YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

CLARK'S

FOEEIGN

THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.

FOUfiTH SERIES.
VOL. LIII.

Jollet on the @o£pel of &t. Slohn.
VOL. II.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
187 9.

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON, . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
DUBLIN, . . ROBERTSON AND CO.
NEW YORK, . SCRIBNER AND WELFORD.

COMMENTARY

GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.

TOitij a Critical Introduction.

TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION OF
F. GODET, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, NEUCnATEL,
By M. D. CTJSIN" and S. TAYLOR.

VOLUME SECOND.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
187 9.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The first part of this volume, embracing pp. 1-198, has
been translated by Mrs. Cusin, the translator of the
earlier part of this Commentary and of the Commentary
on St. Luke. The remainder of the volume has been
translated by Miss Taylor, the translator of Luthardt's
Apologetic Works, etc.
Edinburgh, May 1877.

CONTENTS.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

FIRST CYCLE.

THIRD SECTION.

PAGE

The First Miracle.— Strengthening of Faith (ii. 1-11), . l
On the Miracle of Cana. . .14

SECOND CYCLE (II. 12-IV. 54).
FIRST SECTION.
Jesus in Judea (ii. 12-iii. 36), . . . . , .18
The Brethren of Jesus, ... 20
SECOND SECTION.
Jesus in Samaria (iv. 1-42), . ... 98
THIRD SECTION.
Jesus in Galilee (iv. 43-54), ...... 132
SECOND PART.
(V.-XII. 50.)
The Development of Unbelief in Israel, . . . .141
FIKST CYCLE (V.-VIIL).
FIRST SECTION.
First Outbreak of Hatred in Judea (v. 1-47), . .146

CONTENTS.
SECOND SECTION.
The great Messianic Testimony and the Crisis of Faith in Galilee (vi.
1-71) 

199

THIRD SECTION.
The Strife at its Climax at Jerusalem (vii. 1-viii. 59), . . 264
SECOND CYCLE (IX. and X.).
FIRST SECTION.
The Miracle (ix. 1-41), .... 358
SECOND SECTION.
The First Discourse (x. 1-21), . . . ... 375
THIRD SECTION.
•The Second Discourse (x. 22-42), ..... 397

COMMENTAEY ON THE GOSPEL OF
ST. JOHN.

FIRST CYCLE.
I. 19-11. 11
THIRD SECTION.
II. 1-11. THE FIRST MIRACLE.  STRENGTHENING OF FAITH.
JESUS, after being pointed out by John as the Messiah,
had manifested Himself to His first disciples ; a word of
miraculous knowledge in particular had revealed the intimate
relation 'which united Him to God. He now displays His
glory before their eyes in a first act of omnipotence ; and
their faith, embracing this fact of an entirely new order, begins
to rise to the height of its object. Such is the meaning of
this passage (ver. 11).
This first miracle takes place in the family circle. It is,
as it were, the point of union between the obscurity of private
life within which Jesus had kept till now, and the public
activity which He is about to begin. All the sweet and
amiable qualities with which He had adorned the domestic
hearth are displayed once more, but with a new glory. As _
He quits this domain He leaves on it the impress of divinit-y^-
It is His royal adieu to the relations which He bore as son.

brother kinsman. 
VerTl. " And the third day there was a marriage in Cana
of Galilee ; and the motlier of Jesus was there." — A distance
of twenty odd leagues in a straight line separates the scene
of John's baptism from Nazareth, to which Jesus probably
GODET II. A JOHN.

2 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
repaired. The journey requires three day,s' walking. The
first was, according to the natural interpretation of the text,
that which is indicated^.. _43, as the day of departure. The
second is understood; it was probably that "on which the
meeting with Nathaaagl took •filace. On the third, the
travellers might arrive at an early hour in the region of Cana
and Nazareth. Thus the date is very simply explained : the
third day, ver. 1. It was the sixth since that on which John
had borne his first witness before the Sanhedrim, i. 19. — We
are told in the present day of two places in Galilee bearing
the name of Cana. One is said to be called Kana-el-Jelil
(Cana of Galilee), and to be situated two hours and a half to
the north of Nazareth ; the other is called Kcfr-Kenna (village
Cana) ; it is situated a league and a half east from Nazareth.
1 Since Robinson brought the first into vogue, the choice is
usually in its favour (Ritter, Meyer) ; such is M. Renan's
opinion (Vie de Jisus, p. 75). Hengstenberg, however, has
decided for the second, because the first, he says, is only a
ruin, and possesses no stable population capable' of preserving
a Sure tradition regarding the name of the place. What if
the name even were not a reality ? 1 Anyhow, the situatioa
of Kefr-Kenna agrees better with our narrative. This date :
1 Robinson {Biblical Researches, ii. p. 340 et seq.) relates that he was guided
by a Christian Arab, called Abu Nasir, to the height of the Wely Ismail,
whence there is a magnificent view over all the surrounding regions, and that
this Arab pointed out to him, three leagues to the N.-W., a place called Kana
el Jelil, in the name of which he recognised the Cana of Galilee of our Gospel.
— On the other hand, here are the contents of a note I took at Nazareth itself
on the 26th of Sept. 1872, immediately after a conversation with a competent
European, who accompanied us to the Wely Ismail. He affirmed that the real
name of the place pointed out to Robinson is Khurbet-Cana, and that it was
only from Arabian politeness (aus Arabischer Hoiiickkeit) that Robinson's guide,
yielding at last to the importunate questions of the celebrated traveller, pro
nounced the desired name of Kana el Jelil, which has no existence whatever in
the country. — Such is also the result of the work published in Palestine Ex
ploration Fund, No. iii., 1869, by J. Zeller, missionary at Nazareth, who <nves
a very exact description of the two localities in dispute. He shows' how Chris
tian tradition has always attached itself to Kefr-Kenna, where there are found
considerable ruins, which are wholly wanting at Khurbet-Cana ; next how a
statement of the chronicler Saswulf (1103), and finally the whole account of
Josephus {Vita, 15 and 16), agree only with Kefr-Kenna. — On the other hand
Robinson quotes Quaresmius, and Raumer some other chroniclers in favour of
the new hypothesis. The certainty is that the name Kan*, tl Jelil has no exist
ence at the present day.

CHAP. II. 2. 3
" the third day" covers in reality the whole of the following
passage to ver. 11; it is consequently on the very day of the
arrival that the miracle must have taken place. Now, even if
He did not arrive at Nazareth till about the evening of the third
day, Jesus might yet have repaired before night to the very
near town of Kefr-Kenna,— that would have been impossible
with the Cana of Robinson, — or even what is more probable,
He arrived at Kefr-Kenna without having passed through
Nazareth. If Nathanael was actually on the way from Cana
(xxi. 2) at the time when Philip met him, he might inform
Jesus of the marriage which was being celebrated, and of the
presence of His family there, a fact which led Jesus to repair
thither directly. Besides, the addition of Galilee, which re
appears iv.-4^and xxi. 2,. must have been a regular designa
tion intended to distinguish this Cana from another place of
the same name, situated beyond Galilee (no doubt that of
which mention is made Josh. xix. 28, on the borders of
Phoenicia). There is therefore room to doubt seriously the
existence of two towns of the name of Cana, in Galilee pro
perly so called, in the time of Jesus.
The name of the mother of Jesus is not indicated, not-
exactly because John supposes the name known by tradition,
— it might have been added notwithstanding, — but because it
is as the mother of Jesus that Mary is about to play the im
portant part which she does in the following narrative. — Mary
was there only with a view to the marriage. This appears
from the connection of the clauses : there was a marriage, and :
Mary was there. Mary had therefore not dwelt at Cana pre
viously, as is supposed by Ewald, and as M. Renan also thinks
(pp. 74 and 75). The latter even goes the length of saying
that "probably part of the youth of Jesus was passed at
Cana ;" as if in that case He could have been unknown to
Nathanael, who was of Cana, and to whom Philip introduced
Him as unknown to him, and coming from Nazareth.
Ver. 2. " And both Jesus was called, and His disciples, to the
marriage." — There is a contrast between the imperf. was, used
in speaking of Mary, and the aor. was called, applied to Jesus
and His disciples. Jesus was only invited on His arrival,
whereas Mary was already there. — From all these particulars
it appears that the family in question was very closely related

4 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
to that of ourLord, — a fact which is likewise proved by the
position of authority taken by Mary in the following scene. —
The sing, was called is used because the disciples were invited
only in honour, and as it were in the person of their Master.
M. Rilliet, with some commentators, translates : had been
called. But when? Before proceeding to His baptism
(Schleiermacher), or later by a messenger ? Two very impro
bable suppositions. Besides, the appendix : as well as His
disciples, is incompatible with this meaning.
Ver. 3. " And when they warded wine} tlie mother of Jesus
saith unto Him, They have no wine." — Marriages sometimes
^^rasted several' days, or even a whole week (Gen. xxix. 2 7 ;
Judg. xiv. 15 ; Tob. ix. 12, x. 1). This circumstance is usually
taken to explain the want of wine. But it is in every way
more probable that this resulted from the arrival of those six
or seven unexpected guests, Jesus and His disciples. As to
the reading of the Sinait. : " And they had no more wine ; for
the wine of the feast was wholly consumed," is it not obvi
ously a diluted paraphrase of the original text ? What does
Mary mean by saying to Jesus: "They have no wine"?
Bengel and Paulus have thought that she meant to induce
Jesus to withdraw, and so to give the whole company the
signal for leaving. The answer of Jesus would signify :
" What right hast thou to prescribe to me ? My hour for
leaving is not yet come." Such an explanation needs no
refutation. The expression " mine hour,'' always used in our
Gospel in a grave and solemn sense, would suffice to show its
impossibility. It is the same with that of Calvin, according
to which Mary meant " to admonish Jesus to address to them
somepious exhortation, lest the company should grow weary,
--affldalso to cover honourably the shame of the bridegroom !"
The saying : " They have no wine,'' has some analogy to the
message of the sisters of Lazarus : " He whom T/wu lovest is
sick." It is a tacit request for assistance. But how comes
Mary to think of having recourse to Jesus to ask His assist
ance in a case of this kind ? Does she think of a miracle ?
1 X adds between aitau and Xtyu the words tXurfti a eitas rau yx/tau urx. The
Original reading of this MS. Was : ««i aivay auK si^ov art a-vtiTiXiirh a am; <rau yaiA.au
lira. \iyu, a reading which is found in some documents of the Itala (a b f f s),
tmd in the marginal notes of Syr? ; supported by Tischendorf in his 8th ed.

CHAP. II. 3. 5
Meyer thinks not ; for, according to ver. 1 1, Jesus had not yet
wrought one. Mary therefore only thought, according to him,
of natural help ; and the answer of Jesus, very far from
lowering His claims, signified : " Leave me to act ! There are
in me resources which thou knowest not, and the greatness of
which thou shalt see as soon as the hour marked by my
Father shall strike." Thereafter, the saying of Mary to the
servants : " Whatsoever He saith unto yon, do," offers no more
difficulty. But this explanation, which supposes that Mary
asks less than Jesus is disposed to do, contradicts the natural
meaning of the words : What have I to do with thee ? which
rather leads us to suppose an encroachment on Mary's part
into a domain exclusively reserved for Jesus, an indiscreet
interference with His work as Messiah. Besides, by what
other means than a miracle could Jesus have rescued the
bridegroom from his embarrassment ? Meyer gives no ex
planation on this point. And if Mary had thought of natural
means, would she have addressed herself to Jesus ? Certainly,
therefore, she desires miraculous assistance. Whence has she
such an idea? Hase and Tholuck suppose that Jesus had
already perforrnedrrnracles ,Mii_TJftr~Ta/rni1y ^circle. Ver. 11
"excludes"""~"rMs— hypothesis. ""Liicke improves on it, by saying
that He had at least shown in the perplexities of domestic
life peculiar gifts and prudence : one of those convenient ex
pedients which occur so frequently in this commentator, and
which have cost him such sharp criticisms from the pen of Baur.
In reality, it amounts to too much or too little. Let us bear
in mind (1) that_th£_caiiS£^fJhe_wajrt_oX_wine was the unex
pected presence of our Lord and HisdisciDles ; it was natural,
then, thalTJesus should be infonheoTofit. But above all, (2)
we ought to have regard to the state of exaltation in which the
whole of this company, and especially Mary, must have been
at this time. The disciples related all that had just passed in
Judea — the solemn declarations of the Baptist, the miraculous
baptism scene which John had at last disclosed, the proof__of
supernatural^-kHOW-ledge,. which Jesus had given on meeting
with Nathanael,' and, finally, the amazing promise made by
Jesus of a heaven henceforth open, with angels ascending and
descending . . . . ; the expectation of the marvellous (that
onpeia alreiv which St. Paul points out, 1 Cor. i. 22, as the

i Vi

6 COSPEL OF JOHN.
characteristic trait of Jewish piety) must have been excited
in all to the highest degree. The single fact that Jesus
arrived surrounded by His disciples would have sufficed to
give peculiar Mat to the new phase on which He had just
entered. How must the long pent-up memory of the mar
vellous circumstances which had accompanied her son's birth
ave been powerfully awakened at that moment in Mary's
\ heart ! The impatiently-expected hour of His Messianic
'manifestation, His avdSei^ wpcx; top 'laparjK (Luke i. 80),
had then struck ! Is it not to Mary that it belongs, as the
one who received the first revelations of His future greatness,
to give the signal for the decisive act ? She is accustomed
to obedience from her son. She seizes the first opportunity
presented to her to realize her desire. If the saying of Mary
be reset in this general situation, it will be understood that
what she asks of Him is less His assistance on behalf of the
bridegroom than a glorious act inaugurating His Messianic
royalty. In the occasion created by this want of wine, she
already sees heaven opening, and the angel ascending and
descending. Any other difficulty in life would have served
her as a pretext for seeking to gain the same result : " Thou
art the Messiah ; Thou must show Thyself!" As to Jesus,
we see reproduced here already the third form of His tempta
tion in the wilderness (Luke iv. 9). He is invited to make a
use of His miraculous power which passes beyond the measure
indicated by the call of providence. From this point of view,
His answer is natural :
^ Ver. 4. " Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with
thee ? mine hour is not yet come." — This answer of Jesus
reminds Mary of her incompetencjiin. the domain into which
she intrudes, and explains the partial refusal with* wEch
Jesus is obliged to meet her request. In the career upon
which He has now entered, Jesus depends only on His
Father ; His motto is henceforth : My Father and I. Mary
must learn to know Him only as the servant of Jehovah, and
as soon as His Messianic work is in question, cease to see in
Him her son. The phrase : " What is there between me and
thee ? " is a frequent expression in the 0. T., and sometimes
occurs even in profane Greek. Comp. Judg. xi 12 ; 2 Sam.
xvL 10; 1 Kings xvii. 18; 2 Kings iii. 13. There is

CHAP. II. 4. 7
quoted the* reply of a Stoic to a jester who asked him, at
the moment when their vessel was about to founder, whether
shipwreck was an evil or not : " What is there between us
and thee, 0 man ? We perish, and thou allowest thyself
to play the wit ! " This formula always signifies, as Heng-
stenberg says, that the relation, benevolent or hostile, which
one of the interlocutors seeks to form, is rejected by the
other. Mary had, indeed, understood the change which was
passing over the life of her son ; but, as is often the case
with our religious knowledge, she had not drawn from the
fact the practical consequence which concerned her per
sonally. Jesus is obliged to rebut the influence which she
would assume over Him (Baumlein). The address <ywai,
woman, is thereby explained. In the language in which
Jesus was speaking, as well as in Greek, this term contains
nothing at variance with respect and affection. In Dion
Cassius, a queen is accosted by Augustus with this expression.
Jesus employs it in addressing His mother at a moment of
unutterable tenderness, when from the cross He speaks to her
for the last time, xix. 26.^^But-Marv__must learn that, in the
sphere on which Jesus has_entered. sheis~~n^oTEEin^_more~To7
Him than_a_jsmipjewoman. JlTliere ior~Mary7' as Luthardt
' well observes, "is the beginning of a painful education.'' The
middle point of this education is marked by the question
of Jesus : " Who is my mother ? and who are my brethren ? "
(Matt. xii. 46 et seq.) The close will be this second address :
Woman (xix. 26), which will finally close the earthly relation
between the mother and the son. ALJfoim)i, Mary facls for
the first_time the edge of the sword which at the foot of the
^rnsgglip.11 pjprr.p. hm- heart. — Alter haying Rhown^er_incom-—
*petency, Jesus gives a reason for His refusal. The words :
Mine 'hour is not yet come," nave been understood by Euthy-
mius, Meyer, Hengstenberg, Lange, Riggenbach (Leben des
Herm Jesu, p. 374), in a very restricted sense: "The hour
for working the wished -for miracle." To explain Mary's
subsequent words, those commentators suppose two things :
(1) that Jesus received later_from_ His Father^ an inward _
sign which allowed Him to  comply with His mother's
o J-__„  — ^ I—*-  .  #_
•wtsn ;~f2) thai; He let her know by a gesture or word this
new circumstance. This is to add very much to the text.

8

-GOSPEL OF JOHN.

Besides, if Jesus had not received up to the present moment
any sign of His Father's will, how could He say : " not yet " ?¦
Does He know beforehand that permission will be granted to
Him later ! Finally, this so narrow sense given to thejhrase
" mine hour"' does not correspond t,o t^p gravp and Kolp.rrm
signification which attachesto__the tefm throughout our
Gospel But if it is desired^to^depart from this meaning, it
would be better to explain thus, with Gregory Nazianzen :
" Is not the hour of my emancipation, my autonomy, come ? "
But all those weakened meanings of the phrase " mine hour "
are the more impossible' here, because it stands in connection
with the verb is come, as in all the other passages in John :
" His hour was not yet come " (viii. 20); " The hour is come "
(xii. 23, xvii. 1). His hour, in all those passages, is^in^
variably that of His \ Messianic manifestation. This manifesta-
Taon might have foriEs resvTrt~"eT~iher His acknowledgment or
His rejection by Israel. Mary, impatient tcfsee- Him climb
thfi_steps of the throne, isv"5rm'pTyjnadeto understand, that
the hour" for inmiguratirig His TvTp^sig^ic^jnTiTviy~hqs noiTyp.t,

lis_
Struck. TIT is in His capital, Jerusalem, in His palace, the
Temple, andTnot in the circle of His family, that the Messiah
must show Himself (Mai. iii. 1 : "And then shall He come
to His temple "). Such was the theatre divinely prepared
for this holy revelation. <Thisjneanin^_of_Jh&-phr_ase_i mine
hour, mustjiave— been-JkmfniFto_Mary's mind. How often,
doubtless, in her confidentjal_c^nversationi^with2J^u^riia^
^s1le~Trrad.e-n2£5ielie^IoCitot towards which _ her desire_as-
forC

xj^e^ion_t^_d^r^e^JJie_.iime^an_Israelite and as a mother

w£nt_

esus refuses the request of Mary, but only in
'savours of ambition. As is often the case in His

so far as it
conversations, He replies less to the question which is addressed
to Him than TitT tfie~Tsprrifc--ift^whierril is addressed (compTii.
T9p2T37virinJ^.~^TT&-+h^4ay^ HiiTnterlocutor in
His whole being, and to the inmost sanctuary of His mind.
Mary desires a miracle as a startling signal of His Messianic
advent ; Jesus penetrates to her thought, and sets a limit to
it which she shall not attempt to pass over. But that does
not prevent Him at the same time from understanding that
there remains for Him something to do in view of the present
difficulty.

CHAP. II. 5, 6. 9
Ver. 5. " His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever
He saith1 unto you, do it." — Mary has been able to discern
in the tone and expression of Jesus, that His refusal leaves
room for a more moderate answer to the desire which she has
expressed. Or perhaps we have here an abridged style of
narration, such as that of which xi. 28 gives an example:
the voluntary omission of a detail which the reader will
supply of himself from the sequel of the narrative. Evi
dently, in the passage quoted, Martha had received from Jesus
a message for Mary of which there is no mention, and which
only comes to the reader's knowledge through the words of
Martha addressed to her sister. So, at Cana, Jesus may have
addressed a sentence to Mary the contents of which are
revealed to us only through her order to the servants : " Do
whatever He tells you." How, at this hour of heavenly joy,
when Jesus was Himself receiving His spouse, the church,
from His Father's hands, could He be deaf to such a wish ?
How, above all, could He wholly reject the prayer of her
who for thirty years had been taking the tenderest care of
Him, and from whom He was about to separate for ever?
Jesus needs no other sign to understand the will of His
.Father ; He grants an answer to His mother's faith simi
lar to that which at a later date He did not refuse to a
stranger, a Gentile (Matt. xv. 25). — If criticism found in
the obscurities of this dialogue an argument against the
truth of the narrative, the inference was clumsy. This
singular conciseness is, orr the contrary, an irrefutable seal
of authenticity. By the expression: Whatsoever He saith
¦'unto you, Mary respectfully reserves full liberty of action
for her son.
Ver. 6. "And there were set2 there six waterpots of stone,
rafter the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two
or three firkins apiece." — 'Eicel, there, denotes, according to
Meyer, the banqueting chamber itself. Is it not more natural
to conceive of those waterpots as placed in the court or in
the vestibule at the entrance of the hall ? Ver. 9 seems to
prove that all this passed out of the bridegroom's sight. —
1 The Mss. are divided between Xiy» and Xtyu.
2 Kafitmi, put by T. R. after sg, following the most of the Mss. and Vss., is
found in B C L after lavSxiuv, and is altogether wanting in K.

10 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Those vessels were used for the purification both of persons
and utensils, such as was customary among pious Jews,
especially before or after meals (Matt. xv. 2 ; Luke xi. 3 8 ;
especially Mark vii. 1-4). — Kara, not, with a view to, but
according to its natural sense : in conformity with. This
prep, is related to the complement tcov 'lovhalcov : conform
ably to the mode of purification practised by the Jews. — Ava
has evidently here, considering the precise number 6, the.
distributive meaning (singula;), not the approximative signiftr
cation (about). — The measure indicated was very considercqj5fej
it amounted to 27 litres (Rilliet), or even to 39 (Arnaud).
The entire contents might therefore amount to about 500
litres.1 This quantity has appeared too great, and has even
scandalised certain critics (Strauss, Schweizer). who have
_fniind hnrn'n another prpQf Of *¦*"» fa,lgph(w|nf thp^njirrat.ivp.

Lucke_replies that all th&jw^erjwas not necessarily changed,
into wine. " "This^sttpposition is contrary^ to the natural "fiiean-!
ing of the text; and the exact indication of the quantity
contained in the vessels implies the contrary. Let us rather
say that, as soon as Jesus gives in to His mother's desire, He
gives way to it with His whole heart as son, as friend, and
as man, with an inward joy. It is His first miraculous sign :
it must give high testimony of His riches, His munificence,
and the happiness which it gives Him to relieve, or even
to gladden ; it must become the type of the fulness of grace
and joy and strength which the only-begotten Son brings to
the earth. There is nothing, besides, in the text obliging us
to suppose that all this wine was consumed at this feast.
It was the rich wedding present wherewith our Lord honoured
the house into which He had been hospitably received along
with His followers. Why the number 6 expressly men
tioned, if not because it corresponded exactly to the number
of the persons who accompanied Him? This gift was at
once the testimony of the disciples' gratitude to their host,
and the durable monument of the Master's benediction on
the new household formed under His auspices. How comes
it that criticism can assail everything that is most truly
human in the Gospel ? And further, what a feeling of lively
1 The above numbers correspond respectively to 28, 41, and 530 quarts
English measure. — Tn.

CHAP. II. 7-10. 11
pleasure is expressed in the words which follow ! Jesus
anticipates the joyful surprise of His host.
Vv. 7, 8:' "Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with
water. And they filled them up to the brim. And He
saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor
of the feast. And they bare it." l — We need not understand
jefilcrare, fill, in the sense of to fill up, nor allege in favour
of this meaning the words ee»? ava, up to the brim ; the state
ment thus understood has something repugnant about it.
Either the vessels were empty, in consequence of the ablutions
which had taken place before the feast, or they began with
emptying them, to fill them afterwards anew. The : up to
the brim, serves to bring out the eagerness with which the
work was done. The moment of the miracle ought to be
placed between vv. 7, 8 ; for the transformation is supposed
by the word now of ver. 8. This now, as well as the words :
bear to the governor of the feast, breathe a spirit of overflowing
joy, and even of gaiety. — The personage here called governor
of the feast was not one of the guests ; he> was the chief of
the servants ; it belonged to his office to taste the meats and
drinks before ordering them to be placed on the table.
Vv. 9, 10. " When the ruler of the feast had tasted the
water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was (but the
servants which drew the water knew) ; the governor of the feast
called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at
the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men are
drunk, then 2 that which is worse : but thou 3 hast kept the good
wine until now." — The words vBwp olvov yeyevvpevov, the
water that was made wine, do not admit of any other mean
ing than that of a miraculous transformation. The natural
process by which the watery sap is transformed year by
year into the fruit of the vine (Augustine), or that by which
mineral waters are formed (Neander), offer, indeed, a distant
analogy, but not at all a means of explanation. — The paren
thesis, which embraces the words ical ovk . . . iiBcop, presents
a construction perfectly analogous to those of i. 10 and vi.
21—23. The object of the parenthesis is to exhibit the
1 Instead of xxi wiyxav, KEKL, some Mnn. Cop. read at Ss nnyxav.
2 N B L, some Mnn. omit rare.
3 N G A, some Mnn. and Vss. read eu 2s instead of cu.

12 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
reality of the miracle by reminding us, on the one hand, that
the domestics knew not that it was wine that they were
bearing ; and, on the other, that the governor of the feast was
not present when the event transpired. — He calls the bride
groom ; the latter was in the feast-chamber. It has been
sought perforce to give a religious import to the pleasantry of
the governor of the feast, by ascribing to it a symbolical mean
ing ; the world, as some would explain it, which begins with
offering to man the best it has, to abandon him afterwards to
despair ; or, according to others, God, ever surpassing Himself
in His gifts, and after the austere law, offering the delicious
wine of the gospel Certainly nothing of the kind was
present to the mind of the speaker, and there is nothing to
show that the evangelist attached any such meaning to the
saying. The word is simply reported to prove how fully
Jesus abandoned Himself to the common joy, by not only
giving abundantly, but excellently. Here also was one of
the rays of His 8o|fa (glory). For the rest, it is not neces
sary to attenuate the meaning of fieOva-QSiai, to be drunk, in
order to remove from the guests at the marriage feast every
suspicion of intemperance. For the saying is used in a
proverbial sense, and does not apply to the actual company.
Ver. 11. " This beginning1 of miracles did Jesus in Cana of
Galilee2 and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples
believed on Him." — John characterizes the miracle just related
in different aspects, important from the point of view of his
narrative : 1st. It was the first, not only of the miracles
wrought at Cana, but of all our Lord's miracles. As it was
a decisive_jnoment in the revelation of Jesus, and in the
faith_of Hisdisciples, J ohn puts emphasis on the facE The"
"ATexTTiave iFejectecT^ie^^Ttr^inDefore apyiqv, doubtless as
superfluous because of Tavrvv. But, as often happens, in
affecting to correct, they spoil. Without the art. our atten
tion is rather drawn to the nature of the miracle : " It was
by a prodigy of this kind that Jesus began to work miracles."
By the art. the notion of a commencement is identified with
the event itseK : " It was that fact, accomplished at Cana
1 T. R. reads, with the majority of the Mjj., among them S and the Mnn., mi
before ^fx""- A B L Tb A and Or. reject the article.
8 K adds *(!»mi after TaXiXuix;.

, CHAP. II. 11. 13
of Galilee, which was the commencement . . ." The second
idea, as we shall see, is as essential, as the first is foreign, to
the context. — 2d. John repeats a second time at the close
the place where the event transpired. The interest of this
repetition cannot be geographical. We shall see, iii. 24 and
iv. 54, how concerned John was to distinguish between the
two returns of Jesus to Galilee, which had been confounded
by tradition ; and it can be with no other view that he
expressly indicates how each of those returns was signalized
by a miracle wrought at Cana, and that at the very time
of our Lord's arrival. According to Hengstenberg, the com
plement of Galilee was meant as a reference to the prophecy,
Isa. ix. 1, 2, according to which the glory of the Messiah
must be manifested in Galilee. This aim would be admissible
in Matthew ; it appears foreign to John's narrative. — 3d. John
declares the object of the miracle. He uses here for the first
time the term sign (arjfielov), which is related to the following
expression : " He manifested forth His glory." The miracles
of Jesus are not mere prodigies (repaTa), intended to strike
the imagination. There exists a close relation between those
marvellous works and the person of Him who performs them.
They are visible emblems of what He is and of what He
comes to do, and, as M. Reuss so well says, "images raying
forth from the permanent miracle of the manifestation of
Christ." Christ's glory is above all His honour as the Son,
and the eternal love which His Father has to Him. Now
this honour is by its very nature concealed from the view of
the inhabitants of the world; but miracles are the brilliant
signs of it. By manifesting the unbounded freedom with
which the Son disposes of all things, they demonstrate the
Father's perfect love to Him : " The Father loveth the Son, and
hath given all things into His hand" (iii. 35). The phrase
" His glory " distinguishes profoundly between Jesus and all
the divine messengers who had wrought similar wonders
before Him. There was seen in their miracles the glory of
Jehovah (Ex. xvi. 7) ; those of Jesus reveal His. own, by
testifying, in concert with ,the revelation contained in His
sayings, to His filial relation. The expression, His glory,
contains, moreover, all that Jesus puts of His own into the
act which He has just finished, the love full of tenderness

14 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
with which He uses divine omnipotence in the service of His
own. — 4th. John finally declares the result of this miracle.
Called forth by testimony, faith was first strengthened by
personal contact with its object. And now, in this personal
relation, it is given to it to make such experiences of the
power and goodness of the being to whom it is attached, that
it finds itself thereby immoveably confirmed. No doubt it
will grow in proportion as such experiences multiply; but
from that time it has passed through the three essential
phases of its formation. This is what John expresses in the
words : " And His disciples believed on Him." Those glorious
irradiations from the person of Jesus, which are called miracles,
are therefore intended, not merely, as is often taken for
granted in apologetics, to arrest the attention of the yet un
believing multitude, and to quicken the tardy, but above all
to illuminate the hearts of believers by revealing to them in
this world of suffering all the riches belonging to the glorious
object of their faith. Such is the force of ver. 11.
What passed in the minds of the other witnesses of this
scene ? John's silence leads us to suppose that the impres
sion produced was neither profound nor lasting. And this
because the miracle, in order to act efficaciously, must be
understood as a sign (vi. 26), and because to this end certain
moral predispositions are necessary. The impression of
amazement which the guests experienced, not connecting
itself with any spiritual need or any struggle of conscience,
was soon effaced by the distractions of life.
On the Miracle of Cana.
Against the reality of this event two sorts of objections are
raised : the one bearing on miracles in general ; the others, on
this in particular. We do not concern ourselves with the first.
We think there is nothing more opposed to sound method, to
the method called experimental, than to begin with declaring
as a principle that a miracle is impossible. To say that there
never has been a miracle up till now, be it so ! That is a matter
to be examined. But to say there cannot be one, that is to
make metaphysics, not history ; it is to cast oneself into the
a priori, which is repudiated.1
1 On miracles in general, comp. Introd. I. p. 129 et seq., and the author's
Conferences sur les Miracles de Jdsus-Christ, et sur le Surnaturel.

THE MIRACLE OF CANA. 15
The objections which refer specially to the miracle of Cana
are, —
1st. Its magical character (Schweizer). — The difference
between magic and miracles is, that the former works in
vacuo, dispensing with already existing nature'; while the true
supernatural bears itself respectfully toward the first creation,
and always connects its operation with a material furnished by
it. Now, in this case, Jesus does not use His power to create,
as Mary imagined; He contents Himself with transforming
and glorifying what is. He remains, therefore, within the
bounds of the biblical supernatural.
2d. Objection is taken to the uselessness of the miracle. It
is a "miracle of luxury,'' according to Strauss. — Let us rather
say, with Tholuck : " a miracle of love." We think we have
demonstrated this. It might even be regarded as the payment
of a double debt : to the bridegroom, to whom our Lord's arrival
had caused this embarrassment ; and to Mary, to whom Jesus
before leaving her was paying His debt of gratitude. The
miracle of Cana is one of filial piety. The symbolical interpre
tations by which it has been sought to give an aim to this
miracle appear to us artificial : to contrast the joy of the gospel
with the ascetic rigour of John the Baptist (Olshausen) ; to
represent the miraculous transformation of legal life into
spiritual (Luthardt). Would not such intentions betray them
selves in some word of the text ?
3d. This miracle has even been accused of immorality. Jesus
encouraged intemperance in the guests. — " With the same right,"
answers Hengstenberg, " we might ask God not to grant good
vintages because of drunkards." Would not the presence of
Jesus, and afterwards the grateful memory of His hosts,
guarantee the holy use of the gift ?
4th. The omission of the account in the Synoptics is
regarded by adversaries as the strongest argument against the
reality of the event. — But, as we have seen, this miracle belongs
to a period in the ministry of Jesus which, through the con
fusion of the first two returns to Galilee, had disappeared from
tradition. And John's very aim in restoring this forgotten
fact to the light was to re-establish this effaced distinction.
Moreover, the narration of this fact entered directly into John's
plan : to remind the church of the principal stages through which
the development of the apostolic faith passed (comp. ver. 1 1).
A host of evidences demonstrate the fragmentary character
of that oral tradition which passed into the Synoptics. How are
we to explain the omission of the appearance of the risen Jesus
to the five hundred in our four Gospels ? — And yet this fact
is one of the most solidly attested (1 Cor. xv. 6).
If we reject the reality of the miracle as it is simply related

16 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
by the evangelist, what remains to us ? Three suppositions :
1. The natural explanation of Paulus or Gfrorer : Jesus had
agreed with a merchant to have wine brought secretly during
the feast, which He ordered to be served to the guests mixed
with water. By His reply to Mary, ver. 4, He binds her not to
let the entertainment which He has prepared, and the hour of
which is not yet come, fail through her indiscretion ; the glory
of Jesus, ver. 1 1, is His exquisite humanity (Paulus). Or, again,
it is to Mary herself that the honour of this amiable attention
accrues. She has had the wine prepared to offer as a wedding
present, and at the propitious moment she makes a signal to
Jesus to get it served (Gfrorer). M. Renan does not seem far
from holding the one or the other of those explanations. He
says in vague terms : " Jesus went gladly to marriage entertain
ments. One of His miracles was performed, it is said, to
enliven a village wedding" (p. 195). The gravity of the gospel
history protests against those parodies which convert Jesus
into a village charlatan. — 2. The mythical explanation of
Strauss : Legend invented this miracle after the analogy of
some incidents related in the Old Testament, e.g. Ex. xv. 23
et seq., where Moses purifies bitter waters by means of a
certain kind of wood ; 2 Kings ii. 19, where Elisha does some
thing similar. But between those facts and ours there is not
the faintest real analogy. Besides, the perfect sobriety of the
narrative, and its very obscurities, are incompatible with such
an origin. " Nothing in the whole tenor of the narrative," says
Baur himself (quoting the judgment of de Wette), " authorizes
us to hold its mythical character." — 3. The ideal explanation
of Baur, Keim, etc. According to the first, the pseudo-John
composed this narrative to set forth the relation between the
two baptisms, that of John (water) and that of Jesus (wine).
According to the second, the evangelist invented this miracle
on the ground of this saying of Jesus : " Can the friends of the
bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them ? . . . New
ivine is put into new bottles " . . . (Matt. ix. 15, 17). The water
in the vessels represented the insufficient purifications provided
by Judaism and John's baptism. The worse wine, wherewith
the feast ordinarily begins, was also Judaism, destined to give
place to the better wine of the gospel. The delay of Jesus
represented His coming as later than that of John. His hour
was that of His death, which substitutes for the previous
imperfect purifications the true purification by the blood of
Christ, in consequence of which is given the glad wine of the
Holy Spirit, etc. . . . Indeed, if it were wished to demonstrate
the reality of the fact as it is simply related by John, we could
not do so more convincingly than by adducing such explana
tions, which seem to be the parody of criticism. What ! this

CHAP. II. 12-IV. 54. 17
refined idealism, which was the basis and source of the narrative,
betray itself nowhere, even in the smallest word of the account !
It wrapped itself up in a narrative of the most simple, prosaic,
and sober character, which carries conciseness even to obscurity !
In what, we may ask, is " the tenor of the narrative" as we find
it at every word, more compatible with the explanation of Baur
or of Keim, than with that of Strauss ? The apostolical nar
rative, by its incomparable verisimilitude, will always be the
most irresistible defence of the reality of the fact thus related.1
Before leaving this first cycle of narratives, we ought to
take up a judgment pronounced by M. Renan on the begin
ning of our Gospel (p. 109): "The first pages of the fourth
Gospel are dissimilar notes pieced together. The rigorous
chronological order which they proclaim arises from the
author's taste for apparent precision." If, on the contrary,
there is a passage in our Gospels where everything is con
nected and rigorously consecutive, not only in regard to time,
but also matter and idea, it is precisely this. The days
are counted, the hours even mentioned ; it is the description
of a consecutive week, corresponding to the Passion-Week.
But there is more, — the intrinsic connection of the events is
so close, that Baur could persuade himself that he had to do
with an ideal and systematic conception, presented in a
historical form. The further the narrative proceeds, the
more is M. Renan himself forced to render homage at eveVy
page to its chronological accuracy. He finishes by taking
it almost exclusively as the guide of his narrative. And the
beginning of such a history, the homogeneousness of which
is, besides, a fact recognised by criticism, is nothing more than
an accidental gathering of " notes pieced together ! " This is
far from probable.

SECOND CYCLE.
II. 12-IV. 54.
This second cycle falls naturally into three sections : 1st. The
ministry of Jesus in Judea, ii. 12-iii. 36 ; 2d. The return
1 We abstain from replying here to Schweizer, who had attacked the authen
ticity of the piece, but who lias withdrawn his hypothesis (see Introd. I. p. 25).
GODET II. B JOHN.

18 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
through Samaria, iv. 1-42; 3d. The settling in Galilee,
iv. 43-54. We shall see that to those three geographical
domains there correspond three very different moral situations.
And hence the varied manner in which Jesus reveals Himself,
and the different receptions which He meets.

FIRST SECTION.
II. 12-HI. 36. — JESUS IN JUDEA.
Here again, as in the preceding account, the narrative is
steadily progressive, and the historical development nicely
graduated. Jesus appears first in the temple (ii. 12-22);
afterwards He teaches in the capital (ii. 23-iii. 21); finally,
He exercises His ministry in the country of Judea (iii. 22—36).
I. Jesus in the Temple. — ii. 12—22.
Ver. 12. " After this He went down to Capernaum,1 He, and
His mother, and His brethren,2 and His disciples :z and they con
tinued* there not many days." — From Cana, Jesus undoubtedly
returned to Nazareth. For the complete removal indicated at
ver. 12 can only have been carried out from His usual
dwelling-place. The stay at Nazareth, thus assumed in ver. 12,
cannot be that mentioned by Luke iv. 16—30, for the latter
was posterior to the beginning of our Lord's public ministry
in Galilee ; comp. Luke vv. 1 4, 1 5. Nothing, on the contrary, is
opposed to the supposition that this emigration from Nazareth
to Capernaum should be identified with that mentioned Matt.
iv. 13: " And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Caper
naum," holding, however, that Matthew, in consequence of his
confounding the first two returns to Galilee, ascribes here to
our Lord's settling at Capernaum a definitive character which
it had not till later. The mother and brethren of Jesus
1 KBT'X It*'- : Hxfapmau/t, instead of Ks«f roup, which T. R. reads, with
She 19 other Mjj.
3 B L Tb It"11"- Or. omit amrau after «2sX?oi.
X ly>ier. omit; xxl el ^x(nTXI avrou (confusion of the two avrtv),
4 Instead of t/ttiv/tv, A F G A, Cop. read ipim».

CHAP. II. 12. 19
accompanied Him. They were under the impression of the
miracle at Cana, and probably also of the memory of the
circumstances of His birth. His brethren were curious to see
how the drama which had begun in a manner so amazing
would unfold. This detail of John's narrative is confirmed by
Mark vi. 3, which supposes that the sisters of Jesus, probably
married, had alone remained at Nazareth ; and by Mark
iii. 21-31, which is more naturally explained if the brothers
of Jesus remained with Mary at Capernaum. As to Jesus,
He had not in the meantime the intention of making a pro
longed sojourn in this city ; it was later, when He was obliged
to leave Judea, that Capernaum became His usual dwelling-
place, His own city (Matt. ix. 1). May there not be in Luke
iv. 23 an evidence of this earlier sojourn which preceded the
definitive return of Jesus to Galilee, the only one mentioned
in our Synoptics ? Thus there would be solved a considerable
difficulty in Luke's account, and at the same time the accuracy
of his sources would be verified. — Capernaum was a city of
considerable commerce. It was situated on the route of the
caravans which passed from the interior, and from Damascus
to the Mediterranean. A custom-house stood there (Luke
v. 2 7 et seq.). Capernaum was, in a way, the Jewish capital
of Galilee, as Tiberias was its Gentile or Roman capital.
Jesus must have met with less of narrow prejudice there than
at Nazareth, and many more opportunities of propagating the
gospel. — It was natural that, before calling His disciples to
follow Him definitively, He should allow them the satisfaction
of enjoying, like Himself, once more, for the last time, the
family circle. The term Karefiv, went down, is explained by
the fact that Cana and Nazareth are situated on the plateau,
and Capernaum on the sea-shore.1 The silence observed about
1 Less than ever does there appear to be a readiness to agree about the situa
tion of Capernaum. The old opinion pointed to Tell- Hum, at the northern end
of the lake. There are ruins there, no doubt, but by no means so abundant a
spring of water as that mentioned by Josephus, and to which he even gives the
name of Capernaum. Ks<pxpmift.i> {Bell. Jud. iii. 10. 8). Keim pleads ener
getically in favour of Khan-Minyeh, about a league to the south-west of Tell-
Hum. But neither are there ancient ruins there nor an abundant spring ; for
the little neighbouring fountain, Ain-et-Tm, which issues from the rock some
paces from the sea, cannot answer to the description of Josephus, and cannot
have served to irrigate the country. Caspari and Quandt have therefore ground
for proposing the site of the Ain-Mudawarah, a magnificent basin of water in the

20 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Joseph leads us to suppose that he was dead before this
period. What is the true meaning of the phrase: the brethren of
Jesus ? This question, as is known, is one of the most com
plicated belonging to the Gospel history. Are we to under
stand thereby brethren in the proper sense of the word, the
issue of Joseph and Mary, and younger than Jesus ? Or sons
of Joseph, the issue of a marriage anterior to his union with
Mary ? Or, finally, are we to hold that they are the sons
neither of Joseph nor Mary, and that the word brother should
be taken in the wide sense which it sometimes has, that of
cousin ? From the exegetical point of view solely, two reasons
lead us to adopt the first of these three opinions : 1st. The two
passages, Matt. i. 2 5 : "He knew her not till she had brought
forth her first-born son" (or, according to the Alexandrine
reading, "her son") ; and Luke ii. 7: " She brought forth her first
born son." 2d. The strict meaning of the word brother is the
only natural one in the phrase : His mother and His brethren.
We shall give in the following appendix a general statement
of the question. The Brethren of Jesus.
The oldest traditions, if we are not mistaken, unanimously
ascribe brothers to Jesus, and not merely cousins. They differ
only in this point, that those brothers are, according to some,
sons of Joseph and Mary, younger brothers of Jesus ; accord
ing to others, children of Joseph, the issue of a first marriage.
centre of the plain of Gennesaret, half a league to the west of Khan-Minyeh. M.
Renan objects that Capernaum must have been situated on the sea-shore {ntftfa-
xamri'a, Matt. iv. 13). But this epithet does not exclude the possibility of the
distance of a quarter of a league between the shore and the city. (Comp. Mark
v. 21 ; Matt. ix. 9.) Only there are no ruins in this district. Must we then
think of Ain-Tabigah, between Tell-Hum and Khan-Minyeh? This is the
opinion expressed in the Vierteljahrschrift of Heydenheim, 1871, pp. 533-544.
There, there is a powerful spring which may have been raised to irrigate the
country by aqueducts, such as there are at the present day to feed the mill
established on the spot. But here, too, no ruins have been discovered down to
the present hour. — As to Bethsaida, there is the same uncertainty. Some think
of Ain-Tabigah, others of Et-Tin. Quandt even pronounces for El-Megdil {the
Tower), which is ordinarily regarded as the Magdala of the Gospel. In this
case we must, with this writer, place Magdala, along with the district of Dal-
manutha, to the south of Tiberias.— Comp. my Comment, on St. Luke's Gospel
i. p. 241 et seq., Eng. trans. '

THE BRETHREN OF JESUS. 21
The idea of taking the brethren of Jesus in the N. T. as
cousins does not seem to go further back than Jerome and
Augustine, though Keim (i. p. 423) affects to find it as early as
Hegesippus and Clement of Alexandria. Comp. on this ques
tion, the excellent dissertation of Ph. Schaff, Das Verhaltniss
des Jacobus, Bruders des Herrn, zu Jacobus Alphai, 1843. Let
us begin with studying the principal testimonies : —
Hegesippus, whom Eusebius (ii. 23) places in the first rank
in the apostolical succession, writes about 160: "James, our
Lord's brother, called the Just from the times of Christ down
to our day, then undertakes the administration of the church
with the apostles (y.iro\ ruv avonr.)." It follows from these words :
with the apostles, that Hegesippus positively distinguishes the
James our Lord's brother from the two apostles of that name,
James the son of Zebedee, and James (the less or the little)
designated as the son of Alpheus. Now, if the name of Alpheus
is the Greek form of the Aramaic name Cleopas (itbn = KXtanug),
a name which, according to Hegesippus, was borne by Joseph's
brother, it follows thence that- one of the two Jameses being
already our Lord's cousin, the other could only be His brother
in the strict sense.
The distinction which Hegesippus established between the
three Jameses is confirmed by a saying of his quoted in the same
chapter of Eusebius : " For there were several persons called
James (rnXXoi 'laxoifioi)." The term several can only be explained
if he held more than two Jameses.
Eusebius relates (iii. 11) that after the martyrdom of James
the Just, the first bishop of Jerusalem, " there was elected as
his successor Simeon the son of Cleopas, who was our Lord's
cousin (an-^ioc)." For, adds Eusebius, " Hegesippus relates that
Cleopas was Joseph's brother." It is evident that the epithet
son of Cleopas distinguishes the parentage of Simeon from that
of James ; otherwise how should Eusebius not have said : who
was also the son of Cleopas, or at least : who was the brother
of James ? Hegesippus therefore did not at all regard James
himself as the son of Cleopas, nor, consequently, as our Lord's
cousin, but His brother.
Eusebius (iii. 32) quotes the following words from Hege
sippus : " Some of those heretics denounced Simeon the son
of Cleopas. ... In the time of Trajan, the latter, born of the
Lord's uncle (6 Ik Gifou roZ Kvpiw) . . . was condemned to the
cross." This second bishop of Jerusalem was then in his 120th
year. Why designate him thus : son of the Lord's uncle, while
James is always simply called the Lord's brother, if they had been
' related to Jesus in the same degree (His cousins, brothers to
•one another) ? The main passage of Hegesippus is quoted by
Eusebius, iv. 22 : " After James had suffered martyrdom like

22 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
our Lord, Simeon, born of His. uncle (hhu aurov), son of Cleopas,
was appointed bishop, having been chosen by all as the Lord's
second cousin (o'vra an^ihv rou Kvplou fcvnpov)." If the pron.
airou (His uncle) refers to James, the question is decided:.
Simeon being the son of James' uncle, the latter is his cousin,
and not his brother ; he is consequently the brother of Jesus.
If the auroZ is referred to the Lord, it follows, as we know, that
Simeon was the son of the uncle of Jesus, His cousin. But the
last words lead us further : Simeon is there called the second
cousin of Jesus (the connection of hvrtpov with &vi-^i6\> is the
only admissible one). Who was the first? Keim answers:
James the Just. But why, in that case, should the term cousin,
analog, not be applied to him in a single instance ? Why
should this epithet always be applied to Simeon, and that
of brother reserved for James ? In the view of Hegesippus,
the first cousin (the eldest son of Cleopas) was therefore
simply the Apostle James, the son of Alpheus (Cleopas).
He, as an apostle, could not be called to the post of bishop of
Jerusalem. Thus everything harmonizes in the account of
Hegesippus. This result receives full confirmation from the way in which
this Father expresses himself regarding Jude, known as the
brother of James (Jude 1). "There existed also at that time,"
says he (Eus. iii. 20), " grandsons of Jude, called the Lord's
brother (avroZ) according to the flesh'' This expression: brother
according to the flesh, thoroughly distinguishes the position of
Jude and James from that of Simeon.1
The opinion of Clement of Alexandria may appear doubtful.
This Father seems (Eus. ii. 1) to know only two Jameses : 1. The
son of Zebedee ; 2. The Lord's brother, James the Just, who
would thus be at once the son of Alpheus and the cousin of
Jesus. " For there were," says he, " two Jameses : one, the Just,
who was thrown down from the pinnacle of the temple, . . .
the other who was beheaded " (Acts xii. 2). But Clement may
here be passing over in silence James the son of Alpheus, whose
name is not once mentioned in the Acts, and who played no
part in the history of the church of which this Father is here
treating. And besides, Clement seems to draw his information
about James from Hegesippus himself (Schaff, p. 69). Now
we have just stated the opinion of the latter. Finally, is it
quite certain that those last words are Clement's, and not those
of Eusebius ? "
1 In view of these facts, the assertion of Keim, i. p. 423, falls to the ground :
"Hegesippus makes James and Simeon ... to bo i«\W of Jesus." Comp.
the same assertions, Bibellexic. of Schenkel, i. p. 482.
1 As to Eusebius himself, he certainly distinguishes James the Lord's brother
from James the son of Alpheus ; for in his Commentary on Isa. xvii. 5 (Mont-

THE BRETHREN OF JESUS. 23
Tradition thus recognises the existence of brothers of Jesus,
and expressly of these two : James and Jude. But are they
Joseph's children, the issue of a former marriage, or the sons of
Joseph and Mary ?
The first opinion is that of the author of an apocryph 1
treatise, belonging to the first part of the second century, tl e
Protevangelium of James. At chap. ix. Joseph says to the priest
who confides Mary to him : " I have sons, and am old." At
chap. xvii. : " I have come to Bethlehem to register my sons," etc.
Origen accepted this view. In his homily on Luke vii., trans
lated by Jerome, he says : " For those sons, called sons of
Joseph, were not born of Mary" (see the other passages in
Schaff, p. 81 et seq). Yet it follows from his own explanations
that this opinion did not rest on a historical tradition, but on a
twofold dogmatical prejudice : that of the moral superiority of
celibacy to marriage ; and that of the exceptional holiness of
the mother of Jesus (comp. especially the passage ad Matth.
xiii. 55). Several apocryphal Gospels — those of Peter, Thomas,
etc., as well as some Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, Epiphanius,
etc. — spread this opinion. But Jerome charges it as being
deliramentum apocryphorum.
The other view is found in the following authorities : Ter
tullian evidently admits brethren of Jesus in the strict and ful
sense of the word. For he says, de Monog. c. 8 : " The virgin
did not marry till after having given birth to the Christ."
According to Jerome (adv. Helvid.), some very old writers spoks
of the sons of Joseph and Mary, and had already been com
bated by Justin; which proves to what high antiquity this
opinion goes back.1
Whatever preference may deserve to be given to the one or
the other of those two kinds of relationship, the difference
between the brothers and the cousins of Jesus is a settled matter
from the historical point of view.
See now the difficulty which it raises: The names of the
brothers of Jesus, indicated Matt. xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3, are
James, Joses (according to two various readings, Joseph or
John), Simon, and Jude. Now, according to John xix. 25,
comp. with Matt, xxvii. 56 and Mark xv. 40, Mary the wife of
faucon's Coll. nova pair. ii. p. 422) he reckons fourteen apostles : the first
twelve, . . . then Paul, . . . finally, James the Lord's brother, and first
bishop of Jerusalem. But as to the relationship between the latter and our
Lord, the passage ii. 1 leaves us in doubt (see the various reading). Eusebius
does not seem to me to be clear on this subject.
1 We do not here allege testimonies of so advanced a date as that of the letter
of the pseudo-Ignatius to the Apostle John, or that of the Apostolical Consti
tutions, viii. 35 (see Schaff).

24 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Cleopas and aunt of Jesus had two sons, the one named James
(in Mark, James the less), the other Joses. They _ were conse
quently two cousins of Jesus. Moreover, Hegesippus makes
Simeon, the second bishop of Jerusalem, a son of Cleopas; he
was therefore also a cousin of Jesus. Finally, Luke vi. 14-16
speaks of an Apostle Judas, (son or brother) of James, who is
given as son of Alpheus (or Cleopas). Hje would thus be a
fourth cousin of Jesus, and the two lists would coincide ! Four
brothers and four cousins of the same name ! ... Is this ad
missible ? But, 1st. As to the Apostle Judas, the natural ellipsis
in the passage of Luke is not brother, but son, of James ; conse
quently, of some James or other unknown to us. This desig
nation is merely intended to distinguish this apostle from the
other Judas, the Iscariot, whose name follows. Jesus, then,
had a brother called Judas, but not a cousin. 2d. The refer
ences of Hegesippus certainly force us to admit a cousin of
Jesus of the name of Simon.1 3d. If, for the second brother of
Jesus, we admit the reading Joseph, the identity of name with
the third cousin falls of itself to the ground. > 4th. As to the
name of James, it stands undoubtedly in the two lists. — The
real result is therefore this : In those two lists, the one of the
brothers, the other of the cousins of Jesus, there are two names
common, those of James and of Simon. Is that enough to
prove the identity of those two categories of persons ? Does
it not happen at the present day, especially in country places,
that we find families related to one another, in which, among
several children, one or two bear certain very usual names in
common ?
The following are two positive exegetical reasons in favour
of the distinction between the brothers and cousins of Jesus :
1st. No doubt, assuming the premature death of Cleopas, we
could understand his widow and sons being taken home by
Joseph and Mary, and the latter being reared along with Jesus ;
and thus might be understood their name as brotfiers of Jesus.
But would it be conceivable that, with their mother still living
(Matt, xxvii. 56 and parallels), such an expression would have
been used as is found in our Gospels in speaking of Mary and
her nephews : " His mother and His brethren " (Matt. xii. 46 ;
Mark iii. 31; Luke viii. 19)? 2d. The surname, the less,
given to James the cousin of Jesus (Mark xv. 40), must
have served to distinguish him from some other member of
his family bearing the same name. Is it not probable that
this James was no other than his cousin James, the brother
of Jesus ? We conclude, therefore, that Jesus had four
1 But why is Mary the wife of Cleopas called the mother of James and Joses,
and not of Simon ? This is a matter not easy to explain.

CHAP. II. 13-16. 25
brothers, strictly so called : James, surnamed the Just ; Joseph,
Simon, and Judas ; and three cousins : Simon, James the less,
and Joses.
None of His brothers were apostles ; a fact which harmonizes
with vii. 5 : " Neither did His brethren believe in Him."
Converted later, after His resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 5), they be
came : the one (James), the first bishop of Jerusalem (Gal. i. 19,
ii. 9; Acts xv, xxi. 18 et seq.) ; the others, zealous mission
aries (1 Cor. ix. 5). James and Jude are no doubt the authors
of our two canonical Epistles. As to the cousins of Jesus : one
only was an apostle, James (the less) ; the second, Simon, was
the second bishop of Jerusalem. We know nothing of Joses,
the third.
It is by no means impossible to find a place in this first
sojourn at Capernaum for some of the events related by the
Synoptics as belonging to the first times of the Galilean
ministry. In particular, the calling of the disciples, following
on the miraculous draught of fishes, naturally takes its place
here. At the time of His setting out for Jerusalem, Jesus
called them to follow Him for ever. He was going to inau
gurate His work, and He must have desired to be surrounded
at that time by those whom He designed to associate in it. —
Ver. 12, therefore, forms the transition from the private life
of Jesus to His public ministry. Like His disciples, it is
from the bosom of His family that He enters on His Mes
sianic career. Furthermore, this account is so summary,
that if the life of Jesus as a whole were not assumed to be
known by the readers, it would resemble an enigma.
We have to consider, in the following event : —
1st. The act of our Lord, vv. 13-16 ; 2d. The effect pro
duced, w. 17-22.
Vv. 13-16. It was at Jerusalem, and in the temple, that'
the Messiah's ministry must open. "The Lord whom ye
seek," Malachi had said (iii. 1-3), " shall come to His temple
. . He shall purify the sons of Levi." . . . That was to
say at once, that He would announce Himself to Israel not
by a miracle of power, but by an act of holiness.
The time for this inauguration was obviously indicated.
The feast of Passover, more than any other, gathered together
the entire people in the holy city and the temple courts.
This, then, was the hour of Jesus (ver. 4). If the people had

26 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
entered into the reforming movement which He sought at that
time to impress on them, this entrance of the Messiah into His
temple would have become the signal of the Messianic advent.
The temple had three courts, properly so called : that of
the priests, which surrounded the edifice (vaos) ; more to the
east, that of the men ; and lastly, that of the women. Adjacent
to those courts a vast open space had been provided, enclosed on
its four sides with colonnades, and which was called the court
of the Gentiles, because it was the only part of the sacred place
(lepov) which proselytes were permitted to enter. In this
outermost court there were established, with the tacit consent
of the temple authorities, a market and an exchange. There
were sold there the different kinds of animals appropriated for
sacrifice ; and Greek or Roman money brought from abroad
was exchanged there for the sacred money with which was
paid the capitation tax fixed by Ex. xxx. 13 for the support
of the temple (the half shekel or double drachma = 1 sh. and
3 pence). Up to that day, Jesus had not risen against this abuse.
Present in the temple as a simple Jew, He had not to judge
the conduct of the authorities, still less to put Himself in
their room. Now, it is as the Son of Him to whom this
house is consecrated that He enters into the sanctuary. He
brings to it not only new rites, but new duties. To keep
silence in view of the profanation of which religion is the
pretext, and which is resented by His conscience as a Jew
and His heart as the Son, would be from the outset to belie
His position as the Messiah. The saying of Malachi just
quoted marks out His course of action. Vv. 19-21 prove
that Jesus takes account of the full bearing of His action ; it
is an appeal to the conscience of Israel, a challenge once for
all to its chiefs. If the appeal is heard, there shall succeed
to this first act of purification the complete reform of the
theocracy as the condition of the Messianic kingdom. If the
people remain deaf and indifferent, Jesus estimates beforehand
the consequences of their conduct : all is over with the theo
cracy. The rejection of the Messiah, and even His death, are
implied in this result. Comp. an analogous situation in the
account given of His preaching at Nazareth, Luke iv. 23-27.
The Messianic meaning of this proceeding explains why Jesus

CHAP. II. 13-15. 27
had done nothing of the kind previously, and did not renew
the act at subsequent feasts. It has often been thought that
the power in virtue of which Jesus acted on this occasion
arose from the right of the zealots, which was recognised in
Israel, and of which the act of Phinehas (Num. xxv. ; Ps.
cvi. 30) was the type. This is a mistake. It is not as a
zealous theocrat, it is as Messiah, or rather as Son, that He
acts here : " my Father's house," says He Himself, ver. 16.
Ver. 13. "And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus
went up to Jerusalem." — John says : the Jews, on account of
his Gentile readers, with whom he identifies himself in Chris
tian communion.
Ver. 14. " And found in the temple those that sold oxen and
sheep2 and doves, and the changers of money sitting" — The art.
the before the terms denoting the sellers and money-changers,
omitted by Ostervald and other translators, presents this office
as one known : they are the sellers and money-changers who
are habitually there, and, as it were, patented. The three
kinds of animals mentioned were those most commonly used
for sacrifice. — Kep/xana-r^, money-changer, from Kepfia, a piece
of money.Ver. 15. " And when He had made3 a scourge of small cords,
He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen;
and poured out the changers' money,4 and overthrew 8 the tables." —
This scourge was not an instrument, but an emblem. It was
the sign of authority and judgment. If it had been a matter
of physical action, the means would have been disproportioned
to the end, and the effect would be still more so to the cause.
The material use of the scourge was unnecessary. The
simple gesture was enough. — Hdvra<i, all, is taken by many
(comp. Baumlein) to include only the two following accusa
tives connected by re /cal, " and the sheep, and the oxen " (the
mas. irdvTa<; on account of (36ai). But it is more natural to
connect irdvTa<s with tovi iraikovvTa<;, the sellers, which pre
cedes, and to regard the terms which follow as a simple
1 K alone reads 2s instead of >«.
1 X alone reads xxi rx #pa$. xxi fcatts.
3 X alone reads i-rome-iv . . . xxi.
4 B L Tb X Or. read ™ xippxtx instead of r» xtp/ta.
6 Instead of xKurpfini, BX: avirpiTJiiv ; $t; xxrirrpt^lt.

28 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
apposition : " He drove them all out, with their sheep and, oxen!'
The object of re icai, as well as, is in this case to express the
sort of fracas with which men and animals made off at His
command, and the gesture which accompanied it. He poured
out, with His own hand. — KoXKv^io-t^<s, money-changer, from
«o\\v/3o?, nummns minutus.
Ver. 16. "And said unto them that sold doves, Take these
things hence ; make not my Father's house an house of mer
chandise!' — In regard to the sellers of doves, Jesus confines
Himself to words. He cannot drive forth the doves as sheep
or oxen are driven ; and He will not overturn the cages as
He has overturned the tables of the money-changers. He is
perfectly master of Himself. If He had really struck the
dealers in oxen and sheep, it is impossible to see why He
should have stood on ceremony with the vendors of doves.
— The order " take hence " is addressed to the last only ; the
words which follow, "make not" . . ., to all the traffickers.
The complem. " my Father's," contains the explanation of the
act of Jesus. He is a son who is avenging the honour
of the paternal house. When He was in the temple at
the age of twelve, He was already animated with the same
filial sentiment ; but now He is sustained by the distinct con
sciousness of His dignity as Son, and of His duty as Messiah.
Then, it was a spark ; now, it is a flame. It is very remark
able that both in the Synoptics (baptism scene) and in John,
the purely moral feeling of His relation to God takes the first
place in Jesus before the consciousness of His Messianic
office. In His own view, He is not Son because He is
Christ ; He is Christ because He is Son (comp. my Comment.
en the Gospel of Luke, Eng. trans, i. p. 189). How opposed
is this testimony to M. Renan's opinion, who represents Jesus
as exalting Himself by degrees, and raising Himself from His
Messianic consciousness to the feeling of His divinity !
The success of this disciplinary act is explained by the
majesty of Jesus' appearance, by the irresistible ascendency
which was given Him, by the consciousness of that super
natural force which He could put forth in case of need, by
the feeling of His sovereignty in that place, as it is betrayed
in the word " my Father ; " finally, by the bad conscience of
those who were exposed to such a judgment.

CHAP. II. 17, 18. 29
The effect produced is described in vv. 17-22. We here
meet with a fact which will be reproduced in the fourth
Gospel at every manifestation of our Lord's glory : a twofold
effect is produced according to the moral predisposition of the
witnesses. Some find in the act of Jesus, food for their faith ;
to others, the same act becomes a ground of offence. Moral
sympathy or antipathy to the Lord is decisive of the impression.
Ver. 17. "His disciples remembered1 that it vjos written,
The zeal of thine house shall eat me up." 2 — This recollection took
place immediately; comp. ver. 22, where the opposite is
expressly mentioned. Ps. lxix., of which ver. 9 is brought at
this moment to the memory of the disciples, is only indirectly
Messianic, — that is to say, the object contemplated by the
Psalmist is not the person of the Messiah (comp. ver. 5 i
" TIwu knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from
Thee "), but the just man of the theocracy suffering for the
cause of God. The highest realization of this ideal is the
Messiah. — The unanimity of the Mjj. decides, against the
T. R., in favour of the reading KaTa<j>dyeTai. This verb is a
future ; the evangelist substitutes it for the past, Karifaye,
hath eaten up, of the LXX., which agrees with the Hebrew
text. The disciples are not thinking of the final sufferings of
Jesus, which were then beyond the range of their thoughts, but.
of the consuming power of His zeal, of that living holocaust
whose beginning they see before their eyes. This is also the
meaning of the term, hath eaten up, in the Psalm.
While the disciples compare the Scriptures, and their
recollection strengthens their faith, the Jews reason and
object, exactly as the inhabitants of Nazareth do, Luke iv. 22.
Instead of letting the act of Jesus speak to their conscience
as a sign of divine holiness, they demand the external sign
which should warrant this act, as if the act itself were not its
own warrant !
Ver. 18. " The Jews therefore answered and said unto Him,
What sign showest Thou unto us, seeing that Thou doest these
things?" — The particle therefore joins on to ver. 16 after the
interruption of ver. 17. — The expression " the Jews'' specially
1 N B L Tb X, Cop. Or. omit h after iftvwrSna-xv.
2 T. R. reads xxrttpxyi, with several Mnn. It., instead of xxrafxyirxi, which
is read by all the Mjj.

30 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
denotes here the authorities charged with the guardianship
of the temple, with that shade of hostility which attaches to
the term in our Gospel (see i. 19). Riggenbach (Leben des
Herrn Jesu, p. 382) observes that "it is the method of Phari
saism to ask a aypelov, an external sign, to warrant an act
which of itself is commended to the conscience, because once
on this way it is possible to quibble about the nature and
value of the sign, to advance indefinitely from demand to
demand, and to ask at the end, after a multiplication of loaves :
• What sign showest Thou then ?' " ' AiroicpiveaOai does not
signify here, any more than elsewhere, to take the word (Oster-
vald, Rilliet, Arnaud). This word always includes the idea of
reply ; only the answer is sometimes addressed to the conduct
or feeling of the interlocutor. Here the question of the Jews
is an answer to the act of Jesus ; Jesus had just been
addressing an appeal to the religious sentiment of the people.
— The attitude of Israel, thus summoned to declare itself,
decided its entire future. Its reply was significant. Ver. 19
will show us that Jesus profoundly penetrated its meaning. —
"Oti : " What sign showest thou [to explain] that thou art
doing "... Meyer : el<s iicelvo oti,.
Ver. 19. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up!' — This reply of
Jesus is sudden as a flash of lightning. It springs from an
immeasurable depth ; it illumines domains then completely
unexplored by any other consciousness than His own. The
words, Destroy this temple, characterize the present and future
conduct of the Jews in its inner meaning ; and the saying :
In three days I will raise it up, unveils the full grandeur of
our Lord's person and work. The difficulty of this mysterious
utterance lies here : on the one hand, the preceding context
would lead us to refer the words, this temple, to the temple
strictly so called which Jesus had just purified ; on the other,
the evangelist's interpretation (ver. 21) obliges us to apply
them, in opposition to the context, to the body of Jesus.
Many, like Liicke and M. Reuss, cut the Gordian knot by
acknowledging a conflict between scientific exegesis and the
apostle's explanation, and asserting an advance of the first
upon the second. Baur administers a severe lecture to Liicke
for his irreverence to the apostolical exegesis of which this

CHAP. II. 19. 31
view is a proof ; he declares himself in favour of the sense
given by the evangelist. That is natural. The saying being
partly, according to Baur, the creation of the evangelist, he
must know the meaning of it better than any one whatsoever
— better than Liicke himself.
The historical truth of this saying of Jesus is attested — 1st.
By the declaration of the false witnesses (Matt. xxvi. 6 1 ;
Mark xiv. 57, 58), which proves that though the remem
brance of the circumstances in which it had been uttered was
effaced, the word itself had remained indelibly impressed on
the memory not only of the disciples, but of the Jews. 2d.
By Acts vi. 14, where Stephen's accusers say : " We have
heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this
place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us."
Stephen could not have spoken thus except on the foundation
of a positive declaration made by Jesus. 3d. By the origin
ality, the conciseness, the very obscurity of the saying.
The first proposition cannot contain an invitation to the
Jews directly to destroy the temple, not even in de Wette's
hypothetical sense : " If you should destroy." This supposi
tion would be absurd ; no Israelite would have put his hand
to the sacred edifice. The word destroy ought therefore to
be taken in an indirect sense: " to bring on, by continuing
in the way which you are following, the destruction of the
theocracy, and thereby of the temple." The first of those
destructions must terminate in the second. — But what was
the crime by which Israel could provoke this final chastise
ment ? Modern interpretation, or, as Liicke calls it, " scientific
exegesis," answers : by ever-increasing moral profanations,
like that against which Jesus had just protested. This
answer is insufficient. Simple sins of this kind might pave
the way for, but not determine, that catastrophe. The 0. T.
assigns a more positive cause for Israel's final ruin ; it
is the rejection and murder of the Messiah. Thus Zecha-
riah, chap, xi., describes Jehovah's last endeavour to save the
flock already destined to slaughter, and the rejection of the
Shepherd whom He sends to them with this view, as the
cause of the catastrophe announced, vv. 1-3. The same
prophet, xii. 10, points to Israel mourning at the end of the
days for Jehovah whom they have pierced. And Daniel, ix. 2 6,

32 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
says more precisely : " The Messiah shall be cut off . . . and
the people of a prince who shall come shall destroy the city and
the sanctuary." Matt. xxiv. 15, 16 proves that Jesus
applied this prophecy to the circumstances of His time. The
true way to destroy the temple, in the eyes of Jesus, will
therefore be to slay the Messiah. Was not the appearing of
the Messiah in reality the final aim of the theocratic institu
tion ? The Messiah once cut off, there is no more Israel
The priesthood, the temple, may indeed exist still for a little ;
but all is nothing more than the carcase to which gather the
eagles of divine judgment (Matt. xxiv. 28). Why, at the
moment when Jesus expires, is the vail of the temple rent ?
It is because there is no more a most holy place, therefore
no more holy place, no more court, no more sacrifice, no
more priesthood ; the temple, as Jehovah's temple, exists no
more. When He said, " Destroy this temple" it was therefore, no
doubt, the temple properly so called that Jesus was pointing
to ; but He knew well, as John indicates, that it would be in
His person itself that this destruction would take place ; on
His body that the fatal blow struck by the hand of the Jews
would fall, which would lay the sanctuary in ruins. The
imper. \vcrare is therefore not simply concessive : " If you
should destroy." It is of the same kind as that other
imperative: "That thou doest, do quickly" (xiii. 27). When
the fruit of perverseness, whether collective or individual,
is ripe, it should fall. Comp. also the TrKypcoaare, Matt.
xxiii. 32.
The meaning of the second proposition follows from that
of the first. The mode of restoration must correspond to
the mode of destruction. If it is in the person of the
Messiah that the temple is laid in ruins, it is in His person
also that it shall be raised again. Jesus once said : " In this
place is one greater than the temple " (Matt. xii. 6). His body
was the living and truly holy abode of Jehovah in Israel ;
the visible sanctuary was only the emblem of that real
temple. Comp. the iffrfveoaev of i. 14. The thought of
Jesus may therefore be expressed thus : " As it is by my
death that the destruction of the temple will be consum
mated, so it is by my resurrection that its restoration will be

chap. ii. 13. 33
effected." It is in His person that this great drama will
be enacted. The Messiah perishes: the temple falls. The
Messiah lives again : the true temple rises on the ruins of
the symbolical temple. For there is no simple restoration in
the kingdom of God. Every revival is at the same time an
advance. — The term eyelpeiv, to raise up, is here in perfect
keeping. For it may be applied at once to the two notions
of resurrection and construction (see Meyer). The expres
sion : in three days, the authenticity of which is vouched for
in a quite special way by the report of the false witnesses (Sia.
rpiwv rjnepSiv, Matt. xxvi. 6 1 ; Mark xiv. 5 8), receives thereby
also its natural meaning ; for in a historical situation like
this, it is impossible to regard it as merely a poetical or
proverbial form to signify generally : "in a very short time,"
as in Hos. vi. 2, or Luke xiii. 32. There has been asked of
Jesus a demonstrative miracle, as a sign of His competency.
We know from the Synoptics that Jesus always refused such
demands, which were the renewal of the third temptation in
the wilderness (in Luke). But there was a miracle, one only
which He could grant and promise without condemning
Himself to the part of a thaumaturge, because this miracle
belonged to the very plan and work of man's salvation : that
was His resurrection. It is to this sign also that He appeals
in similar cases in the Synoptics (Matt. xii. 38-40, xvi. 4).
Here again we come upon one of those profound analogies
which, under difference of form, constitute into one whole
the description of the Synoptics and that of John. It is by
the power of reparation, which He will display when the
kingdom of God on the earth shall have gone down as it were
to the lowest depths, that Jesus will prove the competency
for the work of reformation which He has just been claim
ing for Himself. — This explanation thus corresponds both to
the natural meaning of all the expressions of the text, to
the evangelist's interpretation, and to the demands of the
context. The following is the meaning to which modern exegesis
has come, by following what Liicke calls " the laws of philo
logical art." It is expounded to most advantage, it seems to
us, by Ewald (Gesch. Christi, p. 230): "All your religion,
resting on this temple, is corrupt and perverted ; butJfe=fe!S^
godetii. o v'lMFtffAe

flnm divinity sct
V

34 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
already come who, when it shall have perished as it deserves,
will restore it easily in a more glorious form, and will thus
work not one of those common miracles which you ask, but
the greatest of miracles." On this explanation, the temple
destroyed is Judaism ; the temple raised again is Chris
tianity ; the act of restoration is Pentecost, not the resurrec
tion. We shall not say that this meaning is absolutely
false; it is so only in so far as it is given as the exact
expression of the mind of Jesus at the time. What con
demns it is — 1st. That the transformation of the economy of
the letter into that of the spirit is not a sign, but the
work itself. 2d. The fact indicated by Jesus must have an
external character to correspond to the demand which was
addressed to Him. 3d. From this point of view it is im
possible to explain naturally the words : In three days.
Neither Hos. vi. 2 nor Luke xiii. 32 justify the figurative
sense which would need to be given them in our passage.
It is objected to our view, that the Jews could not have
understood a reply so mysterious. Assuredly they did not
see in the temple, of which Jesus spoke, anything else than
the material edifice, and represented to themselves the pro
mised sign as the magical apparition of a new and super
natural temple. But we shall see that with perversely-
minded people the method of Jesus is to throw out enigmas,
and to reveal the truth only while veiling it; comp. the
explanation of Jesus about the use of parables, Matt. xiii.
11-16. Here is a secret of the profoundest pedagogics.
It is also objected, that Jesus could not know so long
beforehand of His death and resurrection. But in the
Synoptics, too, He announces very early the tragical end of
His Messianic ministry. It is in the first days of His
activity in Galilee that He speaks of the time " when the
bridegroom shall be taken away, and the disciples shall fast "
(Mark ii. 19, 20). And then had He never read Isa. liii.;
Dan. ix. ; Zech. xii., etc. ? Now, if He foresaw His death,
He must have been assured also of His resurrection. He
could not believe that the bridegroom would be taken away
for ever.
Finally, it is objected, that according to Scripture it is not
Jesus who raises Himself. But the receptivity of Jesus in

CHAP. II. 20. 35
the act of His resurrection is not mere, passivity. He says
Himself, x. 17, 18 : "I lay down my life that I might take it
again. ... J have power to lay it down, and I have power to
take it again." He lays hold, as in all His miracles, of the
divine omnipotence which becomes operative in Him.
M. Renan has seen in this so original and profound saying
only a whim : " One day," says he, " His bad humour against
the temple drew from Him an imprudent word." He adds :
" It is not known what sense Jesus attached to this word, in
which His disciples sought forced allegories " ( Vie de Jisus,
p. 367). In the saying where M. Renan sees a proof of the
bad humour of Jesus with the temple, the immediate wit
nesses found a proof of the zeal for God's house which
devoured their Master. Which has best understood Jesus ?
As to the explanation given by John (ver. 21), we hope that
every serious reader will find something else in it than a
" forced allegory." What is more difficult to explain, is the
capital importance which Jesus attaches to the apparently
innocent demand of the Jews. How does Jesus discover in
the question : " What sign showest thou ? " the prelude to the
catastrophe which shall put an end to His life and to the
theocracy ? We have already seen (ii. 4) with what deep
penetration Jesus sees the moral bearing of the words which
were addressed to Him. We have also quoted Luke iv. 22,
where the critical reflection of the inhabitants of Nazareth
after hearing Him preach : " Is not this Joseph's son ? " is
enough to lead Jesus to proclaim His rejection not only
by them (ver. 23), but by the whole people (vv. 24-27).
}n a fugitive impression the "eye of Jesus discerned the
principle of the final decision. Of human speech, His
delicate ear apprehended not only the sound but the cha
racter (timbre). Again, by this characteristic touch we find
in the Jesus of the -Synoptics and in that of John one and
the same Jesus.
Ver. 20. " Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this
temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days ? " —
With the reply of Jesus before them, the sympathy of the
one party collects itself and meditates ; the antipathy of the
other turns to raillery. The answer of the Jews is not free
from irony. They twist more or less wilfully the saying of

36 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Him whom they already reject morally. — The restoration of
the temple by Herod had begun in the eighteenth year of his
reign, according to Josephus (Antiq. xv. 11. 1). In the Wars
of the Jews, the same historian names by mistake the fifteenth.
The first year of that prince's reign was from the 1st Nisan
717 to the 1st Nisan 718 ; the eighteenth was consequently
the year embraced between the firsts of Nisan 734 and 735 :
it was about the autumn of this year that the work began
{Joseph. Antiq. xv. 11. 1). The time mentioned of forty-six
full years (ostcoSoprjOv) thus brings us to the autumn of the
year 780. And the present Passover must have been that
of the year 781. As it was separated from the year of Jesus'
death only by that of vi. 4, it follows that Jesus died in
783,- — a fact which seems to us probable for many other
reasons. He was thus born in 750 or 751 (Luke iii. 23).
Ver. 21. "But He spake of the temple of His body." — By
4ksivo<;, ille vero, " He and He only," John strongly contrasts
his Master's thought, of which He — that is, Jesus — alone had
the secret, with the interpretation of the Jews and the ignor
ance of the apostles at that time.
Ver. 22. " Wlien, therefore, He was risen from the dead,
His disciples remembered that He liad said this;1 and tliey
believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said."- — -In
docile hearts light appears, though somewhat tardily. The
event explained the saying, as in its turn the saying con
tributed to unveil the profound meaning of the event. — It is
Surprising to find here the complement rfj jpa<pfj, tJie scrip
ture ; for the scripture had not been quoted by Jesus. But
the evangelist wishes it to be understood that the first point
on which light fell in the heart of the apostles after the
resurrection, was the prophecies of the 0. T. announcing that
event (Ps. xvi. ; Isa. liii. ; Hos. vi. ; the prophet Jonah), and
that it was by this means they were guided to the under
standing of the saying of Jesus which he has just related,
and which was itself taken from the heart of the O. T.
When that divine book presented itself to the view of the
disciples in its totality, then at length they penetrated the
full sense of that mysterious saying of Jesus. This little
touch belongs to the apostle's inner biography. Remarks
1 T. R. mistakenly adds xurai;, with K and some Mnn.

