simultaneously. The tdyyata, which Paul distin- 
 guishes at the resurrection, 1 Cor. xv. 23, 24, and which are 
 in harmony with the teaching of Judaism and of Christ Him- 
 self regarding a twofold resurrection (Bertholdt, Christol. pp. 
 176 ff., 203 ff; and see on Luke xiv. 14), find room likewise 
 in the ®pa, which is capable of prophetic extension.— ot Ta 
 aya0a woinoartes, x.T.A.] that is, the first resurrection, that 
 of the just, who are regarded by Jesus in a purely ethical 
 
 1 Ewald renders ozs that: ‘‘ Marvel not at this, that (asI said in ver. 1) an 
 hour is coming,” etc. But in ver. 25 the thought and expression are different 
 from our text. 
 
 2 It is not right, as is already plain from the text and ver. 27, to say that in 
 John the judgment is always represented as an inner fact (so even Holtzmann, 
 Judenth. u. Christenth. p. 422). The saying, ‘‘ The world’s history is the world’s 
 judgment,” only partially represents John’s view; in John the last day is not 
 without the last judgment, and this last judgment is with him the world-judg- 
 ment, See on iii. 18. 
 
CHAP. V. $1. 255 
 
 aspect, and apart from all national particularism. See on 
 Luke xiv. 14, and comp. John vi. 39. It was far from His 
 object here to dwell upon the necessity of His redemption 
 being appropriated by faith on the part of the dead here 
 spoken of ; He gives expression simply to the abstract moral 
 normal condition (comp. Rom. ii. 7, 13; Matt. vii. 21). This 
 necessity, however, whereby they must belong to the of tod 
 Xptorod (1 Cor. xv. 23; comp. Matt. xxv. 31 sqq.), implies the 
 descensus Christi ad inferos.—eis avaort. Ewhs] they will 
 come forth (from their graves) into a resurrection of life (re- 
 presented as local), ze. to a resurrection, the necessary result 
 of which (comp. Winer, p. 177 [E. T. p. 235]) is life, life in 
 the Messiah’s kingdom. Comp. 2 Mace. vii. 14: dvacracis 
 els Sonv; Dan. xii 2; Rom. v. 18: Sexaiwors Sans. — 
 xplaews] to which judgment pertains, and judgment, according 
 to the context, in a condemnatory sense (to eternal death in 
 Gehenna) ; and accordingly advdotaows fwis does not exclude 
 an act of judgment, which awards the €w7.— As to the dis- 
 tinction between 7rovety and mpartety, see on ili. 20,21. Ver. 
 30 further adds the guarantee of the rectitude of this xpiots, 
 and this expressed in a general way, so that Jesus describes 
 His judgment generally ; hence the Present, denoting continuous 
 action, and the general introductory statement of ver. 19, od 
 Svvapat, etc. — Kxabas axova| ie. from God, who, by virtue 
 of the continual communion and confidence subsisting between 
 Him and Christ, always makes His judgment directly and 
 consciously known to Him, in accordance with which Christ 
 gives His verdict. Christ’s sentence is simply the declaration 
 of God’s judgment consequent upon the continuous self- 
 revelation of God in His consciousness, whereby the dxovew 
 from the Father, which He possessed in His pre-existent state, 
 is continued in time. — 6rz od €n7, x.7.r.] “I cannot there- 
 fore deviate from the xpivew Kalas axovw; and my judgment, 
 seeing it is not that of an individual, but divine, must be 
 just.” — Tod wéury. me, «7.r.] as it consequently accords 
 with this my dependence upon God. 
 
 Ver. 31. Justification of His witness to Himself from ver. 
 19 ff. intermingled with denunciation of Jewish unbelief — 
 (vv. 31-40), which Jesus continues down to ver. 47. — The 
 
256 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 connection is not that Jesus now passes on to the ti which 
 is due to Him (ver. 23), and demands faith as its true form 
 (Luthardt), for the conception of tux does not again become 
 prominent ; but ézeid%) tovadta rept éavtod waptupycas yyw 
 tous ’Iovdatous évOvpoupévous avtiOeivas Kal eimeiv: OTL day sv 
 paptupels mept ceavTov, 1) waptupla cov ovK éotw adnOrs 
 ovdels yap éavt@ paptupwov akwrictos év avOpeHrrais bv vro- 
 wiav piravtiass mpoéraBe Kal eimev 6 eweddov eizrely éxeivor, 
 Euthymius Zigabenus. Comp. Chrysostom. Thus at the same 
 time is solved the seeming contradiction with vil. 14. — éyo] 
 emphatic: if a personal witness concerning myself only, and 
 therefore not an attestation from another quarter. Comp. 
 GdXos, ver. 32.—ovK Ectiv ar7O.] 2. formally speaking, 
 according to the ordinary rule of law (Chetub. f. 23. 2: 
 “testibus de se ipsis non credunt,” and see Wetstein). In 
 reality, the relation is different in Christ’s case, see vill. 13-16 ; 
 but He does not insist upon this here, and we must not there- 
 fore understand His words, with Baeumlein, as if He said: 
 el éy@ euapTupouy ... ovK av Hv adnOjs 4 aptupia pov. Chap. 
 vill. 54, 55 also, and 1 Cor iv. 15, xiii. 1, Gal. i. 8, are not 
 conceived of in this way. 
 
 Ver. 32. Another is He who bears witness of me. This is 
 understood either of John the Baptist (Chrysostom, Theophy- 
 lact, Nonnus, Euthymius Zigabenus, Erasmus, Grotius, Paulus, 
 Baumgarten Crusius, de Wette, Ewald) or of God (Cyril, 
 Augustine, Bede, Rupertius, Beza, Aretius, Cornelius a Lapide, 
 Calovius, Bengel, Kuinoel, Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier, 
 Luthardt, Lange, Hengstenberg, Briickner, Baeumlein, Godet). 
 The latter is the right reference; for Jesus Himself, ver. 34, 
 does not attach importance to John’s witness, but rather lays 
 claim, vv. 36, 37, only to the higher, the divine witness. — 
 Kal ol0a, OTL, K.T.r.] not a feeble assurance concerning God 
 (de Wette’s objection), but all the weightier from its sim- 
 plicity, to which the very form of the expression is adapted 
 () paptupia, jv paptupel mept éuovd), and, moreover, far too 
 solemn for the Baptists testimony. On paptupiayv pap- 
 tupecy, comp: Isa. iii. 11, xii 25; Plato, Eryx. p. 399 B; 
 Dem. 1131. 4. 
 
 Vv. 33, 34. “ That witness, whose testimony you have 
 
CHAP. V. 38. 257 
 
 yourselves elicited, John the Baptist, I do not accept, because it 
 is a human testimony; I mention him for your salvation (not 
 for my advantage), because ye have not appreciated him 
 according to his high calling (ver. 35); the witness which J 
 have is greater,’ etc. Ver. 36.—dpets] you, on your part. 
 —pepapt. TH ad78.] i. 19 ff. “All that he said was testi- 
 mony in favour of the truth; for the state of the case (with 
 reference particularly to what he said of the Messiah) was as 
 he testified.” — éya@ S€] but I on my part.—Thv paptupiar] 
 the witness in question, which is to tell forme. This I cannot 
 receive from any man. Jesus will not avail Himself of any 
 human witness in this matter; He puts it away from Him. 
 Accordingly, Aapu8. 7. wapruplay, just as in iii. 11, 32, is to be 
 taken of the acceptance, not indeed believing acceptance, but 
 acceptance as proof, conformably with the context. Others, 
 unnecessarily deviating from John’s usage, “ I borrow ” (Liicke), 
 “T strive after, or lay hold of” (B. Crusius, comp. Beza, Grotius), 
 “TI snatch” (de Wette). — tva tbyeis cwOHre] for your ad- 
 vantage, that you on your part (in opposition to any personal 
 interest) may attain to salvation. They should take to heart 
 the remembrance of the Baptist’s testimony (radrTa Aéyo), and 
 thus be roused to faith, and become partakers of the Messiah’s 
 redemption ; “ vestra res agitur,” Bengel. 
 
 Ver. 35. What a manifestation he was, yet how lightly ye 
 esteemed him!—7v and 7@eX. point to a manifestation 
 already past. — o AVyxvos] not 7d das, i. 8, but less; hence 
 gos in the second clause is used only predicatively. The 
 article denotes the appointed lamp which, according to O. T. 
 promise, was to appear, and had appeared in John as the fore- 
 runner of the Messiah, whose vocation it was to inform the 
 people of the Messianic salvation (Luke i. 76, 77). The 
 figure of the man who lights the way for the approaching 
 bridegroom (Luthardt) is very remote. Comp. rather the 
 similar image, though not referred to here, of the mission of 
 Elias, Ecclus. xlvui. 1. The comparison with a lamp in 
 similar references was very common (2 Sam. xxi. 17; Rev. 
 xxi, 23; 2 Pet. 1. 19). Comp. also Strabo, xiv. p. 642, 
 where Alexander the rhetorician bears the surname 0 Avyvos. 
 —Katopevos Kal datver] is not to be interpreted of two 
 
 R 
 
258 THE GOSPEL OF JOIIN. 
 
 different properties (burning zeal and light-giving); in the 
 nature of things they go together. <A lamp burns and shines ; 
 this it does of necessity, and thus it is represented. Comp. 
 Luke xii. 35; Rev. iv. 5. — dpets 5é, «.7.r.] striking de- 
 scription of the frivolous worldliness which would gratify its 
 own short-lived excitement and pleasure in this new and 
 erand manifestation, instead of making use of it to obtain 
 saving knowledge, and allowing its full solemnity to operate 
 upon them. The Jews flocked in great crowds to the Baptist 
 (Matt. iii. 5, xi. 7 ff), as to the messenger of the approaching 
 glorious kingdom of the Messiah ; but instead of finding what 
 they desired (7Oedyjo.), they found all the severity of the spirit 
 of Elias calling to repentance, and how soon was the concourse 
 over! In like manner, the Athenians hoped to find a new 
 and passing divertissement when the Apostle Paul came among 
 them. “Johanne utendum erat, non fruendum,’ Bengel. — 
 mpos Opav] Tov evxorlay adtav Seuxvivtos éotl kab btu Taxéws 
 avTov amemyoncav, Chrysostom. Comp. Gal. ii. 5; Philem. 
 15. The main feature of the perverted desire does not lie in 
 mpos @pav, which more accurately describes the a@yaAn. accord- 
 ing to its frivolity, so soon changing into satiety and disgust, 
 but in dayanx. itself, instead of which perdvova should have 
 been the object of their pursuit. — év Td dati adrod] in, we. 
 encompassed by his light, the radiance which shone forth from 
 him. Comp. 1 Pet. i. 6; and for yaipew év, see on Phil. i 18. 
 
 Ver. 36. "Ey 6é] Formal antithesis to dels in ver. 35, 
 and referring back to the éyw dé of ver. 34.—TJ have the 
 witness which is greater (not “the greater witness ;” see Kiihner, 
 II. § 493. 1) than John. tod ’Iwadvvov in the sense of tijs 
 tod Iwav., according to a well-known comparatio compendiaria." 
 See on Matt. v.20. On peifo, 2. “ of weightier evidence,” 
 comp. Isoc. Archid. § 32: pwaptuplav petko Kal capectépav. — 
 Ta Epya] not simply the miracles strictly so called,*but the 
 Messianie works generally, the several acts of the Messiah’s 
 entire work, the épyov of Jesus (iv. 34, xvii. 4). “Epya are 
 always deeds, not word and teachings (word and work are 
 distinet conceptions, not only in Scripture, but elsewhere like- 
 
 1 The reading adopted by Lachmann, ««iZwy (A, B. F. G. M. 4., Cursives), is 
 nothing else than an error of transcription. 
 
CHAP. V. 37. 259 
 
 wise; see Lobeck, Paralip. pp. 64, 65; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. 
 p. 672; Pflugk, ad Eur. Hee. 373); but what the word of 
 Jesus effected, spiritual quickening (ver. 20), separation, en- 
 lightenment, and so on, and in like manner the resurrection 
 ot the dead and judgment (vv. 28, 29), are included in the 
 épya, and constitute His épyov as a whole. When miracles 
 properly so called are designated by the more general term 
 €pya, it is indicated in the context, as in iii. 2, vii. 3, 21, and 
 often. — €5wxe]| hath given, expressing the divine appointment, 
 and bestowment of power. Comp. Homer, J/. «. 428: ov rou, 
 Téxvov euov, SédoTat Troreunia épya. Comp. v. 727.— twa 
 Ted, avTa] Intention of the Father in committing to Him 
 the works: He was to accomplish them (comp. iv. 34, xvii. 4), 
 not to leave them undone or only partially accomplished, but 
 fully to carry out the entire task which the works divinely 
 entrusted to Him involved for the attainment of the goal 
 of Messianic salvation. — atta ta& épya] those very works, 
 emphatic repetition (Kiihner, IL. § 632), where, moreover, the 
 homoeoteleuton (the recurrence of the @ five times running) 
 must not be regarded as a dissonance (Lobeck, Paralip. p. 53). 
 —@ éyo ola] éyé with august self-consciousness. As to 
 how they witness, see xiv. 11. 
 
 Ver. 37. From the works which testified that He was the 
 Sent of God, He now passes to the witness of the Sender Him,- 
 self ; therefore from the indirect divine testimony, presented in 
 the works, to the direct testimony in the Scriptures. And the 
 Father Himself, who hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. 
 The subject, which is placed at the beginning of the sentence, 
 the independence (immediateness) expressed by adros, together 
 with the Perfect ~euaprt., unite to prove that there is no longer 
 any reference here to the previous testimony, that of the 
 works, by which God had borne testimony (against Augus- 
 tine, Grotius, Maldonatus, Olshausen, Baur, and most others). 
 Quite arbitrary, and in opposition to the account of the 
 baptism given by John, is the view which others take, that the 
 divine witness given in the voice at the baptism, Matt. ii. 17 
 (but see rather John i. 33), is here meant (Chrysostom, 
 Rupertius, Jansen, Bengel, Lampe, Paulus, Godet). While 
 Ewald (Johann. Schr. I. 216) includes together both the 
 
260 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 baptism and the works, Hengstenberg adds to these two the 
 witness of Scripture likewise; others, again, “the immediate 
 divine witness in the believer's heart, by means of which the 
 indirect testimony of the works is first apprehended” (De 
 Wette, B. Crusius, Tholuck), the “drawing” of the Father, 
 vi. 14, comp. vi. 45, viii 47. But there is not the slightest 
 indication in the text that an outward, perceptible, concrete, 
 and objective witness is meant; nay more, in the face of the 
 following connection (¢wvyv ... eidos). The only true interpre- 
 tation in harmony with the context is that which takes it to 
 mean tle witness which God Himself has given in His word, 
 in the Scriptures of the O. T. (Cyril, Nonnus, Theophylact, 
 Euthymius Zigabenus, Beda, Calvin, Kuinoel, Liicke, Lange, 
 Maier, Luthardt). In the O. T. prophecies, God Himself has 
 lifted up His voice and revealed His form.—oitrte davy», 
 k.T.r.] Reproach of want of susceptibility for this testimony, all 
 the more emphatic through the absence of any antithetic par- 
 ticle. Neither a voice of His have ye ever heard, nor a form of 
 His have ye ever seen. With respect to what God had spoken in 
 the O. T. as a testimony to Christ (wewaptip. wepl €uod), or as 
 to the manner in which, with a like purpose, He had therein 
 given His sel/-manifestation to the spiritual contemplation (He 
 had made known his d0£a; comp. wopd? Oeod, Phil. ii. 6),—to 
 the one ye were spiritually deaf, to the other ye were spiritually 
 blind. As the first cannot, conformably with the context, be 
 taken to mean the revealing voice of God within, vouchsafed 
 to the prophets (De Wette), so neither can the second refer 
 merely to the Theophanies (in particular, to the appearances of 
 the Angel of the Lord, Hengstenberg) and prophetic visions,’ 
 but to the entire self-revelation of God in the O. T. generally, by 
 virtue of which He lets Himself be seen by him who has eyes 
 to see ;—a general and broad interpretation, which corresponds 
 with the general nature of the expression, and with its logical 
 relation to wewapt. 7. ewov. The Jews could not have heard 
 the voice at the baptism, nor could they have seen the form oi 
 God as the Logos had seen it, i 18, iii, 13; and for this 
 
 1 Jesus could not reproach His opponents with not having received prophetic 
 revelations, such as Theophanies and Visions, for these were marks of distinction 
 bestowed only on individuals. This also against Weiss, Lehrbegr. pp. 104, 105, 
 
CHAP. V. 38. 201 
 
 reason neithér the one meaning nor the other can be found in 
 the words (Ewald). Every interpretation, moreover, is incorrect 
 which finds in them anything but a reproach, because Jesus 
 speaks in the second person, and continues to do so in ver. 38, 
 where the tone of censure is still obvious. We must therefore 
 reject the explanation of B. Crusius: “never hitherto has this 
 immediate revelation of God taken place;” and that of Tholuck: 
 “ye have not received a more direct revelation than did Moses 
 and his cotemporaries (Num. xil. 8; Deut. iv. 15, v. 24), but 
 ye have not received within you the witness of the revelation 
 in the word,’—an artificial connecting of ver. 37 with ver. 38, 
 which the words forbid. Paulus and Kuinoel (comp. Euthy- 
 mius Zigabenus) likewise erroneously say that “Jesus here 
 concedes, in some degree, to the Jews what they had themselves 
 wished to urge im objection, viz. that they had heard no divine 
 voice, etc. Comp. Ebrard (in Olshausen), who imports the 
 idea of irony into the passage. 
 
 Ver. 38. At the end of ver. 37 we must place only a 
 comma. John might have continued: ore Tov doyor, K.T.X. ; 
 instead of which he attaches the negation not to the particle, 
 but to the verb (ovre... «al, see on iv. 11), and thus the new 
 thought comes in more independently: And ye have not His 
 word abiding in you; ye lack an inner and permanent appro- 
 priation of it; comp. 1 John ii. 14. The Aovos Oeod is not 
 “the inner revelation of God in the conscience” (Olshausen, 
 Frommann), but, conformably with the context (vv. 37, 39), 
 what God has spoken in the O. T., and this according to its 
 purport. Had they given ear to this as, what it is in truth, 
 the word of God (but they had no ear for God’s voice, ver. 
 37), had they discerned therein God’s manifestation of Him- 
 self (but they had no eye for God’s form, ver. 37), what God 
 had spoken would have penetrated through the spiritual ear 
 and eye into the heart, and would have become the abiding power 
 of their inner life.—6tt dv adméctetrey, x.7.r.] demonstra- 
 tion ot the fact. He who rejects the sent of God cannot have 
 that word abiding in him, which witnesses to Him who is 
 sent (ver. 37). “ Quomodo mandata regis discet qui legatum 
 excludit ?” Grotius. —todt@ dbpets] observe the emphasis in 
 the position of the words here. 
 
262 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Vv. 39, 40 bring out to view the complete perversity of 
 this unbelief. “The Scriptures testify of me, as the Mediator 
 of eternal life; he, therefore, who searches the Scriptures, 
 because in them he thinks he has eternal life, will by that 
 witness be referred to me; ye search the Scriptures, because, 
 etc., and yet refuse to follow me according to their guidance.” 
 How inconsistent and self-contradictory is this! That épevvate 
 is Indicative (Cyril, Erasmus, Casaubon, Beza, Bengel, and 
 many moderns, also Kuinoel, Liicke, Olshausen, Klee, De 
 Wette, Maier, Hilgenfeld, Briickner, Godet), and not Jmpera- 
 tive (Chrysostom, Augustine, Theophylact, Euthymius Ziga- 
 benus, Luther, Calvin, Aretius, Maldonatus, Cornelius a Lapide, 
 Grotius, Calovius, Wolf, Wetstein, Paulus, B. Crusius, Tholuck, 
 Hofmann, Luthardt, Baeumlein, Ewald, Hengstenberg, arguing 
 from Isa. xxxiv. 16), is thus clear from the context, in which 
 the Imperative would introduce a foreign element, especially 
 out of keeping with the correlative xal od OédeTe. Comp. also 
 Lechler in the Stud. u. Krit. 1854, p. 795. The searching of 
 the Scriptures might certainly be attributed to the Jews, comp. 
 vii. 52 (against B. Crusius and Tholuck); but a special sig- 
 nificance is wrongly attached to épevvare (a study which pene- 
 trates into the subject itself, and attains a truly inward 
 possession of the word, Luthardt); and the contradiction of 
 ver. 40, which forms such a difficulty, is really nothing but 
 the inconsistency which Jesus wishes to bring out to view. — 
 tpets] emphatic, for you, ye on your part, are the people 
 who think this. Still there lies in doxetre neither blame, 
 nor (as Ewald maintains, though ver. 45 is different) a deli- 
 cate sarcastic reference to their exaggerated and scholastic 
 reverence for the letter of Scripture, but certainly a contrast 
 to the actual éyew, which Jesus could not affirm concerning 
 them, because they did not believe in Him who was testified 
 
 ' According to Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. p. 213 (comp. his Hvang. p. 272, and 
 Zeitschr. 1863, p. 217), directed against the delusion ot the Jews, that they 
 possessed the perfect source of blessedness in the literal sense ot the O. T. which 
 proceeded from the Demiurge, and was intended by him. Even Rothe, in the Stud. 
 u. Krit. 1860, p. 67, takes doxeire in the sense of a delusion, viz. that they possessed 
 eternal life in a book. Such explanations are opposed to the high veneration mani- 
 fested by Jesus towards the Holy Scriptures, especially apparentin John, though 
 here even Weiss, p. 106, approves of the interpretation of an erroncous oxsi» 
 
CHAP. V. 41—44. 263 
 
 of in the Scriptures as the Mediator of eternal life. Comp. 
 Hofmann, Schrifibeweis, I. 671. Theoretically considered, they 
 were right in their Soxeiv, but practically they were wrong, 
 because Christ remained hidden from them in the Scriptures. 
 Comp. as to the thing itself, 2 Cor. iii. 15, 16; and on éyveuv 
 Conv ai, iii, 15.— év adtats] The possession of Messianic 
 life is regarded as contained in the Scriptures, in so far as they 
 contain that by which this possession is brought about, that 
 which is not given outside the Scriptures, but only 7 them. — 
 Kal éxetvat, x.T.X.| Prominence assigned to the identity of 
 the subject, in order to bring out the contrast more fully: and 
 they, those very Scriptures which ye search, are they which, ete. 
 —kal ov Oérere] cal does not mean and yet, but simply 
 and. This simplicity is all the more striking, more striking 
 and tragic even than the interrogative interpretation (Ewald). 
 On é\Ociv pods pe, denoting a believing adherence to Christ, 
 comp. vi. 35. They stood aloof from Him, and this depended 
 on their will, Matt. xxiii. 37.— iva Cwnyv éyx.| “in order that 
 that Soxety of yours might become a reality.” 
 
 Vers. 41-44. “I do not utter these reproaches against you 
 from (disappointed) ambition, but because I have perceived 
 what a want of all right feeling towards God les at the root 
 of your unbelief.” — d0£av mapa avOp.|] These words go to- 
 gether, and stand emphatically at the beginning of the sentence, 
 because there is presupposed the possibility of an accusation 
 on this very point. Comp. Plato, Phaedr. p. 282 A; see also 
 1 Thess. ii. 6. — od AapB.] we. “I reject it,” as in ver. 34.— 
 éyvaKa vma&s] “ cognitos vos habeo; hoc radio penetrat corda 
 auditorum,” Bengel. — 7. ayam. t. Oeod] If they had love to 
 God in their hearts (this being the summary of their law ), 
 they would have felt sympathy towards the Son, whom the 
 Father (ver. 43) sent, and would have received and recognised 
 Him. The article is generic; what they lacked was love to 
 God. — év éavtots] in your own hearts; it was an excellence 
 foreign to them, of which they themselves were destitute—a mere 
 theory, existing outside the range of their inner life. — Ver. 43. 
 Actual result of this deficiency with reference to their relation 
 towards Jesus, who had come in His Father's name, 7.e. as His 
 appointed representative, and consequently as the true Christ 
 
264 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 (comp. vii. 28, vili. 42), but who was unbelievingly despised 
 by them, whereas, on the other hand, they would receive a 
 false Messiah. — év TO dvdpate TO idl] in his own name, 
 z.e.in his own authority and self-representations, not as one 
 commissioned of God (which He of course is alleged to be), 
 consequently a false Messiah ;1 rpevdévupos avijp avribeos, 
 Nonnus. He will be received, because he satisfies the oppo- 
 site of the love of God, viz. self-love (by promising earthly 
 elory, indulgence towards sin, etc.). For a definite prophecy 
 of false Messiahs, see Matt. xxiv. 24. To suppose a special 
 reference to Barkochba (Hilgenfeld), is arbitrarily to take for 
 granted the uncritical assumption of the post-apostolic origin of 
 this Gospel. According to Schudt, Jiidische Merkwurdigkett. vi. 
 27-30 (in Bengel), sixty-four such deceivers have been counted 
 since the time of Christ. — Ver. 44. The reproach of unbelief 
 now rises to its highest point, for Jesus in a wrathful question 
 denies to the Jews even the ability to believe. — duets] has a 
 deeply emotional emphasis: How is it possible for you people 
 to believe? And the ground of this impossibility is: because 
 ye receive honour one of another (S0€av mapa adx. are taken 
 together), because ye reciprocally give and take honour of 
 yourselves. This ungodly desire of honour (comp. xii 43 ; 
 Matt. xxiii. 5 sqq.), and the indifference, necessarily concomi- 
 tant therewith, towards the true honour, which comes from 
 +od, must so utterly blight and estrange the heart from the 
 divine element of life, that it is not even capable of faith. 
 That divine do€a is indeed the true glory of Israel (Luthardt), 
 comp. Rom. i. 29, but it is not here designated as such, as 
 also the do£av mapa adr. AauwB. does not appear as a designa- 
 tion of the “ spwrious-Judaism,” which latter is in general a 
 wider conception (Rom. ii. 17 ff). — tiv mapa, «.7.d.] for it 
 consists in this, that one knows himself to be recognised and 
 esteemed of God. Comp. as to the thing itself, xii. 43; Rom. 
 ii. 29, iii. 23. — mapa Tod povov Oeod] not “from God alone” 
 
 1 This reference of the text to false Messiahs is not too narrow (Luthardt, 
 Briickner), because #24 corresponds to the ia7avée ; and this, as the entire 
 context shows, indicates that the appearance of the Messiah had taken place. 
 This also tells against Tholuck’s general reference to false prophets. Many 
 of the Fathers have taken the words to refer to Antichrist. 
 
CHAP, V. 45-47. 265 
 
 (Grotius, De Wette, Godet, and most others, from an erroneous 
 reference to Matt. iv. 4, 10), but from the alone (only) God. 
 Cf. xvii. 3 ; Rom. xvi. 26; 1 Tim. vi. 15, The adj. shows the 
 exclusive value of this honour. —ov €ntTettre] The transition 
 from the participle to the finite tense gives greater independence 
 and impressiveness to the second clause. 
 
 Vy. 45-47. In concluding, Jesus sweeps away from under 
 their feet the entire ground and foundation upon which they 
 based their hope, by representing Moses, their supposed saviour, 
 as really their accuser, seeing that their unbelief implied 
 unbelief in Moses, and this latter unbelief made it impos- 
 sible for them to believe in Jesus. This last completely 
 annihilating stroke at the unbelievers is not only in itself, 
 but also in its implied reference to the cause of the hostility 
 of the Jews (ver. 15), “maxime aptus ad conclusionem,” 
 Bengel.— 7 Soxetre] as you might perhaps believe from my 
 previous denunciation. — catnyopyow| not of the final judg- 
 ment (Ewald and early writers), where certainly Christ is 
 Judge; but in general, Jesus, by virtue of His permanent in- 
 tercourse with the Father, might at any time have accused 
 them before Him. — éotuv 6 katny. bu.) The emphatic éotu : 
 there exists your accuser Moses—he as the representative of the 
 law (not of the whole of the O. T., as Ewald thinks); there- 
 fore not again the future, but the present participle used as a 
 substantive, expressing continuous accusation. — vmets] has 
 tragic emphasis. — 7A 7/kate] ye have set your hope, and do 
 hope; comp. ili. 18, and see on 2 Cor.1.10. As a reward for 
 their zeal for the law, and their obedience (Rom. ii. 17 ff., ix. 
 31 f.), the Jews hoped for the salvation of the Messianic king- 
 dom, towards, the attainment of which Moses was accordingly 
 their patron and mediator. 
 
 Ver. 46. Proof that Moses was their accuser. Moses wrote 
 of Christ, referring to Deut. xviii. 15, and generally to all the 
 Messianic types (comp. iil. 14) and promises of the Pentateuch, 
 and to its general Messianic import (Luke xxiv. 44; Rom. x. 
 5); in this, that they did not believe Christ (ae. that He spoke 
 the truth), is implied that they rejected the truth of what Moses 
 had written concerning Him, This unbelief is the subject- 
 matter of Moses’ accusation, Well says Bengel: “ Non juvit 
 
266 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Judaeos illud: Credimus vera esse omnia, quae Moses scripsit. 
 Fide explicita opus erat.” — Ver. 47. dé] Further conclusion 
 from the unbelief with regard to Moses, pointed out in ver. 46. 
 Thus the discourse ends with a question implying hopeless- 
 ness. —The antithesis is not between ypdupmacuy and pyyace 
 (as if the writings were easier of belief than the words), but 
 between éxetvov and émots (faith in him being the necessary 
 condition of faith in Christ); while the distinction of Moses 
 having written (comp. ver. 46), and Christ spoken, simply pre- 
 sents the historical relation. Were the antithesis between 
 ypapp. and pyu., these words would have taken the lead; 
 were it between both, in ypay. and pyy., and at the same time 
 in éxevov and éwots likewise, this twofold relationship must 
 have been shown, thus perhaps: tols ypdppyaow tots éxeivov 
 ... TOUS pywace Tots Emots. 
 