CHAP. II. 22. 37
such as these, by which the author exhibits the difference
between the time when the disciples heard a saying of Jesus
and a time when they understood it (comp. iv. 32, 33, vii.
39, xi. 12, xii. 16, 33, xiii. 28, etc.), impress not only on
this, but on the entire narrative, the seal of historical reality.
Let the reader represent to himself, according to Baur's hypo
thesis, a pseudo-John imagining in the second century this
ignorance of the apostle in regard to a saying which he had
invented himself! Criticism here dashes itself against a
moral impossibility.
The Synoptics relate an act of Jesus similar to this ; but
they place it at the end of our Lord's ministry: Matthew
(xxi.) and Luke (xix.), on Palm Day; Mark (xi. 12-15), more
exactly, on the morrow after. It might be thought that those
three evangelists, having wholly omitted the first year of our
Lord's ministry, were led thereby, though unconsciously, to
displace the fact which has been occupying us, and to
transfer it to the only stay at Jerusalem which they record.
This is the opinion of Liicke, de Wette, Ewald, etc. Keim
goes further : he holds that it would have been on Jesus-
part the most flagrant want of tact, thus at the beginning to
advertise His Messiahship and to break with the old Judaism.
— But what gives to the event its meaning and character, is the
words with which Jesus accompanies it. Now these words,
which constitute the soul of the account, are very different in
the Synoptics and in John, so that it would be impossible to
unite them in a consecutive discourse. In the Synoptics,
Jesus claims, on the ground of Isa. lvi. 7 (" Mine house shall
be ccdled an Iwuse of prayer for all peoples "), the sacred right
of the Gentiles to the place which from the beginning had
been reserved for them in the temple (1 Kings viii. 41-43).
In John, there is not a trace of this intention ; Jesus has
nothing in view except Israel and His relations to it. This
difference, as well as the characteristic answer (John ii. 1 9),
proves two distinct events. If, as cannot be doubted, the
abuse checked by Jesus was really established at the time
when He presented Himself for the first time as Messiah and
Son of God in the temple, it was impossible that He should
tolerate it. It would have been in the same act to declare
Himself the Messiah and to renounce the part of Messiah.

38 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Thus John's narrative is its own justification. But if, after
this fruitless attempt, Jesus, as we shall see, renounced this
royal and Messianic attitude to come down to the simple
activity of a prophet, and not to resume His part as Messiah-
king till Palm Day, is it surprising if on that day, when
He linked His ministry with its beginnings, He repeated the
act with which He entered upon His career? The first
time, He invited the people to the general reform which He
had in view. The second, He protested against the spirit of
profanation which He had not been able to overcome. Thus
the two accounts are justified. This contrast in the situa
tions harmonizes with that of the sayings. In John, seeing
His appeal repulsed, He thinks of His death, which shall be
the goal of that rejection ; in the Synoptics, beholding the fall
of Israel consummated, He proclaims the right of the Gentiles,
who are soon to be substituted for the Jews. As to Keim's
objection, this author forgets that, instead of breaking with
Judaism, Jesus in thus acting appealed to what was deepest
in the conscience of every true member of the theocracy —
respect for the temple. And it is not without ground that
Beyschlag has called this procedure of Jesus " of Jewish acts
the most profoundly conservative." " It was," says Baumlein,
" a symbol, like so many ancient prophetic acts, of the com
plete purification which Jesus proposed to effect."
II. Jesus at Jerusalem. — ii. 2 3— iii. 21.
Jesus, not having been welcomed in the temple, does not
force matters. The use of violence, had it been even by
divine means, would have led Him to the career, not of a
Messiah, but of a Mahomet. In presence of the cold reserve
which He meets, He retreats ; and this retrograde movement
characterizes for a time the course of His work. The palace
has just closed against Him ; the capital remains open. It is
there that He acts, but no longer in the fulness of that
Messianic sovereignty with which He had presented Himself
in the temple. He confines Himself to teaching and miracles,
the prophetic instruments. Such is the admirable elasticity
of the divine work in the midst of the world : it advances
only so lav as faith permits and invites it ; it yields to resist-

CHAP. II. 23. 39
ance, and retires to its last entrenchment ; that reached, it
suddenly resumes the offensive, and, engaging in the final
struggle, succumbs externally to conquer morally.
Vv. 23-25 are a preface. They give the general descrip
tion of our Lord's work at Jerusalem, following His experi
ment in the temple. The subsequent passage (iii. 1-21) will
give a remarkable sketch of His teaching and His Messianic
testimony during those first times, among those whom He
found disposed to faith.
Ver. 2 3. " Now, when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover,
in the feast, many believed in His name, when they saw the
miracles which He did." — The first proposition of the verse
contains three particulars. The first is that of the place:
at Jerusalem, in opposition to the temple (ver. 14). The
second is that of time : at the Passover ; during the Passover
week, in opposition to the days which preceded the feast
properly so called. The pilgrims went up to Jerusalem before
the feast to purify themselves (xi. 55), and on the 13th
Nisan, the eve of the feast, this purification was completed
by removing leaven from every dwelling. The day on which
every Israelite purified his house, inay have been that on
which Jesus purified His Father's. The third particular is
that of the mode: at the feast. Hereby John would show
that Jesus gave to His Messianic manifestation the greatest
possible publicity. For the purpose, He chose not a time
when Jerusalem was reduced to its own inhabitants, but the
period at which the city was the theatre on which the whole
nation assembled. The expression voXKoi, a great number, is
thus directly connected with this third particular. Those
numerous believers were doubtless for the most part non-
Judaean, especially Galileans (iv. 45). There is a mournful
contrast between this pronoun (iroWol), which denotes only
individuals, and the nation as a whole (the Jews, ver. 18)y
which has rejected the appeal of its King. This contrast
recalls that between the ol tSioi and the ocroi, i. 11, 12. But
what was sadder still to Jesus, was that even this faith, in
many, was not really of the essence of faith ; it had for its
object only His title (? believed in His name") of Christ.
This title, in the eyes of those men, was nothing more than
one of ceremony, an external designation. This is easily

40 GOSrEL OF JOHN.
seen from the alone foundation on which their faith rested :
miracles. There is a close relation between the words
" believed " and " seeing!' The relation between the aor. and
the participle present characterizes their faith as having little
more duration than the sight. And this because it had
nothing internal and moral; it resulted solely from the feeling
of astonishment produced in them by those prodigies. Signs
may indeed strengthen and develope true faith where it is
already formed, by unveiling to it completely the riches of
its object (ii. 11). They may even sometimes provoke faith,
but not produce it. Faith is a moral act which fastens on
the moral being in Jesus. — The last words : which He did,
depict the nature of this faith : it was the material operation
which impressed them. — The miracles were undoubtedly
numerous (comp. iv. 45). John does not relate a single one
of them, so much did his aim differ from that of the
Synoptics. His purpose here was to characterize the situa
tion, not to give facts in detail.
Vv. 24, 25. "But Jesus did not commit Himself unto
Hum, because He knew them all, and needed not that any
should testify of man: for He knew what was in man." —
Jesus is no more dazzled by this apparent success than He
was discouraged by the reverse which He experienced in the
temple. He discerns the insufficient nature of their faith.
There is a sort of word-play in the relation between the
eirlaTevev, He committed Himself, and the iiria-Teva-av, they
believed, ver. 23. While they regarded only the external, the
miracles, He (outo? 84) did not stop short at appearances.
He had no faith in their faith. He did not recognise in it
a true work of God. Consequently He was as far as ever
from treating them as believers. How did this attitude of
distrust show itself ? It is difficult to determine. Probably
John has in view rather a certain reserve of a purely moral
nature than any positive external acts, such as reticence
about His doctrine, or a solitude in which He shut Himself
up. Luthardt: "As they did not give themselves morally
to Him, He did not give Himself morally to them." He
who seized and brought out in the conduct of Jesus this
delicate touch, is an observer profoundly initiated into His
feelings. If he was himself one of the disciples whose call

CHAP. II. ;4, 25. 4 1
is related in chap, i., he must certainly have perceived the
difference between the conduct of Jesus toward those people,
and the manner in which He acted toward him and his
fellow-disciples. Nothing in the text obliges us to identify
this superior knowledge of Jesus with divine omniscience ;
the evangelist would thus be guilty of contradicting himself
and the Synoptics. Comp. vol. i. p. 397. He knew by ex
perience that clear and penetrating look (ep,/3\iireiv) which
read the depths of the heart like an open book. This higher
knowledge of Jesus is the highest degree of the gift of the
discernment of spirits (1 Cor. xii. 10; 1 John iv. 1).
The proposition : and because, . . . etc., generalizes the
statement of ver. 24. It means that, in any case, Jesus had
no need to have recourse to information to know what He
had to think of this or that man. This faculty of discern
ment was inherent in His person (for He Himself), and con
sequently permanent (imperf. knew habitually). — -Iva, in order
that, is neither here nor elsewhere a mere periphrasis for the
infinitive. The idea of aim, which always attaches to the
word, is explained by the tendency natural to the need of
knowledge to seek satisfaction. — The art. rov before avOpdnrov,
" (the) man," may be explained either in the generic sense :
man in general, or, what is perhaps more accurate, in the
wholly individual sense : the man with whom He had to do
in any given case (Meyer). Even with this last explanation
the generic meaning might be applied to the iv to> dvQpuma,
in man, which closes the verse. The for would mean that
He thus knew every representative of the type, because He
knew radically the type itself. Yet it is simpler to give the
expression : in the man, the same individual meaning as in
the preceding proposition, and to explain the for by the word :
Himself. He needed not, ... for of Himself He knew . . .
On the ground of this general situation there rises, as a
particular delineation, the scene of the conversation with Nico-
demus. Is this sketch referred to as an example of that
Jewish faith which is nothing better than unbelief, ii. 23
(comp. iii. 2), as Baur thinks ; or, on the contrary, as an excep
tion to the full attitude of reserve taken up by Jesus and
described vv. 24, 25 (Ewald)? Baur's opinion falls to the
ground before the fact that Nicodemus afterwards became a

42 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
believer (vii. and xix.), so that the example would have been
very badly chosen. On the other hand, the text as little
indicates that the following incident is related as a deviation
from the line of conduct marked out, ii. 24 ; and ver. 2 even
includes Nicodemus in the class of persons described, vv.
23-25. To see in this account, with Liicke, only an example
of the supernatural knowledge of Jesus, does not correspond to
the grandeur of the conversation which follows.
If the author has inserted this account here, it is rather
because he saw in it the most memorable example of the Lord's
revelation of His person and work in the situation indicated.
The part of this conversation in our Gospel may be compared
with that of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel:
the two passages have an inaugural character. As to Nico
demus, he is at once an example and an exception : an example,
since miracles have been the occasion of his faith ; an excep
tion, since the manner in which Jesus treats him proves that
He does not despair of the normal development of his faith.
The faith characterized, vv. 23-25, as Luthardt observes, is
undoubtedly not real faith ; but neither is it unbelief. From
this point there may be retrogression or progress. — How did
the evangelist get the knowledge of this conversation ? Jesus
or Nicodemus may have related it to him. The first alterna
tive, to which Meyer inclines, has something improbable about
it. In the second, the question rises, whether Nicodemus
understood it sufficiently to retain it so well. Might not John
himself have been present at the interview ? Ver. 1 1 might
contain an evidence to the presence of some other person
belonging to the party of Jesus.
But this question is subordinate to another : Can we trust
the following account either in whole or in its details ? Is
not this conversation, as we have it before us, a free composi
tion, in which the author has united different elements of his
Master's ordinary teaching, or even put into His mouth his
own conception of the Gospel ? May it not be thought at
least that the author's subjectivity has, without his suspecting
it, more or less influenced this exposition, especially towards
the end of the conversation ? This is what we shall have to
examine. In this examination, the following shall be our
touchstone : If the direct and natural application of the say-

CHAP. III. 1, 2. 43
ings of Jesus to Nicodemus the Pharisee is supported to the
end, we shall thereby recognise their authenticity. If, on the
contrary, the discourse loses itself as it proceeds in vague
generalities, without appropriateness to the given situation, we
shall find in this fact the evidence of a composition more or
less artificial.
iii. 1. " There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus,
a ruler of the Jews." — The name Nicodemus, though of Greek
origin, was not unusual among the Jews. The Talmud men
tions again and again a person of this name (Nakedimon),
called also Bounai, reckoned to the number of Jesus' disciples.
But he must have been present at the destruction of Jeru
salem ; and this circumstance, taken in connection with the
advanced age of Nicodemus in the time of Jesus, renders it
improbable that the two are identical. — The word avdpomos, a
man, alludes, as Stier has observed, to ii. 25. Otherwise John
would simply have said Tt?. John reminds us thereby that
Nicodemus was a specimen of that human race which Jesus
knew so well. — The spirit of the narrowest and the most
exalted national particularism had found its organ in the Pha
risaic party. From the standpoint of this sect, every Jew
possessing the legal virtues and qualities was fit to enter the
Messianic kingdom by right. The Messiah Himself was only
a Jew more perfect and powerful than any other. Raised by
His miracles to the summit of glory, He would annihilate
Gentile powers, and place Israel at the head of humanity.
Such, in its main features, was the Messianic programme which
had been drawn from the prophecies by the imagination of
the Pharisaic doctors. — "Apxcov> 'ruler, undoubtedly denotes
one of the members of the Sanhedrim (vii. 50).
Ver. 2. " The same came to Him1 by night, and said unto
Him, Master, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God ;
for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be
with him." — What is the object of this visit ? The saying of
Nicodemus is merely an introduction, and it would be useless
to seek in it the indication of the object of his coming. It
has been supposed (Koppe) that he came to act the spy on
our Lord. But Jesus treats him as an honourable man, and
1 6 Byz. SyrKh read vpis rat \r,<rauv instead of wpn xurai (a correction for the
sake of public reading).

44 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Nicodemus shows himself sincere throughout the whole course
of the conversation. It is probable that, having discerned in
Jesus an extraordinary being, and heard the report which had
been made to the Sanhedrim by the members of the deputation
sent to John the Baptist, he asked himself whether Jesus
might not be really the Messiah. This point was of such
importance to him that he felt himself constrained to have it
cleared up. No doubt he desired also, this first question once
resolved, to sound Jesus about the course of His work, and
about the impending revolution which His coming announced.
The plur. oi8a/j,ev, we know, proves that he did not take this step
solely in his own name, but that he had behind him a certain
number of members of the Sanhedrim who shared the same
impressions. He came by night. This circumstance, expressly
mentioned xix. 39, and perhaps also vii. 50, must be ascribed
to his fear of compromising himself with his unbelieving
colleagues. Perhaps also he feared, by a step taken in the
light of day, to give more authority to the young teacher than
he yet possessed. — Nicodemus gives Him the title of paBfii,
master ; it is a great deal on his part, for Jesus had not passed
through the different degrees of rabbinical studies which gave
a right to the title, vii. 1 5. " TJie Jews marvelled, saying,
How knoweth this man the Scriptures, having never studied?"
It is exactly this exceptional course in the development of
Jesus which Nicodemus characterizes by saying : a teacher come
from God. — 'Airo &eov, from God, is placed first as the prin
cipal idea opposed to that of a regular doctorate. The same
contrast, vii. 16, in the mouth of Jesus Himself. This defining
clause : from God, depends neither on the verb come, nor on
the word teacher, separately, but on the complex phrase : come
as teacher. The argument is agreeable to theocratic precedents
(Ex. iv.). Miracles prove divine assistance, and this, a divine
mission. But this formal demonstration, intended to prove to
Jesus a truth of which He has no doubt, is somewhat pedantic,
and must have offended the ear of Him to whom it was
addressed. So Jesus cuts short the discourse thus begun.
Ver. 3. " Jesus answered, and said unto him, Verily, verily, 1
say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king
dom of God." — The relation of this answer to the words of
Nicodemus has been variously understood, for this very reason,

chap. in. 3. 45
that the latter was not able fully to express his thought.
Meyer supposes that Nicodemus intended to ask Jesus, like
the rich young man, what he must do to enter the Messiah's
kingdom, and that Jesus, divining his thought, answered him :
" Every particular work would be insufficient ; there must be
a radical regeneration." But could Nicodemus the Pharisee
have conceived a doubt as to his participation in the divine king
dom ? He speaks, besides, in the name of several. Baumgarten-
Crusius thinks that Jesus, correcting the title of teacher given
to Him by His interlocutor, means to say : " I come not only
to teach, but to regenerate." But in the sequel the work
of regeneration is ascribed not to Jesus, but to the Spirit.
Liicke, following Lightfoot, thinks that regeneration is opposed
to external miracles (ii. 23): "The kingdom of God is not in
those miracles which I work ; it is a state of things into which
none can enter save by regeneration." This is ingenious, but
far from natural. According to Luthardt, Nicodemus regarded
the teaching and miracles of Jesus as the dawn of the Mes
sianic kingdom. And Jesus, he thinks, answered by reminding
him of the inward nature of that kingdom, and the spiritual
condition necessary for entering it. In reality, in the view of
Nicodemus and his colleagues, the kingdom of God was only
this earthly life glorified, and its appearing an external and
political matter. The miracles of Jesus were already thought!
to be the signal of the great crisis. He was about to scatter j
the legions, to destroy the capitol ! On that first saying of !
Nicodemus, the whole Pharisaic programme of the kingdom of !
God unfolds -before the eye of Jesus, and He confronts it \
with His own conception. We have in Luke xvii. 20, 21 a^
parallel which offers the best commentary on our passage. ;
" When cometh the kingdom of God ? " ask the Pharisees of
Jesus. " The kingdom of God cometh not with observation"
answers Jesus; "it is within you." It might be thought,
indeed, that the synoptical tradition has in these words only
generalized the beginning of the conversation now before us.
Nicodemus evidently came to ask Jesus : Art thou the Mes
siah, and is the kingdom of God near, as thy miracles seem to
indicate ? Jesus answered him : This kingdom does not con
sist of a social renovation, such as men see coming (fierd irapa-
-rvp'jaeax;) ; it is a spiritual state, into which no one enters

46 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
without an inward transformation. — The doubt assumed to
exist in the auditor's mind by the formula, amen, amen (see i. 51),
is here that which arises from the Pharisaic prejudices of
Nicodemus. "The pious Jew, the honoured Pharisee, the
powerful ruler, Nicodemus in his entire being, falls prostrate,"
says Hengstenberg, "before the shock of this verily." — The
solemn expression : I say unto thee, or, " I declare unto thee,"
refers to the dignity of a divine teacher which Nicodemus has
just acknowledged in Him. — By the entirely general formula :
except a man, Jesus avoids the harshness which the direct
application to such an old man would have had. — Does dvcodev
signify, as in the other passages where John uses it (ver. 31,
xix. 11, 23) : from above, that is to say here : from heaven, from
God? Comp. i. 13, ix Qeov yewyOrivai,. These parallels have
led a large number of commentators (Origen, Erasmus, Liicke,
de Wette, Meyer, Baumlein, etc.) to adopt this meaning. But
how are we to explain the answer of Nicodemus, and particu
larly the expression: "to be born again" by which he seeks
to reproduce the meaning of the word in ver. 4 ? Besides, if
dvadev had this meaning, the accent would evidently lie on
this word, for Jesus would have in view the antithesis between
earthly birth and birth from above. And so this adverb would
require to precede the verb.
Placed as it is after yevvridy, it serves only to strengthen
the idea of birth, which well suits the meaning : again. This
meaning is easily deduced, whatever Meyer may say, from the
etymological signification: from above. Indeed, from above
may signify : from the origin of the event. We have four
striking examples of this meaning of dvadev. Josephus says
(Antiq. i. 18. 3): <f>CKlav dvcodev Troieirat, (he forms a friendship
with him altogether anew, or as it were for the first time).
Tholuck, following Wetstein, quotes a passage still more
remarkable as an analogy. Artemidorus (Onciroeriticon, i. 14)
says of a father dreaming, that his wife gives birth to .a child
exactly like him : " that he would think himself dvadev
yewdo-daL," that is to say evidently, whatever Meyer may say,
to be born anew himself. In Gal. iv. 9, the dvcoOev, to which
TrdXiv is added, is taken in the same sense. The bondage
into which the Galatians are returning is denoted by irakiv as
the second (numerically), by dvcodev as the moral reproduction

CHAP. III. -1. 47
of the first. In the Acta Pauli (according to Origen), Jesus
says to Peter, who wishes to escape martyrdom, that He is
going to be crucified anew (in his place), and He expresses
Himself thus : dvwOev fxeXKco crravpaidrjvat (Hilgenfeld, N. T.
cxt. Canonem rec. iv. 72).
All, then, that Jesus means for the present is, that a new!
beginning of life must be laid even within this natural exist-,
ence. He will say afterwards (ver. 5) on what condition
(loater) and by what agent (the Spirit) this new beginning can
be realized. — 'ISeiv, to see, is in connection with to be born again.
A new power of seeing supposes a new life. Sight is here
the symbol of enjoyment, as at viii. 51 it is that of suffering.
In the old dispensation, the kingdom of God was realized in a
political form. From this temporary wrapping Jesus dis
entangled the principle which is at the foundation of that state
of things, viz. holiness, and showed this spiritual principle
realized first in the individual, then effecting the renewal of
human society, and finally, of nature itself. For it is absolutely
false to exclude, as M. Reuss does (Hist, de la thiol, chrit. t. ii.
p. 555 et seq.), those social and final consequences of the
notion of the kingdom of God in our Gospel. The eschatologi-
cal hopes attached to this term in the Old and New Testaments
are found in full, v. 28, 29, vi. 39, 40, 44, 54. — Meyer/
remarks that the term kingdom of God • appears nowhere else 1
in John, and justly finds in this fact a proof of the historic \
character of our narrative. Besides, it is evident that this \
notion of the kingdom of God must be the natural starting- /
point of a confidential conversation between a Pharisee and the
Messiah. If, as M. Renan thinks, Jesus had been only a young
enthusiast, full of the mission Avhich He had assigned to Him
self, would He not have been intoxicated by the prospect of
seeing a man of such consideration taking his place among
His adherents, along with the colleagues in whose name
he was speaking ? and is it credible that this feeling would not
have carried Him away into wholly different language ? The
assured fe'eling of the divinity and holiness of His mission
could alone have saved Him at this point from taking a false
step. Ver. 4. "Nicodemus saith unto Him, How can a man be

43 GOSrEL OF JOHN.
born when he is old ? He cannot surely enter into his mother's
womb and be born the second time ?" — This answer is in the
eyes of many modern critics a masterpiece of improbability.
M. Reuss thinks that "all the attempts which have been
made to save the good sense of Nicodemus break down
utterly before the patent absurdity of this objection." In the
! view of Strauss, there is here a proof of the fictitious cha
racter of the narrative. Schleiermacher proposes the explana
tion : " It is impossible at my age to recommence a new moral
life." Tholuck, Baumlein, and Hengstenberg, nearly the same :
" What Thou askest of me is as impossible as " . . . These
explanations evidently alter the meaning of the text. Meyer
thinks that the confusion into which the words of Jesus
plunge Nicodemus, makes him say what is absurd. Lange
rather 'finds a certain irritation in his answer; he would lead
into a rabbinical discussion to show Jesus the exaggeration
of His demands. Both suppositions are far from probable.
Would Jesus speak as He does in the sequel to a man so
,, narrow or so irritable ? Liicke explains : " Thou canst never
mean that . . . ?" This explanation is philologically accurate ;
it faithfully renders the meaning of the negation fii] (comp. our
translation). And it is also the only one which appears to us
exegetically admissible. Nicodemus regarded the kingdom of
God as this earthly existence glorified. If, then, a new birth
was needed to enter it, this birth must be of the same nature
as the first, which, in the eyes of Nicodemus himself, was
absurd. It seems to me even that the figure of which
Nicodemus makes use to express this impossibility, is not
altogether free from irony. For, as Luthardt says, he does not
understand that a new beginning of moral life must be made
within our natural existence. — The words, when lie is old,
prove that Nicodemus wisely applied to himself the a man
of ver. 3. This word had no doubt been accompanied with
one of those looks of our Lord which were more penetrating
than a two-edged sword. The Sevrepov, a second time, does
not reproduce completely the notion of the avwOev, from the
beginning, anew, of ver. 3. Nicodemus does not understand
the difference between a second beginning and a different
'beginning. And this is exactly what produces the embar
rassment which ho feels in dealing with our Lord's saying.

CHAP. III. 5. 49
And so the explanation which Jesus gives him in the follow- 1
ing verse, bears on the differeut nature of that new birth]
which he demands.
Ver. 5. "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter
into the kingdom of God." x — The words : of water and of the
Spirit, substituted for dvmdev (from, above, or anew), are intended
to resolve the question which embarrasses Nicodemus. They
indicate the factors of that birth of a higher order which Jesus
demands. — Water certainly agrees better with the notion of a
new birth than with that of a heavenly birth. — Exaggerated
spiritualism has always been embarrassed by this first term,
water, and has sought to identify it with the second. Calvin
himself understands by water the Holy Spirit as the purifying
water in the spiritual sense (aquae spiritales). This explana
tion is grammatically inadmissible. Calvin supports his view
by the expression : " baptism of the Spirit and of fire." But
this phrase was not exposed to any ambiguity. It was quite
otherwise with the word "water," in the circle in which
Jesus was speaking, and in the context of our Gospel. John's
baptism was at that very moment producing so profound a
sensation in Israel, that the first thought of Nicodemus on
hearing the phrase, born of water, could not fail to turn to
that ceremony which was then being celebrated in the form
of a total or partial immersion, and thus represented a death
and a being born again. Jesus Himself, at the very time
when He was thus speaking, was in a manner ascending from
the water of baptism ; and it was at the close of this rite that
He had been baptized with 'the Spirit. In such circum
stances, how could the words : born of water and of the Spirit,
denote anything else than baptism ? Thus is explained, also,
the negative and almost threatening form : except a man . . .
Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and the Pharisees had refused to
submit to John's baptism. It is expressly said, Luke vii. 30 :
"But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God
against themselves, being not baptized, of him " (John). Nicode
mus needed to learn that the acceptance of John's work was
the normal condition of faith in that of Jesus. This word
1 x reads du* rr.v $xti\ux-i rut ovpavxv, a reading which is admitted by Tischen-
dorf (8th edition).
GODET II. D JOHN.

50 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
was therefore an energetic call to him to break with the line
of conduct adopted by his party.
But what is the relation between the purely spiritual fact
of the new birth and baptism with water? Liicke makes
baptism represent forcibly the element of repentance (jierd-
voux), and thinks that water was only the symbol of that moral
disposition, as if Jesus meant to say : First, on man's side,
repentance, of which baptism is the emblem ; thereafter, on
God's side, the gift of the Spirit. But the Spirit is an objec
tive factor ; and it ought to be the same with water, — for the
two terms are parallel, and depend as a single object on the
same preposition. Water has an objective value ; for it is
the visible promise of pardon. As Strauss says : " If on man's
ipart baptism is the declaration of his renunciation of sin, on
'God's part it is the declaration of the pardon of sin." Peter
says, on the day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 38 : " Be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Pardon is
here represented as the immediate result of baptism, and the
gift of the Spirit as the consequence of that pardon : " And
once pardoned, ye shall receive . . ." Let it be observed that
Peter says : the remission of sins, and not of their sins, so
much is it the idea of baptism in itself, and not only its
individual efficacy that he wishes to characterize. Such was
already the meaning of the symbolical purifications of the Old
Testament, of which the ceremony of baptism is the climax.
Ps. Ii. 2, 7 : " Wash me from mine iniquity. . . . Purge me with
hyssop from my sin; wash me, and I shall be whiter than
snow." Ezek. xxxvi. 25 : "I will sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean." Zech. xiii. 1 : "In that day there
shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness." This
virtue was not possessed by water in itself ; it belonged to it
only as an emblem of the blood of expiation, the only effica
cious means of pardon. So John, in a famous passage
(1 John v. 6), connects water, blood, and Spirit as co-operat
ing in salvation ; and that, doubtless, in the sense that water
is the symbol of the blood which reconciles, and the pledge of
the Spirit which regenerates (see Peter's words above). To
accept baptism with water, is to become a partaker of the

CHAP. III. 5 51
Messianic pardon. Condemnation being thus removed, the
baptized one is replaced before God in his normal position-
that of a man who had never sinned ; and he is fit to receive
the gift of the Spirit. John's baptism does not differ in this
respect from Christian baptism. Only, the first had regard to
the blood which was to be shed ; the second rests upon the
finished sacrifice. But the pardon which is represented by
water-baptism is only the negative condition, the sine qua non
of the new birth. The positive principle of this inner fact is
the Spirit, whom God gives to the soul which has been washed
from its sin. As really, then, as salvation comprehends the
two facts : pardon and regeneration, so really did Jesus sum
up in the two words : water and Spirit, the whole of salvation,
and consequently man's entrance into the kingdom of God.
In the verses which follow there is no further mention of
water, for the very reason that in the matter of the new birth
it has only a negative virtue ; it removes the hindrance.
The creative virtue belongs to the Spirit. — Meyer remarks the
absence of the article before the two substantives. It is the
kind of factors operating which Jesus wishes to indicate, and
not the working of those factors in a definite case. — Jesus
substitutes the word elo-ekffeiv, to enter, for the term IBelv, to
see, of ver. 3. The new form : to enter into, is relative to the
figure : to be born of. The two things mentioned are the
double element into which the soul must be plunged to come
forth as a member of the kingdom. The prepositions e'f and
elf are correlative. — The reading of the Sina'iticus : " kingdom
of the heavens," was found likewise among the Docetse of the
second century, according to Hippolytus ; it is found in a
recently discovered fragment of Irenaeus, in the Apostolical
Constitutions, and in Origen (trans.). These authorities are
not sufficient, certainly, to authorize us to substitute it for the
Received reading, as Tischendorf does. But they dissipate the
objection founded on this form against the reality of the
quotation of our passage in Justin, Apol. i. 61. (See Introd.
i. p. 213). The various reading must be extremely ancient.
While speaking thus to Nicodemus, who might so easily
.have appropriated pardon to himself under the form of
baptism, Jesus had no thought of binding divine liberty
generally, and in all cases, to the material sign. The example

52 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
of the thief on the cross proves that pardon may be granted
without water-baptism. And as to the regenerating Spirit,
He bloweth where He listeth. His field of action is only
limited by that of pardon itself, which may be granted inde
pendently of every visible sign. By the two following
;' sentences, Jesus demonstrates the necessity (ver. 6) and the
possibility (6&) of the new birth.
Ver. 6. " That which is born of tlie flesh is flesh ; and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit." — The argument rests
i on this understood premiss : The kingdom of God is of a
spiritual nature, like God Himself. Hence it follows, on the
one hand, that it cannot be possessed and enjoyed by man in
his carnal state ; on the other, that it shall infallibly be so by
every man who is transformed into a spiritual being. — On the
meaning of the word flesh, see vol. i. p. 3 6 0. Taken by itself,
this word does not involve the notion of sin. But when it is
applied, as here, to the entire human person, it describes it as
ruled by natural sensibility to pleasure and pain, and conse
quently as incapable of subjection to the law of God (Rom.
viii. 7). The expression : tliat which is bom of the flesh, there
fore denotes fallen humanity. It implies that the carnal
state is transmitted from generation to generation, so that it
is impossible for any natural man by his own powers to
•escape from the fatal circle : hence the necessity for regenera
tion. It is not enough to wash and adorn the flesh morally ;
there must be substituted for it the Spirit. This fact was
already attested by the 0. T. Gen. v. 3 : " Adam begat a son
in his own likeness, after his image!' Ps. Ii. 5, 10: " I was
shapen in iniquity. . . . Create in me a clean heart, 0 God."
How does this transmission of the carnal state harmonize
with individual responsibility ? The last words of this con
versation will throw some light on this difficult question. —
If Jesus really spoke those words, it is impossible to believe
that He regarded Himself as born in the same way as other
men. — The subst. flesh, as a predicate (is flesh), has a much
more forcible meaning than that of the adjective (carnal). The
state has in a manner become a nature. And hence it follows
that a mere improvement of the natural man does not suffice,
and that a new nature must really be substituted for the old.
We might also see in the second proposition a proof of the

CHAP. III. 7, 8. 53
necessity of the new birth ; in that case we must explain it in
the sense : " Nothing except that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit, and can enjoy the spiritual world." But it is better
to give to this proposition an expressly affirmative meaning :
That which is born of the Spirit is spirit truly and infallibly
(consequently fit to enjoy the kingdom of God). Here is the
possibility of the new birth ; this wonder cannot fail to be
realized from the moment that the Spirit begins to work. It
is the true answer to the "Can a man?" of Nicodemus. —
The word Spirit, in the subject, denotes the Divine Spirit, and
in the predicate the new man. Here again the substantive
{Spirit) is employed in the predicate instead of the adjective
{spiritual), to describe the new essence. The word Spirit
embraces in the context not only the new principle of
spiritual life, but also the spiritualized soul and body. — The
neuter to yeyevvrj/j.evov, that which is born, is substituted in
both propositions for the masculine, he who is born, to denote
the nature of the product abstractly from the individual, thus
bringing more into relief the universality of the law. — Hilgen- \
feld here finds the Gnostic distinction between two kinds of
men. Meyer well answers : " There is a distinction, not
between two classes of men, but between two phases of the j
same individual life."
Jesus is aware that the astonishment of Nicodemus, instead
of diminishing, goes on increasing; and He discerns the
cause : Nicodemus, in his conception of divine things, has not
allowed for the action of the Holy Spirit, and therefore seeks
to represent to himself the new birth of which Jesus speaks,
as a matter subject to the senses. Jesus has recognised his
sincerity, and wishes to take this stone of stumbling out of
his way. The matter in question, says He, is not one which
can be imagined. Real though it is, it cannot be discerned
except when it is accomplished.
Vv. 1, 8. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must he
bom again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou,
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or x
whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit!' 2
— By the expression : Ye must be born, Jesus excludes Him-
1 The Mjj. Mnn. and Vss. Tead xxi *av and not n vav (A, It. Vg.).
* K alone reads e* ran vbxra; xxi rau xnojixra;.

54 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
self from this general condition. He required, no doubt, to
¦ grow spiritually (Luke ii. 40, 52); but He had no need to
be born again. The gift of the Holy Spirit at His baptism
was not a regeneration, but the completion of a previous
development, which was perfectly normal under the constant
influence of the Spirit. — Jesus states as an example to
Nicodemus a fact which, like the new birth, escapes the
observation of the senses, but is proved by its effects. — Hvevfia
has, as well as nil, the double meaning of wind and spirit.
The end of the verse (so . . .) proving that there is a com
parison here, it is certain that the word ought to be taken in
) the strict sense of wind. Tholuck (first editions) supposed
that at that very moment the wind was heard blowing in the
streets of Jerusalem. This supposition gives more reality to
the words : and thou hearest the sound thereof. — When He
says : Thou canst not tell . . ., Jesus is not speaking of the
explanation of the wind in itself. He indicates merely that
in every particular case it is impossible to determine exactly
the point at which the phenomenon is formed, and that at
which it terminates. The development of every natural life
starts from an organic germ which falls under the senses.
But the wind appears and disappears like a free inbreaking of
( the infinite into the finite. There is therefore no more strik
ing example in nature of the action of the Spirit. The
operation of the regenerating principle is not apparently
bound to any rule ; it is revealed only by its divine effects
in the human soul. The latter neither understands that
which impels it, nor whither it is borne. It is conscious only
of a profound work which takes place within it and renews it
radically. The adverb of rest, irov, with the verb of motion
virdyev, is a not infrequent form. It, as it were, anticipates
the rest which follows the motion. — The application of the
comparison, in the second part of the verse, is not expressed
quite accurately. It would have been necessary to say :
Thus take place the changes in every man who is born . . .
But it is not in the genius of the Greek language to square
the comparison and its application symmetrically ; comp. in
the N. T., Matt. xiii. 19 et seq., xxv. 1, etc. The participle
perf. yeyevvy fievo<s denotes the event as finished : The eye has
seen nothing; the ear heard nothing. And yet, lo, a man

CHAP. HI. 9, 10. 65
has been born anew, and has passed into the eternal kingdom. /
All has been done, and nothing has been seen. What a con
trast to the noisy and pompous appearance of the kingdom in
the Pharisaic programme !
Vv. 9, 10. "Nicodemus answered and said unto Him,
How can these things be ? Jesus answered and said unto him,
Thou art the master of Israel, and knowest not these things ! "
— Nicodemus does not deny, but acknowledges himself an
entire stranger to the knowledge and experience of the Spirit's
operation. It is Jesus' turn to express astonishment. He
discovers with surprise such spiritual ignorance in one who
at the time represents in his presence the teaching of the Old
Testament. Some have discovered a measure of bitterness in
this reply ; it expresses nothing more than legitimate astonish- I
ment. Should not passages such as Jer. xxxi. 33, Ezek.
xxxvi. 26-28, have prepared Nicodemus for the idea of
regeneration ? But the Pharisees fixed their minds only on
the glory of the kingdom, not on its holiness. — The art. 6 before ;
8iSdo~Ka\o<;, " the teacher," has been explained in the sense :
" the well-known illustrious teacher " (Winer). But it is
really in this sense that the words of Jesus would not be free
from sarcasm. The article rather designates Nicodemus as '
the representative of the Israelitish doctorate, their official
BiSacrKaXia personified.
Ver. 10 forms the transition to the second part of the con
versation. What characterizes this part externally is the
silence of Nicodemus. As Hengstenberg observes, he seems
to say like Job before Jehovah : "I am vile ; what shall I
answer ? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I
spoken." Jesus, on His part, treats him with touching kind
ness and condescension. He has found him humble and
docile, and now He opens His mind to him without reserve.
Nicodemus came to ask Him about His mission and the
establishment of the Messianic kingdom, and he forgot the
conditions on which he himself might enter into that state
of things. A faithful Jew, a pious Pharisee, a saintly San-
hedrist, he thought them all fulfilled by the very fact of his
being such. Jesus, as a perfect educator, began by reminding
him of what he forgot : the practical question. He taught
him what he did not ask, and what it concerned him most to

56 GOSPEL OF JOHN. '
^cnow. And now He reveals to him in His goodness all that
\he desired to know — what He is (vv. 11-13); what He
comes to do (vv. 14-17); and what will result to humanity
(from His coming (vv. 18-21)^.
The first part of the conversation amounted to this : " What
will take place ? — Nothing whatever in the sense in which
thou understandest things." The second signifies : " And yet
there will come to pass something, and that, too, most unheard
of: the final revelation, perfect redemption, universal judg
ment. The plan of God is about to be completed, the true
Messianic kingdom to be realized." Such is the view opened
before the eyes of Nicodemus by the second part of the con
versation. There is here an entire contrast to what was said
ii. 24. Jesus commits Himself to him, because He knows what
is in him, his perfect uprightness (ver. 21).
j The positive teaching does not, strictly speaking, begin till
ver. 13. Vv. 11 and 12 are the preface to it.
This passage, w. 11—13, evidently joins on to ver. 2,
demonstrating the reality of the relation which we have just
established between the first words of Nicodemus (ver. 2) and
the second part of the conversation. Nicodemus had saluted
! Jesus with the title of teacher ; Jesus describes His mode of
teaching, ver. 11a. Nicodemus had made a certain profession
I of faith ; Jesus complains of the want of real faith in him
land his colleagues, ver. 115. Nicodemus had spoken in the
name of several : " We know . . . ; " Jesus addresses those
absent interlocutors also : " Ye receive not . . . (ver. 11); if
I have told you . . ." (ver. 12). Nicodemus had called
Jesus a teacher " come from God ; " Jesus shows him that he
jhas spoken more truly than he thinks, and reveals Himself to
him as the Son of man, come down from heaven to testifv of
heavenly things. This obvious relation gives to the first part
of the conversation, vv. 3-10, the character of a simple episode.
Vv. 11-13. In opposition to the doctorate of the letter,
destitute of all spiritual intuition, which Nicodemus represents,
Jesus announces to him the advent of a wholly new teachino-,
resting on an immediate experience of the truth (ver. 11).
That Nicodemus may profit by this higher teaching Jesus
invites him to faith (ver. 12). Finally, He discovers" to him
in His own person the perfect revealer (ver. 13).

chap. in. 11. 57
Ver. 11. " Verily, verily, I say unto tJiee, We speak that we
do know, and testify that we have seen; and yc receive not our
witness." — The formula, amen, amen (in truth), as it does
always, announces a truth which Jesus has fetched from the
inmost depths of His consciousness, and which should present
itself as a revelation to the mind of His interlocutor, and
overturn his prejudices or doubts. — Rabbinical teaching started
from the letter of Scripture, but did not put itself in contact with
the essential truth contained in the letter (ver. 39). Jesus
proclaims with deep satisfaction the advent of a different
teaching of holy things. He describes — 1st. Its character :
certainty: "that we do know;" 2d. Its source: immediate
intuition : " that we have seen." The two verbs, " we speak,"
and " ive testify" are related to the two fundamental charac
teristics : one speaks (declares) what he knows ; he testifies of
that which he has seen. There is, at the same time, a marked
progression between the two parallel propositions of this verse :
as in this new teaching knowledge rises to the clearness of
vision, so speaking reaches the solemnity of testimony. The
contrast indicated by Jesus between rabbinical teaching
and His own, impressed even the people; comp. Matt.
vii. 28, 29.
But of whom, then, is Jesus speaking when He says " we " ?
What body of new teachers is this which He contrasts with
the caste of scribes and wise men of this world who pass
away (1 Cor. i. 20) ? These plurals, "we say . . . we testify,"
have been explained variously. Beza and Tholuck understand
by we: " I and the prophets." Bengel : " I and the Holy Spirit."
Chrysostom and Euthymius : " I and God." It is obvious that
these explanations cannot be accepted. De Wette, Liicke,
and Meyer see in the we a plural of majesty. Meyer:
" Teachers like me." This explanation is less untenable. But
the first person plural to designate Himself is without example
in the mouth of Jesus. And why revert afterwards to the
singular (vv. 12 and 13): "I tell thee ... if / have told
you ... if / tell you . . ." ? If the you is addressed to
other persons besides Nicodemus (ver. 2 : we know), the we
should apply not only to Jesus, but to a plurality of indi-
viduals which he contrasts with that of which Nicodemus is
the representative. It must therefore be admitted, with Lange

58 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
and Hengstenberg, that Jesus here announces to Nicodemus
the existence of a certain number of individuals already
representing the new mode of teaching. These are Jesus
Himself, as the principal personage; then His forerunner, who
had been associated with Him in the revelation at His
baptism ; and His disciples, whom He was already preparing
to become the organs of this new doctorate.
In the person of Jesus the heavens were already opened to
them ; their view penetrates to the essence of things : "He
who hath seen me, hath seen the Father." What liveliness, what
freshness, in the declarations of John and Andrew, i. 41 ; in
that of Philip, i. 46 ; in the exclamation of Nathanael, i. 49 ;
in the profession of Peter, vi. 68, 69 ! This direct knowing
was really a seeing, and this speaking a witnessing. Already
Jesus feels Himself not alone ; hence the feeling of profound
joy which breathes in the plurals : we say, we know, etc.,
and which betrays itself even in the form of expression.
Luthardt rightly remarks, that here we discover that
parallelism of propositions which constitutes the poetical
rhythm of the Hebrew language. This form always betrays
emotion, and characterizes times of peculiar elevation (v. 37,
vi. 35, 55, 5G, xii. 44, 45). The language becomes a
sort of chant. — Nicodemus has to learn that the course of
things is more advanced than he thinks ! This passage
reminds us of that in the Synoptics in which Jesus proclaims
the substitution of little children, His humble and ignorant
disciples, for the wise and prudent Rabbins of Jerusalem
(Matt. xi. ; Luke x.). It is therefore natural to hold that
j Jesus was not alone when He spoke thus, and that one or
l more of His disciples were present at the interview. — Meyer,
Astie\ and others refer the expression : " we have seen" to the.
knowledge of Christ in His pre-existent state. If the ex
planation which we have just given of the we is well founded,
this opinion falls to the ground. Besides, it does not har
monize either with the words : " which is in heaven " (ver. 1 3),
or with the parallelism of the two propositions, viii. 38.
Before unveiling to Nicodemus what He knows and sees of
things above, Jesus mournfully reverts to the manner in which
His testimony and that of John the Baptist had been received
by the leaders of the theocracy : " And ye receive not our testi-

CHAP. III. 12. 59
mony." Kal, and, in the sense of: and yet (i. 10). This
copula brings out better than would be done by the particle
Kalroi, yet (which John never uses), the contradiction between
two facts which should be mutually exclusive, and which yet
exist together (hearing and rejecting testimony). — This reproach
from the lips of Jesus was already justified by the attitude of the
rulers and of a great part of the people towards John (i. 19
et seq.) and Jesus Himself (ii. 12 et seq.). This antecedent'
unbelief will render it more difficult for them to accept the I
still loftier revelations which Jesus brings to the world.
Ver. 12. " If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe 1
not, how shall ye believe if I tell you 2 of heavenly things ? " —
When a master answers : " If thou understandest me not on
this point, how shalt thou understand me on that ? " the
natural supposition is that he has been questioned by his
pupil about the latter. We may therefore conclude from these
words of Jesus, that He regards heavenly things as the subject
about which His interlocutor meant to question Him. Now
the questions which filled the mind of Nicodemus were those ;
of the person of the Messiah, the nature of His work, the mode
of the foundation and development of His kingdom. And
these are exactly the questions which are treated in the sequel.
— The contrast between the past : " if I have told you,'' and the
present : " if I tell you," proves that Jesus had not yet spoken
publicly about what He calls heccvenly things. Perhaps He
had conversed about them with His disciples. But however
that may be, this conversation was the first communication of
Jesus regarding the nature of the Messianic kingdom and the
mode of human salvation, beyond the most intimate circle.
And hence the, reason why John has preserved it to us. The
occasion was a marked one in the development of his faith.
— On what subjects had His public teaching turned up till
then ? On those which He calls earthly things. These
earthly things cannot mean those which refer to worldly
interests ; Jesus does not concern Himself with this domain.
If heavenly things are the divine plans for the salvation of
humanity, earthly things must be those which belong to man's
moral nature ; and so all that Jesus has just been declaring
1 E H, 10 Mnn. : aux wenmua-xn instead of ou vimutn.
1 The second u/u, is wanting in E H, 9 Mnn. It8""-

60 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
about the carnal state of the natural man, and the necessity of a
radical transformation. But Jesus does not say : " if I have
told thee" but : " if I have told you!' He has in view, there
fore, His general teaching up to the present time ; 'those first
instructions, the summary of which is thus stated by Mark
i. 15 : "Repent ye, and believe the gospel ; for the kingdom of
God is at hand" and the most remarkable sketch of which we
possess in the Sermon on the Mount. How different is the
instruction given in what follows to Nicodemus ! Those first
preachings only continued those of the Baptist (hence the we,
v. 11). The conversation with Nicodemus is the first step
in a domain infinitely exalted above that elementary and
essentially moral teaching.
According to Liicke's explanation, which seems to be shared
by M. Reuss, earthly things are those easy to understand, and
heavenly things, " the most elevated ideas of the gospel less
patent to an understanding which has not yet been enlightened
by it." This meaning, which is true as an inference, is inad
missible as an explanation. There is no example to prove
that heavenly can mean difficult, and earthly, easy. — Ewald
has tried to make of ehrov a third person plur., assigning as
its subject the prophets : " If they spoke to you of earthly
things, and ye believed them not " (the reading iirLcnevaare).
This meaning is inadmissible, because the subject would require
to be expressed, and an iyd> could not be wanting in the
following proposition (Meyer, Baumlein). In this remarkable
saying Jesus contrasts the events which transpire on the
\ theatre of human consciousness, and which man can test by
i self-observation with divine counsels and plans which can only
- be known by means of a revelation. The reasoning is to this
effect: "If, when I declared matters to you, the truth of
which you can yourselves appreciate, you did not believe,
how will you believe when I shall reveal to you the secrets
of heaven, which must be received solely on my word ? " In
the former case the testimony of the inner sense is the support
of faith ; but here everything rests on the confidence reposed
in the revealer's testimony. Let his word be rejected, and
the ladder on which man might rise to the knowledge of
heavenly things is broken, and access to the secrets of God is
closed against him.

CHAP. III. 13. CI
This saying of Jesus should teach us in our apologetics to
place the resting-point of faith in those declarations of Scrip
ture which are most immediately connected with the facts of
consciousness and the moral wants of the soul. If the truth
of the gospel be once established in this domain, where it can
be checked by every one, it is thereby half demonstrated in
relation to those evangelical declarations which belong to the
purely divine region. It will be. completely so as soon as it
shall be recognised that those two, the human and the divine,
parts of the gospel are adapted to one another as the two parts
of one whole; that the wants discovered by the one find
their full satisfaction in the supreme counsels revealed by the
other. The moral truth of the gospel is the first guarantee
of its religious truth. — Let it also be remarked, that the dis
tinction here made by Jesus Himself between two different
regions of doctrine, the one human, the other divine, corre
sponds in some measure to the difference of our Lord's teach
ing in our synoptical Gospels and in that of John. This
remarkable saying of Jesus is the key to the contrast, which
has so often been declared insoluble, between the Christ of
the fourth Gospel and that of the other three (Introd. i.
p. 152 et seq).
Ver. 1 3. "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that
came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in heaven!' x
— The intermediate idea between vv. 12 and 13 is this:
" Without faith in my testimony there is no access to those
heavenly things which thou desirest to know." The question :
" How will ye believe " (ver. 12)? implied the necessity of
faith. Ver. 13 justifies this necessity. Kai: and yet. "How
will ye believe . . . ? and yet belief is indispensable if a
man would know what is in heaven, since he cannot ascend
thither himself." — Olshausen, de Wette, Liicke, Luthardt, and
Meyer find in ver. 13 the proof of the necessity not of faith, but,
of a revelation. But this thesis is too theoretical to be directly
connected with ver. 12. Hengstenberg thinks that Jesus
wishes here to reveal His divinity as the first of the heavenly
things which Nicodemus has to learn. Meyer rightly answers,
that the negative form of the proposition is not in keeping
with this intention. Besides, Jesus would in this case
1 N B L Tb Or. (ence) omit the words a «v t> ru ovpxvx.

62 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
have used the expression : Son of God, rather than Son of
man. The general meaning of this profound saying is as follows :
" No one has ascended to heaven so as to be able to tell you
of it de visu, except Him who has come down from it to live
with you as a man, and who, even here below, remains there
always." In the first proposition, Meyer thinks that, in relation to
Jesus Himself, he can abstract the special idea of ascending,
to preserve merely the general idea of living in. The ex
pression, he thinks, arises from the fact that for every other,
except Jesus, to live in heaven, supposes that a beginning has
been made by ascending thither. See a similar use of el fir/,
Matt. xii. 4 ; Luke iv. 26, 27, etc. Nevertheless, the natural
meaning is certainly to apply the idea of ascending to Jesus
Himself. Only we must not think here of the ascension, as is
done by Augustine, Theophylact, Bengel, etc. : " No one has
ascended to heaven (nor will ascend to it) except" . . . For
this meaning the aor. would have been required. Neither is
it necessary to hold, with the Socinians, a removal of Jesus to
heaven, by which He was initiated during His lifetime into
the divine mysteries. It is enough to call to mind, not only
that the whole development of Jesus was only a gradual
initiation into the divine plan, but especially that at His
baptism the heavens were opened to Him ; He recovered the
, consciousness of His dignity as the Eternal Son. Heaven is
! a state before being a place ; it is essentially communion with
: God, the vision of God, and of all things in God, the view of
1 the spiritual essence of things, and the possession of the
: supreme virtues which flow from that knowledge. As Gess
says : " to be in the Father is to be in heaven." Secondarily,
no doubt, the word heaven takes also a local sense ; for this
spiritual state of things is realized in the most perfect way in
some sphere or other of the universe, which is resplendent
with all the glory of the manifestation of God. The moral
sense of the word heaven prevails in the first and third pro
positions ; the local sense must be added to it in the seconl
" No man hath ascended "... therefore signifies : No one hath
attained to communion with God and to the immediate know
ledge of divine things, nor can reveal them to othera

CHAP. III. 13. 63
But how was Jesus, and Jesus alone, admitted to such a
privilege ? Because heaven is His true native place. Only
He ascended thither, because He only descended thence. The
expression : came down, implies His consciousness of having
lived personally in heaven (Gess). This word, therefore,
denotes more than a divine mission ; it implies the incarna
tion ; for it includes the notion of pre-existence. It is an
evident advance on the profession of faith made by Nicodemus
(ver. 2). — The words : He who came down, explain the others :
hath ascended. The filial intimacy to which Jesus was exalted
here below rests on His essential Sonship (i. 18 ; Matt. xi. 27 ;
Luke x. 22). — The term : Son of man, gives prominence to the
reality of this heavenly Revealer's abasement and love. To
be able to communicate with men, and to instruct them in
heavenly things, He has made Himself fully their fellow. It
is as the Son of man that, having reascended after having
descended, He speaks of God to men.
The last words : which is in heaven, are preserved in the
text by Meyer, in spite of the Alex., and undoubtedly with
reason. The rejection may have been the result either of an
accidental omission, or of the difficulty of reconciling them
with the preceding proposition ; it would be more difficult to
explain them by arbitrary addition. In substance, the idea
which they express, that of the actual presence of Christ in
heaven, was already involved in the perfect dvaB48yicev, hath
ascended, rightly understood. This tense, indeed, does not
signify : has performed the act of ascending (that would be the
aor.), but " exists presently in the state of a being (who has)
ascended." The presence of Jesus in heaven is purely spiritual,
not at all local ; it serves to resolve the contrast between hath),
ascended and came dovm. It is the synthesis of the preceding
antithesis. Jesus lives now in heaven (in perfect communion
with the Father), but as one who has returned after having
left it to become the Son of man (xvi. 2 8). It may therefore
be said that our Lord led two lives in parallel lines, — an
earthly life and a heavenly life. He lived continually in His
Father : this was His heavenly life. And while living thus
in the Father, He gave Himself unceasingly to men in a life
which was truly human. His teaching by parables, in which!
heavenly things are clothed in an earthly dress, is the striking

64 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
expression of those two simultaneous lives which completely
interpenetrate one another.
Some commentators have understood 6 top, " who is in
heaven," as signifying who was (before the incarnation), or wh<?
shall be (after the ascension). Both meanings are grammati
cally inadmissible. In the case of the second this is obvious.
The first is excluded by the perfect (dvaB4Br\icev), which is
really a present. To express this idea, there would have been
needed the periphrasis o? r)v (who was). Liicke sees in the
owa perpetual present. This idea may be applied to i 18,
but not to our passage, where the subject in question is the
Son of man. — Here, again, Meyer alleges that Jesus explains
the knowledge which He has of divine things by His pre-
existence. The notion is irreconcilable with this saying,
except by denying that the idea of ascending applies to Jesus
(see above), which is unnatural. The higher knowledge pos
sessed by Jesus is, on the contrary, represented here as the
result of an initiation (hath ascended) which took place during
the course of His human existence, and in virtue of which He
lived in the immediate and constant, though truly human,
intuition of divine things. And, in point of fact, is not this
the impression produced by every saying of Jesus : a man who
sees the divine as we see the terrestrial ? Jesus, therefore,
who came down from heaven, and ascended again to heaven,
is the revealer of heavenly things ; such is the first of the
divine secrets which Jesus communicates to Nicodemus. The
second is the foundation laid for salvation in the elevation of
this man, not on a throne, but on a cross, the miracle of
| divine love to the world : vv. 14-16. This plan of redemp
tion forms the essential contents of the revelation announced
in ver. 13.
Vv. 14, 1 5. " And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder
ness, even so must tJie Son of man be lifted up : tJiat whosoever
bclieveth in Him1 shoidd hare eternal life." — Commentators
give more or less forced explanations of ical, and. Liicke :
" vv. 11-13 : I can reveal; vv. 14-16 : And I must do so."
1 Instead of m xuraw, which is read by T. Ix. with 14 Mjj. (and among them
N), almost all the Mini. If'"- Vg. Chrys., there is read in A, %r' xurat, in L, nr'
avru, in B Tb, i» «»m. — K B L Tb some Mnn. Syicur It"""' omit the words /*n
axaXrtrxi «XX\

CHAP. III. 14, 15. 65
Olshausen : " I do not give my word only, but my person."
De Wette : " Jesus passes from the theoretical to the prac
tical." Meyer, Luthardt : " He has spoken of the necessity of
faith ; He speaks now of its sweetness." All this appears some
what artificial. From our point of view the connection is
quite simple : the instant it is admitted that Nicodemus
wished to know the secrets of the kingdom, and that Jesus
is here responding to his desire, it is understood that He is
expounding divine things to him in succession. He has made
Himself known to him as the revealer of things celestial.
He now unveils to him the divine plan of redemption. Here
is one divine mystery added to another (icai, and also).
The central idea of the verse is that of the Messiah's
elevation. There have been three leading explanations given
of the word v^mQr\vai, to be lifted up. It has been applied
either to the spiritual glory gained by Jesus in the hearts of
men by the moral perfection which He reveals in His suffer
ings (Paulus), or to His elevation to His heavenly glory by
the pathway of His death (Bleek), or to His suspension on the \
cross ; this is the generally received meaning. In the first
sense, Jesus would rather have used the term BoljaarOrjvcu, to
be glorified. In the second, this term would also have suited
better. The comparison with the raising of the serpent, which
certainly had nothing glorious about it, the obviously material
sense of the word vyfrcoOrjvai, and its relation to the correspond
ing Aramaic term f]pr, which is applied to the suspension of '
malefactors, decide in favour of the third meaning. Only, if
regard is had to the relation between this expression and the
ideas of the interlocutor, there will be found in it unmistake-
ably a certain amphibology, with a stroke of irony at the
glorious Messianic programme elaborated by the Pharisees. ,
To perceive this shade, we must strongly emphasize oi/t»? :
thus it is that. " As Moses lifted up the serpent . . ., thus it
is — and not, as you imagine, like a second Solomon — that the ;
Son of man shall be lifted up" Moreover, this word : lifted [
up, implies that this cross shall really be the step of the Son
of man to His throne, and not David's throne only, but that of
God. Such is the full meaning of the word : to be lifted up.
We must not, like Meyer, refuse to follow the thought of
Jesus in this rapid process which combines instantaneously
GODET II. E JOHN.

66 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
the greatest contrasts, if we would understand the full depth
and richness of His saying. Here we again find the same
enigmatical character as at ii. 19, — The fact related, Num.
xxi. 9, is one of the most astonishing in sacred history. Three
features distinguish this mode of deliverance from all other
similar miracles — 1st. It is the plague itself which, represented
as vanquished by its exposure at the top of the pole; becomes
the means of its own defeat. 2d. This exposure takes place
not in a real serpent, — the suspension would have proclaimed
only the defeat of that individual, — but in a typical model,
which has the property of representing the whole species.
3d. This instrument works only by the intervention of a moral
act, the look of the wounded. It may be added, that the
plague was represented in this single case in the form of the
serpent, the permanent emblem of evil in its origin. What is
needed, therefore, is — 1st. That sin be publicly exposed as van
quished, and henceforth powerless ; 2d. That it be so not in
an actual sinner, — such a spectacle would represent only the
condemnation of that particular sinner, — but in a living image
representing the sin of the world (without being himself a
sinner) ; and finally, 3d. That the look of faith to this Son
of man, made sin (2 Cor. v. 21) for all, be the means of saving"
believers. Thus will the kingdom be founded : such is the
second iirovpdvwv (heavenly decree). What a complete re
versal of the Messianic programme held by Nicodemus ! And
what appropriateness in the use of an 0. T. type to rectify the
ideas of a former teacher of the law !
" Must," says Jesus ; and first to fulfil the prophecies ; next,
to fulfil the divine decree, of which the prophecies were only
an emanation (Hengstenberg) ; let us add, finally, and to
satisfy the moral necessities known only to God, of which this
decree itself is the result. — The designation Son of man is
chosen here, as at ver. 13, with a well-marked intention. It
is on the complete homogeneousness of His nature with ours
that the mysterious substitution proclaimed in this verse rests,
precisely like the heavenly revelation which was announced
in the previous saying.
Faith in the Crucified One (ver. 15) corresponds to the
look of the dying Israelite ; eternal life, to the health restored
to the wounded. — JTa?, whosoever, extends the application of

CHAP. III. 16. 67
the Israelitish type to the whole of humanity, while emphati
cally individualizing the act of faith (d). — The reading of the
T. R., ei? amov, to or upon Him, is that which agrees best with
the context ; it is naturally connected with the type of the
brazen serpent : faith looks to its object. It is likewise the
reading which may be regarded as best supported, if it be con
sidered how the Alex, contradict one another. To establish
the gradual alteration, it is enough to arrange the three read
ings as we have done in the note. — Even if, with the Alex.,
we reject the words ovk airoKrjTai, dXk', should not perish, but,
which may have been imported here from ver. 18, we must
be struck with the rhythmical relation between the last words
of the two verses ; the sign this of excitement of feeling and
elevation of thought (Introd. i. p. 192). It was no doubt a
consequence of this prophecy that the hour in which Nicode
mus saw Jesus suspended on the cross, instead of being to
him, as to others, the hour of unbelief and despair, became
that of the triumph of his faith (xix. 39). This fact is a
sufficient answer to de Wette's question, when he asks
whether this anticipatory revelation of the Messiah's death
was not contrary to the pedagogical wisdom of Jesus. Jesus
rises step by step (ovtws . . . outws, thus . . . so) to the very
heights of heaven.
Ver. 16. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." — Here is the eirovpdviov, the heavenly
mystery, by way of eminence ; Jesus rises to the highest
source of the work described w. 14 and 15 : divine love. ,
The world, that fallen humanity the greater part of which God
had left during the 0. T. outside of His theocratic govern
ment, and which the Pharisees devoted to wrath and judg
ment, Jesus presents to the eyes of Nicodemus as the object
of the most boundless love : " God so loved the world "... The
gift of this love is the Son, not now the Son of man, as the
term was, vv. 13 and 14, but the only-begotten Son. The
object here, indeed, is no longer to express the homogeneous-
ness of this person with the human race, but to exalt the
immensity of divine love to the world. The title used should
therefore express what the Saviour is, not to men His brethren,
but to the heart of God Himself. In the 0. T. man had once

68 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
offered to God his only son ; God could not, in a manner,
remain behind His creature. The word give certainly contains
\in this context more than the idea of sending ; it expresses
/entire surrender, the gift, carried if need be — and there will
be need (Set, ver. 14) — to the utmost limits of sacrifice. The
closing words of ver. 15, repeated here almost word for word,
have the effect of a refrain. It is the triumphal shout of the
conqueror of sin and death and of the giver of life. The
j' universality of salvation (whosoever) ; the easiness of the means
i (believeth) ; the greatness of the evil prevented (should not
jperish) ; the infinity, both in excellence and duration, of the
i blessing bestowed (everlasting life) : all these heavenly con
ceptions, entirely new to Nicodemus, are compressed within
this period, which magnificently sums up the exposition of the
itrue Messianic salvation. According to this passage of John,
redemption is ascribed to divine love as its first cause, even as
it is by Paul (2 Cor. v. 18): "All things are of God, who
hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ." Pardon is not
wrung from the Father by the Son. It is from the Father's
love that salvation flows. But this love of God to our sinful
world does not form a contradiction to that wrath which sus
pends judgment over it. It is not in reality the love of
communion with which God embraces the pardoned sinner ;
it is a love of compassion like that which is felt for the
unhappy or for enemies, a love the intensity of which arises
from the very greatness of the punishment which awaits the
obdurate sinner. Thus the two ideas which form the be-
ginning and end of the verse : divine love and threatening
\ perdition, are closely joined together.
Several theologians, with Erasmus (Neander, Tholuck,
, Olshausen, Baumlein), have supposed that the conversation
between Jesus and Nicodemus closes with ver. 15, and that
from ver. 16 it is the evangelist who speaks, commenting by
his own reflections on his Master's sayings. This opinion
may be supported by the past tenses: loved and ivere (ver. 19),
which seem to denote a later time than that when Jesus
conversed with Nicodemus; by the expression: ixovoyevqs, only-
begotten Son, which is peculiar to John's style ; finally, by the
fact that from this point the dialogue form entirely ceases.
jOn this view, the for of ver. 16 might be regarded as intended

chap. in. 16. 69
to introduce John's explanations ; and the repetition of the
words of ver. 15 in that same verse would be like the |
disciple's amen to the Master's utterance. On the other l
hand, would the for, ver. 1 6, indicate sufficiently a transition
from the teaching of Jesus to the disciple's commentary?
Would not the author have required to mark this important
transition more distinctly ? Then, how can we imagine that
the feeling which bears the discourse along from ver. 13 is
exhausted so quickly as in ver. 15? The growing transport
with which Jesus successively presents to Nicodemus the
wonders of divine love, the incarnation (ver. 13) and redemp
tion (w. 14, 15), cannot have stopped short in this way all
at once; it must rise to the highest principle from which '
those unheard of gifts flow, the infinite love of the Father.
To give glory to God is the goal to which the heart of Jesus
ever tends, and at which alone it rests. Finally, who can
believe that He dismissed Nicodemus dryly after the words of
ver. 1 5, without affording him a glimpse of the effects of the
work announced, and the consequences of the unbelief with
which He had just charged the Israelitish people, without at
least addressing to him a word of personal encouragement ?
Would this be the affectionate sympathy of a truly human
heart ? In that case, would not Jesus act the part of a
cold catechist, rather than that of the friend and Saviour
of men ?
The difficulties which have given rise to the opinion which
we are combating are not so hard to resolve. The pasts of
ver. 19 are justified by the cold and even hostile attitude
already taken by the nation, as represented by its chiefs
toward John and Jesus Himself. Comp. ii. 19: "Destroy
this temple" and ver. 11:" And ye receive not our witness."
From the fact that the word fiovoyev^, only-begotten Son, is
found twice in the prologue and once in John's first Epistle,
but never in the other discourses of our Lord, it would be
very hazardous to conclude that it does not belong to the
language of Jesus. We have proved that the term is justified
, and, so to speak, demanded by the context. Neither do the
terms : new birth, being born of water, and being born of the
Spirit, occur in the other discourses of Jesus ; must we, on
that account, doubt that they are His ? In speech so original

70 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
; as His, did not the matter at every turn create the form ?
When it is remembered that the anal; \ey6fieva (words used
only once) are reckoned by hundreds in St. Paul's Epistles
(230 in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, 143 in the
Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians taken together, 118
in the Epistle to the Hebrews), how can it be concluded, from
the fact that a word is found only once in the discourses of
Jesus which have been preserved to us, that it did not really
belong to His language ! As to the ceasing of the conversa
tional form, we have already given the explanation. It
arises simply from the growing surprise and humble docility
with which Nicodemus from this point onwards receives the
revelation of heavenly things. Notwithstanding this silence,
the dialogue does nevertheless continue in reality. For, as
We shall see, every word that Jesus utters is in direct relation
to the ideas and wants of His interlocutor, and that on to
ver. 21, where we at last find the word of encouragement
which naturally closes the conversation, and which forms the
indispensable corrective of the severe warning with which it
had opened. — There is another opinion, that of de Wette and
Liicke, according to which John, while meaning to make
Jesus speak to the very close, yet mixed his own reflections
more and more with the sayings of his Master, without being
himself conscious of it. We shall see if the want of point
or any break in the texture of the discourse really gives a
handle to such a supposition.
Love is the principle of the Son's mission, and salvation
is its aim. But from this salvation there must necessarily
result a judgment, by the separation of men into believers and
' unbelievers. And this spontaneous choice is the true judg
ment of the world ; for faith or unbelief, in respect to the
/light which has appeared, manifests the moral state of every
human being. Such is the substance of the remarkable
passage, vv. 17-21, which forms the conclusion of the inter-
i view. It is, after the revelation of the true salvation, that
of the true judgment. The Jews expected two things from
the Messiah: kingdom and judgment; the kingdom for
Israel, judgment for the Gentiles. Jesus has just been re
vealing the salvation destined for all (the world), and now
He also establishes the judgment which passes upon all : so

CHAP. HI. 17, 18. 71
that the line of demarcation which separates saved and un-j
saved, instead of passing between Jews and Gentiles, passes;
between believers and unbelievers, to whatever national cate-;
gory they belong.
Ver. 1 7. " For God sent not His x Son into the world to
judge the world; but that the world through Him might be
saved." — For : the proof that the Son's mission proceeds from
the love of God appears from the object of His mission, an
object which is not the judgment of the guilty world, as the
Pharisees thought, but universal salvation. The' word world,
thrice repeated, reveals to Nicodemus .the idea of a divine
benevolence which embraces 'all humanity. Paul's universal-
ism is contained in germ in vv. 1 6 and 1 7. Our versions '
translate : to condemn. Meyer defends this so generally
received meaning of /cptveiv. He explains it thus : " Jesus
came not to exercise a judgment of condemnation on the sins
of the world." But why in that case would not Jesus have
said /caraKplveiv, to condemn ? He means that His presence
meantime in the world has for its object not judgment, but
salvation. Hence M. Reuss concludes that " the idea of a
future and universal judgment is repudiated " in our Gospel.
But this is to exaggerate the scope of our verse ; comp. v.
27, 28 : " The Father hath given Him authority to exercise
judgment also, because He is the Son of man. Marvel not at.
this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in the
graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that
have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that
have done evil, unto tJie resurrection of judgment," and xii. 48.
Here, certainly, the future and universal judgment is duly
proclaimed. Only it is deferred to another epoch. What
Jesus sets aside in this saying is solely the idea which was
current in Israel : that the great external scene presented by
the judgment of the nations must take place at the advent of
the Messiah. Judgment, so far as it is His personal act, is
yet to come. But if in one sense salvation, the object of His
coming, excludes judgment for the present, in another sense it
prepares for it ; it even challenges it.
Ver. 18. "He that believeth on Him is not judged: but2
1 K B L Tb and some Mnn. omit xurav.
2 N B It"11* Ir. : o pn, for a h (in in all the others.

72 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
he that believeth not is judged already, because 7ie hath not
believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." — An
eminent jurist (H. Jacottet, of revered memory) thus anno-
' tated this verse : " Here we have justification by faith, and
condemnation by unbelief." Such, in effect, is the true
judgment substituted for that which was expected by Israel.
The first proposition confirms the thought of ver. 17: not
only does Jesus not come to judge, but the believer is even
set free by Him from judgment (the final judgment). Our
translators, Meyer as well as Hengstenberg, etc., again under
stand the word tcplveiv, in this place, not in the sense of
judging, but in that of condemning. But can it really be so
in face of the words v. 24 ? To judge, is to prove a man's
/moral state by a detailed examination of his acts. Now this
inquiry, which shall be one of the features of the future and
('final judgment (Rev. xx.), will not extend to the true, the
Isanctified believer. " He shall not come into judgment" says
Jesus. He shall appear, indeed (according to Rom. xiv. 10;
2 Cor. v. 1 0), but to be owned and declared holy. And if
faith withdraws man from judgment, there is herein nothing
arbitrary. This arises from the fact that it introduces him,
by means of the inward judgment of repentance, into the
sphere of Christian sanctification, which is that of a continual
judgment, the free anticipation of the final judgment (1 Cor.
xi. 31). — The pres. ov Kpiverai, is not judged, is the present
of the idea. The subject in question is the external final
judgment. The second proposition is an antithesis called
forth by the former: "If the believer is not judged, the
unbeliever shall certainly be so, and indeed is, so to speak,
already judged by the fact of his unbelief." The word t|S»7,
already, and the substitution of the perfect leetcpiTai for the
present Kplverat, show that Jesus is here thinking of the
moral judgment which passes here below on him who rejects
the salvation offered in Christ. By his very unbelief he
pronounces a clear enough sentence on his moral tendency.
The judge will only have to confirm it. To turn away from
the light is to declare himself thereby a lover of darkness. The
subjective negation /w;, instead of ov, is due, according to
Baumlein, to the decline of the language. According to Meyer,
it has its regular meaning here: "in not believing," or

CHAP. III. 19. 73
"because he believes not." — By the title only-begotten Son,
Jesus exhibits the guiltiness of those who reject His person
and work. The more glorious the Saviour is, the more
criminal is it to turn away from Him. His name, that of
Son, is the normal expression of His essence (see i. 12). —
The perf. irenicrTevKev, hath not believed, refers not to the act,
but to the state resulting from the act of not believing :
" Because he does not stand in the privileged position which
would be his as a consequence of his confiding himself to such
a being." The second proposition of ver. 1 8 is explained in
the verse which follows.
Ver. 19. "And this is the judgment, that light is come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil." — By becoming an unbeliever,
man judges himself; for he proves his moral state. The
most rigorous inquiry would demonstrate nothing more re
garding him than the fact of his unbelief. This judgment
differs no less from that which the Jews imagined, than the
salvation described vv. 14 and 15 from that which they
expected. " This is the judgment (in its very essence)."
These words are the title, as it were, of the following sayings,
including ver. 21. Only the order which Jesus had followed
in ver. 18 is reversed: unbelievers are placed first (w. 19,
20); believers last (ver. 21). Why so? Because the last
word must be addressed to Nicodemus as an adieu. Kpicri?,
judgment, not condemnation. The moral state of men is
declared for good, as for evil, by the attitude which they take
toward Jesus. Why so ? Because Jesus is tlie light. This
word signifies here, as throughout the whole Gospel, holiness
clearly revealed to the human conscience. Hence it follows
that the free relation which we contract to this being is an
infallible evidence of our inmost moral tendency. The
result of this experiment in the world is already obvious to
the eyes of Jesus : " Men loved rather "... Jesus says :
men; strictly speaking, the experiment is made only on the
mass of the Jewish people (ver. 11) ; but Israel is the repre
sentative of fallen humanity. The expression : loved rather,
is not intended, as Liicke thinks, to extenuate the guilt of
unbelievers, by insinuating that in them there is still an
attraction towards the truth. On the contrary, it aggravates

74 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
their responsibility, by showing the free preference with
which, when confronted with the light, they decide for the
darkness. — And what is the motive for this guilty preference ?
Their works are evil ; so they wish to withdraw them from the
light because they are determined to persevere in them. The
! light, by revealing and condemning those works, would have
• forced their authors to abandon them. Men do not sin in the
full light of day. While the aor. r)ydTrr)crav, loved, refers to
the act of unbelief, the imperfect rjv, were, denotes the per
manent state of sin anterior to the appearance of the light. —
"Epya, works, denotes the entire moral activity, tendency, and
acts. The following verse explains by a figure this psycho
logical relation between immorality and unbelief.
Ver. 20. "For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,
neither cometh to the light,1 lest his deeds should be re
proved." — Night was reigning at that very moment. How
many evil-doers were wandering in the darkness, pursuing
their guilty aims ! And it was not from accident that they
had chosen this hour. Such is the image of what is passing
in the moral world. The holy appearing of Jesus is like the
rising of the sun ; it causes all human actions to appear in
their true light. Hence it follows that, when any one does
' evil and wishes to persevere in it, he keeps at a distance from
1 Jesus and His holiness. This brightness would bring to
the full light of his conscience the inner perversity of his
conduct, and force him to renounce it, which he is unwilling
i to do. He therefore denies; unbelief is the night into
< which he plunges in order to continue sinning. Such is the
genesis of unbelief. The words cpavKa Trpdcracov, he that
doeth evil, denote not merely the tendency to which the doer
j has yielded previously, but that in which he is determined
to persevere. This is expressed by the participle present,
irpdcrcrcov (not the past, Trpafa?). The word <fiav\a (things
of nought) is substituted for irovypd (perverse things) of
ver. 19: the latter expressed the estimate of Jesus; the
former refers to the intrinsic nature of the acts, their
/ radaicl depravity. This shade agrees with the context : in
i ver. 19 it was Jesus who was judging; in ver. 20 it is the
1 X alone omits the words xx, am ipXirx, us t« ?«, (evidently from a confusion
of the two f us on the part of the copyist).

CHAP. III. 21. 75
sinner who judges himself by seeking the night. There is a I
corresponding difference between the two verbs Trpd-neiv and '
¦n-oieiv: the former indicates labour, the works in question
being works of vanity ; the second implies effective realiza
tion, in good -doing the product remains. But it is not to
be thought that the phrase doing evil applies merely to what
we call an immoral life. Jesus has undoubtedly in view
also a life which is outwardly honourable, but devoid of all
serious moral reality, like that of the greater number of
the rulers of Israel, and especially of the Pharisees: the
exaltation of the Ego and the pursuit of human glory belong
also to the <pavka irpaTreiv, " doing things of nought," in !
the sense in which Jesus understands it.— Mtaet, he hateth, '
expresses the instinctive and immediate antipathy to the
light manifested in Jesus, which results from the man's evil
tendency; ovk ep^erai, cometh not, denotes the deliberate
resolution to reject. — 'EXey^eiv: to bring to the light the
erroneous or evil nature of an idea or a deed.
The principle of unbelief, then, is not intellectual but moral. (
The proof which Jesus gives of this so grave fact is perfectly .
clear. All that Pascal has written most profoundly on the
relation between the will and the understanding, the heart
and the faith, is by anticipation contained in this and the
following verse.1 It is not otherwise with faith. It also
strikes its roots in the moral life.
Ver. 21. "But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that
his deeds may be made manifest2 that they are wrought in God."
1 The following are the reflections which this admirable passage suggests to
M. Colani {Bevue de thiol, t. ii. p. 49) : " The evangelist does not even perceive
the contradiction between his terms ... he does not get beyond a circle.
Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. Why?
Because their deeds are evil, and because to do evil is to hate the light. " Then
M. Colani gravely concludes from this alleged petitio principii, and from the
dualistic error which he also finds in this passage, that when the apostle wrote,
"religious speculation was yet in its cradle." M. Colani has not discerned the
two entirely different connections expressed by the twofors, w. 19, 20. The first1
denotes a historical relation : " They have been unbelieving in consequence of]
their being immoral. " The second is of a logical nature : it explains the relation j
of causality established by the first : " In fact, immorality shuns the light, and
produces unbelief." The absurdity which the critic finds here is all his own.
2 X omits nearly the whole of this verse as far as en (confusion of the two rx
spyx xurau, w. 20, 21, part of the authorities placing in. ver. 21 xvrau after
ipyx).

76 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
— Faith in Christ flows from the sincere love and the (relative)
practice of moral good. There are found among mankind,
even before the appearing of Christ, men who, though tainted
like others with inborn evil, resist wicked tendencies, and
pursue with noble ardour the realization of the moral ideal
which shines before them. Jesus here calls them those wlw
do the truth. St. Paul, on this point also at one with St. John,
describes them as those who, by patient continuance in well-doing,
seek for glory and honour and immortality (Rom. ii. 7). This
serious devotion to virtue, which in Israel was stimulated
and protected by the theocratic discipline, forms a contrast to
the mummeries of Pharisaic righteousness. Comp. the ex
pressions: to be of God, to be of the truth (viii. 47, xviii. 37).
'AXtjdeia, the truth, the knowledge of the true essence of
things, moral good perceived by the conscience. This earnest
pursuit of holiness, which may be found as well in a peni
tent publican as in an irreproachable Pharisee, produces an
immediate sympathy in the heart when Christ is seen. The
soul recognises in Him its ideal realized, and feels drawn to
Him as to one in whom it too shall succeed in realizing it
Does not the figurative expression: coming to the light, con
tain a delicate allusion to the course taken by Nicodemus?
Night reigned without; it was the symbol of the unbelief
in which the lovers of sin wrap themselves. But the light
round which the interlocutors were seated was like the
emblem of that which Nicodemus came seeking for his soul
Thou desirest virtue, Jesus seems to say to him by this figure.
Take courage ; thou shalt reach it !
This drawing of upright souls to the light arises from a
profound need of manifestation or approbation : " That his
deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God"
It is usually translated : " That his deeds may be made mani
fest, because they are wrought in God." Our somewhat different
translation is, we think, more agreeable to the genius of the
Greek construction (comp. iv. 35). Every truly upright man
rejoices to come into close contact with Christ the living
embodiment of holiness, because the deepest impulse under
which he acts can thus come to the light of day. This
impulse, indeed, is divine; such a man seeks to do God's
will ; he has therefore no interest in withdrawing his heart

CHAP. III. 21. 77
from the brightness of the light which manifests everything
(Eph. v. 12). On the contrary, in the approbation of Jesus,
he will find, like Nathanael, a confirmation, a stimulus, and a
powerful means of victory over the evil which he feels cleav
ing to him. The epya, works, here spoken of, are the sighs of
the contrite publican and of the penitent thief, as well as the
noble aspirations of a John or a Nathanael. If the expres
sion : " wrought in God," seems very strong to characterize the
moral tendency of the sincere man before his conversion, let
us not forget that, whether in Israel or beyond the theo
cratic sphere, it is from a divine impulse that all good in
human life proceeds. It is the Father who draws souls to
the Son, and who gives them to Him (vi. 37, 44). It is God
who causes the signal for the struggle to sound within the
sincere soul, even when that struggle is powerless against
inborn evil (Rom. vii.). Wherever there is docility on man's
part toward this divine initiative, the phrase is applicable,
works wrought in God. Here there opens up the vast domain
reserved for human liberty; placed as it is at every instant
between inborn corruption and divine impulse, it adheres
to the latter and resists the former (ver. 21), or it resists
the divine attraction, and surrenders itself to that of evil (w.
19, 20). The first way terminates in faith; the second, in
unbelief. Luthardt seems to us to have completely mistaken
the sense of this verse, and to have lost the profound doctrine
which it contains, by explaining it thus : " He who practises
the moral truth manifested in Christ becomes quickly attached
to Christ by the religious bond of faith." How could a man
set himself to practise the holiness revealed in Christ, without
already having some sort of faith in Him ?
" Among mankind before Christ," Liicke justly observes, !
"there mingle two kinds of men. With the appearing of
Jesus their separation begins ; " ainv 17 «/3to-t?. On the trees
of the same forest, observes Lange, all kinds of birds take
shelter together during the night. But in the morning, as
soon as the sun shoots his rays thither, some close their eyes
and seek the darkest retreat, while others shake their wings
and salute the sun with their songs. So the appearing of
Christ separates the lovers of the day from the lovers of the
night, mingled till then in the mass of mankind. This idea

78 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
must not, however, be understood in the sense which the
Tubingen school ascribes to the evangelist: that there are
two kinds of men, opposite in their nature. All the expres
sions used by John : " they loved rather" " doing evil things,"
I "doing the truth," are, on the contrary, borrowed from the do-
| main of free choice and deliberate action (comp. Introd. i. p.
181 et seq).
It is with this word of hope that Jesus takes leave of Nico
demus. It is true that he is not yet born again. But never
theless he is, and Jesus has recognised him to be, one of those
upright souls who shall one day believe, and who shall be led
by their faith to the baptism of water, and thereby to the
baptism of the Spirit. Henceforth Jesus waits for him. M.
Reuss is surprised at John's silence about his departure. " We
have seen him come, indeed, but we do not see him go away.
We are completely ignorant of the result of this interview.''
And hence he draws an argument against the historical reality
of the account. Is this objection serious ? The evangelist
should then have told us expressly that Nicodemus, on leaving
Jesus, returned to his own house ! And does not the effect
produced appear plainly from the after history (vii. 50, 51,
xix. 39) ? John respects the mystery of the inward work
which has just begun, and leaves facts to speak. It is the
revelation of Jesus which is the subject of this narrative, and
not the biography of Nicodemus. From the fact that Matthew
does not mention the return of the Twelve after their mission
(chap, x.), would it follow that the fact is not historical ? No,
our Gospels are essentially religious writings. From their
view-point the moral result alone is important, and it is only
produced gradually.
We are now in circumstances to pass judgment on the
historical character of this conversation.
1. That Nicodemus is a real personage has been denied,
because the Synoptics do not mention him ; as if in so rich a
garden as the ministry of Jesus there remained only artificial
flowers after those which were gathered by the first passers-
by ! The part taken by Nicodemus in the sitting of the
Sanhedrim (chap, vii.), and the part which he took in the last
honours paid to the body of Jesus (chap, xix.), are circumstances
the truth of which there is no valid reason to suspect. A

CHAP. III. 21. 79
perfect and obvious psychological harmony prevails between
those different details in the conduct of Nicodemus, and gives
to his person the character of a concrete and living being
(comp. Luthardt, i. p. 106).
2. The historical truth of the conversation follows from the (
perfect appropriateness of all the sayings of Jesus in the given j
situation. First, an episode in which Jesus has regard to the ,
practical wants of the soul approaching Him. He unveils to
this member of the Sanhedrim, this irreproachable Pharisee, the
truth elsewhere proclaimed in the words : " Except your right
eousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Then,
after having thus made a void in his heart, He seeks to fill it
in the positive part of the conversation wherein He answers
the questions which Nicodemus had proposed to put to Him.
In this answer He confronts the Jewish programme with
the divine : Messiah with Messiah, salvation with salvation,
judgment with judgment, so that every word is a home-thrust
to the very heart of His interlocutor ; and the fact of ver. 1 :
" A man of the Pharisees!' is the key of the whole passage. \
The direct application, constant suitableness, and continuous
current of the conversation, guarantee its reality. A composi- ¦
tion dating from the second century would not have been so !
perfectly adapted to the historical situation. In any case, j
the coherence of all the parts is too close to admit the idea of i
a distinction between the part belonging to Jesus and that
due to the evangelist. Either the whole is an artificial com
position, or the whole also should be regarded as the summary
of a real conversation. We say : the summary, for we cer
tainly do not possess the complete report. The visit of
Nicodemus lasted, of course, longer than the few minutes
necessary to read the account of it. John has transmitted
to us in a few salient utterances the quintessence of the com
munications made by Jesus in the case before us. So much
is indicated by the vague transitions expressed by the simple
and, icai. We behold a few peaks, but not the entire chain
(comp. Introd. i. p. 135).

80 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
III. Jesus in the Country of Judea. — iii. 22-36.
The testimonies of John the Baptist, which had begun to
make Jesus known to the world, had a declarative character;
they were appeals to faith. In the passage which follows,
there is reported a last discourse uttered by the forerunner,
which, by its grave and threatening tone, takes the character
of a solemn protest against the moral attitude of Israel and
its growing unbelief. Here, therefore, was one of the salient
points in the history of the revelation of Jesus, as well as in
the history of Jewish unbelief.
The forerunner uttered these words, probably the last of
his public ministry, in the country of Judea, where Jesus was
then prosecuting His, not far from him. It thus appears
that our Lord did not return to Galilee after His stay at
Jerusalem during the feast of Passover. He went from
the capital to the country districts of the Holy Land, where
He set Himself to preach and baptize almost as John was
doing. How are we to explain the form of activity which His
ministry assumes at this point ? After the temple was closed
to Him, He had traversed the holy city to find within it only
one man of mark who was disposed really to prefer light to
darkness. Then He removes still further from the centre, and
establishes Himself in the province ; and to this local retreat
there corresponds a modification in His mode of operation.
He had presented Himself in the temple with authority, like
a sovereign making his entry into his palace. The holiness
of His summons not being understood, Jesus cannot rise to
Messianic action. He therefore descends again to the work of
prophetic preparation ; thus in a way becoming His own fore
runner, and by this retrograde step finding Himself at this period
of His ministry standing at the same point as John the Baptist,
who had reached the climax of his. Hence the simultaneous-
ness and the sort of rivalry which appeared between the two
ministries and the two baptisms. After His return to Galilee,
Jesus will Himself renounce this rite. As the only element
for carrying out a Messianic organization, He will preserve
the apostolate. Besides, His future work will lie only in
awakening faith, and He will defer the foundation of the

CHAP. III. 22. 81
church, with which the re-establishment of baptism is con
nected, to that more remote epoch when His death and resur
rection shall have completely broken the bond between Him
and the unbelieving nation.
These changes in the ministry of Jesus have not escaped
the eyes of rationalists ; but they have regarded them only as
the result of a growing miscalculation. Yet Jesus had pro
claimed the whole from the first day : " Destroy this temple ; "
and the final success of His work should have shown them
that there was something better here than the result of a
mistake. Faith, on the contrary, admires in this step the
elasticity of the divine plan in its relations to human liberty,
and the perfect docility with which the Son can bow to the
daily instructions of the Father. Hence the absence of plan
becomes the wisest and most wonderful of plans ; and the
divine purpose, accepting the free play of human liberty, can
take advantage of the very opposition which men make to its
designs, to realize them with the greater certainty.
This survey affords a key to the principal difficulties of the
following narrative, and explains the momentary contempo
raneousness of those two ministries, the one of which, as it
appeared, should terminate in the other.
This passage contains — 1. A general view of the situation,
w. 22-26 ; 2. The discourse of John the Baptist, vv. 27-36.
1. Vv. 22-26.
Ver. 22. " After these things came Jesus and His disciples
into the land of Judea; and there He tarried with them, and
baptized!' — Merck ravra, after these things, connects this pas
sage in a general way with ii. 23-25 : "Following up those
doings of Jesus at Jerusalem." — 'IovSala yf), the land of Judea,
denotes the country, as opposed to the capital. — The imperfects :
He was tarrying, and He was baptizing, indicate that this stay
was of some duration. The phrase : He baptized, is defined
more exactly, iv. 2 : " Though Jesus Himself baptized not, but
His disciples." The moral act alone belonged to Jesus ; the
material operation was done by His disciples. If those two
passages were found in two different Gospels, criticism would
certainly find in them a contradiction. The only concern of
GODET II. 5 JOHN.

82 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
the narrator in this context is to place this baptism under the
responsibility of Jesus Himself.
Ver. 23. "And John also was baptizing in Mnon, near to
Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and
were baptized!' — iEnon (from py) denotes a fountain. Meyer
derives the termination on from if, dove. The meaning of the
word would thus be : the fountain of the dove. This locality
was in the vicinity of a town called Salim. The situation of
the two places is unknown. Eusebius, and Jerome in the
Onomasticon, place iEnon eight thousand paces to the south
of Bethsean or Scythopolis, in the valley of the Jordan, and
Salim further to the west. Hence it would follow that the
two localities lay in Samaria. But the phrase : in the country
of Judea (ver. 22), is not favourable to this meaning. And
how should John have settled among the Samaritans ? How
would the multitudes have followed him to the midst of this
hostile people ? Ewald, Wieseler, and Hengstenberg are
induced by these reasons to think of a wholly different
locality. In Josh. xv. 32, three towns are spoken of: Shilhim,
Ain, and Bimmon, situated towards the southern frontier of the
tribe of Judah, on the confines of Edom (comp. xv. 21). In
Josh. xix. 7 and 1 Chron. iv. 32, Ain and Rimmon reappear
together. Finally, in Neh. xi. 29, the two names are com
bined in one, En-rimmon. Might not iEnon be the contrac
tion completed ? This supposition would remove the difficulty
of a baptism in Samaria, and would give a very suitable sense
to the reason assigned : because there was much water there.
Certainly, as applied to a country for the most part destitute
of water and almost desert, like the southern extremity of
Judah, the reason has more force than if the country in
question were rich in water, like Samaria.
Jesus would thus have followed in the footsteps of the
Baptist, visiting from north to south the whole territory of
the tribe of Judah, and seeing, at least once in His life,
Bethlehem, the city of His birth, Hebron, the city of Abraham
and David, and all southern Judea even to Beersheba. In
the Synoptics we find Him making a similar excursion to the
northern confines of the Holy Land, and staying at Cfesarea
Philippi, in the vicinity of the ancient Dan, at the foot of
Hermon. Dan and Beersheba are the two extreme points of

CHAP. III. 24. 83
the inheritance given to Israel. All the regions of the theo
cratic domain would thus have been visited once at least by
our Lord. — Hengstenberg, taking advantage of this sojourn of
Jesus in the neighbourhood of the desert, places the tempta
tion here. This opinion is chronologically untenable.
Ver. 24. "For John was not yet cast into prison." — There
is nothing in the preceding statements to account for this
remark. The evangelist has not said a word which could
lead any one to suppose that John was imprisoned at the time
in question. It is somewhere else, therefore, than in our
Gospel that the cause of the misunderstanding, which John
rectifies in this verse, must be sought. It is easily discovered
in our first Synoptics. Matt. iv. 12 : "Now when Jesus had
heard that John was cast into prison, He departed into Galilee."
Mark i. 14: "After that John was put in prison, Jesus came
into Galilee." Those words, which immediately follow the
account of the baptism and temptation, would lead us to
think that the imprisonment of the Baptist followed very
closely on the baptism of Jesus, and preceded, or rather
occasioned, His first return to Galilee (the account Luke iii.
19, '20 is different; there, the imprisonment of John is men
tioned only by anticipation). Hence we must conclude :
either, with Hengstenberg, that the first two Synoptics omit
the first return to Galilee, that which is mentioned in our
Gospel i. 44, and begin their account of the Galilean ministry
with the return mentioned iv. 3, which would thus be iden
tical with that related Matt. iv. 12. Hengstenberg supports
this view by the use of the term dveymprqaev, withdrew, in
Matthew, which, according to him, indicates a retreat caused
by some danger with which Jesus found Himself threatened
in Judea, and thus assumes an activity on the part of Jesus
previous to His return. Or we must hold that, in the
account of the first two Synoptics, those first two returns
from Judea to Galilee were confounded. This identification
necessarily caused the suppression of the entire interval
between the two returns, that is to say, of nearly a whole
year of the ministry of Jesus, — exactly the time occupied by
the events related John i. 44-iv. 54. To recover the space
during which the facts now related occurred, John was thus
obliged expressly to restore the distinction between the two

84 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
returns. Especially was he forced to do so on account of
those two baptisms of John and Jesus, whose contemporan
eousness would have been impossible from the viewpoint of
the first two Synoptics.' Such is doubtless the design of the
observation which he interjects at ver. 24. Even Hilgenfeld
says, when speaking of this passage : " Involuntarily the
fourth evangelist here testifies to his acquaintance with the
synoptical narrative." The only thing objectionable in this
remark is the word involuntarily. For the intentional cha
racter of the parenthesis, ver. 24, is obvious at a glance. The
confirmation which Hengstenberg seeks in the term with
drew is insufficient. We established in John the marked
intention to distinguish the two returns to Galilee, from the
manner in which he speaks of the miracle of Cana, ii. 11, and
we shall have occasion to make a similar remark, iv. 54. As
to the way in which this confusion was produced in the
synoptical tradition, let it be remembered that not till after
His second return to Galilee did Jesus begin that continuous
ministry which is called that of the prophet of Galilee, which
is very particularly described to us by the first three Gospels,
and which was the beginning of the foundation of the church.
The fruitless attempts made by Him in Judea up to that
time had no doubt great importance in the description of
Jewish unbelief (consequently in St. John's Gospel), but they
had no bearing on the real establishment of the kingdom of
God and of the church, which was the result of the Galilean
ministry. We derive from this 24th verse an important inference as
to the place of the author of the fourth Gospel within the
primitive church. Who but an apostle, and an apostle of
the first rank, could have taken this sovereign attitude in
regard to the tradition received in the church emanating
from the Twelve, and consigned to Gospels anterior to his
own ? By a stroke of the pen to introduce a modification so
important into so authoritative a narrative, he must have felt
himself in possession of an authority perfectly indisputable.
Ver. 25. " Then tJiere arose a question on the part of John's
disciples and the Jews l about purifying." — After havino- indi-
1 T. R. reads Uvlxim, with J? G Mnn. It. Syr""" Cop. Or. All the others
read Xovhxiav.

CHAP. III. 26. 85
cated the time and place of the discourse following, John
states the occasion of it. It was a discussion called forth by
the competition of the two neighbouring baptisms. Ovv, tlien,
indicates this relation. — The expression : on the part of the
disciples, shows that John's disciples were the challengers.
The reading of the majority of the Mjj. 'IovSalov, a Jew,
instead of 'IovBaimv, of the Jews, is now generally received.
But would not t»o? be necessary ? Then, could so solemn a
testimony have been called forth by so insignificant a circum
stance as an altercation with an unknown individual ? The
testimony of the oldest Vss. in favour of the plural, Jews, is
not without importance ; and the Sina'it. has come to confirm
the antiquity of this reading, which is in itself the most
probable. It seems to us that the termination ov is a very
ancient mistake, arising from a confusion with the two like
terminations : 'Icodvvov and KaQapia-fiov. — The subject of dis
cussion was the mode of true purification. This purification
was evidently that which ought to serve as a preparation for
entering into the kingdom of the Messiah. Meyer thinks
that the Jew ascribed greater efficacy to the baptism of Jesus
than to that of John. Luthardt supposes that he belonged to
the Pharisaic party, hostile to Jesus and to John, and that he
malignantly related to the disciples of the latter the successes
of the former. It is possible, indeed, that Jews had come
from Jerusalem to watch, on the part of the Sanhedrim, this
double baptism, which was celebrated without official authori
zation (comp. the report to which allusion is made, iv. 1).
Drawn into conversation with them, John's disciples claimed
for their master the honour of priority and superiority, as to
that preparatory purification with which John had been
divinely charged. The Jews, on their side, described to them
the multitude of pilgrims who flocked to the baptism of Jesus,
and appealed to John's own testimonies to give Jesus the
preference. The question was embarrassing. John's disciples
determined to submit it to him.
Ver. 26. "And they came unto John, and said unto him,
JRabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou
barest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to
Mm." — There is something of bitterness in these words. The
clause : " to whom thou barest witness," expresses the generosity

86 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
which John showed toward Jesus : " See there how thou didst
act, thou (cry) ; and see here how he is acting, He (outos)."
''I8e, behold, brings into prominence the unexpected nature of
such a procedure : " He baptizeth, and thereby not content
with asserting himself, he seeks to eclipse thee." Baptism
was a special rite introduced by John, and distinguishing his
ministry from every other. By appropriating it to Himself, Jesus
seemed to be usurping the peculiar place of John. — And what
is more vexatious is, that He is succeeding : " All men come to
him." This exaggeration, all, is due to spite. Matt. ix. 14
shows us the disciples of John in Galilee, after the imprison
ment of their master, still animated with the same hostile
disposition, and more or less in league with the adversaries of
Jesus. 2. Vv. 27-36.
John does not in his answer directly resolve the particular
difficulty submitted to him. He goes to the root of the
matter. He describes the entire relation between the two
persons whom men are making rivals, and shows that all
opposition, or even comparison between them, is misplaced.
The solution of the question in dispute is given by this
general explanation. The discourse has two parts, which are
defined by the given situation: "/" and "He;'' or, to use his own
expressions, the friend of the bridegroom (w. 2 7-3 0) and the
bridegroom (31-36). John's object is to quiet his disciples,
by showing that what grieves them is exactly that which fills
him with joy. From the earliest times a singular analogy
has been remarked between this discourse of the Baptist and
the conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus ; and from the fact,
inferences have been drawn unfavourable to the authenticity
of both. Besides, many expressions and ideas seem to belong
to a somewhat advanced Christianity. " Such preaching,"
says M. Colani, " might follow, but not precede the work of
Jesus" (Revue de thiol, t. ii. p. 39). Further, it is very
generally held that from ver. 31 it is the evangelist who is
adding his own reflections to those of the forerunner, or even
that the entire discourse must be set down to the account of
the former. According to M. Reuss, the dogmatic idea which
he wishes to express is here put by him into the Baptist's

CHAP. III. 27, 28. 87
mouth, as elsewhere into the mouth of Jesus. First of all,
let us own that the historical situation is precisely and well
defined. Our business shall be to determine whether in its
essential features the discourse answers faithfully to it, and
whether we can find a natural way of explaining the analogy
which really exists between the terms used by the forerunner
and those which are employed by Jesus in His conversation
with Nicodemus.
Vv. 27-30. "I."
Ver. 27. "John answered and said, A man can receive
nothing, except it be given him from heaven." — The ruling idea
as far as ver. 30 is that of the forerunner's person and mis
sion. Accordingly, the most natural explanation of the
general sentence, ver. 2 7, seems to be to apply it to the person
of the Baptist. He is challenged to defend himself against
Jesus, who is despoiling him. " I cannot take," he answers,
" what God has not given me ; " in other words : " I cannot
make myself the bridegroom, when I am only the friend of
the bridegroom." This explanation, which I adopted (comp.
Liicke and Hengstenberg) in the first edition, because of the
connection of this saying with the theme of the first part of the
discourse: "I," as it now seems to me, ought to be abandoned for
that of Meyer, who applies the maxim to Jesus : " He would
not obtain such success if God Himself did not give it to Him."
The connection with the question of ver. 26 is much closer
in this sense. And the first saying of the discourse may well
be the preface to the whole (/ and He), and not only that of
the first part. It might be objected, that according to this
view the maxim contains anything rather than the glorifica
tion of success as such. But it must not be forgotten that-
the saying refers solely to the divine work here below, and to
the steps of its progress. Tholuck, Bruckner, and Luthardt
apply it to John and Jesus alike. What the declaration thus
gains in extension, it loses in precision.
Ver. 28. "Ye yourselves bear me1 witness, that I said, I am
not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him." — The asyndeton
between this verse and the preceding expresses the vividly
felt contrast between what is granted to Jesus and the part
assigned to John. — The latter reminds his disciples that the
1 The Mjj. K E F H M V and 60 Mnn. omit fui.

88 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
thing of which they complain is only the consequence of a
fact of which he has warned them from the beginning. He
appeals to their memory, and thus frees himself from all
responsibility for their jealousy. In vv. 28-30 he contrasts
with that which is granted to Jesus and refused to him, the
very inferior part which is assigned to himself, but which
perfectly satisfies him. Then, from ver. 31, he returns to the
idea of ver. 2 7, and describes the office of Jesus.
Ver. 29. "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the
friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him}
rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice r this my joy
tJierefore is fulfilled." — John uses a figure to represent the
nature of his position, and shows that if it is inferior to that
of Jesus, it also has its privileges, in virtue of which it satis
fies him completely. Nvpfyn, the bride, is the Messianic
community which the Baptist was to form in Israel and to
bring to Jesus ; vvfi<j>io<;, the bridegroom, denotes the Messiah,
and if one may so speak, the intended of that spiritual bride.
The name Jehovah signifies exactly: Him who is to come.
According to the 0. T., indeed, the Lord would not confide
this excellent part to any other than Himself, and the coming
of the Messiah is the highest manifestation of Jehovah Him
self (i. p. 372). — John's intention in the first proposition
might be to prove, from the fact that Jesus has the bride (" all
come to Him," ver. 26), that He is really the bridegroom ; but
it is much more natural to think that he means to contrast
the privileges of Him who has the happiness of being the
bridegroom with his own : " The advantage of possessing the
bride belongs to him who has been chosen to be the bride
groom, and this part is not mine ; but under this privileged
position there is another which is still excellent enough to
fill him with joy who is called to it ; and that is mine." The
functions of the marriage friend were first to ask the hand of
the young woman, then to act as the instrument of communi
cation between them during the time of their betrothal, and
finally to preside at the marriage feast : an admirable figure
of the Baptist's office. 'O co-t^kco? : he who stands. The word
expresses, as Hengstenberg says, the happy passivity of one
who contemplates, listens, and rejoices. While he is doing
1 K places at/rou after irmxtit.

CHAP. III. 30. 89
the part of a servant in presence of the betrothed, the marriage
friend hears the joyful and noble accents of the bridegroom,
which transport him with joy. John speaks only of hearing,
not of seeing. Why? Is it because he is himself at a
distance from Jesus ? But then, how can he speak of hear
ing ? If these words have any meaning as applied to the
Baptist, they assume that certain sayings of Jesus, uttered by
Him in public or private, had been reported to John, and had
filled his heart with joy and admiration. And if we reflect
a little, could it be otherwise ? Can we suppose that Andrew,
Simon Peter, and especially John, those former disciples of
the Baptist, did not return once at least to their old master,
to tell him of the things which they heard from the lips of
Jesus ? How could they have failed to do so, especially now
when they again found themselves so near to him ? This fact
throws all the light which is desirable upon the resemblance
between certain sayings of the Baptist in our discourse,- and
those of Jesus in His conversation with Nicodemus. This
conversation had been reported to John; and it is precisely
this voice of the bridegroom which makes the heart of His
friend leap with joy. — The phrase : xaP$ Xafaeiv> t° rej°ice with
joy, corresponds to a Hebrew construction (the verbal idea
strengthened by the verb in the infinitive being placed before
the finite verb) ; comp. tWK BW (Isa. lxi. 10), which the
LXX. translate by a construction similar to that of John ;
Luke xxii. 15. This expression describes the joy of John as
one which has reached its height, and which excludes every
opposite sentiment, such as that which the disciples were
attempting to awake in him. The words : this my joy, con
trast the joy of the marriage friend with that of the bride
groom, and define it as his portion. — HeirXripanai, not: was
fulfilled (Rilliet), — this would require the aor., not the perfect,
— but : is, at this very moment, raised to its height : " What
calls forth your vexation, is the very thing which fulfils my
joy" Ver. 30. "He must increase, and I must decrease." — This
verse is the central word of the whole discourse ; it forms
the transition from the first to the second part. — The friend
of the bridegroom at the beginning of their connection had
the principal part to play ; it was he who appeared. But in

90 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
proportion as their relation became developed, his part dimin
ished ; he had now to disappear, and to leave the bridegroom
to stand alone. All the Baptist is in this admirable saying,
which no other would have invented. It ought to become
the motto of every servant of Christ.
It is here that Bengel, Tholuck, Olshausen, and others
make the discourse of the Baptist close, and the reflections of
the evangelist begin. They rest their view chiefly on the
Johannine character of the style in what follows, and on its
numerous connections with the preceding conversation (see
especially w. 31 and 32). But the Baptist himself has just
been explaining to us those connections; and as to the style,
it must be remembered that Jesus and the Baptist spoke
Aramaic, and the same evangelist translated their words. How
could discourses thus reproduced fail to exhibit a uniform
colouring ? If the author had passed at this point from the
Baptist's discourse to his own reflections, he would in some
way have marked the transition. Besides, the presents : he
speaketh, testifieth, receiveth not (w. 31, 32, 34), clearly prove
that he aimed and claimed to make the forerunner speak
The only question is, whether this claim is well founded. We
shall not be able to pronounce until we have studied the dis
course to the end.
Vv. 31-36. "He."
And first, the origin of Jesus (ver. 31); next, the divine
perfection of His teaching (w. 32-34); finally, His filial
dignity and His absolute sovereignty (ver. 35). The discourse
closes with a practical application (ver. 36).
Ver. 31. "He that cometh from above is above all:1 he that
is of the earth 2 is earthly, and speaketh of the earth : He that
cometh from heaven is above all." 8 — John contrasts the celestial
origin of Jesus with his own terrestrial nature. AvaOev,
from above, applies here not to the mission,— for John's is also
from above, — but to the origin of the person. The all in
above all refers to servants of God. All are destined, like
John himself (ver. 30), to be eclipsed by the Messiah. The
thrice repeated words : of the earth, forcibly express the sphere
' K D Itnlli : xxi before a *».
''¦ X : iri instead of <x ; D : xva.
8 X D, some Mnn. a b Syr01" omit <»«»« rs»»i> im (the second time).

CHAP. III. 32. 91
to which John belongs, and above which he cannot rise. The
first time they indicate origin (&v e«) : a mere man ; the
second time, his mode of existence (earl) : he is and remains
earthly in his whole manner of being, feeling, and thinking
(comp. the antithesis, ver. 1 3) ; the third time, they refer to
his teaching (XaXel) : seeing the things of heaven only from
beneath, from his earthly dwelling-place, at certain isolated
moments, and, as it were, through partial openings, he speaks
even in his times of ecstasy only as an earthly being. He can
only call to repentance, without bringing into the kingdom.
This estimate which John gives of himself agrees with the
judgment of Jesus, Matt. xi. 11: " The least in the kingdom
of heaven is greater than he." And the shaking of his faith,
which followed so closely, was not long in demonstrating how
just it was. After having thus put all heaven's servants in
their place relatively to Jesus, John returns to his principal
theme : He. If, with the Alex., we reject the last words of
this verse : is above all (as well as the and of the following
verse), we must take the words : He that cometh from heaven,
as the subject of the verb testifieth, ver. 32. But the fullest
and richest reading is also the most in keeping with the spirit
of the text.
Ver. 32. "And1 what He hath seen and heard, that2 He
testifieth ; and no man receiveth His testimony." — The icai, and,
omitted by the Alex., is unnecessary. Asyndeta are frequent
in this discourse. From the heavenly origin of Jesus there
follows the perfection of His teaching. He is in filial com
munion with the Father. When He speaks of divine things,
He speaks of them as an immediate witness. This saying is
the echo of what Jesus said ver. 11. By reproducing it, the
forerunner declares that Jesus has affirmed nothing regarding
Himself which is not perfect truth. In the last words he
confirms the severe judgment which Jesus had passed on the
conduct of the people and their rulers (ver. 11). Yet, while
asserting, as Jesus had done, the general unbelief of Israel,
John does not deny individual exceptions ; he brings them out
in ver. 33. But what he means here by the expression: no
man, is that those exceptions, which appear to be all in the
i K«, is omitted by X B D L Tb It^i Syrcur Cop. Or.
a X D omit rovro fixprvpu.

92 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
eyes of his disciples ("all," ver. 26), are in his estimation but
an imperceptible minority. Over against the exaggeration of
envy, he sets that of zeal : " Where ye say : all, I for my
part say : no man." He would not be satisfied unless he saw
the Sanhedrim as a body, followed by the whole people,
coming to pay homage to the bridegroom of the Messianic
community. Then he could himself also go to sit at His
feet. Vv. 33, 34. "He that receiveth His testimony hath set
to his seal that God is true. For He whom God hath sent
speaketh the words of God : for the Spirit giveth x [Him] not
with measure!' — Nevertheless there are some believers, and
what a grandeur and beauty are in the part they act !
"Zfypayltfiiv, to seal, to legalize an act by putting to it one's
seal. This is what is done by the believer in relation to the
divine testimony; by taking his place among those who
accept it, he has the honour of associating his personal
responsibility once for all with that of the God who speaks
by His envoy. Indeed, this certificate of truth, adjudged to
Jesus by the believer, ascends even to God Himself This is
what is explained by ver. 34 (for). The sayings of Jesus
are in such a sense those of God, that to certify the truth of
the former is to attest the veracity of God Himself. Some
think that the idea of divine veracity refers to the fulfilment
of the prophecies attested by faith. But this idea is unre
lated to the context. According to others, John means that
to believe in Jesus is to attest the truth of God's declara
tion at the time of His baptism. This meaning, natural
enough in itself, does not harmonize with ver. 34. The pro
found thought contained in this expression of John is as
follows : in receiving the sayings of Jesus with faith in their
divine character, man boldly declares that what is divine can
not be false, and thus proclaims the incorruptible veracity of
God. The aor. should be remarked, ia<j>pdyi<rev, scaled : it is
an accomplished act. And what an act ! His private seal,
henceforth appended to the divine document, has rendered
the believer for evermore a partner of God Himself. There
is an evident elevation in this paradoxical form, whereby
John expresses the greatness of the act of faith. This
1 T. R. 15 Mjj. Syr. read, after iiiunt, a hu, which is omitted by tf B C LTb.

CHAP. III. 33, 34. 93
saying, and still more those which follow, are, as it were, the
paroxysm of his affirmation. — The expression : whom He hath
sent (which recalls ver. 1 7), should be taken in the most absolute
sense. Other messengers of God deserve this name only in a
secondary meaning : in reality they are merely raised up ; to
be sent, in the strict sense of the word, the messenger must
be from above (ver. 31). — The same absolute force must be
given to the phrase : the words of God. He alone possesses
the complete and absolute revelation of God ; all others, and
even the Baptist himself, have but fragments of it. — And
whence arises this character ? From the fact that the com
munication made to him unceasingly by the Spirit is without
measure. T. R. reads o @eo? after 8l8mai,v : " God giveth the
Spirit "... But the Alex, unanimously reject this subject :
God ; and probably it is a gloss taken from the first proposi
tion of the verse. Even while suppressing it, it might be
understood ; which would come to the same thing in sense.
But it is possible also to take the Spirit as the subject : the
Spirit does not give Jesus revelation, or anything whatever,
according to a certain measure, as to other divine messengers.
Thus understood, the saying expresses what John had beheld
in the vision of the baptism: the Spirit in the form of a
dove, that is to say, in His totality, descending and abiding
on Him. — Meyer, disliking the ellipsis of the pron. ainm, to
Him, has tried to convert this saying into a general maxim,
with the meaning : " God is not under obligation to observe
a certain measure in giving the Spirit;" and hence the
understood application : He may therefore, if He pleases, give
Him without measure to the Son. But thus the very thing
would be understood which ought to be expressed, and
expressed which might very well have been understood.
Meyer appeals to the present : giveth, which cannot apply to
the gift of the Holy Spirit at the baptism, since this gift is a
thing of the past. But this objection does not affect the
explanation which we now give (differing from that of the
first edition); for the matter in question is not the gift which
God made of the Holy Spirit, but the gift of the words of God.
The ellipsis of the pron. airm, to Him, is easily explained :
" the Spirit [in this case] giveth not with measure [as in all
others]."

94 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Ver. 35. "The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all
things into His hand." — The asyndeton between this verse and
the preceding might? be rendered emphatically : " Because also
the Father loveth "... This absolute communication of the
Father has for its principle His unspeakable love to the Son.
Here is the culminating point of the Messianic hymn. These
words are like the echo of that divine utterance which had
sounded in the ears of the Baptist : " This is my beloved Son."
— The term dyaird, loveth, is taken absolutely, like the ex
pressions : sent and words. — Jesus had made use of the term
Son, w. 16-18 ; Ps. ii. applied it to the Messiah (w. 7, 12 ;
every other explanation seems to us untenable); Isaiah and
Micah had expressed themselves similarly (Isa. ix. 6 ; Mic.
v. 2, 3). It is not surprising, therefore, that the term should
be used by John the Baptist. — From this love of the Father
flows the gift of all things. Some commentators, founding on
ver. 34, have limited this expression to spiritual gifts, to the
powers of the Holy Spirit. But the phrase : into His hand,
does not accord with this meaning. Rather, it forms a climax
to ver. 34: "Not only the Spirit, but all things." By the
Spirit, the Son reigns in the heart of believers ; but this is
not enough ; the Father has, moreover, given Him universal
sovereignty, that He may be able to make all things work for
the good of His own. This is precisely the thought which
Paul expresses, Eph. i. 22, in the untranslatable form: avrbv
e8a>Kev Ketpdkrjv virep irdvra Trj e/acXricrla,. — The hand is the
symbol of free disposing power. — Thereby John meant to
say : " Grieve over my being despoiled by Him ! Nay, He
has right to everything, and can take everything without
encroaching." And hence there follows the impressive appli
cation, which he makes in the following verse to the whole
world, of the truth which he has just proclaimed.
Ver. 36. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life:
but he that disobeyeth the Son shall not see * life ; but the wrath
of God abideth on him!' — Such is the practical consequence
which every one must draw from the supreme greatness of the
Son. These last words present a remarkable analogy to the
end of Ps. ii. : " Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish
from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed
1 Nr eads '»*¦ >x" instead of ov*. «i/<ir<u.

CHAP. III. 36. 95
are all they that put their trust in Him!' Only the Baptist
begins with believers and ends with the unbelieving : it is a
final warning which he would leave with his disciples and the
whole nation. John declares, as Jesus had done to Nicodemus,
that in the case of each man everything depends on faith
and unbelief, and that the absolute value of those two moral
facts arises from the supreme dignity of Him who is their
object : the Son. This name explains why faith gives life,
why unbelief brings wrath. — The term o direiQwv, he who dis-
obeyeth, expresses the voluntary side of unbelief, revolt. The
Son is lawful sovereign ; unbelief is a refusal of submission.
— The words : wrath abideth, have often been understood
thus : The natural condemnation abides, because the act which
alone could have removed it, that of faith, has not taken
place. But this meaning seems to us weak and forced, and
has a very imperfect connection with the preceding context.
The subject in question is rather the wrath provoked by the
refusal of obedience, and falling on the unbeliever as such.
Is it not just that God should be angry ? If faith seals the
veracity of God (ver. 33), unbelief makes God a liar (1 John
v. 10). — The fut. shall see is contrasted with the pres. hath.
Not only has he not life now, but when it shall be externally
displayed in its perfect form, that of glory, he shall not behold
it ; it shall be to him as though it were not. Another saying
which implies the whole evangelic eschatology. — The verb
fievei, abideth, in spite of its correlation with the future oyfrerai,
shall see, is a present, and should be written fiivei. The
present, abideth, expresses the notion of permanence much
better than the fut., shall abide. Every other wrath is
revocable ; that which falls upon unbelief is without recall.
Thus the epithet eternal, of the first clause, is re-echoed in the
second. The following is M. Renan's judgment on the fact which we
have just been studying: " Ver. 22 et seq. to ver. 2 of chap. iv.
transport us unmistakeably into the region of history. . . . This
is extremely remarkable. The Synoptics have no parallel to it.
For my part, I think this episode very probable " (p. 491). As
to the discourse, it may be called : the last word of the Old
Testament. It recalls the threat of Malachi, which closes the
Old Testament : "Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse"

96 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
It is therefore in keeping with the given situation which sum
moned the forerunner to close his preceding calls to faith with
a solemn warning against incipient unbelief. As to its contents,
it finds a complete explanation in the mouth of the Baptist —
1st. In the vision on occasion of the baptism of Jesus (vv. 34&,
35a); 2d. In the sayings of the conversation with Nieodemus
which had been reported to John (vv. 31, 32, 36); 3d. In Old
Testament reminiscences (w. 29, 36 ; comp. Ps. ii. 7-12 ; Mai.
iv. 6) ; 4th. In the Baptist's personal experiences (w. 27, 28, 30,
33, 34a). As to the form, account must be taken of two facts —
1st. That the style of the evangelist, translating, has necessarily
a colouring similar to that of the evangelist as an author (first
Epistle) ; 2d. That certain forms of language used by Jesus
had impressed themselves on the language of His reporter, as
well as that of the Baptist (Introd. i. p. 1 60 et seq).
Besides, each of the two parts of the discourse has its peculiar
signs of authenticity: the first, in the inimitable sayings of
vv. 27, 29, 30; the second, in the two particulars pointed out
by Beyschlag, and which nowhere occur again in any of the
discourses of Jesus (in this Gospel), nor in John's Epistle : the
idea of the Holy Spirit inspiring Jesus with the sayings of
God according to His mode of acting upon the prophets (ver. 34),
and the wrath of God (ver. 36). The witness of the baptism
scene betrays himself, finally, in the expressions of ver. 35, with
out the least design on the author's part, since he has not even
reported the saying of God at the baptism, of which the words
of the Baptist are an exact reproduction : " Thou art my
beloved Son." — Even Weizsacker himself says (p. 268): " There
are particular elements in this discourse which distinctly
characterize the Baptist's peculiar standpoint (w. 27, 34, 35,
and 36). Whatever liberty is taken in the reproduction, . . .
it is clear that this liberty does not go the length of dissolving
the historically assigned basis." — But an objection is raised from
the silence of the Synoptics regarding this alleged baptism,
which Jesus, according to John, must have practised at the
beginning (Keim, i. p. 612). — John seems to have anticipated
this objection in ver. 24. The blending of the first two returns
to Galilee had forced this omission into the synoptical tradi
tion, along with that of the whole period to which this fact
belonged. It is asked how the forerunner, if he recognised Jesus so
positively as the Messiah, could continue to baptize by His side,
or why, at least, he did not set himself to baptize in His name.
—It is forgotten that a prophet has no right himself to change
his commission. John's personal conviction made no change
in the part officially marked out for him. Called to lead all

CHAP. III. 36. 97
Israel to faith in the Messiah, he was like the ship captain, who
is the last to leave his sinking vessel, and who does so only
when his whole crew are in safety. As to baptizing in the name
of Jesus, it was his part to leave this care to Jesus Himself, who
discharged the task by means of His disciples. John continued
to baptize with that baptism of repentance which was the normal
preparation of every sincere Israelite for the Messianic kingdom.
But again it is asked, how, if the Baptist had spoken thus of
Jesus, his disciples could have constituted themselves afterwards
into an antichristian sect? — A small number only of the innumer
able multitudes baptized by John were present at this scene. The
rest were dispersed in all countries (comp. Acts xix. 1 et seq.).
And even among these witnesses how many were there who,
not having entire docility, converted the work and person of the
Baptist into a standard, which they chose to raise in opposition
to the work and person of Jesus Christ ? It would be to
expect very much from a discourse, to suppose that so deep a
feeling of jealousy as that which animated them, and of which
we find traces in the Synoptics (Matt. ix. 14 and parallels),
could have been radically extirpated by such means. The
vacillation of the Baptist (his e-/.a\iha\itiis6a.i, being offended,
Matt. xL 5) arose probably from the influence which his dis
ciples exercised over him before, and still more during, his
imprisonment (Matt. xi. 2).
It is difficult to believe that this account was written without
some allusion to the disciples of John, pretty numerous, as it
seems, who moved about in Asia Minor. It certainly should
not be concluded from this, as some critics do, that the whole
of the fourth Gospel owes its existence to this polemical inten
tion. But we need not exclude it entirely (comp. Introd. i.
pp. 293, 294), to avoid holding, with Holtzmann, that this whole
account is merely an " ideal picture " drawn from Acts xix.
1 et seq, and intended to represent the normal entrance of
the whole school of the Baptist into the church of Christ (!).
Comp. the article " Johannes Jiinger " in Schenkel's Bibellexicon,
II. p. 328.
The evangelist does not speak of the Baptist's imprison
ment. But the saying of Jesus, v. 35, assumes the sudden
disappearance of the forerunner. It took place, therefore,
very shortly after this last testimony uttered by him in
Judea (see at iv. 1). The evangelist has omitted this parti
cular, like so many others, which he knows to be familiar to
his readers, and the mention of which is not required by his
plan : the representation of the development of faith.
GODET II. G JOHN.

98 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
SECOND SECTION.
l\r. 1-42.  JESUS IN SAMARIA.
Jesus, not wishing to hasten the catastrophe which would
put an end to His earthly ministry, abandons Judea to His
enemies, as He had abandoned, first the temple, then
Jerusalem. The disturbance which He sees among His
adversaries on occasion of His success, is the signal for His
retreat. He returns to Galilee, and henceforth makes this
remote province the ordinary theatre of His activity.
The natural way from Judea to Galilee passed through
Samaria. It was the one also usually followed by Galilean
caravans going to Jerusalem (Joseph. Antiq. xx. 6. 1); and Jesus
could have no fear of conforming to this usage (Luke ix. 51
et seq.). It has been alleged that this course was in contra
diction to Matt. x. 5, 6, where Jesus says to the apostles, when
sending them to preach : " Go not into the way of the Gentiles,
and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not : but go rather
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But between passing
through Samaria (8i£pxecrQai, ver. 4), and making the Samaritan
people the express object of a mission, there is an obvious
difference. Much rather we ought to find, with Hengsten
berg, a moral congruity with the example which Jesus some
times gave during His earthly life, — the example, viz., of a
largeness of heart, which became, after Pentecost, the character
of the Christian mission.
If it is so, the fact about to be related has a typical value.
Jesus Himself feels this deeply (ver. 38). This Samaritan
woman and those inhabitants of Sychar, by the readiness and
eagerness of their faith, and by the contrast of their conduct
to that of the Israelitish people, are in His eye, as it were,
the first-fruits of the conversion of the Gentile world. There
is here an indication to Him of the future progress of the
kingdom of God over the earth. Must we therefore conclude,
with Baur, that the whole narrative is merely an idea pre
sented in action by the author of our Gospel? Assuredly
not ! If the Samaritan woman was a mere impersonation of
the Gentile world, how would the author have put into her

CHAP. IV. 1-3. 99
mouth (ver. 20 et seq.) a strictly monotheistic profession of
faith, as well as the hope of the near advent of the Messiah
(ver. 25 ; comp. ver. 42) ? Happily, real history has its
ideal side. Otherwise it would only be an accumulation of
facts without significance. From the circumstance that a
fact has a prophetic value, it does not follow that it is a mere
fiction. If there is a narrative of the life of our Saviour,
which in the liveliness and freshness of the whole and parts
bears the seal of historical truth, it is this. M. Renan him
self says : " The most of the circumstances of the narrative
bear a striking stamp of truth " (Vie de Jisus, p. 243).
As an example of faith, this incident connects itself with
two .previous descriptions : that of the faith of the apostles
(i. 38 et seq.), and that of the visit of Nicodemus (iii. 1-21).
These are the luminous parts of the record which alternate
with its sombre parts, representing the beginnings of unbelief
(i. 19 et seq, ii. 12 et seq., iii. 25 et seq).
We distinguish in this narrative the three following
phases : — 1. Jesus and the Samaritan woman, w. 1-26 ;
2. Jesus and the disciples, vv. 27-38 ; 3. Jesus and the
Samaritans, w. 39-42.
I. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman. — vv. 1-26.
In this first phase we see how Jesus succeeded in awaken
ing faith in a soul which was a stranger to all spiritual life. —
The historical situation is described in vv. 1-6.
Vv. 1-3. " When therefore the Lord 1 knew how the Pharisees
had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples
than 2 John (though Jesus Himself baptized not, but His
disciples), He left Judea, and departed again3 into Galilee."
— Ver. 1 explains the motive which leads Jesus to quit
Judea : the Pharisees begin to take serious account of Him.
A report has reached them regarding Jesus, according to
which this new personage may become more formidable than
John himself. — Ovv, therefore, in consequence of this great
1 X D A, some Mnn. Tti>Ieri9ue Vg. Syr. Cop. read a iwavs instead of a xupias.
2 A B G L r reject u.
> nxXi, is found inSGDIMT', some Mnn. ItP"*1^ Vg. Cop. Syr"*. It is
omitted by all the other documents. '

100 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
concourse of people mentioned iii. 23-26. — The title: the
Lord (in the majority of the Mss.), is very rarely apphed to
Jesus during His earthly life (vi. 23, xi. 2). It assumes that
the habit has been formed of regarding Jesus as raised to
glory ; and hence it is so frequent in the Epistles. If it is
authentic in this passage (see the various readings of 3 Mjj.,
which read : Jesus), it is occasioned either by an apprehension
of the divine greatness of Jesus which prevails in the pre
vious passage, or, more simply, by the desire to avoid repeat
ing the name of Jesus which recurs a few words further on.
— The expression : had heard, does not denote a supernatural
knowledge. What proves this is, that the tenor of the report
made to the Pharisees is textually reproduced (comp. the
name of Jesus instead of the pron. He, and the presents : iroiel
and Bairrl^ei, makes and baptizes). Jesus must have appeared
more dangerous than John — first, because of the Messianic
testimony which John had rendered to Him; and next, because
of His much greater independence of legal and Pharisaic
forms. — The reading of the 5 Mjj. which reject ij, than, can
only have this meaning : " that Jesus made more disciples,
and that (on his side) John baptized." This meaning is
strange, and almost absurd.
The practical conclusion which Jesus draws from this
report naturally leads to the supposition that the imprison
ment of John was now an accomplished fact. Hengstenberg
even concludes from the resolution taken by Jesus to with
draw from before the Pharisees, that this sect had played the
chief part in the imprisonment of the forerunner; and he
explains in this sense the term •7rape860v, was given up, Matt.
iv. 12: it was, he says, by the perfidious hands of the
Pharisees that John was delivered into the hands of Herod.
— But it will be asked why Jesus retires to Galilee, the
domain of Herod ; was not this to run in the face of danger ?
No ; for this prince's hatred to John was a personal matter.
Jesus might find Herod less to be feared than the dominant
party in Judea.
The remark of ver. 2 is meant to define the vague expres
sion used by the evangelist himself, iii. 22 ; nothing is
indifferent in the Lord's mode of acting, and John will not
let a false idea be formed about one of His acts. — Why did

CHAP. IV. 1-3. 101
not Jesus baptize Himself? Just because He was the Lord,
and as such reserved to Himself the baptism of the Spirit.
By leaving the baptism of water to the apostles, He rendered
this rite independent of His personal presence, and so pro
vided for the maintenance of it in His church after His
departure. There is therefore no identity between the course
here followed by Jesus and that of Paul (1 Cor. i. 17) and
Peter (Acts x. 48). This baptism cannot have continued in
Galilee. For there is no mention of it. The cessation of
this rite was undoubtedly connected, on the part of Jesus,
with that of His position as Messiah. He gave up trans
forming Israel by baptism into a Messianic community, in
proportion as its unbelief came to emphatic expression, and
as He saw Himself forced to cease from acting as the national
Messiah. There are thus three degrees in the institution of
baptism : John's baptism, which was a general consecration to
the Messianic kingdom by repentance ; the baptism of Jesus
at the beginning of His ministry, which on the part of the
baptized was an act of attachment to His person as a disciple ;
finally, baptism as it was reinstituted by Jesus after His
resurrection, as a consecration to the possession of salvation
thenceforth acquired by Him for the whole world. We do
not find that those who had received the first baptism (the
apostles, for example) were afterwards subjected to the second
or third. It was they, on the contrary, who were charged
with administering the two last (ver. 2 ; Acts ii.). — It
is not without ground that Beck has compared infant
baptism in the Christian church with the second of these three
baptisms. The departure from Judea is indicated, ver. 3, as a distinct
act from the return to Galilee ; and that because, according to
ver. 1, the real object of Jesus was much less to go to the
one than to depart from the other. The word irdXiv, again,
read by 6 Mjj., evidently alludes to the first return, men
tioned i. 43. It is those two earliest returns from Judea to
Galilee which had been identified by the synoptical tradition,
and which John has carefully distinguished, for the reason
explained iii. 24. This term : again, therefore appears to be
authentic, notwithstanding the numerous Mss. in which it is
omitted.

102 GOSPEL, OF JOHN.
Vv. 4, 5. "And He must needs go through Samaria. Then
cometh He to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar}
near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph!'
— "EBei, He must needs, if at least the direct route were
followed. The very strict Jews preferred to make a detour,
and pass through Perea. But Jesus did not share this
particularistic spirit. — The name Sychar is remarkable ; for
the only well-known city in this locality is that which bore
the name of Shechem, and which is very often mentioned in
the 0. T. Can it be that the evangelist has fallen into an
error here, as a stranger to Palestine ? Such is the allegation
of those who impugn the authenticity of our Gospel. We
think the solutions have little probability which regard the
name Sychar as a voluntary, and in Israel popular, alteration
from that of Shechem ; so those who derive Sychar from ~\py
(sheker), falsehood, to designate this city as a seat of heathen
ism ; or from "OB* (shechar), liquor, to stigmatize it as the city
of drunkards (Isa. xxviii. 1, the drunkards of Ephraim). We
should prefer to hold that there had been an involuntary
transformation through the interchange which is so common
of the liquids, as that of Ben and Bar (son, in Hebrew and
Chaldaic). But a more natural solution is presented by the
passages of Eusebius and Jerome, which positively distinguish
two neighbouring localities bearing the two names ; as where
Eusebius says (Onomasticon) : " Sychar, before Neapolis " (Nab-
lous, or the New City, the new name of Shechem restored).
The Talmud likewise speaks of a locality called Soukar, of a
spring Soukar, and of the plain of Soukar (could this name
come from "OlD (sougar), scpidchral cave ?), a town or hamlet
which cannot be confounded with Shechem. At the present
day even, a hamlet very near Jacob's well, and situated at the
foot of Mount Ebal, at the entrance of the valley, bears the
name of "i3Dy, Aschar, a name which very much resembles
that which we read in John and in the Talmud. In any
case, it appears certain that the ancient Shechem was situated
somewhat more to the east than the modern (Nablous). This
is proved by the ruins discovered everywhere between
Nablous and Jacob's well (see Felix Bovet, Voyage en Terre-
1 All the Mss. with the exception of some Mnn., and all the ancient Vss., read
Ivxxp and not 2i%ap.

CHAP. IV. 4, 5. 103
Sainte, p. 363). Petermann (art. "Samaria" in Herzog's
Encyclop. XIII. p. 362) also says: "The Emperor Vespasian
enlarged the city considerably on the west side." Possibly
the part of the ancient city situated most to the east bore
specially the name Sychar, in the sense of little Shechem,
or suburb of Shechem. This situation would at the same
time explain how the woman could come to seek water at
this well considerably distant from Shechem, and that at mid
day. Her house would be near the well. — In any case, to
see in this, as Furrer does, an evidence of the purely ideal
character of the narrative, one must have his mind thoroughly
filled with a preconceived theory (Bibellex. III. p. 375). — It
is at Nablous that the remnant of the Samaritan people live
at the present day.
According to de Wette, Meyer, and others, Jacob's alleged
gift to Joseph, mentioned in ver. 5, is only a false tradition
resting on a misunderstanding of the LXX. In Gen.
xlviii. 22, Jacob says to Joseph: " I have given to thee one
portion (Shechem) above thy brethren, which I took out of the
hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow!' He
has just adopted Joseph's two sons as his own, and hence the
reason why he assigns to this son one portion above his
brethren. The word which signifies portion, is in Hebrew
MB>, Shechem (strictly, the shoulder, as a portion of the victim,
and hence portion in general). The LXX., it is said, took
this word in a geographical sense, and translated it wrongly
by SUi/ua, Shechem; and from this false translation arose the
popular legend reproduced here by the evangelist. But it is
indisputable that when Jacob says : " The portion which I took;
out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my
bow," he is alluding to the violence perpetrated by his sons
Simeon and Levi upon the city of Shechem (Gen. xxxiv.) :
" took each man his sword, and came upon the city, and slew
all the males, and spoiled it" (vv. 25-27). This is the only
military exploit mentioned in the patriarch's life. Jacob
appropriates to himself the glorious and valiant side of the
deed, and regards it as a confirmation of the purchase which
he had formerly made (Gen. xxxiii. 1 9) of a domain in the
district of Shechem, and at the same time as a pledge of the
future conquest of the whole country by his descendants.

104 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Consequently, when using the word shechem to denote the
portion which he gives to Joseph, he himself makes a play
upon words such as is to be found constantly in the 0. T. ;
he leaves to him the best portion (shechem), which is precisely
Shechem. His sons understood his meaning so well, that
when their descendants returned to Canaan, their first care
was to lay the bones of Joseph in the field of Jacob near
Shechem ; and they afterwards assigned as a portion to the
tribe of Ephraim, the largest of the two tribes which sprang
from Joseph, that region of Canaan in which SJiechem was
situated. The LXX., unable to render the play on words in
Greek, have translated shccliem in the geographical sense, which
was the most important. There is here, therefore, neither
a false translation on the part of the LXX., nor a false tradi
tion to be charged against the evangelist.
Ver. 6. " Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being
wearied with His journey, sat y thus on the well : it was about
the sixth hour" — This well exists still ; for " it was probably
the same which is now called Bir-Jakoub " (Renan, Vie de
JSsus, p. 243). It is situated 35 minutes to the east of
Nablous, exactly at the place where the road which follows
the principal valley, that of Mokhna, from S. to N, turns
abruptly to the west to enter the narrow valley of Shechem,
between Ebal on the north-east to Gerizim on the south-west.
It is hollowed out in the rock, and is 9 feet in diameter.
Two centuries ago Maundrell found it 105 feet deep. In
1843, according to Wilson, it was only 75 feet, no doubt
in consequence of the crumbling of the rock. Maundrell
found in it 15 feet of water. Robinson and M. Bovet
found it dry. Schubert, in the month of April, could drink
its water. It is blocked up with large stones, from 5 to 6
feet below the entrance ; but the real opening is found some
feet deeper. A little further to the north, towards the hamlet
of Aschar, Joseph's tomb is pointed out. — Robinson has asked
for what object this gigantic work could have been under
taken, in a country so abounding in springs ? The only
answer to be given is that of Hengstenberg : The work is that
of a man who, a stranger in the country, wished to live inde
pendently of the inhabitants to whom the springs belonged,
1 Ot/Toij is omitted by some Mnn. If11' and Syr.

CHAP. IV. 7-9. 105
and to leave a monument of his right of property in this
soil and in the whole country. Thus the very nature of this
work confirms the origin ascribed to it by tradition.
As soon as the caravan had quitted the great plain of
Mokhna, and taken some steps to the left in the valley of
Shechem, Jesus seated Himself beside the well, leaving His
disciples to continue their journey to Sychar, where they
were to obtain provisions. For He was overpowered with
fatigue (KeKOTTiaKcl)';). The Tubingen school ascribes to John
the opinion of the Docetae, according to which the body of
Jesus was a mere appearance. How is the assertion to be
reconciled with this detail of the narrative ? — Oi/toj?, thus, is
almost untranslatable ; and doubtless this is the reason why it
is omitted in the Latin and Syriac versions as well as in ours.1
We have sought to render it by the word la, there; this
adverb may designate the attitude of a man who is there
awaiting what God will send; or it reproduces the notion oi
fatigue : thoroughly worn out, as He was ; or perhaps it
signifies : without any preparation ; taking things as He found
them. — The imperfect eK.aQkt,ero does not mean : He seated
Himself, but : He was sitting. The tense is descriptive. It
points to what follows, not to what precedes. John does not
mean : " He arrived and sat down" but : " He was seated there
when a woman came" . . . — The sixth hour must denote mid
day, according to the generally received mode of reckoning
in the East (see at i. 39). The hour of the day serves to
explain the tceKOTriatcdvi : overpowered with the heat and the
journey. The first part of the conversation extends to ver. 15 ; it is
immediately connected with the situation described.
Vv. 7-9. " There cometh a woman of Samaria to draxo
water : Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For His
disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then
saith the woman of Samaria unto Him, How is it that thou,
being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of
Samaria ? (For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.)" 2
— How came this woman to seek water from such a distance,
and at this hour ? Sychar, and even, as we have seen,
1 That is, the French ; it is expressed in the English.— Tk.
* This whole parenthesis is omitted by ft

106 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Shechem, being situated to the east of the present town of
Nablous, her dwelling might be very near the well. She had
no doubt been working in the fields, and was coming to draw
water on her way home at the hour of dinner (see at ver.
15). The regimen : of Samaria, depends on the word woman,
and not on the verb cometh; for in the latter case, Samaria
would denote the city of that name, which is impossible, as it
is three leagues farther to the north. The request of Jesus
must be taken in the simplest sense, and regarded as earnest.
There is ho allegory about it ; He is really thirsty. This
follows from the word wearied. But the fact does not preclude
the view that, in opening a conversation with the woman, He
was obeying another impulse than His thirst, the desire of
saving (w. 32 and 34). He knows well that the way to
gain a soul is often to ask a service from it; there is thus
conceded to it a sort of superiority which flatters it. " The
effect of this little word was great; it began to overturn the
wall which had stood for ages between the two peoples," says
Lange. — The remark of ver. 8 is intended to explain that if
the disciples had been present they would have had a vessel,
an avrXvp-a, to let down into the well (see ver. 11). This
observation of the evangelist likewise proves his belief in the
perfect reality of the want which called forth the request of
Jesus ; assuredly neither is there here the slightest Docetism. —
Does the phrase: His disciples, denote all the disciples, without
exception ? Is it not improbable that they would leave Jesus
there absolutely alone ? One of them, John for example, may
very possibly have remained with Him, though, as usual, he
makes no mention of himself in his narrative. Meyer's
prudery retires before so simple a supposition ! — No doubt the
Jewish doctors said : " He who eats a Samaritan's bread is as
one who eats swine's flesh." But this prohibition did not
apply either to fruits or vegetables. Whether to meal and
wine, is not known. Uncooked eggs were allowed ; whether
cooked, was a question (Hausrath, Neutestam. Zeitgesch. i. p. 22).
How did the Samaritan woman recognise Jesus to be a
Jew ? By his dress or accent. Stier has observed that in
the few words which Jesus had just uttered, there occurred
the very letter s? which, according to Judg. xii. 6, distinguished
the Jewish (sch) and Samaritan (s) : nncf> <:n (teni lischekoth ;

chap: iv. 10. 107
Samaritan : lisekoth). The last words (ov yap o-vyxpavrai) are
a remark made by the evangelist, for the sake of his Gentile
readers who might not know the origin of the Samaritan
people (see 2 Kings xvii. 24 et seq.). It was a mixture of
five nations transported from the East ¦ by Esarhaddon to
re-people the kingdom of Samaria, whose inhabitants had been
removed by Shalmaneser. To the worship of their national
gods they joined that of the divinity of the country, Jehovah.
After the return from the Babylonish captivity, they offered
their services to the Jews in the rebuilding of the temple.
Being rejected, they used all their influence with the kings of
Persia to hinder the re-establishment of the Jewish people.
They built a temple on Mount Gerizim. Their first priest
was Manasseh, a Jew who had married a Persian. They were
more abhorred by the Jews than the Gentiles were. No
Samaritans were received as proselytes. — It has been thought
that the woman in waggishness somewhat exaggerated the
consequences of the hostility between the two peoples, and
that, in subjecting Jesus to this little cross-examination, she
wished for a moment to enjoy the superiority which her
position gave her. This shade does not appear in the text.
The Samaritan woman simply expresses her astonishment.
Ver. 1 0. " Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest
the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink;
thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee
living water." — To this remark of the woman, Jesus replies,
not by renewing His request, but by making her an offer by
means of which He resumes His position of superiority. To
this end it is enough for Him to raise this woman's thoughts
to the higher sphere, where all on His side is giving, and on
hers receiving. The expression : the gift of God, may be
regarded as an abstract notion, the concrete reality of which
is indicated by the following words : who it is that saith to
thee (so in our 1st ed.). The saying of Jesus, iii. 16 : " God
so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son," favours
this meaning, according to which Jesus was Himself the gift
of God. But perhaps it is better to understand by this
expression, the living water spoken of in the end of the verse,
and to take the words: He that saith to thee, as denoting the
agent through whom God makes this gift to the human soul.

108 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
God gives Jesus to the world ; and Jesus must be asked for
the living water. — Living water, literally understood, denotes
spring water, in opposition to the water of a cistern, or stagnant
water. Gen. xxvi. 19 : "Isaac's servants digged in the valley,
and found there a well of living water" — that is to say, a sub
terranean spring of which they made a well. Comp. Lev.
xiv. 5. In the figurative sense, living water is therefore a
blessing which has the property of perpetually reproducing
itself like a springing fountain, or like life itself, and which
consequently is never exhausted. What does Jesus mean
thereby ? According to Justin and Cyprian, He means baptism;
according to Liicke, faith ; according to Olshausen, Jesus
Himself; according to Luthardt, the Holy Spirit; according
to Grotius, the evangelical doctrine ; according to Meyer, the
truth. According to Jesus Himself (vv. 13 and 14), it is
eternal life, that is to say, the full satisfaction of all the heart's
wants, and the possession of all the powers of which the soul
is capable. Such a state can only result from the indwelling
of Jesus Himself in the heart by the Holy Spirit (xiv.-xvi.).
This explanation therefore embraces up to a certain point all
the others.
Vv. 11, 12. " The vjoman1 saith unto Him, Sir, thou hast
nothing to draw with, and the well is deep : from whence then2
hast thou that living water ? Art thou greater than our father
Jacob, vjhich gave us the well, and drank thereof himself and
his children, and his cattle ?" — The woman takes the expres
sion : living water, in its strict sense. She means to say :
" Thou canst neither (ovre) draw the living water which thou
offerest me from the well, — for thou hast no vessel to draw
with, — nor (/eat), because of its depth, canst thou reach
with the hand to the source which feeds it." — She calls
Jacob our father, because the Samaritans affected to be de
scendants of Ephraim and Manasseh (Joseph. Antiq. ix. 14. 3).
— &pep,p,aTa : servants and flocks, everything requiring to be
supported. Vv. 13, 14. "Jesus ansivered and said unto her, Wlwso-
ever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whoso
ever drinketh3 of the water that I shall give him shall never
1 B rejects n ym». tf reads nemm. a K D Syr. omit am.
3 N 1) read a it <riw» instead of »,- 2' xv ti*.

CHAP. IV. 15. 109
thirst, but the water that I1 shall give him shall be in him1 a
well of water springing up into everlasting life." — It is not
enough that the water of the well is spring water ; it is not
living water, as Jesus understands it : it has not the power of
reproducing itself in him who drinks it ; nay, after a certain
time, the need revives, and the torment of thirst makes itself
felt. " A beautiful inscription," says Stier, " to put on foun
tains." Such water appears to the mind of Jesus an emblem
of all earthly satisfactions, after which emptiness reappears in
the soul, and again makes it dependent on external objects
needed to satisfy it.
In ver. 14 Jesus defines the nature of the true living
water : it is that which, reproducing itself within by its own
peculiar virtue, quenches the thirst of the soul as it awakes,
so that the heart cannot suffer a moment of inward torment.
Man possesses in himself a satisfaction independent of every
earthly object. — 'Eyd> : yes, J (in opposition to Jacob). — While
ets rov alava, for ever, refers to the time, et? £a>rjv alojviov, to ,
life eternal, expresses the mode. It is for ever, and in the
form of eternal life, that this water springs up. The fountain
itself is Jesus glorified in the heart by the Holy Spirit.
Ver. 15. " The woman saith unto Him, Sir, give me this
water, that I thirst not, neither pass1 this way to draiv." — The
woman's request has certainly a serious side. This is proved
by her respectful address, Sir. It appears also from the grave
character of the following words of Jesus. She is arrested,
though she does not understand. Only the expression of the
desire felt by her to have her life made more comfortable has
something naive about it, and almost humorous. The reading
of the two oldest Mss. : " neither pass this way," instead of :
"neither come hither," ought to be admitted. No copyist
would have displaced the Received reading. It confirms the
idea which we have expressed, that the woman was merely
passing on her return to her dwelling.
The first phase of the conversation has closed. But Jesus
has raised a sublime ideal in the woman's imagination, that of
1 X D M, some Mnn. and the It. read iyu before 'Sua-u. X rejects aura, which
follows this same word.
2 Instead of ipxapxi or ipxuptti, between which the other Mjj. are divided,
K reads lupxu/txi, B lupxtpai.

110 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
eternal life. Could He let her go before having taught her
more on the subject, one who till now has showed herself so
teachable ?
Vv. 16-18. "Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and
come hitlier. The woman answered and said, I have no
husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have1 no
husband : for thou hast had five 2 husbands ; and he whom
tlwu now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly."9
— After bringing her to the point where profounder teaching
must begin, Jesus suddenly bids her go in quest of her hus
band. Must we seek the object of this call in the effect which
it was meant to produce in the woman, either by affording
Jesus the occasion of proving to her His prophetic knowledge
(Meyer and others), or by awaking her to the conviction of
her sins (Tholuck, Luthardt, Bonnet) ? No ; for, to be
thoroughly true and natural, the call must be its own justifi
cation, taken apart from the salutary effects which may result
from it. Jesus did not wish to influence a dependent person
without the participation of the man to whom she was united.
This was perhaps the reason why He was not accustomed to
speak alone with a woman (ver. 27). At the point, then,
when He is penetrating more deeply into this soul, He feels
the need of associating in the conversation him whose life she
shares. Chrysostom and Liicke remark, besides, that the
husband was also to be made a partaker of the gift of God.
We learn from the sequel that Jesus was aiming at the evan
gelizing of this whole population. The arrival of the woman
at so extraordinary an hour had been His Father's signal to
Him. Now might not this family become the nucleus of the
kingdom of God in this country ? Compare the direction
which He gives to His apostles for the evangelization of
Galilee, to choose a house in every place, and there remain
till their departure (Luke x. 7). The saying finds a perfectly
natural explanation in those different reasons between which
it would be difficult to decide. It need not be held that,
when addressing this call to the woman, Jesus already knew
all her antecedents. The term : thy husband, would not be
1 N I) It"'1' Heracleon : t%tts instead of ixp.
* Heracleon : i£ instead of vivn.
8 K E : xXtilus instead of aknhs.