 Note. — The discourse, vv. 19-47, so fully embodies in its 
 entire progress and contents, allowing for the necessary Johan- 
 nine colouring in the mode of representation, those essential 
 doctrines which Jesus had to advocate in the face of the 
 unbelieving Jews, and exhibits, in expression and practical ap- 
 plication, so much that is characteristic, great, thoughtful, and 
 striking, that even Strauss himself does not venture to deny that 
 it came substantially from the Lord, though as to its form he 
 attaches suspicious importance to certain resemblances with the 
 first Epistle ; but such a suspicion is all the less weighty, the 
 more we are warranted to regard the Johannine idiosyncrasy as 
 developed and moulded by the vivid recollection of the Lord’s 
 words, and as under the guidance of His Spirit, which pre- 
 served and transfigured that recollection. The reasons which 
 lead Weisse to see nothing in the discourse but synoptical 
 matter, and B. Bauer to regard the whole as a reflection of the 
 later consciousness of the Church, while Gfrorer supposes a real 
 discourse, artificially shaped by additions and formal alterations, 
 consist so much of arbitrary judgments and erroneous explana- 
 tions and presuppositions, that sober criticism gains nothing by 
 them, nor can the discourse which is attacked lose anything. 
 Certainly we have in it “a genuine exposition of Johannine 
 theology” (Hilgenfeld, Hvang. p. 273), but in such a manner, 
 that this is the theology of Christ Himself, the miracle of heal- 
 ing at Bethesda being historically the occasion of the utterance 
 in this manner of its main elements. This miracle itself is 
 indeed by Baur regarded as a fictitious pretext, invented for 
 
CHAP. V. 19-47. 267 
 
 the delivery of the discourse, so much so that “ every feature in 
 it seems to have been intended for this purpose” (p. 159); and 
 this in the face of the fact that no reference whatever is made 
 (in ver. 19 ff.) to the point in connection with the miracle at 
 which the Jews took offence, viz. the breaking of the Sabbath 
 (ver. 16). Nothing whatever is specially said concerning miracles 
 (for gpy« denotes a far wider conception), but the whole discourse 
 turns upon that Messianic faith in the person of Jesus which 
 the Jews refused to entertain. The fundamental truths, on this 
 occasion so triumphantly expressed, “were never taught by 
 Him so distinctly and definitely as now, when the right oppor- 
 tunity presented itself, at the very time when, after the Baptist’s 
 removal, He came fully forth as the Messiah, and was called 
 upon, quietly and comprehensively, to explain those highest of 
 all relations, the explanation of which was previously demanded.” 
 Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 298 f.; comp. his Johann. Schr. I. 206 ff. 
 At this crisis of His great mission and work, the references in 
 the discourse to the Baptist, and the apologetic statements con- 
 cerning His life-giving work and the divine witness of Scrip- 
 ture, connect themselves so necessarily with His historical 
 position, that it cannot even remotely suffice to suppose, with 
 Weizsicker, p. 282, that the discourse was composed simply with 
 an eye to the synoptical statements of Matt. xi. 
 
268 TILE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 CHAPTE RANMA 
 
 Ver. 2. éupwv] Lachm. and Tisch.: édewpouv, after A. B. D. L. 
 x. Cursives, Cyr. The origin of this reading betrays itself 
 through A., which has ééewpwv, judging from which éépay must 
 have been the original reading. The éewp. was all the more 
 easily received, however, because John invariably uses the 
 Perfect only of épé.—After this Elz. has airod, against 
 decisive testimonies. — Ver. 5. éyopécousv] Scholz, Lachm., 
 Tisch., read dyopdéowuer, in favour of which the great majority 
 of the testimonies decide. — Ver. 9. ¢v] is wanting in B. D. L. x. 
 Cursives, Or. Cyr. Chrys. and some Verss. Rejected by 
 Schulz after Gersd., bracketed by Lachm., deleted by Tisch. 
 But how easily might it have been overlooked, because super- 
 fluous, and coming after the syllable ON! For é Lachm and 
 Tisch. read és, tollowing decisive witnesses; transcribers were 
 easily led to make changes according to the grammatical gender. 
 —Ver. 11. After diéduxe Elz. has rors wadnraic, of 6 wadgrai, 
 words which are wanting in A. B. L. &.* Cursives, Fathers, and 
 almost all Versions. An enlargement in imitation of Matt. xiv. 
 19 and parallels. — Ver. 15. Lachm. and Tisch. have rightly 
 deleted airéy after rojc.; an addition wanting in A. B. L.». 
 Cursives, Or. Cyr. — Ver. 17. od] B. D. L. ». Cursives, Versions 
 (not Vulgate), and Fathers read odrw. So Lachm. and Tisch. 
 A gloss introduced tor the sake of more minute definition. — 
 Ver. 22. iduv] Lachm. reads sido, after A. B. Chrys. Verss. 
 (L. sd0v); D. ». Verss. read ofdev. The finite tense was introduced 
 to make the construction easier.— After % Elz. Scholz have 
 éxeivo eig 0 evePnouv of wadyrai abrov, against very important 
 authorities. An explanatory addition, with many variations in 
 detail. — wAo7ov] Elz.: adcmépiov against decisive witnesses. 
 Mechanical and careless (vv. 17, 21) repetition borrowed from 
 what precedes. — Ver. 24. wirof] Elz. xa/ airo/, against decisive 
 witnesses. — Ver. 36. we is bracketed by Lachm., deleted by 
 Tisch. The authorities against it are insufficient (only A. x. 
 among the Codices), and it might easily have been left out after 
 TE. — Ver. 39. After we Elz. has rarpés, the omission of which 
 is overwhelmingly attested. An addition. — Ver. 40. roi 
 marpé¢ wov| So also Lachm. and Tisch. The Textus Receptus 
 is rod wéuxpavros ue. Preponderance of testimony is in favour 
 
CHAP, VI. 269 
 
 of the former; the latter is a repetition from ver. 39, whence 
 also, instead of yd&p, the received reading 62 was inserted. — 
 ry éox. nu | According to A. D. K. L,, etc., vy +. éoy. ju. is to 
 be restored, as in ver. 39, where év, indeed, is wanting in many 
 witnesses ; but that it was the original reading is indicated by 
 the reading airéy (instead of aire). In ver. 54, also, é is 
 sufficiently confirmed, and (against Tisch.) is to be in like 
 manner restored.— Ver. 42. The second otros has against it 
 B. C. D. L. T. Cursives, Verss. Cyr. Chrys.; bracketed by 
 Lachm. But it might easily have been overlooked as being 
 unnecessary, and because the similar OTI follows.— Ver. 45. 
 &xovcoa¢] &xotwv, Which Griesbach received and Scholz adopted, 
 has important authority, but this is outweighed by the tes- 
 timonies for the Received reading. It is nevertheless to be 
 preferred ; for, considering the following wads, the Aorist 
 would easily occur to the transcribers who did not consider the 
 difference of sense. ody before 6 d&xodw is to be struck out (with 
 Lachm. and Tisch.) upon sufficient counter testimony, as being 
 a connective addition. In vv. 51, 54, 57, 58, the form acer is, 
 upon strong evidence, to be uniformly restored. — Concerning 
 the omission of the words jv éy# daow in ver. 51, see the 
 exegetical notes. — Ver. 55. For 4474%¢ Lachm. and Tisch. have 
 both times aAnéjs, which is powerfully confirmed by B. C. K. 
 L. T. Cursives, Versions (yet not the Vulgate), and Fathers 
 (even Clement and Origen). ‘The genuine danéjs, aS seeming 
 inappropriate, would be glossed and supplanted now by danééds 
 and now by &anéwq (already in Origen once). — Ver. 58. After 
 marépes, Elz. Scholz have iuay rd wéwa, Lachm. simply 7d wave, 
 both against very important testimony. An enlargement. — 
 Ver. 63. AsAdAnua] Elz. Audra, against decisive witnesses. 
 Altered because the reference of the Perfect was not under- 
 stood. Comp. xiv. 10.— Ver. 69. 6 Xpsoris 6 vidg r. b¢03| The 
 reading 6 éyis +. deod is confirmed by B. C.* D. Ls. Nonn. 
 Cosm., and adopted by Griesb. Lachm. Tisch. The Received 
 reading is from Matt. xvi. 16, whence also came the addition 
 rov Cavrog in the Elz.—Ver. 71. ’Ioxap:wryv] Lachm. and Tisch. 
 read "Ioxapimwrov, after B. C. G. L. 33, and Verss. So, after the 
 same witnesses in part, in xill. 26. But as in xiv. 22 "Ioxapiirns 
 occurs critically confirmed as the name of Judas himself (not 
 of his father), and as the genitive might easily be introduced 
 as explanatory of the name (ér) Kapirov, as 8. and many 
 Cursives actually read here), the Received reading is to be 
 retained. Had John regarded the name as designating the 
 father of Judas, it would not be apparent why he did not use 
 the genitive in xiv. 22 also. See, besides, the exegetical notes. 
 
270 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Ver. 1. The account of the Feeding is the same with that 
 given in Matt. xiv. 13 ff, Mark vi 30 ff, Luke ix. 10 ff, 
 and serves as the basis of the discourse which follows, though 
 Schweizer denies that vv. 1-26 proceed from John. The 
 discrepancies in matters of detail are immaterial, and bear 
 witness to the independence of John’s account. The author 
 of this narrative, according to Baur, must have appropriated 
 synoptical material for the purpose of his own exposition, and 
 of elevating into a higher sphere the miracle itself, which in 
 the Synoptics did not go beyond the supply of temporal 
 needs. The historical connection with what precedes is not 
 the same in John and in the Synoptics, and this must be 
 simply acknowledged. To introduce more or less synoptical 
 history into the space implied in pera tadra (Ebrard, Lange, 
 Lichtenstein, and many), is not requisite in John, and 
 involves much uncertainty in detail, especially as Matthew 
 does not agree with Mark and Luke; for he puts the mission 
 of the disciples earlier, and does not connect their return with 
 the Miraculous Feeding. To interpolate their mission and 
 return into John’s narrative, inserting the former at chap. v. 1, 
 and the latter at vi. 1, so that the disciples rejoined Jesus at 
 Tiberias, is very hazardous; for John gives no hint of it, and 
 in their silence concerning it Matthew and John agree (against 
 Wieseler and most expositors). According to Ewald, at a 
 very early date, a section, “ probably a whole sheet,” between 
 chap. v. and vi, was altogether lost. But there is no indica- 
 tion of this in the text, nor does it form a necessary pre- 
 supposition for the succeeding portions of the narrative (as 
 vii. 21). — eta tadra] after these transactions at the feast 
 of Purim, chap. v.—a77X@ev] from Jerusalem ; whither ? 
 mépay 7. Oar., «.T.A., tells us. Thuc. i 111. 2, m 67.0% 
 mopevOnvat Trépay Tod “EXAnorovtov ; Plut. Per. 19; 1 Mace. 
 ix. 34; and comp. ver. 17. To suppose some place in Galilee, 
 of starting from which aAdGev is meant (Briickner, Luthardt, 
 Henegstenberg, Godet, and earlier critics)—Capernaum, for 
 example,—is, after v. 1, quite arbitrary. “AmfdOe mépar, k.7.d., 
 rather implies: dmodur@y ‘Iepocddkvpa AO wépav, K.T-2r. 
 Comp. x. 40, xviii. 1.—7%s TuBep.] does not imply that 
 He set sail from Tiberias (Paulus), as the genitive of itself 
 
CHAP, VI. 2-4. aul 
 
 might indicate (Kiihner, II. 160), though this use of it does 
 not occur in the N. T.; it is the chorographical genitive 
 (Kriiger, xlvii. 5. 5-7), more closely describing tis Oaddoc. 
 THs Tanur. (comp. Vulg. and Beza: “mare Galilaeae, quod est 
 Tiberiadis”). Therefore “on the other side of the Galilacan 
 lake of Tiberias,’ thus denoting the southern half of the lake, 
 on the western shore of which lay the town built by Antipas, 
 and called after the emperor Tiberias. Comp. xxi. 1. In 
 Pausan. v. 7. 3, the entire lake is called Aduvn TiBepls. In 
 Matthew and Luke we find the name @adacoa tis Tan. 
 only ; in Luke v. 1: Aduvn Tevvnoapér. Had John intended 
 THs TiBepiddos not as a more exact description of the locality, 
 but only for the sake of foreign readers (Liicke, Godet, Ewald, 
 and others), it would have been sufficient to have omitted ris 
 Tadir. (comp. xxi. 1), which indeed is wanting in G. and a 
 few other witnesses. 
 
 Vv. 2, 3. "Hxordo0vGer] on this journey, continuously. — 
 éopwv] not had seen (against Schweizer, B. Crusius), but saa. 
 He performed them (ézro/ev) upon the way.—émt t. ac@.] 
 among the sick. Dem. 574. 3; Plat. Pol. iii. p. 399 A; 
 Bernhardy, p. 246. — ets ro dpos] upon the mountain which 
 was there. See on Matt. v.1. The mountain was certainly 
 on the other side of the lake, but we cannot determine the 
 locality more nearly. The loneliness of the mountain does 
 not contradict Matt. xiv. 13, nor does the eastern side of the 
 lake contradict Luke ix. 10 ff. (see in Joc.). 
 
 Ver. 4. "Eyyus] close at hand. See on v. 1. Paulus 
 wrongly renders it not long since past. See, on the contrary, 
 ii. 13, vii. 2, xi 55. The statement is intended as intro- 
 ductory to ver. 5, explaining how it happened (comp. xi, 55) 
 that Jesus, after He had withdrawn to the mountain, was 
 again attended by a great multitude (ver. 5),—a thing which 
 could not have happened had not the Passover been nigh. 
 It was another crowd (not, as is commonly assumed, that 
 named in ver. 2, which had followed Him in His progress 
 towards the lake), composed of pilgrims to the feast, who 
 therefore were going the opposite way, from the neighbour- 
 hood of the lake in the direction of Jerusalem. Thus ver. 4 is 
 not a mere chronological note (B. Crusius, Maier, Briickner, 
 
Qa THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Ewald), against which the analogy of vii. 2 (with the ody 
 following, ver. 3) is decisive ; nor is it, because every more 
 specific hint to that effect is wanting, to be looked upon as 
 referring by anticipation’ to the following discourse of Jesus 
 concerning eating His flesh and blood as the antitype of the 
 Passover (B. Bauer; comp. Baur, p. 262, Luthardt, Hengsten- 
 berg, and already Lampe).— 1) éopty +. "Iovdaiwr] Kar. 
 éfoyyjv. There is no intimation that Jesus Himself went up 
 to this feast (Liicke). See rather vii. 1. 
 
 Vv. 5, 6. According to the reading dyopdowpev, whence 
 are we to buy? deliberative conjunctive. The fact that Jesus 
 thus takes the initiative (as host, Ewald thinks, but this is not 
 enough), and takes action without the prompting of any 
 expressed need, however real, is not to be explained merely 
 on the supposition that this is an abridgment (Lticke, Neander, 
 Hengstenberg) of the synoptical account (Matt. xiv. 15); it 
 is a discrepancy, which, however, does not destroy the fact 
 that John was an eye-witness. It is purely arbitrary on 
 Baur’s part to assume the design to be that of directing 
 attention more directly to the spiritual purpose of the miracle, 
 or, with Hilgenfeld, to regard all here as composed out of 
 synoptical materials to prove the omnipotence of the Logos. 
 The most simple and obvious course is to explain the 
 representation given as flowing from the preponderating idea 
 of the Messiah’s autonomy.? See on Matt. xiv. 15. It is an 
 analogous case when Jesus Himself gave occasion to and intro- 
 duced the miracle at Bethesda, v. 6. It is a supplement to 
 the narrative in the Synoptics, that Jesus discussed with 
 Philip (i. 44) the question of bread. Why with him? 
 According to Bengel, because it fell to him to manage the 
 
 1 Comp. also Godet : Jesus must have been in the position ‘‘d’un proscrit,” 
 and could not go to Jerusalem to the Passover; He therefore saw in the 
 approaching multitudes a sign from the Father, and thought, ‘‘ Ht mot aussi, je 
 célébrerai une pdque.” This is pure invention. 
 
 2 Amid such minor circumstances, the idea might certainly supplant the more 
 exact historical recollection even in a John. We have no right, however, on 
 that account, to compare Jesus, according to John’s representation, to a house- 
 wife, who, when she sees the guests coming in the distance, thinks in the first 
 place of what she can set before them, as Hase (T%ibing. Schule, p. 4) very 
 inappropriately has done, 
 
CHAP. VI. 7-9. 273 
 
 res alimentaria, which is improbable, for Judas was treasurer, 
 xiii. 29. Judging from ver. 6, we might say it was because 
 Philip had to be tested according to his intellectual idiosyn- 
 erasy (xiv. 8 ff), and convinced of his inability to advise. 
 The wetpaferv does not signify the trial of faith (so usually, 
 even Hengstenberg), but, as adros yap 75ee shows, was a test 
 whether he could here suggest any expedient ; and the answer of 
 the disciple (ver. 7) conveys only the impression that he 
 knew of none. his consciousness, however, was intended 
 also to prepare the disciple, who so closely resembled Thomas, 
 and for whom the question, therefore, had an educative pur- 
 pose, the more readily to feel, by the new and coming miracle, 
 how the power of faith in the divine agency of his Lord 
 transcended all calculations of the intellect. This was too 
 important a matter for Jesus with respect to that disciple, to 
 allow us to suppose that mespafwv adrov is a mere notion of 
 John’s own, which had its origin among the transfiguring 
 recollections of a later time (Ewald). Hide tov pabntav 
 Tovs pdrtcTa Seopévous TAElovos SidacKadrias, Theodore of 
 Mopsuestia; in which there is nothing to suggest our attribut- 
 ing to Philip a “ simplicité naive,’ Godet.—adros] Himself, 
 without having any need to resort to the advice of another. 
 Vers. 7-9. For 200 denarwi (about 80 Rhenish Guldens, 
 nearly £7) we cannot get bread enough for them, ete. This 
 amount is not named as the contents of the purse, but generally 
 as a large swum, which nevertheless was inadequate to meet the 
 need. Different in Mark vi. 37.—Vv. 8, 9. A special 
 trait of originality. — eis é« 7. wa@nr. avtobd|] may seem 
 strange, for Philip was himself a disciple, and it is ex- 
 plained by Wassenbach as a gloss. It has, however, this 
 significance; Philip had been specially asked, and after he 
 had answered so helplessly, another from the circle of the 
 disciples, viz. Andrew, directed a communication to the Lord, 
 which, though made with a consciousness of helplessness, was 
 made the instrument for the further procedure of Jesus. — 
 matoaplov €v] who had these victuals for sale as a market 
 boy, not a servant of the company, B. Crusius. It may be 
 read one single lad (Matt. xi. 16), or even one single young 
 slave (see Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 240; Schleusner, Thas. ILI. 
 8 
 
274 TILE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 p. 160). Comp. the German ein Biirschchen (a lad), as also 
 the manner in which vavdvdv is used (Aristoph. Ran. 37; 
 Nub. 131). In which of the two senses it stands here we 
 cannot decide. In neither case can é& stand for té, but &, 
 as well as the diminutive zravdiov, helps to describe the meagre- 
 ness of the resource, the emphasis, however, being on the 
 latter; and hence éy follows, which is not to be taken as an 
 argument against its genuineness (Gersd. p. 420; Liicke, and 
 most others), though in all other places, when John uses eis 
 with a substantive (vil. 21, vili. 41, x. 16, xi. 50, xviii. 14, 
 xx. 7), the numeral has the emphasis, and therefore takes the 
 lead. But here: “one single Jad,” a mere boy, who can carry 
 little enough! dprovs «psOivovs] comp. Xen. Anab. iv. 
 5. 31; Luc. Macrob. 5. Barley bread was eaten mainly by 
 the poorer classes; Judg. vit. 13, and Studer, zm loc. ; Liv. 
 xxvll. 13; Sen. ep. xviii. 8; see also Wetstein and Kypke, I. 
 p. 368.— oydpcov] denotes generally a small relish, but in 
 particular used, as here (comp. xxi. 9, 13), of fish. It belongs 
 to later Greek. See Wetstein.— eis tocovrtovs] for so 
 many. Comp. Xen. Anab. i. 1.10: els Sucyirtovs pro Pov. 
 Vv. 10-13. Or a&vdpes] They were men only who formally 
 sat down to the meal, as may be explained from the subordi- 
 nate position of the women and children; but the feeding of 
 these latter, whose presence we must assume from ver. 4, is 
 not, as taking place indirectly, excluded.—rov dpiOpor] 
 Accusative of closer definition. See Lobeck, Paralip. p. 528. 
 — Ver. 11. evyap.] The grace before meat said by the host. 
 See on Matt. xiv. 19. There is no indication that it con- 
 tained a special petition (“that God would let this little por- 
 tion feed so many,” Luthardt, comp. Tholuck).— dvédwxe] 
 He distributed the bread (by the disciples) collectively to 
 those who were sitting; and of the fishes as much as they 
 desired..—Ver. 12. It is not given as a command of Jesus in 
 the synoptical account. As to the miracle itself? and the 
 
 1 Luther’s translation, ‘‘as much as He would,” rests upon an unsupported 
 reading in Erasmus, edd. 1 and 2. 
 
 ? By Ewald (Gesch. Chr. p. 442 sq. ed. 8) apprehended ideally, like the 
 turning of the water into wine at Cana, as a legend, upon the formation of 
 which great influence was excited by the holy feeling of higher satisfaction, 
 
CHAP, VI. 14—21. 275 
 
 methods of explaining it away, wholly or in part, see on 
 Matt. xiv. 20, 21, note, and on Luke ix. 17, and observe 
 besides on ver. 13, that according to John the twelve baskets 
 were filled with fragments of bread only (otherwise in Mark 
 vi. 43).— Luthardt, without any sanction from the text, 
 assumes a typical reference in the baskets to the twelve tribes 
 of Israel. Jesus will not have anything wasted, and each 
 apostle fills his travelling wallet with the surplus. John 
 indicates nothing further, not even that the Lord wished to 
 provide ta px SdEn davtacta tis TO yevopevoy (Euthymius 
 Zigabenus, Erasmus, and most others). 
 
 Vv. 14, 15. ‘O wpodarns, «.7.r.] the Prophet who (ac- 
 cording to the promise in Deut. xviii. 15) cometh into the 
 world, we. the Messiah.—apwaferv] come and carry Him 
 away by force (Acts vill. 39; 2 Cor. xii. 2; 1 Thess. iv. 17), 
 ae. to Jerusalem, as the seat of the theocracy, whither they 
 were journeying to the feast.—aadzsv] comp. ver. 3. He 
 had come down from the mountain on account of the feeding, 
 ver. 11.—avrés povos] as in xiii 24. See Toup. ad 
 Longin. p. 526; Weisk.; Heind. ad Charm. p. 62.—The 
 enthusiasm of the people being of so sensuous a kind, does not 
 contradict ver. 26.—The solitude which Jesus sought was, 
 according to Matt. xiv. 23, Mark vi. 46, that of prayer, 
 and this does not contradict John’s account; both accounts 
 supplement each other. 
 
 Vv. 16-21. Comp. Matt. xiv. 22 ff, Mark vi. 45 ff, 
 which do not refer to a different walking on the sea (Chrysos- 
 tom, Liicke).— @s 5é dla éyéveto] According to ver. 17, 
 the time meant is late in the evening, 7.e. the so-called second 
 evening, as in Matt. xiv. 24, from the twelfth hour until the 
 oxotia, ver. 17. See on Matt. xiv. 15.—els Td rotor] 
 
 which resulted from the participation in the bread of life partaken of by the 
 disciples after Christ’s resurrection. This is incompatible with the personal 
 recollection and testimony of John, whom Hase, indeed, supposes by some 
 accident to have been absent from the scene. With equally laboured and mis- 
 taken logic, Schleiermacher (L. J. 234) endeavours to show that ver. 26 excludes 
 this event from the category of cnueiz. Weizsiicker leaves the fact, which is 
 here the symbol of the blessing of Jesus, in perfect uncertainty ; but the descrip- 
 tion by an eye-witness of the work effected in its miraculous character, which 
 only leaves the how unexplained, does not admit of such an evasion, 
 
2G THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 into the ship, in which they had crossed over (ver. 1). In it 
 they now return to the western side of the lake. So Luthardt 
 rightly. But it does not follow that Jerusalem could not 
 have been the place of departure in ver. 1; ver. 1 rather 
 implies that they had travelled from Jerusalem to the western 
 shore of the lake, and had crossed over from thence. — 
 npxovto| They were upon their return journey, coming 
 across, but the coming was not yet completed. Lampe and 
 Paulus erroneously speak of their actual arrival, what follows 
 being taken as supplementary. In Mark vi. 45 Bethsaida is 
 named (on the western shore). An immaterial discrepancy. 
 See on Matt. xiv. 22, 23.—xal cxotia ... dunyelpeto| 
 describing how little they could have expected that Jesus 
 would come after them. — Ver. 19. @s otadlous . . . TpLa- 
 kovtTa] indicative of an eye-witness, and almost agreeing 
 with pécov in Matt. xiv. 24, for the lake was forty stadia or 
 one geographical mile wide (Josephus, Bell. iii, 10. 7).— 
 Mewpotae and épo7@.] Correlatives; quite unfavourable 
 to the naturalistic interpretation, according to which ézu +. 
 @anr. is said to mean not on the sea, but towards the sea (so 
 Paulus, Gfrorer, and many, even B. Crusius; but see, on the 
 contrary, note on Matt. xiv. 25).— Ver. 21. #0@eNov, «.7.r.] 
 comp. i. 44; but observe the Imperfect here. After Jesus 
 had reassured them by His call, they wish to take Him “into 
 the ship, and straightway (while entertaining this é@édew) the 
 ship is at the land, t.e. by the wonder-working power of Jesus, 
 both with respect to the distance from the shore, which was 
 still far off, and the fury of the sea, which had just been 
 raging, but was now suddenly calmed. The idea that Jesus, 
 to whom the disciples had stretched out their hands, had just 
 come on board the ship, introduces a foreign element (against 
 Luthardt and Godet), for the sake of bringing the account 
 into harmony with Matthew and Mark. The discrepancy with 
 Matthew and Mark, according to whom Christ was actually 
 received into the ship, must not be explained away, especially 
 as in John a more wonderful point, peculiar to his account, is 
 introduced by the «at edféws, etc., which makes the actual recep- 
 tion superfluous (Hengstenberg, following Bengel, regards it as 
 implied), An unhappy attempt at harmonizing renders it, “ they 
 
 a | 
 
CHAP, VI. 16—21. 207 
 
 willingly received Him” (Beza, Grotius, Kuinoel, Ammon, ete. ; 
 see, on the contrary, Winer, p. 436 [E. T. p. 586]; Butt- 
 mann, WV. 7. Gk. p. 321 [E. T. p. 375]), which cannot be 
 supported by a supposed antithesis of previous unwillingness 
 (Ebrard, Tholuck), but would be admissible only if the text 
 represented the will and the deed as undoubtedly simul- 
 taneous. See the passages given in Sturz, Lew Xen.; Ast, 
 Lex. Plat. J. 596. John would in that case have written 
 €Gérovtes ody EhaBov. — eis ijv UmAyov] to which they were 
 intending by this journey to remove.—The miracle itself cannot 
 be resolved into a natural occurrence,’ nor be regarded as a 
 story invented to serve Docetic views (Hilgenfeld); see on 
 Matt. xiv. 24, 25. The latter opinion appears most erro- 
 neous, especially in the case of John,” not only generally be- 
 cause his Gospel, from i. 14 onwards to its close, excludes 
 all Docetism, but also because he only introduces, with all 
 brevity, the narrative before us by way of transition to what 
 follows, without taking pains to lay emphasis upon the 
 miraculous, and without adding any remark or comment, and 
 consequently without any special doctrinal purpose; and thus 
 the attribution of the occurrence of any symbolical design, 
 eg. prophetically to shadow forth the meetings of the risen 
 Lord with His disciples (Luthardt), or the restless sea of the 
 world upon which Christ draws nigh to His people after long 
 delay (Hengstenberg), is utterly remote from a true exegesis. 
 Weizsicker’s narrowing of the event, moreover,—abstracting 
 the miraculous element in the development of the history, 
 —into an intervention of the Lord to render help, does such 
 violence to the text, and to the plain meaning of the evan- 
 gelist, that the main substance of the narrative would be thus 
 explained away. The design, however, which Baur propounds, 
 viz. that the greedy importunity of the people might be set 
 forth, only to experience the cold hand of denial, and to bring 
 out the spiritual side of the miracle of the feeding, would not 
 
 1 Ewald probably comes to that conclusion, for he takes é¢swpoder, ver. 19, to 
 denote a mere vision (phantasmagoria ?), and igof7éncay to signify disquietude of 
 conscience; ‘‘ He finds them not pure in spirit.” 
 
 2 Who, moreover, in the deviations from Matthew and Mark, possesses the 
 deciding authority (against Marcker, p. 14). 
 
278 THE GOSPEL OF JOIN. 
 
 have required this miraculous voyage in order to its reali- 
 zation. 
 