CHAP. IV. 19, 20. Ill
explained quite naturally according to this view. His pro
phetic insight may not have been awakened till He heard the
answer which struck him : " / have no husband!' — She had
been married five times ; and now, after those five lawful
unions, she was living in an illicit relation. The fact that
she herself does not venture to call the man with whom she
is living her husband, proves that she has a certain amount of
sincerity. The answer of Jesus is not free from irony. The partial
assent which He gives to the woman's answer has something
caustic about it. The same appears in the contrast which
Jesus expresses between the number five and the : " I have
no !" — The position of the pron. aov before dvtfp seems to
imply an understood antithesis : " not thine, but the husband
of another." Hence it would follow that she even lived in
adultery. But it is not necessary to press the meaning of
the pronoun so far. — Modern criticism, since the time of
Strauss (see particularly Keim and Hausrath), associates this
part of the conversation with the fact that the Samaritan
nation was formed of five Eastern tribes who had each brought
their god, and adopted besides, Jehovah, the God of the
country (2 Kings xvii. 30, 31). The woman with her five
husbands and the man with whom she was now living as the
sixth, is, it is said, the symbol of the entire Samaritan people,
and we have here a proof of the purely ideal character of the
whole narrative. This view is supported especially by the
words of Josephus (Antiq. ix. 14. 3): "Five nations having
each brought their own god into Samaria." But, 1st. In the
0. T. passage, 2 Kings xvii. 30, 31, we read, it is true, of
five peoples, but of seven gods, two nations having brought two
gods. 2d. These seven gods were worshipped simultaneously
and not in succession, up to the time when they gave place to
Jehovah. 3d. Is it conceivable that Jehovah would be com
pared to the sixth husband, who was evidently the worst of
all in the woman's life ?— Further, Heracleon's reading : six,
cannot be explained by the addition of Jehovah to the five
other gods, but rather by 2 Kings xvii. 30, where mention
is made of six or seven gods introduced by the Eastern
Gentiles. Vv. 19, 20. "The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I per-

112 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
ceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain ; J and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place 2 where
men ought to ivorship." — Some see in the woman's question
nothing more than an endeavour to parry the stroke at her
conscience, " a woman's ruse " (de Wette), with the view of
escaping from a painful subject. " She diverts attention from
her own case by proposing to Him a point of controversy "
(Astie). But would Jesus reply as He does to a question put
in such a spirit ? Besser and Luthardt fall into the opposite
extreme ; this question is in their eyes the evidence of a con
science on the rack, which, sighing after pardon, wishes to
know the true sanctuary where it can go to expiate its faults.
This is more forced still. The woman has recognised a
prophet in Jesus ; but she has found in Him at the same time
largeness of heart. Ver. 25 proves that religious thoughts
are not strange to her, that she is awaiting the Messiah, and
that she longs to receive from Him the explanation of those
questions which embarrass her. Is it not natural in her pre
sent situation, after her conscience has been solemnly awak
ened, that her thoughts should turn to the great religious
question which divided the two nations, and that she should
ask its solution ? It is an anticipation of the more complete
teaching which she expects from the Messiah. By the
term : our fathers, she probably understands the Israelites of
the time of Joshua, who, according to the reading of the
Samaritan Pentateuch (Deut. xxvii. 4), raised their altar on
Gerizim, and not on Ebal ; anyhow, she understands by this
term her Samaritan ancestors, who worshipped on Gerizim from
the time of Nehemiah, when a temple was built there. This
temple had been destroyed, 129 B.C., by John Hyrcanus.
But even after that event the place remained holy (Deut.
xi. 29), as it is to this day. It is there that the Samaritans
still celebrate the feast of Passover every year. Jerusalem
not being named anywhere in the law, the preference of the
Samaritans for Gerizim found plausible reasons in the patri
archal history. The superiority of the Jewish sanctuary could
be justified only from the standpoint of the later books of the
1 All the Mjj. : tv ru tpu ravru instead of e» ravru ru apu, which is the reading
of T. 1!. with Mnn.
2 N omits a rtltK,

CHAP. IV. 21. 113
0. T. But it is well known that the Samaritans admitted
only the Pentateuch and the Mosaic institutions. As she
said : on this mountain, she pointed to it no doubt with
her finger; for Jacob's well is situated immediately at the
foot of Gerizim. She confines herself to stating the antithesis,
assured that Jesus will understand the question which it
contains. Ver. 21. "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me} the hour
cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru
salem, worship the Father." — The position of Jesus is a delicate
one. He cannot deny the truth, and He must not repel this
woman. His answer is admirable. He has just been called
a prophet, and He does a prophet's part. He promises a
higher economy in which the contrast shall be done away,
without the Samaritans being obliged to go to Jerusalem to
worship, or even to make pilgrimage to Gerizim. Men shall
worship God as a Father ; and this filial character of the new
worship will emancipate it from every limit of place and time
which bounded all the ancient national worships : " The privi
lege of Gerizim shall pass away, it is true, but not that it may
be conferred on Jerusalem. You will not bring the Jews
here, any more than they shall force you to go to them. You
shall be raised as well as they into the great family of the
Father's worshippers." What a treasure cast to such a soul !
What other desire than that of doing His Father's will could
inspire Jesus with such condescension ? The aor. irlaTevaov
in the T. R. signifies : " Perform an act of faith to apprehend
what I am going to tell thee." We can understand the pre
fixing of the apostrophe : vjoman, in this reading, which makes
an energetic appeal to her will. The pres. Triareve in the
Alex, simply signifies : " Believe from this time and for the
future." The two readings may be supported. — The subject :
ye, of shall worship, might be both Samaritans and Jews, inas
much as they were united till now by the common charac
teristic of a local worship, and so opposed to the fiol, me, from
whom they are now receiving instruction. But could this
woman really regard herself as the representative of the
Jewish people ?
1 T. R. reads yvixi mtrwa-av /tai, with 14 Mjj. Italii Syr., while K B C D L, 3
Mnn. b. Or. read xio-rivi poi ywxi (D : vnrriuffay).
GODET II. H JOHN.

114 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Ver. 22. "Ye worship ye know not what: we knovj what we
worship : for salvation is of the Jews." — The strongly marked
antithesis between ye and we indicates that we have here a con
trast between ye, the subject of the verb shall worship, ver. 21
(ye, Samaritans), and a new subject : we Jews. After putting
His impartiality beyond suspicion by revealing the great
future announced, ver. 21, Jesus closes with the question put
to Him more directly as to the past, and decides it in favour
of the Jews : " It is at Jerusalem that the living God has
made Himself known ; and that because it is by means of
the Jews that He will save the world." God is not known
except in so far as He gives Himself to be known. The seat
of His knowledge is therefore the place of His revelation, and
this place is Jerusalem. By breaking with the course of the
theocratic development after Moses, and rejecting the pro
phetic revelations, the Samaritans have separated themselves
from the living God. They have preserved only the abstract
notion of God, a purely rational monotheism. Now the idea of
God, when it is taken for God Himself, is nothing better than
a chimera. Even when worshipping, therefore, they know not
what they worship. The Jews, on the contrary, developed
in unbroken contact with divine manifestations ; they have
remained in the school of the God of revelation, and in this
living relation they have had the principle of true knowledge.
And whence comes this peculiar relation between this people
and God ? From the fact that, according to the divine plan,
the history of this people must issue in the salvation of the
world. It is salvation which, retroactively, as it were, has
produced all the theocratic revelations ; just as the fruit which,
though appearing last, is nevertheless the real cause of the
yearly vegetation. The true cause of things is their aim.
Thus is explained the on, for.
This passage has embarrassed rationalistic criticism, which,
making the Jesus of our Gospel an adversary of Judaism, does
not admit that He could have proclaimed Himself a Jew, and
have joined together in this ive His own worship and that of
the Israelitish people. And indeed, if, as is alleged by M.
D'Eichthal (Lcs Evangilcs, i. p. xxviii.), the Jesus of the fourth
Gospel, "from one end to the other of His preaching seems to
make sport of the Jews," and cannot consequently " be one of
them," there is a contradiction between our passage and the

CHAP. IV. 22. 115
entire Gospel. Hilgenfeld thinks that in ver. 21 Jesus is
addressing Jews and Samaritans in general by a sort of proso
popoeia : " Ye shall worship in the future neither at . . . nor
at . . . ; " then that in ver. 22, when He says : we know what
we worship, He is contrasting Himself, and all Christians along
with Him, with those Jews and Samaritans taken together : ye
worship ye know not what. But this explanation is untenable.
How, in ver. 21, could He address the Jews, who are not at all
represented in this scene ? Or could the Samaritan woman
represent them ? Certainly the part would have greatly
astonished her. And does not the explanation in ver. 22 :
" for salvation is of the Jews" prove plainly that the subject of
the preceding assertion : " we know what we worship," can only
be the Jews? M. D'Eichthal and M. Renan use another
expedient. The enigma is explained, says the first, when we
observe that this saying (ver. 22) is only " the annotation, or
rather the protestation, which a Jew of the old school had
inscribed on the margin of the text, and which by mistake the
copyist has converted into a saying of Jesus " (p. xxix., note).
And the critic is fresh from an ecstasy over the services which
criticism can render to the explanation of the sacred writings !
M. Renan has a similar hypothesis : "Ver. 22, which expresses
a thought opposed to vv. 21 and 23, seems an awkward addi
tion made by the evangelist, who is alarmed at the boldness of
the saying which he reports" (p. 244, note). Arbitrariness
could not be carried further. Men begin with decreeing what
the fourth Gospel must be : an anti- Jewish book. And when
they meet with a word which contradicts this alleged character,
they reject it with a stroke of the pen. Thus there is obtained,
not the Gospel which is, but that which they would have. Does
M. D'Eichthal imagine that the first old Jew who turned up
was in possession of the original copy of our Gospel, to modify
it according to his fancy ; or that it was an easy thing, once
the writing was spread, to get an interpolation inserted into
all the copies which were in circulation ? And can M. Renan
admit so easily that the evangelist allowed himself to correct
at his own hand the sayings of the Master whom he adored ?
Besides, the alleged incompatibility of this saying, either with
vv. 21 and 23, or with the Gospel in general, is an error which
a sound exegesis utterly condemns.
At ver. 21 Jesus transferred the question into the future,
in which the localized worship of earlier times will no longer-
exist. In ver. 22 He has, historically speaking, justified the
position of the Jews. In ver. 2 3 He returns to the future
announced in ver. 21, and describes it in all its greatness.

116 GOSPEL OF JO UN.
Vv. 23, 24. "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in
truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is
a Spirit : and they tlvat worship Him 1 must tvorship Him in
spirit and in truth. " 2 — Jesus developes in a positive way the
thought which He indicated negatively in ver. 21. But, in
opposition to the past period of Israelitish prerogative, the
words, " and now is," which He adds here, serve to excite
the already awakened attention of the woman more power
fully. It is as if the first breath of the new era were now
refreshing this soul. Perhaps Jesus sees in the distance His
disciples returning, the representatives of this nation of new
worshippers. — He declares the two characteristics of the new
worship which is henceforth to unite Samaritans and Jews
and all true worshippers : spirituality and truth. Spirit here
denotes that deepest element of the human soul by which it
can hold communion with the divine world. It is the seat of
self-collectedness, the sanctuary wherein the true worship is
celebrated ; Rom. i. 9 : " The God ivhom I serve in my spirit "
(iv ra Trvev/Aarl p,ov) ; Eph. vi. 18: praying in spirit (iv
irvevjiari). But this spirit in man, the Trvevfia dvdpdnrivov,
remains simply a virtual power until it is penetrated by the
Divine Spirit. It is by this union that it becomes capable of
realizing the true worship of which Jesus speaks. This first
feature characterizes the intensity of the new cultus. The
second, truth, is the corollary of the first. The worship
rendered in the inner sanctuary of the spirit is the only true
one, because it alone corresponds to the nature of God — its
object : " God is a spirit." The idea of sincerity does not cover
the word truth ; for a Jewish or a Samaritan prayer may evi
dently be sincere. Truth is opposed here, not to hypocritical
demonstrations, but to the shadows of the Jewish, and to the
errors of the Samaritan and Gentile worships. — Though these
words exclude all subjection of Christian worship to the limits
of place or time, yet because of its very freedom this worship
may accept conditions of this kind spontaneously. But in
that case, as Mme. Guyon says, the external adoration is " only
a jet thrown up from the worship of the spirit '' (quoted by
1 X D d, Heracleon, Or. omit xvrav after vpta-xvvovtrxi.
2 N reads iv rvtv/txri uXnhixt.

CHAP. IV. 25. 117
M. Astie). The two determinations : in spirit and in truth,
are formal ; the concrete character of the new cultus is
expressed by the word the Father. The cultus of which Jesus
speaks is the continual communing of a son with his father.
We know from what source Jesus drew this definition of
spiritual and true worship. " Abba (Father)" such was the
constant expression of the inmost consciousness of Jesus. — By
adding that the Father at that very time is seeking such
worshipppers, Jesus gives the woman to understand that He
who speaks to her is the sent of the Father to form this
new people, that He is in Samaria for the purpose, and that
He invites her to become one of them.
Ver. 24 explains from the essence of God the nature of the
worship henceforth sought by God Himself (for indeed)..
Jesus does not give the maxim, " God is a Spirit" as a new
truth ; it is an axiom from which He starts, a premiss admitted
between Him and His interlocutor. The 0. T. taught the
spirituality of God in all its sublimity (1 Kings viii. 27), and
the Samaritans certainly held it as well as the Jews (see
Gesenius, de Samarit. theol. p. 1 2, and Liicke). But what is abso
lutely new in this saying is the consequence which Jesus draws
from this axiom in relation to worship. He sees springing up
from this ancient notion, converted into reality by the Holy
Spirit, a new people, who, in virtue of the filial spirit with
which they shall be animated, will celebrate an unceasing and
universal worship. Thus it is that Jesus reveals to a guilty
woman, probably an adulteress, the highest truths of the new
economy, — truths which He had probably never unveiled to
His own disciples. The reading of the Sina'it. iv irvevfiaTi,
dXvdeia<;, in the spirit of truth, is taken from xiv. 17, xv. 26,
etc., and arises from the false application of the word irvevfia
to the Holy Spirit.
Ver. 25. " The woman saith unto Him, I know x that Messias
cometh, which is called Christ ; when He is come, He will tell 2
us all things." 3 — The woman's answer shows extreme docility.
Her spirit longs for the full light to be brought by the Mes
siah. According to modern accounts, the Samaritans really
1 G L A, some Mnn. Syr. read aiSxjtiv.
!j(D (but not d) read xvxyyiXi.u instead of xvxyytXn.
3 N B C, Or. (4 times) read xvxvrx instead of vxvrx.

118 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
expect a Messiah, to whom they give the name Assaef (from
31^, to return) ; the word, according to Gesenius, signifies : he
who brings back, who converts ; according to Sacy and Hengsten
berg : he who returns ; because the waiting of the Samaritans
being founded on Deut. xviii. 18:" God will raise them up a
prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee" the Messiah
is in their view a Moses who returns. At the present day
they call him El-Muhdy. There is a remarkable contrast
between the notion of the Messiah as expressed by the mouth
of this woman, and the worldly and political notions which
Jesus met with in Israel on the subject. The Samaritan idea
was doubtless incomplete ; the Messiah was a prophet, not a
king. But it did not contain anything false ; and hence Jesus
can appropriate it to Himself, and here declare Himself the Christ,
which He never did in Israel till the last moment (xvii. 3 ; Matt.
xxvi. 64). The translation 6 \ey6fievo<; Xpio-r6<;, called Christ,
belongs to the evangelist. He repeats the explanation already
given, i. 41, no doubt because of the entire strangeness of the
word Mecro-ta? to Greek readers. It has been alleged that the
Jewish term Messiah was put by John into the mouth of the
Samaritan woman. But this popular name might easily have
passed from the Jews to the Samaritans, especially in the
region of Shechem, which was inhabited by Jewish fugitives
(Jos. Antiq. xi. 8. 6). Perhaps even the absence of the article
before the word Meo-crias, Messiah, indicates that the woman
uses the word as a proper name, as is commonly done with
foreign words (comp. i. 41). — The word epxerai (cometh) is an
echo of the two ep^erac of w. 21 and 23 ; she yields to the
impulse which her soul receives from Jesus toward the new
era. — The pronoun eVewx)?, He, is here, as always, exclusive ; it
serves to contrast this revealer with every other, — such, for
example, as Him whom she has before her. The preposition
in the verb dvayyeXel denotes the perfect clearness, and the
object, iravra or airavra, the complete character of the revela
tion of the Messiah.
Ver. 26. "Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am
He!' — Jesus, not having, as we have just seen, to fear that
He would call forth in this woman a whole world of dangerous
illusions, like those which in the case of the Jews attached to
the name of Messiah, reveals Himself fully to her. His con-

CHAP. IV. 26. 119
duct is not at all, therefore, as de Wette asserts, in contradic
tion to sayings such as these : Matt. viii. 4, xvi. 2 0, etc. The
difference of soils explains the difference of the seeds which
the hand of Jesus drops into them.
How are we to depict the astonishment which such a
declaration must have produced in this woman? It shows
itself better than by words, in her silence and her conduct in
ver. 28. She arrived a few minutes before, heedless and
given up to earthly thoughts ; and, lo, in a few moments she
is brought to a new faith, and even transformed into an eager
missionary of that faith. How has the Lord thus raised and
elevated this soul ? With Nicodemus, He started from the
idea which filled every Pharisee's heart, that of the kingdom
of God, and deduced therefrom the most rigorous practical
consequences ; He knew that He had to do with a man accus
tomed to the discipline of the law. Then, He unveiled to
him the most elevated truths of the kingdom of heaven, by
connecting them with a striking 0. T. type, and contrasting
them with the corresponding features of the Pharisaic pro
gramme. Here, on the contrary, with a woman destitute of
all scriptural training, He takes His point of departure from
the commonest thing imaginable, the water of the well. He
suddenly exalts it by a bold antithesis, to the idea of that
eternal life which quenches for ever the thirst of the human
heart. Spiritual aspiration thus awakened in her becomes
the internal prophecy to which He attaches His new revela
tions, and thus reaches that teaching on true worship which
corresponds as directly to the peculiar prepossessions of the
woman, as the revelation of heavenly things corresponded to the
inmost thoughts of Nicodemus. Before the latter He unveils
Himself as the only-begotten Son, but this while avoiding the
title of Christ. With the woman, He boldly uses this term ;
but He does not dream of initiating into the mysteries of
incarnation and redemption a soul which is yet only at the
first elements of religious life and knowledge. Certain
analogies have been remarked in the outward course of those
two conversations, and from these an argument has been
drawn against the truth of the two narratives. But this
resemblance rests on the analogy which prevailed between the
two meetings : on both sides a soul wholly of the earth

120 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
standing in contact with a heavenly mind, which labours to
raise it to its own level. This likeness in the situations
sufficiently explains the relations between the two dialogues,
the diversity of which is, besides, quite as remarkable as the
resemblance. II. Jesus and the Disciples. — vv. 27-38.
Ver. 27. " Upon this1 came His disciples, and marvelled2
that He talked with the woman: yet no man said3 Wlmt
seekest Thou ? or, Of what talkest Thou with her ? " — A Rab
binical prejudice prevailed, to the effect that woman is not
capable of profound religious instruction : " Do not prolong
conversation with a woman ; let no one converse with a
woman in the street, not even with his own wife ; rather burn
the sayings of the law than teach them to women " (see Light-
foot on this verse). Probably the apostles had not yet seen
their Master set Himself above this prejudice. — There is
room for hesitation between the two readings : marvelled (edav-
p,aaav) and kept marvelling (idav/iafrv). The first gives to
their astonishment the character of a momentary act ; the
second converts it into a state. — Mivrot : " yet astonishment
did not go so far in any of them as to lead them to ask an
explanation." — Z-nrelv, to seek, to ask, refers to a service
requested, like that of ver. 1 0 ; XaXeiv, to talk, to some given
instruction. Vv. 28, 29. " The woman tlien left her watcrpot, and
went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see
a man, which told me all things tlvat 4 ever I did : this cannot
be the Christ, can he ? " — She leaves her waterpot : this
circumstance, apparently insignificant, is not without import
ance. It is a pledge of her speedy return, the proof that she
goes to seek some one. She thus constitutes herself the
messenger, and missionary, as it were, of Jesus. What a
contrast between the vivacity of this woman and the silent
1 N D read sv rouru instead of t<*i rauru.
• T. R. reads tlxvpxa-xv, with E S U V a A, the most of the Mnn. Sah. etc.
But N A B C D G K L M, It. Vg. Cop. Or. read tlxuftx^av.
'StD add xuru after u«i,
* Instead of *xvrx »«¦«, NBC, It*"* Cop. road *x»rx «.

CHAP. IV. 30-32. 121
and contemplative departure of Nicodemus ! And what truth
there is in the smallest details of the narrative !- — Toh
dvdpdrKoi'i, to the men: to the first whom she meets in the
public square. — There is great naivete in the expression : all
things that ever I did. She does not fear awakening memories
which are far from flattering to herself. — She expresses her
question in a way which seems to anticipate a negative
answer (^ti, not hoivever ?). The proper meaning therefore is :
" He is not however, is he, the Christ ? " She believes more
than she says, but she does not venture to express so great
a piece of news even as probable. Nothing more natural
than this little touch.
Ver. 30. " They tuent out1 of the city, and came unto Him."
— The Samaritans gathered by her arrive in crowds. The
imperf. they came (were coming), opposed to the aor. they
went out, is intended to form a picture : the eye sees them
flocking across the fields which separate Sychar from Jacob's
well. This historical detail gives the key to the sayings of
Jesus which are about to follow. The particle ouv (then) is
to be rejected from the text, and that because the writer's
attention is wholly turned to the : they were coming, which
follows. Vv. 31, 32. "In the meanwhile His disciples prayed
Him, saying, Master, eat. But He said unto them, I have
meat to eat that ye know not of!' — Ver. 31 is 'connected with
ver. 27. — The words iv 8e tg> fiera^v, in the meanwhile,
denote the time which elapsed between the departure of the
woman and the arrival of the Samaritans.. — 'Epunav signifies
in classic Greek, to ask : here, as often in the N. T., and like
btt& in the 0. T., it takes the meaning to pray, without,
however, wholly losing its strict meaning (to ask if He will eat).
Since the beginning of His ministry, Jesus had probably
not experienced such joy as that which He had just felt. It
had revived Him even physically. " You say to me : Eat !
But I am satisfied ; in your absence I have had a feast of
which you have no conception." — 'Eyd>, I, has the emphasis
in opposition to vp,ei<;, you: they have their meat; He has
His. — Bp&an*;, strictly the act of eating, but including the
1 T. R. reads auv after ilnkiav, with X A, several Mnn. It"11' Sah. This particle
is rejected by all the other Mjj. Vss. Or.

122 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
food which is its condition. The abstract word suits the
spiritual meaning of the saying better than the concrete
Bpooud, the food.
Vv. 33, 34. "Therefore said the disciples one to another,
Hath any man brought Him ought to eat? Jesus saith
unto them, My meat is to do 1 the will of my Father, and to
finish His work." — The question of the disciples is, strictly
speaking, negative Qot^Tt?) : " No one surely has brought . . . ? "
— Jesus explains the profound meaning of His answer. Here
He uses Bpd>pd, and that in connection with the gross
interpretation of the disciples. — The conjunction "va, that I
may do, is not a simple periphrasis for the infinitive. What
sustains the strength of Jesus is His proposing continually, as
an end, the doing . . . , the finishing . . . — The present 7ro«S
(reading of T. R.) refers to the accomplishment of the divine
will at every instant ; and the aor. reXettoo-o), to the final
consummation of the task, which shall not take place till the
close of this unceasing obedience. The reading of the Alex.
and of Origen (Tronjaco) spoils this beautiful relation; it is
rejected by Meyer and Tischendorf, who well understand in
this case the inferiority of the Alexandrine text. Hoir\a<o has
arisen from an assimilation to TeXeiwo-co. — The relation
between 6e\vp,d, will, and epyov, work, corresponds exactly
to that of the two verbs. That the work of God may be
finished at the last moment (xvii. 4), without anything failing,
His will respecting every moment must have been constantly
carried out. Hereby Jesus shows the disciples that in their
absence He has been engaged in the Father's work, and that
this labour has revived Him. This is the idea which He
developes, by means of an image which is furnished Him by
the present situation in w. 35-38.
Vv. 35, 36. "Say not ye, There are yet2 four months3
unto the harvest ? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your
eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white to harvest.
Already eveni he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathcreth
1 Instead of iram, which T. R. reads with 11 Mjj. (including X) Mnn. Vss.,
there is found in B D K L Tb Or. (three times) rama-u.
2 Etj is wanting in D L n 60 Mnn. Syr0"' Or. (sometimes).
3 T. R. . nrpxfmvav with n only instead of nrpx/mvas.
4 T. R. reads xxi before • hpi^uv, with 13 Mjj. ; omitted by N B C D L Tb
It"11' Or.

CHAP. IV. 35, 3G. 123
fruit unto life eternal : that both 1 he that soweth and lie that
reapeth may rejoice together." — The following verses (35-38)
have presented such difficulties to commentators, that some
have thought of transposing them by placing vv. 37 and 38
before ver. 36 (B.-Crusius). Weisse has supposed that ver.
35 belonged originally to another context. It must be con
fessed that the interpretations proposed by Liicke, de Wette,
Meyer, Tholuck, are not fitted to remove the difficulties.
Some see in them a prophecy of the conversion of the
Samaritan people, related Acts viii. ; others apply them even
to the conversion of the whole Gentile world and the aposto-
late of St. PauL In such circumstances it is not surprising
that the authenticity of the verses should be suspected !
And if the sayings of ver. 36 et seq. have no direct rela
tion to the actual case, how are we to connect them with
those of ver. 35, which, however, according to Liicke and
Meyer themselves, refer to the arrival of the inhabitants of
Sychar in the presence of Jesus ? From a saying stamped
with the most perfect appropriateness, Jesus, according to this
view, suddenly passes to general considerations about the
propagation of the gospel ! De Wette was more thorough
going; contrary to the evidence, he resolutely denied the
reference of ver. 35 to the arrival of the inhabitants of
Sychar. This general embarrassment seems to us to arise
from the fact that the application of the sayings of Jesus to
the actual case has not been sufficiently kept in view. They
have thus been deprived of their point of support, and de
spoiled of their appropriateness and partly of their charm.
It is a pleasant and familiar conversation which has been
converted into a sermon.
Ver. 35 is linked with ver. 30 exactly as ver. 31 was
joined with ver. 27. John would make us aware that at
this moment two scenes were passing simultaneously of which
Jesus was, as it were, the point of junction : the one, between
Him and the woman, which was entirely unknown to the
disciples, and which was about to issue in the arrival of the
Samaritans ; the other, between Jesus and the disciples, who
had no other thought than of a meal to be taken. This
relation between two simultaneous facts, the one of which is
1 The xxi after ivx is rejected by B C L Tb U Or. (four times).

124 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
till now strange to the thought of those who are playing a
part in the other, is that which gives piquancy to this passage.
— Lightfoot, Tholuck, Liicke, and de Wette see in the first
words of ver. 35 a proverb: If a man has once sown, he
must wait four months for the time when he can reap ; that is
to say, that the fruits of any labour whatsoever are only
gathered after long waiting (2 Tim. ii. 6). But in Palestine
it is not four months, but six, which separates sowing time
(end of October) from harvest (mid-April). Besides, the adv.
en, yet, is too intimately connected with the present case to
belong to a proverb. Then why put this proverb specially
in the apostles' mouth (ye), rather than make it a general
saying? There is therefore here a reflection which Jesus
ascribes to His disciples, and which He knows or supposes
has been suggested to them by the sight of the springing
verdure on the newly sown soil of the fields of Samaria.
Between Jacob's well, at the foot of Gerizim, and the village
of Aschar, at the foot of Ebal, far on into the plain of
Mokhna, there extend vast fields of wheat. As they beheld
the smiling spectacle, the disciples said to one another: "Yet
four months till this wheat be ripe !" As harvest takes place
about the end of April, this particular assumes that it was
then about the middle of December, and that Jesus had con
sequently remained in Judea from the feast of Passover till
the end of the year, that is to say, eight whole months.
The words : Ye say, contrast the domain of nature, to which
the reflection of the disciples applies, with the sphere of the
Spirit in which the thought of Jesus is moving. In this
higher sphere, the seed is not necessarily subject to so slow a
development. It may germinate and ripen as in an instant.
There is a striking proof of it at the very moment : 'IBov,
behold ! The word draws the disciples' attention to a wholly
unexpected and to them incomprehensible spectacle, but one
of which Jesus Himself has the secret, as He gives them to
understand by the words : I say unto you. — The act of lifting
up the eyes and looking, to which He invites them, is, according
to de Wette, purely spiritual: Jesus would lead them to
imagine beforehand by faith the future conversion of this
population. But the imper. dedaatrde, look, must refer to a
definite and visible object. Then the four montlis being

CHAP. IV. 35, 36. 125
named as a very long interval, in comparison with that which
is passing in the domain of the Spirit (comp. the yet and the
already), this contrast excludes the supposition that the
matter in question is a spiritual harvest which shall not take
place for years, such as the conversion of the Samaritans,
related Acts viii. The fact to which these words refer can
therefore be no other than that mentioned above — the arrival
of the people of Sychar. Thus the imperfect receives ex
planation, they were coming (ver. 30), which left the act
unfinished and formed a picture. Such is the spectacle to
which Jesus here calls the attention of the disciples. Those
eager souls, who run to them ready to believe, Jesus repre
sents under the figure of a yellowing harvest, ready even now
to be gathered. And while thinking of the little time which
He required to prepare such a harvest in this place, till
now a stranger to the kingdom of God, He is Himself im
pressed by the contrast between the very long time (five to
six months) which is demanded by the law of natural vegeta
tion, and the so rapid development of seed in the spiritual
world; and as an encouragement to His disciples in their
future calling, He points out to them this difference. — The
978??, already, might be taken as closing ver. 35:" They are
white to harvest already." The word would thus form the
counterpart of en, yet, in the beginning of the verse. Luthardt
rightly observes that in 1 John iv. 3, ^8v is placed in the
same way at the end of the clause. But the word has a
much more definite sense, if, as we have given it in our trans
lation, it be placed at the beginning of the following verse : ??8t/
teal, already even.
Ver. 36, indeed, stands to ver. 35 in the way of climax,
betraying an increasing elevation and joyousness in the heart
of Jesus. " It is so true," He says, " that already the harvest
is ripe, that at this very hour the reaper has only to take his
sickle and cut down, that both the sower and the reaper may
in this case celebrate together the harvest home." — In the
context, thus understood, the authenticity of the /cat, and
(after rfiv), is manifest. Here again Origen has been an
unfortunate corrector. With many others before and after
him, he connected i]8v, already, with the preceding clause ;
then he rejected the /cat (and, or even), in order that he

126 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
might be able to give to ver. 36 the character of a general
maxim. Hence the false reading of the Alex., who omit /cat.
— The reaper, according to ver. 38, must denote the apostles.
The expression : fxiadov \afiBdvew, to receive usages, describes
the joy with which they are filled, when it is given them to
gather souls into the kingdom of heaven. This expression is
explained by the avvdyeiv icapirov, to gather fruit, which
immediately follows. Perhaps the matter referred to is the
act of baptism (ver. 2) by which those new brethren, the
Samaritans, are about to be received by them into the
Messianic community and brought to life eternal.
Jesus invites the reaper (the disciples) to put himself to
the work immediately. Why ? That there may now happen
a thing which is not usually seen : that both the sower and tlie
reaper may rejoice together. Those who apply the image of
the harvest to the future conversion of the Samaritans by the
apostles, or to that of the Gentile world by St. Paul, are
forced to refer the common joy of the sower (Jesus) and of
the reaper (the apostles) to the heavenly triumph, in which
the Lord and His servants shall rejoice together over the
fruit of their labour. But first, this interpretation does not
admit of any natural connection between w. 35 and 36.
Then the present x,alpg, may rejoice, refers more naturally to
a joy of the present (contrary to Meyer). Luthardt seeks to
escape from the difficulty by giving to d/tou, together, a purely
logical sense : the one as really as the other. This is to sup
press by a forced interpretation of 6p,ov, together, the very
idea which forms the charm and appropriateness of the
passage. Jesus sees this day an unexpected feast which the
Father has prepared for Him, and which He proceeds to enjoy
with His disciples. In Israel Jesus is sowing, but He has
never the joy of being present Himself at a harvest. When
the ingathering shall take place (at Pentecost), He will not be
there. Here, on the contrary, by His providential meeting
with this woman, by the docility and eagerness of this popula
tion which flocks to Him, Jesus beholds a rich harvest rise
and ripen in the twinkling of an eye, which before the very
view of Him, the sower, may be even now gathered by the
reaper, so that for once at least in His life the sower may
share the joy of the harvest. This wholly exceptional simul-

CHAP. IV. 37, 38. 127
taneousness of joy is strongly brought out by the 6/ioi),
together, as well as by the two ical (" both the sower and the
reaper"), so that here again the reading of Origen and the
Alex., which rejects the first of the two /cat, has spoiled all.
Fully to understand the meaning of this beautiful saying, we
must remember the contrast established by the 0. T. between
the function of the sower (united with that of the labourer)
and the office of the reaper. The first was regarded as a
painful toil. Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6 : " They that sow in tears . . .
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing seed "... The
reaper's office, on the contrary, was regarded as a festival:
" They shall reap in joy . . . He shall come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves." But on this day, because of
the rapidity with which the seed has germinated and ripened,
the sower finds Himself taking part in the joyous cries of the
reaper. Hence is explained the construction by which the
verb %atpj7 is much more closely connected in the Greek
clause with the first subject : d airelpmv, the sower, than with
the second : d depl%oiv, the reaper : " That the sower may rejoice
at the same time as the reaper."
Vv. 37, 38. " And herein is that saying 1 true, One soweth,
and another reapeth. I sent2 you to reap that whereon ye
bestowed no labour : other men laboured, and ye are entered into
their labours!' — According to Tholuck, Jesus is grieved at the
thought that He will not be personally present at the con
version of the Gentiles, after having paved the way for it ;
and to this, according to him, the proverb refers. M. Asti<5
seems to be of the same opinion. Can we really attribute to
our Lord an impression of this kind, especially at a time
when His heart expands with the most grateful joy ? Jesus
has just distinguished very exactly (ver. 36) between the
sower and the reaper. This distinction He confirms, in ver.
37, by an Israelitish proverb, rectifying, however, its common
application. When, indeed, it is said in the world: "One
soweth, another reapeth," it is meant to express this experi
ence : that the man who does the work is rarely the same
who reaps the fruit : Sic vos non vobis . . . Thus understood,
1 The article a before xXnUms is rejected by B C K L A, some Mnn. Heracleon,
Or. 'j(D read arsa-raXxx instead of xfta-rnXx.

128 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
the proverb is a sarcasm upon Providence. But yet there
is something true in the adage when it is applied to the
kingdom of God. There are really in this domain distinct
ministries, different parts assigned by God Himself (1 Cor.
xii. 5), so that, as we shall find in ver. 38, one may reap
what another has sown, without the latter, however, having
the right to complain; because in this domain both alike
work, not for their own interest, but for the same cause and
the same Master. — 'Ev Tovra, herein, might signify, in the
sphere in question, that of the kingdom of God. But it is
more natural to refer the toww, as so often in John, to the
on which follows : herein, that is to say, as to this distinction
to be established between sower and reaper, the proverb is
true which says : " One soweth," etc. — 'AXvdim*;, not in the
sense of dXrjdrj^, which says the truth (de Wette), but in the
usual Johannine sense, in which the word denotes the fact
which realizes the idea of the thing ; thus : " This saying is
the true one to be pronounced on this subject." The rejec
tion of the article d by the Alex, is the only thing which
would force us to give to aXrjdivos the meaning of dX,qdrj<;.
But here again is an obvious fault of this text which is
patronized with so much partiality by Tischendorf.
Ver. 38 applies to the relation between Jesus and His
apostles, the distinction between sower and reaper. During
their whole career, the disciples will do nothing else than reap
what has been painfully sown by others. The latter are
undoubtedly John the Baptist and Jesus Himself, those two
servants who painfully ploughed the furrow and watered
with their blood the seed cast into it. But it seems to me
difficult to suppose that in speaking thus, Jesus does not
carry forward the allusion to the event which had passed at
that very moment, and which was a sort of illustration of
the future relation between His work and that of the
apostles : " As ye go to reap here, at Sychar, that which ye
have not sown, so it shall be with your whole apostolic
work." I sent you to reap, says He. This is what He has
just been doing, by inviting them to welcome the Samaritans
into the kingdom of God. And who has prepared this
harvest ? It is not the disciples, who yet know nothing of
what has passed in their absence ; the others, in the present

CHAP. IV. 37, 38. 129
case, are Jesus and the woman, who, the one by His words,
the other by her zealous haste, have prepared it all. It is
for the disciples to seek who can be the authors of this
astonishing and rapid success. Here, then, is an enigma for
them. A whole population flocking together to Jesus to
submit to His divine influence, — and these, moreover,
Samaritans ! What a problem ! Jesus seems to enjoy their
surprise. And it is doubtless with a kindly smile that He
throws out mysteriously this : Others have laboured. Such
is the plan of what they shall afterwards experience in their-
niinistry. Commentators discuss the question whether by
the word others Jesus designates Himself alone (Liicke, with
Meyer, who takes the others as the plural of category), or
Himself and the prophets, or Himself and John the Baptist,
or all these persons without Jesus (Olshausen). In applying
it to the apostolic work taken as a whole, He has undoubtedly
in view the forerunner and Himself. But, in alluding to the
present case, He certainly thinks of Himself and His nimble
messenger. For He takes pleasure in acknowledging the co
operation of the weakest agent who consents to be associated
with Him (iii. 11). — The two most curious explanations are
certainly those of Baur and Hilgenfeld. According to the
first, by the term others Jesus meant Philip the evangelist,
and by the reapers, the apostles Peter and John in the
narrative of Acts viii. 15. In the view of the second, the
term others denoted St. Paul, and the reapers were the Twelve,
who sought to appropriate the fruit of His labours among
the Gentiles. On such conditions, there is nothing which
might not be found in any text whatever. All those forced
meanings, and the grave critical consequences which men think
they can draw from them, proceed entirely from the fact that,
both on the orthodox and rationalistic side, the admirable
appropriateness of all these sayings of Jesus, in strict keeping
as they are with the given situation, has not been apprehended.
The heavenly joy which fills the heart of Jesus throughout
this whole piece has no analogy except in the magnificent
passage, Luke x. 17-24. Here, we venture to say, it takes
even the character of gaiety. (Comp. vi. 5, 6.) Is it John's
fault if M. Renan finds in the Jesus of the fourth Gospel
only a dull metaphysician ?
GODET II. I JOHN.

130 GOSPEL OF JOHN.

III. Jesus and the Samaritans. — vv. 39-42.
Vv. 39-42. "Now many of the Samaritans of that city
believed on Him x for the saying of the woman, which testified,
He told me all that ever2 I did. So, when the Samaritans
were come unto Him, they besought Him that He would tarry
with them : and He abode 3 there two days. And many more
believed because of His own word; and said unto the woman,
Now we believe, not because of thy saying : 4 for w.e have heard 5
Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of
the world"6 — Here we have the harvest -home announced
ver. 36. The sower rejoices with the reapers. This time
passed at Sychar left an indelible impression on the heart of
the apostles. The sweetness of this memory finds expression
in the repetition of the words : two days, in w. 40 and 43.
— Ai, now, resumes the course of the narrative after the
digression of vv. 31—38. — What a difference between the
Samaritans and the Jews ! Here one miracle of knowledge,
without anything striking, suffices to dispose their hearts to
come to Jesus, while in Judea eight months' labour has not
procured for Him one such hour of refreshing.
Ver. 39 shows us the first degree of faith: the coming to
Jesus, as the result of testimony. Vv. 40 and 41 present
to us the higher degree, the development of faith by personal
contact with Jesus. Finally, the request of the Samaritans
is the first-fruit of this confirmed faith.
Ver. 41 indicates a twofold progress : one in the number of
believers, the other in the nature of their faith. The latter
is expressed in the words : because of His own word, con
trasted with these: for the saying of the woman (ver. 39);
it is formulated reflectively in the declaration of ver. 42. —
The Samaritans reserve the more weighty term X070? for the
sayings of Jesus ; they apply to the words of the woman the
1 X It""' Origen omit sis xurav.
8 N B C L It""' Syr. Cop. read x instead of aex.
3 N Syr. : srxp xurais instead of <*s<.
4 Instead of <r«v XuXtxv, B : XxXixv trav ; X D It*11' : mjv pxarvpiuv.
8 X Syr1"" add vxp xvrau.
0 16 Mjj. the most of the Mnn. It"1" Syr«* add, with T. R., a Xpirras. Theso
words are rejected by X B C Tb some Mnn. It*1"1'"* Vg. Cop. Syrour Or. Ir.
Heracleon.

CHAP. IV. 39-42. 131
term \a\t,d, which certainly has nothing contemptuous about
it (viii. 43, where Jesus applies it to His own discourses),
but which denotes something more external, a bare report, a
piece of news. — The verb aKijKoa/jiev, we have heard, has no
object in the Greek ; the idea is concentrated in the subject
avroi : " We have ourselves become hearers ; " and hence the
sequel : " And, as such, we know." The reading of the Sinait. :
" We have heard from Him (from His mouth), and we know
that . . . ," would give their profession the character of an
external and slavish repetition, opposed to the spirit of the
narrative. — The expression : Saviour of the world, seems to
indicate progress among the Samaritans in the conception of
the Messiah. The question is now one of salvation, and not
merely of teaching (ver. 25). This designation is perhaps
connected with the word of Jesus to the woman (ver. 22),
which Jesus had developed to them: "Salvation is of the
Jews." Tholuck and Liicke suspect the historical truth of
this term: Saviour of the world, as too universalistic in the
mouth of those Samaritans. With what right ? Did not
these people possess in their Pentateuch God's promise to
Abraham : " In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be
blessed," to which Jesus might have called their attention ;
and had they not just been, during these two days, in direct
contact with the love of the true Christ, so opposed to the
particularistic pride of Jewish Messianism ? The Alex.
reject the words d Xpiaro^, the Christ. In their favour, it
may be alleged that the double title serves to seal the union
announced by Jesus (w. 23, 24) between the Samaritans
(Saviour of the world) and the Jews (the Christ). But, on
the other hand, it is easier to account for the addition of the
term than for its rejection.
The eager welcome which Jesus found among the
Samaritans is an example of the effect which should have
been produced by the advent of the Christ among His own.
The faith of those strangers was the condemnation of Israel's
unbelief; and no doubt it was under this impression that
Jesus, after those two exceptional days in His earthly history,
resumed His journey to Galilee.

132 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
THIRD SECTION.
IV. 43-54.  JESUS IN GALILEE.
In Judea, unbelief had prevailed. In Samaria, faith had
just burst forth. Galilee takes an intermediate position.
Jesus is welcomed there, because of the miracles He had
wrought at Jerusalem, and on condition of immediately re
sponding to that welcome by new prodigies. The following
narrative (comp. ver. 48) proves this. Ch. vi. will soon show
the result in which a faith like this terminates. Such is the
bearing of this narrative in the Gospel taken as a whole.
Vv. 43-45 describe, like ii. 23-25, the general situation.
And on this basis there rises (like the conversation with
Nicodemus previously) the following sketch (vv. 46-54).
1. Vv. 43-45.
Vv. 43—45. " After those two days He departed thence, and
went 1 into Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified, tJiat a propliet
hath no honour in his own country. Then, when2 He was come
into Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the
things that 3 He did at Jerusalem at the feast : for tliey also
went 4 unto the feast." — This passage has been from the first a
cross to commentators. — How can John explain (for, ver. 44)
the return of Jesus to Galilee by our Lord's declaration that
" a prophet hath no honour in his own country " ? And how
can he connect with this adage, as a consequence (then,
ver. 45), the fact that the Galileans gave Him a hearty
welcome ? 1. Bruckner and Luthardt think that Jesus sought
either the struggle (Bruckner) or solitude (Luthardt). This
would explain the for of ver. 44. But in that case it must
be admitted that the foresight of Jesus was greatly deceived
(vei. 45), which is absolutely opposed to the particle ovv
(then), connecting this verse with the preceding, de, or even
1 N B C D Tb It"1™1'"" Syr™ Cop. Or. omit the words xxi mi^ii after inutu.
!SD read us instead of art.
3 A B C L Or. (four times) road aa-x for a,
* N It. read ihnXulutm for nkhv.

CHAP. IV. 43-45. 133
dXXa (but), would have been necessary. It would be more
simple in this sense to say that He returned to Galilee, because
that country had more need of His presence. But for this
notion of a greater spiritual need there is not reason enough
assigned by the declaration of ver. 44. 2. According to
Liicke, de Wette, and Tholuck, the for refers not to what pre
cedes, but to the fact which is about to be mentioned. The
sense, as they would have it, is : " Jesus came into Galilee and
there found faith ; but merely faith on account of His miracles,
and not, as in Samaria, on account of His sayings (ver. 45).
For He had Himself declared that . . . ; as was confirmed ;
for . . ." But this use of the for is scarcely known in the
N. T. (ix. 30 is quoted), and this interpretation is hardly less
forced than that of Kuinoel, who gives to for the meaning of
although, as Osterwald also translates. 3. Origen, Wieseler,
Ebrard, and Baur understand by 181a p,arpk (His own country),
Judea as the place of Jesus' birth. Thus the two difficulties
of the for and the therefore would disappear at once. But
common sense suggests that in the maxim quoted by Jesus
the word country should designate the place where the prophet
has lived and where he has been known from infancy, and not
that where he has merely been born. It is therefore quite
evident that, in John's view, His own country is Galilee.
4. Calvin, Hengstenberg, and Baumlein understand by His
own country, Nazareth, in opposition to the rest of Galilee, and
to Capernaum in particular. He came not to Nazareth, as He
might have been expected to do, but to Capernaum (comp.
Mark vi. 1; Matt. xiii. 54-57; Luke iv. 16, 24). Lange
even applies the term country to the whole of Lower Galilee,
in which Nazareth was included, in opposition to Upper
Galilee, where Jesus from this time fixed His residence. But
how could Nazareth, or the district of Nazareth, be thus
without explanation put down beyond Galilee, and even in
opposition to that province ? This would still be intelligible
if, in the following narrative, John described Jesus as settling
at Capernaum ; but it is to Cana that He repairs, and this
town was in the immediate neighbourhood of Nazareth.
5. Meyer seems to us very near the truth when he explains
thus : Jesus, knowing well that a prophet has no honour in
his own country, began by gaining honour for Himself beyond

134 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
it, at Jerusalem (ver. 45) ; and so it was that He now returned
to Galilee with the reputation of a prophet, which gave Him
access to hearts in His own country.
The complete explanation of this obscure passage flows, as
in so many other cases, from the relation of the fourth Gospel
to the Synoptics. The latter made the Galilean ministry
begin immediately after the baptism. But John here calls
attention, at the time of Jesus' settlement in Galilee, to the
fact that Jesus had really followed an entirely different method
from that which appeared to be assigned to Him by the
earlier traditions. Our Lord knew better than act thus, for
He was aware that the place where a prophet has lived is
that where, as a rule, he has the greatest difficulty in securing
recognition. It was not, therefore, till after He had laboured
at Jerusalem and in Judea for a considerable time (nearly a
whole year, ver. 35), that He at length returned to begin the
Galilean ministry, the subject of the other Gospels : " It was
then, only then, and not immediately after His baptism, as
would be concluded from the other evangelic writings, that
He at length began His ministry in Galilee." Thus in this
passage, rightly understood, we find the confirmation of our
observations on iii. 24. — If the for of ver. 44 indicates the
reason of our Lord's mode of acting, the then of ver. 45 joy
fully expresses the result, and serves, by the success obtained,
to justify the wisdom of the course followed. The Galileans,
who had seen Him at work on the great theatre of the capital,
made no scruple about welcoming Him. The words «aj
dirrjKdev, and went away, rejected by the Alex., take up the
thread of ver. 3. The account of the return to Galilee, which
was interrupted by the stay in Samaria, is resumed. The
words ought therefore to be retained.
Avro<i, Himself, the same who acted as He was now doing.
The solution of this apparent contradiction is given in ver. 45.
— 'E/AapTvpvo-ev, testified, can have no other meaning here,
whatever Meyer may say, than that of a pluperfect (as the
aor. so often has). Luthardt understands : " on some other
occasion." This likewise supposes the pluperfect. The idea
of the proverb quoted is, that we are less disposed to recognise
a superior being in a compatriot very near us, than in a stranger
clothed, to our view, in the veil of mystery. But when this

-CHAP. IV. 4G, 47. 135
same man has drawn attention to himself abroad on a large
theatre, this glory reflected on his compatriots opens up his
way to their hearts. This moment had come in the life of
Jesus ; and hence He at length endeavours to surmount the
vulgar prejudice which He had Himself pointed out, and an
example of which we have seen in the answer of Nathanael,
i. 46. The words : izdvra ew^a/core?, having seen . . ., explain
the iBe^avro, they received; there is an allusion here to
ii. 23-25. This verse finds its commentary in Luke iv. 14,
15: " And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into
Galilee : and there went out a fame of Him through all the
region round about. And He taught in their synagogues, being
glorified of all."
2. Vv. 46-54.
Vv. 46, 47. "So Jesus came1, again into Cana of Galilee,
where He made1 the water wine. And2 there was a certain
royal officer, whose son was sick at Capernaum? When he heard
that Jesus vias come out of Judea into Galilee, he went unto Him,
and besought Him 4 that He would come down and heal his son :
for he was at the point of death!' — Jesus directed His steps to
Cana, doubtless because it was there He hoped to find the field
best prepared for Him by His previous sojourn. Perhaps this
is what John means to insinuate by the reflection : " where He
made the water wine." His arrival made a noise, and the news
quickly spread to Capernaum, situated seven or eight leagues
to the east of Cana. — The term BaatXucos denotes, in Josephus,
a public functionary, either civil or military, sometimes also
an employe" of the royal house. The last sense is the most
natural here. — Herod Antipas, who reigned in Galilee, had
officially only the title of tetrarch. But that of king, which
his father had borne, was given to him also in popular
language. It is not impossible that this gentleman of the
king's household may have been either Chuza, "Herod's
steward" (Luke viii. 3), or Manaen, his "foster-brother"
(Acts xiii. 1). — By its place at the end of the clause, the
1 N reads «xix> : " They came, they had changed J"
2 &? D L Tb It. : m Ss instead of xxi m.
3 K B C D Tb ItPleri'"» : Kxipxpvxaufi..
4 K B C D L Tb It"11' omit «™.

136 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
regimen, at Capernaum (which belongs not to, was sick, but to,
there was), gives strong emphasis to the speedy notoriety which
the return of Jesus had acquired in Galilee.
Ver. 48. " Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and
wonders, ye will not believe." — This answer of Jesus is perplex
ing, for it seems to assume that the man asked a miracle with
the view of believing, which is certainly not the case. But
the difficulty is explained by the plurals : ye see, ye will believe,
which prove that this saying is not an answer to the father's
request, but a reflection of Jesus occasioned by it. He
addresses the words to this man undoubtedly (77-/30? avTov), but
at the same time He addresses them in his person to the
whole population of Galilee, which at the moment he repre
sents before Jesus. The disposition which Jesus meets the
moment He sets foot again on Israelitish soil, is the wish to
make Him a thaumaturge (worker of miracles) ; and He feels
this the more painfully, that He has just been passing two
days in Samaria, in contact with an entirely different spirit.
There, it was as the Saviour of souls that He was welcomed.
Here, it is for bodily cures that His presence is sought. And
Jesus is obliged to confess, — such is the true meaning of His
words, — that unless He consent to play this part, it is to be
feared that no one will believe, or rather, according to the
slightly ironical turn which He gives it (ov /mt]), " it is not to
be feared that any one will believe." — There is likewise some
bitterness in the accumulation of the two terms : o-rjfieia and
repaTa, signs and wonders. The first describes miracles in
relation to the facts of the invisible world which they mani
fest; the second characterizes them in relation to external
nature, whose laws they defy. The latter term thus brings
out forcibly the external character of the supernatural mani
festation. The meaning, therefore, is : " You must have signs ;
and, moreover, you are not satisfied unless those signs have
the character of wonders." Some have found in 1817x6, ye sec,
an allusion to the request addressed to Him to go personally
to the presence of the sick one, which proves, they say, that
the father wished to see the cure with his own eyes. But in
this case 'iBnre would require to stand first ; and the meaning
is forced. Vv, 49, 50. " The officer saith unto Him, Sir, come down ere

CHAP. IV. 51-53. 137
my child1 die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way ; thy son
liveth. And 2 the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken
unto him,3 and he went his way." — The father has quite under
stood that the words of Jesus are not an answer, and conse
quently not a refusal. He renews his petition, using the
term of endearment: to 7rai8iov fiov, my little one, which
renders his request more touching. Jesus yields to the faith
which breathes in his prayer, but so as to raise this faith
immediately to a higher degree. There are at once a partial
granting and refusing which form a trial in the answer : " Go
thy way, thy son liveth." The cure is granted, but without
Jesus leaving Cana ; He wishes now to be believed on His
word. Hitherto the father had believed on the testimony of
others. Henceforth his faith is to rest on a better foundation,
on the personal contact which he has had with the Lord Him
self. For the term iraihiov, Jesus substitutes that of 1/105, son ;
it is the term of dignity ; it expresses the worth of the child,
as representing the family. The father with faith lays hold
of the promise of Jesus — that is to say, of Jesus Himself in
His word ; the trial is successfully met.
Vv. 51—53. "And as lie was now going down, his servants
met4 him, and told6 him, saying,6 Thy son liveth? Then
inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And
they said unto him, Yesterday}1 at the seventh hour the fever left
him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour9 in the
which Jesus said unto him}0 Thy son liveth ; and himself
believed, and his whole house." — The servants, in their report,
use neither the term of endearment (iraiBlov), which would be
too familiar, nor that of dignity (utd?), which would not be
familiar enough, but that of family life : 7rat?, the child ; which
is rightly kept by the T. R. The term chosen, Kop^roTepov,
1 A and some Mnn. read um instead of itxiiiav ; K : va3x.
i Kxi is wanting in X B D It"1" Vg.
3 K : rau Ina-au instead of u . . . lwavs.
* Instead of xirmrwxv, K B C D K L, 20 Mnn. read vnmrtia-xt.
!({D read nyytiXxt for axnyyuXxv.
6 N D b omit Xiyavrt;.
'DKLUn Syr. read mas instead of ¦xais. RABC: xura-j instead of rau.
6 Xfas in 11 Mjj., ixl» in 8.
9(jBC reject the first it.
10 K A B C L omit an.

138 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
suits well the mouth of a man of rank. It is the expression
of well-being, as we sometimes say : excellently. The seventh
hour denotes an hour after mid-day (see on i. 39). But if it
was at this hour that Jesus gave answer to the father, how
had he not returned to his house the same day ? Five or six
leagues only separated him from his dwelling. On the sup
position that %069, yesterday, proves that it was really the day
following, we may explain the delay either by the necessity
of letting his horses rest and the fear of travelling by night,
or by the peace with which his faith inspired him, and the
desire of staying a little longer beside Jesus. But the term
yesterday does not oblige us to suppose that a night had
elapsed since the cure of the child. For the day among the
Hebrews closing at sunset, some hours thereafter the servants
might speak of yesterday.
His faith rises, finally, to the highest degree, that which it
reaches only in virtue of personal experience. Hence the
repetition of the word: and he believed (comp. ii. 11). The
whole house is carried along with the father.
Ver. 54. " This is again the second miracle that Jesus did
when He was come out of Judea into Galilee!' — There is some
thing strange in this mode of expression, and particularly in
the apparent pleonasm, second and again. These peculiarities
betray one of those disguised intentions of which we have
already seen so many instances in this Gospel. A second
miracle took place ; second, in relation to that of Cana (ii. 1
et seq). But had not a great number of miracles taken place
since that one ? True ; and so John adds, to explain the
word second, that the miracle took place again at the time
when Jesus was come out of Judea into Galilee. It was in
this particular respect only that it was the second. The mean
ing is, that each of those two returns was distinguished by a
particular miracle, and that the miracle here related was the
second of the two. Critics like Meyer will find it vain to
repel this view. It is evident that, to the very end, John
shows his anxiety to distinguish the two returns which the
synoptical tradition had confounded, and of which those two
notable miracles were the monuments.
Irenaeus, Semler, de Wette, Baur, and Ewald identify this
miracle with the healing of the Roman centurion's servant

CHAP. IV. 54. 139
(Matt. viii. 5; Luke vii. 3); and as to difference of detail,
prefer, some, the account of the Synoptics; others, that of John.
In both cases the cure is wrought at a distance ; that is all
the two events have in common. Why should not this form
of miracle have been repeated several times ? As to the rest,
everything is different, even opposed. Here, a father and his
son ; there, a master and his servant : here, a Jew ; there,
a Gentile : here, it is at Cana ; there, at Capernaum, that the
event takes place. And what is more essential still than
the external details : here, the father wishes Jesus to come to
his house ; there, the centurion deprecates it absolutely : here,
Jesus utters a censure on the disordered tendency of Galilean
faith ; there, He celebrates the faith of the Gentile centurion as
an incomparable example to the people of Israel. How is it
possible to identify two such accounts, which are not only
different in details, but wholly opposed in substance ?
This 54th verse closes the cycle begun at ii. 12, as its
counterpart ii. 11 concluded the cycle opened at i. 19. Let us,
in closing, cast a glance at the path we have traversed : Of the
two cycles embraced in this first part of our Gospel (i. 1 9— ii. 1 1,
and ii. 12— i v. 54), the first describes the transition from the
private life of Jesus to His public ministry ; the second, the
beginnings of His work after His public appearance.
The first contains three narratives, — 1st. The testimonies of
the Baptist ; 2d. The coming to Jesus of His first disciples ;
3d. The marriage feast of Cana. The course of events is here
a directly ascending one, whether we consider the revelation
of Jesus (testimony, personal manifestation, and miraculous
manifestation), or if we consider faith (see i. 37, i. 51, ii. 11).
The second cycle contains five narratives, — 1st. The purifi
cation of the temple ; 2d. The interview with Nicodemus ;
3d. The forerunner's last testimony; 4th. The sojourn in
Samaria; 5th. The healing of the nobleman's son, — each pre
ceded by a short -preface, in which the general situation
is sketched (ii. 12, 13, ii. 23-25, iii. 22-24, iv. 1-3,
iv. 45). The course of things is no longer simply progressive,
as in the first cycle, for from this time forward the abnormal
fact of unbelief intervenes and fetters the development of faith,
The course of the revelation of Jesus is as follows : — His
Messianic experiment in the temple is met with national

140 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
unbelief. But if Israel can reject Jesus as its Messiah, it
cannot hinder Him from being the gift of the Father for the
salvation of the world. It is in this character that Jesus
reveals Himself to Nicodemus. The Baptist's final discourse
confirms this supreme dignity of Jesus, and for the last time
calls the attention of Israel to the danger to which it is
exposed by refusing as its Messiah the highest messenger, the
Son. In Samaria, Jesus reveals Himself boldly as the Christ,
because He knows that this title is not exposed to the same
misunderstandings among the Samaritans. And what proves
thoroughly that He is understood is, that the new believers
celebrate Him here as the Saviour of the world (ver. 42).
Finally, on setting foot again on Israelitish soil, He opens
with a second miracle that Galilean ministry, rather of a pro
phetic than royal character, by which He proceeds henceforth
to prepare for His new Messianic manifestation, that of His
royal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Day. The phases of the
revelation of Jesus are therefore the following : — He presents
Himself as the national Messiah ; then He disappears as such,
here to show Himself to the eyes of faith as the Son of God
and Saviour of the world, there to put on for a while the
humble form of the prophet of Galilee.
The attitude of men face to face with this revelation is
twofold : faith reigns in the first cycle ; in the second, un
belief appears at its side. It is the latter which gives answer
to Jesus in the temple ; it is to it that the forerunner's severe
warning is addressed. On the other hand, faith continues to
show itself in the conduct of Nicodemus and in that of
the Samaritans. Thus an alternation begins of dark and
bright pictures. The last narrative, finally, shows us among
the Galileans an attitude which it is difficult to classify : it is
faith ; but a faith which, from the external nature of its prin
ciple, viz. miracles, may change either into living faith or into
declared unbelief.
We stand, therefore, in this first part of the Gospel, at the
dawn of the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah and as the
Son of God (comp. xx. 30, 31), and at the same time at the
birth of faith as well as at that of unbelief, those two results
which ever move side by side with divine revelations.

SECOND PAKT.
V. l-XII. 50.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNBELIEF IN ISRAEL.
UP to this point, decided faith and unbelief have been only
exceptional phenomena ; the masses have remained in a
state of passive indifference or of purely outward admiration.
From this time the situation takes a more definite character.
Jesus continues to make known the Father, to manifest what
He Himself is to humanity. This revelation meets with grow
ing resistance, and, by becoming more pronounced, contributes
even to strengthen it. The development of this abnormal
fact, unbelief, becomes the prevailing feature of the history
(v.-xii). Faith shows itself still; but compared with the
powerful and rapid current which bears the nation along, it is
like a weak and imperceptible eddy.
It is in Judea especially that the development of unbelief
takes place. Elsewhere, no doubt, antipathy appears ; but
Jerusalem is the centre of resistance. The reason of this is easy
to understand. In the capital, as well as in the whole province
of Judea which depends on it, there is found a well-disciplined
population, whose fanaticism is ready to support its rulers in
the most violent course which their hatred shall pursue.
Jesus Himself depicts this state of things in the Synoptics by
the keen words : " It cannot be that a prophet perish out of
Jerusalem" (Luke xiii. 33). And if the Baptist was sacrificed
by the sword of Herod, we have seen, iv. 1, that very pro
bably it was the Pharisees and scribes who had delivered up
to him Iris victim.
This observation explains the relatively considerable place
which is occupied with the journeys to Jerusalem in our
Gospel. General tradition, which forms the basis of the three
synoptical narratives, was moulded to suit the wants of
141

142 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
popular evangelization, the gospel mission : it consequently
set in relief those events which had really contributed to the
establishment of faith. What had not issued in this result
was of small importance in the popular narrative. Now it
was in Galilee, the province comparatively independent of the
centre, that the ministry of Jesus exercised its creative power
and produced positive results. In this generally well-disposed
sphere, where Jesus was no longer face to face with an
organized resistance, He was able to speak as a simple mis
sionary, to give free scope to those discourses inspired by
some scene of nature, to those happy and most fitting words,
to those graceful parables, to those lessons related to the
immediate wants of human consciousness, and, in fine, to all
those forms of discourse which easily become the matter of
tradition. There was little of a polemical nature in this
region except with emissaries who came from Judea (Matt.
xv. 1-12 ; Mark iii. 22, vii. 1 ; Luke v. 17, and vi 1-7).
At Jerusalem, on the contrary, the hostile element with
which Jesus found Himself surrounded, obliged Him to keep
up an incessant controversy. In this situation, undoubtedly,
the testimony which He bore to Himself took more salient
forms and more ample proportions. But the apologetic
standpoint of those discourses rendered them less popular;
and the infinitesimal result of all this activity in Judea
prevented it from taking its place in the description traced
by primitive narratives. Hence, undoubtedly, it is that the
sojourns at Jerusalem have almost entirely disappeared, not
only from apostolical tradition, but also from the writings
which contain it, our Synoptics. The Apostle John, who
related the evangelic history, not from the standpoint of its
practical result in the foundation of the church, but from
that of the revelation of Jesus Himself, as well as of the
unbelief and faith of which this revelation had been the
object, naturally required to draw the journeys to Jerusalem
from the background where they had been left. Those
sojourns in the capital had paved the way for the final
catastrophe, that great event the memory of which alone the
traditional narrative had preserved. According to the plan
which the evangelist had marked out, he required to relate
them with the greatest care. It was then that Jesus had

CHAP. V.-XII. 143
manifested His glory most brilliantly, when face to face with
His incensed adversaries. Each of those journeys had marked
a new stage in the hardening of Israel. These sojourns,
destined to form the bond between the Messianic bride and
bridegroom, had served in reality only to hasten that long
and complete divorce between Jehovah and His people which
lasts still. It is clear that from the standpoint of the fourth
Gospel the journeys to Jerusalem could not but occupy a
preponderating place in the narrative.
Let us cast a glance at the general course of the history
in this part. The successive points of departure are three
miracles wrought in Judea : the healing of the impotent man
at Bethesda, ch. v. ; that of the man born blind, ix. ; and
the resurrection of Lazarus, xi. Each of those facts, instead
of gaining for Jesus the faith of the witnesses, becomes in
them the signal for a more violent outbreak of hatred and
unbelief. Jesus has characterized this tragical result in that
rebuke of His which is full at once of sweetness and bitter
ness (x. 32) : "Many good works have I showed you from my
Father ; for which of those works do ye stone me ?" These,
indeed, are the connecting links of the narrative. Each time
the miraculous deed is followed by a series of conversations
and discourses related to the sign which has given rise to
them; and the discussion recommences in the following
sojourn. Thus the strife begun ch. v., on occasion of the
healing of the impotent man, recommences with the sojourn
of Jesus at the feast of Tabernacles (vii., comp. 19-24, and
viii.) ; thus also the discourses which relate to the healing of
the man born blind are partly repeated at the feast of Dedi
cation, ch. x. (second part). This arises from the fact that
Jesus takes care each time to leave Jerusalem before matters
have come to the last extremity ; consequently, the sound of
the conflict which arose during one stay, re-echoes in the
following one.
The arrangement of the narrative thus appears to us to be
as follows : — In ch. v., the struggle, vaguely announced iv.
1, 2, breaks out in Judea in consequence of the healing of
the impotent man. Jesus, to prevent a threatening cata
strophe, retires to Galilee, and gives time for the hatred of the
Jews to cool down. But in Galilee He finds -unbelief also,

144 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
only in a different form (ch. vi). In Judea, He is hated,
men desire His death; in Galilee, they are content with
abandoning Him. Here there was no jealousy, the stimulant
of an active hatred : unbelief proceeded only from the carnal
spirit of the people, whose aspirations were disappointed in
Jesus. With the journey to the feast of Tabernacles (ch. vii.)
the struggle formerly opened recommences in Judea; in
ch. viii. it attains the highest degree of intensity. This is
the first phase, ch. v.— viii — Ch. ix. opens the second. The
healing of the man born blind furnishes new food to the
hatred of His adversaries ; nevertheless, in spite of their
growing fury, the conflict already loses some of its violence,
because Jesus begins to retire voluntarily from the battle-field.
Till then He had sought to act upon the hostile element;
henceforth He gives it over to itself; only in proportion as
He breaks with the ancient flock, He labours to recruit the
new one. The discourses which refer to this second phase go
to the end of ch. x. — The third is indicated by the resur
rection of Lazarus ; this event puts the copestone on the fury
of the Jews, and drives them to an extreme measure ; they
formally decree the death of Jesus; and soon afterwards,
His royal entry into Jerusalem at the head of His adherents
(xii.) hastens the execution of the sentence. This last phase
comprehends ch. xi— xii. 36. This is the point of time
at which Jesus wholly abandons Israel to its blindness and
retires from the conflict: "And departing, He hid Himself
from them." This, therefore, is the close of our Lord's public
ministry. The evangelist takes advantage of this tragical
moment to cast a retrospective look at this mysterious fact of
Jewish unbelief, now morally consummated ; he shows that
the result had nothing unexpected in it, and unveils its pro
found causes, xii. 37-50.
Thus the idea of this part and the three perfectly graduated
cycles of the history unfold precisely as follows : —
1st. v.- viii. The outbreak of the conflict.
2d. ix., x. The growing exasperation of the Jews.
3d. xi., xii. The ripe fruit of this hatred, a fruit already
visible from the outset (v. 16-18) : the sentence of death on
Jesus. The concatenation of those three cycles is purely historical.

CHAP. V.-VIII. 145
The often-renewed attempt, one made even by Luthardt, to
arrange this part systematically according to certain ideas,
such as those of life, light, and love, is defeated by the fol
lowing fact : — The idea of life, which prevails in ch. v. and
vi., appears anew with brilliance in ch. x. and xi., and that
after the idea of light has been specially conspicuous in ch.
viii. and ix. That of love is not put prominently forward till
ch. xiii., in another part of the Gospel, which is connected
with the history as a whole by an entirely different organic
bond. Such divisions proceed from the laboratory of theo
logians, but they clash with the simplicity of apostolic testi
mony, which is the pure reflection of history. The teaching
of Jesus corresponds at every point with the given circum
stances which are in His view the signal of the Father. In
ch. v., He represents Himself as the quickener who can
restore humanity spiritually and physically, because He has
just been restoring to life the members of an impotent man ;
in ch. vi., He offers Himself as the bread of life, because He
is speaking on occasion of the multiplication of the loaves;
in ch. vii. and viii., He presents Himself as the living
water and as the light of the world, because the feast of
Tabernacles recalled the water brought from the rock, and the
pillar of fire in the wilderness. Unless we choose to go the
length of Baur, and hold that the facts are invented to illus
trate ideas, we must renounce the attempt to find a logical
arrangement in the discourses which have these facts for their
occasion and text.

FIRST CYCLE.
V.-VIII.
This cycle embraces three sections, —
1st. Ch. v. The beginning of the conflict in Judea.
2d. Ch. vi. The crisis of faith in Galilee.
3d. Ch. vii. viii. The renewal and continuation of the
conflict in Judea.
If, as we shall see, the event related ch. v. passed at the
feast of Purim in March, those of ch. vi. and vii. trans-
GODET II. K JOHN.

146 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
porting us, the first to the feast of Passover in April, the
second to that of Tabernacles in October, it follows that this
first cycle covers a space of from seven to eight months which
passed without interruption in Galilee. If to this very con
siderable period we add the months which had passed since
December of the previous year (iv. 35), we thus arrive at a
continuous stay in Galilee of nearly ten months (December to
October), which was only broken by the short journey to
Jerusalem of ch. v. Of this ten months' Galilean activity,
John mentions only a single incident : the multiplication of
the loaves (ch. vi.). It is therefore into this space of time,
left blank by him, that it is natural to insert the greater part
of the Galilean ministry described by the Synoptics.

FIRST SECTION.
V. 1-47.  FIRST OUTBREAK OF HATRED IN JUDEA.
1. The miracle which is the occasion of the conflict, w.
1-16 ; 2. The discourse of Jesus, forming a commentary and
defence of the miracle, vv. 17-47.
I. The Miracle. — w. 1-16.
Ver. 1. "After these things there was a feast1 of the Jews,
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." — The connection p,erh
ravra, after these things, does not seem to us, notwithstand
ing the examples quoted by Meyer, to indicate a succession
so immediate as would be done by p,erd touto, after that. —
To whatever feast the following event relates, it must have
been separated from the preceding return by a pretty long
intervaL The Jewish feast which came next after the
month of December, excepting that of the Dedication (end
of December), which cannot be thought of here, was that of
Purim in March. If we read the art. 17 before eopr^, " the
feast," the meaning is not doubtful ; it is the feast of Pass-
' T. R. reads upm {a feast), with ABDGKSUVta Mnn. Ir. Or. Chrys.
and Tisch. (ed. 1859) ; the art. n beforo tapm {the feast) is found in N C E F H
L M A n, 50 Mnn. Cop. Sah. some Fathers, Tisch. (8th ed.).

chap. v. 1. 147
over, the principal of the Jewish feasts, and the best known
to Greek readers (vi. 4). But the question must be asked,
whether the very thing that has been done has not been to
substitute for the vague expression "a feast" the definite
one "the feast," according to ii. 13 and vi. 4, under the con
viction that the Passover was the feast in question. Why
would so great a number of documents have rejected the
article ? It is much easier to understand why it has been
added by the others. If the art. the is rejected, not only is
there no other argument in favour of the Passover, but this
feast is even positively excluded. Why should John not
name it as well as in ch. ii., vi., and xii. ? Moreover, im
mediately afterwards, in vi. 4, mention is made of a Passover
during which Jesus remains in Galilee. We should thus
require to assume a whole year's space between ch. v. and
vi. of which John says not a word, — a very improbable sup
position. Finally, ch. vii. (vv. 19-24), Jesus still labours to
justify Himself for healing the impotent man related ch. v. :
Would He return to this event after the lapse of a year
and a half? Ch. iv. (ver. 35) placed us in the month of
December; ch. vi. (ver. 4) indicates the month of April.
Between those two dates, what more natural than to think of
the feast of Purim, which was celebrated in March ? This
feast referred to the deliverance of the Jews by Queen Esther.
It was not of divine institution like the three great feasts,
and was not put in the same rank ; the expression : a feast,
finds a very sufficient explanation in this fact. As it was
much less known than the others outside of the Jewish
people, and as on account of its political nature it had lost
its importance for the church, it was needless to name it.
Against a journey of Jesus to this feast two things are
alleged: 1st. The absence of divine institution. But in
ch. x. Jesus repairs to the feast of Dedication, which was
no Mosaic ordinance either. 2d. The noisy and mundane
character of the rejoicings with which it was accompanied,
which would have rendered this stay at Jerusalem useless.
But Jesus had doubtless the intention of remaining in Judea
till the feast of Passover, which must be celebrated soon after.
It was the conflict which arose on occasion of His healing
the impotent man which forced Him to return immediately to

148 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Galilee. The mundane character of the feast was not opposed
to this plan : it was worthier of Jesus, the true Patriot, to
sanctify the great national and political feast than to flee
from it. Although, therefore, de Wette pronounces his
verdict by averring " that there is not a single good reason
to give for the feast of Purim," it seems to me, on the
contrary, that everything speaks in favour of this view, which
is that of Hug, Olshausen, Wieseler, Meyer, Lange, Gess, etc.
— Irenaeus, Luther, Grotius, Lampe, Neander, Hengstenberg,
etc., decide in favour of the Passover. Chrysostom, Calvin,
Bengel, Hilgenfeld, etc., prefer Pentecost. But the absence
of the article does not find a natural explanation if the
feast in question is one of the three best known. If we
decide for Pentecost, the saying, vi. 4 : the Passover was nigh,
would suppose between v. 1 and vi. 1 a lapse of more than
ten months about which John kept complete silence. Ebrard,
Ewald, Lichtenstein, and Riggenbach (doubtfully) pronounce
for the feast of Tabernacles. Of all the suppositions this is
the most improbable, for this feast is expressly named vii.
2 : i) eoprrj tS)v 'IovSalav, 97 crKTjvoTTTjyia. Why should not
John have named it here as well as there? Liicke, de
Wette, and Luthardt regard the determination of the question
as impossible.
This question has more importance than appears at first
sight. If we apply v. 1 to the feast of Purim, as we think
should be done, the framework of the history of Jesus is
contracted: two years and a half suffice to include all its
dates: iv. 35, December (first year); v. 1, March; vi. 4,
April; vii. 1, October; x. 22, December (second year); xii. 1,
April (third Passover). If, on the contrary, v. 1 denotes
a Passover feast, or one of those which followed it in the
Jewish year, we are forced to fix on three years and a half
as the duration of our Lord's ministry. — Gess places this
journey of Jesus to Jerusalem during the period of the
mission of the Twelve in Galilee (Matt. xi. 1 ; Mark vi. 12).
Jesus, he thinks, went to Judea alone. This combination has
nothing improbable in it (see ver. 1 3). John's absence would
explain the want of details in the following narrative. — Is
not Beyschlag well entitled to allege in favour of John's
narrative the naturally articulated course which it follows

CHAP. V. 2. 149
(Judea, ch. i. ; Galilee, ii. ; Judea, iii. ; Samaria, iv.a ; Galilee,
iv? ; Judea, v. ; Galilee, vi. ; Judea, x., etc.), in opposition to
the contrast presented so stiffly and without transition in
the Synoptics : Galilee, Judea ?
Ver. 2. "Now there is at Jerusalem by1 the sheep-gate2 a
pool, which is called3 in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda} having
five porches." — The Sinait. rejects the words eVt rfj, by the, and
thus makes the adj. TrpoBanK^, pertaining to sheep, the epithet
of Ko\vp,Brjdpa, the sheep-pool. This reading is too weakly
supported to be admitted even in the view of Tischendorf.
We must therefore understand as the substantive of the adj.
nrpoBaTiKrj, pertaining to sheep, one of the substantives, irvXri,
gate, or dyopa, market. The passages of Neh. iii. 1-32, xii.
39, where mention is made of a sheep-gate, favour the first
supposition. In Neh. iii. 3, mention is also made Of a fish-
gate, as near the preceding ; it is probable that the two gates
took their names from the adjoining markets. The sheep-
gate must have been situated on the side of the valley of
Jehoshaphat, on the east of the city. As M. Bovet says,
" the small cattle which entered Jerusalem certainly came in
by the east; for it is on this side that the immense pastures
of the wilderness of Judea lie." This gate, as Hengstenberg
observes, according to Neh. xii. 39, 40, must have been very
near the temple ; for it is from the sheep-gate that the pro
cession of the priests, in the ceremony of inaugurating the
walls, passed immediately into the sacred enclosure. The
gate, called at the present day St. Stephen's, at the north-east
angle of the Haram, answers to all these demands. M. de
Saulcy ( Voyage autour de la mer Morte, t. ii. pp. 367 and
368) holds, from some passages of St. Jerome and authors
of the Middle Ages, that there were in this place two pools
near one another; and understanding Ko\vp,B^Pa, he explains:
" Near the sheep-pool, there is the pool called Bethesda." In
spite of the triumphant5 tone with which this explanation
1 Instead of wi, A D G L read it.
2 K Vg""', some Mnn. reject ivi rx. Syr0™' Syr"* Cyr. omit sm ru vrpatZxrixv.
3 Instead of tt ivri).iyapivvi, X reads ra Xsya/xivav, D V Mnn. Xiyopivn.
* Instead of BnhirSx, a L, 1 Mn. read BrJ&Sa ; Eus. B«%xtx ; B Vg. BnSa-xitx •
D, Bii^llx.
5 Here are his expressions : "It is very curious to see the incredible efforts
which commentators have made to understand this verse. . . . They have been,

150 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
is given forth, it is inadmissible. The expression of the
evangelist, thus understood, would suppose that his Greek
readers knew this alleged sheep-pool, which is not once named
in the 0. T.1 Meyer, accepting the reading of the Sinait. to
~keyop,evov eBpaio-n Brjd^dda, explains : " There is near the
sheeji-pool the place called in Hebrew Bethzatha." But once
again, how can we suppose that a place so unknown as the
sheep-pool could be indicated as the guiding point to Greek
readers ? The feminine eypvaa which follows is, besides, far
from being in keeping with this reading, which is only an
awkward correction, like so many others met with in this
manuscript. — Bengel and Lange have concluded from the
pres. eaTi, there is, that the Gospel was written before the
destruction of Jerusalem. But this present may be inspired
by the vividness of recollection ; and besides, a pool is a per
manent thing belonging to the nature of the place, and may
survive a catastrophe. Tobler (Denkblatter, p. 53 et seq.) has
proved that the porches mentioned here were still shown in
the fifth century. — Hengstenberg concludes from the itri,
super, in the word iirCXeyop^ivv, " swrnamed," that the pool bore
another name besides. But it is perfectly easy to suppose
that John regards the word pool as the name, and Bethesda
as the swrname. — The words : in Hebrew, denote the Aramaic,
which became the popular language after the return from the
captivity. — The most natural etymology of the word Bethesda
is certainly NlDn TVO, house of mercy; whether the name
alludes to the munificence of some pious Jew who had con
structed those porches as a shelter for the sick, or whether
it relates to the goodness of God from which this healing
spring proceeded. Delitzsch supposed that the etymology
was Beth-estdw (vbdk), peristyle. Others have taken it to be
Beth-Aschada (n"IK>k), place of outpouring (perhaps of the
blood of victims). The Alexandrine variants seem only to
be gross corruptions. (See those of B and D.) — It might
be supposed that the porches were five isolated buildings
all alike happy in their conjectures ; it was the word xaXuftfatpx which needed
to be understood, and all became clear." — M. de Saulcy holds that, according
to Brocardus, the second pool was situated west from the first. The passage
quoted would rather prove that it must have been to the north.
1 If this explanation be persisted in, it would be better to take xaXv/i^titpx as
* dative, and to derive from it the nominative, the subject of ten.

o

CHAP. V. 2. 151
arranged in a circle round the pool. But it is more natural
to consider it one single edifice forming a pentagonal peristyle,
in the centre of which was the reservoir. — Some springs of
mineral water are known at the present day at the east of the
city of Jerusalem ; among others, west from the enclosure of
the temple in the Mahometan quarter, the baths of Ain-es-
Schefa (Bitter, vol. iv. p. 157, T. & T. Clark, Edin.). Tobler
has proved that this spring is fed by the large chamber of
water situated under the mosque which has replaced the
temple. Another better known spring is found at the foot
of the south-eastern slope of Moriah ; it is called the Virgin
Spring. About this pond we have two principal accounts,
those of Tobler and Robinson. The spring is very inter
mittent. The basin is sometimes quite dry ; then the water
is seen springing up among the stones. On the 21st of
January 1845, Tobler saw the water rise 4^ inches, with a
gentle undulation. On the 14th of March it rose for more
than twenty-two minutes to the height of 6 or 7 inches, and
came down again in two minutes to its previous level.
Robinson saw the water rise a foot in five minutes. A
woman assured him that this movement is repeated at
certain times twice or thrice a day, but that in summer it
is seldom observed more than once in two or three days.
These phenomena present a certain analogy to what is related
of the Bethesda spring. Eusebius speaks also of springs
existing in this locality, the water of which was reddish.
This colour, which is evidently due to mineral elements, was
owing, according to him, to the filtering of the blood of
victims into it. Tradition places the pool of Bethesda in a
great square hollow surrounded by walls and situated to the
north of the Haram, south from the street which leads from
the St. Stephen's Gate. It is called Birket-Israil ; it is about
2 3 yards in depth, 44 yards in breadth, and more than double
in length. The bottom is dry, filled with grass and shrubs.
Robinson supposed that it was a fosse, formerly belonging to
the fortifications of the castle Antonia. This supposition is
rejected by several competent authorities. However this may
be, Bethesda must have stood in the immediate vicinity of
this locality, for here the sheep-gate (see above) was situated.
As it is impossible to identify the pool of Bethesda with any

152 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
one of the thermal springs of which we have been speaking,
it must have been covered with dibris, or have disappeared, as
so often happens in the case of intermittent springs. Those
which are found at the present day prove only how favourable
the soil is to this sort of phenomena.1
Vv. 3, 4. "In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk,
of blind, halt, withered} waiting for the moving of the water?
[For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and
troubled the water: ivhosoever then first, after the troubling of
the water, stepped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease lie
had.] " 4 — The spectacle presented by this portico surrounding
the pool is reproduced almost de visu by M. Bovet, when he
describes the baths of Ibrahim, near Tiberias : " The hall in
which the spring is found is surrounded by several porticos,
in which we see a multitude of people crowded one above
another, laid on couches or rolled in blankets, with lamentable
expressions of misery and suffering. . . . The pool is of white
marble, of a circular form, and covered by a cupola supported
by pillars ; the interior of the basin is surrounded by a bench
on which persons may sit." At Bethesda, undoubtedly, there
was no other descent to the pool than a narrow staircase
(ver. 7). Sivpoi properly designates those who have some
limb affected with atrophy, or, according to the common
expression, wasting away (decroit). The end of w. 3 and 4,
which are wanting in most of the Alex. Mss., are rejected
by Tischendorf, Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, and Meyer. The
great number of variations, and the marks of doubt with
which the passage is found in several Mss., speak in favour
1 Joseph. Bell. jud. (not Antiq. as Meyer says, by mistake), x. 5. 4, speaks
of two pools named Strouthion and Amygdalon; the former near the castle
Antonia, at the north-west of the temple ; the latter, at the north of the temple.
Bethesda must have been situated not far from this, towards the north-east
corner. 2 D a b add to %npuv : TxpxXunxuv.
3 N A B C L Syr"ur Sah. some Mnn. omit the end of ver. 3 from txh^'fuut
{waiting) inclusive. It is found in D I r a A n, and 9 other Mjj. Mnn. It.
Syr"oh. 4 The whole of ver. 4 is rejected by N B C D It"11' Syr™' Sah. some Mnn.
Besides, the text in the other Mss. presents an exceptional number of varia
tions : instead of yap : xxi (L It*1'') ; instead of ayyiXat : xyy. xupnu (A K L
It»"' yg_ 30 Mnn.) ; instead of xxnframv ; ihamrt (A K n) ; instead of trxpxa-n :
iTxpxtmrt (several Mjj.), etc.

CHAP. V. 5-7. 153
of its rejection. The defenders of the authenticity of the
passage explain its omission in the Alex, by a> dogmatic
antipathy which they say betrayed itself in a similar omission,
Luke xxii. 43, 44 (the appearance of the angel in Geth-
semane). In no case would this supposition apply to the
Sinait., which has the passage of Luke complete, nor to the
Alexandrine, which in our passage reads ver. 4. The Vat.
alone presents the two omissions together, which evidently
does not suffice to justify the suspicion expressed above. We
think, with Ewald, that the true reading is that which is
preserved in the Cantabrig. and in numerous Mss. of the
Itala ; it preserves the end of ver. 3, and omits the whole of
ver. 4. Certainly the words : waiting for the moving of the
water, might easily give rise to a gloss. Hence the very
ancient interpolation of ver. 4, a verse which is found so
early as one of the Syriac Vss. (SyrBch), and to which
Tertullian seems to allude (de Bapt. c. 5). It expressed the
popular opinion regarding the periodical moving of the water.
Part of the Alex, rightly omitted ver. 4, but, at the same
time", wrongly rejected the last words of ver. 3, which had
given occasion to the gloss. I say wrongly, for ver. 7 almost
necessarily supposes the authenticity of those words. — With
what right, then, can M. Reuss declare " that the authenticity
of this passage has been vainly disputed," unless it be a
right of criticism to ascribe to every biblical writer as many
superstitions as possible ? — According to the authentic text,
there is nothing supernatural in the phenomenon of Bethesda.
The whole is reduced to the intermitting action so frequently
observed in thermal waters. It is known, moreover, that such
waters have the greatest efficacy at the moment when they
spring up, put in ebullition by the increased action of the
gas. — Hengstenberg holds the intervention of the angel, and
does not scruple to apply the same explanation to all thermal
waters. But in this case we must hold a singular exaggera
tion in the terms of ver. 4. For no mineral water instan
taneously cures the sick and all sick.
Vv. 5-7. "And a certain man was tliere} who had his2
1 X alone omits txti.
'KBCDL ItP'eri'ue,' some Mnn. read (after xtlmix) xurau, which is omitted
by T. R. with A I r A A n, and 9 other Mjj.

154 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him
lie} and knew that he had been now a long time in that case,
He saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole ? The impotent
man answered Him, Sir} I have no man, when the water is
troubled, to put 3 me into the pool : but while I am coming,
another steppeth down before me." — The duration of the illness
is mentioned, either to show how inveterate and difficult to
heal it was, or rather, according to ver. 6, to explain the deep
compassion with which Jesus was affected on beholding the
unhappy man. — "E^pv might be taken in the intransitive
sense (do-dev&s e^ety) ; but the construction is so like that
of ver. 6, where xpovov is evidently the object of e^et, that
it is preferable to make hr\ the object of eywz/ : " Having
a thirty- eight years' illness." A man has what he has
suffered. Jesus appears here suddenly, and as it were stepping out
of a sort of incognito. What a difference between this
unobtrusive arrival and His entry into the temple at the
first Passover, ii. 13 et seq. ! It is no more as the Messiah
that He comes ; He is a simple pilgrim. — Meyer translates
yvovs : having learned, as if Jesus had received information.
This meaning is contrary to the spirit of the text. Tvom
indicates one of those instantaneous perceptions by which the
truth became known to Jesus according as the task of the
moment demanded. Ver. 14 will show that the whole life
of the sufferer is present to the eye of Jesus, as that of
the Samaritan woman was in ch. iv. — The long time might
be that of his waiting at Bethesda; for the man no doubt
had himself carried there daily for a considerable time past
(ver. 7). But it is more probable that the expression relates
to the duration of the illness, and refers to the thirty-eight
years of ver. 5 : thus is explained the sameness of the con
struction. — The feast of Purim was celebrated among the
Jews by works of beneficence and presents. It was the day
of largesses. On Purim day, said a Jew, children are refused
nothing. Jesus enters into the spirit of the feast, as we
shall see Him doing, ch. vi. and vii., in regard to the rites
1 N alone reads xtxxu/i.tvav (]).
8 E F G H Syr™*, some Mnn. read vxi {yea) before xupu.
* T. R. reads /3«ax» with some Mnn. only ; all the Mjj. read /3«Xti.

CHAP. V. 8-13. 155
observed at the feasts of Passover and of Tabernacles. His
compassion, awakened by the sight of this man lying there
and abandoned (/caTaiceifievov), and by the contemplation of
the life of suffering which had preceded this time (*/§??),
impels Him to dispense a largess also, and to work on him
spontaneously a work of mercy. His question : " Wilt thou
be made whole ? " is an implied promise. Jesus says to the
man, not BovKei : " Dost thou desire ? " but deket? : " Art
thou really determined to . . . ?" For the desire is not
doubtful, but energy of will seems to be wanting. It can
only be restored by means of faith. On the one hand, by
questioning him thus, Jesus draws the sufferer, as Lange says,
from the dark despondency into which his long and useless
waiting had plunged him, and revives his hope ; on the other,
it withdraws his mind from the source of cure to which it
was exclusively attached, and impresses him with the
thought of a new one. The sufferer is thus put into moral
connection with the person of Jesus, who is to become his
true Bethesda. Comp. the similar saying of Peter to the
lame man, Acts iii. 4 : " Look on us." — The man's answer
by no means supposes the authenticity of ver. 4, and is suffi
ciently explained by the intermittent ebullition of the spring.
Vv. 8, 9. " Jesus saith unto him, Rise} take up thy bed,}
and walk. And immediately3 the man was made whole} and
took up his bed, and walked : and on the same day was the
Sabbath." — The word icpdBBaTo<; comes from the Macedonian
dialect (Passow). — The imperfect he walked, paints dramati
cally the joy afforded by the recovered power.
Vv. 10-13. "The Jews therefore said to him that was cured,
It is the Sabbath day ; it is not lawful for thee to carry thy
bed. He answered them} He that made me whole, the same
said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk? Then asked they
1 T. R. reads tyupxi, with U V r A Mnn. ; the others : tyupi.
a T. R. with V and several Mnn. : xpxfijixrav ; 17 Mjj. . xpalixrrav ; N : "pa-
fixxrov ; E : xpxf&xrot.
3 a D alone omit tuhus.
4 N It"11' read here xxi ny-pfa {and arose).
0 Instead of xmxpifa, A B : a; Ss, and C G K L a : a Si, xvixpih ; fc? : o h
a-TTlxpivxro. 6 Instead of xpav and vspifxru, N reads in this verse and the following one
apxi and xipixxruv. — X B C L omit tov xpx£$xrav a-all.

156 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
him, What man is that which said unto thee, Take up thy bed,
and walk ? But he that was healed * wist not wlio it was : for
Jesus had conveyed Himself away} a multitude being in that
place." 8 — The deed of Jesus might seem to contravene the
letter of the law : for it was a Sabbath day. The Rabbins
distinguished thirty kinds of work forbidden by the fourth
commandment. The act of bearing a piece of furniture, and
that of healing, except in cases of pressing danger, were
expressly excluded by their tradition. Hence the rebuke
addressed to the man by the Jews, who, though wrongly,
identify the rabbinical explanation of the Mosaic command
ment with its real meaning. — The impotent man very logically
shelters his action under the authority of Him who miracu
lously gave him the power to do it. — The question of the
Jews is reported with minute accuracy. They do not ask :
" Who made thee whole ? " The fact of the miracle, sur
prising as it was, affects them very little. But the contra
vention of their sabbatical statute, that is what deserves
attention ! We recognise the spirit of the 'IovSaloi (ver. 10).
— The aor. ladefc forcibly expresses the time when the
sufferer acquired the consciousness of his cure, and looked
about for his benefactor ; while the perfect TedepaTrevfiivos
(ver. 10) simply denoted the fact of the cure which had been
wrought, as it presented itseK to the eyes of the Jews at the
time when they were speaking to the man. The reading
adopted by Tischendorf (d dadevwv) has no intrinsic value,
and is not sufficiently supported. — The object of Jesus in
withdrawing so quickly, was to escape the noise and flocking
together of crowds ; He feared the carnal enthusiasm which
was excited by His miracles. But it does not follow that the
last words : " a multitude being in that place" are intended to
express this motive. They rather show, as Hengstenberg
thinks, the possibility of escape. Jesus easily disappeared in
the midst of the throng who were pressing on one another in
the place. Such, no doubt, is the meaning which the reading
of the Sinait. would express : iv /ilo-p, in the midst of.
Nevertheless it is inadmissible, as well as the other variation
1 Instead of ixtu;, Tisch. reads xa-hwv, with D It.2 only.
t);D read i«wh instead of i£mw(».
8 K alone : ftttv instead of w»,

CHAP. V. 14-16. 157
of the same Ms. in this verse (evevaev). — "EKvevco, strictly : to
make a motion of the head so as to avoid a blow, and hence :
to escape. How can Meyer deny that the aor. here has the
meaning of the pluperfect ? — From this slight remark it may
be concluded that Jesus was not accompanied by His disciples,
which would confirm the idea of Gess (p. 383).
Vv. 14, 15. "Afterward Jesus findeth him1 in the temple,
and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole : sin no more,
lest a worse thing come unto thee. The man departed, and
told 2 the Jews that it was Jesus which had made him vfhole"
— The impotent man had probably come to the temple to pre
sent a thankoffering. The warning which Jesus addresses to
him certainly assumes that his disease had been either the
effect or punishment of sin ; but we must beware of con
cluding from the words, as has been often done, that sickness
always results from the sin of the individual ; in many cases
it may be caused by the deterioration of the collective life of
humanity by sin (see on ix. 3). — By a worse thing than
thirty-eight years' suffering, Jesus can only understand dam
nation. In the discovery which the impotent man makes to the
Jews, we need not see either a communication dictated by
gratitude and a desire to bring the Jews to the faith (Chrysos-
tom, Grotius, etc.), or a malicious denunciation (Schleiermacher,
Lange), or an act of obedience to the authorities (Liicke, de
Wette, Luthardt), or finally, the bold proclamation of a power
superior to theirs (Meyer). It is simply the answer which he
could not give ver. 13, and which he now gives to discharge
his responsibility ; for he himself remained under the accusa
tion so long as he could not refer it to the author of the deed,
and this violation of the Sabbath might draw down on him
the punishment of death, vv. 16, 18. Comp. Num. xv. 35.
Ver. 1 6. " Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus,3 because He
had done these things on the Sabbath day." — Aid tovto, there
fore, resumes what precedes, and at the same time is explained
1 N Syr"" : rat nSipx^rsu/ntat, instead of xurev.
2 Instead of xmyyuXi, D K U a, 20 Mnn. read xnyyu\i ; X C L Syr. Cop. :

tiviv.

'¦ T. R. adds here : xxi iZ,nrcm xurav araxruvxi, with 12 Mjj. the most of tho
Mnn." It.2 Syr"*. These words are omitted in K B C D L It*1"1*" Vg. Syr™
Cop.

158 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
by the phrase which closes the verse : because . . . — The word
Sicoiceiv, to persecute, denotes the seeking of the means to injure.
— In favour of the authenticity of the following words in the
T. R. : and sought to slay Him, the fidXXov, the more, of ver.
18, may be alleged. But it may be said, and with still more
probability, that it is this word of ver. 18 which has sug
gested the gloss.— -The imperfect iirolei, He did, malignantly
expresses the idea that the violation of the Sabbath has
become with Him a sort of maxim : He is in the habit of it.
This idea is wholly lost in the inaccurate translation of Oster-
vald and of Rilliet: " because He had done that." The plural
Tama, these things, refers to the double violation of the Sab
bath by healing and by the burden-bearing.
Let us here remark two analogies between John and the
Synoptics, — 1st. In the latter also Jesus is often obliged to
perform His miracles as it were by stealth, and even to
impose silence on those whom He has cured. 2d. It is also
on occasion of the Sabbatic cures, according to them, that the
conflict breaks out in Galilee (Luke vi 1-11).
II. The Discourse of Jesus. — vv. 17— 47.
In this essentially apologetic discourse the three following
thoughts are developed : —
1st. Jesus justifies His work by the relation of dependence
which exists between His acting and that of His Father,
w. 17-30.
2d. The reality of this relation does not rest solely on the
personal affirmation of Jesus ; it is established by the testi
mony of God Himself, vv. 31—40.
3d. Supported by this testimony of the Father, Jesus
passes from defence to attack, and unveils to the Jews the
moral cause of their unbelief, the absence of the true Mosaic
spirit, vv. 41-47.
1. The Son the Father's Workman. — w. 17-30.
Ver. 17. " Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work." — These words virtually contain the whole of
the following discourse. It is drawn from the profoundest

chap. v. it. 159
depths of Christ's consciousness, and ascends as it were to the
very point of mysterious union between His Father's working
and His own. It is one of those bright rays which resemble
the declaration of Luke ii. 49 : " Wist ye not that I must be in
my Father's ? " or this : " Destroy this temple ..." (John ii.
19). These sudden and immeasurably profound utterances
distinguish the language of Jesus from all others.
The words are usually explained in this sense : " My
Father worketh without disturbing Himself about the Sabbath,
since the creation up to the moment when I speak to you ;
and I do the same." They are applied in this sense either to
the preservation of the world as a continuous creation (M.
Reuss), or to the work of human salvation, which admits of
no interruption (Meyer). Jesus, in that case, would assert
that His working is elevated above the Sabbatic rest as much
as that of God Himself. But if this were the thought of
Jesus, He would have expressed it more clearly : instead of
hitherto, He would have said always. And He could not
have avoided repeating this word in the second member of
the clause : -" My Father . . ., and I also work unceasingly."
But, moreover, this meaning, applied to the Sabbath law,
falsifies the relation of Jesus to that law. " Born under the
law," says Paul of Jesus, Gal. iv. 4. For the same reason he
calls Him a minister of the circumcision (Rom. xv. 8). This
subjection of Jesus to the law ceased only with His death.
It is absolutely impossible to prove that He, in a single case,
contravened a really legal prescription : He cast off the yoke
of human traditions and Pharisaic commentaries, never that
of the law. — Luthardt, to apply the hitherto, contrasts it, not
with the Sabbath of the past, but with the final Sabbath yet
to come : " So long as the hour of the future Sabbath or of
the consummation of salvation has not sounded, I work with
the Father." But, as Meyer remarks, the antithesis here intro
duced by Luthardt between the present time and the future
Sabbath, however true, is indicated by nothing either in the
words of Jesus or in the context.
To apprehend the meaning of this saying, let us explain it,
first of all, apart from the hitherto. " My Father worketh,
and I work." The connection between the two propositions
thus formulated is obvious at a glance. It is enough to com-

160 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
bine logically what is in grammatical juxtaposition. It is as
if it ran : " Since my Father worketh, I, His Son, work also.
My Father is at work ; I, His Son, cannot remain idle."
Here again we find the same paratactic construction as we
have already again and again observed in John, which is
agreeable to the genius of the Hebrew language, and which
consists in expressing simply by the copula and a logical
relation which the genius of the Greek expresses by a con
junction. It is therefore the law of His filial heart which
Jesus expresses by this saying: "My rule is my Father's
work. So long as He works, I work." This relation, so full of
tenderness, is precisely that which is described and developed
in vv. 19 and 20. By this relation of dependence, Jesus
admirably places His work under the shelter of His Father's.
But it was not His work in itself which was found fault with ;
it was the time when He did it ; and hence the reason why
He introduces into His reply the determination of time :
eoj? dpn, hitherto. "My Father worketh up to this very
moment . . . ; I work also." The work of the Son cannot
cease at this hour, since at this very hour the Father is work
ing. When He speaks thus, Jesus alludes neither to the
weekly Sabbath nor to the final Sabbath. This proposition
expresses the absolute, immediate, and permanent fidelity with
which the Son enters every instant into the Father's work.
It is the profoundest law of His being which Jesus here
reveals in this concise and original form. This description is
the opposite of that which characterizes the life of sinful man,
acting from his own initiative (d<j> eavrov, ver. 19).
Does Jesus hereby declare Himself independent of the
Sabbatic law ? He appears to do so ; and M. Reuss seems to
be right in asserting it. But the question practically is,
whether it will ever please the Father to give the Son an
indication to work contrary to the Sabbatic commandment.
Now this is — it can be demonstrated — what never took place,
and what could not happen during the course of the earthly
life of Jesus. For His condition as a Jew, and His office as
Jewish Messiah, made it His sacred duty to observe the law ;
and never could the Father's initiative put Him in the
dilemma of violating the Mosaic form, or of breaking with
His divine model. Hilgenfeld sees the lie given direct in

CHAP. V. 18. 161
this saying to the idea of the rest of God in Genesis. But
this rest refers to the sphere of nature, while the subject in
question here is the work of salvation and the moral educa
tion of the human race. This divine work has for its basis
the very cessation of God from His creative work in nature.
(See Introd. i. p. 171.)
The genius of Socrates stopped him at the moment when
he was about to act contrary to the will of the gods ; its
action was purely negative. The relation here described has
some slight analogy to that, but surpasses it infinitely. What
Jesus feels is a positive impulse to act, springing from the
view which He has of God's acting. What an Apology ! It
was to say to His adversaries in the humblest form : In
accusing me, it is my Father whom you accuse. It is the
Legislator whom you reproach with the transgression of His
law ; for my acting is only an obeying of His.
Ver. 18. " Therefore1 the Jeivs sought the more to kill Him,
because He not only broke the Sabbath, but said also that God was
His Father, making Himself equal with God." — The 8id tovto,
therefore, is explained by the on, because, which follows. —
According to the true reading in ver. 16, the notion of killing
was not yet expressed in that verse ; it was only contained
implicitly in ihlcoKov, they persecuted. But it suffices fully to
explain the p,dXKov, the more, of ver. 1 8. Let us here take up
the singular exaggerations of M. Reuss : " Let the discourse,"
says he, " ver. 1 8 et seq, be read, interrupted again and again by
the phrase : They persecute Him, They seek to kill Him. Accord
ing to the common and purely historical exegesis, we get at
the notion of the Jews running after Jesus in the streets, and
pursuing Him with showers of stones " (t. ii. p. 416). A truly
historical exegesis reduces those numerous interruptions to
the two graduated notices: "They persecuted Him" ver. 16,
" They sought to kill Him" ver. 18, and finds in the two ex
pressions only the indication of some hostile conventicles in
which the rulers proposed the question even thus early, how
they might get rid of so dangerous a man. The Synoptics
trace back to the very same epoch the murderous projects of
the adversaries of Jesus (Luke vi. 7, 11 ; Mark iii. 6 ; Matt.
xii. 14). The anxious look of John could discern the fruit in
1 X D It. : i'x raura aut ; the others omit am.
GODET H. L JOHN.

162 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
the germ. — "EXve, not : He had broken (Ostervald), but imp.:
He was destroying, strictly : was dissolving. His example and
principles seemed to be annulling the Sabbath. — Besides this
first charge, the declaration of Jesus, ver. 1 7, had just furnished
them with a second, that of blaspheming. It was, first of all,
this word fioi), my Father, which shocked them, because of the
peculiar and exclusive sense of the expression. If Jesus had
said our Father, the Jews would have accepted His words
without scruple (viii. 41). And finally, it was the practical
consequences which He seemed to draw from the term, acknow
ledging no other rule for His work than the action of God
Himself: " Making Himself equal with God."
Ver. 17 contains the idea which is the germ of the whole
following discourse: the relation between the Father's working
and the Son's. Vv. 19 and 20 set forth this idea in a more
detailed way; in ver. 19 we have the relation of the Son's
working to that of the Father; in ver. 20, the relation of the
Father's working to that of the Son. We might say : the
Son who sets Himself with fidelity to serve the Father (ver.
19), and the Father who consents with tenderness to serve as
model to the Son (ver. 20).
Ver. 19. " Then answered Jesus} and said unto them, Verily,
verily} I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but
what He seeth the Father do : for what things soever He doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise." — The middle drreicpivaTo,
which occurs elsewhere in John only in v. 17 and xii. 23,
always announces, if we mistake not, a saying accompanied on
the part of Jesus with a profound turning in upon Himself. —
The critics who find in ver. 17 a speculative idea like that
of continuous creation, see in w. 19 and 20 the speculative
unfolding of the metaphysical relation between the Father and
the Logos. But if there be given, as we have done, to ver. 17
a sense appropriate to the context, vv. 19 and 20 have not
this more or less abstract theological character ; they have, as
well as ver. 17, a practical application to the given case.
Jesus means to say, not : I am this or that to my Father ; I
maintain toward Him such or such a relation, but : " What-
1 X begins the verse thus : ixiyiv am xvrai; a lnraus. — B L : txsysv instead of
U7TIV. ' N alone omits one of the two x/mt.

CHAP. V. 19. 163
ever work you see me do, even though it should give you
offence, like that for which I am now accused, be well assured
that, as a submissive son, I have only done it because I saw
my Father act in the same direction at the same time." This
is not metaphysics; it is the explanation of the work for
which He was accused, and of all His activity in general.
Jesus gives forth this justification from an unparalleled depth,
from the most intimate law of His moral life, from His filial
dependence on the Father. His reply resembles Luther's :
"I cannot otherwise," at Worms; or, to take a, nearer example,
Jesus puts His work under the guarantee of the Father's, as
the impotent man had just put his under the shelter of that
of Jesus. The first proposition of ver. 19 presents this apology in a
negative form : Nothing of myself ; the second, in an affirma
tive form : Everything in imitation of the Father. — The
formula, amen, amen, shows that He draws this revelation
from the depths of His moral consciousness. — The expression
cannot does not denote a metaphysical impossibility, or one of
essence. Does not the Son possess the divine privilege of
having life in Himself (ver. 26), and consequently that of
being able to communicate it at will ? His powerlessness is
therefore purely moral. This appears from the very term
Son, which Jesus substitutes of design for the pronoun I of
ver. 1 7. It is because of His filial, that is to say, perfectly
obedient character, that Jesus is inwardly prevented from
acting of Himself at any time whatever. But He might have
the power of acting otherwise if He chose ; and this is the
idea which allows us to give to the expression dj> eavTov, of
Himself, a real and serious meaning. In all the phases of
His existence, the Son has a treasure of life peculiar to Him
self, which He might use independently of the Father. As
Logos He has, according to ver. 26, the power of creating:
He might at His own hand bring worlds out of nothing, and
make Himself their God, elvai laa Seat, to be equal with God,
Phil. ii. 6.1 But He is wholly for God (John i. 1) ; and,
rather than wish to be, like Satan, God of a world for Him
self, He prefers to remain in His position as Son, and to use
His creative power only for God. This law of His divine
1 W~e do not give this parallel here as the explanation of the passage.

164 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
life is also that of His human life on the earth. Although
deprived of His divine state (His form of God), as man He
possesses first the faculties of man, and then from His baptism
the powers of Messiah. Therewith He might create, in the
sense in which every man of talent creates, create by and for
Himself, or found a kingdom here below which should be His
own, like any genius or conqueror. Was it not to this very
real power that the various suggestions of Satan in the wil
derness appealed ? But He constantly declined every such
use of His human and Messianic power, and uniformly con
necting His work with His Father's, He thus freely maintained
and confirmed His character as the Son. Everything in this
relation is moral. The cannot referred to here is only the
negative side of filial love. — The proposition idv p,tf n . . .,
but what He seeth the Father do, or rather : " if He see not the
Father doing it," does not restrict the idea : doing of Himself.
It is merely the epexegesis of the d<f> eavrov, of Himself :
'" Of Himself, that is to say unless He sees . . ." — The pres.
participle iroiovvTa, doing, corresponds to the dpn, now, of
-ver. 1 7 : The Son seeth the Father acting, and associates
Himself at the same instant with His action.
Filial love does not only prevent the Son from acting of
Himself, but it leads Him to enter positively into the Father's
work. This is the idea contained in the second part of ver.
19. It is connected by for with the preceding. The truth
is, if every work of His own is impossible to the Son, it is
, because He devotes Himself wholly to the Father's work.
As He bestows all His time and all His strength to repro
duce this model faithfully, it becomes impossible for Him to
work of Himself. — Does it not seem that Jesus is borrowing
-these familiar images from His work of other days, when, in
the carpenter's shop of Nazareth, He took part in the work of
him who filled the place of father to Him here below ? The
law of His work then was to adapt it constantly to that
of Joseph, and to co-operate in it according to the measure of
His understanding and strength, as long as the day lasted and
Joseph himself worked; so that there remained to Him
neither strength nor leisure for work of His own. And this
community of action evidently covered the responsibility of
the child in every work thus carried out. Now Jesus puts

CHAP. V. 20. 165
Himself under the privilege of an entirely similar position,
though in a work of an infinitely superior nature. He lives
in the invisible workshop of His Father, as formerly in that
of Nazareth. Heaven has been opened to Him. He discerns
at every instant the point to which the work of God on the
earth has come, and all His faculties as man and His prero
gatives as Messiah are employed to aid in it.— :\4 yap dv, the
things whatsoever they may be. The word includes eventu
alities without number, and perhaps many more violations of
the Pharisaic statutes than those which they have just seen,
and which scandalize them so much ! But He will not volun
tarily leave one of them unperformed. It is under the
impulse of this divine initiative that He has wrought the
work in question ; and they may expect His working many
more which shall bear the same character. In these words it
is hard to say which is the more astonishing, the simplicity of
the form, or the sublimity of the idea. Jesus speaks of this
intimate relation to the Being of beings as if it were the most
ordinary thing in the world. It is the saying of the child of
twelve : " Must I not be in my Father's ? " raised to a higher
power. But this perfect correlation between the Son's work
and that of the Father can only exist on one condition : that
the Father consent to initiate the Son perpetually into the
course and wants of His work. And this is what He deigns
to do :
Ver. 20. "For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him
all things that Himself doeth ; and He will show Him greater
works than tliese, that ye may marvel!' — This indispensable
initiation of the Son into the divine work is assured to Him
by the infinite love of the Father (for). The term <piXeiv
expresses the feeling of tenderness (cherishing), and accords
perfectly with the intimacy of the relation here described.
It was otherwise iii. 35, where the word dya-rrav, indicating
the love of approbation, and, to some extent, of admiration
(dyafiai), was more in place, because the matter in question
there was the communication of omnipotence. The Father's
showing corresponds to the Son's seeing (ver. 19), and is at
once its condition and consequence ; its condition, for the
Father unveils His work to the Son, that the latter may
co-operate in it ; its consequence, for to this constant and

166 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
faithful co-operation of the Son the continuity of the Father's
revelation is due.
But the Son's initiation into the work of the Father,
though destined to be complete, takes effect gradually, as suits
the truly human state of the former. Such is the meaning of
the end of the verse: And He will show Him greater works
than these. The expression : what things soever, in ver. 19,
already hinted at this progressive extension of the domain of
" divine realities " (Gess), which is open to the view of the
Son. Tovrmv, than these, refers to the cure of the impotent
man, and to all the miracles of the same sort which the Jews
had already witnessed. But in proportion as Jesus grows in
understanding and strength, the part which He can take in
the Father's work becomes more considerable. He under
stands the work better, and can take it in hand more com
pletely. At His baptism this initiation and co-operation
began. But that was only a starting-point. This develop
ment will reach its goal when, the Son having obtained as
man the form of existence which He possessed eternally as
the Logos, His glory (xvii. 5) shall possess divine knowledge
and omnipotence. Then the work of God will be in its
entirety both shown and committed to Him ; so John says in
Rev. i. 1, in perfect harmony with our passage : " The revela
tion of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him." This is the
commentary on our Sell-ei, shall show. The Father's work
for the salvation of the world shall then pass into His hands
in its fulness, according to the words of Isaiah regarding the
glorified Servant of Jehovah : " And the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in His hand" (Isa. liii. 10).
There is only one way in which we can form an idea, how
ever inadequate, of the relation of the work of Jesus and
that of the Father as described in those two verses : that is,
ourselves to enter into a similar relation to Jesus. The more
the believer devotes himself faithfully to the work of Jesus
Christ, the more does the latter take pleasure in giving him
the knowledge of it, both in its whole and in its parts ; and
the better the believer understands it, the more does he take
part in it faithfully at every moment of his life, and the more
does he realize it in his sphere in every one of his acts. It
is also a gradual progress which takes place in him. Every

CHAP. V. 20. 167
step taken in his spiritual development enlarges his sphere of
action and the part which he takes in his Master's work, and
this faithful work makes him in return grow himself. This
parallel seems to us the best commentary which can be given
on the passage which we are explaining. We are guided to
it, besides, by another saying of Jesus which presents, even in
the form of expression, a striking analogy to our passage :
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works
that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these (p.et£ova
tovtwv) shall he do ; because I go unto my Father" (xiv. 12).
Once in possession of the divine work in its totality, Jesus
from the midst of His glory makes His own partners in it.
And by them He does still greater works than the earthly
miracles which the Father wrought by Him.
The words which close the verse : that ye may marvel, may
be paraphrased thus : " And then there shall be for you, my
adversaries, ground for the deepest amazement." The Jews
opened their eyes wide at the healing of an impotent man.
What will it be when, at the voice of this same Jesus, man
kind will recover life spiritually, and even one day physically !
A poor healing amazes them ; what will a Pentecost do, and a
resurrection from the dead ! This somewhat disdainful manner
of speaking about miracles would be very strange in the
mouth of an evangelist who was to play the part of an in
ventor of miracles. — -Iva, in order that, expresses not only a
result (ware), but an end. This astonishment is purposed by
God ; for it is from this that the conversion of Israel will
proceed in the end of time. Seeing the miracles produced
by the gospel among mankind, Israel will close with rendering
to the Son that homage equal to the homage rendered to the
Father, of which ver. 23 speaks. The beginning of the fulfil
ment of this prophecy is found Acts iv. 13: " Now, when they
saw the boldness of Peter and John, they marvelled ; and took
knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus;" and v. 24:
" When they heard these sayings (Peter's), they doubted of them
whereunto this would grow."
These two verses form one of the most remarkable passages
of the N. T. from the Christological point of view. De Wette
finds in the expression : of Himself (ver. 19), an exclusive and

168 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
somewhat dark reference to the human side in the person of
Jesus ; for if Jesus is the Logos, His will is as divine as that
of the Father, and there can be no contrast between the one
and the other, as would be implied by the word : of Himself.
De Wette must cf course extend this defect of logic to the
passage xvi. 1 3, where this same expression is applied hypo-
thetically to the Holy Spirit. Liicke sees in it only a popular
manner of presenting the human appearance of Jesus abstract
ing from the divine element. M. Reuss (t. ii. p. 438 et seq.)
brings out of this passage heresy on heresy, if we take as the
standard of Johannine thought the theory of the Logos. Accord
ing to him, indeed, God is conceived in the prologue as a purely
abstract being, acting in space and time only through the Logos ;
and the latter (" the essence of God reproduced, so to speak, a
second time of itself ") is perfectly equal to the Father ; while,
according to our passage, the Father does a work of Himself
(a, uvrbg irolei), which He reveals to the Son, and in which He
associates Him gradually, which is entirely contradictory.
For, according to this latter theory, the Father acts directly in
the world otherwise than by the Logos, and the Son is related
to the Father in a condition of subordination incompatible with
" the equality of the two divine persons," taught in the prologue.
The judgment of Liicke and de Wette undoubtedly assails
the so-called orthodox conception of the person of Jesus, but
by no means that of the N. T. and of John in particular.
John does not know this Jesus, now divine, now human, to
which traditional exegesis has recourse. He knows a Logos who,
once emptied of the divine state, entered fully into the human
state ; and after having been revealed to Himself at His baptism
as a divine subject, re-entered at the close of His human de
velopment upon the divine state. By His human existence and
earthly activity He realized, in the form of becoming, the same
filial relation which He realized in His divine existence in the
form of being. And hence all the terms used by Jesus, the
shovnng of the Father, the seeing of the Son, the expressions
" cannot " and " of Himself," apply to the different phases of
His existence, to each according to its nature and measure.
To understand the " of Himself " in our passage and xvi. 13, all
we require is to take in earnest, as Scripture does, the distinc
tion of persons in the Divine Being ; if each of them has His
own life, from which He may draw at pleasure, there is no in^
consequence between the passages quoted.
As to the criticism of M. Reuss, the idea which he finds in
the prologue of an abstract divinity, purely transcendental and
without possible relation to the world, is not that of John, but
solely that of Philo. God is, on the contrary, in the prologue,

CHAP. V. 21. 169
a Father full of love both to the Son (ver. 18) and to the chil
dren whom He Himself begets by communicating to them His
own life (Ix ©sou iyenjjirieaii, were born of God, ver. 13). He can
therefore act directly in the world, and associate His Son, made
man, in His work. Vv. 19, 20 are in contradiction, we acknow
ledge, to the theory of Philo, but by no means to the concep
tion of the evangelist. — It is exactly the same with respect to
the subordination of the Son. The true view of the prologue
is that of the dependence, and the free dependence, of the Son
(Jiv irpbs rhv ®tiv, ver. 1). It is exactly that of v. 19, 20. This
conception, it is true, also contradicts that of Philo ; but that
proves only one thing : that it is a mistake to make our evan
gelist the disciple of this strange philosopher, while he is simply
the disciple of Jesus Christ (Introd. i. p. 1 75 et seq).
Jesus has just been speaking of works greater than His
actual miracles, which He shall one day accomplish at the
will of His Father. He now explains what those works are :
the resurrection and the judgment of humanity, vv. 21-29.
This difficult passage has been very differently understood.
Several Fathers : Tertullian, Chrysostom ; later, Erasmus,
Grotius, Bengel ; finally, in modern times, Schott, Kuinoel,
Hengstenberg, etc., — have applied the whole passage (except
ver. 24) to the resurrection of the dead in the literal sense
and to the last judgment. A diametrically opposite inter
pretation was already held by the Gnostics, then among
moderns by Ammon, Schweizer, B.-Crusius : it is that which
refers the whole passage, even vv. 28 and 29, to the spiritual
resurrection and the moral judgment which the Gospel effects.
Finally, a third group of commentators find a gradation in
this piece, and connect vv. 21-27 with the moral action of
the gospel, and vv. 28 and 29 with the resurrection from
the dead in the literal sense. These are, for example, Calvin,
Lampe, and most of the moderns, Liicke, Tholuck, Meyer, de
Wette, etc. Taking the most exact account of the shades
of expression, we shall discern the true course of our Lord's
thought. We see first the two ideas of quickening and
judging appear in an altogether general and indefinite way
in w. 21-23. This forms a first cycle, which ver. 23
separates with precision from the sayings which follow.
Ver. 21. "For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and
quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth vjhom He will." —

170 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
To raise the dead is a greater work than to heal an impotent
man ; hence the for. This work, as well as miracles, is the
reproduction of the Father's work. The great difficulty here
is to determine whether, as most interpreters seem to think
(for they do not explain themselves sufficiently on this head),.
the work of resurrection ascribed to the Father is to be
identified with that accomplished by the Son, or whether it
is specifically different from it, or finally, whether they com
bine with one another in a process for which the formula
needs to be sought.1 On the first explanation, the ^woiroielv,
to quicken, ascribed to the Father, would remain in a purely
ideal state until the Son, obeying the divine initiative, made
the design of the Father pass into the terrestrial reality.
Thus Luthardt says : " The work belongs to God, as proceed
ing from Him ; to the Son, as wrought by Him in the world "
(p. 444). Gess : " It is not that the resurrection of the dead
was till now the work of the Father, to become henceforth
that of the Son; the resurrection of the dead is not yet
accomplished. Neither is it that one part of the dead is raised
by the Father, another by the Son. . . . But the Son is
regarded as the organ whereby the Father raises from the
dead" (p. 31). Baumlein: "The Son is the bearer and
mediator of the Father's working." This meaning is very
good in itself;' but does it really harmonize with the expres
sion: like as? Was this the proper term to denote a
simple divine impulse, an initiative of a purely moral nature ?
Jesus, in expressing Himself thus, seems rather to have in
view a real work which is wrought by the Father, and which
serves as a model for His. — The second of the meanings just
indicated is the one adopted by M. Reuss. The bodily resur
rection, according to him, should be ascribed to the Father ;
and to the Son, resurrection in the spiritual sense, salvation.
M. Reuss finds the proof of this distinction in the o&?
deket, whom He will, which indicates a selection. This last
solution is untenable. How could w. 28, 29, which describe
1 As if (to return to the comparison of the common work of Jesus and Joseph)
we had to decide for one of these three forms : either Jesus executing the
plans traced by Joseph ; or each of them having a distinct part in the work ;
or, finally, Jesus seconding Joseph more and more, in proportion as He grew,
and ending with charging Himself with the entire work.

CHAP. V. 21. 171
the consummation of the Son's work, be applied to the
spiritual resurrection ? Comp. likewise vi. 40, 44, etc., where
Jesus expressly attributes to Himself by an iyd>, I, repeated
again and again, the resurrection of the body, — a fact which
obliterates the line of demarcation marked out by M. Reuss.
— Does not Jesus rather mean to speak here of that universal
action, at once creative and restorative, which God has exer
cised from the beginning of things in the sphere of nature
and in the theocratic domain ? Comp. Deut. xxxii. 39: "I
kill and make alive, I wound and / heal." 1 Sam. ii. 6 :
" The Lord killeth and maketh alive, He bringeth down to the
grave and bringeth up." Isa. xxvi. 19:" Thy dead men shall
live ; my dead body shall rise again." This work of moral
and physical restoration, carried on hitherto by God, passes
henceforth into the hands of Jesus, but gradually, and
according to the measure of His growing capacity. Till His
baptism He had wrought only human works. From that
time He begins to work isolated miracles of bodily and
spiritual resurrection, specimens of His great future work.
From the time of His elevation to glory He realizes by
Pentecost the moral resurrection of humanity, and finally by
His return on the day of His advent, and by His victory
over the last enemy death, which shall be its consequence
(1 Cor. xv. 26), He will work in the physical domain the
universal resurrection. Then only will the work of the
Father have passed wholly into His hands. The resurrection
wrought by the Son is not therefore a different resurrection
from that accomplished by the Father. Only the Son,
made man, becomes the agent of it by degrees. — The pres.
quickeneth, in the second clause, is a present of competency.
Comp. w. 25 and 28 ("the hour is coming that . . ."),
which show that the reality is yet to come. Yet even now
the word of Jesus possesses a quickening power (the hour
even now is, ver. 25). — We have already, in our translation,
connected the regimen: the dead, with the first verb only
(raiseth up) ; such is the construction apparently indicated
by the position of the words. The second verb £ojo7rotet,
quickeneth, thus takes an absolute sense. It forms the transi
tion to the Son's work in the second clause. 'Eyeipeiv,
strictly to awake, refers to the very moment of passing from

172 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
death to life ; ^cuoiroielv, to quicken, to the full communication
of life, whether spiritual or bodily, to man once awakened.
Nothing obliges us to follow M. Reuss in restricting the
application of this word, to quicken, in the second clause, to
spiritual life. The restriction : whom He will, undoubtedly
indicates a selection. But in the bodily resurrection also, will
there not be selection ? In ver. 2 9, Jesus distinguishes two
bodily resurrections, the one to life, the other to judgment.
The first alone, therefore, is a true quickening ; it is the resur
rection to glory, which is the consummation of spiritual life.
When He says : whom He will, Jesus does not contrast
His will as Son with His Father's, — it must have run : ovg
ai)To<{ deXet. He contrasts those whom He feels Himself
constrained to quicken (believers), with those in whose favour
it is morally impossible for Him to work this miracle. These
words are therefore the transition to ver. 22, where it is
said that judgment, that is to say, division, is committed to
Him. In effecting the division, which decides on the eternal
death or eternal life of individuals, Jesus does not cease for
a moment to have His eyes fixed on the Father, and to con
form to His plan. According to vi. 38 and 40, He discerns
those who fulfil the divinely fixed condition : every one which
believeth; and immediately He applies to them the quicken
ing power which the Father has given Him, and which
depends henceforth upon His personal will. Might there
not be in this oft? deXei, Whom He will, an allusion to the
spontaneity with which Jesus offered healing to the impotent
man without being at all solicited by him, choosing him
freely among all the other sufferers who surrounded the pool ?
— M. Reuss nevertheless finds in the words : whom He will, a
contradiction to the idea of the Son's work being dependent on
that of the Father. But the inner feeling which makes Jesus
will in such or such a way, while it is formed spontaneously
within Him, is nevertheless in harmony with that of God.
His love is undoubtedly distinct from the Father's; it is
really His love ; but it works in harmony with the divine
love, and with a common end in view. Comp. the formula
in the address borne by the apostolic Epistles : " Grace and
peace from God and the Lord Jesus Christ." No more in
Jesus than in God is liberty arbitrariness. Comp. for the

CHAP. V. 22, 23. 173
free-will of the Spirit, iii. 8 and 1 Cor. xiii. 11 ; and for that
of God in the sphere of nature, 1 Cor. xv. 38. — It is from
not having distinguished between liberty and caprice that M.
Reuss has again found here the idea of absolute predestina
tion. What Jesus meant to express is the glorious sufficiency
which God is pleased to grant Him in accomplishing the
common work. He is a source of life like the Father,
morally at first, and one day corporeally. Under the veil of
absolute dependence, Jesus gives us a glimpse of the magni
ficent prerogative of His filial liberty.
Vv. 22, 23. "For also the Father judgeth no man, but
hath committed all judgment unto the Son : that all men
should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He
tliat honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which
liath sent Him." — Two particles connect this verge with the
preceding : yap, for, and oiSi, which must here be translated
by also, but which literally signifies : and neither. The
second lays down, the committing of judgment to the Son
mentioned in ver. 22, as a new fact, and one co-ordinate with
that of quickening by the Son (ver. 21) ; and the first presents
the second of those facts as the explanation of the first. If
God delegates to the Son the power of quickening whom He
will, it is because He has transferred to Him the function
of judge. To quicken is to absolve (ver. 24) ; to refuse to
quicken is to condemn. The power of quickening or not
quickening is therefore embraced in that of judging. Such is
the connection between w. 21 and 22. — Meyer persists in
understanding judging here, as in ch. iii., in the sense of pro
nouncing a sentence of condemnation exclusively. But in
ver. 21 it is quickening which is in question as well as the
contrary ; and the expression ttjv icpicriv irdaav, judgment in
all its forms (ver. 22), is not favourable to this restricted
sense, and shows that the term judging should be taken here
in its most general sense. M. H. Meyer (Discourses on the
Fourth Gospel, p. 36) is shocked to find that this term is
taken in ver. 22 in a spiritual sense (moral judgment now-
passing on men), in ver. 29 in an external sense (the final
judgment), lastly, in ver. 30, in a purely subjective sense (the
judgment of Jesus individually) ; and hence he concludes
that the tenor of the discourse has not been in this case

174 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
exactly reproduced. But in ver. 22 the subject in question
is judgment in the most general sense, and without any
definite application (all judgment), exactly as in ver. 21 there
is presented the idea of raising up in the most comprehensive
and indefinite sense. It is not till the following cycle, w.
24-29, that the meaning of these words becomes definite,
first in the spiritual sense (vv. 24-26), and finally in the
external sense (vv. 27-29). All is therefore perfectly correct
in the progress of the thought. — And what is the object of
the Father in transferring to Jesus the two supreme attri
butes of deity, quickening and judging? He wishes, according
to ver. 23, that the homage of adoration rendered to Him by
mankind should extend to the Son Himself. " The Father
loveth the Son " (iii. 3 5) ; and hence He would see the world
at the feet of the Son, even as at His own. The word
np,av, to honour, certainly does not express directly the act of
adoration, the irpoaicvvelv, as M. Reuss well remarks. But
it evidently denotes in the context the sentiment of religious
respect which the act of adoration expresses. And in
demanding this sentiment boldly for His person in the same
sense in which it is due to the Father (/ca&o?, even as), Jesus
certainly authorizes worship, properly so called, to be paid to
Him. Comp. xx. 28; Phil. ii. 10: " That at the name of
Jesus every knee should bow ; " and the Apocalypse through
out. — The Father is not jealous of such homage. For it is
He whom the creature honours when honouring the Son
because of His divine character; as it is also to God that
honour is refused when it is refused to the Son. — There is a
terrible warning to the accusers of Jesus in these last words
of the verse. Jesus throws back on them the accusation of
blasphemy : these zealous defenders of God's glory must
learn, that in accusing Him, Jesus, as they do on occasion
of the miracle which He has wrought in the midst of them,
it is God who is outraged in His person, and that the treat
ment to which they subject this poor weak man, touches the
Father Himself, who is one with Him. This threatening end
of ver. 23 is an anticipation of the severe application which
shall close the discourse (vv. 41-47).
The cycle vv. 21-23 was a still very general development
of the abridged cycle w. 19, 20. Jesus now shows the

CHAP. V. 24. 175
progressive historical realization of the two works of quicken
ing and judging, which He ascribed to Himself, vv. 21-23,
in all their generality, and in the form of simple competency.
In vv. 25, 26, He represents this double power as He will
exercise it in the midst of humanity in the spiritual sphere ;
then vv. 27-29, as He will finally display it in the external
and physical domain.
Thus it is that those sublime views, presented at first in
the most synthetic and summary form, fall successively into
their principal elements, and conclude by appearing in the
precise form of concrete and distinctly analysed facts (comp.
Introd. i. p. 140 et seq.).
First phase : the spiritual resurrection and moral judgment
of humanity by the Son, vv. 24—26.
Ver. 24. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my
word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life,
and cometh not into condemnation ; but is passed from death
unto life." — Divine things are present to the eye of Jesus ; He
speaks of what He sees (iii. 11); hence the formula: "Verily,
verily, I say unto you ..." (vv. 24, 25). These words show at
the same time the grandeur of the fact here revealed. The fact
is so unheard of, that we do not wonder to hear Jesus announce
it so solemnly : to the man who receives His word with con
fidence, the two decisive acts of the eschatological drama —
resurrection and judgment — are finished things. The simple
word of Jesus received with faith has accomplished all. This
fact is indeed the proof of the powers of life-giving and judg
ing which Jesus ascribed to Himself, vv. 21 and 22. 'Atcoveiv,
to hear, denotes in this place moral hearing as well as physical,
in the sense of Matt. xiii. 43. The words : and believeth on
Him that sent me, are explained by the second part of the dis
course, in which Jesus appeals to the testimony rendered to
Him by the Father. If a man surrender himself to the word
of Jesus on the faith of the divine character of His being and
work, he renders homage not only to the Son, but also to the
Father. — The meaning of e^et, "hath life" can only be
rendered fully here by " already hath life." It is the proof
of ver. 21 : the Son quickeneth. Is it not in reality His
word which has wrought the miracle ? — Kal, and, signifies
here: and in consequence. Exemption from judgment is a

176 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
consequence of entrance into life ; for the place of judgment
is on the threshold between life and death. — "Ep^erai, cometh,
is the present of the idea or principle. The believer's moral
state is already fixed by the simple fact of the welcome which
he has given to the word. By this word, received inwardly,
the believer is constantly subject during his lifetime to that
moral judgment to which unbelievers shall not be subjected
till the last day. The revelation of hidden things takes place
in the inner forum of their conscience, where everything is
condemned which would have required to be so before the
tribunal at the last judgment. Judgment being thus to them
a thing finished, does not require to be repeated. If, there
fore, the word received with docility sets the believer free
from judgment, it is simply because it anticipates it ; comp.
xii. 48, where it is said that the judge at the last day shall
be no other than this same word. What a conviction of the
absolute holiness and perfection of His word do not such
expressions suppose in the inmost consciousness of Jesus '
Ostervald wrongly translates Kpiais by condemnation ; and so
Meyer : a judgment of condemnation. The harmonizing of this
passage with Rom. xiv. 10 and 2 Cor. v. 10 was given at
iii. 18. — The last words: but is passed from death unto life,
are the antithesis (but) of the preceding, in this sense, that he
who has passed from the sphere of death into that of life has
necessarily judgment behind him. The word life is taken in
the fullest sense. The resurrection of the body itself will not
be to the believer an entirely new fact ; essential death — that
of the soul — being once conquered, the glorification of the
body is only the triumph after victory (comp. v. 29, the
expression : resurrection of life). — It is altogether arbitrary to
explain the fieTaBeBrpcev, with Baunilein, in the sense of:
" has the assurance of being able to pass from death unto life."
Ver. 25. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming,
and now is} when the dead sliall liear 2 the voice of the Son of
God ; 3 and they that * hear shall live." 5 — If the passage from
1 K a b omit the words xxi vm ttrriv.
2 Instead of xxtueavrxi, X L, some Mnn. read xxaurua-iv, and B, some Mnn.
uxautrauaiv, a Instead of iiav, K S and some other authorities read xvlpuxau.
4 H rejects ai.
6 T. R. with 11 Mjj, and almost all the Mnn.: r^r„Ttu ; sBDL: ?r«wi».

CHAP. V. 25. 177
death to life has taken place (ver. 24), it is because there
really is and there will be a spiritual resurrection. In ver. 24,
Gess says, Jesus speaks as a prophet : " my word ; " in ver.
25, as the Son of God: " the voice which raises the dead." —
The identity of the formula which begins the two verses, 24
and 25, as well as the asyndeton, would of itself suffice to
prove that they both refer to the same thing — the spiritual
quickening of believers. Only, to present the matter pictori-
ally, Jesus borrows from the physical resurrection images
whereby He depicts the moral work which is to pave the way
for it. He seems to allude to that magnificent vision of
Ezekiel, in which the prophet, standing in the midst of a plain
covered with dry bones, calls them to life, first by his words,
and then by the breath of Jehovah. So Jesus sees Himself
the only really living one in the midst of mankind, who are
sunk in death and sin. The same conviction suggests to Him
the saying found in the Synoptists : " Let the dead bury their
dead!' Living, He has the task of giving life. — The expres
sion: The hour cometh, and noio is, is intended (comp. iv. 23)
to open the eyes of all to the greatness of the epoch inaugu
rated by His ministry. Jesus says: the hour cometh; He
refers to the sending of the Holy Spirit (vii. 37-39). — But
He adds : and now is ; for His words, which are spirit and life-
(vi. 63), were even then preparing for Pentecost; comp..
xiv. 1 7. — The expression : the voice of the Son of God, repro
duces the term : my word, ver. 24, but that while representing.
His word as the personal voice of Him who calls sinners from*
death. The expression : Son of God, brings out the power of
this voice. — The art. ol, before dicovaavTe^ (those who shall
have heard), accurately divides the spiritually dead into two
classes : those who hear the voice without understanding it
(comp. xii. 40) ; and those who, while hearing it, have ears to
hear, or hear it inwardly. The latter alone are quickened by
it. It is the function of judging which reappears in this form.
If we refer this verse to the resurrection of the dead in the
strict sense, we are obliged to apply the words : and now is-y
to the few miraculous resurrections wrought by Jesus in the
course of His ministry, and to explain the words ol aKovcravTes
in this sense : and after having heard . . . But Jesus would
not have been entitled to represent those few resurrections as
GODET II. M JOHN.

178 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
indicating the inauguration of the universal resurrection ; and
all the efforts of Hengstenberg have not succeeded in justify
ing this forced sense of aKovaavTe<;. Olshausen here follows
a path by himself. According to him, ver. 24 refers to the
spiritual resurrection, and ver. 25 to the first bodily resurrec
tion — that of believers — at the Parousia (1 Cor. xv. 23).
Vv. 28 and 29, lastly, denote the final and universal resurrec
tion. Comp. Luke xiv. 14: "in the resurrection of the just!'
Rev. xx. 6 : " Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection." Liicke himself holds that Jesus alludes to this
notion of two resurrections received in Jewish theology while
spiritualizing it. But nothing in the text authorizes us to
find a resurrection indicated here different from that of ver. 24.
A distinction of such importance would require to be more
precisely marked. — The following verse explains the secret of
that power which the voice of Christ will display at the hour
which is about to strike for the earth.
Ver. 26. "For as1 the Father hath life in Himself so hath
He given to the Son to have life in Himself." — The emphasis is
on the words iv eavrS, in Himself, which terminate the two
propositions uniformly. The Son has not only a part in life,
like the creature ; He possesses within Him a source of life,
like the Father Himself, and hence His voice may give or
restore life (i. 3, 4). But this divine prerogative the Son
possesses only as a gift from the Father. Here is the boldest
paradox uttered by the mouth of Jesus. It is given to the
Son to live of Himself ! We could not imagine the solution
of this apparent contradiction if we had not a similar one re
solved in ourselves. We possess as a thing given — the faculty
of seZ/f-determination, — and that in such a way, that from this
faculty we are every instant drawing moral decisions which
are peculiarly our own, and for which we are seriously respon
sible. It is by gifting us with this mysterious privilege of
free action that God has put us in the rank of beings made in
His image. It is by giving to the Son the prerogative of
which our verse speaks that He has made Him His equcd.
The divine faculty of self-sufficient life, an essential charac
teristic of the Son's homoousia 2 with the Father, is to Him
what liberty is to man. Thereby, also, the subordination of
1 K D : ut instead of uo-xip . a Equality of essence.

CHAP. V. 27. 179
the Son to the Father becomes an act of divine love. By the
gift of divine independence to the Son, the Father gives Him
everything ; by His perfect and voluntary subordination, the
Son renders everything to the Father. To give everything, to
return everything, is not that love ? God is love. Thus, not
only does God love divinely, but He is also divinely loved. — -
"ES»/ce, gave, necessarily expresses here, whatever Meyer,
Luthardt, etc., may say, an eternal gift which belongs to the
essence of the Son (comp. the terms : to the Son, in Himself).
And as the spiritual resurrection of humanity is a work yet
to come, which supposes the restoration of the Son to His
divine state (xvii. 1, 2, 5), this saying has not its complete
application to Jesus as the Son of man till His elevation to
the divine state, that of the Logos. As to the earthly state
of Jesus, comp. the entirely opposite proposition, vi. 57: " As
the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father ; so
he that eateth me, even he shall live by me."
Second phase : The universal judgment and the bodily resur
rection of humanity by the Son, vv. 27-29.
Jesus rises by degrees to the very summit of those greater
works announced ver. 20 et seq., which, from the Father's hands,
pass more and more completely into His own : ver. 2 7, uni
versal judgment ; vv. 28 and 29, the resurrection of the body.
Ver. 27. "And hath given Him authority to execute judg
ment also} because He is a Son of man." — Jesus had already
said, ver. 22, in an indefinite manner, that all judgment is
committed to Him. This word, all judgment, embraced both
the moral internal judgment of the present, and the final
external judgment. It is under this latter aspect that the
idea is developed, ver. 2 7, but with this new determination,
that the function of judge is given to Him as Son of man.
Gess rightly says here : " The power of judging rests on His
character as Son of God, but not without the added character
of Son of man." — The /cat, even, or also, is certainly authentic.
It brings out forcibly the contrast between the greatness of
the power and the truly human nature of Him on whom this
power is conferred : even the greatest of acts, the holding of
judgment. The function of judge, indeed, supposes perfect
holiness, omniscience, and all the other divine perfections
1 A B L ItPleri''» Syr0"1, Cop. Or. (twice) omit xxi.

180 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
which contrast with the state of a member of the human
family. — The last words are variously interpreted. Liicke
takes them to mean : Because He is the Messiah ; and judging
is a Messianic office. But in this case there would be required :
" the Son of man." Without the art. the expression i/to? r.
dvdp. signifies simply : a Son of man (Meyer). Lange : Because
as a Son of man He can sympathize with our weakness. But
it ¦would be false to deny to God the feeling of compassion ;
comp. indeed, Ps. ciii. 13,14:" Like as a father pitieth . . .,
so the Lord pitieth. . . . : for He knoweth our frame." Heb.
ii. 18 cannot be quoted as a parallel, for there the matter iii
question is intercession, not judgment. De Wette : Because
the Father, as being the invisible God, cannot judge. M.
Reuss, almost to the same effect : " In the system, God of
Himself does not come into contact with the world which He
is to judge ; He is made man for the purpose." This reason
would apply to the God of Philo, not to the God of Jesus
Ohrist and St. John, for He is a Father who begets children
among mankind (i. 13), who loves the world (iii. 16), who
testifies by external miracles in favour of the Son, who draws
souls to Him, etc. Such a God might also, if He wished,
judge the world. Besides, as Luthardt observes, the opposite
of the invisible God would not be the Son of man, but God
revealed, the Word, the Son of God, or the Son taken abso
lutely. Meyer : Because Jesus, as man, carries out the whole
work of salvation. But salvation is not judgment. The pre
cise point to be explained is, why the Saviour is at the same
time the judge. Holtzmann : Because He can make the divine
revelation shine forth before the eyes of men in a human
appearance. But God can directly manifest His holiness to
human consciousness, as is proved by the moral law inscribed
within. The Peschito (Syrsch), some Mjj. (E M A), and
Chrysostom, have recourse to a desperate expedient ; they
connect the words with the following verse : " Because He is
a Son of man, marvel not." But should the thought of Jesus
be so difficult to comprehend ? The judgment of humanity
is to be a homage rendered to the holiness of God, a true act
of adoration, a worship. And therefore the act must go
forth from the bosom of humanity itself. Reparation must
be offered by the being who committed the outrage. Judg-

CHAP. V. 28, 29. 181
ment is in this respect exactly on the same footing as expia
tion, of which it is in a manner the complement. Judgment
is, in the case of all the sinful portion of humanity, the forced
reparation due by him who has refused to appropriate by faith
the free reparation made by the atonement, with its sanctify
ing consequences.
Vv. 28, 29. " Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming,
in the which all that are in the graves shall liear His voice,
and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resur
rection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection
of judgment." — It is impossible not to refer these two verses
to the resurrection of the dead in the strict sense of the word.
1st. The reference is to an event wholly future; for Jesus
here omits the words: /cat vvv ia-rl, and now is, of ver. 25.
2d. Jesus does not merely say : the dead ; He here uses the
expression : all that are in the graves, which can only be taken.
in the strict sense. 3d. He does not say merely: they tlmt
hear, as at ver. 25, — an expression which implies a division;
but : all that are in the graves shall hear, which embraces the
entire number of the dead. 4th. Finally, He does not speak,
as previously, of a single result — life ; but He describes the
two opposite issues which can only apply to mankind as a
whole, — life on the one hand, judgment on the other, — which
forces us to take the resurrection of ver. 28 in the strict sense,
and to refer the judgment of ver. 29 to the last judgment, at
least in the case of those who are condemned. Jesus con
tinues, therefore, to rise a minori ad majus. From the
supreme act of authority (e^ovcrla), judgment, He passes to the
supreme act of power (Swa/w), the resurrection of the body;
and this is the manner of His reasoning : " Marvel not that I
claim the right of judging, for behold the display of divine
power which it shall be given me to exhibit : the resurrection
of humanity after it has become the prey of the' grave."
Liicke gives quite another turn to the thought of Jesus : " You
will cease to marvel that judgment is given to me, when you
remember that, as the Son of man (that is to say, as Messiah),
resurrection belongs to me." Jesus appeals, he holds, to an
article of Jewish theology, according to which the Messiah
was regarded as the being who was to raise humanity from
the dead. But it is still doubtful whether in the time of

182 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Jesus the work of resurrection was ascribed to the Messiah.
Later Jewish theology is greatly divided on this point. Some
ascribe the act to God omnipotent, others to the Messiah
(Eisenmenger, Entd. Judenth. Th. ii. pp. 897-899). This
mechanical appeal to a Jewish doctrine is, besides, out of
keeping with the uniformly original character of our Lord's
testimony. Finally, the sense of Liicke assumes his false
interpretation of the term Son of man, ver. 27. — There is
peculiar force in the words : shall hear His voice. " This
voice, which sounds in your ears at this moment, shall yet
awake the dead from the tomb ; marvel not, then, that I claim
to possess both authority to judge and power to give spiritual
resurrection." Thus the last convulsion of the physical world will be due
to the same will as shall have renewed the moral world, that
of the Son of man. " Since by man came death," says St.
Paul, exactly in the same sense, " by man come also the resur
rection of the dead" (1 Cor. xv. 21). No doubt it might be
said to Jesus : All these are mere assertions on thy part.
But it must not be forgotten that behind those affirmations
there was a fact, the " Bise and walk " followed with effect
which was at once the text of the whole discourse and its
immovable point of support. — Ver. 29 concludes this whole
development with the idea of final judgment, which had been
already announced ver. 27, and of which the resurrection of
the body (ver. 28) is the condition. To be judged, the dead
must live again in the fulness of their consciousness and
personality, which supposes their entire restoration to cor
poreal existence. — Ostervald translates : " Those who shall
have done good or evil works" [de bonnes, de mauvaises
oeuvres]. In the Greek there is the art., giving to the two
terms an absolute sense : " the good, the evil works (good and
evil)." The first of these expressions includes the sincerity
which leads to faith (iii. 21); and hence the act of faith
itself, when the hour calling to it has come, and then all the
fruits of sanctification resulting from faith. The second, evil,
comprehends the natural inward depravity which estranges
from faith (iii. 19, 20), the act of unbelief itself, and finally
all its inevitable immoral consequences. — On the use of nroieiv
with dyada, and of Trpdatreiv with <f>avXa, see on iii. 20. —

CHAP. V. 28, 29. 183
The expression : resurrection of judgment, is explained by the
opposite term : resurrection of life. Some rise to live in the
full sense of the word, the rest to pass to the winnowing of
judgment. Those who have refused to subject themselves to
the inward judgment of the gospel shall be forced to see
their moral state externally fixed, and that by their works.
For " whatsoever is hidden must come to the light." The
others, who already live by the Spirit, and whose moral state
has been inwardly judged and transformed by Him, shall
attain by the resurrection of their bodies to the perfection of
life. It is easy to see how mistaken it is to translate /epi<ri<;,
with Ostervald, Arnaud, etc., by condemnation.
M. Reuss, preoccupied with the desire to contrast John's
eschatology with that of the rest of the N. T., alleges (ii. p.
558) that spiritual resurrection is here declared to be "greater
and more important than physical resurrection." For the
first alone is placed in the number of greater works, ver. 28.
As if the development of the contents of the expression :
qreater works, did not continue without interruption up to
this culminating point of divine working, vv. 28, 29,! He
says also : " The idea of a future and universal judgment is
repudiated as a superfluity" (p. 559). Thus men allow
themselves to falsify the meaning of the most express de
clarations where they do not square with their preconceived
system ! — Scholten, feeling the powerlessness of exegesis to
reach the end which it pursues, has recourse to critical expe
dients. He rejects vv. 28 and 29 as unauthentic without
the least external reason : " As the activity of Jesus extends,
according to the pseudo-John, only to men who are in this
life . . ., w. 28 and 29 must be interpolated." Ever the
method of sic volo, sicjubeo . . . Critics remake the Gospel
when they do not find it such as they would have it ! —
Hilgenfeld (Einl. p. 729) thinks that our passage excludes
all JudEeo-Christian eschatology, as the ideas of an external
advent of Jesus, a first resurrection, etc. The reign of the
Spirit on the earth terminates immediately, according to the
evangelist, in the last day and the universal resurrection.
But the glorious advent is implied in ver. 28 ; and the whole
eschatological drama which is to be inaugurated by the Parousia
is summed up in ver. 2 7, so far as its final result is concerned,

184 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
which is the only thing of importance here (rawing from the
dead and judging).
The development of the idea of ver. 17:" My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work," has reached its close. Jesus
comes back to the starting-point :
Ver. 30. "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I
judge : and my judgment is just ; because I seek not mine own
will, but the will of Him who sent me." 1 — We might be
tempted to connect ver. 30 with the immediately preceding,
by the thought of judgment, which is the dominant one in
the declaration : " As I hear, I judge!' But the present tense :
I judge, would not connect itself directly with the idea of the
future judgment, ver. 29 ; and the first proposition : I can do
nothing of myself, at once impresses on the thought of this
verse a much more general bearing. We are evidently brought
back to the idea of ver. 19 : the infallibility of the Son's
work attested by its complete dependence on the Father's.
Thus this remarkable passage terminates in the same view as
that in which it originated. After having ascribed to Him
self the most marvellous operations, it seems as if Jesus felt
the need of plunging again, relatively to the Father, into a
sort of nothingness. He who successively accomplishes the
greatest works, is powerless to accomplish the most unpre
tending of Himself.— 'Eyd>, I: by this word He positively
applies to the visible and definite personality which they have
before them, the unheard-of things which He has just been
affirming, while ascribing them to Him whom He has called
Son of man and Son of God (vv. 25,2 7). — The powerlessness
of which Jesus speaks is of a moral nature, as in ver. 19.
There, to depict His dependence, Jesus made use of images
drawn from the sense of sight : the Father shows, the Son
sees. Here, He borrows His images from the sense of hear
ing ; in the case of every judgment which He passes, it is
not pronounced by Him till after the Father has made it in
a manner sound in His ears. These sentences are the acts
of absolution or condemnation which He carries out, say
ing to one : " Thy sins be forgiven thee ; " to another : " Thy
1 T. R. reads ¦xxrpts at the end of the verse, with E G H M S U V Mnn.
It""' ; this word is rejected by X A B D K L A A, 12 Mnn. Up''"'" Vg. Syr. Cop.
Or. (thrice).

CHAP. v. so. 185
works are evil." — Jesus declares the perfect docility with
which He gathers them from the Father's mouth as the
security for their infallibility. It is by refusing to know
anything of Himself, by listening always before speaking, and
uttering only what God on each occasion teaches Him, that
He arrives at the result : " And my judgment is just." — But,
to listen thus, one must have no self-will (on, for). No doubt
Jesus Himself also has a natural will distinct from the
Father's ; His prayer in Gethsemane clearly proves this :
" Not what I will, but what Thou wilt." In this sense, the
Monotheletes certainly deserve to be condemned ; for, in deny
ing to Jesus a natural will, they suppressed His true human
nature. But, in a being wholly consecrated to God like Jesus,
this will of nature (my will) exists only to be perpetually
sacrificed to the Father's : " / seek not mine own will, but
the will of Him that sent me." Morally speaking, there is
therefore really in Jesus only a single will ; the other is a
possibility continually and freely suppressed. It is on this
unceasing submission that the absolute holiness of His life
rests, and on this again that the infallibility of His knowing
and speaking depends. He declares so here Himself.
Before quitting this first part of the discourse of Jesus, let
us cast a glance backwards. No passage perhaps furnishes
us so well as this with the means of penetrating into the
inner laboratory of Christ's consciousness, and of studying the
mode in which His thought was conceived. The miracle
which He has wrought and the charges to which He is exposed
appeal to His reflection. He collects Himself; and the rela
tion of His working to that of His Father appears instantly
to His consciousness in its unfathomable depth, so that the
simple, comprehensive, and oracle - like thesis in which He
formulates it from the first to the last word, contains virtually
all the subsequent developments : this is ver. 1 7. Thereafter
He draws from this treasure. In a first cycle (vv. 19, 20),
He remains still in the highest generalities of this paternal
and filial relation. In the following cycle (vv. 21-29), there
are first of all specified the works which flow from this rela-
tion : quickening, judging (w. 21—23); afterwards, those two
notions, which had been presented in the most indefinite
meaning, so as still to combine the figurative and the literal

186 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
sense, reach their concrete application in the moral domain
(vv. 24-26), and in that of external realities (vv. 27—29).
But the most characteristic feature of this incomparable pas
sage is, that it is perfectly exempt from what it has been
thought good to call the religious metaphysics of John. What
we really perceive breathing in the words of Jesus from first
to last is His filial abnegation. His Son-heart is revealed
here as nowhere else. If any one can imagine that such say
ings could have been invented in cold blood by a Christian
thinker, he must never have had even a superficial glimpse of
the depths of religious and moral life which are here laid open.
2. The Father's Testimony in support of that ivhich the Son
renders to Himself. — vv. 31—40.
Jesus had just ascribed to Himself works of a marvellous
kind. Such declarations might provoke an objection among
His hearers : " All that thou affirmest of thyself has no other
support than thy own words." Jesus acknowledges that His
testimony has need of divine sanction (vv. 31—35). He pre
sents it to His adversaries in a threefold testimony from the
Father, — 1st. His miracles (ver. 36) ; 2d. The Father's oral and
personal declaration (ver. 37) ; 3d. The Scriptures (vv. 38-40).
Vv. 31, 32. " If I bear witness of myself, my vntness is not
true. There is another that beareth witness of me ; and I know 1
that the witness which He witnesseth of me is true." — The
words of ver. 31 may be the answer to an objection actually
made, which has been omitted in this summary narrative.
The marvel not at this, ver. 28, was very probably an allu
sion to a question similar to those which abound in the much
more circumstantial accounts of the following chapters. — The
apparent contradiction presented by ver. 21 to viii. 14 :
" Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true," might
be solved by explaining iyco in the sense of " I alone."
Indeed, this ellipsis is a natural deduction from ver. 32 :
" There is another." But even in this sense it must be acknow
ledged that Jesus condescends here to apply to Himself the
principle of general law founded on the condition of sinful
man, and which asserts that no one can bear testimony in his
1 N D It"11' Syrcur read aiUn {ye know) instead of aiia.