 Vv. 22-24. The complicated sentence (so seldom occurring 
 in John; comp. xiii. 1 ff, 1 John i. 1 ff) here proceeds in 
 such a manner that the o dyAos which, without further govern- 
 ment, stands at the head as the subject of the whole, is again 
 taken up’ in ver. 24 by 6rz ody eldev 6 OyXos, while ver. 23 
 is a parenthesis, preparing the way for the passing over of the 
 people in the following clause. The participial clause, ‘dav 
 éte... amHdOov, is subordinate to the éornxws mépav Tt. Oax., 
 and gives the explanation why the people expected Jesus on 
 the next day still on the east side of the lake. John’s narra- 
 tive accordingly runs thus: “ The neat day, the people who were 
 on the other side of the lake, because (on the previous evening, 
 ver. 16 f.) they had seen that no other ship was there save only 
 the one, and that Jesus did not get into the ship with His dis- 
 ciples, but that His disciples only sailed away, [but other ships 
 came from Tiberias near to the place, etc.]—when now the people 
 saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, finding them- 
 selves mistaken in their expectation of meeting with Him 
 still on the eastern shore, they themselves embarked wn the ships,” 
 etc. As to details, observe further, (1) that wépay +. Oar. in 
 ver. 22 means the eastern side of the lake in ver. 1, but in 
 ver. 25 the western; (2) that idev is spoken with reference to 
 the previous day, when the multitude had noticed the departure 
 of the disciples in the evening, so that the conjecture of e/dés 
 (Ewald) is unnecessary; that, on the contrary, dts ody cider, 
 ver. 24, indicates that they became aware to-day,—a difference 
 which is the point in the cumbrously constructed sentence 
 that most easily misleads the reader; (3) that the transit of 
 the ships from Tiberias, ver. 23, occurred while the people were 
 still on the eastern shore, and gave them an appropriate oppor- 
 tunity, when they were undeceived in their expectation, of 
 looking for Jesus on the western shore; (4) that adro/, apsi, 
 
 1 On the usual resumptive od», see Winer, p. 414; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 177. 
 2 Jesus was not there, because, though they did not think of His going away, 
 He did not show Himself anywhere ; the disciples were not, because they could 
 not have remained unobserved if they had come back again from the other side ; 
 
 and such a return could not have taken place in the aaarus wAcsmpios, for these 
 latter came not from Capernaum, but from Tiberias, 
 
- 
 
 CHAP. VI. 25, 26. 279 
 
 indicates that, instead of waiting longer for Jesus to come to 
 them, they themselves set out, and availed themselves of the 
 opportunity presented of looking for Jesus on the other side, 
 by embarking in the ships that had arrived, and sailing across 
 to Capernaum, the well-known place of our Lord’s abode ; 
 (5) that the circumstantial character of the description of 
 things throughout indicates the vivid communication of an 
 eye-witness, which John had received, and does not permit of 
 our taking the transit of the people (which, however, must not 
 be pressed as including the whole 5000) as invented to con- 
 firm the story of the walking on the sea (Strauss). 
 
 Vv. 25, 26." IIépav +. Oardoo.] in the synagogue at 
 Capernaum, ver. 59. But wépay t. Oar. has importance 
 pragmatically, as showing that it formed a subject of amaze- 
 ment to them to find Him already on the western shore. — 
 more] when ? for it must have been, at the earliest, after the 
 arrival of the disciples (ver. 22); and in this lay the in- 
 comprehensible how? no other boat having crossed, and the 
 journey round by land being too far. They have a dim 
 impression of something miraculous; “quaestio de tempore 
 includit quaestionem de modo,’ Bengel. Jesus does not enter 
 upon their question, nor gratify their curiosity, but immediately 
 charges them with the unspiritual motive that prompted them 
 to seek Him, in order to point them to higher spiritual food. 
 For yéyovas, venisti, see on i. 15.— ody... dXXA] not “non 
 tam ...quam” (Kuinoel, etc.) ; the dre eldete ony. is absolutely 
 denied. Comp. Fritzsche, ad Marc. Hac. II. p. 773. In the 
 miraculous feeding they should have seen a divinely significant 
 reference to the higher Messianic bread of life, and this ought 
 to have led them to seek Jesus ; but it was only the material 
 satisfaction derived from the miraculous feeding that brought 
 them to Him, as they hoped that He would further satisfy 
 their carnal Messianic notions. — onpeta] They had seen the 
 outward miracle, the mere event itself, but not the spiritual 
 significance of it,—that wherein the real essence of the 
 oxpetov, in the true conception of it, consisted. The plural 
 is not intended to include the healings of the sick, ver. 2 
 
 1 See, concerning all the occurrences, ver. 26 ff., Harless, Luther. Zeitschrift, 
 1867, p. 116 fi. 
 
280 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 (Bengel, Liicke, and most others), against which see ver. 4, 
 but refers only to the feeding, as the antithesis aA 671 shows, 
 and it is therefore to be taken generically, as the plural of 
 category. 
 
 Ver. 27. “ Strive to obtain, not the food which perisheth, but 
 the food which endureth unto life eternal.” The activity and 
 labour of acquiring implied in épyafeo@au (laborando sibi com- 
 parare; comp. épyag. ta émitndea, Dem. 1358.12; épyaé. 
 papa, Palaeph. xxi. 2; épyag. Oncavpovs, Theodot. Prov. xxi. 
 6; see especially Stephan. Zhes. Hd. Hase, III. p. 1968) con- 
 sists, when applied to the everlasting food, in striving and 
 struggling after it, without which effort Jesus does not bestow 
 it. We must come believingly to Him, must follow Him, must 
 deny ourselves, and so on. Then we receive from Him, in 
 ever-increasing measure, divine grace and truth, by a spiritual 
 appropriation of Himself; and this is the abiding food, which 
 for ever quickens and feeds the inner man; the thing itself 
 not being really different from the water, which for ever 
 quenches thirst (iv. 14). See on Spdaaus, iv. 32, also, and the 
 ovpavios tpopy in Philo, de profug. p. 749; Allegor. p. 92. 
 According to this view, the thought conveyed in épyafecOaz, 
 as thus contrasted with that of d#ceu on the other side, cannot 
 be regarded as strange (against De Wette) ; both conceptions 
 rather are necessary correlatives. Phil. ii, 12, 13.—-79v 
 atvoANAvp.| not merely in its power, but in its very nature ; 
 it is digested and ceases to be (Matt. xv. 17; 1 Cor. vi. 13). 
 On the contrast, tT. wévova. eis €. ai, comp. iv. 14, xii. 25. — 
 éoppay.| sealed, i.e. authenticated (see on iii. 33), namely, as 
 the appointed Giver of this food ; in what way ? see v. 36-39. 
 —o Oeds] emphatically added at the end to give greater 
 prominence to the highest authority. 
 
 Vv. 28, 29. The people perceive that a moral requirement 
 is signified by tyv Bpocw tr. pévovoar, etc.; they do not 
 understand what, but they think that Jesus means works, 
 which God requires to be done (épya 7. Geod, comp. Matt. 
 vi. 33; Rev. ii, 26; Baruch ii. 9; Jer. xlviii. 10). There- 
 fore the question, “ What are we to do, to work the works 
 required by God?” (which thou seemest to mean). “Epya- 
 CecOau épya, “to perform works,’ very common in all Greek 
 
CHAP. VI. 30, 31. 281 
 
 (see on iii, 21); épyaf. here, therefore, is not to be taken as 
 in ver. 27. Ver. 29. See Luthardt in the Stud. u. Krit. 
 1852, p. 333 ff. Instead of the many épya Oeod which 
 they, agreeably to their legal standing-point, had in view, 
 Jesus mentions only one épyov, in which, however, all that 
 God requires of them is contained—the work (the moral act) 
 of faith. Of this one divinely appointed and all-embracing 
 work—the fundamental virtue required by God—the manifold 
 épya tov Oeod are only different manifestations. — In the 
 purpose expressed by tobro... tva there lies the idea: “ This 
 is the work which God wills, ye must believe.’ Comp. v. 50, 
 myoy bap xvin 3; 1 John iv; 17, v.23." See. on Phill 2m 
 And this fundamental requirement repeatedly recurs in the 
 following discourses, vv. 35, 36, 40, 47, ete. 
 
 Vv. 30, 31. Ovv] What doest thou, therefore, as a sign ? 
 for they knew well enough that by Ov adméort. éxetvos He 
 meant Himself, and that, too, as Messiah. Hence also the 
 emphatic ov, thou, on thy part. The question itself does not 
 imply that it is asked by those who had not seen the miracu- 
 lous feeding the day before (Grotius), or by prominent Jews 
 in the synagogue (Kuinoel, Klee). Moreover, this demand 
 for a sign after the miracle of the feeding must not be re- 
 garded as contradictory and unhistorical (Kern, B. Bauer, 
 Weisse), nor as a proof of the non-Johannine origin (Schweizer), 
 or non-miraculous procedure (Schenkel), in the account of the 
 feeding. For the questioners, in their dva/c@yovs (Chrysostom), 
 indicate at once (ver. 31), that having been miraculously fed 
 with earthly food, they, in their desire for miracles, require 
 something higher to warrant their putting the required faith 
 in Him, and expect a sign from heaven, heavenly bread, such 
 as God had given by Moses. Thus they explain their own 
 question, which would be strange only if ver. 31 did not 
 immediately follow. Their eagerness for Messianic miraculous 
 attestation (vv. 14,15) had grown during the night. This 
 also against De Wette, who, with Weisse, concludes that this 
 discourse was not originally connected with the miraculous 
 feeding ; see, on the contrary, Briickner.—7é épydfn] a sar- 
 castic retorting of the form of the requirement given, vv. 27, 
 29. Not to be explained as if it were ré od épy. (De Wette), 
 
282 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 but what dost thou perform (as onpetov) ?—-yeypayup.] a 
 free quotation of Ps. lxxvill. 24; comp. ev. 40, Ex. xvi. 4, 
 where the subject of &dwxev is God, but by the medium of 
 Moses, this being taken for granted as known (ver. 32). The 
 Jews regarded the dispensing of the manna as the greatest 
 miracle (see Lampe). As they now regarded Moses as in 
 general a type of Christ (Schoettgen, Hor. II. p. 475), they 
 also hoped in particular, “ Redemtor prior descendere fecit 
 pro iis manna; sic et redemtor posterior descendere faciet 
 manna.” Midrash Coheleth, f. 86. 4. 
 
 Vy. 32, 33. Jesus does not mean to deny the miraculous 
 and heavenly origin of the manna in itself (Paulus), nor to 
 aroue polemically concerning the O. T. manna (Schenkel), but 
 He denies its origin as heavenly in the higher ideal sense 
 (comp. Tov addn@vov). The antithesis is not between the dayjp 
 and the xupiws ovpaves (Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, 
 Grotius, and most others), but between the type and the anti- 
 type in its full realization. — viv] your nation. —éx Tod 
 ovpavovd| here and in the second half of the verse to be 
 joined to dédwxev (and Sdidwow): “It is not Moses who dis- 
 pensed to you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father 
 who dispenseth to you from heaven that bread which is the 
 true bread.” In ver. 31, too, é« tod ovpavod is to be joined 
 with é«xev ; and observe also, that in Ex. xvi. 4 DYOwn j1D 
 belongs not to pnp, but to HD, The expression é« Tod ovp. 
 is taken from Ex. xvi. 4; for, if we follow Ps. xxviii. 24, ev. 
 40 (where nw is an attribute of bread), we should have 
 dptov ovpavod. Comp. Targ. Jonath. Deut. xxxiv. 6: “ Deus 
 fecit descendere filiis Israel panem de coelo.” — dldwcur] 
 continuously ; for Jesus means Himself and His work. — tov 
 &XnOvov] corresponding in reality to the idea. See oni. 9. 
 *"Excivos yap 0 aptos TuTLKos Hv, TpoTuTav, dnoly, eue Tov 
 avroadjnOeay dvta, Euthymius Zigabenus. This defining word, 
 placed emphatically at the end, explains at the same time the 
 negative statement at the beginning of the verse. — Ver. 33. 
 Proof that it is the Father who gives, etc. (ver. 32); for it 
 is none other than the bread which is being bestowed by God, 
 that comes down from heaven and giveth life to the world. 
 The argument proceeds ab effectu (6 xataB.... Kooy) ad 
 
CHAP. VI. 34-36. 283 
 
 causam (6 aptos Tov Ocod).—o kataPaiver, x.7.r.] refers 
 to o dptos, and states its specific property, both as to its 
 origin and working, both being essentially connected ; it does 
 not refer to Jesus (“ He who cometh down,” etc.), though, in 
 the personal application of the general affirmation, Jesus, by 
 the bread, represents, and must represent, Himself ; and hence 
 the expression “ cometh down” (against Grotius, Dav. Schulz, 
 Olshausen, Fritzsche in his Novis opusc. p. 221, Godet, and 
 others). The direct reference to Jesus would anticipate the 
 subsequent advance of the discourse (ver. 35), and would 
 require 6 cataPds (ver. 41; comp. ver. 48). See on ver. 50. 
 — bw] life. Without this bread, humanity (6 xécpos) is 
 dead in the view of Jesus—dead spiritually (ver. 35) and 
 eternally (vv. 39, 40). 
 
 Ver. 34 ff. I[dvrote] emphatically takes the lead.—The 
 request is like that in iv. 15, but here, too, without zrony 
 (against Calvin, Bengel, Lampe), which would have implied 
 unbelief in His power to give such bread. To explain the 
 words as prompted by a dim presentiment concerning the higher 
 gift (Liicke, B. Crusius, and most other expositors), is not in 
 keeping with the stiffnecked antagonism of the Jews in the 
 course of the following conversation. There is no trace of a 
 further development of the supposed presentiment, nor of any 
 approval and encouragement of it on the part of Jesus. 
 The Jews, on the contrary, with their carnal minds, are 
 quite indifferent whether anything supersensuous, and if so, 
 what, is meant by that bread. They neither thought of an 
 outward glory, which they ask for (Luthardt),—for they could 
 only understand, from the words of Jesus, something analogous 
 to the manna, though of a higher kind, perhaps “a magic 
 food or means of life from heaven” (Tholuck),—nor had their 
 thoughts risen to the spiritual nature of this mysterious bread. 
 But, at any rate, they think that the higher manna, of which 
 He speaks, would be a welcome gift to them, which they could 
 always use. And they could easily suppose that He was 
 capable of a still more miraculous distribution, who had even 
 now so miraculously fed them with ordinary bread. Their 
 unbelief (ver. 36) referred to Jesus Himself as that personal 
 bread of life, to whom, indeed, as such, their carnal nature 
 
284 IIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 was closed. — Vv. 35, 36. Explanation and censure. — éyo] 
 with powerful emphasis. Comp. iv. 26.—o dptos t. Cwijs] 
 Conv didods TH Kocu@, Ver. 33. Comp. ver. 68.—o épydp. 
 mpos we] of a believing coming (v. 40); comp. vv. 47, 44, 
 45,65. For épyou. and muctevwv, as also their correlatives 
 ov py) Tewv. and od pr Su., do not differ as antecedent and 
 consequent (Weiss), but are only formally kept apart by 
 means of the parallelism. This parallelism of the discourse, 
 now become more excited, occasioned the addition of the ov 
 pn Sunon, which is out of keeping with the metaphor 
 hitherto employed, and anticipates the subsequent turn which 
 the discourse takes to the eating of the flesh and drinking of 
 the blood. "We must not imagine that by this a superiority 
 to the manna is intended to be expressed, the manna being 
 able to satisfy hunger only (Liicke) ; for both ov yu) mew. and 
 ov py dep. signify the same thing—the everlasting satisfaction 
 of the higher spiritual need. Comp. Isa. xlix. 10.— aan 
 eirov viv] But I would have you told that, etc. Notice, 
 therefore, that 67 éwpdx., «.7.r., does not refer to a previous 
 declaration, as there is not such a one (Beza, Grotius, Bengel, 
 Olshausen, B. Crusius, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, 
 Godet, and most others: to ver. 26; Liicke, De Wette: to 
 vv. 37-40; Euthymius Zigabenus: to an wnwritten statement; 
 Ewald: to one in a supposed fragment, now lost, which preceded 
 chap. vi.; Briickner: to a reproof which runs through the 
 whole Gospel); on the contrary, the statement is itself 
 announced by elzrov (dictum velim). See, for this use of the 
 word, Bernhardy, p. 381; Kiihner, II § 443. 1. In like 
 manner xi, 42. In classical Greek, very common in the 
 Tragedians ; see especially Herm. ad Viger. p. 746.— «at 
 Ewpak. be K. OU TLaT.] ye have even seen me (not simply 
 heard of me, but even are eye-witnesses of my Messianic 
 activity), and believe not. On the first xa, comp. ix. 37, and 
 see generally Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 3. 1; Baeumlein, 
 Partik. p. 149 ff. 
 
 Vv. 37 ff Through this culpable od qiotedere, they were 
 quite different from those whom the Father gave Him. How 
 entirely different were all these latter; and how blessed 
 through me, according to the Father’s will, must their lot be!— 
 
CHAP. VI. 37—39. 285 
 
 wav] Neuter, of persons as in iii, 6, xviii. 2; 1 Cor.i 27. It 
 designates them as a “ totam quasi massam,” Bengel. —o 8/6. 
 fot 6 Tat.] viz. by the efficacious influence of His grace (vv. 
 44, 45), whereby He inclines them to come, and draws them 
 to me; ov 70 Tuyov Tpaypa 4 Tiotis 7 eis ue. GANA Ths avabev 
 Seirat poms, Chrysostom. Moral self-determination (v. 40, 
 vil. 17; Matt. xxiii. 37) may obey this influence (ver. 40), 
 and may withstand it ; he who withstands it is not given Him 
 by the Father, Phil. ii, 13. “There is implied here a humble, 
 simple, hungering and thirsting soul,’ Luther. Explanations 
 resting on dogmatic preconceptions are: of the absolute election 
 of grace (Augustine, Beza, and most others’), of the natural 
 pietatis studiwm (Grotius), and others. — wpos épé] afterwards 
 mpos pe. But €ué isemphatic. The #&evis not more (arrivera 
 jusqua moi, Godet) than édevdceras, as ver..35 already shows ; 
 comp. the following «. t. épyopevov, with which € is again 
 resumed. —ov py éxkBdro éE€o] TI certainly will not cast 
 him out, ze. will not exclude him from my kingdom on its 
 establishment ; comp. vv. 39, 40, xv. 6; also Matt. vi. 12, 
 xxii. 13. The negative expression is a Jlitotes full of love ; 
 Nonnus adds: dAdd vow yxalpovte dedéEopat.— Vv. 38, 39. 
 “How could I cast them out, seeing that I am come only to 
 fulfil the divine will? and this requires of me, not the rejection 
 of any one, but the blessed opposite.” — ody iva, «.7.r.] Comp. 
 v. 30.—Todro Sé... wéurb. we] impressive repetition of the 
 same words.—adav o dédaxe, «.7.r.] Nominative absolute, 
 unconnected with the following, and significantly put first. 
 Comp. viii. 38, xv. 2, xvii. 2; and see on Matt. vii. 24, x. 14, 
 
 1 See, on the contrary, Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 142 fi. —Schleiermacher rational- 
 izes the divine gift and drawing into a divine arrangement of circumstances ; see 
 L. J. p. 302 ff. Thus it would be resolved into the general government of the 
 world. — According to Beyschlag, p. 162, there would be in this action of the 
 Father, preparing the way for a cleaving to Christ (comp. vv. 44, 45), an oppo- 
 sition to the light-giving action of the Logos (vv. 4, 5, 9), if the Logos be a 
 personality identical with the Son. But the difference in person between the 
 Father and the Son does not exclude the harmomous action of both for each 
 other. Enlightening is not a monopoly of the Son, excluding the Father ; but 
 the Father draws men to the Son, and the Son is the way to the Father. Weiss 
 has rightly rejected as unjohannean (p. 248 f.) the idea of a hidden God, as 
 absolutely raised above the world, who has no immediate connection with the 
 finite. 
 
286 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 32, xi 36; Buttmann, WV. 7. Gr. p. 325 [E. T. p. 379). 
 Here the Perfect Sé5wxe, because spoken from the standing- 
 point of the future.—pH dor. é€& adtod] sc. tu; see 
 Fritzsche, Conject. p. 36. The conception of losing (ie. of 
 letting fall down to eternal death; see the antithesis ana, 
 etc.) is correlative to that of the dédax«é wot. Comp. xvii. 12. 
 —davactyioo, k.T.r.] of the actual resurrection at the last day 
 (comp. v. 29, xi. 24, xii. 48), which, as a matter of course, 
 includes the transformation of those still living. The designa- 
 tion of the thing is @ potiort. It is the first resurrection that 
 is meant (see on Luke xiv. 14, xx. 34; Phil. iii, 11; 1 Cor. 
 xv. 23), that to the everlasting life of the Messianic kingdom. 
 See on v. 29. Bengel well says: “hic finis est, ultra quem 
 periculum nullum.” Comp. the recurrence of this blessed 
 refrain, vv. 40, 44, 54, which, in the face of this solemn 
 recurrence, Scholten regards as a gloss. 
 
 Ver. 40. Explanation, and consequently an assigning of the 
 reason for the statement of God’s will, ver. 39; the words 
 tovTo, etc., being an impressive anaphora, and tod tatpos pov 
 being spoken instead of tod zréurp. pe, because at the close 
 Jesus means to describe Himself, with still more specitic 
 definiteness, as the Son.—o Oewp. Tov vidv x. TLoT. Eis avT.] 
 characterizes those meant by the 6 dédwxé wos. There is implied 
 in Oewp. the attenta contemplatio (rots dpPadwots tis Wuxijs, 
 Euthymius Zigabenus), the result of which is faith. Observe 
 the carefully chosen word (Tittmann, Synon. p. 121 ; Grotius, in 
 loc.). The Jews have seen Him, and have not believed, ver. 36. 
 One must contemplate Him, and believe. —éyy and dvacticw 
 are both dependent upon iva. There is nothing decisive against 
 the rendering ot cai avaot. independently (Vulgate, Luther, 
 Luthardt, Hengstenberg), but the analogy of ver. 39 does not 
 tavour it. Observe the change of tenses. The believer is said 
 to have eternal Messianic life already in its development in 
 time (see on iii. 15), but its perfect completion’ at the last 
 day by means of the resurrection; therefore dvacrjcw after 
 the éyew of the Co» aiwy.—éye] from the consciousness of 
 Messianic power. Comp. vv. 44, 54. 
 
 1 Nothing is further from John than the Gnostic opinion, 2 Tim. ii. 18, upon 
 which, according to Baur, he is said very closely to border. 
 
CHAP, VI. 41-44, 287 
 
 Vv. 41, 42. “They murmured, and this per’ ddrdijror, 
 ver. 43, against Him with reference to what He had said, viz. 
 that,’ etc. Upon all the rest they reflect no further, but ¢hzs 
 assertion of Jesus impresses them all the more offensively, and 
 among themselves they give expression half aloud to their dis- 
 satisfaction. This last thought is not contained in the word 
 itself (comp. vil. 32, 12; according to Pollux, v. 89, it was also 
 used of the cooing of doves), but in the context (oi “Iovdaiov). 
 We are not therefore, as De Wette supposes, to think of it 
 merely as a whispering. Comp. rather ver. 61; Matt. xx. 11; 
 Luke v. 30; 1 Cor. x. 10; Num. xi. 1, xiv. 27; Ecclus. x. 24; 
 Judith v. 22; Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 358.— oi Iovéaior] 
 The opposition party among the Jews were therefore among 
 the dydos (vv. 5, 22, 24). Even in the congregation of the 
 synagogue itself (ver. 59), though it included many followers of 
 Jesus (ver. 60), there may have been present members of the 
 spiritual aristocracy (see on i. 19). The assumption that the 
 oxnos itself is here called o¢ "Iovdator, on account of its re- 
 fusal to recognise Jesus (De Wette, Tholuck, Baur, Briickner, 
 Hengstenberg, Godet, and most others), is more far-fetched, 
 for hitherto the éydos had shown itself sensuously eager in- 
 deed after miracles, but not hostile —éyé eiwe o adptos 
 k.T.r.] compiled from vv. 33, 35, 38.—odros] on both 
 occasions, contemptuously. — ets] we on our part. — 
 oldapev T. Tat. x. T. wyt.| This human descent which they 
 knew (comp. Matt. xiii. 55) seemed to them in contradiction 
 with that assertion, and to exclude the possibility of its truth. 
 Heb. vii. 3 (a4adtwp apijrwp) does not apply here, because it 
 is not a question of the Messiahship of Jesus, but of His 
 coming down from heaven.— tov watépa x. THv pnt.| The 
 words, on the face of them, convey the impression that both 
 were still alive; the usual opinion that Joseph (whom subse- 
 quent tradition represents as already an old man at the time 
 of his espousal with Mary ; see Thilo, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 361) 
 was already dead, cannot, to say the least, be certainly proved 
 (comp. also Keim, Gesch. J. I. 426), though in John also he is 
 entirely withdrawn from the history. 
 
 Vv. 43, 44. Jesus does not enter upon a solution of this 
 difficulty, but admonishes them not to trouble themselves 
 
288 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 with it; they should not dwell upon such questions, but upon 
 something far higher; the “drawing” of the Father is the 
 condition of participation in His salvation—The édx«veuv is 
 not simply a strengthening of the dvdovas in vv. 37, 38, but 
 specifies the method of it, an inner drawing and leading to Christ 
 through the working of divine grace (comp. LXX. Jer. xxxi. 3), 
 which, however, does not annul human freedom, but which, by 
 means of the enlightening, animating, and impelling influence, 
 and of the instruction appropriated by the man, wins him over. 
 Comp. xii. 32. “Ed«vew (ver. 45) includes the Father's teaching 
 by His witness to Christ (Weiss), but this is not all that it com- 
 prehends; it denotes rather the whole of that divine influence 
 whereby hearts are won to the Son. In the consciousness of 
 those who are thus won, this represents itself as a holy neces- 
 sity, to which they have yielded. Comp. Wisd. xix. 4, where 
 the opposite, the attraction of evil, appears as a necessity 
 which draws them along, yet without destroying freedom. 
 See Grimm, Handb. p. 292 f Comp. also the classical 
 EAxowar Arop (Pind. Nem. iv. 56), €dxee 7d TAS dicews 
 BapBapov (Dem. 563, 14), and the like. Augustine already 
 compares from the Latin the “¢trahit sua quemque voluptas” 
 of Virgil. The word" zn ztself may denote what involves force, 
 and is involuntary (Acts xvi. 19; 3 Macc. iv. 7; 4 Mace. 
 xi. 9; Homer, J/. xi. 258; xxiv. 52,417; Soph. 0. C. 932; 
 Aristoph. Hq. 710; Plato, Rep. iv. p. 539 B, and often; see 
 Ast, Lex. Plat. I. p. 682), which is always expressed by cvpeuv 
 (comp. Tittm. Syn. p. 56 ff); but the context itself shows 
 that this is not meant ere (in the classics it may even stand 
 for invitare ; see Jacobs, ad Anthol. TX. 142). Accordingly it 
 is not, as Calvin judges, false and impious to say: “non nist 
 volentes trahi;” and Beza’s “Volumus, quia datum est, ut 
 velimus,” is true and pious only in the sense of Phil. u. 13. 
 Comp. Augustine: “non ut homines, quod fieri non potest, 
 nolentes credant, sed ut volentes ex nolentibus fiant.” — 
 o wéur. we] a specific relationship with which the saving act 
 of the érxvew essentially corresponds. — cal éy@ advactTyo®, 
 x.T.r.] the same solemn promise which we have already, vv. 
 
 1The Attics also prefer the Aorist form of faxdw to that of £axw, but they 
 form the future ?aZw rather than taxtew (xii. 32). See Lobeck, Paral. p. 35 f. 
 
CHAP. VI. 45, 46. 289 
 
 39, 40, but with the éy# of Messianic authority and power, 
 as in ver. 54. 
 
 Vy. 45, 46 serve more fully to explain éAnvew. — év Tots 
 mpod.| in volumine prophetarum, Acts vii. 42, xi. 40; Rom. 
 ix. 24. The passage is Isa. liv. 13 (a free quotation from the 
 LXX.), which treats of the divine and universal enlighten- 
 ment of Israel in the time of the Messiah (comp. Joel ii. 1 ff. ; 
 Jer. xxxi. 33, 34): “and they shall be wholly taught of God.” 
 The main idea does not lie in mwayvtes, which, moreover, in the 
 connection of the passage refers to all believers, but in dudaxntol 
 Qceod (a Deo edocti; as to the genitive, see on 1 Cor. ii. 13, 
 and Kiihner, IT. § 516, b), which denotes the divine drawing 
 viewed as enlightening and influencing. The ddaxrov Oeod 
 eivat is the state of him who hears and has learned of the 
 Father; see what follows.— mds o dKovwv, «.T.r.]| The 
 spurious ody rightly indicates the connection (against Olshau- 
 sen); for it follows from that promise, that every one who 
 hears and is taught of the Father comes to the Son, and no 
 others; because, were it not so, the community of believers 
 would not be unmixedly the dvdaxrtol Oeod. “Axovewy Tapa 
 tod mwatpos is the spiritual perception of divine instruction ; 
 the subject-matter of which, as the whole context clearly shows, 
 is the Son and His work. The communication of this revela- 
 tion is, however, continuous (hence &@xovmy), and the “having 
 learned” is its actual result, by the attainment of which 
 through personal exertion the épyeras mpés pe is conditioned. 
 One hears and has learned of the Father; in no other way 
 is one in the condition which internally necessitates a believ- 
 ing union with the Son. Comp. Matt. xi. 25 ffi—vVer. 46. 
 By this hearing and having learned of the Father, I do not 
 mean an immediate and intuitive fellowship with Him, which, 
 indeed, would render the coming to the Son unnecessary ; no; 
 no one save the Son only has had the vision oi God (comp. 
 i. 18, iii. 13, viii. 38), therefore all they who are S:daxrot 
 @eod have to find in the Son alone all further initiation into 
 God’s grace and truth. — od« drt] ovx épa, 6r4. See Hartung, 
 IL 154; Buttmann, M7. Gr. p. 318 ff (ET. p. 372] — 
 It serves to obviate a misunderstanding. — ed py, «.7.d.] except 
 He who is from God, He hath seen the Father (that is, in His 
 
 ft 
 
290 TIIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 pre-existent state).’ Comp. Gal. i 7.— 6 ov mapa rt. 4] 
 for He is come from the Father, with whom He was (i. 1). 
 See on i. 14, viii. 42, vii. 29, xvi. 27. 
 