CHAP. V. 33-35. 187
own cause. In viii. 14, on the contrary, He rises to the full
height belonging to Him, and claims precisely the exceptional
authority which is conferred on Him in virtue of His unique
holiness. It is very evident from what follows that this other, whose
testimony Jesus produces, ver. 32, is God, and not John the
Baptist, as is still thought by de Wette. Vv. 33-35 are
exactly fitted to prevent the application of this saying to the
forerunner. — In the second proposition of ver. 32, the word :
I knoio, signifies : I bear within myself the inner conscious
ness of the fact to which my Father gives outward testimony —
my filial relation to Him. And consequently I might testify
of it in a way perfectly veracious. The reading : ye know,
supported by Tischendorf (8th ed.), spoils this meaning, which
corresponds to the context, and is not sufficiently borne out
by the connection of this verse with the following. — M.
Rilliet translates the expression irepl ip,ov, irep\ ifiavTov,
thrice repeated in these verses, by : in my favour, for me. But
in this sense inrep would be necessary. The simple sense is :
regarding me. — Before saying who this other is whose testi
mony serves to support His own, Jesus removes the natural
enough supposition that it is the forerunner of whom He
means to speak :
Vv. 33-35. " Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto
the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these
things. I say, that ye might be saved. He was the burning and
shining light; and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his
light." — The testimony of the Baptist had made noise enough
to impress Jesus with the feeling that when He said : " I
have another witness," every one would think of the fore
runner. Jesus removes this supposition, remarking at the
same time, however, that from His hearers' point of view the
testimony of John ought certainly to be regarded as valid :
for was it not they who had called it forth (allusion to the
deputation, i. 1 9 et seq.) ? — The perfect p,efjiapTvpvice indicates
that the testimony preserves its value notwithstanding the
disappearance of the witness (ver. 35) : he was, etc.
The first proposition of ver. 34 is difficult to understand.
Does Jesus then regard the testimony of the Baptist as purely
human ? Some critics escape from the difficulty by translat-

188 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
ing ov Xa/iBdvco, " I do not seek " (de Wette) ; I am not
ambitious of. This is to give a false meaning to the expres
sion. All becomes clear if account is taken of the article
before the word testimony : " the testimony ; " that is to say, the
only real, infallible, unexceptionable testimony, the only one
which I would invoke in support of my own, " which I accept
as proof" (Meyer). John's testimony was intended to direct
their eyes to the light ; but once the light had appeared, he gave
place to the direct testimony of God. If, therefore, Jesus
does notwithstanding refer to this testimony, it is because His
hearers have showed that they had not sufficiently delicate
perception to apprehend the divine testimony inherent in His
very appearing ; and it is the care which He has for their sal
vation that impels Him to speak thus ; in this He condescends
to their weakness. — Observe the contrast between v/xeii, ye, and
iyco, I. — -Iva vwdrjTe : " that ye may profit by it savingly."
Ver. 35 expresses with precision the transitory character of
the Baptist's appearing. John was not a permanent sun; he was
the torch which cannot burn without consuming itself. Critics
have explained the art. the before the word torch in some rather
strange ways. Meyer : " the torch par excellence." Bengel sees
here an allusion to Sir. xlviii. 1 : " the word (of Elias) shone like
a torch!' Luthardt thinks that John is compared to the well-
known torch-bearer who usually walked before the bridegroom
in a nuptial procession. All this is forced. The article simply
converts the image into a definition : " He was the light which
enlightens." There was never more than one in the house.
The two epithets, burning and shining, express one and the
same idea : that of the ephemeral brilliance of a torch which
wastes away as it gives light. The imperfect was proves that
this torch is now extinguished. It alludes either to the im
prisonment or recent death of John the Baptist. — In the
second part of the verse : ye were willing . . ., the same
image is kept up. Jesus compares the Jews to children, who,
instead of taking advantage of the precious moments during
which the torch burns to accomplish an indispensable task,
do nothing but dance and play the fool in its light till it goes
out. It is impossible to characterize better the vain and
childish satisfaction which the national pride had found for a
moment in the appearance of this extraordinary man, and the

CHAP. V. 3C. 189
absence of the serious fruits of repentance and faith which
it was intended to produce : " Instead of having yourselves
led to faith by John, you made him an object of curiosity." —
,HdeXrjcraTe : you pleased yourselves with . . . For you it was
nothing but an amusement. Comp. the discourse Luke vii.
24 et seq, which begins with the thrice-repeated question:
" What went ye out into the wilderness to see ? " — as if they
had to do only with an amusing spectacle, — and which closes
by comparing the people to a group of children playing in the
market-place. Ver. 36. "But I have greater1 witness2 than [that of] John:
for the works which my Father gave" me to finish, the same works
that I do} bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me." —
These words, after the parenthesis relative to John, which was
only an argumentum ad hominem, join on to ver. 32, and
develope the thought there expressed. — 'Eyco, I, in opposi
tion to the hearers of Jesus, who know of no other than
human testimony, that of John. — The art. the is to be
explained as in ver. 34: the absolute testimony, which is also
the only one that can be called greater than John's. — The
gen. too 'Icodvvov, of John, is usually explained by the con
tracted form of comparison : " greater than that of John."
Perhaps it is better to take this gen. as the gen. of compari
son : " greater than John ;" that is to say, than John testifying
in my favour. John is identified with His testimony. — Jesus
here alludes to the healing of the impotent man, and to all the
similar works which He had already performed. Indeed, it
is quite evident, whatever Meyer may say, that His works are
here specially His miracles, though undoubtedly we may
embrace under the expression all the spiritual works described
above. Meyer allows this explanation in the passages vii.
3, 21, and elsewhere; the context demands it here as well as
there. The miracles are designated, on the one hand, as gifts
of the Father to Jesus ; on the other, as works of Jesus Him
self. And, indeed, it is because of this double character that
they are a testimony from God. If the Son performed them
1 A B E G M A read p.uZ,at (an obvious mistake).
2 K omits t»» before /txpwpixv.
3 K B L r read liiuxit.
* K A B D 1, some Mnn. reject %yu before ¦xoiu.

190 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
by His own proper power, they would not be a declaration
from God; and if God performed them directly, without
using the Son as His organ, the latter could not derive from
them any personal authentication. — The reading eSaice is
certainly to be preferred to the Alex, various reading Se8oj/ce.
The aor. is demanded by the relation to the "va TeXeidxrco and
by the sense. — The object of gave is : the works ; G od gives Him
His miracles. This object is developed in the following pro
position : that I may finish them. For those miracles are not
given Him in the form of works done, but of works to be done.
This is brought out forcibly by the repetition of the subject in
the words : the same works that I do. From the relation
between these two characteristics of the miracles, as gifts of
God and works of Jesus, there results the value of their
testimony. It is thus seen how thoroughly the word iyd>, I,
rejected by the Alex., suits the meaning of the phrase. But
even this testimony is still indirect compared with another,
which is wholly personal :
Ver. 3 7. " And the Father Himself1 which hath sent me, hath
borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any
time, nor seen His shape." — It is clear, notwithstanding what
Olshausen, Baur, and others say, that Jesus is here speaking
of a new testimony given by the Father: otherwise why
would He substitute for the pres. beareth witness, ver. 36,
which applies to the present miracles of Jesus, the perfect,
hath borne witness, which indicates a completed testimony?
The same also appears from the pron. aOTo<s, Himself, which
strongly emphasizes the personal character of this new testi
mony. God does not speak only by miracles, but He has
spoken Himself. The reading auTo? is therefore preferable to
the eVcetws of the Alex., which would signify : " He, and not
another." — What is this personal testimony ? De Wette
understands by it the inner voice whereby God bears witness
in the heart of man in favour of the gospel, the drawing of
the Father to the Son. But with this view it is impossible to
explain the perfect, hath borne witness, as well as the follow
ing expressions: His voice, His shape, which indicate a personal
manifestation. Calvin, Liicke, Tholuck, Meyer, Luthardt,
think that from this verse to ver. 39, the subject in question
1 N B L am, read sxuvo instead of xv-o; ; D : txmes xuros.

CHAP. V. 37. 191
is the testimony of God in the 0. T. by means of prophecies
and types. But can this explanation account for the expres
sion : see His shape ? Tholuck understands the end of the
verse as a concession : "You have certainly neither heard . . .
nor seen . . ., for that is impossible ; and neither is that the
thing of which I would speak . . . But you should at least
have heard the testimony which God has borne to me in the
Scriptures" (ver. 38). But the first words of ver. 38 do not
indicate a contrast. The phrase : "and ye have not," ver. 38,
simply continues the course of the preceding proposition.
Meyer finds a rebuke in the words : Ye have neither heard
His voice, nor seen His shape, and applies the figures to the
lack of religious sensibility which prevented the Jews from
perceiving the revelation which God had Himself given in
the 0. T. Can this explanation account for the expressions :
hearing the voice, seeing the shape of God ? This formula
denotes an immediate personal knowledge. Jesus uses it,
vi. 46, to describe the knowledge He Himself has of God, in
opposition to all purely human knowledge : " Not that any
man hath seen the Father, save He which is of God, He hath seen
the Father." This saying ought to serve as a key to the
explanation of our verse. It will contain, therefore, not a
rebuke addressed to the religious insensibility of the Jews, but
a declaration of man's natural impotence to rise to the imme
diate and personal knowledge of God (comp. i. 18). There
remains consequently only one explanation of the words :
hath borne witness, that of Chrysostom, Bengel, Lampe, who
think that Jesus refers to the appearance and voice of God
at His baptism. The same who sent Him (6 7re/f\Jra? p,e),
hath appeared and borne this testimony : " This is my Son."
Such is the personal ,and immediate testimony which the
aiirof, Himself, leads us to expect, and which can be really
distinguished from that which God daily bears by the works
of Jesus. By this testimony, henceforth inseparable from Him,
Jesus is in the position of a man in whose favour God Him
self has borne witness (as is literally expressed by the perfect
fiep,apTvpvKe). The true relation of vv. 36—38 is therefore
the following : In passing from the testimony of works, ver. 36,
to the personal testimony of God, ver. 37, Jesus conceives of
the two ways in which the latter may take place : either a

192 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
direct appearance, or His word in the 0. T. The first of these
means is denied to them by the nature of things. The
second is rendered nugatory through their own fault. There
fore testimony for them there is none. It is easy to under
stand, from this point of view, why in ver. 37 Jesus uses the
term <f>eovij, the personal voice, while in ver. 38 He makes use
of the term Xoyos, vjord, which is used to denote divine
revelation. The direct connection of ver. 37 with ver. 38 by
/cat, and,, on this view presents no difficulty :
Vv. 38—40. " And ye have not His word abiding in you : for
whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not. Ye search the Scrip
tures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life : and they are
they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye
might have life." — And as to the other possible form of per
sonal revelation, the word of God, they have it in their hands
indeed ; but its light does not shine within them. The proof
which Jesus gives of this inner fact, viz. their unbelief in the
Sent of God, is not an argument ; for the divinity of His
mission was the very point in question. It is a judgment
pronounced by Jesus, and having its point of support, like the
whole discourse, in the miracle just performed. This for will
be justified by vv. 39, 40, and 46, 47, where Jesus will point
out the real cause of their unbelief in their opposition to the
spirit of the Scriptures.
Ver. 39 is a concession: "No doubt you study the Scrip
tures with care ; you sift them letter by letter, as if eternal
life were to spring from this sort of study." The relation
between the two verses plainly proves that by the word of
God, in ver. 38, Jesus understood the Scriptures. A large
number of critics and translators (Chrysostom, Augustine,
Luther, Calvin, Ostervald, Stier, Hofmann, Luthardt) make
ipevvaTe an imperative : search. The saying would thus be
an exhortation to the profound study of the Scriptures. But
in this case Jesus would not say : because ye think ye have
in them, but : because ye have in them, or at least : because ye
yourselves think ye have in them. And, instead of proceeding
to say : and (yet) they are they, He would require to say, to
form a reason for the exhortation : for they are they. — The
verb ipewiiv is exactly fitted to characterize the rabbinical
study of the Scriptures, the dissection of the letter.

CHAP. V. 41-44; 193
The copula and of ver. 40 brings out, as it so often does in
John, the absurdity of making things which are irreconcilable
by nature proceed side by side with one another. They study
the Scriptures which testify of Christ, and they come not to
Christ ; they seek life, and they reject Him who brings it ! —
'Eiceivai : they (with emphasis) ; and no others (Meyer). The
words : ye will not, describe the voluntary side of unbelief, the
moral antipathy which is its real cause. We find in this
passage the sad tone of the cry given by the Synoptists :
" 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I . . . But ye would
not !" — Thus it is, observes Gess, that Jesus goes back in this
discourse from His present works to His baptism, the basis of
His public activity, and from this to the words of the 0. T.
which prepared for His coming. It is the reverse of the
course followed by the development of His own consciousness.
We see from this passage how Jesus beheld Himself in
the mirror of the O. T. There, He recognised His own figure
so clearly, that He thought it impossible to study the book
sincerely and not come to Him immediately.

o.

The True Cause of Jewish Unbelief. — vv. 41-47.

The close of the discourse only developes the last words of
ver. 40 : "Ye will not." Jesus sounds the inner nature of
this evil will, and unveils its real principle : they seek human
glory instead of aspiring after that which comes from God.
This judgment of Jesus is what we shall find the evangelist
reproducing as his own in the passage xii. 42, 43.
Vv. 41-44. "I receive not honour from men. But I know
you, and I know that ye have not1 the love of God in you. I
am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not : if another
shall come in" his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye
believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek3 not the
Jwnour that cometh from God4, only V — On the one hand, a
Messiah who has no concern about the good opinion of men
and applause of the multitude ; on the other, men whose
supreme interest lies in public consideration, in an immaculate
1 N reads twice aux i%,tri after on and hau (a mistake of the copyist).
a X omits iv. 3 N 10 Mnn. It"11' read Z^ramns instead of Z,nrure.
"Bab omit hav.
GODET II. H JOHN.

194 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
reputation for orthodoxy, in a high renown for 'scriptural
erudition and fidelity to legal observances (comp. the descrip
tion of the Pharisees, Matt. vi. 1-18, xxii. 1-12). How
could tendencies so opposed to one another fail to render faith
in such a Messiah impossible to the latter? — "Eyvtoica
(perfect) : " I have studied you, and know you. I know what
these fine exteriors cover." The love of God here denotes the
aspiration which rises Godward, and which may be found in
the sincere Jew, and even in the Gentile. Rom. ii. 7 :
"They who seek honour, glory, and immortality." (Comp.
ver. 44.) This divine aspiration is the principle of faith, as its
absence is that of unbelief. Jesus here defines the thought
expressed in an indefinite manner, iii. 19-21.
Ver. 43 announces the inevitable result of this contrast
between their tendency and that of Jesus. Not only will
they reject the Messiah, whose whole appearance bears the
seal of divine dependence, but they will be easily seduced by
a wholly false Messiah, who, deriving his work from his own
wisdom and his own strength, will in his person glorify the
whole Jewish people, and, mayhap, humanity itself; the man
covered with the glory of this world shall be the welcomed
one by those lovers of human glory. The eXdy, cometh, in its
relation to iXtfXvda, can only designate a pseudo-Messianic
appearance. According to the Synoptists also Jesus expected
pseudo-Christs, Matt. xxiv. 5, 24, and parallels. History
speaks of sixty-four false Messiahs, who all succeeded in
forming a party among the Jewish people in this way. See
Schudt, Jiidische Merkwiirdigkeiten (quoted by Meyer).
This depraved tendency destroyed in them the very power
of believing, ver. 44. — ' jf/ttet?, ye, such men as you. — In the
last words the adj. p,6vov, only, may be connected with the
idea of &eov : God who is the only God. Jesus would then be
characterizing the pursuit of human glory as a moral idolatry,
and in a sense ranking His hearers with the Gentiles. This
is far-fetched. In this context does not the word only rather
contrast God with the other source of glory to which the
Jews resort, viz. men ? So : from God only. Comp. as to the
moral conception upon which the whole of this passage is
based, Introd. i. p. 1 8 3 et seq. — True inward fidelity to the
spirit which permeates the books of Moses would have guided

CHAP. V. 45-47. 195
them as infallibly to faith as the current of Pharisaic vanity
necessarily estranges them from it.
Vv. 45-47. " Do not think that I will accuse you to the
Father : there is one that accuseth you} even Moses, in whom ye
trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me :,
for he wrote2 of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how
shall ye believe3 my words ? " — After having unveiled to them
the moral cause of their unbelief, Jesus points out to His
hearers the danger to which it exposes them, that of being
condenmed in the name of that very law on whose observance
they found their hopes of salvation. It is not in the name
of the true Messiah unrecognised in His person, it is in the
name of Moses himself trampled under foot, that they shall
be condemned. Jesus here pursues them to their own ground.
His words take a dramatic and striking form. He calls up
before them the great figure of the ancient liberator, on whom
their hope hangs (eis ov), and transforms this alleged advocate
into an accuser. The words : that I will accuse you, assume
that even then there was imputed to Jesus a feeling of enmity
against His people. It was His severe discourses which gave
rise to this accusation. — "Ean is very solemn : " He is there,
he who ..." — The words : in whom ye trust, allude to the
zeal for the law which had been manifested that very day by
the adversaries of Jesus, and which was their ground for
expecting the Messianic glory. " It will be. found that this
Moses, whose law you accuse me of transgressing, will bear
witness for me, while he will raise his voice against you, his,
fanatical defenders." What a reversal of all their notions I
— Meyer holds that the term accuse cannot relate here to the
last judgment ; for then Jesus will be Judge, not accuser. But
Jesus says precisely that He will not accuse, without, however,
adding a word about the personality of the Judge, which
would have been out of place. ,
The two verses, 46 and 47, prove the thesis of ver. 45 by
showing, the first, the connection between faith in Moses and
faith in Christ ; the second, the connection between unbelief
in the one and in the other. In other words, every true Jew
1 B adds vpas rav vtxnpx. * K : ytyf^tt instead of typx^it.
3 Instead of mmunn, B V It"11' Syr0"1 read ranvtrt ; and D G S A, some Mnn.
trirnufnrt. •

196 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
will naturally become a Christian, every bad Jew will in
stinctively reject the gospel. The two propositions are
founded on the fact that the two covenants are the develop
ment of one and the same principle, and have the same moral
substance. Now, when a principle has been accepted or
rejected on its first appearance, with stronger reason will it
be accepted or rejected in its complete manifestation. This
is exactly the thesis developed by St. Paul, Rom. ii. There
is a strong analogy, indeed, between the terms used by the
apostle and those of Jesus; Rom. ii. 29: "The true Jew
does not take his praise from men, but from God " (comp. John
v. 41-44); ver. 23: "Thou makest thy boast in the law"
(comp. John v. 45). — The words : wrote of me, allude to the
Protevangel, the patriarchal promises, the types, such as that
of the brazen serpent, the Levitical ceremonies, which were
the shadow of things to come (Col. ii. 1 7), and more especially
to the promise, Deut. xviii. 18: " / will raise them up a
prophet like unto thee" — a promise the fulfilment of which,
while including the sending of all the prophets who followed
Moses, is consummated in Jesus Christ. But especially we
must think here of the end and spirit of the theocratic in
stitutions, which all tended to awake a conviction of sin and
a thirsting for righteousness. For one to admit this spirit
would have been to open his heart beforehand for the great
quickener (comp. Gess).
In ver. 47 the essential antithesis is not that of the sub
stantives, writings and words, but that of the pronouns, his
and my. The first is merely accidental, arising from the fact
that Jesus spoke while Moses was read. This charge of not
believing Moses, addressed to people who were put in a fury
by the pretended violation of one of the Mosaic command
ments, recalls those other words of Jesus, so sad and bitter
(Matt, xxiii. 29-32): "Ye build the tombs of the prophets;
wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children
of them which killed the prophets." The rejection of a sacred
principle sometimes shelters itself under a show of the most
punctilious respect and the most ardent zeal for the principle
itself. From this coincidence there follow in the religious
history of humanity those tragical situations among which
the catastrophe of Israel here predicted takes the first rank.

CHAP. V. 45-47. 197
As to the historical reality of this discourse, the following
appear to us to be the results of exegesis : —
1st. The fundamental thought harmonizes perfectly with the
given situation. Accused of having performed an anti-Sabbatical
work, and even of claiming equality with God, Jesus justifies
Himself in a way at once the most elevated and the most humble,
by declaring, on the testimony of His consciousness, His abso
lute dependence on His Father, and by pointing to this perfect
dependence as the cause of the supreme position which He
occupies. 2d. The three principal parts of the discourse have a natural
connection with one another, and group themselves easily round
the main idea which we have just indicated, — 1. Jesus affirms
His entire dependence on the Father ; 2. He proves this inward
fact, which it is impossible to test, by a threefold testimony of
the Father : the miracles, — a specimen of which is at this moment
before their eyes, — His voice at the baptism, and the Scriptures ;
3. He closes by pointing out to them, in their secret antipathy
to the moral tendency of His work, the reason which hinders
them from trusting those testimonies, and with threatening
them with condemnation in the name of that very Moses whom
they accuse Him of despising.
Thus the alleged metaphysics with which the discourses of
John are charged vanish before a strict exegesis. In its stead
there remains only the simple expression of the filial conscious
ness of Jesus. This is unfolded in views of imposing grandeur
and sublime elevation (vv. 21-29), and in the description of a
relation to God which bears the character of unique purity
(vv. 19 and 20). What renders this feature the more inimi
table is the naive and almost infantine simplicity of the figures
used to describe this communion of the Son with the Father.
Such a relation must have been lived, otherwise it could never
have been expressed, and that so much the more as its contents
are completely opposed to the anti-subordination current, which
carried away the church soon after apostolic times.
Strauss has acknowledged those results of exegesis up to a
certain point. " There is not," says he, " in the tenor of the
rest of the discourse anything to cause difficulty, anything
which Jesus might not have said Himself; for the evangelist
relates in the best connection claims . . . which, according to
the Synoptists also, Jesus made for Himself." x The objections
of Strauss bear solely on the analogies of style between this
discourse, that of John the Baptist (ch. iii.), and certain passages
1 Leben Jesu. The expression : " in the rest of the discourse," is not intended
to limit this favourable judgment passed on the discourse as a whole ; it applies
to an objection of which Strauss himself had just been disposing.

198 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
of the first Epistle of John. Strauss concludes by saying : " If,
then, the form of this discourse must be ascribed to the evange
list, the matter might possibly belong to Jesus." And for us,
We think we may conclude by saying : If a half understanding
¦of the discourse wrung this avowal from such a critic, a more
full understanding entitles us to say : Jesus really spoke thus.
The principal theme bears the character of the most perfect
appropriateness. The secondary ideas are logically subordinate
to this theme. Not a detail is discordant with the whole;
finally, the application is solemn and impressive, as it ought to
be in such a situation ; it stamps the whole discourse with the
seal of reality.
M. Renan judges that the author must have drawn the sub
stance of his account from tradition (comp. the name Bethesda,
v. 2), which, says he, is extremely weighty, because it proves that
a part of the Christian community actually ascribed to Jesus
miracles performed at Jerusalem. As to the discourse, we can
here apply M. Renan's general theory regarding the discourses
of the fourth Gospel (p. lxxviii.) : " The theme cannot be with
out a measure of authenticity ; but in the execution, the fancy
of the artist allows itself full play. The factitious action, the
rhetoric, the touching up, are all discernible." Factitious action
betrays itself in commonplaces without appropriateness ; — have
we met with them ? Rhetoric, in emphasis and inflation ; — have
we found anything of the kind ? Touching up, in ingenious anti
theses and a searching after the piquant. In the discourse which
we have just been studying nothing of such a nature appears.
Matter and form, all full of reality, equally exclude the idea of
an artificial work, a composition arising from cold reflection.
Let us, finally, refer to an assertion of M. R^ville, trenchant
and bold, like those which so often proceed from the pen of this
critic: "This book," says he, speaking of the fourth Gospel,
" in which Judaism, the Jewish law, and the Jewish temple,
are things as foreign and as indifferent as they could have been
to a Hellenist Christian of the second century . . !'1 And one
can dare to write such words, having before him the last verses
of our chapter, in which Jesus so identifies His teaching with
that of Moses, that to believe the one is implicitly to believe the
other, and to reject the latter is virtually to refuse the former,
because Jesus is in reality nothing else than Moses fulfilled.
Such, exactly, is the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, that
discourse which is regarded as the most authentic thing of all
in the synoptical tradition ! John's view respecting the rela
tion of the two economies is identical with that of Matthew.
1 Sevue germanique, 1st December 1863, p. 110, note.

CHAP. VI. 1. 199

SECOND SECTION.
VI. 1-71.  THE GREAT MESSIANIC TESTIMONY AND THE CRISIS
IN GALILEE.
The thread of the narrative, apparently broken at the close
of ch. v., is again taken up at ch. vii. on the occasion of a
fresh journey of Jesus to Jerusalem. During the interval
between these two sojourns in Judea, Jesus returned, as is
evident from ch. vi., to Galilee, and remained there with a
persistence which, as we shall perceive in ch. vii., astonished
even His relatives. This abode in Galilee comprises the whole
interval between the feast of Purim in March and that of
Tabernacles in October, i.e. seven consecutive months. Hence
it is natural to apportion to this space of time the greater part
of the Galilean ministry related by the Synoptics, and the
more so, that the two miracles — viz. the multiplication of the
loaves and fishes, and the calming of the tempest — which form
the point of union between the narratives of St. John and of
the Synoptists are recorded by the former as occurring at pre
cisely this epoch. We are thus furnished with a prominent
mark for settling the synchronism of the four Gospels.
One circumstance which renders this long absence of Jesus
from Jerusalem the more striking, is the fact that the two
great festivals of Passover and Pentecost, at one of which, at
the least, every Jew was bound to be present, took place
during this portion of the year. The conduct of our Lord
requires explanation in this respect, and this we find ch. vii. 1
in the words : " Jesus walked in Galilee : for He would not
walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him." Hence
ch. vi. is in effect a continuation of ch. v., inasmuch as
this prolonged sojourn in Galilee, of which ch. vi. details
the most striking epoch, was the result of the animosity
kindled at Jerusalem by the miracle and the discourse reported
in ch. v., and in a moral point of view the thread of the
narrative is unbroken.
But why, among the multitude of facts with which the
Galilean ministry is crowded, does St. John select this, and
this only ? Undoubtedly the miracle of the loaves and fishes

200 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
manifested the glory of Jesus ; and assuredly the testimony to
His person by which it is followed is of capital importance.
Still, to explain fully so remarkable an exception, we must.
recur to the governing idea of this whole portion, viz. the
development of the national unbelief. The close of the
chapter will show that the epoch here described was the
decisive crisis of the faith in Galilee. We have here a parallel
to what took place in Judea in ch. viii. and xii., with this
difference aheady marked, that in Judea unbelief was violent
and aggressive, and could only terminate in murder, while in
Galilee it was a simple feeling that over-wrought expectation
had been deceived. It was indifference rather than hatred ;
there was no word of putting to death, there was merely a
going away, w. 6 6, 6 7. The revelation of the glory of Jesus,
by the two miracles and the discourse recorded in this chap
ter, is indeed here, as elsewhere, the basis of the narrative ;
but the special aim of the picture is to bring out into bold
relief the sad result in which these great favours terminated.
We find here, as ever, a development of that saying which
forms, as it were, the theme of this whole section : " He came
unto His own, but His own received Him not." In that very
province, where faith had for a moment seemed about to
become a national act (iv. 45), His Messianic work, as such,
failed. The quiet growth, however, of His true work, His
work of salvation, continued in the midst of this great reverse,
and even brought forth an illustrious confession (vv. 68, 69).
Beyschlag well brings forward the fact that the miracle of
the loaves and fishes, by provoking a sudden explosion of that
popular Messianic expectation which was smouldering under
ashes, brought to light the utter incompatibility between the
common Messianic notions and those of Jesus, and became the
signal of retreat to a large number of His disciples. It was
St. John alone who grasped the historic bearing of that decisive
moment in the ministry of Jesus ; and for that reason it was
he alone who was capable of placing it in its true light. This
explains the exception he makes in its favour, and shows us
why, although he found it narrated by his predecessors, he
thought fit to reproduce it, and to concentrate in this event a
summary of the whole Galilean ministry.
The chapter is divided into three parts, — 1st. The two-

CHAP. VI. 1, 2. 201
miracles, w. 1-21 ; 2d. The conversations and addresses con
nected with them, vv. 22-65 ; 3d. The final crisis, vv. 66-71.

I. The Miracles. — vv. 1-21.
1. The Multiplication of the Loaves. — vv. 1-13.
Vv. 1, 2. "After these things Jesus withdrew to the other
side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.
And1 a great multitude followed Him, because they saw2 the
miracles ¦ which He did on 3 them * which were diseased."
— If the fact recorded in ch. v. really took place at the
feast of Purim, that related in ch. vi. happened only a few
weeks after (ver. 4), and the indefinite fierd Tavra, after these
things, is very suitable to this short interval. Meyer narrows
the meaning of fieTa TavTa, and understands " immediately after
this sojourn in Judea ; " aTrfjXdev, went away, would then have
Jerusalem for its point of departure, and the multitude, men
tioned ver. 2, would be that which accompanied Jesus at His
return from Judea. But, as Luthardt observes, how could
such an expression be used as : to depart from Jerusalem over
to the eastern coast of the Sea of Galilee, when there is no
direct relation between the two places ? Besides, is it not
evident that ver. 2 gives a description of a general state of
things upon which to detail the scene which follows, and
which bears thereto the same relation as ii. 23—25 to iii. 1—21,
or iii. 22-24 to iii. 25-36, or iv. 43-45 to iv. 46-54 ? This
is, in fact, St. John's mode of narrative ; and this character of
generality is evidenced by the employment of the imperfect
r/KoXovdei, was following, ecbpcov, were seeing, iirolei, was doing,
in opposition to the aorist dvrjXde, went up (ver. 3), which
introduces the account of that particular event which the writer
has in view. St. John, then, intends to tell us that Jesus, after
His return from Jerusalem, resumed that Galilean ministry
which was marked by daily miracles, and during which He
1 K B D L, some Mnn. ItPleri'°e Cop. read it instead of xxi.
2 Instead of tupuv, A reads ihupuv, and B D L ihupavt.
3 T. R. reads xurau rx a-n/mx. KABDKLSAnlt. Syr. Vg. Cop. omit
aurou. 1 K reads rtfi instead of in.

202 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
was constantly accompanied by considerable multitudes. Con
sequently, it was from some spot on the western shore of
the Sea of Galilee, that He thought fit to withdraw to the
opposite coast. And this is the exact meaning of irepav, over.
St. John tells us nothing of the motives which led Jesus to
this step ; but the term dirfjXdev, departed, indicates a seeking
of solitude. And indeed, according to Mark vi. 30 and Luke
ix. 10, the apostles had just rejoined their Master, after
accomplishing their first mission, and He was desirous of
affording them some repose, and passing some short time alone
with them. Besides, according to Matt. xiv. 13, He had just
heard of the murder of John the Baptist ; and the shock of
this news, inducing as it must have done a presentiment of
the nearness of His own end, must have made Him feel the
need of collecting His own thoughts, and preparing His dis
ciples for this catastrophe. Thus the four narratives are easily
reconciled. St. Luke alone names Bethsaida as the place near
which the miracle took place. It has been asserted that he
means Bethsaida near Capernaum, and that he consequently
makes this event take place on the western shore. But this
would make St. Luke contradict not only the other evangelists,
but himself; for he tells us that Jesus withdrew with His
disciples to a desert place belonging to a city called Bethsaida.
Now the mention of such a purpose on the part of Jesus forbids
us to entertain the notion that Luke is speaking of the city of
Bethsaida on the western shore, where our Lord was always
surrounded by multitudes. Josephus (Antiq. xviii. 2. 1 and
4. 6) speaks of a town bearing the name of Bethsaida Julias,
situated at the north-eastern extremity of the Sea of Tiberias,
and the expression Bethsaida of Galilee, by which St. John
(xii. 21) designates the native city of Peter, Andrew, and
Philip, would be unmeaning unless there were another Beth
saida out of Galilee ; and it is of this that St. Luke intended
to speak. Bethsaida Julias was in Gaulonitis, in the tetrarchy
of Philip, upon the left bank of the Jordan, a little above
where it falls into the Lake of Gennesareth. It was the place
of Philip's death and splendid obsequies (Furrer, Schenkel's
Bibellex. i. p. 429). Had St. John written in Galilee for
Galileans, he would have limited himself to the ordinary
expression : Sea of Galilee. But writing out of Palestine, and

CHAP. VI. 3, 4. 203
fof Greeks, he adds the explanation: which is of Tiberias.
The city of Tiberias, built by Herod Antipas, and thus named
in honour of Tiberius, was well known to strangers. Thus
the Greek geographer Pausanias calls the Sea of Galilee Xip.vn
Tifiepk, while Josephus uses indifferently the two names here
united by St. John. The imperfect eojpmv, they were seeing,
expresses the delight afforded them by these ever-recurring
miracles. The reading of the T. R., kdpoiv, is supported by the
Sinait, and even by the barbarism, idecbpcov, of the Alexandrine.
Vv. 3, 4. "And Jesus went up1 to the mountain, and
there He sat 2 with His disciples. Now the Passover, the feast
of the Jews, was nigh." — The expression: the mountain, denotes
either the particular mountain of the district, or the
mountainous part of the country in general, as opposed to
the level of the shore. Jesus was there conversing in some
solitary place with His disciples. What, we ask, is the
purport of the remark in ver. 4 ? The then of ver. 5 (comp.
vii. 3) forbids us to regard it as a mere chronological refer
ence. Is it then intended to supply an explanation of the
great company spoken of in ver. 5 ? Such is the notion of
Meyer, who distinguishes the multitude of ver. 5 from ' that
of ver. 2. But what could have brought the caravans going
up to the Passover, into this out of the way place ? And
does not even the identity of the expressions used (ttoXvs
. 6'^Xo?, vv. 2 and 5), show that these numerous arrivals are
none other than the midtitude of whom we have just been
told that they followed Jesus everywhere? The mention,
then, of the approaching feast serves to explain, not the
arrival of the great company, but the conduct of Jesus
towards them. Proscribed to a certam extent, He is Himself
prevented from celebrating the Passover at Jerusalem ; and
seeing the multitude flocking after Him in the desert, perish
ing for the bread of life, His heart is touched with pity, and
He immediately recognises in this unexpected circumstance
the Father's signal. Transporting Himself in thought to
Jerusalem, He says for Himself, for His disciples, for the
multitude : We, too, will keep a Passover ! — This is the thought
which puts the miracle and the addresses connected with it in
1 S D It"1'' read xtni^h for xvnXfa.
2 $, some Mnn. : ixxh^iro ; D : ixx^^Xim.

204 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
their true hght. In this fourth verse, then, St. John furnishes
us with the key of the whole narrative, as he had also given
(iii. 1) in the words : of tlie Pharisees, that of the whole con
versation with Nicodemus. The term 97 eopTij, the feast,
designates the Passover as the feast par excellence. — The cir
cumstance, mentioned Luke vi. 1-5 and its parallel passages,
confirms, from the synoptic Gospels also, the fact that our
Lord spent one Passover season in Galilee, during the course
of His ministry in that province.
Vv. 5-7. " When Jesus then lifted up His eyes, and saw a
great company come unto Him, He said unto Philip, Whence
shall we buy 1 bread, tliat fliese may eat ? Now this He said to
prove him : for} as for Himself, He knew what He would do.
Philip answered Him} Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not
sufficient for them} that each of them 6 may take a little." — St.
John does not tell us how long the private conversation,
mentioned ver. 3, between Jesus and His disciples lasted.
The term eKadrrro, there He sat, which the Sinait. has wrongly
changed into eKade^ero, He seated Himself, proves that He
remained some moments alone with His disciples.
How, then, did this great company arrive ? Certainly not
by boat (comp. ver. 22), and, therefore, by going by land round
the northern boundary of the lake ; for this is the meaning of
Tre^g, on foot, Mark iv. 33 ; Matt. xiv. 13. While Jesus and
His disciples came by water from Capernaum or its neigh
bourhood, the nearest way to Bethsaida Julias, these crowds,
who had observed the point towards which the barque was
steering, made the tour of the lake on foot with all possible
speed, and thus arrived one after another upon the scene of
action. Part of the day was, according to the Synoptists,
devoted to teaching and healing; meanwhile the crowd
was increasing; comp. Mark vi. 33 : " Tliey ran afoot thither
out of all the cities!' It is at this juncture that the narrative
of St. John begins. Jesus lifted up His eyes and beheld
these multitudes already assembled or hastening to the spot,
1 K U V : xyapxvafi.lv instead of xyopxruftlt.
1 ti '¦ y*p instead of Si, and afterwards Ji instead of yap.
3 X and D : xxoxpmrxi instead of xxtxpiln ; and X : out instead of xurat.
4 X omits xurois.
b n A IS L 11 and some Mnn. and Vss. omit «»i«,

CHAP. VI. 5-7. 205
and was touched by that deep feeling of compassion described
by Matthew and Mark. But another emotion, detected only
by St. John, surpassed even His compassion. And this was
the joy which filled His heart. Undoubtedly He had longed
for solitude, and these numerous arrivals were thwarting His
desire. But such anxiety, such perseverance, were to Him
an irresistible appeal. Giving up His own purpose, He
acquiesced in that of the Father, and,' entering with delight
into the new position thus opened to Him, He accepted the
feast offered Him, and consented to give the feast to which
God called Him. It would be a compensation for that at
Jerusalem of which He and His disciples have been deprived.
This is the meaning of the particle then, ver. 5, and the
real relation of the participles : having lifted His eyes, having
seen, and the verb : He said. According to St. John, it was
Jesus who took the initiative, saying, as it were, to Philip :
Here are our guests, they must sup ; have you thought of it ?
According to the Synoptists, it was the disciples who were
anxious about the multitude, and entreated Jesus to dismiss
them. It is possible that the lack of provisions may have
simultaneously occupied the thoughts both of Jesus and the
disciples, in proportion as evening drew on. But as for the
Lord, His resolve was already taken. The account of the
Synoptists is written from the disciples' point of view, which
would naturally prevail in narrations emanating from the
Twelve, and especially in those of Matthew and Peter ; while
John, who had more deeply read his Master's heart, gives the
prominence to the other point of departure, viz. the spon
taneous impulse of Jesus. The disciples then applied to
their Master, and imparted to Him their anxiety. Jesus,
having already formed His own plan, said to them : " Give ye
them to eat," and, as we have just seen, addressed Himself
particularly to Philip. And why to him rather than another?
Bengel thinks that he had charg# of the res alimentaria ; but
it is evident from xiii. 29 that it was rather Judas who was
accustomed to make the purchases.
According to Luthardt, the education of Philip, who was
of a hesitating and timid character, was the purpose of
Jesus ; but this supposition seems rather far-fetched. There
is a tone of gaiety, almost of sportiveness, in the question :

206 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
" Whence shall we buy?" And if we suppose that naivete'
was the predominant feature of Philip's character, we can
see why Jesus should prefer to address to Him this question,
which from the point of view of natural resources it was
impossible to answer, but to which Philip on his part replies
with good-humoured ease and pleasantness. This slight
touch gives a notion of the amenity which prevailed in the
relation of Jesus to His disciples. And this is undoubtedly
the reason why St. John has thus faithfully preserved it,
appertaining as it does to the picture of that glory, full of
grace, belonging to the Word made flesh.
In such a context, it is impossible to give to the word
vreipd^eiv, to prove, a solemn and theological meaning. The
very question : " Whence shall we buy . . .?" shows that there
was no intention of putting his moral character to the test.
And the reflection which follows : "for He Himself knew
what He would do" makes us feel that this question was, as it
were, a trap for His disciples' naive simplicity. The expres
sion : " to prove him" simply means : to see how he would get
out of this insoluble problem, and whether in this situation
he would be able to find the true answer of faith. Philip,
however, prudently set himself to calculate, and spoke with
mere common sense. The penny was a Roman coin worth
about eightpence halfpenny of our money, hence two hundred
pence amounted to above seven pounds, — a tolerable sum, but
nevertheless far below what was needed on the occasion. St.
Mark has also preserved this circumstance of the two hundred
pence; but, with him, it is the disciples who make and speak
of this calculation. If the connection between the question
of Jesus and the answer of Philip were not so close, we
might try to interpolate the short dialogue between Jesus and
His disciples, reported Mark vi. 37, between w. 6 and 7.
It is, however, far more probable that the reflection which
St. Mark attributes to the disciples in general is but a re
production of the words of Philip, preserved in a historically
exact form in St. John's Gospel.
Vv. 8, 9. " One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother, saith unto Him, There is a1 lad here which 2 hath five
1 Ev is omitted by N B D L n, 15 Mnn. It""' Or.
'ABDGUa: ot instead of ..

chap. vi. io. 207
barley loaves and two small fishes ; but what are these among
so many ? " — St. John at first says, in an indefinite manner, one
of His disciples, as if this were all that mattered. Then
in this disciple he sees and names Andrew, and we almost
seem to hear him relating. How, too, can we fail to remember
that, according to the tradition of the Muratorian fragment, it
was just Andrew who was present at the time of the composi
tion of this Gospel (Introd. i. p. 2 0 3) ? The apposition, Simon
Peter's brother, is not simply explanatory, for this indication
had already been given i. 41. But the person of Andrew
cannot present itseK to the mind of John without his view
ing it in the illustrious light of Peter's brother. And yet
it has been said that the aim of his narrative is to defame
Peter ! Andrew, too, falls to a certain extent into the trap
laid for his fellow-disciple ; and it is perhaps with a touch of
humour that the evangelist records their sayings in extenso,
contrasting so sharply as they do with the splendid display of
power about to be manifested. The word ev, one, restored
by Tischendorf in 1859, was suppressed by him in the eighth
edition, erroneously, according to the Alex, and Origen. It
serves to place in stronger light the scantiness of the available
resources. But " one " who has anything to suggest, and that
one how little ! Some petty salesman whom Andrew had
noticed in the crowd. — Barley bread was that used by the
poorer classes (Judg. vii. 13).
Ver. 1 0. " But J Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now
there was much 2 grass in the place. So the men sat down, in
number about s five thousand." ' 4 — In these scanty provisions
Jesus found what He required — the material upon which
Omnipotence might operate. The feast was now ready, the
table spread : " Make the men sit down " were His words to
His disciples. The mountainous plateaus which rise behind
the site of Bethsaida Julias were then decked in the verdure
of spring. St. Mark as well as St. John recalls the picture pre
sented by the grassy carpet, upon which the crowds took their
places (eVt tg> %\w/3« X°PTeP' V1- ^9)> an(* *^e cheerrul spectacle
1 N B L Syr. and Or. omit h.
2 X reads rams ¦xo'Kos (much room) instead of xotT°s *°*-»s.
3 K B D L : us instead of urn.
* X reads rpi<rxi\ioi (three thousand).

208 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
offered by their regular ranks (avpmoaia <Tvp.Troaia, Trpaaial
irpao-ial) of hundreds and fifties. — "Av8pe<; denotes men in the
strict sense of the word ; that they alone are mentioned does
not indicate, as Meyer supposes, that the women and children
did not also sit down, but that, the latter keeping apart, the
men only were counted. In the East the women and children
always keep at a respectable distance from the husband and
his guests.
Ver. 11. "Then1 Jesus took the loaves ; and when He had
given thanks} He distributed3 to those that were set down ; and
likewise of the fishes as much as they would!' — At this solemn.
moment Jesus takes, in the midst of the multitude, the posi
tion of the father of the family, not at the commencement of
an ordinary, but of the Paschal, repast. He gives thanks to
God, as the father surrounded by his household was on that
occasion wont to do, for His natural gifts and covenant bless
ings. This action seems to have specially struck the specta
tors. It is made almost equally prominent in each of the
four narratives, and both the disciples and the multitude seem
to have been impressed with the notion that it was this act of
thanksgiving on the part of Jesus which effected the miracle,
comp. ver. 23. After the thanksgiving, Jesus distributed
the food, as the father was accustomed to do at the Paschal
meal We omit from the text the words : " to the disciples,
and the disciples." It is indeed possible that the Alex.
may have omitted them through confusing the two to?5,
but more probable that they are an interpolation from St.
Matthew. Vv. 12, 13. " Then, when they were filled, He said unto His
disciples, Gather up the fragments which remain, that nothing
be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve
baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which
remained over to them that had eaten!' — In the synoptic
Gospels the disciples gather up the fragments of their own
accord. In St. John, the order to do so originates with Jesus.
1 A B D and L : auv instead of Ss.
2 N D It. Syr. tuxxpitrno-tv xxi instead of tu%apiirrr,rxi.
3 a D r : shuxtv instead of 2uo*uxi ; T. R. adds rais fcxitirxi; 01 2; fixfrirxi, with
12 Mjj. most of the Mnn. It"11' ; words which are omitted by X A B L n, some
Mnn. It*1"1"" Vg. Syr. Cop. Or.

CHAP. VI. 12, 13. 209
This was His triumphant answer to the calculation of Philip
and Andrew. We feel also the close connection existing in
the mind of Jesus between this saying : that nothing may be
lost, and the act of thanksgiving which had produced this
abundance. A gift so attained was not to be squandered.
Criticism has asked whence the twelve baskets were obtained.
If they were mere travelling baskets, the apostles might each
have been provided with one, for they had not set out on a
sudden, like the multitude ; while if, as is probable, these
baskets were of a larger kind, they might have been borrowed
in the neighbouring hamlets. — The term t£>v icpidlvwv, of the
five barley loaves, is intended to assert the identity of these
fragments with their origin, the five loaves of the lad men
tioned by Andrew.
Not only is this miracle of the multiplication of the loaves
and fishes found in all four Gospels, but several characteristic
details — the crowds who followed Jesus into a desert place, the
five loaves, the two fishes, the five thousand men, the twelve
baskets — are also common to all the narratives. Besides these,
other features — the green grass, the two hundred pence — are
common to two or three Gospels, particularly to Mark and
John. We feel that the four accounts are really based upon a
fact, the chief features of which were indelibly imprinted upon
the memory of all who witnessed it, but whose details had not
been equally observed and retained by all. The narrative of St.
John is the one which gives us the deepest insight into the
mind of Jesus and the spirit of the miracle. Modern criticism
asserts that it was composed of materials furnished by the
Synoptists, and especially by St. Mark (so Baur, Hilgenfeld,
and in some degree Weizsacker himself, p. 290). But it is
just in this Gospel that we find the sharpest outhnes, the
most exactly drawn features; while the synoptic account
generalizes (the disciples, instead of Philip and Andrew, etc.),
and gives us the impression of being a narrative, of which
the " sharp edges " have been rubbed off by traditional repro
duction. According to Paulus, there is no need to regard this scene as
miraculous. Jesus and His disciples brought forth such pro
visions as they had, and generously shared them with those
near them, who in their turn imitated their example ; and each
furnishing what he had, every one had enough. M. Renan
seems to adopt this explanation of the fact, if not of the text.
"Jesus," he says, "retired to the desert, and great numbers
GODET II. 0 JOHN.

210 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
followed Him. Thanks to their extreme frugality, they were
able to subsist there; and this was naturally regarded as a
miracle." What M. Renan does not explain is, how so simple
a fact should have produced in the multitude such a state of
exaltation, that that very night they sought to get possession of
Jesus to proclaim Him king (w. 14, 15). Olshausen admits
an acceleration of the processes of nature, which multiply the
corn in the bosom of the earth ; and thus furnishes matter of
ridicule to Strauss, who asks whether the law of natural repro
duction is to be apphed to cooked fish ? Lange supposes that
it was not the very matter of the provisions, but the nutritious
power of their molecules, which was multiplied. But we must
either place ourselves by faith in the supernatural atmosphere
created here below by the presence of Jesus Christ, or refuse to
enter upon this higher sphere altogether. In the latter case,
the only part to take is to explain this narrative as a mythic
production. But how numberless are the difficulties which
this hypothesis has to overcome in the perfectly simple and
prosaic character of the four narratives, in the many little
historical details in which they coincide, — in short, in the
authenticity of even one of the works which contain this nar
rative ! In the former case, on the contrary, we understand
that Jesus, having discerned the will of His Father, desired to
give to the people who so zealously followed Him a feast
which, like the Passover itself, prefigured what He was soon
going to do spiritually for the world, and was a prelude to
the future glorification of matter by the power of the Spirit.

2. Jesus walking on the Water. — w. 14—21.
Vv. 14, 15. " Then those men, when they had seen tlie
miracle1 which He2 had done, said, This is truly the prophet
that should come into the world. Jesus therefore, perceiving that
they were about to draw near and seize Him, to make Him
king} withdrew4, again5 to the mountain alone." — We have
here the commencement of the crisis, which is progressively
developed throughout the rest of the chapter. A selection
of the adherents of Jesus was necessary, that His work
1 B 0B Cop. :«.... fftuua instead of o . . . ffttftuov.
'KBD ftp""1'"" Syrcur omit a \wrous.
8 X reads xxi avxtisixvuvxi fixo-ikix instead of ivx xotyiir. xur. fixir.
4 X It*"* Syrour read ipiuyn instead of xvtxupwi.
" nx\iv (after xvtx»pwi) is the reading of T.R. with X A BD KL A It. Vg.
Syr™", but is omitted in 10 Mjj. Syr"* Cop.

CHAP. VI. 14, 15. 211
might be purified from all political alloy. He had re
ceived these multitudes with open arms ; He had made for
them a feast, a symbol of that higher feast of which He de
signed to make them partakers. He had given them of His
bread, thus figuring that gift of Himself which He had made
to the human race. But instead of rising to the hope and
desire of a spiritual banquet, these Galileans were wholly
preoccupied with the material miracle, and in their state of
exaltation already regarded it as the inauguration of a Mes
sianic kingdom such as they imagined. This is expressed by
the relation of the participle having seen, seen with their eyes,
to the verb eXeyov, they said. According to i. 21, 25, the
prophet whom the multitude recognised in Jesus was an
individual distinct from the Messiah. But it appears from
vv. 14, 15 that others regarded Him as the Messiah Himself.
They probably imagined that, after being proclaimed by the
people, He would become the Messiah. The plot spoken of
ver. 15 supposes the highest degree of exaltation in the
multitude. St. John does not tell us how Jesus became
cognizant of it. It is probable that the word yvov<s, having
known, indicates a direct perception, similar to that of ver. 6.
— The present part, d e/3%d/*ej/o?, he who comes, is an allusion to
the prophecy upon which the expectation of such a personage
was founded, Deut. xviii. 18. — The term apird^eiv, to seize,
does not suffer us to doubt that the project formed was to get
possession of Jesus, even against His will, in order to crown
Him. at Jerusalem. The task of Jesus at this juncture was
by no means an easy one. If He were immediately to depart
with His disciples, the commotion, instead of being appeased,
was in danger of spreading in Gahlee. If He remained
together with His disciples, they might be infected by the
contagion of that carnal enthusiasm, which would only find
too many points of contact in their hearts. It might even be
that one among them — Judas, for instance — was secretly
directing the plot (vv. 70, 71). It was therefore needful to
be on the alert. And, first of all, He was anxious to send
away His disciples to the other side of the lake, for the pur
pose of cutting off all solidarity between them and the multi
tude. This is the explanation of the singular expression of
Matt. xiv. 22 and Mark vi. 45 : He immediately constrained

212 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
His disciples to embark, and to go before Him to the other
side, while He sent away the people. No motive for such
constraint is furnished by the synoptic narrative, and perhaps
the disciples were themselves ignorant of the true reason for
so sudden a step on the part of their Master. When this
was done, Jesus calmed and dismissed the multitudes, who
dispersed themselves in the neighbouring districts. Matthew
and Mark also tell us that when He had dismissed the multi
tudes, He retired into the mountain apart to pray. This
juncture evidently coincides with the close of this 1 5th verse ;
and hence only a portion of the multitude, undoubtedly the
more enthusiastic, remained upon the spot (comp. ver. 22).
— The word irdXiv, again, omitted by many Byzantine Mss.,
must be retained. It contains an allusion to ver. 3, which
has not been understood by copyists. Jesus had approached
the shore for the repast ; He now returned to the heights, to
which He had at first betaken Himself with His disciples.
Avtcxi p,6vo<;, Himself alone, is in exact opposition to the words,
with His disciples, of ver. 3.
Vv. 16-18. " When evening was come, His disciples went
down to the sea, and having entered into the ship, they went
over1 the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark} and
Jesus was not3 come to them. And the sea was agitated by
a great wind that blew." — What order had Jesus given to His
disciples before leaving them ? According to the Synoptists,
that of embarking for the other side of the lake ; an order
equally implied by the account of St. John, for it is impos
sible to suppose that they departed, as related ver. 1 7, leaving
Jesus on the eastern shore, without knowing His wishes in this
respect. They even hesitated, as is evident from the whole
account, to comply with them, notwithstanding the order
they had received from Him. But how, in this case, are we
to understand the end of ver. 17, which seems to say that
they were expecting Jesus to rejoin them, — especially if the
reading oinru, not yet, of the Alex, is to be retained ? Either
the words : He was not yet come to them, must be regarded as
written from the point of view of what subsequently took
1 X '• >pxnTa' instead of npxov".
2 X D> 1 Mn. : xxriXxfiiv Si xurous n o-xonx instead of x. vxor. titn tyty.
* X B D L, 5 Mnn. Itf"""" Cop. read ouxu instead of oux.

CHAP. VI. 19-21. 213
place, when Jesus went to them on the waters, — which is not
very natural, — or it must be assumed that, the direction from
Bethsaida Julias to Capernaum being nearly parallel with
the northern shore of the lake, Jesus had appointed to meet
the disciples at some point of the coast between these two
cities where He purposed to rejoin them. This easily ex
plains the second part of ver. 17. And, in fact, the disciples
seem to have stopped upon the coast at a certain distance
from Bethsaida Julias, for the purpose of taking Jesus into
the boat. After, however, waiting for Him in vain, they
thought it more in conformity with His orders to re-embark,
notwithstanding the darkness of the night. It was then that
the violence of the wind, and the impossibility of steering
caused by the darkness, sent them from the coast and drove
them southward into the open sea. — The imperfect fipxovTo,
ver. 17, denotes the commencement of this boisterous passage.
The pluperfects : eyeyovei, iXrjXvdei, well describe the feeling of
isolation which the disciples experienced during these hours
of painful separation.
Vv. 19-21. " So when they had rowed about five and twenty
or thirty stadia, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing
nigh unto the ship : and they were afraid. But He saith
unto them, It is I ; be not afraid. And while they were
willingly1 receiving Him into the ship, immediately the ship
arrived at that point of the shore whither they were going." — If
the explanation of vv. 16-18 just given is correct, there was
no other means of rejoining His disciples than that which
Jesus actually used, ver. 19. The wind had now driven
them southwards into the very middle of the lake, which at
its broadest part was, according to Josephus (Bell. jud. iii.
10. 7), forty stadia, i.e. nearly two leagues across. When St.
Matthew tells us that the ship was in the midst of the sea, he
gives a particular quite in agreement with the thirty or forty
stadia mentioned by St. John. — The present : they see, indi
cates thjs unexpectedness of Christ's appearance. The emotion
of fear experienced by the disciples, and more fully expressed
by the Synoptists, forbids our explaining the words i-n-l t?5?
6aXd(T(Tv<i, on the sea, in the sense in which they are used
xxi. 1, viz. on the sea-shore. — This saying of Jesus : It is I ; be
1 X : vxln instead of tihi-av.

214 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
not afraid, must have very deeply impressed the disciples, for
it is reported in identically the same words in all the narra
tives. — The scene in which St. Peter shared for a moment in
the miracle effected in the person of Jesus must, according to
St. Matthew, be placed immediately after this saying. It
would appear from the synoptic narrative that directly after
this episode Jesus entered the barque, and the wind ceased.
The imperfect rjdeXov (literally: they wished), ver. 21, seems
incompatible with this particular. Chrysostom felt obhged to
conclude from this discrepancy that St. John was recounting
a different event from that of which St. Matthew and St.
Mark tell us. The close connection, however, between this
miracle and that of the loaves and fishes in these three
Gospels, as well as the general similarity of the three accounts,
renders this solution inadmissible. J. D. Michaelis proposed
to read rjXdov for i]deXov, which would solve the difficulty :
they came, they drew near to Him to receive Him. And it is
a singular coincidence that the Codex Sinait. presents exactly
the reading conjectured by this scholar, though it has too
much the appearance of a correction to deserve confidence.
Besides, Jesus was moving too freely upon the waters to
make it needful for the boat to approach Him; and this
reading would really have no meaning unless the words : irepi-
iraTovvTa kiri t^? daXdao-r)*;, were understood in the sense of
walking on the sea-shore. Beza, and many exegetes after him,
think that the verb wish here simply adds to the act of recep
tion expressed by the infinitive XaBeiv, the notion of eager
ness, as in Luke xx. 46. Tholuck gives a greater probability
to this meaning by bringing forward the contrast presented
between the verb : they wished, thus understood, and the itpoBrf-
drjo-av, they were afraid. At first they had feared, but now
they received Him willingly. There is but one objection to
this explanation, and that is, that St. John uses the imperfect,
denoting an incomplete, and not the aorist, which would indi
cate a completed action (i. 44). On the other hand, St. John
could not have meant to say, in opposition to the Synoptists,
that Jesus did not actually enter the ship (Meyer). For, in
this case, instead of /cat evdeco*;, and immediately, in the next
sentence we ought to have dXX' ev84a<;, but immediately, since
the sense would be that this swift arrival prevented Jesus

CHAP. VI. 19-21. 215
from entering the ship. The relation between the two pro
positions of ver. 21, thus placed in juxtaposition, seems to be
of the same nature as that which we have elsewhere observed
in St. John (v. 17), and which can only be expressed by
means of a conjunction : At the very moment that they were
willingly receiving Him, the barque reached the shore. Jesus
did indeed enter it, but had not time even to take His seat,
the arrival on shore taking place simultaneously with His
entrance. How, in fact, can we imagine that after an act of
power so mighty and so royal as the walking upon the waters,
Jesus should have settled Himself in the boat, and the
voyage have been continued by the toilsome stroke of the
oar ? The moment He set foot in the barque He imparted to
it, as He had just done to St. Peter, that victorious power
over gravity and space which had been so majestically dis
played in His own person. The words /cat evdim<s, and imme
diately, compared with the distance of from 10 to 15 stadia
= from 30 to 45 minutes, which still separated them from the
shore, allow of no other interpretation.
Jesus thus contrasts His own real sovereignty with that
political sovereignty with which the carnally-minded Israelites
designed to invest Him. He manifests Himself to His
disciples as one who reigns over a far vaster realm, over the
forces of nature, who can free Himself, and will one day free
them, from the burden of this mortal body. In the multi
plication of the loaves and fishes, He had foreshadowed the
sacrifice which He would make of His flesh for the food of
the world ; in the terrible night of darkness and separation
which followed, He had suffered them to feel a foretaste
of that more painful and more real separation which would
follow His death; and now, in this unexpected and trium
phant return across the waves, He prefigured His glorious
resurrection and even His triumphant ascension, in which His
church was to share, by being raised with Him to heavenly
places by the breath of His Spirit.
The discourses which follow prove' that the symbolical
character which we have attributed to these miracles was not
remote from the mind of St. John, nor from that of the Lord
Himself. When it is remembered that every voluntary movement

216 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
accomplished by the body is, not indeed an abohtion of the
law of gravity, but a victory over this law by the intervention
of a superior force, viz. that of the will, we understand that
in like manner, matter, being the work of the Divine Will, is
at all times open to this essentially supernatural power ; and
we can find no difficulty in admitting that the divine afflatus
may at any moment free a human body, and even material
objects, from this power of gravity.
II. The Discourses. — vv. 22-65.
This passage includes, after an historical introduction (w.
22-24), a series of conversations and discourses (vv. 25-65).
Vv. 22-24. " The day following, the crowd which stood on
the other side of the sea, and saw1 that there was only one
boat2 there, and that Jesus had not entered3 into this boat*
with His disciples, but that His disciples had gone aways
alone (but " there came other boats 7 from Tiberias, nigh
unto the place where they had eaten bread,8 after the Lord had
given thanks), — when then the crowd saw9 that Jesus was
not there, neither His disciples, they 10 embarked}1 and came to
Capernaum, seeking Jesus." — The carnal enthusiasm of the
multitudes had obliged Jesus to separate His disciples from
1 T. R. together with r A A and 9 other Mjj., most of the Mnn. Syr01", read
to~uv ; A B L ItPlori""> Syr!l!h : uht ; and X D It"11' : tihv.
2 A B L ItPleri'ue omit the Words sxsiva lis a ivt/Snirxt ai fixlriTxi xurau, which X
D r A A and 9 other Mjj. Mnn. Syr. read (though with many variations).
3 X reads ruvsXnXufai instead of <ruvn<rriXh.
4 Alex. : vXaiot instead of orXoixpiov.
5 X omits xvnXfav. 6 D L e« omit h.
7 X • l*lX6otruv out rut trXetuv ; J) b Syr0" : xXXuv vrXoixpiuv tX0ovruv.
8 x : lK Tifiipixo'os tyyus aua-tis ofrou xxi i$xyot xprot (from Tiberias, which is
near the place where they had eaten bread).
9 X ¦ Kat t^otrts instead of on am uSiv.
10 T. R. together with U r and some Mnn. reads xxi xuroi ; x S ItPleri'ae
Syr. omit these two words ; the 13 other Mjj. and the greater part of the Mnn.
read xuroi.
11 X reads tis ro orXaiav instead of the plurals trXoix or irXoixpix, between which
the other Mjj. are divided. The translation of the whole text of X is as
follows : The next day, the crowd which stood on the other side of the sea saw
that there was no other boat there than that into which the disciples of Jesus
had entered, and that Jesus went not with them in the boat, but the disciples
only ; tho boats having then come from Tiberias, which was near the place
where they had eaten bread, after the Lord had given thanks, — they, seeing that
Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, entered the boat, and come . . .

CHAP. VI. 22-24. 217
them, and very hastily to part from the latter. He had now
rejoined them, and the crowds were endeavouring to find Him.
The long and difficult sentence (vv. 22-24) is designed to
bring out the idea, that the sole motive of these people was
to find Jesus (seeking Jesus, close of ver. 24). An attentive
consideration of this complicated phrase will soon make us
masters of its true construction. Everything starts from the
state of the crowd next morning (the day following, the
people which stood on the other side of the sea, ver. 22), and
aims at the resolution taken by them to embark for Caper
naum (they took shipping, ver. 24). The reason of this
resolution is expressed first by the two determinatives : I8d>v,
seeing, ver. 22, and ore ovv elSev, vJhen they saw, and then
indirectly by the parenthetical ver. 23, which is intended to
explain the possibility of such a resolution by the arrival of
the boats. We find in this 23d verse a form analogous to
what we have already met with i. 10 and ii. 9. The very
circumlocutions which characterize this passage seem to
portray the perplexity felt by the crowd down to the moment
when the arrival of the boats inspired them with a sudden
resolution. The first word : the day following, already bears
upon the last verb of the sentence : they took shipping, ver.
24. The sense of the perfect ecrr^/cws is : who stayed there
yesterday evening, and who were staying there still. Perhaps
the article d before this participle serves to limit the idea of
the substantive to that more persistent portion of the crowd
which would not quit the scene of the event. The reading
etSov, allowed by Tischendorf (ed. 8), is a clumsy correction,
with a view to simplifying the general construction. The
participle IBcov, having seen (yesterday evening), does not, as
Meyer thinks, depend on eo-T??/c<u? (who stayed there because
they had seen), but justifies the final act of embarkation.
These people had, in fact, ascertained two things, — 1st. That
on the preceding evening there had been but one boat ; 2d.
That Jesus had not departed in this boat with His disciples
(these are the two on of ver. 22). After these two dis
coveries, one thing alone detained them, viz. their doubt as
to whether Jesus might not still be in the neighbourhood.
Hence (ovv, then, ver. 24) a final observation was needed
before putting their intended departure into execution, and

218 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
this was the fact that neither did Jesus reappear, nor did His
disciples return to fetch Him. The oVe ovv elSe of ver. 24
is not then a simple recurrence to the I8d>v of ver. 22, but
serves to complete it. As to the parenthesis of ver. 23, it
brings forward the external fact by reason of which they
were enabled to carry out their resolution of crossing the
lake. The arrival of boats is easily explained. Part of
these multitudes had come from the other side of the lake
(ver. 2), and the boatmen of its western shore had crossed
during the night, and arrived at the place of meeting for the
purpose of conveying them back. The fy of ver. 22 has not
necessarily a pluperfect sense (had been there when . . .) ;
the simultaneousness of action which always belongs to the
imperfect, here relating to the embarkation of the disciples
(was there at the moment of their departure). The words
i/ceivo . . . avTov, that whereinto His disciples had entered,
are probably a gloss. The circumstance : after that the Lord
had given thanks, so expressly brought forward, recalls the
vivid impression made by this solemn, moment upon the
spectators, and the great importance attached by them to this
action. — The pronoun avrol, they also, is intended to bring
the distant subject, o^Xos, again into action. The /cat, also,
which accompanies it (they also) refers to the notion that
they also desired to cross, when once Jesus and His disciples
had returned from the other side. The verb so long expected,
iveBno-av, embarked, well brings out the final act, which put an
end to this long indecision. — Thus does this lengthy sentence
describe with marvellous precision all the varying impres
sions, fluctuations, and observations of this multitude, down
to the decision which took them to Capernaum, and gave rise
to the addresses of the morrow. Imagine a Greek writer of
Alexandria or Rome narrating in the second century after this
fashion ! — Nowhere, perhaps, is the defective nature of the
Sinaitic text more plainly shown than in this passage. We
have exactly reproduced its meaning, note 11, p. 216.
Vv. 25—65. The Discourses. — Though the idea of life pre
vailing in this series of discourses appears to be identical with
that of ch. v., there is a difference between the teaching of the
two chapters, corresponding with that which exists between the
two miracles of which they respectively furnish the applica-

CHAP. VI. 25-40. 219
tion/ In the cure of the impotent man, it is Jesus who acts ;
the sick man is merely receptive. In the feeding of the
multitude (ch. vi.), Jesus simply offers the food ; but if it is
to become his nourishment, man must take an active part in
its assimilation. Hence, while in the discourse in ch. v. the
Person of Jesus is prominent, in those of ch. vi., on the
contrary, the ruling idea is that of the faith by which the
heavenly food is to be appropriated. Without feeling under
a necessity of explaining, as Baur does, the composition of
this Gospel by a systematic process, we may admit that St.
John, when compiling his reminiscences, was struck with the
correlation which makes one of these testimonies the comple
ment of the other, and that he purposely placed them in
juxtaposition, as furnishing a complete delineation of the
relation between divine and human agency in the work of
salvation. • In this dialogue, four successive phases, the character of
which is determined by the moral attitude of the auditors,
may be discerned. The first (w. 25-40) is occasioned by a
simple question on the part of the Jews (elirov avra, they said
unto Him). The second (vv. 41-51) results from a serious
dissatisfaction which arose among them (eyoyyv^ov, they
murmured). The third (w. 52—59) testifies to an altercation
between the auditors themselves concerning the words of
Jesus (epdxovTo, they strove among themselves). Here, strictly
speaking, the teaching of Jesus ends, all this part of the
scene having taken place in the synagogue of Capernaum
(ver. 59). The last phase (w. 60-65) was called forth by
a declaration on the part of many former Galilean be
lievers, who now gave notice to Jesus of their rupture with
Him. 1. Vv. 25-40.
The first phase is composed of short dialogues, each in
cluding a question on the part of the Jews, and an answer
on that of Jesus. The last of these answers, in which Jesus
describes with repressed emotion the sentiments with which
the condition of His hearers filled His soul, is the more
developed. 1st. Vv. 25-27.

220 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Vv. 25, 26. "And when they liad found Him on the
other side of the sea, they said unto Him, Babbi, when earnest
thou1 hither? Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, ye seek me 2 not because you saw signs}
but because you ate of those loaves, and were filled." — We
have already seen that the motive for the proceedings of
the multitude was their desire to find Jesus, — a fact recalled
by the first words of this paragraph: And when they had
found Him. This question presents an untranslatable irregu
larity, the construction of the Greek really involving two
questions : " When (iroTe, not 7rc3?, how) earnest thou ? " and :
" How happens it that thou art here (perf. yeyovas) ? " This
artless form of speech vividly expresses the surprise of these
people, on whom the presence of Jesus has the effect of an
apparition. His answer, as is frequently the case (ii. 4, iii.
3), is addressed not to the question proposed, but to the
internal feeling which dictated it. He discloses to these Jews
the spurious and carnal_element which was mingled in their
seeking Him. And this being a revelation to them of those
hidden feelings which they themselves ignored, He makes use
of the emphatic affirmation : Amen, amen. Jesus here con
trasts with such false and vain seeking, aiming, as it did,
merely at the satisfaction of the natural man (ver. 26), that true
and effectual_seeking which tends to the nourishment of the
spiritual man (ver. 27). His miracles were the visible signs
destined to authenticate Him as the bringer of the blessings
of salvation. They who understood them in this sense
would not stop at the material relief which they afforded,
but would rise thence to that higher significance with which
the divine purpose had endowed them. To them the visible
phenomenon would be the pledge of a moral operation, and
therefore a sign. It is evident how necessary it is to refrain
from translating arjueia in this place by miracles (Osterwald,
Arnaud, Rilhet), instead of rendering it by the word which
expresses its natural meaning, viz. signs. For it is on this
very word that the whole force of this saying depends.
The multitudes thought they saw in the midtiplication of
1 X reads nxtt;, and T) : tXvXulxs instead of yiyatxs.
* X omits £ tinirt jtl.
8 D It*"' add xxi npxrx (derived from iv. 28).

CHAP. VI. 27. 221
the loaves and fishes the first of a series of acts of a similar
nature, the inauguration of an era of miracles, each more
dazzling and satisfactory to the natural man than its pre
decessor. Instead of seeing, as Lange says, " in the bread
the sign," they had "in the sign beheld only the bread."
This misunderstanding gave a false, an earthly, a sensual, am
animal character, to their search for Jesus. And it was this
tendency which Jesus pointed out to them in the very first
words of this interview, especially in the expression, betraying,
as it does, a certain amount of disgust : because ye did eat of
the loaves, and were filled. What a difference between these
people, with their gross aspirations and carnal desires, and
that spiritual Israel which was to be fashioned by the 0. T.,,
and which would say to the Messiah : We hunger and thirst
after God. Do to-day for our hearts what Thou didst yester
day for our bodies ! — The plural signs refers either to the two
miracles narrated in the first part of the chapter, or rather to
Christ's miracles in general, which were no better under
stood by the multitudes than that of the loaves and fishes.
— We would render the article twv before dpTtov by the
demonstrative pronoun : those loaves. By translating simply
the loaves, the express allusion to the loaves of the foregoing
day is lost.
Ver. 27. "Labour not for the food1 which perisheth, but for
the food which endureth in life eternal, that which the Son of
man shall give you : 2 for Him hath the Father, God, sealed." —
Jesus here describes what it is truly to seek Him. In fact,
the contrast between ipyd&ade, labour, and fyTeire p,e, you
seek me (ver. 26), shows that the labour to which Jesus
exhorts His hearers is nothing else than the spiritual seeking
after Himself. The repast of the previous evening had sus
tained them for that day. But when the next morning came,
were they not obliged to eat again ? This food, miraculous as
it was, had then been only a temporary support. What would
be the use of renewing a similar gift to-day ? With nourish
ment of this kind, Jesus contrasts that which abides with a
man as a permanent principle of life and activity. — The
expression : ipyd&adai, here signifies : to obtain by one's labour
1 X places /i» after the first flpuo-iv, and with some Mjj. omits the second fipueii.
2 X D It*"' read "SiSucit up.iv {gives you) instead of u/u> iutrn.

222 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
(for examples from classical Greek, see Meyer). — The words :
in life eternal, do not designate the temporal limit (until), but,
as M. Reuss says, "the immediate effect;" see iv. 14. — The
future : will give, which is certainly the correct reading, is
designed to lift the minds of the hearers to that higher kind
of nourishment of which the multiplied loaves of yesterday
were but the type and promise. But is not, it may be asked,
this notion of giving opposed to the command to labour
(tpyd^eade) ? No ; for man's labour, with respect to this truly
life-giving food, consists solely in appropriating the gift
brought for his acceptance by Him who is sent of God.
Without this gift his labour would be in vain ; as, on the other
hand, the gift would have no efficacy without being assimilated
by faith. The name Son of man is here employed with refer
ence to the thought subsequently expressed, that Jesus is
Himself this divine food brought by His incarnation within
the reach of faith (w. 3_3, 38, 50, 58). If the notion of
causality be attached to for (as was done by me in the first
edition), the sealing must be referred to the consecration by
God of the person of Jesus Christ, when He sent Him into
the world (comp. x. 36). But the term to seal applies rather
to the manifestation than the production of a quality or condi
tion. Hence for must be taken in its logical meaning : Jesus
has been sealed, has received a special mark through His
rniracles in general, and more particularly by that of the
preceding evening, as He who will give to the world the
life-giving bread. This is the authentic explanation given by
Jesus Himself of the term signs, as apphed to miracles. 
'O @ed?, God, is placed last, to give emphasis to the notion
that, as the possessor of supreme authority, the right of givino-
such certificates belongs to Him.
This first dialogue contrasts and characterizes in a o-eneral
manner the twp ways of seeking Jesus-— the carnal and the
spiritual. The short one following, vv. 28, 29, bears solely on
the latter, and defines its nature by opposing work and faith.
It gives the human side in the act of salvation, the true
mode of that labouring which Jesus had enjoined.
2d. Vv. 28, 29.
Vv. 28, 29. "They said therefore1 unto Him, What shall
1 A and Syr. omit out.

CHAP. VI. 28, 29. 223
we do} that we might work the works of God? Jesus
answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that
ye believe2 in Him whom He hath sent" — Jesus had said:
Labour (literally, work). His hearers, entertaining the notion,
ask : How are we to work ? In what do the works we are to
accomplish consist ? They call them works of God, as being-
demanded, by God as the condition of the gift which Jesus
promises them. They start quite naturally from the legal
point of view, and distinguish, agreeably with this manner
of looking at the subject, between the works to be done and
the miraculous food which is to be their reward. I cannot
possibly see anything "grotesque" or improbable in this
answer of the Jews (Reuss), which is in accordance with many
similar questions reported by the Synoptists. — Jesus enters
into this idea of work to be done, but He reduces all these
human operations to one only : thejwork in opposition to the
works (ver. 28). The gift of God requires not to be deserved,
but simply to be accepted. Faith in Him whom God has sent
to bestow it, is the only work exacted for its attainment. It
is evident that the gen. tov ©eov, of God, denotes, in this
connection, not the author of the work (Augustine), but Him in
behalf of whom it is done : the work which God requires. —
All upon which the name of Paulinism has been bestowed is
contained in embryo in this verse, which at the same time forms
the point of union between St. Paul and St. James. Faith is
the highest kind of work, for by it i naanjriyes_Jnmself ; and a
free being can do nothing greater than to give himself. It is in
this sense that St. James opposes work to a faith which would
be nothing but an intellectual belief ; and it is in a perfectly
analogous sense that St. Paul opposes faith, active faith, to
works of mere observance. The faith of St. Paul is really the
works of St. James, according to this sovereign formula of
Jesus : " This is the work of God, that you believe." — This dis
cussion on the manner of appropriating the heavenly gift (the
true kind of human labour) is succeeded by another on the
nature of the gift itself : What is this bread of heaven which is
to be received ?
3d. Vv. 30-33.
1 s- (not T. R.) read with some Mnn. only vroiov/tzt.
2 X A B L T : ritrriunri instead of mrrtunrl.

224 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Vv. 30, 31. "Then they said unto Him, What sign then
dost thou do, that we may see, and believe in thee ? what dost
thou work ? Our fathers did eat manna in tlie desert ; and it is
written, He gave them bread 1 from heaven to eat." — It is diffi
cult to imagine this question on the lips of the very persons
who had been present at the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
B. Bauer and Weisse see in it a proof of non-authenticity,
Schweizer concludes that the preceding section is interpolated,
while Grotius and others think that the persons who put the
question had not been present at the scene of the preceding even
ing. Most commentators allow that our Lord's hearers were
comparing the ordinary bread which had been given them with
the manna from lieaven which Moses had given to their fathers,
and finding the present miracle in every respect inferior to the
former. But exegesis should surely find a more satisfactory
explanation. For it seems as contrary to the natural mean
ing of the narrative to regard those who put the question
as different persons from those who witnessed the miracle, as
it is arbitrary to found so grave an hypothesis as that of the
non-authenticity of the whole book, or even of a particular
section of it, upon a difficulty of this kind. Nor does the
contrast between manna and bread suffice to explain the
questions : What sign showest thou ? What dost thou work ?
on the part of persons who the evening before had desired to
proclaim Him king. But had not Jesus Himself, by speaking
of the meat which endureth, which the Son of man shall give
you, just treated the gift which He had yesterday bestowed on
them as an insufficient and quite secondary matter 1, Had He
not excited the hopes of His hearers, and called forth on their
part the demand for a fresh miracle, of a kind surpassing all
that had preceded it ? Jewish piety was as much characterized
by magic supernaturalism as ours is by intellectual rationalism
(1 Cor. i. 22). Hence no effort was needed on the part of
those who were listening to Jesus to give themselves up to an
impulse so conformable to their secret aspirations, and they
immediately raised their claims to the level of the fresh
promises made them, merely materializing their meaning.
They will only be too glad that the bread of yesterday should
be superceded by something better. In fact, their desire when
1 X omits xprov.

CIIAr. VI. 32, 33. 225
they tried to make Him a king was, that the imposing pro
digies which were to inaugurate the reign of the Messiah
should at length be manifested ! Their question : What dost
thou work? does not signify: What hast thou wrought, but
bears upon the future. The presents : 7rotet?, epyd^v, doest thou ?
do not speak of the past, but allude to that new gift which
Jesus Himself promises, and which they await to proclaim the
advent of the Messianic kingdom. This demand is addressed
to Jesus as claiming to be the Messiah, and arises from the
saying of Jesus Himself, ver. 27 : Thou demandest our belief
in thy Messiahship, we are willing to accord it. Do thou on
thy part perform those truly Messianic actions of which as yet
thou hast shown us but the harbinger. These words on the
part of the multitude correspond exactly with the demand for
a sign from heaven, to put as it were the seal to His ordinary
miracles, so often made upon Jesus in the synoptic Gospels.
In this sense, it was not without reason that they brought for
ward the contrast between yesterday's miracle and that more
magnificent display of power to the whole nation during forty
years, of which Moses had been the instrument. Their error
consisted solely in regarding that higher benefit promised them
by Jesus as a material good, some feproduction of the manna,
some kind of ambrosial food. Bedemptor prior descendere fecit
pro Us manna; sic et Bedemptor posterior descendere faciei manna,
say the Rabbis (see Lightfoot, Wetstein). The words quoted
by the Jews are from Ps. lxxviii. 25. Comp. Ex. xvi. 4.
The expression : from heaven, denotes, in their mouth, the
miraculous origin of this gift, while the answer of Jesus refers
to its essential nature.
Vv. 32, 33. "Jesus then said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Moses gave 1 you not the bread from lieaven ; but
my Father giveth you the bread from heaven, the true : for the
bread of God is He who cometh down from heaven, and giveth
life unto the world." — Hitherto the minds of His auditors
seemed to be in harmony with that of J'esus, but this was
only due to a misunderstanding: Jesus proclaimed to them a
bread of a transcendent kind; and the Jews were willing
to close with His offer on condition that this food, though
1 Instead of liiuxiv, the reading of 15 Mjj. (among which is X), almost all the
Mnn. and Or. B D and L read iiuxt*.
GODET IL P JOHN.

226 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
miraculous as to its source, should at the same time be, like
the manna, material as to its nature. But He now gives an
explanation, which reveals the complete opposition existing
between His thoughts and theirs. The formula : Amen, amen,
makes us anticipate the contrast presented by these different
points of view. The perf. 848a»cev is here undoubtedly prefer
able to the aorist. By the former, Jesus acknowledges that
the bread of heaven is already actually given to the Jews, but
declares only that it was not given by the instrumentahty of
Moses. The aorist e8coieev would deny even the fact of the gift
actually made to the Jews, — a notion which is not agreeable
to the general construction of the sentence. For in this case it
would be the verb and not the subject to which the negative
should directly refer, and we should need : ov 8e8a>icev Mm.
instead of ov Mm. 8e8micev. Besides, this sense would require
that the regimen of the verb gave should be : your fathers,
not you. The aorist has been evidently derived from ver. 31,
and the meaning of the present verse is : If you are now
really in possession of the bread from heaven, it is not through
Moses, for no man could have such power; it is my Father
who gives you the true bread from heaven. The pres. 8i8mo-i
already gives us to understand, as Jesus forthwith declares,
that God bestows this gift upon them in His person. — Tbv
dXvdivov, the true, is added at the close of the sentence for the
purpose of emphatically contrasting the spiritual nature of this
heavenly food — a nature similar to that of God Himself — with
that of any gift whatever, which, however miraculous its origin,
should be by its quality material. — From heaven, both here and
in the following verse, as well as in Ps. lxxviii. 24, belongs not
to the verb gave, but to the substantive bread: the whole
discussion turning on the notion of bread from heaven.
Ver. 33 applies this idea of the true bread of heaven to Jesus.
"ApTOs is generally understood before icaTaBalvmv : " For the
(true) bread of God is the (bread) which cometh down from
heaven, and giveth . . . ;" and it is allowed that Jesus here
defines the bread of heaven by its two characteristics of coming
down and giving. But if this were the case, the words : cometh
down from heaven, should logically belong to the subject (defi
nite), and not to the attribute (which includes the definition).
If Jesus were here employing abstract logic, He would at

CHAP. VI. 34, 35. 227
least "iaave employed it correctly. Besides, the term tcaTaBaiveiv,
to come down, applies more naturally to a living being than to
a thing, such as bread ; and the word StSous, who giveth, seems
to designate a personal action. Finally, in the subsequent
verses Jesus expressly repeats this term icaraBalvmv, and
applies it to Himself: KaTaBeBnua, I came down, ver. 38.
Hence it is His own person which Jesus signifies when He
says : that which cometh down, and giveth, and it is not
necessary to supply the word bread in the attribute. Jesus
designedly uses an amphibological expression ; for if He had
meant to speak quite clearly already, He would have said :
The bread which comes from God is the man before you, who
cometh down from heaven, and giveth . . . Thus the relation
between w. 32 and 33 becomes perfectly clear, and, as Bauni-
lein well says: "Jesus passes gradually (vv. 32, 33, 35, 38)
from figure to reality, and the d KaTaBaivmv in particular serves
to prepare for the /caTa/3e/3^/ca, ver. 38 ; this expression being
chosen, on the one hand, to suit the word bread; and, on the
other, to introduce a new subject." Meyer objects that the pres.
part. icaTaBaivmv cannot be applied to Jesus personally, that
for this we should require d icaTafids, who descended. But he
forgets ver. 5 0. This participle is a present, not of time, but
of quality : which possesses the quality of coming down, not :
which is at this moment coming down. — The expression tw
Kocrp,a>, to the world, is opposed to that theocratic particularism
which made the great national miracle of the manna its
especial boast. In proportion as Jesus saw this carnal people
refuse to follow Him to the sphere to which He desired to
raise them, did He turn His attention towards that whole
human race to which He was given. — The fourth part of the
dialogue manifests the rupture which had taken place between
the thoughts of the people and those of Jesus.
4th. Vv. 34-40.
Vv. .34, 35. "They said then to Him: Lord, evermore give
us this bread. But 1 Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of
life : he that cometh to me shall never hunger ; 2 and he that
cometh to me shall never thirst." 3 — Jesus and faith, the objective
1 X D r, some Mnn. Sah. read out instead of h ; B L T It""' Syr. omit both Ji
and ouv.
2 Various readings differ between kiivxo-v or -mi, Ii^wa or -o-u.

228 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
and subjective sides of salvation, are found united in this last
portion of the dialogue. The Jews, still understanding this
bread of heaven in a material sense, declare themselves ready
to follow Jesus, if He will continue to bestow it upon ithem :
With such a gift thou maye3t depend upon us ; feed us 'there
with continually, and we are readyjo follow thee to the end of
the world. The evermore alludes to the giving of the manna,
which was renewed every morning ; and the term this bread,
to that kind of bread from heaven, far ^.superior to the manna,
which Jesus had just promised. They have now reachecTthe
summit of their carnal exaltation. And it is now, too, that
Jesus decidedly breaks with them. Hitherto the questions
and answers had been directly connected with each other, and
this progressive advance had been indicated by the particle ovv,
then. The particle 84 of ver. 35 marks a sudden change in
the course of the dialogue, and the dXXd, but, of ver. 36 marks
the consummation of the rupture.
The words: I am ... are the categorical reply to the
give us of the Jews : Have you not then understood me ? That
bread of which I spake needs not_to be asked, to be given ; it
js here, it is myself. You have only to feed upon it ; and the
means of doing so is to corne_to me, ^Dut to come with real
inward desire and true_faith. Jesus now explains what^He
meant when He spake, ver. 27, of the meat which endureth
unto everlasting life, and which He would give, and of the
labour to be performed to obtain it. The rneat is Himself;
the labour is faith (ver. 29). The expression: bread of life,
means : the bread which imparts hfe. In using the image of
bread, Jesus certainly alludes to His incarnation, by means of
which " that eternal life which was in the beginning with tlie
Father" (1 John i. 2) became capable of being grasped, fed
upon, laid hold of by us. But if this meat is to nourish us,
action on our part is required — that of coming and believing.
These two terms denote, the one under a figure, the other
without, the glad and trusting eagerness with which the heart,
famished and urged by spiritual necessities, takes possession
of the heavenly food offered it in Christ Jesus. — The force of
the negative ov p,r) can only be rendered by a paraphrase :
There is no kind of fear that he should ever hunger or thirst
again ! The irdnroTe, ever, is the reply to the irdvroTe of the

CHAP. VI. 36. 229
Jews. — The parallelism of these two propositions manifests a
certain amount of mental exaltation. The image of drinking
is added to that of eating, undoubtedly because Jesus had in
view the Paschal feast. In the course of the discourse we shall
find these two figurative expressions acquiring an increasingly
distinct meaning (vv. 53-57). For the present they only
refer, as far as Jesus is concerned, to His appearing ; as far as
man is concerned, to faith in general. Except that thhst
may perhaps express more particularly the sitffering of the
heart, and hunger the feebleness of the will, the moral im
potence, in that deep uneasiness which drives the sinner
to Chi ist. If this be so, the appeasing of his thirst refers
more to the_peace, that of his hunger to the strength, which
the believer receives.
Faith : this, then, is the condition. But, adds Jesus, un
doubtedly with a sigh, this is just what you are without.
Ver. 36. " But I said unto you, You have seen me} and yet
you believe not." — They had' asked to see, that they might
believe (ver. 3 0) ; but this condition had been long since
fulfilled : You have seen me in all my greatness. At this
very moment you are witnesses of my power (perf. empdicaTe).
The sign which surpasses every other sign is before your eyes :
that sign is myself. Nevertheless, the effect is not produced:
"ye believe not." Jesus draws this conclusion from their
very request. Undoubtedly they had_faith_enough to hope
they should dbt&mjthrough^Him miraculous food, but they did
not go so far as to recogmsein Him the bread from heaven,
the promised salvation. And this was sufficient to prove that
they did not feel those spiritual necessities which might lead
them to Him, and were consequently strangers to the whole
work which He came to accomplish. This is what the prayer :
"give us" by which they desired from Him something else
than Himself, meant to an ear so sensitive as that of Jesus.
This gross blunder, showing as it does that they totally mis
took the true meaning of all the preceding signs, com
pletes the revelation of their moral dulness. Comp. two
discriminations equally decided and quick on the part of
Jesus, one at Jerusalem (ii. 19), the other at Nazareth
(Luke iv. 23), 1 X A It""' Syrcur omit pt.

230

GOSPEL OF JOHN.

It is a matter of some difficulty to determine to what
former saying Jesus alluded by the expression : I said unto
you. The words, iv. 48, have an entirely different meaning to
these ; and the assertion, ver. 38, to which de Wette and
Liicke refer it, was made in Judea. Some expositors suppose
that He was citing a saying unreported by St. John ; but in
this case what would have been the good of expressly alluding
to it by this formula of quotation : i" told you ? Meyer pro
poses to translate eforov v/uv by : dictum velim, I mean to
say, a sense unexampled in the N. T. Bruckner thinks that
Jesus referred to His teaching in general. But the expression
indicates a positive quotation ; and Jesus here quoted Himself,
as He so often quoted the 0. T., rather according to the spirit
than the letter. On the arrival of the multitude, He had said
to them : You saw the signs, and nevertheless you do not seek
me for myself, but solely for the material supplies which you
expect from me. It is this reproach (ver. 26) which He here
repeated under a slightly different form. You have seen me,
corresponds with : you saw the signs ; and : you believe not, with :
you seek me for the sake of material supplies. In short, was
not saying to His face: Give us this bread, equivalent to
refusing to acknowledge in Him the true gift, and consequently
not believing (ver. 36)? The two /cat, which are to us
untranslatable, bring out the striking contrast between the
two facts which they combine.
There is a significant asyndeton between these words of con
demnation and the calm and solemn assertion of the following
verses (37-40). This absence of all connection denotes a
moment of silence and profound contemplation. Jesus had
receivedTarsignal from His Father, — with heartfelt joy He had
given a feast to this great multitude ; He had spread before
them a miraculous Passover. And their dull hearts had failed
to understand its meaning. They had again asked for bread, —
earth still, and nothing but earth, — while He desired by this
figurative repast to offer them life, to bestow upon them heaven !
In presence of this failure, which was to Him the precursor
of the great national catastrophe, of the rejection of Messiah,
Jesus retires within Himself, and asks Himself what is to
become of His work below. And this is the answer resound
ing in His heart : My work is that of the Father ; it will be

CHAP. VI. 37, 38. 231
accomplished, but without you ; and the fact of your exclu
sion cannot be laid to my charge, for I have at all
times confined myself to a docile fulfilment of my Father's
instructions. It is thus that Jesus rises to a contemplation
of the certain success of His work, — a success secured by
His absolute submission to His Father's wisdom, — and
instantly strengthens His own faith, in presence of the
grievous check which He has just experienced. It is thus,
too, that He lays a firm foundation for the faith of His
people in all ages, especially in times of general defection;
while, by affirming His perfect acquiescence in the plan of
the Father, He casts upon His rejecters themselves the blame
of their incredulity, and makes His last appeal to their con
sciences in the words :
Vv. 37, 38. "All that the Father giveth me shall reach me:
and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out} For I
came down from heaven} not to do 8 my will, but the will of
Him that sent me!' i — In the words : All that the Father giveth
me, Jesus emphatically contrasts believers of all ages with the
men to whom He had just said : You believe not ! Israel
rejects me; the gift of God, those whom the Father gives
me remain with me. The neuter irdv 6, all that, indicates a
definite whole, in which human incredulity will be unable to
effect a breach, — a whole which will be found to be complete
when the work is finished. The extent of this irdv, all, depends
upon the agency of the Father, here designated by the term giv
ing, and subsequently by those of teaching and drawing (w. 44,
45). The first no more refers to the eternal decree of election
than do the last two. In this case we should have had the
perfect, has given, while the act in question is one effected
l>y God in the heart of the believer at the moment when he
decides to believe. This gift is a spiritual fact, which is here
contrasted with that carnal attraction, those gross Messianic
aspirations, which had that very morning brought these multi
tudes to Jesus (ver. 26). It denotes those moral wants, those
spiritual aspirations, produced in teachable minds by the pre-
i X D It""' Syrmr omit i&.
2 A B L T, some Mnn. read «r» r. oup. instead of ix r. oup.
5 X D L : toihtu instead of iraiu.
4 X G omit from rau xsp-fy. /is, ver. 38, to rou ¦ri/i^. /n, ver. 39.

232 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
vious agency of the Father. We must take care, whatever
Meyer may say, not to translate iffeei (shall reach) as if it
were iXeveeTai (shall come, shall advance towards). What
Jesus means to say is not that all which the Father gives Him
shall come towards Him, — for this would be tautology, the gift
consisting in this very coming, — but shall actually attain.
Such shall not, like the Jews, make shipwreck by the way.
The reason for this is given in the second part of the verse,
which is parallel with the first, instead of expressing, as is
generally supposed, a gradation, — thus making the first words :
Him that cometh to me, merely a repetition of the last words
of the former proposition (see Meyer). But this is a mistake ;
the expression : Him that cometh, simply corresponding with :
All that the Father giveth me. For is not to be given, to come ?
The act of giving is realized in that of faith, and the only
difference between these two parallel propositions is that the
masc. tw ipxo/j^vov, him that cometh, individualizes, with
regard to each particular case, the collective notion : all. On
the other hand, the words : I will in no wise cast out, are
parallel with shall attain, the former expressing negatively
what the latter asserts positively.
The result is assured by the loving welcome of Jesus, by
the open arms which He holds out to every one who comes,
given by the Father : he shall reach, he shall attain. The
dissent of Meyer does not prevent our maintaining this mean
ing. In thus speaking, Jesus seems to make some reference
to the severe manner in which He had received this crowd, so
eager to come to Him, and whom He had repulsed with a cer
tain amount of harshness (vv. 2 6 and 3 6) : I should not have
treated them thus if I had recognised in them those whom
my Father had instructed ; never will a heart burdened with
its spiritual necessities, and coming to me under this divine
influence, be repelled by me. This saying recalls that in St.
Matthew (xi. 28) : " Come unto me, ye that labour and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest."
The merely waiting attitude which Jesus here attributes to
Himself with respect to those who believe in Him, is explained,
ver. 3 8, by that part of complete dependence with respect to
God to which He submitted, when He came into the world.
Having renounced the accomplishment of a work of His own.

CHAP. VI. 39. 233
and placed Himself entirely at the disposal of His Father's
will, all that He can do is to receive those who come to Him
marked with the seal of the Father, and to lose none of them.
He is not concerned with conquests in His own name, and if
He has the pain of repelling the children of His people, it is
just because they seek Him without being divinely qualified
and true disciples of Moses (ver. 46). — The term KaTaBiBnKa,
I am come down, reproduces d tcarraBaivrnv, He who comes down,
of ver. 33. — For the expression my will, see rem. on v. 30. If
Jesus, when He came into the world, had in ever so slight a
degree done a work of His own, distinct from that of God, His
receptions or His refusals might have been determined, at
least in part, by personal sympathies or repugnances, which
would not have entirely coincided with the work of God in
the hearts of men. We here again meet with that idea of
perfect docility with respect to the divine work, which formed
the basis of the address in ch. v.
Ver. 39. " And this is the will of Him that sent me} that of
all which He hath given me I should lose nothing, but should
raise it 2 up at the last day." 3 — This verse completes the
demonstration of the truth asserted ver. 37 : that no true
believer shall fail in coming to Jesus, for He has no will of
His own ; He is here only to do the will of the Father (ver.
38). Now the will of the Father being that no believer
should perish, He has invested Jesus with power to save His
people ; and we are here told how far this work is to extend,
even to redeeming them from death (ver. 39). To be repulsed,
and to perish, which at this very moment was happening to the
hearers of Jesus, could never happen to them. — Ildv, nomin.
absolute ; e^ avTov : of this all which is given. Did Jesus
take heed of the bread, that the fragments might not be lost ?
How much more would He care, when so far more precious a
gift of God was in question ! — The perf. has given, transports
us to the moment when the gift is consummated by the act
of faith, and when the end for which God effected it is
accomphshed. This end is twofold: first, to rescue these
precious beings, these gifts of the Father, from d7rw\eta
1 A B D L T, 10 Mnn. It"11' Syr. omit orxrpos.
2 The Mss. are divided between xuro (X A B C, etc.) and xurov (E G H, etc.).
8 12 Mjj. (B C, etc.) omit iv.

234 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
(perdition), by pardon and the impartation of spiritual life ;
then to deliver them from death at the last day, and to pre
sent them living and glorified before the Father, who desires
thus to behold them. This is just the twofold agency which
Jesus had attributed to Himself with regard to believing
human nature, vv. 21-29. It exhausts the meaning of the
expression : bread of life. M. Reuss attempts to apply the
term last day to the moment of each behever's death. It is
evident, however, that this term relates not to a particular
phase of each individual existence, but to that solemn hour of
which Jesus spoke, ver. 29, when all the dead who are in the
graves shall hear His voice, and rise in the body. He objects
that " mystic theology has nothing to do with such a notion."
But this only proves that the mystic theology which M. Reuss
attributes to St. John is very different from his actual
theology. If this notion was so unimportant in the eyes of
the author, how comes it that it should appear so often as four
times in this passage, and form, so to speak, its refrain (w.
39, 40, 44, 54)? It cannot be denied that the resurrection
of the body is represented in this passage, as well as in the
discourse in ch. v., as the glorious and necessary climax of the
spiritual work accomplished in human nature by Jesus Christ.
And in this respect St. John is in harmony both with the
Synoptists and St. Paul (1 Cor. xv.). Bengel remarks : Hie
finis est ultra quem periculum nullum ; consequently there is
no further need of being kept. On the inamissibleness of
grace, see x. 28-30.
Ver. 40. "For1 this is the will of Him that sent2 me, that
every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have
everlasting life, and I3 will raise him up at the last day."* —
This verse, whether by way of confirmation (for, as in the
Alex, and Anc. versions) or of completion (now, in the Byzan
tine), repeats the thought of ver.. 39, and that by substituting
for the act of giving on the part of the Father, that of con
templating by faith, which is its subjective equivalent and
1 Mss. are divided between yxp (X A B C D K L U n, 30 Mnn. It. Syr. Cop.)
and Ss(8 Mjj. Mnn.).
2 T. R., with AEGHKSVrAn, reads rou n/i^atnt /**. SBCDLTU
It""' Syr. Cop. read rou wxrpos ft.au.
'AD and some Mnn. omit syu.
4 6 Mjj. X A D K L S U n, 40 Mnn. ItP,«rl'"», read ¦» before m trx. tipipx.

CHAP. VI. 40. 235
explanation. Jesus thus indicates the sign, even faith, by
which He recognises those whom the Father gives Him. The
two present participles : dempmv ical iriaTevmv, he who contem
plates and believes, denote the simultaneousness of the two
facts. He whose contemplation is instantly exchanged for
faith. We have here the antithesis to ver. 36 : You have seen
me, and believe not. As if He had said : The commandment
which I have received of my Father is not to save all men
indiscriminately. My task is to offer myself to the view of
all, and to save those in whom this view produces faith. The
inference which His hearers should have drawn was : We
are not, then, under the conditions of salvation fixed by a
divine decree. — The Alex, reading: of my Father, accords
better with the term Son. On the other hand, the Received
reading : Him that sent me, agrees better with the words : He
which seeth and believeth : He sent me from heaven to offer
myself to this contemplation. For the term dempeiv, to con
template, denotes a more reflective act than the simple opav,
to see, ver. 36 ; he alone contemplates who has been suffi
ciently struck by the sight of an object to pause before it. —
Jesus here substitutes the masc. wci? for the neuter irdv (ver.
39), because faith is an individual act. The history of His
ministry in the synoptic Gospels is a commentary on this
verse. For was it not by this act of faith that Jesus recog
nised those whom He received and saved ? Luke v. 20:
When He saw their faith, He said, Man, thy sins are forgiven
thee. He Himself knows neither the individuals nor the
number of persons composing this whole gift (to Trdv) of the
Father. God, when He sent Him, said but the single word :
Whosoever believeth. — We have taken dvao-Tij<rm, ver. 39, as
a subjunctive aorist, dependent upon iva, " that I may not
lose . . . and that I may raise up." That of ver. 40, on the
contrary, appears to be a future indicative : " And I will raise
up." The relation between these two verbs is as follows :
The resurrection of behevers will be effected by Jesus (ver.
40), and will be effected in conformity with the command
ment of the Father (ver. 39). — The pron. iyd>, I, added in
this verse to dvao-T^o-m, I will raise, helps to bring out more
decidedly the personal intervention of Jesus in the resurrec
tion of His people : " As for me, I undertake, on the condi-

236 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
tion pointed out (the possession of spiritual hfe), to raise him
up at the last day.
In the sight of Jewish unbelief, Jesus at first composed
His mind by reflecting on the certain success of His work.
He afterwards recalled the condition, viz. faith, to which this
success is united in each particular case. This justifies the
severity of His conduct to the Jews. God said : He who seeth,
and' believeth ; but as for them, they saw, and did not believe.
2. Vv. 41-51.
A whispered murmur in the assembly (vv. 41, 42) forced
Jesus to tell the Jews plainly of their impotence in this
matter (vv. 43-46); after which He again, and with in
creased solemnity, affirmed Himself to be the bread of life
(vv. 47-51) ; and then, in the last words of ver. 51, intro
duced in His expression of this idea a fresh particular, which
subsequently becomes the subject of further development.
Vv. 41, 42. " The Jews then murmured at Him, because He
said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they
said : Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother x we ourselves know ? hovj then 2 saith he} I came down
from heaven ? " — By the term murmured, we must understand
unfavourable whispers, which were now heard among the
audience. The regimen irepl airov, concerning Him, is ex
plained by the following words. — The term 'IovSaioi, the Jews,
might refer to the emissaries of the Sanhedrim, who, according
to the Synoptists, had come from Judea to watch the actions
and words of Jesus in Galilee. But the following words :
we know, are more easily explained in the mouths of the
Gahleans themselves. St. John here applies to them this
name bestowed in his Gospel (see Introd. i. p. 169) because
of that association in unbelief which, from that time, sealed
the tie of nationality by which they were united to the Jews
properly so called. — The pronoun ^/*et?, we, seems to indicate
a personal acquaintance, and it might hence be inferred that
Joseph was still alive. But the expression may simply mean,
1 X adds xxi before t»» xxnpx, and, with b Syr"1', omits xxi rtit /tr,rtpx.
2 B C T Cop. read tuv instead of out.
8 B C D L T a Cop. omit auras.

CHAP. VI. 43, 44. 237
" We know the name of . . ." Criticism has asked how these
people could be ignorant of the miraculous birth of Jesus,
if this were a real fact, and why He did not bring forward
this point in His answer ? But the birth of Jesus took place
in Judea thirty years before ; and during the long obscurity
in which His infancy and youth were spent, all had passed
into oblivion, even in the places where the facts had occurred ;
and how much more so in Galilee, where they had never been
known to the mass of the people ! Certainly, neither His
parents nor Jesus Himself would allude to them in public,
and thus expose a most sacred domestic mystery to useless
and profane discussion. For the miraculous origin of Jesus,
which can only be accepted by a heart already believing on
Him, could never be the means of producing faith. — Instead,
therefore, of meeting them on this ground, Jesus continues in
the moral region, and reveals to the Galileans, as He had
done to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (ch. v.), the true cause
of their unbelief.
Vv. 43, 44. " Jesus therefore r answered and said unto them :
Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me, except
the Father, which sent me, draw him : and I will raise him
up at the last day."2 — In other words : A truce to these mur
murs ; it is not that my saying is absurd, but that you are
incapable of understanding it, and all your asking How ? will
help you nothing, as long as you continue in your present
moral condition. Jesus returns to the source of their objec
tions, — they are deficient in the needful preliminary instruc
tion, the teaching of God, as He had already given them
to understand, vv. 37-40. The word ov8ek, no one, is the
antithesis to irdv, all, ver. 37. There Jesus had said : All
that is given shall assuredly attain ; here : None that are not
drawn will either understand or attain the end. This second
statement has a direct application to His hearers. The draw
ing of the Father denotes the same fact as the gift (ver. 37),
but serves to explain its mode of operation ; the gift works
by means of an inward attraction produced in the soul. We
shall see, ver. 45, that this attraction is no blind instinct,
like natural inchnation, but is of its very nature light-giving,
1 Out is omitted in B C K L T n, 10 Mnn. It"1" Syr. Cop.
' T. R., with X A and several Mnn., omits iv.

238 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
like God Himself, from whom it proceeds. It is a teaching,
and this inward teaching of God is effected by means of
the writings of Moses (v. 46, 47), and the word of God in
general (v. 38). The law makes the soul feel the insufficiency
of its own righteousness, and its impotence to realize the
moral ideal (Rom. vii.). Prophecy describes the Person of
Him who is to meet these moral wants, and consequently, as
soon as Jesus appeared, His person produced, upon the hearts
which had faithfully embraced this preliminary instruction,
the effect of one already known, longed for, and loved. In
such the attraction worked, and the gift, the free adhesion of
faith, was produced. The correlation between the subject :
He who sent me, and the verb draw should be observed ; the
same God who sends Jesus for souls, draws each soul to Jesus.
Both these divine works correspond with and complete one
another. The happy moment when they meet in the heart,
and when the will is surrendered, is that of the gift on God's
part, of faith on man's. — Jesus adds that, as in salvation the
initiative belongs to the Father, so the completion is the task
of the Son. The Father draws and commits ; the Son receives,
keeps, and quickens, until the glorious climax, the resurrec
tion at the last day. Between these extreme terms : draw
and raise up, lies the whole development of the spiritual
life. Vv. 45, 46. " It is written in the prophets, And they shall
be all taught of God. Every one therefore1 that hath heard2 the
Father, and learned of Him, cometh to me. Not that any man
hath seen tlie Father, save He which is from God} He hath seen
the Father!' 4 — This passage offers a remarkable example of
the manner in which Jesus cites the Old Testament Scrip
tures. It was not from them that He derived the thought
which He is here developing, — a thought arising spontaneously
within Him, as is shown by the perfectly original form in
which it is expressed : the gift, the drawing of the Father.
But having uttered it, He thinks well to quote the 0. T. as
1 Ouv is omitted by X B C D L S T, some Mnn. ltP1"'1"" Vg. Cop. It is sup
ported by 11 Mjj., nearly all the Mnn. Syr., etc.
2 T. R., with XABOKLTn, most of the Mnn. It""' Vg. Syr., reads
xxoua-xs ; xxouuv is the reading of 11 Mjj. 90 Mnn. ItPleri'a«.
3 X : rou vxrpos (of the Father) instead of rou (sou.
4 X D It*11' : rov Hov {Ood) instead of rot irxnpx.

CHAP. VI. 45, 46. 239
the authority recognised by the people. It may be, that
since He was speaking in the synagogue, He might have in
His hands the roll containing the prophecies of Isaiah, and that
when He uttered these words : It is written, He was reading
the passage. Comp. the similar fact, Luke iv. 17 sq. This
would well explain the retention of the copula and at the
beginning of the quotation. The words are found Isa. liv. 3.
The prophet there declares that the entire Messianic com
munity shall be composed of persons taught of God. According
to Meyer, the general expression : in the prophets, would signify :
in the sacred volume containing the prophets. ' But it seems
more natural to admit that Jesus views all the prophets as
rising in chorus to confirm the truth which one among their
number had proclaimed in the name of the rest. Comp. also
Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. The second part of ver. 45 is generally
understood to say : Whoever, after having heard the teaching
(aKovaa<s), consents to receive it in his heart (/cat uadmv), comes
to me. In this case it would be necessary to distinguish be
tween the fact of the teaching which would be for all (all men,
inasmuch as they are the objects of God's prevenient grace), and
that of the free acceptance of this teaching (whoever = 7ra?),
a word applicable only to the narrower circle of those who
consent to profit by this universal grace. But, convenient
as this explanation would be to get rid of the doctrine of
predestination, we believe it to be opposed to the true mean
ing of the word all in the passage of Isaiah. In St. John, as
well as in the prophet, all absolutely denotes only the mem
bers of the Messianic community, and therefore the same
circle of persons as the whoever which follows. Hence the
sense is as follows : As Isaiah said, I can have and receive
those only who are taught of the Father ; but of these not one
shall fail. Whoever does but individualize the notion of all.
Comp. the relation of the was of ver. 40 with the irav of
w. 37, 39. — It is tolerably indifferent whether we retain or
suppress ovv, then'; for if not expressed, it must be understood.
- — It seems to me easy to make choice between the readings :
aKOiicras /cat yuadwv, who has heard and learnt, and dicovmv /cat
fiadmv, who hears and has learnt. The aorist has been sub
stituted for the present, because it was thought desirable to
accommodate the first participle to the second. The pres. :

240 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
who heareth, expresses the continuance of the relation between
the faithful Jew and the God who teaches him; and the. past:
who has learned, that result produced at each moment which is
,a preparation for the act of faith. Baumlein reconciles by
this expression the analogous form : d tov Xoyov dicovmv ical
cvviek, of Matt. xiii. 23. — The judgment, therefore, which
shall befall the actual hearers of Jesus will, like the reproach
v. 38, and the threat v. 45, be aimed at a fault preceding
their present unbelief. By their former want of docility
under divine teaching, they have rendered themselves incap
able of believing. How infinitely exalted is the conception
of His work and person which such a saying assumes ! As
M. Gess observes, " If an attraction of a divine kind is needed
for coming to Jesus, He is consequently above anything that
the natural man can love or understand." And yet the
attempt has been made to persuade us that such words
are the product of some unknown Christian of the second
century !
The true sense of this passage does not imply, but on the
contrary discards, the notion of predestination (so far as it
excludes liberty). The words of Jesus assume that it had
depended only on the will of His hearers to let the divine
teaching arouse within them that sense of spiritual want
which they lacked. Their inability to believe was entirely
their own fault. They came to Him, not as taught of God,
but as slaves of the flesh.
The form oi>x on, not that, ver. 46, announces a hmitation
to the thought of ver. 45. It bears upon that expression of
teaching which seemed to assume direct contact between the
hearer and the person of God. Jesus claims for Himself the
exclusive privilege of the sight and direct possession of God.
All indeed hear, but One alone has seen. Consequently, the
result of the divine teaching can only be to lead men to Him
who alone has direct knowledge of God, and can reveal Him
to them. Comp. Matt. xi. 27. — This saying is certainly
among those from which St. John derived the fundamental
ideas of the prologue (comp. i. 1, 14, 18). If the prep, irapd,
from, were not joined to the word &v, it might apply solely to
the mission. But this participle obliges us to rise to the idea
of origin and essence; comp. vii. 29. Hence this irapd is

CHAP. VI. 47-51. 241
the pendant of the irpo? of i. 1, and the two combined ex
press the entire relation of the Son to the Father. All ih
Him is from (irapd) the Father, and goes to (-rrpo*;) the Father.
Does then the sight of the Father, here attributed to Jesus,
refer to His condition previous to His incarnation ? Pos
sibly ; but without, nevertheless, implying that His earthly
teaching includes anything but what His human consciousness
can lay hold of and appropriate from this filial relation.
See vol. i. 379, ii. 64, etc. The readings of N andD doubtless
arose from the desire of making the text more literally
conformable with that of the prologue (i. 14: irapd tov
7raT/3o? ; i. 18: Qebv impaice). — By this saying Jesus gives
it to be understood that divine teaching must first lead to
the Son, whose part it is to lead to the Father : " / am
the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh to the
Father but by me" (xiv. 6). This notion brings Jesus
back to that which had excited the murmuring of the
Jews, and which He now reiterates with increased solem
nity, vv. 47-51.
Vv. 47—51. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that be
lieveth on me1 hath everlasting life. I am the bread of life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man
may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread} lie shall live 3
for ever : and i the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I
will give B for the life of the world." — The words, Amen, amen,
are pronounced with a sense of the authority which Jesus
derives from the unique position which, according to ver. 46,
He occupies. The gradual elevation of tone and the very
contradiction He meets with, unite to give force and solem
nity to His statements : All your murmuring can make no
1 X B L T omit us tpt, in opposition to all other Mss., Vss., and Fathers.
2 X It"11' read ix rou tp.au xprou {of my bread) instead of ix raurau rou xpreu.
3 X D L read %wu instead of X,wirx
4 X omits xxi and, with D r, Ss.
5 The words w iyu luo-u are omitted by B C D L T, some Mnn. ItP1"1** Vg.
gyrcUr Or. (twice) Tischendorf, edit. 1849. The T. R. is supported by 11 Mjj.,
most of the Mnn. It""' Cop. SyrMh Or. (twice). X reads a xpros ov tyu "Suo-u ump
rtis rou xoo-pi.au 2>>is » txp\ fieu tern {the bread which 1 will give for the life of the
world is my fleshy
GODET IL Q JOHN.

242 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
difference; the bread from heaven which giveth hfe unto
the world is myself, and not manna, nor anything of a like
nature. Your fathers ate manna, which did not prevent their
dying ; but here is bread which will effectually produce the
result you desire. "Iva, in order that, depends on KaTa-
Baivoov, that cometh down, and governs the two verbs eat and
die. To eat and not to die are conceived of as two distinct
but inseparable acts. To perform the one (to eat) is in effect
to realize the second (not to die). Several expositors under
stand the word die, in ver. 5 0, in the moral sense of perdition.
But the antithesis preceding it, the death of the Israelites in
the desert, forbids such an explanation. Jesus, both here
and elsewhere, certainly denies even physical death in the
case of the believer. Comp. viii. 51. That which properly
constitutes death, in what we call by this name, is the total
cessation of moral and physical existence. Now this fact
does not take place in the case of the behever at the moment
when his brethren see him die. Jesus is at that time both
spiritually and physically his hfe, and by His personal
communion He takes away the death of death from the
behever. The statement of ver. 5 1 is not a mere repetition. For the
epithet f<flv, living, no longer relates, as in the preceding
expression, bread of life, i.e. life-giving bread, to the effects
produced by the bread, but to its own nature, by which
alone its effects can be explained. The manna, as not itself
living, could never impart life. But Jesus, because He Him
self hves, can give hfe. Ver. 5 7 will explain the manner in
which Jesus both lives and gives hfe.
The second part of this verse is united to the first by the
particles /cat and Se, which indicate, the one a co-ordination,
the other a progress in the idea : And finally, to tell you all.
. . . Jesus is now determined to let them hear the paradox to
the end. Hitherto He had brought forward His person as a
whole, and in an indefinite manner, as the object of faith ;
now He says more specifically : my flesh. But how can His
flesh be offered as food for the spiritual hunger of man?
This Jesus explains by adding the new particular, foreign to
all the preceding development : rjv iym 8m<rm, my flesh
which I will give. These words, suppressed by the Alex.,

CHAP. VI. 47-51. 243
undoubtedly on account of the tautology with the preceding
and similar words : bv iym 8mam, the bread which I will give,
must — as Meyer, notwithstanding his usual prepossession in
favour of the Alex, readings, acknowledges— be retained in
the text, the regimen : for the life of the world, imperiously
requiring them. And this is indeed proved by the Sinaitic
reading, which is nothing else than an attempt to restore the
text after the omission of these words had rendered it in
tolerable. Ancient translations, moreover, confirm the authen
ticity of these important words. And lastly, the context is
no less decisive in this respect. For if the first I will give
may be paraphrased, the bread which I will give to be eaten,
thus summing up the preceding dialogue, the second means :
(my flesh) which I will give to be sacrificed, and forms a transi
tion to the subsequent, my flesh and my blood ; and it is in
view of this relation and these entirely different meanings
that the word give is repeated a second time. In fact, the
flesh of Jesus can only be eaten as food when and so far as it
shall be offered as a victim, for the life of the world. This last
expression, especially in the connection in which it here
stands with the future : I will give, which indicates a fact
yet to transpire, can only refer to the sacrifice of the cross.
Those expositors who apply this second I will give to the
voluntary consecration of the historical person of Christ during
His life, do violence both to the future (/ will give) and to the
preposition wrep,for the sake of, besides failing to take into
account the utter difference of expression by which what
follows is distinguished from what precedes. Moreover, the
second part of ver. 5 1 being the text of the following para
graph, its exact meaning in our Lord's mind can only be
determined by the interpretation of this latter passage. It is
in this verse that we catch the first ghmpse of that preoccu
pation of His mind with the Paschal feast, which had existed
from the commencement of a scene which was among the
grandest of His life. At the same time, the expression : of
the world, shows that the new Passover, to which His heart
was rising, was to be no mere repetition of the old. It was
the human race in its entirety that He invited and saw in
spirit hastening to it, like the multitudes of the preceding
evening. The world : Such is the guest bidden to the new

244 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
banquet, which, like the sacred repast in the thank-offerings,
will be a sacrificial feast. 3. Vv. 52-59.
Ver. 52. " The Jews therefore strove among themselves, say
ing, How can he give us his flesh x to eat ? " — The term
ifidxovTb, strove, goes beyond iyoyyv£ov, murmured, ver. 41 ;
it was a loud contention which succeeded the stifled mur
muring. The words, among themselves, seem to contradict the
word in apposition, saying, which appears to imply that the
saying was unanimous. But the same question might easily
be found in all mouths, without any agreement as to its solu
tion. Some would quickly arrive at the conclusion that it
was absurd ; others, still under the impression produced by
yesterday's miracle, and by the sacred and mysterious nature
of our Lord's sayings, might maintain, in spite of all opposi
tion, that He was the Messiah. In face of this altercation,
Jesus not only persists in His statement, but strengthens it
by giving a more and more literal meaning to the expres
sions He uses. He speaks of eating His flesh and drinking
His blood, manifestly making this act the condition of life
(vv. 53-56): of eating Himself (ver. 57), and afterwards
sums up the whole address in a final statement. The
evangehst then indicates the locahty of the scene (ver. 59).
Vv. 53-55. "Jesus then said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and
drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Wlioso eateth my flesh
and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise Him
up at the last day.2 For my flesh is truly3 meat, and my blood
is truly3 drink." '* — Jesus, when He spake of giving His sacri
ficed flesh to be eaten (ver. 51), was already evidently allud
ing to the Paschal feast ; but by now making a distinction
between the two terms : flesh and blood, He renders this
allusion still clearer. It is true that the blood of the lamb
1 B T ItP1"1'"0 add xurou after mt expxx.
2 The Mss. are divided between t« and iv rn.
"XDEHMSUVtaa Mnn. ftp'"""" Vg. Syr. Or. (three times) : xxtfus ;
B C F» K L T n, 30 Mnn. Cop. Or. (five times) : xxnhs.
4 X omits the words fyuris . . . utti, and reads oearot instead of woeis {my flesh
is drink indeed). D omits the words kxi . . . sroeit.

CHAP. VI. 53-55. 245
did not appear in this feast ; but it had played a most
important part in the deliverance which this feast com
memorated. Sprinkled upon the lintels and door-posts, the
blood had secured the people from the stroke of the angel of
death. In the ceremony of slaying the lamb in the temple,
the sprinkling was made upon the horns of the altar, which
took the place of the doors of the Israelitish houses. — The
flesh here corresponds with the body of the lamb, which was
the essential element of the Paschal feast. This word assumes
an increasingly concrete signification. At first it designated
the whole human life of Jesus, generally speaking ; now it is
expressly the body which must be broken that the blood
may flow and be drunk. The shed blood assures to the be
liever pardon, deliverance from condemnation ; the flesh is the
food which positively imparts to him hfe ; and these two acts,
dehverance from death and the consummation of life, consti
tute full salvation.
The meaning of this saying then is : Unless by faith you
appropriate my death (blood) and my life (flesh) you will die,
because you will possess neither reconciliation with God nor
life in Him. Jesus does not, as we see, give a direct answer
to the How ? of the Jews, but supplies indirectly, as He did
to Nicodemus, the explanation required. In the latter case,
He exchanged the expression "born again" for "born of water
and of the Spirit!' Here He completes the expression " eat
His flesh" by " drink His blood." He gives this explanation
first under its negative form. Nothing except this eating and
drinking can give hfe. This is the divine denial opposed to
the Jewish protest (ver. 52). The man who has not fed upon
the flesh and blood of Jesus carries death in his inmost being.
In ver. 54 we have the same idea in its affirmative form:
This eating and drinking assuredly impart life. Jesus even
raises the view of the behever to the highest stage of this
communication of life — the resurrection of the body. The
relation between these words : and I will raise him up . . .
and the preceding statement, is as follows : And thus this
man shall possess a hfe, in virtue of which I shaU not fail to
raise him up at the last day. The resurrection of the body
is then neither a useless superfetation with relation to the
spiritual life, according to the notion with which M. Reuss

246 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
credits St. John, nor a magical act, independent of that higher
hfe, according to the idea often formed of it ; but the climax
of the spiritual resurrection, the intended goal of the divine
work : it is nature restored and glorified by grace victorious
over sin.
Ver. 55 justifies both the negative and the positive state
ment. If this flesh and blood are the conditions of hfe to
man, it is because they are meat and drink in all reality.
The balance of critical authority is in favour of the reading
dXndm, " is truly," instead of dXr]dij<;, is true meat . . . true
drink. The Sinait., the Cantabrig., as well as the ancient Vss.,
are, together with the Byzantine authorities, on the side of
the first reading, which is, moreover, more in conformity with
the usual style of St. John. As Liicke observes, St. John gene
rally makes dXndijs refer to moral veracity in opposition to
•^reOSo?, while he freely unites dXrjdws with a substantive
(i. 48: aXydms 'Io-pavXiTvs; viii. 31: dXvdo3<: fmdvTal).
There is not much difference in the meaning of the two read
ings. Jesus means in any case to say that by His flesh and
blood (ver. 54) we are really supported and nourished, and
consequently live. The adverb or the adjective expresses
the full reality of the vital communication effected by these
elements. Vv. 56, 57 explain their life-giving virtue, as affirmed ver.
25. In this explanation Jesus assumes that to abide in Him
is to live (ver. 56), and accounts for this unique fact (ver. 57).
Vv. 56, 57. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent
me, and I live by the Father ; so He that eateth me, he shall
also live 1 by me."— If the flesh and blood of Jesus possess the
virtue attributed to them ver. 55, it is because they are the
means by which the believer is united to Jesus, and, through
Him, to the Father. The behever's dwelling in Jesus com
prises two things : the renunciation of all hfe of his own —
that is to say, of all merit, strength, and wisdom emanating
from his own resources, and then absolute resting in Christ as
in Him who alone possesses the treasure capable of filling this
void. The dwelling of Christ in the behever expresses the
full communication on the part of Christ to the believer of all
1 Mss. vary between Jwrai (r a, etc.), rwll (X B, etc.), and ?» (C D).

CHAP. VI. 5G, 57. 247
that He has, and even of all that He is, of His entire person
ality (he that eateth me, ver. 5 7). From this mutual relation
the behever has life. But how ? This is explained by ver. 5 7.
If communion with Jesus gives hfe, it is because Jesus has
Himself access to the source of hfe. His vital principle is the
Living One in the perfect sense of the word ; and that certainty
of hfe which Jesus derives from this communion with the
Father, naturally extends to the man who feeds upon Him,
and makes Him the principle of his own hfe. This applies to
Jesus, not in His condition of Logos (comp. ver. 26), but in
His state of renunciation (hath sent me, ver. 57), and as Son
of man. The question is to explain how a man can become
the vital principle of other men in a sense so real and exclu
sive, that to feed upon him is to live. Hence it is the
mystery of His own life which Jesus reveals in the first part
of the verse, to deduce from it, in the second, the explanation
of the life of the believer. This first part includes two cor
relative propositions : what God is to Jesus, and what Jesus is
to God. To understand this double relation, is to penetrate
the secret of the inmost hfe of Jesus. The living Father hath
sent Him ; hence the responsibility of the mission and work of
Jesus rests entirely upon the Father. And the Father being
in an absolute sense the Living One, this condition of being
sent by the Father involves an absolute guarantee to Jesus of
victory over death in all its forms. But, on the other hand,
this result assumes on the part of Jesus a continuous depend
ence with respect to the Father, and an entire consecration
to His mission. He is incessantly to live by tlie Father.
The word £oj, i" live, denotes not merely the fact of exist
ence, it here signifies life acting in its various physical and
moral manifestations. It is not quite correct to render 8id
(with the accusative), as we have done, by the preposition by.
But it would be pedantic, and even inaccurate, to translate it :
on account of. Jesus would say that in virtue of this mission
of the Father, of which He is conscious, He is incessantly
deriving light, strength, everything from Him. Hence it is
in the Father that He finds both the law and the source of
His activity — in other words, His vital principle. The Father
by sending the Son secured to Him this relation ; and the Son,
on His part, continues scrupulously faithful thereto (ver. 17).

248 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
And what is the result ? That the life of the Father is
perfectly reproduced on earth in a human life — that Jesus is
God hved by a man. And thence results the second part of
the verse : that he who feeds on Jesus incorporates into him
self the living God, and consequently lives. This second part
of the verse contains, grammatically speaking, only one propo
sition. But the subject : he that eateth, corresponds with the
first proposition of the preceding statement : As the Father
hath sent me ; and the predicate : even he shall live by me, with
the second : and I live by the Father. The first /cat, and, or
rather also, is the correspondent of icaddx;, as, and at the same
time the sign of the principal proposition. St. John uses /cat,
and not ovTm<;, so, because the analogy is imperfect. The
second /cat before the pronoun has a different meaning, being
used to give prominence to the subject Kaicelvo<;, he also, and
that for the purpose of emphasizing this idea : that the believer
by feeding on Jesus obtains exactly the same assurance of hfe
as that which Jesus Himself enjoys by the fact of His relation
to the Father. A thought of unfathomable profundity is con
tained in this saying : Jesus alone has direct access to the
supreme source. The life which He thence derives, elaborated
and reproduced in human fashion in His person, becomes
through Him accessible to men. As the infinite life of nature
can only be appropriated by man so far as it is concentrated
in a fruit, or a morsel of bread ; so the divine life is only put
within our reach so far as it is incarnate in the Son of man.
It is thus that He is to us all the bread of life. But as we
have to appropriate and assimilate bread to obtain hfe through
it ; so also must we incorporate the Person of the Son of man
by an inward act of faith, which is the way of spiritual man-
ducation. By thus feeding on Him who lives by God, we
live by God Himself, and henceforth actuaUy live as Jesus
does. The true God, the living Father, gives Himself to one
alone, but in Him to all who feed upon this only One. We
have here the secret of hfe, the mystery of salvation, what
St. Paul calls (Eph. i. 10) the gathering together of all things
in one. Hence to reject this food is to deprive oneself of
life. Ver. 5 8. " This is the bread which came down 1 from heaven.
1 x omits auras, and reads xxrxfixivuv instead of xxrxjixs.

CHAP. VI. 58. 249
It is not as with your fathers} who did eat manna} and are
dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live3 for ever." — This
statement, which closes the interview, exhibits the character
of a direct appeal. It is for you to accept or reject it. I
tell you, that to refuse it is death ; to eat it, life. The prin
cipal proposition on which ov /cadet)?, not as, depends, seems to
me to be (without ellipsis) : he that eateth shall live ; the
meaning being : " In opposition to what happened to your
fathers, ... he who eateth . . . shall live."
What, it may be asked, does Jesus mean throughout this
passage by the expressions : eating His flesh, drinking His
blood ?
1. Many expositors regard them only as metaphors, desig
nating the act by which faith morally unites with its object.
Some (Reuss) make this object to be the historical person of
Jesus Christ as it was present to the eyes of His hearers, and
take the expressions: my flesh and my blood in a general sense ;
flesh and blood, i.e. the human nature. According to others,
the object of faith is not only the living Christ (the flesh), but
the sacrificed Christ (the blood) ; and Jesus here characterizes by
these terms both the appropriation of His holy life, and faith
in His atoning death. This interpretation, under one or other
of the two principal forms to which we have just alluded,
applies indeed to the beginning of the address, for spiritual
assimilation by means of faith is certainly the idea from which
our Lord starts : "I am the bread of life; he that cometh to. me
shall never hunger ; he that believeth on me shall never thirst "
(ver. 35). But at this point of view we cannot well see for what
purpose Jesus should give to this purely spiritual idea an
expression increasingly paradoxical, material, and consequently
unintelligible, to those who were questioning Him. If this
were ah He meant to say, even in the closing words of this
address, does He not seem to be playing upon the words,
and setting Himself to give needless cause of offence to the
Jews ?
2. This very real difficulty has led some commentators to
apply these expressions to the Lord's Supper, whose institu
tion, they say, Jesus had already in view, and which was
subsequently to solve the mystery of His words for His
disciples. But this explanation gives rise to the same diffi
culty as the preceding. For what could be the use of this
1 X B C L T Cop. Or. omit u/im after -rxnp'.s.
8 The same with D omit ra /txnx (after upiuv).
' Readings vary between Z,i\eu and %mirxi (ver. 57).

250 GOSPEL OF JOHN,
incomprehensible allusion to an institution which none could
foresee ? Besides, would Jesus, throughout whose teaching
faith is the sole condition of salvation, make the possession of
eternal life depend on an external act, like that of the Lord's
Supper. The Tubingen School, which adhered to this inter
pretation, deduced from it an argument against the authen
ticity of this Gospel. And not without reason, if there were
good grounds for this explanation. But if the pseudo-John,
writing in the second century, had put into the mouth of
Jesus an allusion to the Lord's Supper, he would undoubtedly
have employed the word <rw/*a, body, used in the text of the
institution and in liturgical forms, rather than edp%, flesh. A
proof whereof is furnished by the non-authentic addition at
the end of ver. 56, found in the Cantabr., the Amiatinus, etc. :
If a man receives the body of the Son of man as the bread of
life, he shall have hfe in him.
If we would discover our Lord's real meaning, it will be
necessary, as it seems to us, carefully to distinguish, as Jesus
Himself does (ver. 27), between the human act and the divine
gift, in the mysterious eating and drinking here described.
The human act is faith, and faith alone; and, inasmuch as
eating and drinking denote the part of the believer in his
union with Jesus Christ, these terms do not surpass the extent
of the meaning given them by the exclusively spiritual inter
pretation. To eat the flesh is to contemplate by faith the holy
life of the Lord, to be so penetrated thereby as to reproduce it;
to drink the blood is also to contemplate His violent death, to
make it our own ransom, to taste its atoning efficacy. And
here a word in passing. We must not, as Reuss does, con
found these expressions, flesh and blood, opposed as they here
are to each other, by their combination with the terms eating
and drinking, with the ordinary formula flesh and blood,
employed to designate human nature. Liicke (vol. ii. p. 159)
well brings out the difference : " Flesh and blood," he says,
" regarded separately, denote human life and death." But if the
part of man in the mystic union is limited to faith, nothing
is as yet determined concerning the nature of the divine gift
bestowed upon the believer. We have here a gradation.
The gift includes, first, pardon (drinking the blood) ; then, to
the pardoned believer, the coming of the Holy Spirit, who, as
ch. xiv.-xvi. will show, makes Christ Himself to live in him,
and reproduces in his person that holy personality (eating His
flesh). But this is not all. We have seen with what per
sistence Jesus, during the preceding discourse, continually
recurred to the idea of the resurrection of the body ; doing so
again ver. 54, in a still more significant manner. The hfe,

CHAP. VI. 58. 251
then, which He communicates to the believer is not simply
of a moral nature ; it is His whole life, corporeal as well as
spiritual, His entire personality. As the grains contained in
the ear are but the reappearance of the grains of seed
mysteriously multiplied, so will believers, when sanctified and
raised from the dead, be but the reproduction, in millions of
living specimens, of the glorified Jesus. The principle of this
reproduction is undoubtedly spiritual : the Holy Spirit, who
makes Christ to live in us ; but the issue of this work is
physical, viz. the glorious body of the believer, the image of
His own (1 Cor. xv. 49). The physical birth of Jesus Him
self was by the power of the Holy Ghost. The grains in the
ear are not more truly the substance of the grain of seed,
than glorified saints are the spiritual and corporeal substance
of their Head. Jesus felt profoundly that He belonged body
and. soul to humanity. It was through this feeling, and not
to give offence to His hearers, for amusement, that He
employed the terms which so astonish us in this discourse.
There is no figure of speech except in the expressions : eat
and drink; but the corporeal side of communion with Him is
perfectly real, and must be taken literally. " We are members
of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" (Eph. v. 30),
said an apostle who is not suspected of materialism ; and to
show that he was thinking of something very different from
a metaphor intelligible to the first chance scholar, he adds :
"This is a great mystery: I speak concerning Christ and the
church " (ver. 32). This mystery of our complete union with
His Person, expressed in this address in words, is precisely
that which Jesus designed to express by an action when He
instituted the Lord's Supper. We must not say that in this
discourse he alludes to the Holy Supper, but that the Lord's
Supper and this discourse refer to one and the same divine
fact, expressed here by a metaphor, there by an emblem. In
this point of view, the delicate question why Jesus here made
use of the word flesh, and in the institution of the Lord's
Supper of the word body, is easily solved. When He insti
tuted the emblem, He took bread, and brake it. Now it is His
bodyL as an organism (eu/ia) broken, which corresponds to
this broken bread. In the address at Capernaum, where only
nourishment was in question, it was agreeable to the analysis
of the multiplication of the loaves that Jesus should rather
present His body as substance (aup%) than as an organism.
This perfect propriety of terms shows the genuineness and
authenticity of both forms.
There is one question left, namely, Whether Jesus at this
juncture had already in mind the institution of the Lord's

252 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Supper ? x But this, from the point of view we have now
reached, is but of secondary importance to the exegete. To
us this seems probable. He knew of His approaching death,
the news of the Baptist's murder had just revived within Him
the presentiment of His own (Matt. xiv. 12): and it was
present to His mind when His thoughts were dwelling on the
sacrifice of the Paschal lamb ; for He knew that it would be
for the life of the whole world what the sacrifice of the lamb
had been for the existence of the nation of Israel. And what
was more natural than to arrive from these premises at the idea
of a feast commemorative of His death, as the Passover had
hitherto been of the sacrifice of the lamb ? For the institution
of the Lord's Supper could have been no inspiration of the
moment. Jesus must, for a long period, have cherished this
design in His heart. Do we ask how long ? Perhaps ever
since the day when, deprived of the joy of celebrating the
Passover at Jerusalem, and seeing multitudes flocking to Him
from all sides, He had improvised for them a Paschal feast,
the rival of that which was about to be celebrated in the holy
city. This banquet, offered to His disciples as a momentary
compensation, was subsequently transformed, in the Holy
Supper, into a permanent institution. This is exactly the point
of view at which St. John designed from the first to place
us, when he said (ver. 4) : " Now the Passover, the feast of the
Jews, was nigh ; " and it was probably this similarity which
inspired the four evangelists with the expression, so resembling
that of the institution of the Lord's Supper, with which they
all begin their accounts of the miracle of the loaves and fishes :
" He took bread, and gave thanlcs."
Ver. 59. "Jesus said these things, teaching in tlie synagogue,
at Capernaum." — The regular days of assembly in the
synagogue were the second, fifth, and seventh days of the
week (Monday, Thursday, and Saturday). The day of the
Passover must, in the year 29, have fallen on Monday, April
18 (see Chavannes, Bevue de thiol., 3d series, vol. i. p.
209 sq.). If the multiplication of the loaves and fishes took
place the evening before the Passover, the next day, viz. that
on which Jesus delivered this address, must consequently have
been this Monday, a day on which an assembly took place.
But what is our evangelist's purpose in interpolating this
notice ? It is difficult to believe that he designed only to
give an historical detail. Tholuck thinks that his intention
1 On St. John's silence with respect to this institution, see ch. xiii.

CHAP. VI. 60. 253
was to account for the numerous audience which the narra
tive following implies (therefore, ver. 50). But is not such
a notion far-fetched? To us it seems more probable that,
having given an account of so solemn an address, the evan
gelist felt the need of fixing for ever the locality of this
remarkable scene (comp. viii. 20). To feel that such was his
intention, we must first observe the absence of the article
before o-vvayeoyfj, not : in the synagogue, but in a synagogal
assembly; and then refer the regimen, in an assembly, to teaching,
and the reg. at Capernaum, to He said, and paraphrase thus :
He spake thus, teaching in full synagogue, at Capernaum.
The term 8i8do-/cmv, teaching, denoting a teaching properly so
called, recalls the manner in which Jesus had explained and
discussed the texts from Scripture, vv. 31 and 35, and
accords with the solemnity of the scene.
The hearers had questioned, murmured, contended, and
now the better disposed among them, and even some of the
permanent disciples of Jesus, become the organs of the general
discontent. 4. Vv. 60-65.
Ver. 60. "Many of His disciples, when they had heard
Him, said, This is a hard saying ; who can liear it ?" — This
exclamation referred, according to de Wette and Meyer, to that
great cause of offence to the Jews, the bloody death of the
Messiah, which had been implied by the preceding statements ;
according to Tholuck and Hengstenberg, to the apparent pride
with which Jesus had connected the salvation of the world
with His own jperson ; and according to several older writers,
Lampe and others, to His claim to have come down from heaven.
To me it seems difficult to apply it to anything else than
the paradoxical nature of the words last spoken by Jesus : the
need of eating His flesh and drinking His blood. This was
at once the most prominent and the most repugnant feature
of the whole address ; and grossly understood, it might seem
revolting even to His disciples. The term aadirral, disciples,
here denotes persons who had attached themselves to Jesus,
who habitually followed Him, who had even forsaken their
ordinary occupations to accompany Him (ver. 6 6), and from
whom Jesus had a short time since chosen the Twelve (Luke

254 , GOSPEL OF JOHN.
vi. 12-16), — H/cXnpos (properly: hard, tough) does not here
signify obscure (Chrysostom, Grotius, Olshausen), but difficult
to receive. They thought they understood, but could not
accept it. — Tk Svvarai, " who has power to . . . ? " d/coveiv,
" to listen patiently without stopping his ears."
Vv. 61-63. "But Jesus, knowing1 in Himself that His
disciples murmured at it, said unto them, Doth this offend you ?
And if ye shall see the Son of man ascending vjhere He was
before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh proflteth
nothing. The. words that I speak2 unto you are spirit and
life." — The words, " in Himself," do not, as Lange observes,
exclude the perception of external signs, but signify that
Jesus needed to ask no question to enable Him to understand
these symptoms. — The word offend must be taken in its
gravest sense, and here, as well as in Luke vii. 23, signifies,
to cause to stumble with regard to the faith.
The words idv ovv (ver. 62), translated and if, do not
depend upon any principal proposition, and consequently need
to have one supplied. We may understand : What will you
then say ? or (with more direct reference to the supposition :
and if) either : WiU not your offence then cease ? or, on the
contrary : Will you not then be still more scandalized ?
This last is the question understood by de Wette, Meyer, and
Liicke, who refer the expression : " ascend up where He was
before," to the death of Jesus, and understand: You are
offended at the announcement of my death ; how much more
then wUl you be so on actually beholding this fact ? But
what force could such an argument have ? A fact is not
more difficult of acceptation than the statement which
announces it. Besides, the expression, to come down, which
is the pendant to ascend up, is employed throughout this
chapter to signify the incarnation ; hence the word, to ascend,
points rather to His ascension than His death. It was after
His resurrection that Jesus said: "I am not yet ascended"
(xx. 17). Hence His death is not the fact which He indicates
by the term ascend. When He designed to combine the two
notions of His suspension on the cross and His elevation to
heaven in an amphibological expression (iii. 14, xii. 32), He
1 X reads tyvu am instead of liSus Sf, and adds xxi before snri».
aXBCDKLTU, 16 Mnn. It. Vg. Or. read xiXxXnxx instead of XxXu.

CHAP. VI. 01-63. 255
said vtywdrjvai, to be lifted up, and not dvaBaiveiv, to ascend.
This last expression, especially in the pres., cannot, as
Baumlein observes, be applied to the crucifixion. The only
explanation agreeing with the expressions in the text is, as
even Hilgenfeld admits, the old interpretation of the Fathers,
who refer these words to the ascension. Undoubtedly it was
only the Twelve who, in a hteral sense, beheld this fact ; but
all who beheve do, as it were, see it by means of their testi
mony. And this expression of seeing is, moreover, positively
applied to the unbelieving Jews also (Matt. xxvi. 63) :
"Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand
of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven!' In this sense
the reasoning of Jesus is easdy understood : Does the idea of
eating my flesh offend you ? It will seem still more absurd
to you, when you shall see me ascend to heaven. But it is
then that you will cease to take offence, and wiU understand
of what sort of eating I was speaking. In other words, hteral
eating and drinking wiU be rendered by this fact so impossible
a matter, that you wiU then discover an utterly different
meaning to my words. Before can only refer to the existence
of Jesus as the Logos, prior to His earthly life. Ver. 63 wiU,
as we shall see, combine quite naturally with ver. 62 thus
understood. The application of this 6 2d verse to the ascen
sion has been denied by Liicke, Meyer, and others, upon the
ground that this fact is not recorded by St. John, and is only
mentioned in the writings of Mark and Luke, who were
disciples of the apostles. But such an objection is entirely
obviated by the plan of the fourth Gospel and its relation to
those of the Synoptists.
The explanation of ver. 63, with reference to that which we
have .just given of ver. 62, is as follows : When you see my
flesh disappear, at my return to heaven, you wiU understand
that the life-giving principle, of which I designed to speak to
you, is the Spirit, and not the material substance. The event
of Pentecost was the reality which Jesus was, throughout
this discourse, promising ; it was by means of the Spirit that
His promises (vv. 53-58) would be realized. This explains
the singular analogy between the terms of ver. 56 and those
of ch. xiv.-xvii. Only, that we may not attribute to the
explanation given by Jesus the character of a retractation, we

256 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
must remember that our Lord, by communicating Himself to
us by the agency of the Spirit, incorporates into us His whole
Person. St. Paul developes, in the same sense, the idea of the
second Adam as a quickening Spirit (1 Cor. xv. 45). But it
is not only the identical expression, Trvevfia %a>oiroiovv, which
connects these passages, but especially that corporeal resurrec
tion, to which Jesus so frequently recurs in His address, and
which is the principal subject of this chapter of St. Paul.
The Bible knows nothing of the somewhat unphilosophical
antagonism between matter and spirit, introduced into modern
thought by Cartesianism. "There is," says St. Paul, "a
spiritual body" (1 Cor. xv. 44). What Jesus does deny in
ver. 63, is any communication from Him to us effected by
any other agent than the Spirit. The term flesh in this verse
means this : the flesh, as such, materiaUy eaten. By the
terms spirit and flesh Chrysostom and others understand a
spiritual comprehension, and a grossly literal interpretation, of
Christ's words. But this explanation is as forced as that of
the Lutheran expositors, who apply the first of these expres
sions to the right celebration of the Lord's Supper, and the
second to a purely material use of this sacrament.
In ver. 62, Jesus corrects the misunderstanding of His
hearers by an historical argument, viz. the future fact of the
ascension ; in ver. 63 a, by a proof derived from the nature of
things, viz. the part necessarUy taken by the Spirit in every
communication of life; while 63& contains the application of
this demonstration. If Jesus had said merely : " are spirit"
we might understand : have a spiritual character, must be
taken in a spiritual sense (Augustine). But He added, and
are life; and these words do not suit such an explanation.
Jesus means rather to say that His words are the pure incar
nation of the Spirit, and the vehicle of hfe. The result, there
fore, is that they caiinot concede any value to the flesh as
such, and that they who attribute any such meaning to them,
necessarily faU into error ; for as the Spirit is life, the flesh
separate therefrom can be only death (Rom. vii. 6). — The
Alex, reading, XeXdXrjKa (the words which I Mve spoken),
restricts the application of this principle to the preceding dis
courses. According to the Byzantine reading, XaXw (the words
which I speak), these words point out the character of all the

CHAP. VI. 64, Co. 257
words of Jesus. Notwithstanding the preference of Lachmann,
de Wette, Meyer, and Tischendorf for the former, the presence
of the pronoun iyd> is decisive for the second ; for this word
really refers the nature of the words to the character of the
person who utters them : the words spoken by such a Being
as I am cannot but be at all times spirit and life.
Vv. 64, 65. "But there are some of you who believe not.
For Jesus * knew from the beginning who they were that believed
¦not, and who it was tlutt should betray Him. And He said,
Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me except
it were given unto him of my Father." — To the exclamation :
This is a hard saying, Jesus had rephed : It is only hard so
far as you give it a sense repugnant to the spirituality of its
nature. But He now adds : There are some even among
you, my disciples, who are strangers to this spiritual sphere,
and who, though you follow me, do not believe. The expres
sion, some, limits this severe judgment to a small number
among His disciples. In the second part of this verse the
evangehst gives the reason for the statement made by Jesus
in the first. The words i% dpxvi, from the beginning, apply
undoubtedly to those early days of His ministry when He first
began to gather around Him a circle of permanent disciples.
Comp. xv. 27, xvi. 4; Acts i. 21, 22. Tholuck and de
Wette refer this expression to the beginning of relations
between Jesus and each individual ; Lange, to the first germ
of unbelief in a heart ; Chrysostom and Bengel, to the moment
when our Lord's present hearers had begun to murmur. Such
apphcations, however, appear to us unnatural. — Kai : and even,
or, and in particular. — The expression, and who should betray
Him, is written, not from a fatalist and predestinarian point
of view, but entirely from that of an accomplished fact.
Comp. ver. 71. But it may be asked, if this betrayal was
from the beginning actually foreseen by Jesus, how could He
admit Judas among the Twelve ? We know of only one
answer to this question : He obeyed the Father. If, says
Riggenbach (Leben des Herrn Jesu, p. 366), the thoughts of
our Lord were, during that night of prayer in which the choice
of the Twelve was determined (Luke vi. 12), again and again
brought back to this individual ; and if in such a circumstance
1 X reads o eurtip instead of » Iwov;.
GODET II. R JOHN.

258 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
He could not, though well discerning His want of probity, fail
to recognise the indication of the Father's wiU, what have we
to object ? And was not the very faU, in which this relation
was to terminate, the only means of breaking the colossal
pride of such a nature ? And might not the moment when
Judas felt the enormity of his crime have yet become that of
his salvation ? How are we to see clearly in such profound
obscurity ?
Kal eXeyev, and He said, refers to a moment of shent and
painful reflection, which the evangelist has fiUed up by the
remark, 64&; after which the Lord solemnly added the words
which follow in ver. 65, and which are connected with 64a
by 8id tovto, therefore. This fact of the unbehef of some of
His own disciples was the most striking confirmation of His
statement to the Jews concerning the necessity of that inward
preparation, without which faith is, even under the most favour
able circumstances, impossible. It was a fareweU saying, as
those disciples to whom it apphed perceived. The Synop
tists, as weU as St. John, give us every now and then glimpses
of painful crises during the Gahlean ministry (Matt. xi. 26 sqq.,
xvi. 18 sqq). 3. Th,e Crisis in Galilee. — w. 66—71.
Ver. 66. "From that time1 many of His disciples withdrew,
and accompanied Him no longer." — In the picture drawn by
the Synoptists of the Gahlean ministry, and especiaUy in that
of St. Luke, Jesus often appears to have His mind occupied
with the necessity of making a selection from the crowds who
foUowed Him without understanding the serious nature of
such a step. Comp. Luke viii. 9 sqq., ix. 23 sqq., xiv.
2 5 sqq. He preferred a little knot of men confirmed in the
faith, and resolved to make the sacrifices it imposed, to such
numbers who were only in appearance attached to His person.
Seen from this point of view, the method foUowed by Him in
the preceding scene is easily explained. The words by which
He had characterized the nature and privUeges of faith were
eminently adapted to attach believers to Him for ever, and at
the same time to revolt such among these crowds as were
impelled by the instincts of carnal Messianic views. Jesus
1 X and D here add auv.

CHAP. VI. 67-69. 259
had on the preceding evening seen the danger with which His
work was threatened by the Judaic tendency. He had felt the
necessity of purifying His infant church from such an aUiance.
Ver. 66 shows us this end attained, with respect to such of
His disciples as did not belong to the apostolate. — 'JE/c
tovtov, properly : after this fast, which includes both the time
(from this day) and its events (all that had happened on that
day). De Wette renders it too exclusively : from this moment.
And Meyer not less exclusively : for this reason. Comp. xix.
12. — The words: d-jrfjXdov ets Ta bit lam, went backwards,
express more than simple desertion, and indicate the return of
these persons to the occupations which they had forsaken to
foUow the Lord constantly. The impf. TrepietrdTovv refers to
the sort of wandering life led by Jesus at this period of His
Gahlean ministry (comp. vii. 1 and Luke viii. 1 : SimSeve /caret
ttoXiv /cat /caTa /cmfivv). There is nothing to indicate that the
result here spoken of was fully produced at this very moment.
On the contrary, the expression : after this circumstance, e'/c
tovtov, shows that the desertion which now began to take place
continued during the ensuing period.
Jesus, far from being grieved at the selection which was
thus being effected among His adherents, recognised in it a
salutary purification, and would have willingly seen it ex
tended even to the Twelve, among whom also His eye
detected impure elements. It is thus that the scene which
foUowed is explained.
Vv. 67—69. "Jesus then said unto the Twelve, And you,
will you not also go away ? Simon Peter answered 1 Him, Lord,
to whom should we go ? Thou hast words of eternal life. And
as for us, we have believed, and have known that Thou art
the Holy One of God!' 2 — At the sight of the increasing deser
tion (ovv) Jesus addressed the Twelve. Who then are these
twelve of whom John speaks as of individuals well known to
his readers ? As yet he had himself narrated the call of only
five disciples, ch. i., and mentioned the existence of an in
definite and tolerably numerous circle of believers. In this
example we can lay our finger upon the error of those who
• 9 Mjj. (X B C, etc.) omit am.
2 The T. R. with 13 Mjj. (r A A n, etc.) ftp"*1"16 Syr. read » Xpieros o mas rou
foov rou Zutros ; Syr"aP ItPIeri'u" omit rau %uvros. X B C D L : a xyias rou halt.

260 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
assert that St. John either ignores or tacitly denies aU the
facts which he does not himself relate. This expression : the
Twelve, repeated vv. 70, 71, assumes and confirms the narra
tive, Luke vi. 12 sqq, Mark iii. 13 sqq, omitted by John. —
The question of Jesus beginning with firj expects an answer
in the negative. Hence de Wette and Meyer give a tinge of
melancholy to these words : You would not leave me too !
An instructive specimen of the mistakes to which grammatical
pedantry may lead. For this question, far from exhibiting
this plaintive tone, breathes only masculine energy. Forsaken
by the greater number of His former disciples, it might per
haps have been expected that Jesus would have sought aU
the more earnestly to retain these twelve, the last support
of His work. On the contrary, He sets the door wide open.
But as He certainly did not desire to urge their departure,
and intended only to give them permission, He could not
employ the term of expression : oix v/iet? deXere, will you
not, which would have been a positive invitation to depart.
Hence He contented Himself with saying, You surely will
not? If, however, you wiU, you may depart. It must
not be forgotten that there are, in the use of these particles,
gradations of feehng which forbid our subjecting their mean
ing to rules as strict as it is sometimes supposed. — Kal before
v/xeig, you too, makes a decided distinction between the apostles
and other disciples. — The close of the conversation shows at
which among them Jesus was aiming when He let fly this
shaft. Peter quickly answered the question, and, without
perhaps taking the trouble to inquire whether his feehng was
shared by aU his colleagues, made himself their spokesman.
We recognise here the same bold confessor, the same Peter,
who figures in the Acts and the Synoptics. His reply (ver.
?3 8) expresses two facts : the deep void left in the heart by
all other teaching, the life-giving power of that of Jesus.
This confession of Peter sounds like an echo of his Master's
words, ver. 63 : The words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit and they are life. The experience of true believers
aheady exists to confirm the statements of their Lord. Our
ordinary translation, by substituting: the words, for words,
transforms a simple exclamation of feeling and experience
into a dogmatic formula.