 Vv. 47, 48. Jesus had given His answer to the murmurings 
 of the Jews in vv. 43-46. He now returns to the subject 
 which He had left, and first repeats in solemn asseveration 
 what He had said in ver. 40; then He again brings forward 
 
 the metaphor of the bread of life, which sets forth the same 
 thought. 
 
 Vv. 49, 50. Ot warépes, «.7.d.] “regeruntur Judaeis 
 verba ipsorum ver. 31,” Bengel.—amé@avov...amo0davy]a 
 diversity in the reference which is full of meaning: loss of 
 carthly life, loss of eternal life, whose development, already 
 begun in time (see on iii. 15), the death of the body does not 
 interrupt (xi. 25).— otros éotiv 0 dptos, K.T.r.] of this 
 nature is the bread which cometh down from heaven: oxe (Tis) 
 must eat thereof, and (in consequence of this eating) not die. 
 This representation is contained in odtos ... tva; see on ver. 29. 
 The expression, however, is not conditional (€dv tis), because 
 the telic reference (iva) does not belong to the last part merely. 
 The present participle shows that Jesus does not mean by 
 
 ‘This clear and direct reference to His pre-human state in God (comp. vv. 
 41, 42), and consequently the agreement of Christ’s witness to Himself with the 
 view taken by the evangelist, should not have been regarded as doubtful by 
 Weizsiicker. The divine life which was manifested in Christ upon earth was 
 the personal life of His pre-existent state, as the prologue teaches, otherwise 
 John had not given the original sense of the declaration of the Lord regarding 
 Himself (to which conclusion Weizsicker comes in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1862, 
 p- 674), which, however, is inconceivable in so great and ever-recurring a lead- 
 ing point. It is the transcendent recollection in His temporal self-conscious- 
 ness of that earlier divine condition, which makes itself known in such declara- 
 tions (comp. iii. 11). See on viii. 38, xvii. 5. His certitude concerning the 
 perfect revelation does not first begin with the baptism, but stretches back with 
 its roots into His pre-human existence. See, against Weizsiicker, Beyschlag also, 
 p. 79 f., who, however (comp. p. 97 f.), in referring it to the sinless birth, and 
 further to the pre-existent state of Jesus, as the very image of God, is not just 
 to the Johannean view in the prologue, and in the first epistle, as well as here, 
 and in the analogous testimonies of Jesus regarding Himself. See on ver. 62. 
 Beyschlag renders : ‘‘ because He is of God, He has seen God in His historical 
 existence.” The far-fetched thought is here brought in, that only the pure in 
 heart can see God. Comp. rather i. 18, iii. 13, 31, 32, viii. 26, 38. See, against 
 this view of the continuous historical intimacy with God, Pfleiderer in Hilgen- 
 feld’s Zettschr. 1866, p. 247 fi. ; Scholten, p. 116 if 
 
CHAP. VI. 51. aon 
 
 cvtTos His own concrete Personality, which is not named til 
 ver. 51, but intends to set forth and exhibit the true bread from 
 heaven generally, according to its real nature (comp. ver. 58). 
 On tis, one, comp. Dem. Phil. i. 8, and Bremi, p. 118; Ellendt, 
 Lex. Soph. II. 883; Niigelsbach on the Iliad, p. 299, ed. 3. 
 Ver. 51. Continuation of the exposition concerning the 
 bread of life, which He is. “I am not only the life-giving 
 bread (6 dptos T. wis, ver. 48); I am also the living bread ; 
 he who eats thereof shall live for ever,’ because the life of 
 this bread is imparted to the partaker of it. Comp. v. 26, 
 xiv. 19. Observe the threefold advance: (1) 6 dprtos vr. 
 Cons, ver. 48, and o dptos o Say, ver. 51; (2) the universal 
 kataPaivev, ver. 50, and the historically concrete xcataBas, 
 ver. 51; (3) the negative wy damoOavy, ver. 50, and the 
 positive Sjcetas eis Tov aidva, ver. 51.— Kal 6 dpros Oé by 
 éy@ deco] Christ zs the bread, and He will also give it (con- 
 sequently give Himself); how this is to take place, He now 
 explains. The advance lies in dy éy@ Sécw; hence also the 
 kat O€ which carries on the discourse, and the emphatic repeti- 
 tion of the thought, jv éya décw. Translate: “and the bread 
 also which I I on my part, éyo) will give [instead now of 
 saying: 7s myself, He expresses what He means more defi- 
 nitely] 7s my flesh,” etc. Concerning cal... dé, atgue etiam, 
 kat being and, and 6é expressing the idea on the other hand, 
 see In particular Kriiger, and Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1. 3; 
 Baiumlein, Partik. p. 149. It often introduces, as in this case, 
 something that is specially important. See Bremi, ad Dem. 
 Ol. II. p. 173. Observe, moreover, that what Christ promises 
 to give is not external to His own Person (against Kling in the 
 Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 142 f.).— 4 cadp& pov éativ] He 
 promises to give His flesh, a.e. by His bloody death, to which 
 He here, as already in ii. 19, and to Nicodemus, ii. 14, 15, 
 prophetically points. Yap& is the living corporeal substance ; 
 this His living corporeity Christ will give, give up, that it may 
 be slain (jv éy Saow), in order that thereby, as by the offer- 
 ing of the propitiatory sacrifice, He may be the means of pro- 
 
 1 Not that by the death of Jesus the barrier of the independent individuality 
 existing between the Logos and the human being is destroyed. See against this 
 explanation (Késtlin, Reuss), so foreion to John Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 65 fi. 
 
292 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 curing eternal life for mankind, ¢e. waép (for the benefit of) 
 Ths ToD Koowov Cwhns; comp. 1 John iv. 10,14. But as the 
 atoning efficacy which this giving up of His flesh has, must be 
 inwardly appropriated by faith, Christ’s odp&, according to the 
 figure of the bread of life, inasmuch as He means to give it up 
 to death, appears as the bread which He will give to be par- 
 taken of (dv éyo déow). In the repeated dwcw there lies the 
 éxovotov of the surrender (Euthymius Zigabenus). But 
 observe the difference of reference, that of the first dao to the 
 giving up for eating, and that of the second to the giving up 
 to death. That eating is the spiritual manducatio,’ the inward, 
 real appropriation of Christ which, by means of an ever-con- 
 tinuing faith that brings about this appropriation, and makes 
 our life the life of Christ within us (Gal. ii. 20; Eph. iii. 17), 
 takes place with regard to all the benefits which Christ “ carne 
 sua pro nobis in mortem tradita et sanguine suo pro nobis 
 effuso promeruit.” Forma Concordiae, p. 744. On the idea 
 of the life of Christ in believers, see.on Phil. i. 8. On capé, 
 so far as it was put to death in Christ by His crucifixion, 
 comp. 1 Pet. iii. 18; Eph. ii. 14; Col. i, 20 ff.; Heb. x. 20. 
 
 1 The words 4» tyS 3aow are wanting in BCDLTN, a few cursives, several 
 versions (following Vulg. It.), and Fathers (even Origen twice), and are rejected 
 by Lachm., Ewald, Tisch., Baeumlein, Harless. The preponderance of testimony 
 is certainly against them ; and in omitting them we should not, with Kling, take 
 " oa&pé wou as in apposition with 6 dpros (see, on the contrary, Riickert, Abendm. 
 p- 259), but simply render it: ‘‘ the bread which I shall give is my flesh for the 
 life of the world” (the former is the latter for the life of the world). But this 
 short pregnant mode of expression is so little like John, and the repetition of a» 
 yw daow is so completely Johannean, that I feel compelled to retain the words 
 as genuine, and to regard their omission as a very early error, occasioned by the 
 occurrence of the same words a little before. Following &, Tischendorf now 
 reads, after x. 6 apr. 3: dy iya ddow Uaip ris Tov xdcpoou CuHs, 4 cape mov 
 izriv, This is manifestly an arrangement resorted to in order to asssign to the 
 words dx. 7. +. x. Cw%s the place which, in the absence of ay tye daew, seemed to 
 belong to them. Baeumlein supposes that ir. +. +, x. Cwis is an ancient gloss. 
 
 2 The expression ‘‘ resurrection of the flesh” cannot be justified from John vi., 
 as Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 460 [E. T. p. 541], supposes. If it cannot be justified 
 by anything in St. Paul, which Delitzsch admits, it ean least of all by anything 
 in St. John. When, indeed, Delitzsch says (p. $39), ‘The flesh of Christ be- 
 comes in us a tincture of immortality, which, in spite of corruption, sustains the 
 essence of our flesh, in order one day at the resurrection to assimilate also His 
 manifestation to itself,” we can only oppose to such fancies, ‘‘ Ne ultra quod 
 scriptum est,” 
 
CHAP. VI. 51. 293 
 
 This explanation, which refers the words to Christ’s propi- 
 tiatory death, is that of Augustine, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, 
 Beza, Aretius, Grotius, Calovius, Wetstein, Lampe, and most 
 others, also of Kuinoel, Liicke, Tholuck, Ammon, Neander, 
 J. Miller (Diss. 1839), Lange, Ebrard, Dogma v. Abendm. I. 
 p. 78 ff.; Keim, in the Jahrb. f. d. Theol. 1859, p. 109 ff. ; 
 Weiss; comp. also Ewald, Kahnis (Dogmat. I. p. 624), Godet." 
 Others, following Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, have 
 understood by oap& the entire human manifestation of the 
 Logos, which He offered up for the world’s salvation, including 
 therein His death (so in modern times, in particular, Paulus, 
 D. Schulz, Lehre vom <Abendm., B. Crusius, Frommann, De 
 Wette, Baeumlein; comp. Schleiermacher, Z. J. p. 345, and 
 Reuss). Not only is the future 6éc opposed to this view, 
 but the drinking of the blood in ver. 53 still more distinctly 
 points to Christ’s death as exclusively meant ; because it would 
 not be apparent why Jesus, had He intended generally that 
 collective dedication of Himself, should have used expressions 
 to describe the appropriation of it, which necessarily and 
 directly point to and presuppose His death. That general 
 consecration was already affirmed in éyw elus 0 apTos, K.T.r.; 
 the advance from being and giving now demands something 
 else, a concrete act, viz. His atoning death and the shedding of 
 His blood. This tells also against the profounder development 
 of the self-communication. of Jesus which is said to be meant 
 here, and is adopted by Hengstenberg and Hofmann (Schrift- 
 bew. II. 2, p. 245 ff.), following Luther ;” viz. that faith in 
 the human nature of Jesus eats and drinks the life of God, 
 or that His life-giving power is bound up in His flesh, @.e. in 
 His actual human manifestation (Briickner). Others, again, 
 
 1 Who, however, attaches great importance to the corporeal side of the real 
 fellowship of believers with Christ, by virtue of which they will become at the 
 resurrection the reproduction of the glorified Christ, referring to Eph. v. 30. 
 The eating and drinking alone are figurative, while the not merely spiritual, but 
 also bodily appropriation, must, according to him, be taken literally. This, 
 however, is not required by the dvacriew airoy, x.¢.a., ver. 54, which we already 
 had in ver. 39, and is not even admissible by ver. 63. 
 
 2 «Therefore one eats and drinks the Godhead in His human nature.—This 
 flesh does not carnalize, but will deify thee, te. give thee divine power, virtue, 
 and work, and will take away sins,” and so on (Pred. Dom, Oculi). 
 
294 _ THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 have explained it of the Lord's Supper; viz. Chrysostom, 
 Cyril, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, most of the Fathers 
 (among the Latin Fathers, Cyprian, Hilary, perhaps also Augus- 
 tine, etc.) and Catholic writers, also Klee and Maier, further, 
 Calixtus too, strongly opposed by Calovius; and among moderns, 
 Scheibel, Olshausen, Kling in the Stud. u. Krit. 1836, p. 
 140 ff.; Lindner, Kostlin, Delitzsch in Rudelbach’s Zeit- 
 schrift, 1845, ii. p. 29; Kaeuffer in the Sdchs. Stud. 1846, 
 p. 70 ff.; Kahnis, Abdendm. p. 104 ff; Luthardt; Richter 
 in the Stud. u. Krit. 1863, p. 250; further, while also calling 
 in question the genuineness of the discourse, Bretschneider, 
 Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Hilgenfeld, and many others. Thus, as 
 iii. 5 refers to baptism, we have now, it is said, a reference to 
 the second sacrament. This explanation’ has already this 
 against it, that the eating and drinking is regarded as continuous 
 (ver. 56); and, moreover, it can be maintained only by 
 surrendering the authenticity of John. But if this be assumed, 
 and the discourse be regarded as historical, Jesus could not 
 Himself speak in the manner in which He here does of the 
 Lord’s Supper. Had this been His reference, He would have 
 spoken inappropriately, and in terms which differ essentially 
 from His own mode of expression at the institution of the 
 holy meal, irrespective of the fact that a discourse upon the 
 Lord’s Supper at this time would have been utterly incompre- 
 hensible to His hearers, especially to the "Iovdaiov who were 
 addressed. Moreover, there nowhere occurs in the Gospels a 
 hint given beforehand of the Supper which was to be insti- 
 tuted ; and therefore, that this institution was not now already 
 in the thoughts of Jesus (as Godet, following Bengel and 
 others, maintains), but was the product of the hour of the 
 Supper itself, appears all the more likely, seeing how utterly 
 groundless is the assumption based on ver. 4, that Jesus, in 
 the feeding of the multitude, improvised a paschal feast. To 
 this it must be added, that the promise of life which is attached 
 to the eating and drinking could apply only to the case of 
 
 1 A view which Luther decidedly opposed previous to the controversy regard- 
 ing the Lord’s Supper. In the headiug or gloss he says: ‘‘ This chapter does 
 not speak of the sacrament of the bread and wine, but of spiritual eating, i.e. of 
 the belief that Christ, both God and man, hath shed His blood for us.” 
 
CHAPS VE: 295 
 
 those who werthily partake. We would therefore have to 
 assume that the reporter John (see especially Kaeuffer, /.c. ; 
 comp. also Weisse, B. Crusius, Kostlin, etc.) had put this dis- 
 course concerning the Lord’s Supper into the mouth of Christ ; 
 and against this it tells in general, that thus there would be 
 on John’s part a misconception, or rather an arbitrariness, 
 which, granting the genuineness of the Gospel, cannot be 
 attributed to this most trusted disciple and his vivid recollec- 
 tions ; and in particular, that the drinking of the blood, if it 
 were, as in the J.ord’s Supper, a special and essential part, 
 would not have remained unmentioned at the very end of the 
 discourse, vv. 57, 58; and that, again, the evangelist would 
 make Jesus speak of the Lord’s Supper in terms which he 
 quite beyond the range of the N. T., and which belong to the 
 mode of representation and language of the apostolic Fathers 
 and still later writers (see the passages in Kaeuffer, p. 77 ff. ; 
 Rickert, p. 274 f.; Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 278)." This is 
 specially true of the word odp&, for which all places in the 
 N. T. referring to the Lord’s Supper (Matt. xxvi. 26 ff.; Mark 
 xiv. 22 ff.; Luke xxiv. 24 ff.; 1 Cor. xi. 23 ff.) have copa; 
 so that here accordingly there ought to have been stated the 
 identity, not of the bread and the flesh (which Baur in par- 
 ticular urges), but of the bread and the body; while with 
 reference to the blood, the element identified (the wine) ought 
 also to have been mentioned. Further, the passage thus taken 
 would speak of the literal “eating and drinking” of the flesh 
 and blood, which is a much later materializing of the N. T. 
 Kotvwvia in the Lord’s Supper; and lastly, the absolute neces- 
 sity of this ordinance, which ver. 53 ff. would thus assert, is 
 not once mentioned thus directly by the Fathers of the first 
 centuries; whereas the N. T., and John in particular, make 
 faith alone the absolutely necessary condition of salvation. 
 Had John been speaking of the Lord’s Supper, he must have 
 spoken in harmony with the N. T. view and mode of ex- 
 
 1 Hilgenfeld caiis the passages in Justin, Apol. i. 66; Ignatius, ad Smyrn. 7, 
 ad Rom. 7, an admivable commentary upon our text. They would, indeed, be 
 
 so if our evangelist himself were a post-apostolic writer belonging to the second 
 century. 
 
 ? Its limitation to the Contemfus sacramenti (Richter) is a dogmatic subterfuge 
 which has no foundation in the text. 
 
246 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 pression, and must have made Jesus speak of it in the same 
 way. But the discourse, as 7 lies before us, if taken as referring 
 to the Lord’s Supper, would be an unexampled and utterly 
 inconceivable itctepov mpotepov; and therefore even the 
 assumption that at least the same idea which lay at the root 
 of the Lord’s Supper, and out of which it sprang, is here 
 expressed (Olshausen, Kling, Lange, Tholuck, etc.; comp. 
 Kahnis, Keim, Luthardt, Hengstenberg, Ewald, Godet), is only 
 admissible so far as the appropriation of Christ’s life, brought 
 about by faith in His death, which here is enjoined with such 
 concrete vividness as absolutely necessary,’ likewise constitutes 
 the sacred and fundamental basis presupposed in the institution 
 of the Supper and forms the condition of its blessedness ; and 
 therefore the application of the passage to the Lord’s Supper 
 (but at the same time to baptism and to the efficacy of the 
 word) justly, nay necessarily, arises. Comp. the admirable 
 remarks of Harless, p. 130 ff—According to Riickert (Abend. 
 p- 291 f.), the discourse is not intended by Jesus to refer to 
 the Supper, but is so intended by John, through whose 
 erroneous and crude method of apprehension the readers are 
 supposed to be taught, whether they themselves believed in an 
 actual eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood, or whether 
 this was a stumbling-block to them. An interpretation this 
 which is neither indicated by the text nor has any historical 
 basis.—Upon the history of the interpretation of our text, see 
 Liicke, ed. 2, App. 2; Lindner, vom <Abendm. p. 241 ff.; 
 Tischendorf, De Christo pane vitae, 1839, p. 15 ff; Mack, 
 Quartalschr. 1832, 1. p. 52 ff; Kahnis, p. 114 ff; Riickert, 
 p. 273 ff. The exposition which takes it to refer to faith in 
 the atoning death forms the basis of Zwingle’s doctrine of the 
 Eucharist. See Dieckhoff, evangel. Abendmahlislehre, I. p. 440. 
 
 Vv. 52, 53. The Jews rightly add ¢ayetv, borrowing it 
 from the preceding context; but the meaning and reference 
 of the expression, which they certainly recognised as some- 
 how to be taken figuratively, are to them so indistinct, that 
 they fall into a dispute with each other (“non jam solum 
 
 1 «He makes it so that it could not be plainer, in order that they might not 
 think that he was speaking of something else, or of anything that was not before 
 their eyes; but that He was speaking of Himself.” —LUuTHER. 
 
CHAP. VI. 54, 55. 297 
 
 murmurabant uti ver. 41,” Bengel) upon the question: “ How 
 can this man give us his flesh (tv capxa, also without the 
 avtod, a gloss in Lachm.) to cat?” Not as if they had missed 
 hearing something (Luthardt: “the futurity implied in the 
 expression, ver. 51”), but they did not understand the enig- 
 matical statement. Instead now of explaining the how of 
 their question, Jesus sets before them the absolute necessity of 
 tbeir partaking, and in still more extreme terms lays down 
 the requirement, which seemed so paradoxical to them; for 
 He nows adds the drinking of His blood, in order thus to bring 
 more prominently into view the reference to His death, and its 
 life-giving power to be experienced by believing appropriation. 
 — Tod viod t. dv@p.| This prophetic and Messianic self-de- 
 signation (i. 52, ili. 13,14), which could now less easily escape 
 the notice of His hearers than in ver. 27, serves as a still more 
 solemn expression in place of pov, without, however, affecting 
 the meaning of the eating and drinking. — od« éyete Cwijv 
 év éaut.| “ye have not life in yourselves,” “life is foreign to 
 and remote from your own inner nature,’—death is the power 
 that ye have in you, spiritual and eternal death; life must 
 first, by that eating and drinking, be inwardly united with 
 your own selves. In that appropriation of the flesh and blood 
 of Jesus, this life flows forth from His life (vv. 56, 57, v. 26) ; 
 and it is attached to faith only, not to the use of any outward 
 element (comp. Harless, p. 124). 
 
 Vv. 54, 55. He now more fully explains Himself, onwards 
 to ver. 58, with regard to the saving efficacy of this spiritual 
 eating and drinking: “ He who eateth my flesh,” etc. — 0 Tpo- 
 yov] Previously the word was ¢dynte, but there is in the 
 change no special intention as if to use a stronger term (to 
 chew, to crunch), as the repetition of wivwy shows. Comp. 
 Dem. 402. 21: tpéyew cal mivev. Plut. Mor. p. 613 B; 
 Polyb. xxxii. 9. 9. Comp. also xiii. 18; Matt. xxiv. 38.— 
 €wv ai@yv.| Fuller definition of the general {« which pre- 
 cedes ; it signifies the eternal Messianic life, but the develop- 
 ment of this in time as spiritual life is included in the thought ; 
 therefore yes (ili. 15), and the result of the possession of this 
 life: dvactynow, «.7.4. Comp. ver. 40.—— Ver. 55. Proof of 
 the assertion éye... uépg; for if the flesh of Jesus were 
 
298 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 not true food (something which in very deed has nourishing 
 power), etc., the effect named in ver. 54 could not ensue. It 
 is self-evident that food for the immer man is meant; but 
 arnOns (see the critical notes) is not the same as addnOw7 
 (this would mean genuine food, food that realizes its own ideal). 
 It denotes the opposite of that which is merely apparent or 
 so called, and therefore expresses the actual fact (1 John ii. 
 27; Acts xii. 9), which the Jews could not understand, since 
 they asked ws Ovvarat, «.7.0., ver. 52. 
 
 Vv. 56, 57. A statement parallel with what precedes, 
 concerning him “who eats,’ etc, and explaining how that 
 comes to pass which is said of him in ver, 54.—év époi 
 peeves Kay@ é€v avTa@] an expression distinctively Johannean 
 of abiding, inner, and mutual fellowship (xv. 4 ff, xvii. 23; 
 1 John iii. 24, iv. 16), by virtue of which we live and move 
 continually in Christ, and Christ works and rules in our minds, 
 so that thus Christ’s life is the centre and circumference, 2.e. 
 the all-determining power of our life. — Ver. 57. Consequence 
 of this spiritual union: Jife, 7.e. true imperishable life, as pro- 
 ceeding from the Father to the Son, so from the Son to 
 believers. Observe (1) that the consequent clause does not 
 begin with cay (Chrysostom and his followers) ; but, as ver. 
 56 requires, with «. 0 tpawy. ue, so also he that eateth me; (2) 
 that in the antecedent clause the emphasis is on Cav and fa 
 (therefore azéotevAe does not introduce any strange or un- 
 natural thought, as Riickert supposes), while in the consequent 
 it is upon the subject, which accordingly is made prominent 
 by xaxeivos, he also.—o fv matyp] the living Father 
 (comp. ver. 26), the Living One absolutely, in whose nature 
 there is no element of death, but all is life —xKxdayo 6 
 dua tT. wat.| and J—by virtue of my community of essence 
 with the Father—am alive because of the Father. 8¢d& with 
 the accus. does not denote the cause (Castalio, Beza, De 
 Wette, Gess, Riickert, and several), per patrem; nor for the 
 Father (Paulus, Lange); but, according to the context, the 
 reason: because of the Father, 2.e. because my Father is the 
 Living One. See on xv. 3; Plat. Conv. p. 203 E: dvaBio- 
 oxetat Sia THY TOD TaTpos Pvow; and see Niigelsbach, J/ias, 
 p. 39 ff. ed. 3.—o tp@yov pe] This sufficed to denote the 
 
CHAP. VI. 58—60. 299 
 
 relation, and is in keeping with the transition to ver. 58 ; 
 whereas, if the discourse referred to the Lord’s Supper, the 
 eating and drinking of the flesh and blood should again have 
 been mentioned, as in vv. 53-56. Note also that o tpéyev pe 
 expresses a permanent, continuous relation, not one taking 
 place from time to time, as in the Lord’s Supper. — 9c ec] in 
 contrast with spiritual and eternal death. — dz’ éwé] on account 
 of me, because he thus takes up my life into himself. 
 
 Vv. 58, 59. A concluding summary, repeating the figure 
 from which the whole discourse arose, ver. 32.— odtTos] of 
 this nature, as explained in vv. 32-57. Comp. ver. 50; not: 
 “ this, which gives life to him who partakes of it” (Liicke) ; 
 nor: “this, t.e. my flesh and blood” (De Wette); what follows 
 requires in ovtos the idea of modality.— od Kaos, «.7.d.] 
 It is the bread that came down from heaven, but not in the 
 same way and manner that the fathers did eat heavenly bread. 
 It is quite different in the case of this bread. — Ver. 59 is 
 simply an historical observation, without any further signifi- 
 cance (Chrysostom: in order to impress us with the great 
 guilt of the people of Capernaum). That tadrTa means simply 
 the discourse from ver. 41 onwards, and that what precedes 
 down to ver. 40 was not spoken in the synagogue, but else- 
 where, upon the first meeting with the people, vv. 24, 25 
 (Ewald), would need to have been more distinctly indicated. 
 Taking John’s words as they stand, €y cvvaywyi, etc., is a 
 more definite (according to Schenkel, indeed, mistaken) sup- 
 plementary explanation of the vague wépay +. Oardoons of 
 ver. 25.— év cuvaywyn, without the Art., as in xviii. 20: 
 in synagogue ; then follows the still more detailed designation 
 of the locality, “ teaching in Capernaum.” 
 
 Ver. 60. IToArol odv] Many therefore, for in Capernaum 
 He had many adherents (ua@nraié is here used in the wider 
 sense, not of the apostles; see ver. 67).—oxAnpos] hard, 
 harsh, the opposite of waraxds (Plat. Legg. x. p. 892 B; Prot. 
 p. 331 D) ;—in a moral sense, Matt. xxv. 24; Ecclus, iii. 24; 
 3 Esdr. ii. 27; Soph. Ocd. R. 36, Aj. 1340; Plat. Locr. p. 
 104 C, and often ;—of speeches, comp. Soph. Oed. C. 778: 
 oKAnpa parOaxes A€yov; Gen. xlii. 7, xxi. 11, Aq.; Prov. xv. 1. 
 It here denotes what causes offence (cxavdanrife, ver. 61), does not 
 
300 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 comply with preconceived views, but is directly antagonistic, 
 the relation in which the assurances and demands of Jesus 
 from ver. 51 stood to the wishes and hopes of His disciples,’ 
 He had, indeed, from ver. 51 onwards, required that they 
 should eat His flesh (which was to be slain), and drink 
 His blood (which was to be shed), in order to have life. 
 By this—whether they rightly understood it or not—-they 
 felt sorely perplexed and wounded. The dloody death, which 
 was certainly the condition of the eating and drinking, was 
 an offence to them, just as in that lay the lasting offence 
 of the Jews afterwards, xii. 34; 1 Cor. i. 23; Gal. v. 11; 
 comp. also Matt. xvi. 21 ff. The explanation “difficult to 
 be understood” (Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, Grotius, 
 Olshausen) les neither in the word nor in the context, for 
 tis Svvatat, «7X. affirms: “it is a thing not to be borne, 
 to listen to the discourse,’ such insuperable offence does it 
 excite. Tholuck, following early writers, finds the offence 
 to be that Jesus seemed arrogant in making life dependent 
 upon participation in His flesh and blood. But it was not the 
 arrogant, it was the lowly and suffering, Messiah that was a 
 oxavoanrov to the Jew. As little did the offence consist in 
 the requirement that Christ “ would be all, and they were to be 
 nothing” (Hengstenberg), which, indeed, is only an abstract 
 inference subsequently drawn from His discourse. 
 
 Vv. 61, 62. "Ev éavr@] In Himself, without communica- 
 tion ; avtouatos, Nonnus. — yoyyv6.] as in ver. 41.— rept 
 tovtov] concerning this harshness of His discourse. — todo 
 bp. oxavo.| Question of astonishment: this, namely, which you 
 have found so hard in my discourse (Jesus knew what it was), 
 does this offend you? Are you so mistaken in your opinion 
 and feelings towards me? Comp. ver. 66.— éav ody Oew- 
 pire, «.7.r.] Aposiopesis, which, especially “in tam infausta 
 re” (Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 362), takes the place of the 
 impassioned statement. See on Luke xix. 41; Acts xxii 
 
 ? Not as if they had understood the eating and drinking of the flesh and blood 
 in a literal and material sense (hence the expression ‘‘ manducatio Capernai- 
 tica”’), and so nonsensical an affirmation had provoked them (Augustine, Grotius, 
 Liicke, Keim, and many others). The speakers are paénr«/; but not even the 
 "Iovdaios, ver. 52, so grossly misunderstood Jesus. 
 
CHAP. VI. 61, 62. 301 
 
 9; Rom. ix. 22. The completion of it must be derived solely 
 from the context, and therefore is not 7é é€petre or the like 
 (Nonnus, Euthymius Zigabenus, Kuinoel, and many); but 
 TOUTO Las OV TOANG aAXOV cKavdadicer (comp. Winer, p. 558 
 [E. T. p. 750]; Fritzsche, Conyect. pp. 22, 31): “ Will not this 
 impending sight serve to offend you still more?” By avaBaiveuv 
 Omou Hv TO TpoTEpoy Jesus indicates His death ; and, indeed, 
 as He—in whom Daniel’s prophecy of the Son of man was to 
 be fulfilled (comp. xu. 23; Matt. xxvi. 24)—contemplated it 
 in the consciousness of His heavenly origin and descent (iii. 
 13), of which He had already spoken in ver. 58. His death, 
 therefore, so far as it would be to Him, by means of the re- 
 surrection and ascension therewith connected, a return to the 
 Sofa which He had before His incarnation. Comp. xvii. 5, 
 and the tpwOjvar é« Tis ys, xii. 32. To the spectators, who 
 only saw the humiliating and shameful outward spectacle of 
 His death, it served only to give the deepest offence. The 
 concluding argument a minori ad majus which lies in ody, is 
 like that in iii.12. The interpretation of the ancient Church, 
 which referred the words to the corporeal ascension in and by 
 itself (so also Olshausen, Lindner, Maier, Ebrard, Kahnis, p. 
 120, Hilgenfeld, Hofmann, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, Godet, 
 Harless), would require us of logical necessity to supply, not 
 the supposed increase of offence (Baeumlein), but a question 
 expressing doubt or denial: “ would ye still take offence then ?” 
 Comp. viii. 28. But this import of the aposiopesis, which 
 even Ewald and Briickner adopt, though not explaining the 
 words merely of the ascension, has the ovv itself decidedly 
 against it, instead of which adAdd would be logically required ; 
 and the reference to the ascension as such, as an event by itsel/, 
 is totally without analogy in the discourses of Jesus, and 
 quite un-Johannean.' So also the OewpAre, in particular, is 
 against this view ; for, with the Present participle ava8aivorta, 
 it would describe the ascension expressly as a visible event (in 
 
 1 Appeal is made, but unreasonably, not only to iii. 13, but likewise to xx. 17 
 (see especially Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 1, 517, and Godet). Jesus there is 
 speaking after His death, when that blessed end was still future, in reference 
 to which before His death he was wont to describe that event as a departure and 
 
 an ascension to the Father. There, accordingly, He could not avoid mentioning 
 the ascension alone. 
 
302 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 answer to Luthardt’s observations, who explains it of the 
 ascension, but with Tholuck regards its visibility as a matter 
 of indifference, so far as the present passage is concerned), 
 though its visible occurrence is attested by no apostle, while 
 in the non-apostolic accounts (Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxiv. 51; 
 Acts i. 9) only the disciples in: the narrower sense, the twelve, 
 who are just those not meant by the “ye” in our text, are 
 represented as the eye-witnesses. On the other hand, the 
 opinion that there lies in @ewp. only the possibility of those 
 present being eye-witnesses (Kahnis, Hofmann)’ is nothing 
 more than a subtle evasion, unsupported by the éay (comp. 
 xii. 32, xiv. 3, xvi. 7), and no better than Hengstenberg’s 
 assertion (comp. Tholuck): “those who were present at the 
 ascension were the representatives of the collective body of the 
 disciples.” Parallel with dvaSaivew is the designation of the 
 death of Jesus as a going to God, vu. 33, xiii. 3, xiv. 12, 28, 
 xvi. 5, 28, xvii. 11,13. That He here describes His death 
 not according to its low and painful phase, but according to 
 the essence of its triumphant consummation as present to His 
 own consciousness, is therefore quite Johannean; comp. also 
 xvi. 5, xii. 23. The reference to the gift of the Spirit, the 
 exaltation being intended as the mediwm of effecting this 
 (Lange), is remote from the context, and is not indicated by 
 any word in the sentence, for nothing is spoken of but the 
 seeing with the eyes the future departure. — Upon 76 mportepor, 
 see on Gal. iv. 13. It refers to the period preceding His pre- 
 sent form of being, when as to the divine part of His nature, ze. 
 as the Logos, He was in heaven ;? comp. xvii. 5, 24, viii. 58. 
 
 1“ For they would certainly see Him die, but they would see Him ascend 
 only if they remained His disciples,” Hofmann. The former is as incorrect as 
 the latter. For Jesus is speaking to His Galilean disciples, and, indeed, to His 
 disciples in the wider sense (ver. 67), of whom therefore we cannot say that they 
 would certainly be present at His death in Jerusalem ; while the witnesses of 
 the ascension were not those who remained faithful to Him generally, but the 
 apostles. According to Harless, Christ means to say that they must not think 
 of His flesh and blood in His state of humiliation, but of both in His state of 
 glory. But flesh and blood is the contradictory of dee. The glorified body of 
 Christ in the form of flesh and blood is inconceivable (1 Cor. xv. 49, 50). 
 
 ? The meaning is not that ‘‘ we immediately substitute another subject” (Bey- 
 schlag, Christol. p. 29); but, in harmony with the witness of Jesus regarding 
 Himself elsewhere in John, we have given us amore definite mention of the state 
 
CHAP. VI. 63, 64. 203 
 
 Vv. 63, 64. Instead of appending to the foregoing protasis 
 its mournful apodosis (see on ver. 62), Jesus at once discovers 
 to His disciples with lively emotion (hence also the asynde- 
 ton) the growndlessness of the offence that was taken. It is not 
 His bodily form, the approaching surrender of which for 
 spiritual food (ver. 51) was so offensive’ to them, but His 
 spirit that gives life ; His corporeal nature was of no use towards 
 Cworoveiv. But it was just His bodily nature to which they 
 ascribed all the value, and on which they built all their hope, 
 instead of His life-giving Divine Spirit, ie. the Holy Spirit 
 given Him in all fulness by the Father (iii. 34), who works in 
 believers the birth from above (iil. 6), and with it eternal life 
 (comp. Rom. vill. 2; 2 Cor. iii. 6). Hence His death, through 
 which His cap& as such would disappear, was to them so 
 offensive a cxdvoadov. Observe further, that He does not say 
 TO Tvedud ov and 7 odpE pov, but expresses the above 
 thought in a general statement, the personal application of 
 which is to be to Himself. Comp. Hofmann, II. 2, p. 252. 
 Note once again that 7 cap& od« wert ovdév does not con- 
 tradict what was previously said of the life-giving participation 
 in the flesh of Jesus; for this can take place only by the 
 appropriating of the spirit of Christ by means of faith, and 
 apart from this it cannot take place at all. Rom. vii. 2, 6, 
 9, 11; 1 Cor. vi. 17. Comp. 1 John iii. 24. The flesh, 
 therefore, which “ profiteth nothing,” is the flesh without the 
 Spirit; the Spirit which “ quickeneth” is the Spirit whose 
 wherein the Son of man had His pre-existence in heaven. That He had this as 
 the Son of man, as Beyschlag, p. 85, explains (understanding it of the eternal 
 divine image, whose temporal realization Jesus, by an intuition given Him on 
 earth, knew Himself to be), the text does not say ; it says: ‘‘the Son of man, 
 i.e. the Messiah, will ascend up where He was before.” There can be no doubt, 
 if we will follow John, in what form of existence He previously was in heaven. 
 Neither is there any doubt if we ask Paul, who speaks of the pre-existence of 
 Jesus tv woph7 400. See on Phil. ii. 6 ; comp. 2 Cor. viii. 8, 9. He does not there 
 mean that He pre-existed as Jesus, but as the vids x. éeov. For the rest, comp. 
 ver. 46, vill. 58, xvii. 5, 1.18. If it be true, as Keim says (Geschichtl. Chr. 
 p- 102, ed. 3), that ‘‘ not one particle of the self-consciousness of Jesus reaches 
 back beyond His temporal existence,”’ the fundamental Christological view not 
 only of the fourth Gospel, but of Paul also, is based upon a great illusion. As to 
 the Synoptics, see on Matt. xi. 27, viii. 20. 
 
 1 Godet, according to his rendering of ver. 62: ‘‘ which you will see to vanish 
 et my ascension.” 
 
304 THE GOSPEL OF JON. 
 
 dwelling-place is the flesh, ze. the corporeal manifestation of 
 Christ, the corporeity which must be offered up in His 
 atoning death (ver. 51), in order that believers might experi- 
 ence the full power of the quickening Spirit (vii. 39). When 
 Harless, following Luther, understands by the flesh which 
 profiteth nothing, the cdp£ of Christ in His humiliation, and 
 by the quickening Spirit, “the spirit which perfectly controls the 
 flesh of the glorified Son of man,” he imports the essential point 
 in his interpretation, and this, too, in opposition to the N. T., 
 according to which the conception of cdp& is quite alien to 
 the capa tis S0&ns of the Lord, Phil. iii. 21; see 1 Cor. xv. 
 44-50; so that the cua tmvevpatixoy cannot possibly be 
 regarded as flesh pervaded by spirit (comp. 2 Cor. iii 18). 
 In no form is oap& ever ascribed to the exalted Lord. The 
 antithesis here is not between carnal flesh and glorified flesh, 
 but simply between flesh and spirit. According to others, to 
 mvevuwa is the human soul, which makes the body to have life 
 (Beza, Fritzsche in his Nov. Opuse. p. 239). But worrotody 
 must, according to the import of the preceding discourse, 
 be taken in a Messianic sense. Others say: Td mvedua is 
 the spiritual participation, 4 cap& the material (Tertullian, 
 Augustine, Rupertius, Calvin, Grotius, and most others; also 
 Olshausen, comp. Kling and Richter); but thus again the 
 peculiar element in the exposition, viz. the partaking of the 
 Lord’s Supper, is foisted in.’ Others, interpolating in like 
 manner, interpret To mvedua as the spiritual, and 7 odpé as the 
 unspiritual, sensuous wnderstanding (Chrysostom, Theophylact, 
 Euthymius Zigabenus, Mosheim, Lampe, Klee, Ammon, etc.”) ; 
 comp. Tholuck. Others differently still® “Quantopere sit 
 
 1 Kahnis (Abendm. p. 122) has explained the passage in this sense seemingly 
 in a manner most in keeping with the words: ‘‘ What imparts the power of 
 everlasting life to them who feed upon my flesh, is not the flesh as such, but the 
 spirit which pervades it.”” According to this view, the glorified flesh of Christ, 
 which is eaten in the Supper, would be described as the vehicle of the Holy 
 Spirit, and the latter, not the flesh itself, as that which gives life. Comp. also 
 Luthardt. But it is self-evident that the thought of glorified flesh has to be 
 imported from without. 
 
 2 So also Luther: ‘‘ Ye must indeed have the Spirit likewise, or obtain a 
 spiritual understanding, because it is too high and inconceivable for the flesh.” 
 See the striking remarks of Calovius against this interpretation. 
 
 8 Wieseler, on Gal. p. 445, takes od% in the sense of original sin ; sinful 
 
CHAP. VI. 63, 64. 305 
 
 hic locus variis expositionibus exagitatus, vix credibile est,” 
 Beza. — Ta pyyata & éyo, «.7.r.] This does not mean that 
 we are to hold to His words instead of to His corporeal flesh 
 (Riickert, Keim), His words which remain as a compensation 
 to us after His death (Liicke, De Wette, B. Crusius). It 
 stands (seeing that cdp& has already its full antithesis in what 
 precedes) in close connection with the following adn’ eialy && 
 twav Twes ot ov ToT., and therefore a comma only is to be 
 placed after {01 éotw. “The words which I have spoken unto 
 you” (meaning the discourse in the synagogue just ended’), 
 “so far from containing any real ground for oxdydador, are 
 rather spirit and life, 1.e. containing and revealing the divine 
 spirit in me, and the Messianic life brought about by me; 
 but the real guilt of the offence lies with you, for among you 
 are many who believe not.” We, namely, who does not believe 
 in Him as the true Messiah, who secures by His death the 
 life of the world, but expects Messianic salvation by His 
 corporeal manifestation alone, which is not to die, but to 
 triumph and reign—to him who is such a pa@nris of Jesus 
 the discourse concerning feeding upon His flesh and blood 
 can only be a stumbling-block and an offence. And of such 
 twes there were woAXol, ver. 60.— éy@ and é& tudy stand 
 in emphatic antithesis. — rveduwa éote kat wn éotiv] The 
 two predicates are thus impressively kept apart, and the desig- 
 nation by the substantive is fuller and more exhaustive (comp. 
 iii. 6; Rom. viii. 10) than would be that by the adjective 
 (mvevpatixa Kat Cwnpa, Euthymius Zigabenus).—7de. yap, 
 «.T.r.| an explanation added by John himself of the preced- 
 ing words, aA eiciv, «.7.r., which imply a further know- 
 ledge; comp. ii. 24, 25.— ot od muctevoveetr] result of 
 their wavering ; for they are wa@nrai, who, from an imperfect 
 and inconstant faith, have at last come to surrender faith 
 
 human nature can do nothing for man’s salvation ; the Spirit of God produces this. 
 But cépZ must take its stricter definition from the foregoing discourse , and if it 
 were intended as in iii. 6, odx deAsi obdév would be far too little to say of it. This 
 also tells against the similar interpretation of Hengstenberg: ‘‘ The veda is 
 the Spirit represented through Christ, and incarnate in Him, and the cape 
 humanity destitute of the Spirit.” 
 
 1! The usual but arbitrarily general rendering brought with it the reading aaad. 
 Tholuck and Ebrard have the right reference. Comp. sipnxa, ver. 65. 
 
 U 
 
306 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 altogether. They had been mpooxaipor (Matt. xiii. 21). 
 Here we have ov with the relative, then mw with the par- 
 ticiple accompanied by the article (iii. 18), both quite regular. 
 — €& apxijs] neither “from the first beginning” (Theophylact, 
 Rupertius) ; nor “ before this discowrse, and not for the first time 
 after the murmuring” (Chrysostom, Maldonatus, Jansenius, 
 Bengel, etc.); nor even “from the beginning of the acquaint- 
 ance then existing” (Grotius, De Wette, B. Crusius, Maier, 
 Hengstenberg, etc. ; comp. Tholuck, “from the very time of 
 their call”); but, as the context shows (see especially «at ris 
 €oTW, K.T.r.), from the beginning, when He began to gather dis- 
 ciples around Him (comp. i. 43, 48, i 24), consequently 
 from the commencement of His Messianic ministry. Comp. 
 xvi. 4, xv. 27. From His first coming forth in public, and 
 onwards, He knew which of those who attached themselves to 
 Him as pafnraé did not believe, and in particular who should 
 be His future betrayer. On this last point, see the note 
 following ver. 70. Were we, with Lange and Weiss, to render: 
 “ from the beginning of their unbelief,’ this would apply only 
 to disciples in constant intercourse with Him, whom He 
 always could observe with heart-searching eye,—a limitation, 
 however, not justified by the text, which rather by the very 
 example of Judas, as the sole unbeliever in the immediate 
 circle of His disciples, indicates a range beyond that inner 
 circle. 
 
 Ver. 65. See on vv. 37, 44. — dea todro] because many 
 of you believe not, and therefore, though there is in them the 
 outward appearance of discipleship, they lack the inward divine 
 preparation. — é« tod rwratp. p.] from my Father. See Bern- 
 hardy, p. 227 f; comp. Plat. Lys. p. 104 B: todro 5é pot 
 mas éx Oeod SéSotat. Soph. Philoct. 1301: tas pweéev é« Oeav 
 tuxas So0cicas. Xen. Anab.i. 1. 6; Hellen. iii, 1. 6. 
 
 Vv. 66, 67. "Ex tovtov] not: “from this time forwards” 
 (so usually even Liicke, De Wette, Hengstenberg), for a going 
 away by degrees is not described; but (so Nonnus, Luthardt) : 
 on this account, because of these words of Jesus, ver. 61 ff, 
 which so thoroughly undeceived them as regarded their earthly 
 Messianic hopes. So also xix. 12; Xen. Anab. ii. 6. 4, UL 
 3. 5, vil. 6.13. Comp. e& od, guapropter, and see generally, 
 
CHAP. VI. 68, 69. 307 
 
 concerning the é« of cause or occasion, Matthiae, II. 1334, 
 Ellendt, Lex. Soph. i. 551, who justly remarks: “His etiam 
 subest fontis, unde aliquid exoriatur, notio.” — eis Ta d7ica] 
 they went away, and went back, so that they no longer accom- 
 panied Him, but returned to the place whence they had come 
 to Him. Comp. xviii. 6, xx. 14; 1 Macc. ix. 47; Prov. 
 xxv. 9; Gen. xix. 17; Luke xvii. 31; Plato, Phaedr.p.254B; 
 Menex. p. 246 B; Polyb. i. 51. 8.— tots 5H85exa] who and 
 what they were, John takes for granted as well known. — 7) 
 Kat vmets, «.7.r.] but ye too do not wish to go away? Jesus 
 knows His twelve too well (comp. xiii. 18) to put the question 
 to them otherwise than with the presupposition of a negative 
 answer (at the same time He knew that He must except one). 
 But He wishes for their avowal, and therein lay His comfort. 
 This rendering of the question with pw is no “ pedanterie 
 grammaticale” (Godet, who wrongly renders “vous ne voulez 
 pas?”), but is alone linguistically correct (Baeumlein, Partik. 
 p. 302 f.). According to Godet, the thought underlying 
 the question is, “Jf you wish, yow can,’ which is a pure 
 invention. 
 
 Vv. 68, 69. Peter, according to the position, for which the 
 foundation is already laid in i. 43, makes the confession, and 
 with a resolution how deep and conscious! — admeXevad- 
 peOa] Future, at any time. “Da nobis alterum Te,’ Augus- 
 tine. — pjyata Cons, «.7.r.] Twofold reason for stedfastness : 
 (1) pyata ... ets, and (2) cal pets, x.7.X. Thou hast the 
 words of everlasting life (Sonv ai@viov mpokevodyvta, Euthymius 
 Zigabenus; more literally: “whose specific power it is to 
 secure eternal life”) ; an echo ot ver. 63. The pxjwata which 
 proceed from the Teacher are represented as belonging to Him, 
 a possession which He has at His disposal. Comp. 1 Cor. xiv. 
 26.— «al jmwets] and we for our part, as contrasted with 
 those who had fallen away. — wemuot. x. éyva@x.] “ the faith 
 and the knowledge to which we have attained, and which we 
 possess, is that,” etc. (Perfect). Conversely, xvii. 8; 1 John 
 iv. 16. Practical conviction may precede (Phil. iii. 10) and 
 follow (comp. vill. 32) the insight which is the product of 
 reason. The former quite corresponds to the immediate and 
 overpowering impressions by which the apostles had been won 
 
308 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 over to Jesus, chap. i. Both, therefore, are conformable with 
 experience, and mutually include, and do not exclude, each other. 
 — 6 dytos Tov Oeod (see the critical notes) : He who is conse- 
 crated of God to be the Messiah through the fulness of the 
 Spirit and salvation vouchsafed Him. See on x. 36; 1 John 
 ii. 20; comp. Mark i. 24; Luke iv. 34; Acts iv. 27; Rev. 
 iii. 7.—The similar confession, Matt. xvi. 16, is so different in 
 its occasion, connection, and circumstances, that the assumption 
 that our passage is only another version of the synoptical 
 account (Weisse and others) is unwarrantable. Who can take 
 exception to the repetition of a confession (of which the 
 apostles’ hearts were so full) upon every occasion which pre- 
 sented itself? Certainly, according to John (see already 
 i. 42 ff, il, 19), it is untenable to suppose that in our passage, 
 according to the right reading (see the critical notes), we have 
 not yet a complete and wnhesitating confession of the Messiah 
 (Ewald) ; or that the disciples had only now attained a full 
 faith in Him (Weizsiicker). We would have to assume in the 
 earlier passages of chap. i. a very awkward tatepoy mportepov 
 on the part of the evangelist,—a view in which even Holtzmann 
 acquiesces (Judenth. u. Christenth. p. 376). 
 
 Vv. 70, 71. Not a justification of the question in ver. 67, 
 nor any utterance of reflection generally, but an outburst of 
 grief at the sad catastrophe which He foresaw (ver. 64), in 
 the face of that joyous confession which the fiery Peter thought 
 himself warranted in giving in the name of them al/—The 
 question extends only as far as é£eXe&.; then comes with the 
 simple «at the mournful contrast which damps the ardour of 
 the confessing disciple. Comp. vii. 19.—Observe the arrange- 
 ment of the words, éy® and €£& jiuav impressively taking the 
 lead: Have not I (even J, and no other) chosen you the twelve 
 to myself? And of you (this one chosen by myself) one ws 
 devil! not the devil, but of devilish kind and nature. Comp. 
 Geos, i. 1. In what an awful contrast the two stand to each 
 other! The addition of rods deHdexa to duds heightens the 
 contrast, laying stress upon the great significance of the elec- 
 tion, which nevertheless was to have in the ease of one indi- 
 vidual so contradictory a result.— dvdBoros] not an in- 
 former (Theophylact, De Wette, Baeumlein), not an adversary 
 
CHAP. VI. 70, 71. 309 
 
 or betrayer (Kuinoel, Liicke, B. Crusius, and earlier writers), 
 but, in keeping with the deep emotion (comp. Matt. xvi. 
 23), and the invariable usage of the N. T. in all places 
 where dud. is a substantive (in John viii, 44, xiii, 2; 1 
 John iii. 8,10): devil, whereby antagonism to Christ is set 
 forth in its strongest manner, because in keeping with its 
 demoniacal nature. That John would have written vids, or 
 réxvov SiaBorov (viii. 44; 1 John iii. 10), is an arbitrary 
 objection, and does not adequately estimate the strength of 
 the emotion, which the expression employed, never forgotten 
 by John, fully does. — Ver. 71. deve Sé Tov, «.7.r.] He 
 spoke of, like ix. 19; Mark xiv. 71; see Stallb. ad Plat. Rep. 
 p. 363 B. As tothe name "Icxap., man of Karioth, see on 
 Matt. x. 4. Observe the sad and solemn emphasis of the full 
 name ‘IovSav Sipevos ‘Ioxapwrny, asin xiii. 22. "Ioxapudrny 
 itself is used quite as a name, as forming with “Iovd. Siuwvos 
 one expression. SBengel, therefore, without reason desiderates 
 the article rov before "Ioxap., and prefers on that account 
 the reading “Icxapiétov (see the critical notes), — jmerrev, 
 «.7.r.] traditurus erat, not as if he was already revolving it 
 in his mind (see, on the contrary, xii. 2), but according to 
 the idea of the divine destiny (Ellendt, Lew. Soph. II. p. 72). 
 Comp. vil. 39, xi 51, xii. 4, 33, xviii. 32; Wisd. xviii. 4: 
 dv av mpedrge . . . SlS0cAar; Judith x. 12. Kern has erro- 
 neously lowered the expression to the idea of possibility. — 
 els @y, K.T.r.] although he, etc. Still oy is critically doubtful 
 (omitted by Lachmann), and without it the tragic contrast is 
 all the stronger. 
 
 Note 1.—With respect to the psychological difficulty of Jesus 
 having chosen and retained Judas as an apostle, we may re- 
 mark; 1. That we cannot get rid of the difficulty by saying that 
 Jesus did not make or intend a definite election of disciples 
 (Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 370 ff.), for this would be at variance 
 with all the Gospels, and in particular with ver. 70. 2. Jesus 
 cannot have received Judas into the company of the apostles 
 with the foreknowledge that He was choosing His betrayer 
 (Hengstenberg; comp. Augustine in Ps. lv.: electi undecim 
 ad opus probationis, electus unus ad opus tentationis) ; this 
 
 ? Not equivalent to DPW WN, man of lies, as Hengstenberg maintains, after 
 Prov. xix, 5; the Greek form itself already forbids this. 
 
310 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 would be psychologically and morally inconceivable. He must 
 have had confidence that each one of the twelve, when He 
 selected them according to the variety of their gifts, tempera- 
 ments, characters, etc., would become under His influence 
 an effective supporter of His work; and, at any rate, the 
 remark in ver. 64 is only a retrospective inference from the 
 inconceivableness of so hideous an act in the case of one 
 selected by the Lord Himself. The view in question also 
 goes too far in this respect, that it attributes the crime not 
 to the dangerous disposition of Judas, but to the knowledge 
 of Christ from the outset, which would logically lead to the 
 outrageous and inadmissible thought of Daub, that He pur- 
 posely chose Judas, in order that he might betray Him. Comp. 
 Neander, Liicke, Kern, Ullmann (Stindlosigk.), Tholuck, De 
 Wette, Ewald, and many others. 3. Although the bent of 
 the man, and his inclination towards an unhallowed develop- 
 ment,—which, however, did not lead to a complete rupture 
 until late (xiii. 2)—must have been known to Christ, the 
 reader of all hearts, yet it may have been accompanied with 
 the hope, that this tendency might be overcome by the pre- 
 sence of some other apostolic qualification possessed by 
 Judas, perhaps a very special gift for external administra- 
 tion (xii. 6, xill. 28). 4. As it became gradually evident 
 that this hope was to be disappointed when the care of the 
 money affairs became a special temptation to the unhappy 
 man, it was the consciousness of the divine destiny herein 
 manifesting itself (vv. 70, 71; Acts iv. 28) which prevented 
 Jesus from dismissing Judas, and so disturbing the further 
 progress of the divine purpose; while on the part of the Lord, 
 we must, in conformity with His calling, suppose a continual 
 moral influence bearing upon Judas, though this to the last 
 remained without effect, and turned out to his condemnation,— 
 a tragic destiny truly, whose details, besides, in the want of 
 sufficient historical information concerning him before the com- 
 mission of his bloody deed, are too far removed from the reach 
 ot critical judgment to enable them to lend any support to the 
 difficulties arising therefrom as to the genuineness of vv. 70, 
 71 (Weisse, Strauss, B. Bauer), or to warrant the assumption of 
 any modification of the statement, which John, in accordance 
 with his later view, might have given to it (Liicke, Ullmann, 
 and others). 
 
 Note 2.—The aim of Jesus in the discourse vy. 26 ff. was to 
 set before the people, who came to Him under the influence of 
 a carnal belief in His miracles, the duty of seeking a true and 
 saving faith instead, which would secure a deep living recep- 
 
CITAP. VI. sit 
 
 tion of and fellowship with Christ’s personal life, and that with 
 a decision which, with an ever-advancing fulness, lays open 
 this true work of faith in the appropriation of Himself to the 
 innermost depth and the highest point of its contents and 
 necessity. Baur’s opinion, that the discourse sets forth the 
 critical process of the self-dissolution of a merely apparent faith, 
 so that the latter must acknowledge itself as unbelief, has no 
 such confession in the text to support it, especially as the tyros 
 and the ’Iovda% are not identical. See, besides, Briickner, p. 
 143 ff. Regarding the difficulty of understanding this discourse, 
 which even Strauss urges, it may partly be attributed to the 
 Johannean idiosyncrasy in reproducing and elaborating his 
 abundant recollections of the words of Jesus. The difficulty, 
 however, is partly exaggerated (see Hauff in the Stud. u. Krit. 
 1846, p. 595 ff.); and partly it is overlooked that Jesus, in all 
 references to His death and its design, had to reckon on the 
 light which the fwtwre would impart to these utterances, and 
 sowing, as He generally did, for the future in the bosom of the 
 present, He was obliged to give expression to much that was 
 mysterious, but which would furnish material for, and support 
 to, the further development and purification of faith and know- 
 ledge. The wisdom thus displayed in His teaching is justified 
 by the history, 
 
o1Z THE GOSPEL OF JON. 
 
 CH APT Rs ¥ oT 
 
 Ver. 1. were raira] B.C. D.G. K. L. X. 8 Cursives, Verss. 
 Cyr. Chrys. have these words before zepier. So Scuolz, Lachm. 
 Tisch. Considering the preponderance of testimonies, this 
 arrangement is to be preferred. Were it an alteration in imita- 
 tion of ili. 22, v. 1, vi. 1, the xa/ deleted by Tisch. would be 
 omitted to a greater extent, but it is wanting only in C.** D. &. 
 and a few Cursives and Versions.—Ver. 8. The first radrqy is 
 wanting in B. D. K. L. T. X. 8.** Cursives, Verss. Cyr. Chrys. 
 Rejected by Schulz and Rinck, deleted by Lachm. and Tisch. ; 
 a mechanical addition, in imitation of what follows. — odx] Elz. 
 Lachm. read otrw, according to the preponderance of Codd. 
 indeed (only D. K. M. &. and three Cursives have oiz), but 
 against the preponderance of Versions (even Vulg. It.), most of 
 which have oiz. Of the Fathers, Epiph. Cyr. Chrys. Augustine, 
 Jerome have odx. Porphyry, in Jerome, c. Pelag. ii. 17, already 
 found oix, and inferred from it the accusation of vacillation. 
 Just on account of this objection, oft» was introduced. — Ver. 
 9. adrots] Tisch. airés, following D.* K. L. T. X. &. Cursives, 
 Cyr. Augustine, and several Versions. Testimony preponderates 
 in favour of the Received Text, and this all the more, that airés 
 might have been easily written on the margin as a gloss from 
 ver. 10.—Ver. 12. After dAdo, Elz. Lachm. have 6, which has 
 many important witnesses against it, and is an interpolation.— 
 Ver. 15. Instead of xa/ éatuaZ. we must, with Lachm. and 
 Tisch., read 2dadu. ody, and still more decisively is ody confirmed 
 after daexp., ver. 16 (which Elz. has not).—Ver. 26. After éorw 
 Elz. has again d&Andds, against decisive testimony. An inter- 
 polation (which displaced the first dAé. in some witnesses) ; 
 comp. iv. 42, vi. 14, vii. 40.— Ver. 31. The arrangement éx 
 rou dxaov 6: woAAol éx. is, With Lachm., to be preferred. Tisch., 
 following D. &., has ona. 6: éx. éx ¢. 6. —6rs] wanting indeed in 
 B. D. L. T. U. X. &. Cursives, Verss. Cyr., and deleted by Lachm. 
 and Tisch. But it was greatly exposed to the danger of being 
 overlooked between ON and O, as well as because it was un- 
 necessary.—For jr we must, with Lachm. Tisch., following 
 decisive testimonies, read w7. In like manner, rotiray after ony. 
 is, with Lachm. Tisch., to be deleted. An addition to explain 
 
CHAP, VII. 1, 2. 313 
 
 the genitive av. For éroiqoev, zoe? (Tisch.) is too weakly attested. 
 — Ver. 33. After ow Elz. has airo#s, against decisive testimony. 
 — Ver. 39. rioredovres] Lachm. sioredoavres, upon too weak and 
 (in part) doubtful authority— After wvet~a Elz. Scholz have 
 ayiov, Lachm. dedouévov (B. and a few Verss. and Fathers). Both 
 additions are glosses ; instead of dedou. there occur also Bobby or 
 acceptum, or 2a” Biel or é@” avro7s. —— Ver AQ. worAol ov ex +. 
 ox Aov] Lachm. Tisch.: é roi oy dou ovy, following B. Dates T; 
 X. x. Verss. Origen. Rightly; the Received reading is an inter- 
 pretation. — rév Aéyov] Lachm. Tisch.: rév Aéyav nia accord- 
 ing to preponderating witnesses. The genitive and plural 
 were certainly more strange to the transcribers. — Ver. 41. 
 arAor 62] Lachm. of 62, following B. L. T. X. Cursives, Verss. 
 Origen, Cyril; Tisch. also, following weighty witnesses (even 
 D. E.&.): éAao. The original reading is o/ 6é, instead of which 
 éAAor Was mechanically repeated {rom what precedes, sometimes 
 with, sometimes without 62.— Ver. 46. olrws gAar. Gvbp. ws 
 ovrog 6 &vbp.| Lachm. has merely: Adda. obrwe dvdp., following 
 B. L. T. two Cursives, Copt. Origen, Cyr. Chrys. Aug. But how 
 superfluous would have been the addition, and how easily might 
 their omission have occurred in looking from the first év4p. at once 
 tothe second! The order, however, éAdd. o'rws (Tisch.), is attested 
 by preponderating evidence. — Ver. 49. grimardéparo:] Lachm. 
 Tisch.: érdéparo, after B. T. 8. 1, 33, Or. Cyr. Chrys. Rightly ; 
 the Received text is from the familiar passage, Gal. 11. 10, 13. 
 — Ver. 50. 6 200. vuxrdg pig adr. Lachm.: 6 2A6. 7. a. apérepoy 
 (after B. L. T. 8. a.). Nuaris is certainly an explanatory addi- 
 tion (comp. xix. 39), which also has various positions in the 
 Codd.; but <zpérepov is so decisively attested, and so necessary, 
 that Lachmann’s reading is to be regarded as the original one, 
 although the whole 6 240... . airév is not to be deleted, as Tisch. 
 (so 8.*) thinks. — Ver. 52. éyqyepra:] Lachm. Tisch. : éyefperas, 
 following B. D. K. 8. (in the margin) T. r. A. &. Cursives, Vulg. 
 It. Syr. Goth. Aeth. Or. An early emendation of the historical 
 error. Copt. Sahid. have the Futwre—Ver. 53, see on viii. 1. 
 
 Vv. 1, 2. Mera radra] after these transactions, chap. vi. 
 —ov yap n0erev ev tr. ’Iovd. wepim.| whither He would 
 already have gone for the approaching Passover (vi. 4), had 
 He not had been influenced by this consideration (comp. v. 
 
 1 As to Baur’s assaults on the historical character of the coutents of chap. vii., 
 see Hauff in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 124 fi. According to Baur, the object 
 of chap. vii. is to show how the reasoning on which unbelief ventures to enter 
 only becomes its own logical refutation. 
 
314 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 16, 18). We must not assume from this, as B. Crusius does, 
 that John regarded Judaea as the proper seat of the ministry 
 of Jesus; nor, with Schweizer, make use of the passage to 
 impugn the genuineness of vi. 1-26 ; nor say, with Briickner, 
 that John here again takes up the theme of the hostility of 
 the Jews, because this had not been dropped in what precedes 
 (vi. 11, 52), where so late as in vv. 60, 61 even, a division 
 among the disciples is mentioned, and does not immediately 
 become prominent in what follows. — To this sojourn in Galilee, 
 to describe which was beyond the plan of John’s Gospel, most 
 of the narrative in Matt. xiv. 34-xviii. belongs. It lasted 
 from a little before the Passover (vi. 4), which Jesus did not 
 attend in Jerusalem, onwards to the next feast of Tabernacles 
 (ver. 2); hence also the Imperfects. — 5é] leading on to what, 
 nevertheless, afterwards induced Him to go to Jerusalem. — 
 9» oxnvornyta] Ni3D3 3, beginning on the 15th Tisri (in 
 October), and observed with special sacredness and rejoicing. 
 Lev. xxiii. 33; Josephus, Antt. iii. 10. 4, al. ; Plutarch, Symp. 
 iv. 6. 2; Ewald, Alterth. p. 481 f.; Keil, Archaeol. I. § 85. 
 Ver. 3. The brothers (ii. 12; their names are given, Matt. 
 xii 55, Mark vi. 3) were still wnbelcevers (ver. 5), because 
 biassed by the prevailing Messianic views ;' yet, allowing to 
 themselves, because of the miracles, the possibility of His 
 being the Messiah, they are anxious—partly, perhaps, for the 
 sake of their own family—for the decision of the matter, 
 which they thought might most appropriately take place at 
 the great joyous feast of the nation, and which certainly must 
 occur, if at all, in Jerusalem, the seat of the theocracy. A 
 malicious and treacherous intention (iva dvaiupeO} mapa Tov 
 Cntovuvtwy aroxreivat avrov, Euthymius Zigabenus, also Luther) 
 is imputed to them without any foundation. They are of cold 
 Jewish natures, and the higher nature belonging to their 
 Brother is as yet hidden from them. The light of faith seems 
 
 1 Hengstenberg is not deterred even by this passage from recognising in these 
 brothers of Jesus His cousins (the sons, he thinks, of Cleopas and Mary ; but see 
 on xix. 25), and from maintaining, with all the arbitrariness and violence of exege- 
 tical impossibilities, that three of them, James, Simon, and Judas, were apostles, 
 in spite of vv. 3, 5, 7 (comp. xv. 19). Against every attempt to explain away 
 the literal brothers and sisters of Jesus, see on Matt. i. 25, xii. 46; 1 Cor. ix. 5; 
 also Laurentius, V. 7’. Stud. p. 158 ff. ; comp. Pressensé, Jesus Chr. p. 287. 
 
CHAP. VII. 3. Fl at) 
 
 not to have dawned upon them until after His resurrection, 
 and by means of that event (1 Cor. xv. 7; Actsi.14). This 
 long-continued unbelief of His own earthly brothers (comp. 
 Mark iii. 21) is important in estimating. the genuineness of 
 the accounts given in Matthew and Luke of the miraculous 
 birth and early childhood of Jesus. — «ai ot pabnrai cov] 
 This expression entirely corresponds with the position of 
 the brothers as outside the fellowship of Jesus. It does 
 not say, “thy disciples there also” (so usually; even Baur, 
 who takes it to refer to those who are first to be won over 
 in Judaea), for the word there does not occur, nor “ thy 
 disciples collectively,” but simply, “thy disciples also.” They 
 would be gathered together from all parts at the feast in 
 Jerusalem, and He should let Himself and His works be seen 
 by them also. It does not, indeed, clearly appear from this that 
 coldness began to be exhibited towards Him within the circle 
 of His disciples (Weizsicker), but rather perhaps that Jesus 
 had gone about in Galilee and worked miracles very much in 
 secret, without attracting observation, and not attended by any 
 great following, but perhaps only by the trusted twelve, which 
 silent manner of working He was perhaps led to adopt by the 
 lying in wait of the Jews (ver. 1). Comp. ver. 4: év xpu77@. 
 According to B. Crusius, the brothers speak as it nothing 
 miraculous had been done by Him in Galilee. Contrary to 
 the narrative ; and therefore & wove?s cannot mean “ what you 
 are reported to have done” (B. Crusius), but “ what thow doest,” 
 ie. during thy present sojourn in Galilee, although év xpur7@, 
 ver. 4. According to Briickner (comp. Ebrard, and substan- 
 tially also Godet), the brothers express themselves as if Jesus 
 had made and retained no disciples in Galilee, and, indeed, 
 with malicious and ironical allusion to the fact stated vi. 66, 
 and to the report (iv. 1) which they did not believe. But, 
 considering the long interval which elapsed between chap. vi. 
 and vil. 2, such allusions, without more precise indication of 
 them in the text, are all the less to be assumed. Luthardt 
 attributes to the brothers the notion that in Galilee it was 
 only the multitudes that followed Him, and that there was no 
 such personal adherence to Him as had taken place in Judaea 
 (in consequence of His baptizing). But it is incredible that 
 
316 THE GOSPEL OF JON, 
 
 they should entertain a notion so obviously ervoneous, because 
 the events which they were continually witnessing in Galilee, 
 as well as those which they witnessed in Judaea on occasion 
 of their journeys to the feast, must have been better known 
 to them. 
 
 Ver. 4. “ For no one does anything in secret, and is thereby 
 personally striving to be of a frank, open-hearted nature ;” i.e. 
 no one withdraws himself and his works also into quiet 
 secrecy, and yet strives frankly to assert his personal position 
 (as you must do if you are the Messiah). The two things 
 are, indeed, contradictory! On év rappno. comp. xi. 54; 
 Wisd. v. 1; and Grimm, Leg. Handb. p. 110 f.; Eph. vi 19; 
 Phil. i. 20; Col. ii, 15. The word does not signify “ mani- 
 fest” or “known” (De Wette, Godet, and most others), but it 
 means the opposite of a shy and ¢imid nature, which shrinks 
 from playing the part of a fearless and frank character. — rt] 
 is the simple aliquid, not magnum quid (Kuinoel and others) ; 
 and «ai does not stand for és, so that adtos would be super- 
 fluous (Grotius, Kuinoel), but is the simple “and,” while 
 autos? is ipse, thus putting the person attributively over-against 
 the work (Herm. ad Vig. p. 735 ; Fritzsche ad Rom. II. p. 75), 
 and not merely resuming the subject (Liicke, Tholuck), as also 
 it must not be taken in Matt. xii. 50. — As to e@vas év, versari 
 in (Bernhardy, p. 210), thus designating the adverbial predicate 
 as permanent, see Buttmann, WV. 7. Gr. p. 284 [E. T. p. 330]. 
 —el tavdta moveis] answers to the ta épya cov & motels, 
 ver. 3, and to ovdels... movet, ver. 4, and therefore, according 
 to the context (comp. also the consequent clause, which cor- 
 responds with cat nret adtos, x.7.r.), refers to the miracles 
 which Jesus did in Galilee. Tavrta has the emphasis: “ If 
 thou doest these things, t.e. if thy work consists in such wonder- 
 ful deeds as thou art performing here in Galilee, do not act 
 so foolishly as to confine thyself with such works within so 
 narrow and obscure a range, but present thyself openly before 
 
 'The reading airs (Lachm. following B. D.*) is only an error in transcrip- 
 tion. Ebrard, who maintains its genuineness, yet marvellously renders: ‘‘ bué 
 he strives, that it may take place openly.” Kas, meaning ‘‘ but,” is said to be 
 Johannean ; it is really neither Johannean nor Greek at all, but simply wrong. 
 
 The frequent Greek use of it in John in the sense of ‘‘ and yet” is something 
 quite different ; see on ver. 29. 
 
CHAP. VII. 5, 6. Sry 
 
 the world, as thou must do in Judaea, which during the feast 
 is the theatrum mundi.” Seavroy, like the preceding airos, 
 gives prominence to His person, as opposed to His work. But 
 the ef is not expressive of dowbt (Euthymius Zigabenus: e 
 TadTa onpeta Troveis Kal ov havrages ; Liicke, De Wette, and 
 most: as if we were to supply, it it be really as we hear ; 
 comp. also Briickner, who considers that it is intended to 
 intimate in a disagreeable manner that the fact was doubtful), 
 it is argumentative ; the brothers know that His works are of 
 an extraordinary kind, as was evident to them in Galilee 
 (qrovets denotes a permanent course of action; Bernhardy, p. 
 370); and they consider it absurd that He should withdraw 
 Himself personally from the place whither all the world was 
 flocking. 
 
 Vv. 5, 6. For not even His brothers, whom we might have 
 expected to have been foremost, etc.; otherwise they would 
 not have urged Him to the test of a public appearance. They 
 urged this upon Him all the more, because He had absented 
 Himself from the previous Passover at Jerusalem,—a fact which 
 could not have been unknown to them. —émiéort. eis avr.] 
 in the ordinary sense; they did not believe in Him as the 
 Messiah. To take the words to mean only the perfect self- 
 surrender of faith, which they had not yet attained to (Lange, 
 Hengstenberg), is an inference necessitated by the mistaken 
 notion that these brothers were noé literally brothers (see on 
 Matt. xii, 46; Acts i 14; Mark wi. 31; 1 Cor. ix. 5). 
 Nonnus admirably says: dzrevOées oldmep dddot, Xpiotov Twap- 
 pedéovtos adeApevol mep eovtes. See ver. 7.— 06 Kaspos o 
 é0s] cannot mean the time to make the journey to the feast 
 (Luther, Jansen, Cornelius a Lapide, and most expositors) ; 
 the antithesis 0 xaipos 6 vu. demands a deeper reference. It 
 is, according to the context, the time to manifest myself to the 
 world, ver. 4, by which Jesus certainly understood the divinely 
 appointed yet still expected moment of public decision con- 
 cerning Him (comp. ii. 4), which did come /istorically at the 
 very next Passover, but which He now felt in a general way was 
 not yet come. Thus the explanation of Chrysostom, Euthymius 
 Zigabenus, Lampe, and most others, who refer the words to 
 the time of His passion, is not wrong, only that this is not 
 
318 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 actually expressed, but was historically the fulfilment of what 
 is here said. The corresponding 6 Kaspdos 6 bwérepos in 
 like manner means the time for showing themselves openly to 
 the world, which the brothers might do at any time, because 
 they stood in no opposition to the world (ver. 7, xv. 19). 
 
 Vv. 7, 8. Od Sdvarat] “ psychologically 7 cannot, because 
 you are in perfect accord with it.” “One knave agrees with 
 another, for one crow does not scratch out the eye of another 
 crow,” Luther; 7d Guotoy 7H opol avdyxn adel pirov eivat, 
 Plato, Lys. p. 214 B; comp. Gorg. p. 510 B.—o kocpos] 
 not as in ver. 4, but with a moral significance (the unbelieving 
 world). Comp. here 1 John v. 19.— éy® otk avaPaivo, 
 K.T.r.| not an indefinite answer, leaving the matter spoken of 
 uncertain (Hengstenberg), but, as the Present shows, a direct 
 and categorical refusal: I, for my part, do not go up. After- 
 ward He changed (ver. 10) His intention not to go up to the 
 feast, and went up to it after all, though as secretly as pos- 
 sible. Porphyry’s reproach (in Jerome) of inconstantia is 
 based upon a correct interpretation, but is not in itself just; 
 for Jesus might alter His intention without being fickle, 
 especially as the particular motive that prompted the change 
 does not appear. In the case of the Canaanitish woman also, 
 Matt. xv. 26 ff, He changed His intention. The result of 
 this change was that once more, and for some length of time 
 before the last decision, He prosecuted His work by way of 
 opposition and instruction at the great capital of the theocracy. 
 The attempt to put into ov« the sense of ovza, or to find this 
 sense in the context, is as unnecessary as it is erroneous, 
 Either the Present ava. has been emphasized, and a viv intro- 
 duced (Chrysostom, Bengel, Storr, Liicke, Olshausen, Tholuck), 
 or ava. has been taken to denote’ the manner of travelling, 
 viz. with the caravan 07 pilgrims, or the like ; or the meaning ot 
 éopt7v has been narrowed (Apol.: or peta ihapornros ; Cyril: 
 ovy otws éoptdfwv), as, besides Hofmann, Weissag. u. Hrf. IL. 
 p. 113, and Lange, Ebrard’s expedient of understanding the 
 
 1Comp. Bengel, Luthardt (who would supply ‘‘as ye think”), Baumgarten, 
 p. 228; Baeumlein; in like manner Godet, who explains avafaivw, “I go not 
 up as King Messiah.” As if one had only to foist in such interpolations ! 
 
 2 Sce his Leben Jesu, II. 927: He did not actually visit the feast, but He 
 
CHAP, VII. 10. 319 
 
 feast “in the legally prescribed sense” does; or ov« has been re- 
 garded as limited by the following ovrw (De Wette, Maier, and 
 most), which is quite wrong, for ovww negatives generally the 
 tulfilment of the xazpos in the present (ze. during the whole time 
 ot the feast). So little does the true interpretation of the ov« 
 justify the objection of modern criticism against the evangelist 
 (B. Bauer: “ Jesuitism;” Baur: “the seeming independence 
 of Jesus is supposed thus to be preserved;” comp. also 
 Hilgenfeld), that, on the contrary, it brings into view a 
 striking trait of originality in the history.— Observe in the 
 second half of the verse the simple and emphatic repetition of 
 the same words, into which tavrnv, however, is introduced 
 (see the critical notes), because Jesus has in view a visit to 
 a future feast. Observe also the repetition of the reason 
 already given in ver. 6, in which, instead of mdpeotw, the 
 weichtier memAjpwrat occurs. 
 
 Ver. 10. ‘Qs dé avéB.] Aor. pluperfect ; Winer, p. 258 
 [E. T. p. 343]. — os ev cpurt@] He went not openly (pavepas ; 
 comp. Xen. Anab. v. 4. 33: éudavas, instead of which ev 
 éyAw follows), but so to speak secretly (incognito), not in the 
 company of a caravan of pilgrims, or in any other way with 
 outward observation, but so that His journey to that feast is 
 represented as made in secrecy, and consequently quite dit- 
 ferently from His last entry at the feast of the Passover. On 
 ws, comp. Bernhardy, p. 279; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 1004. 
 Otherwise in i. 14 (against B. Crusius). The context does not 
 intimate whether Jesus took a different road (through Samaria, 
 for instance, as Hengstenberg with Wieseler, according to Luke 
 ix. 51 ff, supposes), De Wette, Krabbe, and early writers, but 
 shows only that He was without any companions (except His 
 disciples, ix. 2). Baur (also Hilgenfeld) finds in ov da», 
 GAN ws ev KpuTTe, something Docetic, or at least (WV. 7. Theol. 
 p. 367) bordering upon Gnosticism (besides vill. 59, x. 39, 
 vi. 16), which it is easy enough to find anywhere if such texts 
 are supposed to be indications. See, on the contrary, Briick- 
 ner. — This journey finally takes Jesus away from Galilee (ae. 
 until after His death), and thus far it is parallel with that in 
 
 went up in the second half of the week of the feast, and not before. Jesus never 
 resorted to any such subtleties. 
 
320 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Matt. xix. 1, but only that far. In other respects it occurs in 
 quite a different historical connection, and is undertaken with 
 a different object (the Passover). The journey, again men- 
 tioned in Luke ix. 51 ff., is im other respects quite different. 
 The assumption that Jesus returned to Galilee between the 
 feast of Tabernacles and the feast of the Dedication (Ammon, 
 Lange; see on x. 22), is the result of a forced attempt at har- 
 monizing, which exceeds its limits in every attempt which it 
 makes to reconcile the Johannean and the synoptic accounts 
 of the last journey from Galilee to Judaea. Comp. also 
 Ewald, Gesch. Chr. p. 491, ed. 3. 
 
 Vv. 11, 12. Odv] For He did not come with the Galilean 
 travellers. — ot ’Iovdator] not all the people (Hengstenberg, 
 Baeumlein), but the opposing hierarchy ; vi. 41, 52, vii. 13, 15. 
 Their search is prompted by malice, not by aimless curiosity 
 (Luthardt); see vv. 1, 13. On éxetvos, which means the 
 well-known absent one, Luther well remarks: “Thus contemp- 
 tuously can they speak of the man, that they cannot almost 
 name Him.” The people’s judgment of Him was a divided 
 one, not frank and free, but timid, and uttered half in a 
 whisper (yoyyvoues, murmuring, ver. 32).— Observe the 
 change of number: év tots 6yNots: among the multitudes (the 
 plural here only in John) ; tov dyXov: the people. — aya0os| 
 upright, a man of honour, no demagogue, seeking to make the 
 people believe falsely that He was the Messiah. Comp. 
 Matt. xxvii. 63. 
 
 Ver. 13 is usually, after Augustine, only referred to the 
 party who judged favourably (so also Liicke, De Wette, Ewald, 
 Baeumlein; not B. Crusius, Briickner, Tholuck, Hengsten- 
 berg, Godet). All the more arbitrarily, because this was first 
 mentioned, and because the general expression €Addeu epi 
 avrod is quite against any such limitation; ovdeis onwards to 
 avrod can only be taken as corresponding to the yoyyuvopos év 
 Tois dxNots, ver. 12, which refers to both parties. Both mis- 
 trusted the hierarchy; even those hostile in their judgment 
 were afraid, so long as they had not given an official decision, 
 that their verdict might be reversed. A true indication of 
 an utterly jesuitical domination of the people. —68va tov 
 66 8or] on account of the fear that prevailed. 
 
CHAP. VII. 14, 15. 321 
 
 Ver. 14. Tis éopt. weo.] when the feast was half way 
 advanced, iyyouv TH tetdptn nuépa (or thereby): éxta yap 
 nuepas (yet see on ver. 37), éwptavoy adr, Euthymius Ziga- 
 benus. Jesus was already, before this, in the city (ver. 10), 
 but in concealment ; now He goes up into the temple. The 
 text does not say that He had only now come into Jerusalem. 
 fecovv (comp. Ex. xil. 29; Judith xii 5; 3 Macc. v. 14) 
 only here in the N. T., but very common in the classics. That 
 the day was just the Sabbath of the feast (Harduin, Bengel, 
 Kuinoel, Wieseler, Synopse, pp. 309, 329) is uncertain, as 
 pecovons is only an approximate expression. For the rest, the 
 discourses which follow, and the discussions onwards to chap. 
 x., are not (with Weizsicker) to be ranked as parallel with the 
 synoptical accounts of proceedings in Jerusalem, but are wholly 
 independent of them, and must be attributed to the vivid recol- 
 lections of the evangelist himself regarding a time unnoticed by 
 the Synoptics. Over and above this, we must, as an historical 
 necessity, expect to find many points of resemblance in the 
 several encounters of Jesus with His Jewish opponents. 
 
 Ver. 15. Of ’Iovdatoc] as in vv. 11,18. The teaching 
 ef Jesus produces a feeling of astonishment even in the 
 hierarchy ; but how? Not through the power of His truth, 
 but because He ts learned without having studied. And with 
 a question upon this point, they engage in conversation with 
 Him, without touching upon what He had taught. The ad- 
 mission, deed, which is contained in their question, and that, 
 too, face to face with the people, is only to be explained from 
 the real impression produced upon their learned conceit, so 
 that they ask not in the spirit of shrewd calculation, but from 
 actual amazement. —ypdppata] not the O. T. Scriptures 
 (Luther, Grotius, and many), but Jiteras, (theological) know- 
 ledge, which, however, consisted in scriptural erudition. Jesus 
 had doubtless exhibited this knowledge in His discourse by His 
 interpretations of Scripture. Comp. Acts xxvi. 24; Plato, 
 Apol. p. 26 D: ote adtods azreipous ypaypateyr eivat, and the 
 citations in Wetstein. Upon Sdiddoxew ypaupata, used of 
 teachers, see Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 299. — uy wepad.] 
 though he ‘has not learned them (Buttmann, N. 7. Gk. p. 301 
 [E. T. p. 350 f.]), perhaps in a Rabbinical school as Paul did 
 
 x 
 
S22 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 from Gamaliel. The members of the Sanhedrim do not thus 
 speak in conformity with the author’s representation of the 
 Logos (Scholten); they know, doubtless, from information 
 obtained concerning the course ot His life, that Jesus had not 
 studied; He was reckoned by them among the dypduparor 
 and dura, Acts iv. 13. This tells powerfully against all 
 attempts, ancient and modern, to trace back the wisdom of 
 Jesus to some school of human culture. Well says Bengel: 
 “non usus erat schola; character Messiae.” This autodidactic 
 character does not necessarily exclude the supposition that 
 during His childhood and youth He made use of the ordinary 
 popular, and in particular of the synagogal instruction (Luke 
 ii, 45). Comp. Schleiermacher, Z. J. p. 120 f, and in par- 
 ticular Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 427 ff. 
 
 Ver. 16. Jesus at once solves for them the riddle. “The 
 contradictory relation: that of learning in the case of one who 
 had been uninstructed, would be found in my teaching only if 
 it were mine,’ etc. — éu and ov« é. éuy are used in diffe- 
 rent senses: “the teaching which I give,” and “it is not my 
 possession, but God’s;” how far, see ver. 17, comp. v. 19, 30. — 
 Tov méury. pe] a carefully-chosen designation, because the 
 Sender has communicated to His messenger, and continually 
 communicates what He is to say in His name.’— ovx... 
 ara] here also not: non tam... quam, but simply excluding 
 human individuality. Comp. viii. 28, xiv. 24. 
 
 Ver. 17. The condition of knowing this is that one be willing 
 —have it as the moral aim of his self-determination—to do 
 the will of God. He who is wanting in this, who lacks funda- 
 mentally the moral determination of his mind towards God, 
 and to whom, therefore, Christ’s teaching is something strange, 
 for the recognition of which as divine there is in the ungodly 
 bias of his will no point of contact or ot sympathy; this 
 knowledge is to him a moral impossibility. But, on the con- 
 trary, the bias towards the fulfilling of God’s will is the sub- 
 
 1 Bengel (in Wiichter in the Beitr. z. Beng. Schrifterkldr. 1865, p. 125), “If 
 we may speak after the manner of men, the heavenly Father gives him a 
 collegium privatissimum, and that upon no author.” This relation, however, 
 does not justify such onesided exaggerations as those of Delitzsch, Jesus us 
 Hillel, 1866. 
 
CHAP, VII. 18 323 
 
 jective factor necessary to the recognition of divine doctrine as 
 such ; for this doctrine produces the immediate conviction that 
 it is certainly divine by virtue of the moral omovorns and 
 opotoTabeca of its nature with the man’s own nature. Comp. 
 Aristotle, Eth. ix. 3, iii. 1: 1d duotov Tod omolov éfpietat. See 
 also on iii. 21 and xv. 19. It is only in form, not in reality, 
 that the tiv aydrny T. Ocod éyew ev éavT@, v. 42, differs from 
 the Oérxew 1To OéAnpua 7. Geod mrosety here, for this latter is the 
 moral praxis of the love ot God. Accordingly, we certainly 
 have in this passage the testimoniwm internum, but not in the 
 ordinary theological sense, as a thing for those who already 
 believe, but for those who do not yet believe, and to whom 
 the divine teaching of the Lord presents itself for the first 
 time. — The @éAy is not superfluous (Wolf, Loesner, and 
 most), but is the very nerve of the relation ; note the “suavis 
 harmonia” (Bengel) between OéAy and OéAnua. The 0érnpa 
 avtovd, however, must not be limited either to a definite 
 jJorm of the revelation of it (the O. T., Chrysostom, Euthy- 
 mius Zigabenus, Bengel, Hengstenberg, Weiss, and most), or 
 to any one particular requirement (that of faith in Christ, 
 Augustine, Luther, Erasmus, Lampe, Ernesti, Storr, Tittmann, 
 Weber, Opusc., and most expositors ; comp. the saying of Augus- 
 tine, right in itself, indellectus est merces jidet), which would 
 contradict the fact that the axiom is stated without any limi- 
 tation; it must be taken in its full breadth and comprehensive- 
 ness—* that which God wills,” whatever, how, and wherever 
 this will may require. Even the natural moral law within 
 (Rom. i. 20 ff, ii, 14, 15) is not excluded, though those who 
 heard the words spoken must have referred the general state- 
 ment to the revelation given to ¢hem in the law and the 
 prophets. Finally, it is clear from vi. 44, 45, viii. 47, that 
 willingness to do God’s will must be attributed to the gift and 
 drawing of the Father as its source.— sept THs 616.) con- 
 cerning the teaching now in question, ver. 16.—éyo a7 
 é€wautov| I of myself, thus strongly marking the opposite of 
 €x Tod Geod. Comp. v. 30. The classical expression wétepov 
 ...% occurs only here in the N. T. 
 
 Ver. 18. Here is the characteristic proof and token, given 
 almost in syllogistic form, that He spoke not of Himself. — rHv 
 
324 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 d0€. r. ¢8. &n7.] that is, among others. Comp. v. 41.—6 6&4 
 CnT@v, K.T.r.] minor premiss and (obros, K.T.r.) conclusion, in 
 which, instead of the negative, “ He speaks not of Himself,’ we 
 have the wositive, “the same is true,” etc. But this positive 
 conclusion is logically correct, both in itself, because ad’ éavtod 
 Aaretv is throughout the context regarded as something untrue 
 aud immoral (Grotius: “sua cogitata proferens, cum Dei man- 
 datum prae se ferat”), and with reference to the hierarchy, 
 and some of the people, who took Jesus to be a deceiver. 
 Observe further, that o 88 &rév, «.7.r., is in the form of a 
 general proposition, corresponding with the opposite proposi- 
 tion, 0 ag’ éavtod Aadoy, x.7.r.; but it is derived exclusively 
 from the relation of Jesus, and is descriptive therefore of no 
 other than He. — abdctxia] improbditas, immorality of nature, 
 a stronger antithesis to adAnOjs than wevddos, for which tives 
 in Euthymius Zigabenus, Grotius, Bengel, B. Crusius, Maier, 
 and many take it,—a view which cannot be justified by the 
 inexact LXX. translation of Job xxxvi. 4 (Ps. lii. 4; Theod. 
 Mic. vi. 12). ’Aév«ca is the inner (€v avt#) moral basis of the 
 aeddos. For the contrast between area and dévxia, see Rom. 
 1.18,i11 8; 1 Cor. xii 6; 2 Thess. ii. 12; see also on viii. 
 46. An allusion to the charge of breaking the Sabbath (Godet) 
 is not indicated, and anticipates what follows, ver. 21. 
 
 Ver. 19. There is no ground for supposing that some unre- 
 corded words on the part of the Jews (Kuinoel and many 
 others), or some act (Olshausen), intervened between vy. 18 and 
 19. The chain of thought is this: Jesus in vv. 16-18 com- 
 pletely answered the question of the Jews, ver. 15. But now 
 He Himself assumes the offensive, putting before them the 
 real and malicious ground of all their assaults and oppression, 
 namely, their purpose to bring about His death; and He shows 
 them how utterly unjustifiable, on their part, this purpose is. — 
 The note of interrogation ought to be placed (so also Lachm. 
 Tisch.) after the first tov vouov; and then the declaration 
 of their contradictory behaviour is emphatically introduced 
 by the simple xal. In like manner vi. 70. —od Maiojs, 
 x.t.X.] The emphasis is upon Mwic. as the great and highly 
 esteemed authority, which had so strong a claim on their 
 obedience. — tov voor] without limitation; therefore neither 
 
CHAP. VII. 20-22. $25 
 
 the commandment forbidding murder merely (Nonuus, Storr, 
 Paulus), nor that against Sabbath-breaking simply (Kuinoel, 
 Klee. So once Luther also, but in his Commentary he refers 
 to Rom. viii.: “what the law could not do,” etc., which, in- 
 deed, has no bearing here), which, according to Godet, Jesus is 
 said to have already in view. —«al ovdels vy. moet Tt. 
 voor] so that you, all of you, are liable to the condemnation of 
 the law ; and instead of seeking to destroy me as a law-breaker, 
 you must confess yourselves to be guilty. — ri] why? ae 
 with what right? The emphasis cannot be upon the enclitic 
 pe (against Godet). . 
 
 Ver. 20. This interruption, no notice of which, seemingly 
 (but see on ver. 21), is taken by Jesus in His subsequent 
 words, is a characteristic indication of the genuineness of the 
 narrative. — 6 dydos] the multitude (not the same as the 
 "Iovéaior, see ver. 12), unprejudiced, and unacquainted with 
 the designs of the hierarchy, at least so far as they referred 
 to the death of Christ, consisting for the most part, probably, 
 of pilgrims to the feast. — Sasuoveov] causing in you such 
 perverted and wicked suspicions. Comp. viii. 48, x. 20. An 
 expression not of ill-will (Hengstenberg and early writers), but 
 of amazement, that a man who taught so admirably should 
 imagine what they deem to be a moral impossibility and a 
 dark delusion. It must, they thought, be a fixed idea put into 
 his mind by some daemon, a Kxaxodatpovar. 
 
 Vv. 21, 22. "Azrexpi@n] The reply of Jesus, not to the 
 ‘Iovéaior (Ebrard), but to the éyAos (for it is really addressed 
 to them, not in appearance merely, and through an inaccurate 
 account of the matter on John’s part, as Tholuck unnecessarily 
 assumes), contains, indeed, no direct answer to the question 
 put, but is intended to make the people feel that all had a 
 guilty part in the murderous designs against Him, and that 
 none of them are excepted, because that one work which He 
 had done among them was unacceptable to them all, and had 
 excited their unjustifiable wrath. Thus He deprives the people 
 of that assurance of their own innocence which had prompted 
 them to put the question to Him; “ ostendit se profundius eos 
 nosse et hoc radio eos penetrat,” Bengel. — év Epyor] we. the 
 healing on the Sabbath, v. 2 ff, the only miraculous work 
 
326 " - TITE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 which He had done in Jerusalem (against Weisse*) (not, indeed, 
 the only work at all, see il. 23, comp. also x. 32, but the only 
 one during the last visit), for the remembrance of which the 
 fact of its being so striking an instance of Sabbath-breaking 
 would suffice. —xal mavrtes Oavudferte] wavtes is corre- 
 lative with &, “and ye all wonder” (Acts iii. 12), de. how 
 I could have done it as a Sabbath work (v. 16) ; it is the object 
 of your universal astonishment! An exclamation; taken as a 
 question (Ewald), the expression of disapprobation which it 
 contains would be less emphatic. To put into @avuwd€ere the 
 idea of alarm (Chrysostom), of blame (Nonnus), of displeasure 
 (Grotius), or the like, would be to anticipate; the bitterness 
 of tone does not appear till ver. 23. —dza todo] connected 
 with @avydfere by Theophylact, and most moderns (even 
 Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, De Wette, B. Crusius, Maier, 
 Lange, Lachmann, Hengstenberg, Ewald, Baeumlein, Ebrard, 
 Godet; among earlier expositors, Beza, Casaubon, Homberg, 
 Maldonatus, Wolf, Mill, Kypke, etc.; see on Mark vi. 6); 
 but Syr. Goth. Codd. It., Cyril, Chrysostom, Nonnus, Euthy- 
 mius Zigabenus, Luther, Castalio, Erasmus, Aretius, Grotius, 
 Cornelius a Lapide, Jansen, Bengel, Wetstein, and several 
 others, also Luthardt, and already most of the Codices, with 
 true perception, place the words at the beginning of ver. 22 
 (so also Elzevir); for, joined with @avydéere, they are cum- 
 brous and superfluous,’ and contrary to John’s method else- 
 where of beginning, not ending, with da rodro (v. 16, 18, 
 vi. 65, viii. 47, x. 17, al.; see Schulz on Griesbach, p. 543). 
 Only we must not take them either as superfluous (Euthymius 
 Zigabenus) or as elliptical: “therefore hear,’ or “know” 
 (Grotius, Jansen, even Winer, p. 58 [E. T. p.68]); the former 
 is inadmissible, the latter is neither Johannean nor in keeping 
 with what follows, which does not contain a declaration, but 
 a deduction of a logical kind. We ought rather, with Bengel 
 
 * How does he make out the & %pyov? It is the one miracle which Christ 
 came to accomplish (Matt. xii. 38, xvi. 1 sqq. ; Luke xi. 29 ff.), described by 
 Him metaphorically as a Sabbath healing ; this the evangelist has taken for a 
 single miraculous act. See Lvangelienfr. p. 249. 
 
 2 This accounts for the omission of 32 rodvo in py". Tisch. deletes it, and 
 with y* reads 6 Mwic. (with the article). 
 
CHAP, VII. 21, 22: - o2% 
 
 (“ propterea, hoc mox declaratur per odx drs, nempe non quia”) 
 and Luthardt, following Cyril, to regard them as standing in 
 connection with the following ody é67u. With this anticipatory 
 8:a TovTo, Jesus begins to diminish the astonishment which His 
 healing on the Sabbath had awakened, showing it to be wn- 
 reasonable, and this by the analogy of circumcision, which is 
 performed also on the Sabbath. Instead of simply saying, 
 “ because it comes from the fathers,” He puts the main statement, 
 already introduced by dva@ rodro, and so important in the argu- 
 ment, both negatively and positively, and says, “ Therefore 
 Moses gave you circumcision, not because wt originated with 
 Moses, but (because it originated) with the fathers, and so ye 
 circumcise” (al consecutive), etc. ; that is, this ody dtu, on to 
 matépwv, serves to show that circumcision, though divinely 
 commanded by Moses in the law, and thus given to the Jews 
 as a ritualistic observance, was not Mosaic in its origin, but 
 was an old patriarchal institution dating back even from Abra- 
 ham. The basis of its historic claim to validity lies in the 
 fact that the law of circumcision precedes the law of the Sab- 
 bath, and consequently the enjoined rest of the Sabbath must 
 give way to circumcision.. Even the Rabbins had this axiom : 
 « Circumceisio pellit sabbatum,’ and based it upon the fact that 
 it was “traditio patrum.” See Wetstein on ver. 23. The 
 anger of the people on account of the healing on the Sabbath 
 rested on a false estimate of the Sabbath; comp. Matt. xii. 5. 
 From this explanation it is at the same time clear that ovy 
 oT... Watépwv is not of the nature ot a parenthesis (so 
 usually, even Lachmann). Of those who so regard it, some 
 rightly recognise in the words the authority of circumcision as 
 outweighing that of the Sabbath; while others, against the 
 context, infer from them its lesser sanctity as being a traditional 
 
 1 The patriarchal period was indeed that of promise, but this is not made pro- 
 manent here, and we cannot therefore say with Luthardt: ‘‘ Jesus puts the law 
 and the promise over-against one another, like Paulin Gal. iii. 17.” There is no 
 hint of this in the text. Judging irom the text, there rather lies in ob ¢7, .7.A., 
 the proof that, in the case of a collision between the two laws, that of circumcision 
 and that of the Sabbath, the former must have the precedence, because, though 
 enjoined by Moses, it already had a patriarchal origin, and on account of this 
 older sanctity it must suffer no infringement through the law ot the Sabbath, 
 Nonnus well describes the argumentation by the words épyzyevw sii beoua, 
 
328 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN, 
 
 institution (Paulus, B. Crusius, Ewald, Godet). Others, again, 
 take them as an (objectless) correction (De Wette, Baeumlein), 
 or as an historical observation (equally superfluous) of Jesus 
 (Tholuck, Hengstenberg, and earlier expositors) or of John 
 (Liicke, cf. Ebrard). Above all, it would have been very 
 strange and paltry to suppose (with Hengstenberg) that Jesus 
 by this remark was endeavouring, with reference to ver. 15, 
 to do away with the appearance of ignorance.— Mwiojns| 
 Lev. xii. 3. — ody Ore] not as in vi. 46, but as in xii. 6. — 
 é€x tod Mwicéws| Instead of saying é& avrov, Jesus repeats 
 the name, thus giving more emphasis to the thought. See 
 Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6.1, ad Anab. i. 6. 11. — é« tov 
 matépwv| Gen. xvii. 10, xxi. 4; Acts vii. 8; Rom. iv. 11.— 
 év SaPB.] if it be the eighth day. Comp. the Rabbinical 
 quotations in Lightfoot. Being emphatic, it takes the lead. 
 Ver. 23. ITepttounv] Circumcision, without the article, 
 but placed emphatically first, corresponding with 6dov avOpw- 
 mov in the apodosis. — tva wu AVO4, x.7.r.] in order that so the 
 law of Moses be not broken (by the postponement of the rite), 
 seeing that it prescribes circumcision upon the eighth day. 
 Jansen, Bengel, Semler, Paulus, Kuinoel, Klee, Baeumlein, 
 wrongly render tva pn “without,” and take o voy. Mwic. to 
 mean the law of the Sabbath. —éwot yorare] towards me 
 how unjust! On yord», denoting bitter, violent anger (only 
 here in the N. T.), comp. 3 Macc. i. 1; Artemid. i. 4; Beck, 
 Anecd. p. 116.— dre ddov advOp. by. éw. ev caBB.| The 
 emphasis of the antithesis is on 6dov av@p., in contrast with 
 the single member in the case of circumcision. We must not, 
 cherefore, with Kling in the Stud. uw. Krit. 1836, p. 157 f, 
 find here the antithesis between wounding and making whole; 
 nor, with B. Crusius, that between an act for the sake of the 
 law, on account of which circumcision was performed, and one 
 for the sake of the man himself; similarly Grotius. In ody. 
 émotnaoa, further, there must necessarily be expressed an 
 analogy with what is done in circumcision, which is therefore 
 equally regarded as a cwre and a healing, not with reference to 
 the subsequent healing of the wound (Cyril, Lampe), for zeper. 
 is circumcision itself, not its healing; nor with reference to the 
 supposed medical object of circumcision (Rosenmiiller, Kuinoel, 
 
CHAP. VII. 24—27. 329 
 
 Liicke, Lange; comp. Philo, de Circwmcis. II. 210 f.; see, on 
 the contrary, Keil, Archacol. I. 309 f.), no trace of which was 
 contained either in the law or in the religious ideas of the 
 people ; but with reference to the purification and sanctification 
 wrought upon the member by the removal of the foreskin.’ 
 In this theocratic sense, a single member was made whole by 
 circumcision ; but Christ, by healing the paralytic, had made 
 an entire man whole, i.e. the whole body of a man. The argu- 
 ment in justification, accordingly, is one a minora ad majus ; 
 if it was right not to omit the lesser work on the Sabbath, 
 how much more the greater and more important! To take 
 odov avOp., with Euthymius Zigabenus 2, Beza, Cornelius a 
 Lapide, Bengel, and Olshausen, as signifying body and sou, 
 in contrast with the odp£, on which circumcision was per- 
 formed, is alien to the connection, which shows that the Sab- 
 bath question had to do only with the bodily healing, and to 
 the account of the miracle itself, according to which Jesus only 
 warned the man who had been made whole, v. 14. 
 
 Ver. 24. This closing admonition is general, applicable to 
 every case that might arise, but drawn by way of deduction 
 from the special one in point. According to the outward 
 appearance, that act was certainly, in the Jewish judgment, a 
 breach of the Sabbath ; but the righteous gudgment was that to 
 which Jesus had now conducted them. Upon éwis, 7d quod 
 sub visum cadit, res in conspicuo posita, see Lobeck, Paralip. p. 
 512. It does not here mean visage, as in xi. 44, and as 
 Hengstenberg makes it, who introduces the contrast between 
 Christ “ without form or comeliness,” and the shining coun- 
 tenance of Moses. On xpivety cptowv dexaiar, comp. Tobit 
 iii. 2; Susannah 53; Zech. vii. 9. 
 
 Vv. 25-27. Odv] in consequence of this bold vindication. 
 These ‘Iepocodvpiraz, as distinct from the uninitiated éydos 
 of ver. 20, as inhabitants of the Holy City, have better know- 
 ledge of the mind ot the hierarchical opposition; they wonder 
 
 1 Comp. Bammidbar, R. xii. 1. 203. 2: ‘‘ praeputium est vitium in corpore.” 
 With this view, which regards the foreskin as impure,—a view which does not 
 appear till a late date (Ewald, Alterth. p. 129 1.),—corresponds the idea of the 
 circumcision of the heart, which we find in Lev. xxvi. 41, Deut. x. 16, xxx. 6, 
 and often in the prophets and the N, T., Rom, ii. 29, Col. ii. 11, Acts vii. 51. 
 
330 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 that the Sanhedrim should let Him speak so boldly and 
 freely, and they ask, “ After all, do they not know in very deed 
 that this,’ etc.? This, however, is only a momentary thought 
 which strikes them, and they at once answer it themselves. — 
 moQev éotev] does not denote the birth-place, which was 
 known both in the case of Jesus (ver. 41) and of the Messiah 
 (ver. 42), but the descent ; not, indeed, the more remote, which 
 in the case of the Messiah was undoubted as being Davidic, 
 but (comp. vi. 42) the nearer—father, mother, family (Matt. 
 xiii 55). Comp. xix. 9; Homer, Od. p. 373: adrov & ob 
 adgpa oida, wobev yévos evyeras civar; Soph. Trach. 1006 ; 
 Eur. Ries. 702 ; Heliod. iv. 16, vii, 14.—o 8 Xpu] is in 
 antithesis with tovrov, and it therefore takes the lead. The 
 popular belief that the immediate ancestry of the Messiah 
 would be unknown when He came, cannot further be histori- 
 cally proved, but is credible, partly from the belief in His 
 divine origin (Bertholdt, Christol. p. 86), and partly from the 
 obscurity into which the Davidic family had sunk, and was 
 supported, probably, by the import of many O. T. passages, 
 such as Isa. li. 2, 8, Mic. v. 2, and perhaps also by the sudden 
 appearance of the Son of man related in Dan. vii. (Tholuck), 
 and is strongly confirmed by the description in the book of 
 Enoch of the heavenly Messiah appearing from heaven (Ewald). 
 The passages which Liicke and De Wette quote from Justin 
 (c. Tryph. pp. 226, 268, 336, ed. Col.) are inapplicable, as 
 they do not speak of an unknown descent of the Messiah, 
 but intimate that, previous to His anointing by Elias, His 
 Messiahship was unknown to Himself and others. The 
 beginning of Marcion’s Gospel (see Thilo, p. 403), and the 
 Rabbinical passages in Lightfoot and Wetstein, are equally 
 inapplicable. 
 
 Vv. 28, 29. The statement in ver. 27, which showed how 
 utterly Christ’s higher nature and work were misunderstood 
 by these people in consequence of the entirely outward 
 character of their judgments, roused the emotion of Jesus, so 
 that He raised His voice, crying aloud (xpagev, comp. i 15, 
 vil. 37, xii. 44, Rom. ix. 27; «pafeuw never means anything 
 but to ery out; “clamores, quos edidit, magnas habuere 
 causas,” Bengel), and thus uttered the solemn conclusion of 
 
CHAP. VII. 28, 29. ool 
 
 this colloquy, while He taught in the temple, and said: 
 Kape oldate, x.7.r. The év TO lep@ Stdacxwor is in itselt 
 superfluous (see ver. 14), but serves the more vividly to 
 describe the solemn moment of the éxpafev, and is an indica- 
 tion of the original genwineness of the narrative. —Kape 
 oldate, K.T.Ar.] te,“ ye know not only my person, but ye also 
 know my origin.” As the people really had this knowledge 
 (vi. 42), and as the divine mission of Jesus was independent 
 of His human nature and origin, while He Himself denies 
 only their knowledge of His divine mission (see what follows; 
 comp. viii. 19), there is nothing in the connection to sanction 
 an interrogatory interpretation (Grotius, Lampe, Semler, Storr, 
 Paulus, Kuinoel, Luthardt, Ewald), nor an dronical one 
 (Luther, Calvin, Beza, and many others; likewise Liicke, 
 Tholuck, Olshausen, B. Crusius, Lange, and Godet, who con- 
 siders the words “ légérement tronique,’ and that they have 
 “ certainement [?] une tournure interrogative”), nor the para- 
 phrase: “ Ye think that ye know” (Hengstenberg). Least 
 of all can we read it as a reproach, that they knew His divine 
 nature and origin, yet maliciously concealed i¢ (Chrysostom, 
 Nonnus, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Maldonatus, and 
 most). No; Jesus allows that they have that outward know- 
 ledge of Him which they had avowed in ver. 27, but He 
 further—in the words kcal dm’ éywavtod, «.7.A.—sets before 
 them the higher relationship, which is here the main point, 
 and which was unknown to them.—«al dm’ ép. ox ér7r.] 
 and—though ye think that, on account of this knowledge of 
 yours, ye must conclude that I am not the Messiah, but have 
 come by self-appointment merely—of myself (avtoKédevoTos, 
 Nonnus) am I not come; comp. viii 42. This «ad, which 
 must not be regarded as the same with the two preceding, as 
 if it stood for cal 67z (Baeumlein), often in John connects, 
 like atque, a contrasted thought, and yet. See Hartung, 
 Partikell. I. 147. We may pronounce the and with emphasis, 
 and imagine a pause after it. Comp. Stallbaum, ad Plat. 
 Apol. p. 29 B; Wolf, ad Leptin. p. 238.— arn Eoruv 
 arnOcvos] but it ts a real one who hath sent me, whom ye 
 (ye people !) know not. *AdXnOevds is not verax (Chrysostom, 
 
 1 Of course in a relative sense, as in iv. 22. If they had possessed the true and 
 
332 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Euthymius Zigabenus, Luther, Stolz, Kuinoel, Klee, B. Crusius, 
 Ewald, and most), but, according to the invariable usage of 
 John (see on i. 9), a real, genuine one, in whom the idea is 
 realizd. The substantive belonging to this adjective is not 
 matnp, Which Grotius gets out of wofev ; but, according to the 
 immediate context, it is to be inferred from 6 méuas pe, 
 namely réumwv, a real sender, a sender in the highest and 
 Jullest sense (comp. Matthiae, p. 1533; Kiihner, II. 602). 
 We cannot take adm. by itself as absolutely denoting the true 
 essential God (Olshausen, Lange, Hengstenberg ; comp. Kling: 
 “one whose essence and action is pure truth”), because 
 adnOwos in the Johannean sense is not an independent con- 
 ception, but receives its definite meaning first from the 
 substantive of which it is predicated. — Ver. 29. J (antithesis 
 to vpuets) know Him, for I am from Him, have come forth 
 from Him (as in vi, 46); and no other than He (from whom I 
 ain) hath sent me. This weighty, and therefore independent 
 Kakewos pe atréot., not to be taken as dependent upon 67z, 
 comprehends the full explanation of the wo@ev eiul in its 
 higher sense, which was not known to the ‘IepocoAuputais, 
 and, with the éyw oiéa... edu, bears the seal of immediate 
 certainty. Comp. viii. 14. 
 
 Ver. 30. Otdv] Because He had so clearly asserted His 
 divine origin and mission, His adversaries regarded this as 
 blasphemy (comp. v. 18).—The subject of é&Tovp is Iovdaior, 
 the hierarchy, as is self-evident from the words and from the 
 contrasted statement of ver. 31.—«a/] as in ver. 28.—6ru 
 ome, K.7.r.] because the hour appointed for Him (by God— 
 the hour when He was to fall under the power of His 
 enemies) was not yet come; comp. vill. 20. The reason here 
 assigned is that higher religious apprehension of the history, 
 which does not, however, contradict or exclude the immediate 
 historical cause, viz. that through fear—not of conscience 
 (Hengstenberg, Godet), but of the party who were favourably 
 inclined to Christ, ver. 31—they dared not yet lay hands on 
 Him. But John knows that the threads upon which the out- 
 
 
 
 full knowledge of God, they would then have recognised the Interpreter of God, 
 and not have rejected Him for such a reason as that in ver. 27. Comp. viii. 54, 
 555 Matt. xi. 27 
 
CHAP. VII. 31-34. oog 
 
 ward history of Jesus runs, and by which it is guided, unite 
 in the counsels of God. Comp. Luthardt, I 160. 
 
 Ver. 31. According to the reading €« tod dydov Sé 
 moNnXot (see the critical notes), éyAos stands emphatically 
 opposed to the subjects of é&jrovy in ver. 30. 4é after three 
 words, on account of their close connection ; see Klotz, ad 
 Devar. p. 378 ; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. 397. — éariot. eis avr.] 
 not only as a prophet (Tholuck), or as one sent of God 
 (Grotius), but conformably with the fixed sense of the absolute 
 expression (comp. ver. 5), as the Messiah. What follows does 
 not contradict this, but rather sustains their avowal that they 
 see realized in Jesus their ideal-miracle of the promised 
 Messiah ; and, accordingly, 0 Xpictos étav €dOn does not 
 imply any doubt on their part as to the Messiahship of 
 Jesus, but refers to the doubt of the opposite party. Comp. 
 Euthymius Zigabenus 2: Odpev, érepov eivar tov Xpiorov, ws 
 oi dpyovtes Aéyouow, etc. — Ort] might be regarded as giving 
 the reason for their faith (Nonnus: yw» yap Xpiotos, «.7.d.), 
 but more simply as recitative.— py] yet not more signs, etc. ? 
 To the one miracle wrought in Jerusalem (ver. 21) they 
 added the numerous Galilaean miracles, which they, being in 
 part perhaps pilgrims to the feast from Galilee, had seen and 
 heard. 
 
 Vv. 32-34. The Pharisees present hear how favourable are 
 the murmured remarks of the people concerning Jesus, and 
 they straightway obtain an edict of the Sanhedrim (oi Sapic. 
 kK. ob apxlep.—ot Papic. first, for they had been the first to 
 moot the matter; otherwise in ver. 45), appointing officers to 
 lay hands on Him. The Sanhedrim must have been imme- 
 diately assembled. Thus rapidly did the é&jrouv of ver. 30 
 ripen into an actual decree of the council. The thing does 
 not escape the notice of Jesus; He naturally recognises in the 
 officers seeking Him, who were only waiting for a suitable 
 opportunity to arrest Him, their designs against Him; and He 
 therefore (odv) says what we have in vv. 33, 34 in clear and 
 calm foresight of the nearness of His death,—a death which 
 He describes as a going away to God (comp. on vi. 62). — 
 peO’ buwv] Jesus speaks to the whole assembly, but has here 
 the hierarchy chiefly in his eye; comp. ver. 35. — pos Tov 
 
334 TIIE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 méurpavtTd me] These words are, with Paulus, to be regarded 
 not as original, but as a Johannean addition; because, accord- 
 ing to vv. 35, 36, Jesus cannot have definitely indicated the 
 goal of His going away, but must have left it enigmatical, as 
 perhaps in vill, 22; comp. xiii. 33. Had He said mp. -. 
 méury., His enemies could not have failed, after vv. 16,17, 28, 
 29, to recognise the words as referring to God, and could not 
 have thought of an unknown vod (against Liicke, De Wette, 
 Godet). There is no room even for the pretence “that they 
 acted as if they cowld not understand the words of Jesus,” after 
 so clear a statement as mpds 7. méuyr. we (against Luthardt). 
 — Cntyncerté we, «.7.r.] not of a hostile seeking, against which 
 is xiii. 83; nor the seeking of the penitent (Augustine, Beza, 
 Jansen, and most), which would not harmonize (against 
 Olshausen) with the absolute denial of any finding, unless we 
 brought in the doctrine of a peremptory limitation of grace, 
 which has no foundation in Holy Scripture (not even in Heb. 
 xii. 17; see Liinemann, iz Joc.), and which could only refer 
 to individuals ; but a seeking for help and deliverance (Chry- 
 sostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Erasmus, Calvin, 
 Aretius, Hengstenberg; comp. Luthardt, Ewald, Briickner). 
 This refers to the time of the divine judgments in the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem (Luke xx. 16 ff, xix. 43, al.), which were 
 to ensue as the result of their rejection of Jesus. Then, 
 Jesus means, the tables will be turned; after they had per- 
 secuted and killed Him who now was present, they then 
 would anxiously long, but in vain, for Him, the absent One," 
 as the wonder-working helper, who alone could save them 
 from the dire calamity. Comp. Prov. i. 28. The prophecy of 
 misfortune involved in €nt7ceré we, «.7.r. is not expressly de- 
 clared ; but it lies in the thought of retribution which the words 
 contain,—like an enigma which the history was to solve ; comp. 
 viii. 21. Theodoret, Heracleon (?), Maldonatus, Grotius, Liicke, 
 De Wette, take the whole simply as descriptive of entire 
 separation, so that nothing more is said than: “ Christwm de 
 
 ' They would long for Him in His own person, for Jesus the rejected one, and 
 not for the Messiah generally (Flacius, Lampe, Kuinoel, Neander, Ebrard), whom 
 they had rejected in the person of Jesus (comp. also Tholuck and Godet),—an 
 explanation which would empty the words of all their tragic nerve and force. 
 
 
 
CHAP. VII. 35, 36. 339 
 
 terris sublatum it, ita ut inter viros reperirt non possit,” Mal- 
 donatus. The poetical passages, Ps. x. 15, xxxvii. 10, Isa. 
 xli. 12, are appealed to. But even in these the seeking and 
 finding is not a mere figure of speech; and here such a 
 weakening of the signification is all the more inadmissible, 
 because it is not annihilation, as in those passages, which is 
 here depicted, and because the following words, kat dzrov eit 
 €y@, K.T.v., describe a longing which was not to be satisfied. 
 Luke xvii. 22 is analogous. — cai ézrov eit, «.7.X.] still more 
 clearly describes the tragic ody ebpyjc.: “and where J (then) 
 am, thither ye cannot come,” z.e. in order to find me as a deli- 
 verer, or to flee to me. Rightly says Euthymius Zigabenus: 
 Onrot O€ THY ert Tod ovpavod év Se&G Tod Tmatpds Kabédpav. 
 The ews (I go), not found in the N. T., is not the reading here 
 (against Nonnus, H. Stephens, Casaubon, Pearson, Bengel, 
 Wakefield, Michaelis, and most). Comp. xiv. 3, xvii. 24. 
 
 Vv. 35, 36. An insolent and scornful supposition, which 
 they themselves, however, do not deem probable (therefore the 
 question is asked with uj), regarding the meaning of words to 
 them so utterly enigmatical. The bolder mode of teaching 
 adopted by Jesus, His universalistic declarations, His partial 
 non-observance of the law of the Sabbath, would lead them, 
 perhaps, to associate with the unintelligible statement a mock- 
 ing thought like this, and all the more because much interest 
 was felt among the heathen, partly of an earnest kind, and 
 partly (comp. St. Paulin Athens) arising from curiosity merely, 
 regarding the oriental religions, especially Judaism ; see Ewald, 
 Gesch. Chr. p. 110 f. ed. 3.—apos éavrovs] the same as 
 mpos GAXAovs, yet so that the conversation was confined to 
 one party among the people, to the exclusion of the others. 
 See Kiihner, ad Xen. Mem. ii. 6. 20. — obros] contemptuously, 
 that man!—6r7e] not to be arbitrarily supplemented by a 
 supposed Aéywv put before it, or in some other way (Butt- 
 mann, WV. 7. Gr. p. 305 [E. T. p. 358]); but the simple 
 because: “ Where will this man go, because, or seeing, that we 
 are not (according to his words) to find him?” It thus states 
 the reason why the od is unknown, — eis t. Stacm. t. “EXX] 
 to the dispersion among the Greeks. Comp. Winer, p. 176 [E. T. 
 p. 234]; and upon the thing referred to, Schneckenburger, WV. 7 
 
336 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 Zeitgesch. p. 94 ff. The subjects of the Ssacmopa are the Jews, 
 who lived beyond Palestine dispersed among the heathen, and 
 these latter are denoted by the genitive trav “EXAnv. Comp. 
 1 Pet. i. 1, and Steiger and Huther thereon. Differently in 
 2 Mace. i. 27; LXX. Ps. exlvi. 2. The abstract Siacmopa is 
 simply the sum-total of the concretes, like qepstou7 and other 
 words. See 2 Macc.i 27. “EXAnves in the N. T. invariably 
 means the heathen, Gentiles, not the Hellenists (Graecian Jews), 
 so even in xil. 20; and it is wrong, therefore, to understand 
 tov ‘EdAnp. ot the latter, and to take these words as the subject 
 of the dvacropa (Scaliger, Lightfoot, Hammond, B. Crusius, 
 Ammon), and render S1ddox. 7. “EXX.: “ teach the Hellenists.” 
 The thought is rather: “ Will Jesus go to the Jews scattered 
 among the Gentiles, in order to unite there with the Gentiles, 
 and to become their teacher?” This was really the course of 
 the subsequent labours of the apostles. — Ver. 36. tis éotuv] 
 Their scornful conjecture does not even satisfy themselves ; 
 for that they should seck Him, and not be able to come to Him— 
 they know not what the assertion can mean (ris éotuy, x.7.2.). 
 Ver. 37. As the eighth day (the 22d Tisri) was reckoned 
 along with the seven feast days proper, according to Lev. 
 xxii, 35, 36, 39; Num. xxix. 35, Neh. viii. 18, as accord- 
 ing to Succah, f. 48. 1, the last day of the feast is the eighth, 
 it is clear that John meant this day, and not the seventh 
 (Theophylact, Buxtorf, Bengel, Reland, Paulus, Ammon), espe- 
 cially as in later times it was usual generally to speak of the 
 eight days’ feast of Tabernacles (2 Mace. x. 6 ; Josephus, Anétt. 
 ul 10. 4; Gem. Hruvin. 40. 2; Midr. Cohel. 118. 3). In 
 keeping with this is the very free translation é£0dsov (termina- 
 tion of the feast), which the LXX. give for the name of the 
 eighth day, NIsY (Lev. xxiii. 36 ; Num. xxix. 35 ; Neh. vi. 18), 
 ae. “assembly ;” comp. Ewald, Alterth. p. 481.—Ti pmeyady] 
 the (pre-eminently) great, solemn. Comp. xix. 31. The super- 
 lative is implied in the attribute thus given to this day above 
 the other feast days. Wherein consisted the special distinction 
 
 1 Not the heathen, as if 4 diaor. +. ‘EAA. were the same as Dispersi Graeci 
 (Chrysostom and his followers, Rupertius, Maldonatus, Hengstenberg, and 
 most). Against this Beza well says: ‘‘ Vix conveniret ipsis indigenis populis 
 nomen diacropzs.” 
 
CHAP. VII. 37 gat 
 
 attaching to this day? It was simply the great closing day 
 of the feast, appointed for the solemn return from the booths 
 into the temple (Ewald, Alterth. p. 481), and, according to 
 Lev. xxiii. 35, 36, was kept holy as a Sabbath. The explana- 
 tion of é£0d.ov in Philo, de Septenario, II. p. 298, that it denoted 
 the end of the yearly feasts collectively, has as little to do 
 with the matter (for 77 weyadn has reference only to the feast 
 of Tabernacles) as has the designation 1p of in the Tr. Succah, 
 for this means nothing more than “ feast day.” If, indeed, 
 this day had, according to Tr. Succah (see Lightfoot, p. 1032 f), 
 special services, sacrifices, songs, still no more was required 
 than to honour it “sicut reliquos dies festi.” Its peyadorns 
 consisted just in this, that it brought the great feast as a whole 
 to a sacred termination. — The express designation of the day as 
 TH meyady is in keeping with the solemn coming forth of Jesus 
 with the great word of invitation and promise, vv. 37, 38. 
 The solemnity of this coming forth is also intimated in eto77- 
 xet (He stood there) and in éxpaée (see on ver. 28). — édv Tes 
 dud, «.7.d.] denoting spiritual need’ and spiritual satisfaction, 
 as in iv. 15, in the conversation with the Samaritan woman, 
 and in vi. 35; Matt. v. 6. Weare not told what led Jesus 
 to adopt this metaphorical expression here. There was no need 
 of anything special to prompt Him to do so, least of all at a 
 feast so joyous, according to Plutarch, Symp. iv. 6. 2, even so 
 bacchanalian in its banquetings. Usually, a reason for the 
 expression has been found in the daily libations which were 
 offered on the seven feast days (but also on the eighth, accord- 
 ing to R. Juda, in Suceah iv. 9), at the time of the morning 
 sacrifice, when a priest fetched water in a golden pitcher con- 
 taining three logs from the spring of Siloam, and poured this, 
 together with wine, on the west side of the altar into two per- 
 forated vessels, amidst hymns of praise and music. See Dachs, 
 Succah, p. 368. Some reference to this libation may be sup- 
 posed, because it was one of the peculiarities of the feast, even 
 on the hypothesis that it did not take place upon the eighth 
 day, derived either from the old idea of pouring out water (1 
 Sam. vil. 6; Hom. Od. w. 362, al.,so De Wette) ; or, according 
 
 1 Luther : ‘‘a heartfelt longing, yea, a troubled, sad, awakened, stricken con- 
 science, a despairing, trembling heart, that would know how it can be with God.” 
 
 Y¥ 
 
338 THE GOSPEL OF JOUN. 
 
 to the Rabbis (so also Hengstenberg), from Isa. xii. 3,a passage 
 which contains the words sung by the people during the 
 libation. But any connection of the words of Jesus with this 
 libation is all the more doubtful, because He is speaking of 
 drinking, and this is the essential element of His declaration. 
 Godet arbitrarily interpolates: “He compares Himself with 
 the water from the rock in the wilderness, and represents Him- 
 self as this true rock” (comp. 1 Cor. x. 4). 
 
 Ver. 38. The wivew is brought about by faith; hence the 
 statement progresses: 6 muatevwv, K.7.A.— Kaas eirev H yp.] 
 is simply the formula of quotation, and cannot belong to o 
 maTevwy eis éué, aS if it denoted a faith which is conformable 
 to Scripture (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, 
 Calovius, and most); 0 auor., on the contrary, is the nomina- 
 tive absolute (see on vi. 39), and KaOas eizev, x.7.d., belongs 
 to the following rorawot, etc., the words which are described 
 as a declaration of Scripture. There is no exactly correspond- 
 ing passage, indeed, in Scripture ; it is simply a free quotation 
 harmonizing in thought with parts of various passages, espe- 
 cially Isa. xliv. 3, lv. 1, lviii. 11 (comp. also Ezek. xlvii. 1, 
 2; Zech.; xi, 11, xiv. 8; Joel ii], 23> but) noneeane 
 iv. 12,15). Godet refers to the account of the rock in the 
 wilderness, Ex. xvii. 6, Num. xx. 11; but this answers 
 neither to the thing itself (for the subject is, the person 
 drinking) nor to the words. To think in particular of those 
 passages in which mention is made of a stream flowing from 
 the temple mount, the believer being represented as a living 
 temple (Olshausen), is a gloss unwarranted by the context, 
 and presents an inappropriate comparison (kovdias). This last 
 is also in answer to Gieseler (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1829, p. 
 138 f.), whom Lange, Z. J. II. p. 945, follows. To imagine 
 some apocryphal or lost canonical saying (Whiston, Semler, 
 Paulus ; comp. also Weizsicker, p. 518; Bleek, p. 234, and 
 in the Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 331), or, as Ewald does, a frag- 
 ment of Proverbs no longer extant, or of some such similar 
 book, is too bold and unnecessary, considering the freedom with 
 which passages of Scripture are quoted and combined, and 
 the absence of any other certain trace in the discourses of 
 Jesus of extra-canonical quotations, or of canonical quotations 
 
CHAP. VII. 38. 339 
 
 not now to be found in the O. T.; although, indeed, the 
 characteristic é« tis KovAlas avrov itself occurs in none of 
 the above-named places, which is certainly surprising, and not 
 to be explained by an inappropriate reference to Cant. vil. 3 
 (Hengstenberg). But this expression, “ out of his body,” con- 
 sidering the connection of the metaphor, is very natural ; the 
 water which he drinks becomes in his body a spring from 
 which streams of living water flow, ie the divine grace and 
 truth which the believer has received out of Christ's fulness into 
 his inner life, does not remain shut up within, but will com- 
 municate itself in abundant measure as a life-gwing stream to 
 others, and thus the new divine life overflows from one indi- 
 vidual on to others. As represented in the metaphor, these 
 qwotapoé take their rise from the water which has been drunk 
 and is in the xovdia, and flow forth therefrom in an oral 
 effusion ;* for the effect referred to takes place in an outward 
 direction by an inspired oral communication of one’s own 
 experience of God’s grace and truth (aiorevoper, 60 Kal Nadod- 
 pev, 2 Cor. iv. 13). The mutual and inspired intercourse of 
 Christians from Pentecost downwards, the speaking in psalms 
 and hymns and spiritual songs, the mutual edification in 
 Christian assemblies by means of the charismata even to the 
 speaking with tongues, the entire work of the apostles, of a 
 Stephen and so on, furnish an abundant historical commentary 
 upon this text. It is clear, accordingly, that «osAla does not, 
 as is usually supposed, denote the inner man, man’s hearl 
 (Prov: xx. 27; Eeclus: xix. 12, li. 21; LXX. Ps xl 9, tok 
 lowing A.; comp. the Latin viscera), but must be left in its 
 literal meaning “ delly,’ in conformity with the metaphor 
 which determines the expression? The flowing forth of the 
 
 1 Comp. épsvZouas, Matt. xiii. 35. 
 
 ? Already Chrysostom and his followers took xoaias as equivalent to xapdias ; 
 a confounding of the metaphor with its import. Hofmann’s objection (Schrift- 
 bew. II. 2, p. 13), ‘‘ that the water here meant does not go into the belly at all,” 
 rests solely upon the same confusion of the figure with its meaning. According 
 to the figure, it comes into the xaai« because it is drunk, and this drinking is in 
 like manner figurative. When Hofmann finds indicated in the word even a spring- 
 ing place of the Holy Spirit within the body, he cannot get rid of the idea of some- 
 thing within the body as being implied in aia, because the text itself presents 
 
 this figure as being in harmony with that of the drinking ; unless, indeed, the 
 concrete expression is to give way to an exegetical prudery foreign to the text 
 
340 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 water, moreover, is not to be understood as something operating 
 upon the subject himsef only (B. Crusius: “his whole soul, 
 from its very depth, shall have a continual quickening and 
 satisfaction,’ comp. Maier), but as describing an efficacy in an 
 outward direction, as éx T. KoiX. shows, and therefore is not 
 the same as the similar passage, chap. iv. 14. If we join 
 0 mort. eis €ué with muvérw, ad’tod must refer to Christ; and 
 this is the meaning that we get: “ He that thirsteth, let him 
 come to me; and he that believeth in me, let him drink of me: 
 for to me refers what the Scripture hath said concerning a 
 river which shall flow forth from Jehovah in the time of the 
 Messiah.” So Hahn, Theol. d. N. T. I. p. 229 f., and Gess, 
 Pers. Chr. p. 166. But against this it is decisive, first, that 
 he who believes on Jesus has already drunk of Him (vi. 
 35), and the call to come and drink must apply not to the 
 believer, but to the thirsty ; and secondly, that the expres- 
 sion €« Ths KoiAlas avtod would be unnecessary and un- 
 meaning, if it referred to Jesus, and not to him who has 
 performed the muwvétw (Nonnus, dia yaotpos éxeivov). —tdap 
 Cav, as in iv. 10; €@vTos Sé, you aet evepyodvtos, aet- 
 xuntov, Euthymius Zigabenus.—Observe further the woTrapou 
 emphatically taking the lead and standing apart; “not in 
 spoonfuls, nor with a pipe and tap, but in full streams,” 
 Luther. 
 
 Ver. 39. Not an interpolated gloss (Scholten), but an ob- 
 servation by John in explanation of this saying. He shows 
 that Jesus meant that the outward effect oi which He spoke, 
 the flowing forth, was not at once to occur, but was to com- 
 mence upon the reception of the Spirit after His glorification. 
 7e,—self-evidently, and, according to the od éueAdov, un- 
 doubtedly meaning the Holy Spivit,—He it was who would 
 cause the streams of living water to flow forth from them. 
 John’s explanation, as proceeding from inmost experience, is 
 
 itself, and is to be blotted out at pleasure. Ko:A‘e in no passage of the N T. 
 means anything else than body, belly. —Strangely out of keeping with the unity 
 of the figure, Lange, following Bengel (comp. also Weizsiicker), now finds in 
 xoiaie an allusion to the belly of the golden pitcher (see on ver. 37), and Godet to 
 the inner hollow of the rock whence the water flowed, so that tx +r. xoiA, ebro 
 corresponds with 43159, Ex. xvii. 6. So inventive is the longing after types ! 
 
CHAP. VII. 39. 341 
 
 correct, because the principle of Christian activity in the 
 church, especially in its outward workings, is none other than 
 the Holy Spirit Himself; and He was not given until after 
 the ascension, when through Him the believers spoke with 
 tongues and prophesied, the apostles preached, and so on. 
 Such overflowings of faith’s power in its outward working did 
 not take place before then. The objection urged against the 
 accuracy of John’s explanation, that fevoovow may be a 
 relative future only, and is not to be taken as referring to 
 that outpouring of the Spirit which was first to take place at 
 a future time (De Wette), disappears if we consider the strong 
 expression morapot, «.7.r., ver. 38, to which John gives due 
 weight, inasmuch as he takes it to refer not simply to the 
 power of one’s own individual faith upon others, so far as that 
 was possible previous to the outpouring of the Spirit, but to 
 something far greater and mightier—to those streams of new 
 life which flowed forth from the lips of believers, and which 
 were originated and drawn forth by the Holy Ghost. The 
 strength and importance of the expression (sotamol, «.7.d.) 
 thus renders it quite unnecessary to supply zo7é or the like 
 after pedcovow (in answer to Liicke); and when Liicke calls 
 John’s explanation epewegetically right, but exegetically incor- 
 rect, he overlooks the fact that John does not take the living 
 water itself to be the Holy Ghost, but simply says, regarding 
 Christ’s declaration as a whole, that Jesus meant it of the 
 Holy Spirit, leaving it to the Christian consciousness to think 
 of the Spirit as the Agens, the divine charismatic motive power 
 of the streams of living water.— It remains to be remarked 
 that the libation at the feast of Tabernacles was interpreted 
 by the Rabbis as a symbol of the outpouring of the Spirit 
 (see Lightfoot); but this is all the less to be connected with 
 the words of Jesus and their interpretation, the more uncertain 
 it is that there is any reference in the words to that libation ; 
 see on ver. 37.—ovm@ yap Hv mvevpal] nondum enim 
 aderat (i. 9), furnishing the reason for the ob éueddov rap- 
 Bavew as the statement of what was still future. The 7p, 
 “ He was present” (upon earth), is appropriately elucidated 
 by dedouévov (Lachmann; see on Acts xix. 2); Jesus alone 
 possessed Him in His entire fulness (i. 34). The absolute 
 
342 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 expression ov7w 7 is not, therefore, to be weakened, as if it 
 were relative (denoting merely an increase which put out of 
 consideration all former outpourings), as Hengstenberg and 
 Briickner take it, but “at the time when Christ preached He 
 promised the Holy Spirit, and therefore the Holy Spirit was 
 not yet there,’ Luther. Comp. Flacius, Olav, IL p. 326: 
 “sc. propalam datus. Videtur negari substantia, cum tamen 
 accidens negetur.” See also Calvin. For the rest, the state- 
 ment does not conflict with the action of the Spirit in the 
 O. T. (Ps. li. 13; 1 Sam. xvi. 12, 13), or upon the prophets 
 in particular (2 Pet. i. 21; Acts xxviii. 25,1. 16); for here 
 the Spirit is spoken of as the principle of the specifically 
 Christian life. In this characteristic definiteness, wherein He 
 is distinctively the wvetua X ptotod, the mv. Ths émayyedias 
 (Eph. i. 13), rhs vioecias (Rom. viii. 15), rhs yapetos 
 (Heb. x. 29), the appaRav ris KrAnpovopias (Eph. i. 14), the 
 Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. viii. 11), 
 and according to promise was to be given after Christ’s exalta- 
 tion (Acts ii. 33), He was not yet present; just as also, 
 according to i. 17, grace and truth first came into existence 
 through Christ. The reason of the ovrw hy is: “ because Jesus 
 was not yet glorified.” He must through death return to 
 heaven, and begin His heavenly rule, in order, as cvvOpovos 
 with the Father, and Lord over all (xvii. 5; 1 Cor. xv. 25), 
 as Lord also of the Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 18), to send the Spirit 
 from heaven, xvi. 7. This sending was the condition of the 
 subsequent etvae (adesse). “The outpouring of the Spirit was 
 the proof that He had entered upon His supra-mundane state” 
 (Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p. 196); and so also the office of 
 the Spirit to glorify Christ (xvi. 14) presupposes, as the con- 
 dition of its operation, the commencement of the d0£a of 
 Christ. Till then believers were dependent upon the personal 
 manifestation of Jesus; He was the possessor of that Spirit 
 who, though given in His fulness to Christ Himself (iii. 34), 
 and though operating through Him in His people (iii. 6, vi. 
 63; Luke ix. 55), was not, until after Christ’s return to glory 
 (Eph. iv. 7, 8), to be given to the faithful as the Paraclete 
 and representative of Christ for the carrying on of His work. 
 See chap. xiv.-xvi. Chap. xx. 21, 22 does not contradict 
 
CHAP. VII. 40—43. 343 
 
 this; see in Joc. The thought of an identity’ of the glorified 
 Christ with the Holy Spirit might easily present itself here 
 (see on 2 Cor. iii. 17; and likewise Gess, Pers. Chr. p. 155). 
 But we must not, with De Wette, seek for the reason of the 
 statement in the receptivity of the disciples, who did not attain 
 to a pure and independent development of the germ of spirit 
 within them until the departure of Jesus; the text is against 
 this. As little can we regard the cdp& of Christ as a limita- 
 tion of the Spirit (Luthardt), or introduce the atonement 
 wrought through His death as an intervening event (Messner, 
 Lehre d. Ap. p. 342 ; Hengstenberg and early writers) ; because 
 the point lies in the S0£a of Christ (comp. Godet and Weiss, 
 Lehrbegr. p. 286 f.), not in His previous death, nor in the 
 subjective preparation secured by faith. This also tells 
 against Baeumlein, who understands here not the Holy Spirit 
 objectively, but the Spirit formed in believers by Him, which 
 TO Tvedua Dever denotes, and on account of AapBdvew cannot 
 be the meaning here. 
 
 Vv. 40-43. "Ex tod dyXov ody akovcartes TOV NOYor 
 Tovray (see the critical notes), «7... Now, at the close of all 
 Christ’s discourses delivered at the feast (vv. 14-39), these 
 verses set before us the various impressions which they pro- 
 duced upon the people with reference to their estimate of 
 Christ’s person. “From among the people, many, after they had 
 heard these words, now said,’ etc. With é« rod déydov we must 
 supply twvés, as in xvi 17; Buttmann, W. 7. Gr. p. 138 
 [E. T. p. 159]; Xen. Mem. iv. 5. 22; and Bornem. in loc. 
 By 6 mpog7rns, as ini. 21, is meant the prophet promised 
 Deut. xvui. 15, not as being himself the Messiah, but a 
 prophet preceding Him, a more minute description of whom is 
 not given.— m7 yap é« tr. T'an., «.7.r.] “and yet surely the 
 Messiah does not come out of Galilee 2” dp refers to the asser- 
 tion of the @AXoz, and assigns the reason for the contradiction 
 
 1 Tholuck . ‘‘ the Spirit communicated to the faithful, as the Son of man Himself 
 glorified into Spirit.” Phil. iii. 21 itselt speaks decisively enough against such 
 a view. Worner, Verhdltn. d. Geistes, p. 57, speaks in a similar way of ‘‘ the 
 elevation of Christ’s flesh into the form of the Spirit itself,” etc. Baur, on the 
 contrary, N. 7. Theol. p. 385, says: ‘* Not until His death was the Spirit, 
 
 hitherto identical with Him, separated from His person in order that it might 
 cperate as an independent principle,” 
 
344 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 of it which of dé \eyov indicates. See Hartung, Partihell. 1. 
 475; Baeumlein, Partik. p. 73. Christ’s birth at Bethlehem was 
 unknown to the multitude. John, however, records all the 
 various opinions in a purely objective manner; and we must 
 not suppose, from the absence of any correction on his part, 
 that the birth at Bethlehem was unknown to the evangelist 
 himself (De Wette, Weisse, Keim; comp. Scholten). Baur 
 (p. 169) employs this passage and ver. 52 in order to deny 
 to the author any /éstorical interest in the composition of his 
 work. This would be to conclude too much, for every reader 
 could ot himself and from his own knowledge supply the 
 correction. — ypagoy] Mic. v. 1; Isa. xi. 1; Jer. xxiii. 5. 
 —émov iv A.| where David was. He was born at Bethlehem, 
 and passed his youth there as a shepherd, 1 Sam. xvi.— A 
 division therefore (éxdotov pépous ptAoverxodytos, Kuthymius 
 Zigabenus) took place among the people concerning Hum. 
 Comp; ix. 16;,x. 19 ;1°Cor 1 10; Acts’ xiv. 4, axa ge 
 Herod. vii, 219: Kat ogedv éeoylfovto of yrouar Xen. 
 Sympos. iv. 59 ; Herod. vi. 109; Eur. Hee. 119; and Pflugk, 
 an loc. 
 
 Ver. 44. “E& avta@v] Those, of course, who adopted the 
 opinion last named. The contest had aroused them. Tuvés, 
 standing first and apart, has a special emphasis. “ Some 
 there were among the people, who were disposed,” etc. — 
 GAN ovdels, «.7.r.| according to ver. 30, through divine 
 prevention (éeyopuevos dopatws, Euthymius Zigabenus). On 
 éem@tBarnr. T. yelp. see on Acts xii 1.— According to De 
 Wette (see also Luthardt), the meaning is said to be that they 
 would have supported the ¢imid officers, or would have acted 
 for them. A gloss; according to John, they were inclined to 
 an act of popular justice, independently of the officers, but it 
 was not carried into effect. he 
 
 Vv. 45, 46. Odv] therefore, seeing that no one, not even 
 they themselves, had ventured to lay hands on Jesus. —ot 
 vumnpétat| In accordance with the orders they had received 
 (ver. 32), they had kept close to Jesus, in order to apprehend 
 Him. But the divine power and majesty of His words, which 
 doubtless hindered the rwés in ver. 44 from laying hands on 
 Him, made it morally impossible for the officers of justice to 
 
CHAP. VII. 47-49. 345 
 
 carry out their orders, or even to find any pretext or justifica- 
 tion for so doing; they were overpowered. Schleiermacher, 
 therefore, was wrong in inferring that they had received no 
 oficial orders to take Him. — tovds apytep. x. Bap.] by the 
 non-repetition of the article, construed as one category, 2. as 
 the Sanhedrim, who must be supposed to have been assembled 
 in session. When first mentioned, ver. 32, both divisions are 
 distinguished with logical emphasis. See Dissen, ad Dem. 
 de cor. p. 373 f.—éxetvor] the apytep. x. Papic.; of the 
 nearest subject, though remote to the writer. Winer, p. 148 
 [E. T. p. 196], and Ast, ad Plat. Polit. p. 417 ; Lea Plat. pp. 
 658, 659.— Ver. 46. There is a solemnity in the words os 
 ovTos 6 dvOp., in themselves unnecessary. “It is a weighty 
 statement, a strong word, that they thus meekly use,” Luther. 
 “ Character veritatis etiam idiotas convincentis prae dominis 
 eorum,” Bengel. It is self-evident that Jesus must have said 
 more after ver. 32 than John has recorded. 
 
 Vv. 47-49. The answer comes from the Pharisees in the 
 Sanhedrim, as from that section of the council who were most 
 zealous in watching over the interests of orthodoxy and the 
 hierarchy. — 7) kal tpets] are ye also—officers of sacred 
 justice, who should act only in strict loyalty to your 
 superiors. Hence the following questions: “ Have any of the 
 Sanhedrim believed in him, or of the Pharisees?” The latter 
 are specially named as the class of orthodox and most respected 
 theologians, who were supposed to be patterns of orthodoxy, 
 apart from the fact that some of them were members of the 
 Sanhedrim. — aX] at, breaking off and leading on hastily 
 to the antithetical statement that follows; Baeumlein, Partik. 
 p. 15; Ellendt, Lew. Soph. I. p. 78.—o 6xXos odtos] those 
 people there, uttered with the greatest scorn. The people 
 hanging upon Jesus, “this mob,” as they regard them, are 
 there before their eyes. It is self-evident, further, that the 
 speakers do not include their own official servants in the 
 oyAos, but, on the other hand, prudently separate them with 
 their knowledge from the éyAos.— 6 pi) yrveck. T. vdpor] 
 because they regarded such a transgressor of the law as the 
 Prophet, or the Messiah, vv. 40, 41. — émdpartoi etor] they 
 are cursed, the divine wrath is upon them! The plural is 
 justified by the collective o dydos, comp. ver. 44. The 
 
 Y 
 
 -/ 
 
346 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 
 
 exclamation is to be regarded merely as a blindly passionate 
 statement’ (Ewald); as a haughty outbreak of the rabies 
 theologica, and by no means a decree (Kuinoel and others), as 
 if the Sanhedrim had now come to a resolution, or at least had 
 immediately, in keeping with the informal words, put in regular 
 form (Luthardt) what is mentioned in ix. 22. Such an excom- 
 munication of the éyXos en masse would have been preposterous. 
 Upon the unbounded scorn entertained by Jewish pride of 
 learning towards the unlettered multitude (7187 Oy), see Wet- 
 stein and Lampe in loc.; Gfrorer in the Tub. Zeitschr. 1838, 
 I. p. 130, and Jahrb. d. Heils, I. p. 240 £. — érdpatos] (see 
 the critical notes), not elsewhere in the N. T., nor in the. 
 LXX and Apocrypha ; it is, however, classical. 
 
 Vv. 50, 51. The Pharisees in the Sanhedrim had expressed 
 themselves as decisively and angrily against Jesus, as if His 
 cuilt had already been established. But Nicodemus, who had 
 secretly been inclined towards Jesus since his interview with 
 Him by night, now raises a protest, in which he calmly, 
 plainly, and rightly points the excited doctors to the law 
 itself (see Ex. xxiii 1; Deut. i 16, 17, xix. 15).— pos 
 avtovs] to the Pharisees, ver. 47.—o éAOov... adTdr] 
 who had before come to Jesus, although he was one of them (i.e. 
 of the Pharisees), iii, 1.—y 6 vopos, «7.r.] The emphasis 
 is on 6 vouos: “ our Jaw itself does not,” etc. They had just 
 denied that the people knew the Jaw, and yet they were 
 themselves acting contrary to the law. —tdv avOp.] the man; 
 the article denotes the person referred to in any given case ; 
 see on ii. 25. We are not to supply o xpitns to dxovon 
 (Deut. i. 16, 17) and yv@, for the identity of the subject is 
 essential to the thought; but the Jaw dtself is regarded and 
 personified as (through the judge) examining and discerning 
 the facts of the case. For a like personification, see Plato, 
 de Rep. vii. p. 588 D. Comp. vouos mavtav Bacideds from 
 Pindar in Herod. iii, 38. — é trovet] what he doeth, what 
 the nature of his conduct is. 
 
 Ver. 52. Thow art not surely (like Jesus) from Galilee, so 
 that your sympathy with Him is that of a fellow-cowntryman ? 
 
 1 Not of an argumentative character, as if they had inferred their disobedience 
 
 from their unacquaintance with the law (Ewald). Their frame of mind was not 
 so reflective. 
 
CHAP. VII. 53. 347 
 — ire Trpodyntns, «7.r.] a@ prophet; not: “no very dis- 
 tinguished prophet, nor any great number of prophets” (Heng- 
 stenberg) ; nor again: “a prophet has not appeared in Galilee 
 in the person of Jesus” (Godet) ; but the appearance of any 
 prophet out of Galilee is, in a general way, denied as a matier 
 of history; hence also the Perfect. The plain words can 
 have no other meaning. To Godet’s altogether groundless 
 objection, that John must in this case have written ovddets 
 mpod., the reference to iv. 44 is itself a sufficient answer. 
 Inconsiderate zeal led the members of the Sanhedrim into 
 historical error; for, apart from the wnknown birth-places of 
 many prophets, Jonah at least, according to 2 Kings xiv. 25, 
 was of Galilee’ This error cannot be removed by any 
 expedient either critical? or exegetical; still it cannot be 
 used as an argument against the genuineness of the Gospel 
 (Bretschneider), for there was all the less need to add a 
 correction of it, seeing that it did not apply to Jesus, who 
 was not out of Galilee. This also tells against Baur, p. 169. 
 The argument in Ste wpod., «.7.r., is from the general to the 
 particular (“to say nothing of the Messiah!”), and is a con- 
 clusion from a negative induction. 
 
 Ver. 53. Belonging to the spurious section concerning the 
 adulteress. “And every one went”—every one, that is, of 
 those assembled in the temple—to his own house ; so that the 
 end of the scene described in ver. 37 f. is related. Chap. viii. 
 1 is against the view which understands it of the members of 
 the Sanhedrim, who separated without attaining their object 
 (against Grotius, Lampe, etc., even Maier and Lange). Chap. 
 viii. 2 forbids our taking it as referring to the pilgrims at the 
 jeast returning to their homes (Paulus). 
 
 1 Not Elias also, whose Thisbe lay in Gilead (see Thenius on 1 Kings xvii. 1 ; 
 Fritzsche on Tobit i. 2; Kurtz, in Herzog’s Encykl. Ill. p. 754). It is very 
 doubtful, further, whether the Elkosh, whence Nahum came, was in Galilee or 
 anywhere in Palestine, and not rather in Assyria (Michaelis, Eichhorn, Ewald, 
 and most). Hosea came from the northern kingdom of Israel (Samaria) ; see 
 Hos. ‘vil. 1,5: ; 
 
 * By giving preference, namely, to the reading tysiperas, according to which 
 only the present appearance of a prophet in Galilee is denied (so also Tiele, Spec. 
 contin. annotationem in loc. nonnull. ev. Joh., Amsterdam 1853). This iysiperas 
 would have its support and meaning only in the experience of history, because 
 wroopirns, without the article, is quite general, and cannot mean the Messiah. 
 This also in answer to Baeumlein. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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