CHAP. VI. 70, 71. 261
Ver. 69 expresses the conclusion drawn by the apostles
themselves from the experience described, ver. 6 8. The pron.
fjpel<i contrasts them with those who had just deserted. The
verbs in the perfect, have believed and known, indicate matters
already settled, and not to be reopened. Jesus may make
before them the most startling assertions: it wUl make no
difference, their faith in Him and their knowledge of Him
predispose them to accept them aU. There is a knowledge
which precedes faith (1 John iv. 1 6) ; but there is also a
knowledge of a deeper and more inward kind which follows
it (Phil. iii. 10); and it is of the latter that Peter was here
speaking. His confession is expressed in somewhat different
terms by the Alex, and Byzant. readings. Considered in itself,
the second is the more probable, the' idea : Son of the living
God, connecting itself perfectly with the whole of the chapter.
What renders it doubtful is its similarity to the confession of
St. Peter, Matt. xvi. 16. It is more difficult at first sight
to recognise the appropriateness of the term : The Holy One
of God, in this context. Jesus is probably so designated as
the Being divinely sent and sealed to give life to the world,
ver. 2 7 : Him hath God the Father sealed. This divine and
unexceptionable seal is holiness.
Vv. 70, 71. "Jesus answered them, Is it not I that have
chosen you, the Twelve ?x and one 1 of you is a devil. Now He
spake of Judas Iscariot 2 the son of Simon : for it was he that
should betray Him, lie, one 3 of the Tvielve." — Peter had spoken
in the name of aU ; but Jesus now destroys the veil which
this apparently unanimous confession had thrown over the
secret unbehef of one among their number. Not only would
He thus shelter Himself from responsibility with respect to
Judas, but also prevent the offence which might be given to
the apostles by the thought of their Master's want of dis
cernment. This is the reason that Jesus addresses His
answer no longer to Peter alone, but to all (avroti). He
first refers to the fact which might seem to imply that
1 X omits rous and us.
2 B C G L read lrxxpiurou (agreeing with "Siputos) instead of \cxxpmrnv, which
is the reading of T. R. 11 Mjj. etc. — X reads art Kxpuurou, and 3 Mnn. «sr»
Kxpiurou. — DIt"11': ixxpiul. — Syr.: Iscariot.
3 T. R. with 13 Mjj. Mnn. It. Vg. Cop. reads ut after us, in opposition ta
BDCL Syr. which omit it.

262 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
common possession of faith which Peter had affirmed : " Have
I not chosen you ? " The word ifjeXegdfivv, I have chosen, is
the same as that used Luke vi. 13 : i/cXeljdf>ieva<; air avT&v
8d>8e/ca. The aorist indicates a positive fact, an express
nomination. Jesus then opposes to this fact another in glar
ing contradiction therewith. 'E% vp,5>v is emphatic, " among
you, chosen by me." AidBoXo<; as an adjective denotes a
man having the qualities of him whom the N. T. calls d
8idBoXoi. Jesus here used the word in the same sense in
which He said to Peter, Matt. xvi. 23 : " Get thee behind me,
Satan." He had just, as it were, opened the door to Judas ;
and men animated like himself by the Judaic spirit, had set
him an example of declension; he nevertheless remained and
hypocriticaUy sheltered himself under Peter's confession.
The term employed by Jesus expresses the deep indignation
evoked by this persistence on the part of Judas, and His own
foreknowledge of the odious act in which this step would
infaUibly end.
At this time none of the disciples, except perhaps St. John
and Judas himself, understood to whom these words apphed.
The nearly certain etymology of the word 'Ia/capuorv1} is B"X
DVnp, man of Kerioth; a town in the tribe of Judah. Ac
cording to aU appearance, he was the only apostle who was
a native of Judea, that country so hostile to Jesus. Heng
stenberg prefers the etymology D*ipSP t^'X, man of lies. But
this is to make St. John anticipate the use of a name which
could only have been given him after his crime, and is un
natural. The Alex, reading makes this surname the epithet
of the father of Judas ; in any case, this reading has no
meaning unless in the etymology which we have adopted. —
The verb ijp,eXXev, from the point of sight of an accom
plished fact, simply means : It was he to whom it was to
happen to . . . — The last words bring out the contrast
between his position and his conduct.
From the first, the faith of the Galileans had a worm at
its root. St. John had characterized this secret evU by the
words : irdvTa impa/core? . . . (iv. 45) : " Having seen all
things that He did." And with the same feeling Jesus had
said : " Except ye see signs and wonders ye will not believe." In
this sixth chapter we behold the fall of its immature fruit

CHAP. VI. 70. 71. 263
from a tree which had, for a time, seemed to promise so
fair a crop. We ask whether Christendom does not seem
at present to have reached a point at which it is about to
reproduce every feature of this scene. Material instincts
are outweighing religious necessities ; consequently the gospel
wiU not harmonize with the aspirations of the masses ; the
saying : " You also have seen me, and believe not" wiU have
its apphcation on a wider scale, and the great apostasy of
Christendom wiU reproduce the Galilean catastrophe. The
existing relations between Christendom and Christianity fur
nish a true commentary on the sixth chapter of St. John's
Gospel. The authenticity of the discourses contained in this chapter
has been objected to on the grounds of their incomprehen-
sibUity to their hearers (Strauss, Leben Jesu, vol. i. part ii.
pp. 680, 681), and the sinrilarity of the dialogue with that of
ch. iv. (ibid. p. 680) ; comp. especiaUy ver. 34 with iv. 15; ver.
27 with iv. 13, 14. — The first objection faUs to the ground as
soon as we recognise the fact, that after the miracle of the
loaves and fishes, — a miracle so much misunderstood, — Jesus
was aiming at a selection from among His disciples. The
second is easriy solved by the consideration, that the constantly
renewed coUision between the heavenly views of Jesus and
the carnal minds which He was ever seeking to elevate, must of
necessity, on each occasion, occasion simUar phases. Besides, it
is by no means difficult to point out characteristic differences
between chs. iv. and vi. The chief of these is, that while the
Samaritan woman suffers herself to be transported to that
celestial sphere to which Jesus would attract her, the GalUeans,
if raised thither for an instant, soon faU down again to earth,
and decidedly break with Him who has nothing else to offer to
their gross materialism,
The authenticity of the discourses contained in this chapter is
avouched by their internal subhmity, and by the perfect suit
ableness of thought and expression which they exhibit, whether
in general or in detail, to the situation in which they were
spoken. We may here also point out the harmony which
evidently exists between the course they observe and the
order of the miraculous signs which occasioned them. The
great sign of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves was
followed, first by the walk on the waters, in which the body of
Jesus seemed raised to a state superior to earthly conditions,
and then by that instantaneous translation to land of the barque

264 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
by which the disciples were, so to speak, carried away with
Him by divine power, and withdrawn from the laws of space.
Each of these signs seems to have made on our Lord's mind
an impression reproduced in His words in a manner suited
to its importance: the first, in the representation of the
spiritual Passover ; the second, in the anticipation of the ascen
sion (ver. 62) ; the third, in the announcement of the Pente
costal gift (ver. 63).
The acts as weU as the words of this unique Being are
spirit and life.
The school of Baur regards this entire narrative as copied
from the Synoptists. Hilgenfeld says : This scene reproduces
that of the confession of Peter (Matt. xvi. 13 sqq.), and
indicates, besides, the first step in the transition from faith
to knowledge. Such an indication is, however, extremely
indistinct! As to the relation to the scene at Csesarea
Philippi, it seems to me very difficult to imagine two questions
on the part of Christ, and two so very similar confessions on
the part of the disciples by the mouth of Peter, at nearly the
same epoch of the Gahlean ministry. Hence (according to
the natural sense of ix rovrov, ver. 66) an interval of some
days, or perhaps weeks, — in short, sufficient time for the matter
contained in Matthew or Mark, from the miracle of the loaves
and fishes to the conversation at Csesarea Philippi (Matt. xiv.
34-xvi. 13; Mark vi. 5 3— viii. 26), — must probably be placed
between the discourse at Capernaum in this chapter and the
confession of Peter. As for St. Luke, he, like St. John, places
the conversation of Jesus and the confession of Peter im
mediately after the miracle of the loaves and fishes (ix. 17,
18). There is nothing then to hinder us^from identifying
these scenes, and admitting that St. JohrT places this final
crisis of the Galilean ministry in a perfectly true light.

THIRD SECTION.
VII. l-VIII. 59.  THE STRIFE AT ITS CLIMAX AT JERUSALEM.
Seven months had elapsed since Jesus had appeared at
Jerusalem. The hostile tendency, in which John had from
the first (vv. 16-18) perceived a murderous hatred, had had
time to calm ; but the fire was smouldering under its ashes,
and at the first appearance of Jesus in the capital it burst
forth with redoubled violence.

chap. vii. i, 2. 265
This section may be divided into three parts, —
1st. Before the feast, vii. 1-13.
2d. During the feast, vii. 14-36.
3d. After the last day of the feast, vii. 3 7— viii. 59.
I. Before the Feast. — vii. 1—13.
Ver. 1. " And after these things1 Jesus continued to abide
in Galilee : for He would not abide in Judea, because the Jews
sought to kill Him." — The situation described in this verse is
a continuation of that depicted by St. John, ch. vi. 1, 2, except
that he here makes no mention of the numerous foUowing
spoken of in the former passage, perhaps because of that
general desertion which took place immediately after the
scene of ch. vi., and that he more emphatically brings
forward the persistence with which Jesus confined His mini
strations to Galilee. The term vepmaTelv, to go and come,
characterizes by a single word that wandering ministry which
the Synoptists describe in detail. The imperfects bring out
the continuance of this state of things. The meaning of the
words : He walked in Galilee, is rather negative than positive :
He confined Himself to Galilee. The last words of the verse,
whUe recalhng the state of mind. evoked by the preceding stay
of Jesus at Jerusalem, prepares also for the narrative which
follows. In one sense everything is fragmentary, in another
everything is closely connected, in St. John's Gospel.
Ver. 2. " But the Jews' feast of Tabernacles was at hand."
— This feast was celebrated in October. Hence, according to
St. John himself, six entire months elapsed between this and
the preceding narrative ; and this interval he does not attempt
to fill up by mentioning even one of the events which
happened during its course. And in the face of this fact it
is daringly asserted that he intended to relate a complete
history, and that his silence respecting any fact must be
regarded as either a proof of ignorance or an imphed denial 1
— The feast of Tabernacles, called here and in the Maccabees
and Josephus a/cvvoirriyia, was celebrated during eight days,
and commenced on the 15 th day of the 7th month (Tisri),
1 Kxi is omitted by X D ItPleri'u» Sah. Syr.— 9 Mjj. (X B C, etc.) place /ura
raura at the beginning of the verse, and not after lmaus.

266 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
nearly answering to our October. During this period the
people dwelt in tents made of boughs, upon the roofs of the
houses, in the streets and open places of the city, and even
by the side of the roads outside Jerusalem. It was thus that
the Jews kept up every year the remembrance of the forty
years during which their fathers had dwelt in tents in the
wilderness. The city and its environs resembled a camp of
pilgrims. The chief rites of the feast referred to the mira
culous benefits received by the Israehtes during then long
and painful pilgrimage. A libation, made every morning in
the temple, recaUed the water which Moses had brought forth
from the rock. Two candelabra, hghted up at evening in the
court, represented the luminous cloud which had hghted the
Israelites by night. To the seven days of the feast, properly
so caUed, the Law added an eighth, which perhaps, according
to Lange's ingenious supposition, was designed to recaU their
entrance into the Promised Land. Josephus calls this-dav
the greatest and jnpst_ sacred of Hebrew festivals. But being
alsoTesigned to celebrate the ingatKerihg of aU the crops of
the year, rejoicings were indulged in which soon degenerated
into licence, and which caused it to be compared by Plutarch
to the feasts of Bacchus. It was the last of the great legal
festivals of the year; and as Jesus was that year present
neither at the Passover nor at Pentecost, it might be assumed
that He would not absent Himself from this. For it was
taken for granted that every one would celebrate at least one
of the three principal feasts at Jerusalem. Hence the there
fore of the following verse.
Vv. 3—5. "His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart
hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see1 the
works that thou doest. For no man doeth2 anything in secret,
himself3 seeking to be famous : if thou doest these things, show
thyself to the world. For neither did His brethren believe4" in
Him." — We understand the expression, brethren of Jesus, in
its proper meaning. Comp. on this question, p. 20 sqq. At
the head of these brethren was undoubtedly James, after
wards the chief pastor of the flock at Jerusalem (Acts xii.
1 B D L M A read hupneouti ; X : (tupouet instead of hupwuei.
8 X b : oroiuv, instead of tram.
3 B D d Cop. read «i/t» instead of xuros. * D L read tn-ienurxt.

CHAP. VII. 3-5. 267
17, xv. 13, xxi. 18; Gal. i. 19, ii. 9). Their injunction
was neither inspired by a too impatient zeal for the glory of
Jesus (Hengstenberg, Lange), nor by the odious desire of
seeing Him fall into the hands of His enemies (Euthymius).
The truth lies between these two extremes. They seem to
have been puzzled by the claims of their brother. On the
one hand, they could not deny the extraordinary facts which
they every day witnessed ; on the other, they could not decide
upon regarding as the Messiah one with whom they were
accustomed to live upon terms of the greatest familiarity.
They desired therefore to see Him abandon the equivocal
position in which He had placed Himself and was keeping
them, by so persistently absenting Himself from Jerusalem.
If He were reaUy the Messiah, why should He fear to appear
before judges more capable of deciding on His pretensions
than ignorant Gahleans ? Was not the capital the theatre on
which Messiah was to play His part, and the place where the
recognition of His mission should begin ? The approaching
festival, which seemed to make it a duty that He should visit
Jerusalem, appeared therefore to them a favourable oppor
tunity for taking a decided step. There is a certain amount
of similarity between this invitation on the part of His
brethren and the request of Mary, ch. ii., as there is also
between our Lord's manner of acting in the following narra
tive and His conduct at the marriage of Cana.
But what, it may be asked, do His brethren mean by the
expression : " Thy disciples " (ver. 3)? They seem to apply this
name only to the adherents of Jesus in Judea. And, in fact,
it was only there that Jesus had, properly speaking, founded
a school similar to that of John the Baptist, by the solemn
rite of baptism ; iv. 1 : " The Pharisees had heard that Jesus
made and baptized more disciples than John." All this had
undoubtedly been heard and talked of, and the fame of His
numerous adherents in Judea and Jerusalem, among whom
there might be even some members of the Sanhedrim, would
certainly reach Gahlee. The aUusion of His brethren to His
former successes in Judea was at this period the more season
able, inasmuch as, since the scene of ch. vi., the greater number
of His Galilean disciples, properly so caUed, had forsaken Him,
and He was now surrounded only by a vacillating multitude.

268 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
What they meant then to say was : Your Messianic works
are lavished without result upon these crowds ; go and per
form them in the places where you are said to have founded
a school, and where you will have witnesses more worthy of
such a manifestation, and more capable of forming a grave
decision in so important a matter. Hence it is unnecessary
to supply (with Liicke and others) e'/cet : thy disciples there, or
to explain, like Hengstenberg and Meyer : thy disciples
throughout the whole nation, who wiU come up to the feast.
If St. John had meant to use the expression in either of these
senses, he certainly would not have failed to indicate it by the
addition of some word to that effect. The term /jadr/rat, dis
ciples, is here used by the brethren with some shght amount
of emphasis and irony.
Liicke has perfectly rendered the construction of ver. 4 by
a Latin version : "Nemo enim clam sua agit idemque cupit celeber
esse:" No man doeth anything in secret. Avtov refers to this
hypothetical subject of the verb doeth denied by the word 710
man. That man, if he exists. — Kali and at the same time.
The copula brings out strongly the internal contradiction
existing between such claims and such conduct. — 'Ev irapprjo-la.
is here used, whatever Meyer may say, in the same sense as
in Col. ii. 15: in public, openly. 'Ev irapp-qa-la elvai, in ore
hominum versari (Liicke). The meaning of Meyer : " No one
acts in secret, and wishes at the same time to be frank," is
in reality unmeaning. By saying et, if, the brethren do not
positively cast a doubt upon the miracles of Jesus, this et
being almost an eVet, since. Their notion is, that things have
reached a point whence advance or retreat is necessary ; and
certainly they were, absolutely speaking, in the right ; for the
Messianic question, being an universal one (a question of the
k6ct{j,o<!), could not be decided in Galilee. — By /coo-fio? the
brethren evidently mean Jerusalem, the great theatre of human
existence, as far as they know it. The style of ver. 4 has a
peculiarly Hebrew stamp ; its words are, so to speak, caught in
the fact of being the words of the brethren of Jesus.
The greatest efforts have been made by Lange and Heng
stenberg to reconcile ver. 5 with their hypothesis, that there
were three brethren of Jesus among the apostles. Hengsten
berg first points out that these words may be referred to Joses

CHAP. VII. 6-8. 269
the fourth brother of our Lord, or to the husbands of his
sisters. But feeling the inadequacy of this suggestion, he
next tries, like Lange, to mitigate the meaning of the state
ment : " they did not believe" and to see in it only a partial
and temporary want of faith. For this purpose he cites the
various cases in which the faith of the apostles failed under
some special circumstance. But this comparative unbelief, as
they term it, does not account for the absolute expression : they
did not believe in Him, strengthened as it is by the word neitlier,
which places the brothers in the general category of unbeliev
ing Gahleans. The reading of D L: bwloTevcrav, is certainly
a correction calculated to facilitate this forced interpretation,
which is, however, excluded by what foUows. For how could
Jesus have addressed to brothers who were apostles the severe
words : " tlie world cannot hate you " (ver. 7), while He said,
xv. 19, to the apostles: "If ye were of tlie world, the world
would love its own : but because ye are not of the world, but I
have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you!'
It foUows, then, from this remark of St. John, that the brethren
of Jesus did not acknowledge His Messiahship ; but that,
divided between the impression produced by His miracles and
the insuperable doubts of their carnal minds, they desired to
arrive at a solution. Such an attitude was very natural, and
well agrees with the part they play in the synoptic Gospels ;
comp. Mark hi. — The perfect sincerity of St. John's narrative
is shown by the frankness with which he states a fact cf a
nature so humbling to his Master (see Tholuck). The words
of the brethren, in w. 3 and 4, furnish also an indirect
attestation to the faithfulness of the entire delineation of the
Galilean ministry given by the Synoptists (the same).
Vv. 6—8. " Jesus then said unto them} My time is not yet 2
come T'but for you, your time is always ready. Tlie world cannot
hate you ; but me it hateth, because I3 testify of it} that its works
are evil. Go ye up unto this feast : i for me, I go not up 5 to this
feast, because my time is not yet fully come." — The proposal of
1 x and D omit out. 2 x has au instead of ouvu.
3 X alone omits tyu and vtpt xurou.
4BDKLTXn, 15 Mnn. ItP""""" Cop. omit the first rxunt (this feast),
which is the reading of T. R., 12 Mjj. (among which is X) Mnn. It""' Syr.
8 T. B., as well asBEFGHLSTUXTAA Mnn. If" Syr"1', reads <«sr«.
X D K M n Itf1"""0 Vg. Cop. and Syr™' read «v*.

270 GOSPEL OF JOHN,
His brethren was that Jesus should at length present Himself
at Jerusalem as the Messiah, and there obtain that recognition
which could not be refused Him if He reaUy were what He
claimed to be. Jesus could not explain to His brethren the
reasons which prevented His deferring to their wish. For He
would have had to say : The manifestation which you
request will be the signal for my death, and my time
for leaving the world is not yet come. This explanation,
which Jesus neither would nor could give, He nevertheless
hints at in the words : " The world hateth me." And it is
this legitimate reticence, exacted by prudence, which imparts
its enigmatical character to His reply. — The term icaipo^,
favourable opportunity, must be understood in a sense suffi
ciently broad to apply both to Jesus (ver. 6 a) and His
brethren (ver. 6b). Hence it must indicate, in a general
manner, the time for openly appearing as what one reaUy
is. For the brethren, the matter was to appear as the faith
ful Jews they were, by going up to the feast ; for Jesus, it
was to appear as the Messiah, and He would manifest Him
self as such by going up one day to one of the great feasts as
King of Israel.
Ver. 7 explains the contrast stated in ver. 6. The reason
alleged by Jesus has a tinge of both sadness and irony. Bad
as the world is, it cannot be very formidable to you, for your
works and words are not so discordant with its notions as to
involve its hatred. It was otherwise with Jesus, whose hfe
and sayings revealed the deep depravity concealed under the
externals of pharisaic righteousness (w. 42-44).
Ver. 8 draws the practical result of this contrast. The
meaning of this answer naturaUy depends on that of the
question. Jesus knew well that He should one day make
that great Messianic demonstration which His brethren de
manded ; but He knew also that the time for so doing had not
yet arrived. His work on earth was not yet accomphshed.
Besides, it was not at the feast of Tabernacles, but at that of
the Passover, that He was to die. Hence the special emphasis
which, in the second clause, and, according to the Byzantine
reading, in both clauses, He lays on this feast. When once
the answer of Jesus is placed in this light, which is that in
which the proposal of the brethren places the whole section,

CHAP. VII. 6-8. 271
the reading ovira, not yet, by which very early correctors
tried to facihtate its explanation, is no longer needed to
justify it. This reading even becomes absurd, for it is evident
that in this point of view Jesus neither would nor could say :
I do not go now ; but I will go in two or three days. The
antithesis in His mind is of quite another kind. It is not at
this feast, but at another that I will make my Messianic entry
into Jerusalem. The word dvaBalvm, I go up, borrows this
pregnant sense from the request addressed to Jesus by His
brethren, — a fact which Meyer loses sight of. And what
proves that we are not importing into the words of our Lord
an idea foreign to His thoughts, is the motive which He Him
self aUeges : For my time is not yet full come. The expression,
not yet full come, is too solemn to be apphed to the interval
of a few days which separated this answer from His sudden
appearance at Jerusalem. It evidently refers to the time
that had yet to elapse before the termination of His earthly
hfe ; He means to say that the fitting season for His death has
not yet come. The term iveirXripmTai, here as elsewhere, has
a certain solemnity of tone (Luke ix. 31, 51 ; Acts ii. 1, etc.).
In fact, we have here a saying sinrilar to that with which
Jesus repelled at Cana a request of His mother, which had the
same end in view as that of His brethren. The meaning, then,
of the first " go up " of ver. 8 differs from the second exactly
as your time does from my time in ver. 6. The first signifies :
to go up as a pilgrim ; the second,' to go up as Messiah the
King ; in other words, each as what He reaUy is. Thus it is
easUy understood, that though Jesus did some days after go
up to Jerusalem, He did not do so in the sense in which He
had said to His brethren that He could not do it now, any
more than He performed the miracle at Cana in the sense in
which He had just told His mother that He could not perform
it. — The e©nversion of His brethren some months after proves
that His subsequent acts were to them a satisfactory com
mentary on this saying, and that to their minds not the
slightest cloud was left upon the truthfulness or the moral
character of then brother. The explanation of Chrysostom,
adopted by Liicke, Olshausen, Tholuck and Stier, I go not up
now (deriving an understood vvv from the present dvaBalvm),
is not only useless, but incorrect. For Jesus was not here

272 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
referring to His impending journey to Jerusalem, on which
perhaps He had not yet decided. — Meyer admits that Jesus
took quite a new resolution in the interval between w. 8
and 1 0. But can we suppose that if He were stiU undecided
as to what He would do, He would so positively have
declared : I go not up ? Assuredly not. In such a case He
would have answered more vaguely, leaving room for such fresh
determinations as God might dictate to Him. Do you go up !
I do not as yet know what I shall do. — One feels tempted
to have recourse to the explanation of Bengel and Luthardt :
" I go not up with the caravan" or to the stiU more ingenious
one of CyrU, Lange, etc. : I do not go up to keep the feast,
which does not hinder me from going to Jerusalem during the
feast. In fact, the complete celebration of the feast, as the
brethren of Jesus intended, included certain indispensable
rites, certain sacrifices of purification, for example, to be per
formed by pilgrims before its commencement (xi. 55). It
may undoubtedly be objected (as in our first edition) that
St. John ought to have said, ver. 10, not: He went up to
the feast, but : He went up to Jerusalem. But this objection
faUs before the Alexandrian reading, which refers the words
to the feast not to Jesus went up, but to His brethren went
up. The interpretation, however, which we first offered, and
to which the context leads, seems preferable, and sufficient
to obviate not only the charge of falsehood,, but even that of
inconsistency, which Porphyry on this occasion brings against
Jesus. Vv. 9, 10. " When He had said these words1 unto tliem} He
abode in Galilee. But when His brethren were gone up, then
He went up Himself also to the feast} not openly, but as it were *
in secret." — Ver. 9 means that He allowed His brethren to set
out without Him; and ver. 10 implies that He sent His
disciples with them, and that when He went Himself it was
either alone or with only two or three of His nearest friends.
This is the most natural sense of the words : as it were in secret.
V2?, which is certainly authentic, softens the expression iv
1 Ai is omitted by X D K n, some Mnn. ItP'«'''u» Syr.
2 X D K L X n, some Mnn. ItP1"1'"" and Cop. read xuros instead of xuroit,
' KBKLTXn place us *»» toprnv before rort xxi.
* X D It"11' Syrcur omit us before i» xputrrtj.

chap. vii. 11-13. 273
KpvKTm : Jesus was not really a man who did things secretly,
even when He temporarily acted as such. What a sad
alteration for the worse, a grievous recession since the first
Passover in ch. ii. ! Then, He had entered the temple as the
Messiah King ; in ch. v. He arrived like any other pilgrim ;
now, He can no longer go as such publicly to Jerusalem, but
is reduced to travel there incognito. — A supposition of Wieseler
has found favour with certain expositors. According to this
scholar, this journey is identical with that spoken of Luke
ix. 51 sq. Its identification cannot, however, be maintained.
For in Luke ix. Jesus gives to His- departure from Galilee a
character of the utmost publicity ; He sends His seventy
disciples two and two into every city and village through
which He is about to pass (x. 1) ; He makes long stays (xiii.
22, xvii. 11), and is accompanied by multitudes (xiv. 25).
And this is said to be going up to Jerusalem as it were in
secret ! It would be better to renounce any attempt to har
monize St. John and the Synoptists, than to do so at the cost
of such violence to the text. Exegesis merely ascertains that
the journey of which St. John here speaks is, as well as those
of ch. xi. and v., omitted by the Synoptists. And, as Gess ob
serves, the omission of the two latter journeys (ch. v. and vii.)
is the less surprising, since Jesus seems in either case to have
gone up to Jerusalem quite or almost alone. Hengstenberg
thinks that this journey, joined with the sojourn in Perea,
x. 40, corresponds with Matt. xix. 1 and its parallel passages.
But the exegesis of the passage in Matthew, by which this
scholar seeks to obtain this result, is unnatural. We shaU see
in ch. x. what is the true relation between the journeys there
mentioned (John x. 22 and xi. 1) on the one hand, and the
journeys narrated by the Synoptists (Luke ix. 51; Matt.
xix. 1 ; Mark x. 1) on the other. — The verses which follow
describe in an animated and dramatic manner what happened
at Jerusalem before the arrival of Jesus, when His absence
was ascertained.
Vv. 11-13. "Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and
said, Wliere is he ? And there was much rumour concerning
Him among the crowds} Some said, He is a good man : others
said, Nay ; he dsceiveth the multitude. Howbeit no man spake
1 X D It. Vg. Syr. read w oxXu instead of rois oxXoi;.
GODET II. S JOHN.

274 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
openly of Him for fear of the Jews" — This account justifies
the prudent conduct of Jesus, whose presence, from the be
ginning of the feast, might in the midst of this popular
excitement very probably have induced a premature cata
strophe. — We here again meet with the contrast, so fre
quently brought forward in this Gospel, between those whom
the light attracts and those whom it repels. The term
70771/07*0? designates rumours of both a hostUe and friendly
character. The 6'^Xot are the bands of phgrims. — 'Ayadi><t,
good, here signifies an honest man as opposed to an impostor
(he deceiveth the people). Tov oxXov, the crowd (ver. 12), indi
cates the common people, who, as opposed to the dignitaries, are
easUy deceived. — It is not necessary to give a different mean
ing to the word 'IovScuoi, the Jews, in w. 11 and 13. They
are in both cases the hostile portion of the people, headed by
their leading men. They had been seeking Him since the
beginning of the feast; and then mahcious feelings, which
were weU known to aU, repressed the free expression of
opinion on the part of the crowd. For even those who said :
He is an impostor, did not do so with perfect independence,
but affirmed from servility their conviction of a matter of
which they were not quite certain. A pressure from above
was exercised upon aU, whether 111 or weU disposed towards
Jesus. II. During the Feast. — vii. 14—36.
The first excitement had calmed down, and aU were quietly
keeping the festival, when Jesus suddenly appeared in the
temple and began teaching. The authorities had taken no
measures against Him, and there was time enough left for
Him to accomplish His work of inviting to the faith this
assemblage of people who had arrived from all parts of the
world. The section includes three discourses, of which the theme
is on each occasion furnished either by a reflection on the
part of His hearers, or some step on that of His adversaries.
The first is a justification of His ministry — that is to say, of
His doctrine and conduct (vv. 14-24); the second, a forcible
statement of His divine origin (vv. 25-30); the third con
tains an announcement of His approaching end, and calls the

CHAP. VII. 14-17. 275
attention of the Jews to the consequences which His de
parture wiU entaU upon them (vv. 31-36).
There is a sensible difference of tone in these three testi
monies: at first defence; then protest; lastly, warning and
threats. 1. Jesus defends His Teaching and Conduct. — vv. 14—24.
1st. Vv. 14-18. His teaching.
Vv. 14, 15. "Now, when the feast was already half past,
Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. And 1 the Jews
were astonished, saying, How knoweth this man the Scriptures,
not being one who has studied?" — The question of the Jews
did not (as Tholuck, from the Rabbinical usages of later ages,
supposes) cast a doubt upon the ability of Jesus, but rather
arose, as the text imphes, from their surprise at the confidence
and dexterity with which He treated scriptural statements.
— It is unnecessary to supply an object (ypdfifmTa) to
p,ep,ad7]Kw<i, having studied, and read with some translators:
having never studied them. Mep,adr)/cw<s is absolute : not
having been a disciple, not having passed the school of the
masters. TpdfifiaTa, letters, undoubtedly designates litera
ture in general, and not the Scriptures only (ypatpal, lepd
ypdafiaTa). Comp. Acts xxvi. 24. But Holy Scripture being
with the Jews the essential subject of literary studies, ypdppMTa
certainly refers in the first place to the Scriptures. — This
saying of the adversaries of Jesus certainly proves, as Meyer
justly observes, that it was a generally recognised fact that
Jesus had received no human teaching.
Vv. 16, 17. "Jesus answered} and said, My doctrine is not
mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he
shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 1
speak of myself." — Jesus enters into the notion of His hearers
that, in order to be a teacher, it was necessary to have been
first a learner, and shows them that He too satisfies this
requhement: I have not gone through the classes of your
Rabbis, but I come, nevertheless, from a school, and that a
good one. He who gave me my mission also taught me my
message, so that when I teach I draw nothing from my own
1 X B D L T X read iSxupix%ov out instead of xxi t0xuptx%ot.
1 Most of the Mjj. add out.

276' GOSPEL OF JOHN.
resources, but, renouncing all thoughts of my own, I labour
only to grasp His thoughts with docihty, and reproduce them
faithfuUy. Ver. 17 shows by what means such a statement is to be
verified. The teaching of Jesus Christ, in its highest aim, is
only a divine method of sanctification. Consequently, if any
one seriously endeavours to do the will of God, i.e. to become
sanctified, he will soon experience the divine efficacy of this
method, and will infaUibly do homage to the divine origin of
the gospel. — Several expositors, especiaUy among the Fathers
(Augustine) and Reformers (Luther), understand by the will of
God, not, as we have just explained it, the moral ideal laid
down by the law as discerned by the conscience, but the com
mand to beheve in Jesus Christ : He who will obey God by
believing in me wiU soon be convinced by his own experience
that he was right in so doing. — The meaning assigned by
Lampe is not very different. He refers the wiU of God to
the precepts of Christian morahty: He who will practise
what I command will soon be convinced of the divine nature
of my teaching. Similarly Reuss says : " Jesus declares (John
vhj| 1 7) that, to understand His discourses, we must begin by
putting them in practice." In short, it is the earnest observ
ance of gospel precepts which is to lead to faith in gospel
doctrines. But, true as these notions are ih themselves, it is
evident that Jesus must on this occasion have used the words
will of God in a sense admitted by His adversaries and appli
cable to their actual position as Israelites. And this excludes
the application of this expression to either Christian faith or
Christian morahty. The meaning of this passage is a return
to that of ver. 46 : " Had ye truly believed Moses, ye would
have believed me" or that of iii. 21 : "He that doeth truth
cometh to the light" On the one hand, the sublime holiness
of the gospel is revealed in its direct and irresistible splendour
to a soul yearning for perfection ; on the other, such a soul,
impotent as it is to realize the ideal which flees before it in
proportion as it seems attained, is forced to seek rest and
strength in the arms of that divine messenger who reveals
Himself as its Saviour. Faith, then, is not the result of a
logical operation, but is presented to the soul as the result of
a moral experience, as the surest means of satisfying the most

chap. vii. is. 277
legitimate of all its needs — that of holiness. ©e\?7, will, indi
cates aspiration, effort, but nothing more. For the realization
of holiness is impossible without faith ; and it is just this
impossibility which instigates the soul to believe.1 The
intrinsic and sanctifying holiness of the gospel corresponds
completely to the need of sanctification thus cultivated in the
soul. The succeeding verse points out one special feature by
which this holiness of Christ responds to the deepest moral
necessity of a heart taught of God. Suavis harmonia between
fleXy and deXrjfia, says Bengel.
Ver. 18. "He that2 speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory :
but He that seeketh His glory that sent Him, the same is truthful,
and there is no unrighteousness in Him." — This verse is generally
1 We may here cite a fact from the history of missions which seems to us to.
furnish the best commentary on this saying of Jesus. It is taken from the
narrative of the stay of Messrs. Hue and Gabet, Catholic missionaries to China
in 1846, at Lhassa, the capital of Thibet: "A physician, a native of the pro
vince of Yunnan, showed more generosity. This young man had, since his
arrival at Lhassa, led so strange a life, that he was called by everybody the Chinese
hermit. He never went out except to visit the sick, and generally visited only
the poor. It was in vain that the rich solicited his attention ; he disdained
to respond to their entreaties unless forced to do so by the need of obtaining
some assistance, for he never took anything from the poor, to whose service he
was devoted. He dedicated to study all the time which was not spent in visit
ing the sick ; he even passed the greater part of the night at his books. He slept
little, and made but one meal a day ; his food was generally barley meal, and he
never ate meat. It was enough to see him to perceive what a life of hardship he
led ; his face was extremely pale and thin, and, though his age was at the most
thirty, his hair was nearly white. One day he paid us a visit while we were
repeating our breviary in the little chapel ; he stopped at some paces from the
door, and. waited silently and gravely. A large coloured image, representing
the crucifixion, had undoubtedly arrested his attention ; for as soon as we had
finished our devotions, he asked us hastily, and without waiting to pay us the
usual compliments, to tell him the meaning of this image. When we had com
plied with his request, he folded his arms on his breast, and stood motionless
and without uttering a word, his eyes fixed upon the image of the crucifixion.
When he had remained about half an hour in this position, his eyes were at
length ^moistened with tears, he stretched his arms towards the Christ, then fell
on his knees, struck the ground thrice with his forehead, and arose, crying out,
' This is the only Buddha whom men ought to worship ! ' Then turning to us
he added, after making a profound reverence : ' You are my masters, take me for
your disciple '" (Voyage en Tartarie et en Thibet, vol. ii. pp. 325-328). — Such is
the profound affinity existing between a mind which wills to do what is right,
as revealed to the conscience, and the Christ by whom alone it finds itself
made capable of realizing its desire. ,
2 The method of this moral demonstration of the divine origin of the gospel is
described, ver. 18.

278 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
regarded as a second proof, in juxtaposition with the former ;
ver. 17 being the evidence of the inward experience, ver. 18
the objective test. But ver. 18 must rather be, by reason
of the asyndeton, a confirmation called forth by the thought
of ver. 17. The gospel is of a character particularly adapted
to strike a man thirsting after holiness ; its whole matter
tends to glorify God, and God only. Now, its origin may
be inferred from its aim. If everything in the gospel has
God in view, everything must also come from God. Thus
this saying explains the mode in which the he shall know of
ver. 17 is to be realized; it formulates the moral syUogism
by which the soul longing after holiness wiU come to regard
God as the author of the gospeL At the same time, this verse
contains an answer to the accusation of those among His
hearers who had said: He deceiveth the people; for he who
deceives others, does it for his own sake, and not for that
of God. The messenger who seeks only the glory of the
master who sends him, and lets no personal interests intrude
into his communications, gives by this very fact a proof
of the faithfulness with which he delivers his message ; as
certainly as he says nothing with a view to himself, so cer
tainly does he also say nothing of his own accord. Ver. 18
has the appearance of a general maxim; but the applica
tion made of it by Jesus to Himself is very clear. To under
stand this reasoning, we have only to apply it to the Bible in
general : In this book, God, and God only, is glorified, from
the first page to the last. In this book man is constantly
humbled ; therefore this book is of God. It is the argument
which of aU others most directly reaches the conscience.
The last words of ver. 18 : And there is no unrighteousness
in Him, contain the transition from the teaching of Jesus
(His XaXeiv, vv. 17, 18) to His conduct (His iroielv, w.
19-23): His perfect uprightness in the publication of His
message is accompanied, as it ought to be, by the perfect
purity of His conduct ; while His hunrility, His seeking not
His own glory, but God's, guarantees the reality of both.
But for the following verses, we might have thought that
these last words : And there is no unrighteousness in Him,
apphed only to the vague accusation of ver. 12 (that He was
an impostor); but the subsequent argument, vv. 19-23,

CHAP. VII. 19-23. 279
shows, notwithstanding the denial of Meyer, that Jesus had
especially in view the accusation of breaking the Sabbath
which had been hanging over Him ever since His former
sojourn at Jerusalem (ch. v.). This was the grievance by
which the summary judgment : He deceiveth the people, was
justified in the eyes of the multitude. Hence there is no
reason for giving to dSiicta, unrighteousness, the sense of
falsehood, as is done by many expositors, and thus breaking
the connection which Jesus Himself by these last words
creates between what precedes and what is to foUow. It is
here seen that the charge made against Him, ch. v., was not
a matter of indifference to Him, and how intent He was to
deprive unbehef of aU excuse in this respect.
2d. Vv. 19-24. His moral conduct.
Vv. 19-23. "Did not Moses give1 you the law, and yet none
of you keepeth the law? Why do ye seek to kill me? The
multitude answered and said, Thou hast a devil: who seeketh
to kill thee ? Jesus answered and said unto- them, I have done
one work, and ye all marvel. It is for this2 that Moses gave
you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers) ;
and that ye on the Sabbath day circumcise a man. If a
man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of
Moses should not be broken; are ye angry with me because
I have cured a man entirely on the Sabbath day?" —
This passage is an example of the skiU with which Jesus
handled the law. To understand His argument, however, we
must be careful not to generalize, as so many expositors do,
the idea of ver. 19. Jesus had been accused of breaking the
law of the Sabbath, as given by Moses, and this was the
unrighteousness to which he alluded, ver. 18. As for this law,
He now says, which you reproach me with having violated, not
one of you, who set yourselves up as zealous for Moses, has
scrupled. occasionaUy to transgress it. What, we ask, does He
intend by this transgression of the law of which aU were
guUty? Not, surely, the common notion that all men are
sinners, and consequently transgressors of the law, for we are
not now in the midst of the Epistle to the Romans. He
certainly has some special violation in view, similar to that of
1 B D H read iSuxiv, in opposition to the fifteen other Mjj. which read iiouxtv,
8 X omits hx rouro.

280 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
which He had been Himself accused. Or have we, with
Meyer and others, to seek the explanation of these words in
the question which follows : Why go ye about to kill me ?
as though the transgression of which He accused the Jews was
the sanguinary malice which they entertained against Him
self. But how could He have said : none of you keepeth the
law, if He were speaking of a deed not yet consummated ?
There is but one possible meaning to this question, and this
meaning is evidently brought out by ver. 22: By circumcising
your children on the eighth day after their birth, even when
that day happens to be the Sabbath, you are yourselves con
stantly violating the rest of the Sabbath. Why then do you
conspire against my life for a crime which you aU actually
commit ? Me, me, stands first in opposition to ovBel? i% vp.mv,
none of you. Meyer objects that the form ip.4 would be
necessary if so strong an emphasis is to be laid upon this
pronoun. But why, in the opposite case, was it not rather
placed between the two verbs ? — These words can only apply
to the crowds by whom Jesus was surrounded, so far as He
regarded them as representing the entire nation.
Jesus was about to explain Himself when He was inter
rupted by the crowds, who, not being yet aware of the secret
designs of their rulers, reproached Him for yielding Himself
up to such gloomy notions and unfounded suspicions ; and
attributed His dejection, melancholy and sombre thoughts, to
demoniacal possession (the /ca/coBai/iovav of the Greeks).
Jesus, without animadverting upon this insult, calmly con
tinued His argument, but suffered this interruption slightly
to change its form. At ver. 21 He acknowledges that He
has done a work which may be regarded as a violation of the
Sabbath. — And behold, He adds, you are all taking violent
offence at this single work. @avp,d^eiv here expresses the
horror felt at a monstrous act. — "Ev epyov, one single work (on
the Sabbath), as opposed to the many violations of this con
tinually taking place in Israel by the circumcision of chUdren
On the eighth day after birth.
Jesus, then, here resumes the argument begun ver. 19 with
the words : Moses gave you circumcision, which take up again
and complete the former (ver. 19), Did not Moses give you
the law ? The sense is : This Moses, who gave the Law of

CHAP. VII. 19-23. 281
Sinai, and instituted the Sabbath (ver. 19), is nevertheless the
same who commanded circumcision (ver. 22). Now, He adds,
by commanding you to circumcise a child on the Sabbath, he
makes you a nation of transgressors of the Sabbath. In fact,
under the above-named circumstance, every Israelite father
was accustomed to sacrifice without hesitation the law of
Sabbatic rest in favour of the ordinance of circumcision. — But
they might reply : It is true that we thus act, but it is for the
good of the child, who is thereby purified from its hereditary
uncleanness ; and it was just this beneficial purpose of circum
cision which Jesus finally lays hold of to solve the question,
and thus close His Une of argument by an irresistible
a fortiori (ver. 23). If a local and partial purification, like
that effected by circumcision, can justify the violation of the
Sabbatic rest, how much more may such a violation be justified
in the case of an act like the work I have performed, the
result of which is to make a man every whit whole !
The ultimate principle upon which this entire line of
argument is based is that elsewhere laid down by Jesus in
the words : Tlie Sabbath is made for man. In virtue of this
principle, whenever the law of the Sabbath came into com
petition with an action beneficial to man, the latter, even under
the law, took precedence of the Sabbath, and that without
the express permission of the legislator being thought neces
sary, but solely because common sense pronounced on this
side. In fact, in the only injunction of Moses with respect
to circumcision, a collision of this rite with the ordinance of
the Sabbath was undoubtedly inevitable. And if in the case
contemplated the national conscience had, in this conflict
between the .two divine precepts, spontaneously pronounced
in favour of the solution according to which the Sabbath
was to give way to circumcision, why should not the work
of Jesus, which was more salutary than circumcision, have
the benefit of this solution ? In our first edition we referred
Sid tovto, on this account, to the verb : ye all marvel, of
ver. 21: on this account ye all marvel, in conformity with most
modern expositors, who have felt the difficulty of making
therefore relate to the idea : Moses gave you circumcision.
For how, indeed, should Jesus be made to say that Moses gave
the command of circumcision with a view to the case in ques-

282 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
tion ? Meyer and Luthardt refer the Sid tovto, therefore, to ver.
22, by making it relate directly to the proposition ovx on, not
that : Moses gave you circumcision, therefore not that . . . but
that . . ., instead of : Moses did not give you circumcision, for
the reason that . . . but because . . . The violence thus done
to the text is very perceptible, while the asyndeton thus pro
duced between vv. 21 and 22 can in no way be justified. Is
it not, however, possible to justify the grammatical connection
of the words, for this reason, with what foUows them, in the
foUowing manner : It is exactly for this reason, i.e. to teach
you not to judge as you do, — when you look so horrified
(davud&Te) at my Sabbatic work, — that Moses did not hesitate
to suffer a conflict to exist in the law between the precept of
circumcision and the ordinance of the Sabbath ? He thus
rendered you all guhty of that infraction for which you seek to
kill me. The therefore thus explained contains a most refined
irony : Moses has beforehand pleaded my cause, by intro
ducing into the law that collision which forces you to sub
ordinate the Sabbath to a higher interest. If this meaning
be adopted, it is natural to refer this therefore to the latter
proposition of ver. 22, by introducing a that into the trans
lation : It is therefore that Moses gave you . . . and that even
on the Sabbath day you circumcise a man.
It is not easy to see the force of the limitation : not that
circumcision is of Moses, but of tlie fathers. If it were intended,
as a host of expositors insist, to exalt circumcision by
recalling its great antiquity, it would rather weaken than
strengthen the argument. For the more venerable circum
cision is, the more naturaUy would it take precedence of the
Sabbath, — a fact which would diminish the force of the
reasoning. Besides, might it not be answered : The Sabbath
also is anterior to Moses, and even to Abraham himself, for it
dates from the creation ? Hengstenberg and many others are
of opinion that Jesus, by interpolating this remark, desired to
rescue His scriptural erudition, which had been extoUed, ver.
15, from the charge of inaccuracy which the preceding pro
position might involve. This explanation is puerUe ; for even
if it were well founded, the charge of inaccuracy might stiU be
maintained, as Liicke observes, by attributing the parenthesis
to the narrator. The true explanation is perhaps as follows :

CHAP. VII. 19-23. 283
Nothing was in the eyes of Israelites equal in sanctity to the
Decalogue ; it was the law given by angels, and committed to
the hands of a mediator, Gal. iii. 19 ; Heb. ii. 2. Now the
ordinance of circumcision formed no part of this law. It was
derived from ancient tradition, and inserted in his code by
Moses in, as it were, an incidental manner. Who then could,
under these circumstances, have expected that such an
ordinance would, in case of competition, take precedence of
one of the commandments of the Decalogue itself, of the
law of the Sabbath ? Hence this remark, thus understood,
strengthens our Lord's argument. There is perhaps, however,
another manner of explaining it. GeneraUy speaking, the
more recent law abolishes ipso facto the more ancient. It
would seem, then, that the ordinance of circumcision would
have to yield to that of the Sabbath, which was both more
recent and more stringent; while, on the contrary, such a
rule was ignored, and it was the Sabbath which had in this
case to give way. This circumstance strongly testifies against
the absolute and exaggerated importance attributed by the
Jews to the rest of the Sabbath. M. Renan cites this passage
as one of those which bear " marks of erasure or correction"
(p. xxxii). We cannot admit that there is the slightest pro
bability in such a conjecture.
The words (ver. 23) : that the law of Moses should not be
broken, are particularly strong. Jews transgressing the Sab
bath so as not to disobey the law of Moses ! To feel the
fuU force of the a fortiori of ver. 2 3, we must remember that
there is in each of the facts compared — viz. circumcision and
the cure performed by Jesus — a physical, and a moral side.
In circumcision, the physical side consisted in a local purifica
tion ; the moral result was an entrance into the typical cove
nant.. In the miracle of Jesus, the physical fact was the
complete restoration of the health of the impotent man ; and
the moral end, his sanctification (ver. 14 : Thou art made
whole : sin no more). In both aspects the superiority of the
second of these acts to the first is unquestionable, and
consequently the breach of the Sabbath is stUl more easily
accounted for in the second case than in the first. — We
must avoid the explanation of Bengel and Stier, who think
that by the expression : a man every whit, Jesus would here

284 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
designate both the physical and moral man in opposition
to the purely physical man, the object of circumcision. For
circumcision in the eyes of the Jews was by no means a
purely nor even essentially a medical matter.
One remarkable feature in this defence is the manner in
which it abstains from bringing forward the miraculous nature
of the act thus impeached. Jesus modestly calls it: one
work, while it is nevertheless evident that the marveUous
character of the work forms the imposing rearguard of the
argument. Another is the difference between its mode of
justification and that employed in ch. v. Jesus is here speak
ing to the multitude ; His demonstration is not dogmatic, but
He borrows from daily life a fact of which every Jew was
constantly a witness, perhaps an accomphce : " As for what I
have done, you all do it, and for much less ! " What could
be more popular and more striking ? — He concludes with an
appeal to their common sense.
Ver. 24. "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge1
righteous judgment." — "O-tyis, sight, hence appearance, here
designates the external and purely formal side of things. In
this point of view, the cure of the impotent man might
indeed appear to be a breach of the Sabbatic law. — Bighteous
judgment is that which would appreciate the act denounced
according to the spirit of the law. The art. before the noun
Kpiaiv, judgment, may denote either the judgment in this par
ticular case, or judgment generally in each case which presents
itself. The completely general form of the negative proposi
tion in the first member of the sentence speaks, as Liicke
observes, for the latter sense, with which the aorist icplvaTe, if
we accept this reading, perfectly agrees. And it seems pro
bable that the reading icpivete arose from imitating the first
member. 2. The True Origin of Jesus. — w. 25-30.
Vv. 25-27. " Then said some of the inhabitants of Jeru
salem, Is not this he whom they seek to kill ? And, lo, he
speaketh boldly, and tliey say nothing to him. Do 3 the rulers s
1 B D L T read xpmn ; T. R. and all the others : xpivxru
8 X D : pnn instead of /introri.
* X : xpxitpus instead of xpxavns.

CHAP. VII. 28, 29. 285
indeed perceive that he is a the Christ ? Howbeit we know this
man whence he is : but the Christ, when He cometh} no one will
know whence He is." — The freedom and publicity with which
Jesus preached struck some of the inhabitants of Jerusalem
(ovv, then). Knowing better than the multitude, who had
lately arrived (d d'yXos), the intentions of the sacerdotal
authorities, they were on the point of deducing from this fact
inferences favourable to Jesus, but felt themselves arrested by
an opinion then generally propagated, and which seemed to
them incompatible with such inferences, viz. that the origin
of Messiah would be entirely unknown. We find Jhiaopinion
expressed by Justin, who, about the middle of the second
century, puts these words into the mouth of the Jew Tryphon :
The Christ is, even after His birth, to remain unknown, and
not to know Himself, and to be without power until Elias
appears, anoints Him, and reveals Him to all. This idea
arose, perhaps, from those prophecies which announced the
deep abasement to which the family of David would be
reduced at the time of Christ's appearance. The fact that
the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem was not indeed
unknown ; but the words : whence he is, refer not to the
locality, but to the parentage and family of the Messiah.
They who thus spoke naturally supposed that they did know
the origin of Jesus in this respect. (Comp. vi. 42.) Hence
they sacrificed the moral impression produced on them by the
person and words of our Lord to a purely critical objection :
a bad method for attaining truth !
Vv. 28, 29. "Then cried Jesus, teaching in the temple, and
saying, You both know me, and you know whence I am : and
yet I am not come of myself, but there is truly 3 One who has
sent me, and whom ye know not. Ii know Him : for I am
from Him} and He hath sent me" — Jesus, talcing this objec
tion as His theme (then), begins another address, which relates
not,, as the former, to the origin of His doctrines, but to that
of His mission and person. — The term eKpa^ev, He cried, ex-
'SBDKLTXn, 25 Mnn. ItPto;"" Vg. Cop. Syrour Or. omit xXnlus.
2 X here adds f*.n irXuovx enptux iroiqeti sj orxv tpxtrxt.
3 X : xXtilns instead of xXnlivos.
4 T. R., together with X D X, several Mnn. It"11' Cop. Syr. add Ss.
6 X vxp xuru instead of Txp xvrou. -, ,

286 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
presses an elevation of voice in accordance with the solemnity
of the statement which foUows. — The words : in the temple,
indicate either that Jesus spoke this discourse in a different
place from the preceding one, or that it was under the eyes
and in the hearing of the rulers that He thus spake. (Comp.
ver. 26.) — Here, as in ver. 16, Jesus enters into the thought
of His opponents ; He admits their objection, and skhfuUy
transforms it into a proof in His favour. He first repeats
their assertion. The two /cat, which introduce the two first
propositions of the verse : You both know me and you know
. . ., clearly evidence an intention of bringing forward a false
claim for the purpose of refuting it. The third /cat, and, is
antithetical to the two former, and commences the reply of
Jesus. We must take care not to regard (with Meyer) the
two first propositions as a concession: It is true that you
know me up to a certain point, but you do not completely
know me. The tone of the first and second and has evidently
a touch of irony, and the two first propositions take, conse
quently, an interrogative turn (Grotius, Luthardt). If this
knowledge of the origin of Jesus, which the Jews thought
they possessed, had been true knowledge, they would have
been justified, according to received opinions, in concluding
that this origin was a purely natural one, and that His
Messianic dignity was merely imaginary. Jesus refutes the
premisses of this erroneous conclusion in the two first proposi
tions, and then the consequence itself in the third ; first in a
negative, then in a positive manner : I did not give myself
a mission, but I am reaUy One sent. 'AXydivos has not
here, any more than elsewhere, the same meaning as dX-ndr]?,
as many interpreters, from Chrysostom to Baumlein, have
supposed. Neither the meaning of the word itself nor the
context admits of this explanation, which has occasioned the
erroneous corrections of the Sinaiticus. Jesus does not mean
to say that He who sent Him is veracious, but that He is real.
This is the signification required as a contrast to the preceding
idea : to come of myself. Hence we must take dXr)divo<: in its
strict meaning, whether we determine it (with Meyer) by its
substantive, the sender : the supremely genuiue sender, in
whom the idea of the function of sending is realized ; or
understand, as seems to me simpler and more agreeable with

CHAP. VII. 30. 287
the context: He who sent me is real, i.e. reaUy exists. In
this sense it is antithetical to some fictitious sending existing
only in the pretension or imagination of Jesus.
The last words : whom you know not, are at once full of
acuteness and severity. It was severe to say to Jews that
they did not know Him of whom they boasted to be the only
worshippers ; and it was skilful, while thrusting this sting into
their conscience, to show them that the very criterion by which
they intended to deny His Messiahship was just the sign of
the genuineness of His claim to this dignity. In fact, these
last words apply to Jesus in a satisfactory manner the very
postulate laid down by the Jews themselves in ver. 27. It
is, if we chose so to caU it, an argumentum ad hominem ; but
Jesus aUows Himself to use it, because He thus finds occa
sion for bringing before them, in ver. 29, the idea of the
Messiah in its most exalted light.
Jesus contrasts with that ignorance of God with which He
had reproached the Jews, His own inward consciousness of God
and of His relation to Him. This relation is first that of essence
(elfil, I am, I proceed from Him), and then that of mission
(He hath sent me). The distinction which Jesus makes be
tween these two propositions does not allow us to refer the
first to His mission. Jesus asserts that He knows God, first
because of the community of being which unites Him. to God,
and theiiHJecause oftnT~divine source of His mission.. He
who is sent holds intimate communication with Him who
sends Him, and consequently knows Him. Hence it results
that Jesus is the Messiah, but in a more exalted sense than
the Jews were wont to attribute to that office.
Ver. 30. " Then they sought to take Him : but no man laid
hands upon Him, beeause His hour was not yet come." — The
result of this strong assertion (then) was to confirm His de
clared opponents in their design of arresting Him. But the
appointed hour had not yet struck. The expression : His hour,
does not signify, as Hengstenberg thinks, that of His arrest
(xviii. 12), but that of His death (comp. ii. 4, vii. 8). — The
divine decree to which the evangelist alludes does not exclude
second causes, but, on the contrary, imphes them. Among
these, expositors are accustomed to bring forward the venera
tion felt at this time for Jesus by the multitude. But if this

288 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
were so, how can we explain the arrest and murder of our
Lord immediately after the day of His triumphal entry, when
this feeling was at its height ? It seems more correct to allow,
with Hengstenberg, for the resistance offered by the conscience
of His enemies, to the extreme measures to which their hatred
impelled them. When their obduracy was consummated, and
the Spirit of God ceased to restrain them, then the hour of
Jesus struck. M. Reuss asserts that the historical interpreta
tion of this verse creates a contradiction, — an objection which
we fail to understand.
3. Tlie approaching Departure of Jesus. — vv. 31-36.
Vv. 31, 32. "But many among the multitude believed in
Him, and said, Will tlie Christ, when He cometh, do more
miracles x than those this man hath done ? 2 The Pharisees heard s
that the multitude murmured these things concerning Him ; and
the chief priests and Pharisees 4 sent officers to seize Him." —
While the adversaries of Jesus were strengthened in their
purpose, another section of the multitude were confirmed in
the faith. Ver. 31 marks a decided advance on ver. 12.
The partisans of Jesus were numerous, and their confession of
faith as explicit as possible in their position of dependence
upon the rulers. If fear had not restrained them, they would
have publicly proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah.
The impression made on the multitude irritated stiU more
the opponents of Jesus. The place of meeting of the San
hedrim could not be far from that where these scenes were
taking place (see viii. 20). Hence it is possible that some of
the rulers on their way thither might themselves have heard
these words so greatly in favour of Jesus. It is also possible
that they might have been reported by spies during their
meeting. The term licard admits both meanings. It was
now that the Sanhedrim allowed themselves to be committed
to a step which may be looked upon as the commencement of
that scries of judicial measures of which the death of Jesus
1 8 Mjj (X B D, etc.) omit rauruv after en/mx.
s X D iipi«riqu. Vg. Syr"* have vain instead of arotwt.
3 K M U n add aw ; X D : St after tixaurxv.
* T. R. with 8 Mjj. (E H M S, etc.) place « txpiexm before « xpxufui.

CHAP. VII. 33, 34. 289
was the termination. It was certainly under the influence of
the Pharisaic party, hence the repetition of the term : the
Pharisees, ver. 32. Separate mention is made of the chief priests,'
who at this period belonged rather to the Sadducean party.
This distinction is an evidence of St. John's accuracy. It is
highly probable that, though the impulse came from the Phari
saic party, it was rather the part of the chief priests to take
measures. The officers despatched were not, it seems, ordered
to arrest Him at once, as in this case they certainly must
have fulfilled their commission. They were to mingle with
the crowd, to watch for a favourable opportunity, and when
Jesus should give them some handle against Himself, or when
the current of opinion should turn, to take Him and bring
Him before the Sanhedrim.
Vv. 33, 34. "Jesus then said} Yet a little while I am with
you, and I go my way to Him that sent me. You shall seek
me, and sliall not find me :2 and where I am, thither ye cannot
come" — Jesus was not ignorant of this hostile measure, which
aroused within Him the presentiment of His approaching
death, and occasioned (then) the words which foUow. In this
address He invites the Jews to profit by the time, soon to
pass away, that He is with them. — There is an agreement
between the expressions : I go, and : He that sent me. The
idea of being sent naturaUy implies that of a temporary abode.
The practical conclusion, understood though not expressed, of
ver. 3 3 : make haste to believe, is rendered still more pressing
by ver. 34. Jesus describes in a striking manner the deso
late condition in which this nation will soon find itself
plunged, if it persists in its rejection of Him who alone can
lead to the Father. It is a description of the actual state of
the Jews in consequence of their unbelief, — a state of con
tinual and ever-disappointed expectation, of impotent effort
to find God after neglecting the visitation of Him who alone
could have .united them to God. This, too, is the sense in
which Jesus cites this saying, xiii. 33 (comp. xiv. 6). It is
also that in which He shortly afterwards repeated it in a more
complete form, viii. 21, 22. There can be no difficulty in
applying the pronoun pie, me, to the idea of the Messiah in
1 The xurois of the T. R. has only T and some Mnn. in its favour.
* B T X read /at after eupnesrs.
GODET II. T JOHN.

290 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
general. To expect the Messiah is, on the part of the Jewish
people, without doubt to seek Jesus the only Messiah, and
He would not appear. The first part of the warning is
addressed rather to the nation coUectively ; the second, to indi
viduals. — The expression, where I am, figuratively designates
communion with the Father, and the glorified state of which
this communion is the principle. To this they cannot attain,
because He alone could have taken them thither (xiv. 3), and
they have let slip the opportunity of attaching themselves to
Him. The second part of the verse forbids our explaining
the expression : ye shall seek me, in the first, either of a search
inspired by hatred (Origen), — comp. xiii. 33, — or of a feeling
of penitence — which would not have faUed to lead the Jews
to salvation, — or of the superstitious expectation of Messiah's
sudden appearance, which was entertained at the time of the
destruction of Jerusalem (comp. the expression : to come where
lam !).
Vv. 35, 36. " Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither
will he go, that we 1 shall not find him ? will he go to those
that are dispersed among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks ? What
saying is this that he saith : Ye shall seek me, and you shall
not find me : 2 and where I am, thither ye cannot come ?"3 — These
words are naturally ironical. Does He mean, after being
rejected by the only Jews worthy the name, — those, viz., who
inhabit the Holy Land, and speak the tongue of their fore
fathers, — to try and play His part of Messiah among the
Jews dispersed in the Grecian world, and to set up by their
means a Messianic ministry among the heathen ? A fine
Messiah, indeed, who, when rejected by the Jews, should
become the teacher of the Gentiles ! — The expression 8ia<riropd
t&v 'EXXrjvmv, literaUy : dispersion of the Greeks, designates
that portion of the Jewish nation which dwelt beyond
Palestine, scattered in pagan lands. — Toi/s "EXXr)va<s, the Greelcs,
refers to the heathen properly so called. The dispersed Jews
wiU furnish this Messiah with a new mode of transition to
the heathen themselves ! Having uttered this contemptuous
1 X D omit ri/Ms, which is the reading of all the other Mjj.
2 B G T X add pot after tupnein.
3 After this word ixhit, Cod. 225 goes on with xxi ixoptuin txxrros, and then
¦with the narrative of the woman taken in adultery.

CHAP. VII, 37— VIII. 59. 291
supposition, they return to the saying of Jesus (ver. 36), in
which they can absolutely find no kind of meaning. Meyer
thinks that if Jesus had expressed Himself as plainly as the
evangelist reports (ver. 33), His words could not have given
rise to so gross a misconception ; for that the words : to Him
who sent me, would, if really uttered, have explained every
thing. Hence, that Jesus simply said, I go, but without adding
whither or to whom. Reuss also considers that ver. 35 would
contain " a misunderstanding too flagrant to be conceivable."
But is our notion of the gross materialism of the contempo
raries of Jesus sufficiently just to enable us thus to limit the
extent of their mistakes ? After passing years with Jesus,
the apostles interpreted an injunction to beware of the leaven
of the Pharisees, as a reproach for having neglected to pro
vide themselves with bread : it is themselves who narrate
their misconception ; and would they have invented it for the
sake of exalting their Master, by casting ridicule on them
selves ? And the Jews, to whom the notion of the Messiah's
departure was as strange as would be to us that of His pre
sence on earth and His visible reign (comp. xii. 34), would then
have directly understood that Jesus had in His former saying
spoken to them of returning to God and to heaven ! Besides,
were not many among His hearers now listening to Him for
the first time ; and might not they have really imagined that
some unknown personage had sent Him, and that the place to
which He purposed withdrawing was situated beyond the Holy
Land, in which He would no longer be permitted to dwell ?
The evangelist seems to find a kind of satisfaction in re
producing in extenso this contemptuous supposition. Do we
ask why ? Because, like the saying of Caiaphas in ch. xii., it
seemed to him an involuntary prophecy. For had not Jesus,
at the time when John was writing, actuaUy become the
Messiah of the GentUes ? And was not John composing
this Gospel in the regions and even in the language of the
Greeks ?
III. On and after the Great Day of the Feast. — vii. 3 7 -viii. 59.
The last and great day of the feast was come, and Jesus
now quite gave up the apologetic form under which He had

292 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
hitherto dehvered His instructions. His address now assumed
a solemnity in accordance with that of this holy day ; and
He asserted that He was Himself the reality, symbolized by
all the great historic recollections of the festival. Such state
ments only enhanced the unbehef of some around Him, while
they bound more closely to Him those who already believed.
This passage may be divided into four sections, — 1. The
true fountain, vii. 37-52 ; 2. The true light, viii. 12-20 ;
3. The true Messiah, viii. 21-29 ; 4. The incurable nature
of Jewish unbelief, viii. 30-59. The passage, vii 53-viii. 11,
containing the account of the woman taken in adultery, does
not seem to us to belong to the genuine text of this Gospel.
1. The True Fountain. — vii. 37-52.
St. John first reports the address of Jesus (vv. 37—39),
then describes the different impressions made upon the mul
titude (w. 40-44), and relates what took place at the meeting
of the Sanhedrim after the return of the officers (vv. 45-52).
1st. Vv. 37-39. The address of Jesus.
Vv. 37, 38. " In the last and great day of the feast, Jesus stood
and cried} saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me}
/and drink! He that believeth in me, as the scripture hath said,
out of his bosom shall flow rivers of living ivater." — Almost all
expositors are now agreed that the last day of tlie feast was
not the seventh, which was in no wise distinguished from the
others, but the eighth, which was marked by certain rites
peculiar to itself. Certainly only seven feast days are spoken
of, Deut. xiv. 1 3 and Num. xxix. 1 3 ; but in the latter passage
this supplementary notice occurs in the 35th verse: " On the
eighth day ye shall have a solemn assembly: ye shall do no
servile work therein," which agrees with Lev. xxiii. 3 6 and Neh.
viii. 18 : "And they kept the feast seven days ; and on the eighth
was a solemn assembly, according to the manner," as well as
with Josephus (Antiq. iii. 10. 4 : " Celebrating the feast during
eight days "), 2 Mace. x. 7, and the accounts of the Rabbis.
The two ways of reckoning are easily explained ; the dwelling
in booths lasted seven days, and on the eighth the people
returned to their houses. This return was, according to
1 X D It. Vg. Cop. : ixpxfyt {He cried). • X D It»l:' omit vpaS fa.

CHAP. VII. 37, 38. 293
Lange's ingenious suggestion, possibly regarded as symbolical
of the entrance and settlement of the people in the Promised
Land. Philo views this day as the solemn close of all the
festivals of the year. Josephus also calls it "the sacred
close of the year " (av/j,7r4pa<T/j,a tov iviavrov dyimrepov). —
¦ This day was kept by a solemn assembly and Sabbatic rest ;
and the whole people, leaving their booths of foliage, went to
the temple, and returned thence to their homes. The treatise
Succa caUs this day " the last and good day." — The 84 indi
cates an advance, — the narrative passes on to something more
important. The terms elarqieei, stood, and e/cpage, cried, point
to a more imposing attitude and a louder tone of voice than
usual. Jesus was accustomed for the most part to be seated
when teaching, but this time He stood up. He was about to
apply to Himself one of the most remarkable Messianic types
contained in the national history. — It is difficult to conceive
that the figure which He made use of at this solemn moment
was not suggested by the circumstances of the feast. Almost
all commentators aUow that He was thinking of the libation
which was made on each morning of this sacred week. Led
by a priest, the people used to go after the sacrifice to the
fountain of Siloam. Here the priest filled from this fountain,
already celebrated by the prophets, a golden pitcher, and
brought it back into the court of the temple amid the shouts
of the multitude and the sound of cymbals and trumpets.
The rejoicing was so great that the Rabbis used to say that he
who had never been present at this ceremony, and at the other
similar ceremonies by which this feast was distinguished, did
not know what rejoicing meant. On his return to the temple,
the priest went up to the altar of burnt-offering ; the people
then cried to him, " Lift up thy hand," and he made the liba
tion, emptying the golden pitcher towards the west, and towards
the east a cup filled with wine, by means of two silver vases
pierced with holes. During the libation, the people sang to
the sound of cymbals and trumpets the words of Isa. xii. 3 :
" With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation," —
words to which Rabbinic tradition very specially attributes
a Messianic meaning. Was it then to this rite that Jesus
alluded ? Undoubtedly it cannot be affirmed with certainty
that this libation took place on the eighth day also. Rabbi

294 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Judah even positively denies it. But this can prove nothing
against an allusion to a ceremony which had taken place on
each of the preceding days. It is even probable that if Jesus
intended to point to Himself as the true water of SUoam, the
fountain of salvation, He would rather have done so at a
moment of tranquillity, when, as Lange remarks, the void
caused by the absence of a ceremony performed on the pre
ceding days would be felt, than by setting up a kind of com
petition with the sacred rite at the moment when it was
taking place in the midst of tumultuous joy. Meyer objects
with more reason, that in this ceremony there was no question
of drinking the water which had been drawn, whde the action
of drinking was the prominent feature in the address of Jesus.
But, above all, we would ask whether it would have been
worthy of our Lord to make an entirely human ceremony the
fulcrum of a testimony so important as that which He was
about to bear ? And what was this rite ? A simple emblem
intended to recall one of the great theocratic favours, the
springing of water from the rock in the wUderness. Why,
then, should not Jesus, instead of stopping at the emblem, go
, back to the divine fact which this rite commemorated ? And
if this is the case, it is to the rock itself, whence God made
the water to spring for the people, that He compares Himsetf.
He had in ch. ii. represented Himseh as the true temple, in
ch. iii. as the true brazen serpent, in ch. vi. as the bread of
heaven ; in ch. vii. He is the true rock ; in ch. viii. He wUl
be the true light-giving cloud, and so on tiU ch. xix., when
He will at length realize the type of the Paschal Lamb. It
was thus that Jesus, according to the fourth Gospel, made use
of each festival to show the Old Covenant realized in His
person, so entirely did He know and feel Himself to be the
essence of all the theocratic types. So much for the opinion
of those who represent this book as a writing either foreign
or even opposed to the Old Covenant, — a book in which, on the
contrary, every root of Christian truth is planted in the soil
of the Old Testament.
To understand, then, the solemn announcement of w. 3 7 and
3 8, we must bring before our minds the scene in the desert, which
the joyous rite of libations on the previous days commemorated.
Its first words : if any man thirst, refer to the terrible condi-

CHAP. VII. 37, 38. 295
tion of the people suffering from burning thirst in the desert.
To all who resemble these thirsting Israelites, Jesus addresses
the comforting invitation which follows. Thirst is emblematic
of spiritual necessities. Comp. Matt. v. 6 : " Blessed are they
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." Hearts that
thirst for pardon and hohness are those whom the Father has,
by means of their docile attention to Moses, taught and drawn.
The expression idv Tt?, if any one, weU suggests how isolated
such cases are, for spiritual wants are easily stifled. To the
thirsty soul, Jesus presents Himself as the rock whence there
will spring for him living water : let him come unto me, and
drink. The combination of these two imperatives shows that
there is nothing more to do than to come; that when a man
has only come, he may drink, as formerly the people had done
in the wUderness.
Ver. 3 8 is generally regarded as a mere amplification of the
idea of ver. 37. But the words': he that cometh to me, are
not a mere variation of: if any man thirst, but far rather
correspond with the second part of ver. 37:" let him come
unto me, and drink." To believe is to come ; and here, as fre
quently in St. John, the idea which terminates the preceding
paragraph becomes the starting-point of that which foUows.
For grace obtained always helps to obtain more grace ; com
pare the x°-Pw ""'" X^/0'1"0? of i. 16. There is then an advance
from the promise of ver. 3 7 to that of ver. 38:" And. also the
believer who has quenched his thirst . . ." We need not, then,
be surprised to find in the image which follows a fulness of
meaning far surpassing that of the preceding figure. The
believer, refreshed by water from the rock, now appears as
himself transformed into a rock, whence living water flows
forth for others. And thus the promise of ver. 37: let him
drink, is abundantly confirmed. He shall be so filled, that he
shall himself overflow in torrents of hving water. — 'O iriaTevrnv,
nom. absolute. Meyer thinks this comparison with the rock
in the desert arbitrary. To me, on the contrary, the object
and meaning of the feast seem to lead directly to it. One
great difficulty with expositors has always been to know to
what passage of the 0. T. Jesus refers when He says : as the
scripture hath said; for nowhere does the 0. T. promise to
believers the privilege of themselves becoming fountains of

296 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
living water. Meyer cites Isa. xliv. 3 : " I will pour water on
him that is thirsty, and floods upon tlie dry ground; I will
pour my Spirit on thy seed ; " lv. 1 : " Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the vjaters ; " and lviii. 11:" Thou shalt
be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose
waters fail not." But, first, all these passages express the fuU
satisfaction afforded by Messiah to the desires of the believer,
and not his own transformation into a being capable of
quenching the thirst of others ; secondly, they contain abso
lutely nothing which can explain the striking expression :
KoiXia (literally, his belly). Hengstenberg, always bent upon
finding Solomon's Song in the N. T, quotes Cant. iv. 12 : "A
garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse ; a spring shut up, a
fountain sealed ; " and ver. 15: " A fountain of gardens, a well
of living waters, and streams from Lebanon ! " And as these
quotations lie open to the same objection as the preceding, he
descends to the puerility of trying to explain the figurative
expression KoiXia by an allusion to Cant. vii. 3, where the
navel of Sulamith is compared to a round goblet. Many
expositors refer to prophetic descriptions, in which the Messi
anic deliverance is represented under the image of a torrent
descending from the temple mountain and fertilizing the neigh
bouring countries (Joel iii. 18; Zech. xiv. 8; and especially
Ezek. xlvii. 1—12). But these descriptions refer to the times
of Messiah in general, and have no special application to the
disciples of Messiah ; besides, the expression /coiXla, to which
the quotation from the 0. T. evidently alludes, remains unex
plained. According to Bengel, Jesus might have intended the
golden pitcher which was used at the libation ; according to
Gieseler, the subterranean cavern situated in the hiU of the
temple, whence flow the waters which run into the Kedron.
But neither of these explanations of the term /coiXla account
for that formula of quotation by which we are referred to
the 0. T. itself (17 ypatprj, the scripture). Stier by a desperate
expedient connects the words : he that believeth in me, with the
preceding verse as subject to Triverm : let him who believes in
me drink ; and thus manages to refer the pronoun avTov, out
of his belly (ver. 38), not to the believer, but to the Messiah,
which gets rid of part of the difficulty. But this construction
is evidently forced. Besides, the asyndeton between vv. 37

CHAP. VII. 37, 38. 297
and 3 8 cannot be thus justified ; and, finally, the term /coiXla
remains unexplained. Chrysostom refers the words : as the
scripture hath said, solely to him who believes : He who believes
in me conformably to scripture. But there is nothing in the
simple notion of faith to account for so special an appeal to
the 0. T. Semler and Bleek suppose a reference to some
non-canonical book ; but such a reference would be an excep
tion, standing alone in the addresses of Jesus. The true
explanation has been missed, through omitting to bring before
the mind the theocratic event of which Jesus was at this time
thinking. In Ex. xvii. 6 it is said : " Behold, I will stand before thee
there in Horeb ; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall
come water out of it (UDD), that the people may drink ; " and
Num. xx. 11: " And abundant waters (dui D'd) came forth."
Comp. also Deut. viii. 15; Ps. cxiv. 8. Probably all these
passages had been read during the feast, on the occasion of
the symbolical hbation which commemorated the event to
which they refer. The formula of quotation : as the scripture
hath said, is not equivalent to : it is written strictly under
stood ; but simply means : to employ the scriptural expression.
The words : iroTap.o\ v8aTos, torrents of water, reproduce the
C2i WD (abundant waters) of the Mosaic narrative. The
expression /coiXla ai)Tov, his belly, is taken from the term
1300 (from within him) of Exodus, — a term which is used to
designate the interior cavity of the rock whence the waters
were, according to the promise of Jehovah, to flow. In the
application, it signifies the inmost heart of the man, which,
saturated with Christ's life, opens like the rock, and pours
forth its spiritual wealth. There is not a word, even to the
future pevo-ovaiv, shall flow, which does not reproduce the form
of the 0. T. promise to which Jesus alludes (there shall come
yjater out of it). Hence Jesus is to the new people of God
what the invisible and spiritual Rock that accompanied the
Israelites in the desert was to His ancient people (1 Cor.
x. 4), that Rock who, when necessary, changed the material
rock into a fountain of water, and who said in the promise :
" I will stand upon the rock . . . and the waters sliall flow."
It almost seems as if this expression were referred to in the
eia-Trj/cei, stood, of ver. 3 7. Jesus even does more than Jehovah

298 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
does in the 0. T. ; He not only quenches the thirst of
believers, but makes rivers of living water flow from them
after their own thirst is fuUy slaked. AU Meyer's protests
against this interpretation seem to us to be feeble. In its
favour are its accordance with the circumstances of the feast,
and the unusual expressions employed by our Lord. It is also
possible that He might have had in view a remarkably
analogous saying in the Book of Proverbs (the Israehte
manual for the young), iv. 23 : out of it (the heart) are the
issues of life.
Ver. 39. " Now He said 1 this of the Spirit, which2 they that
believe in Him s should receive : for the Spirit 4 was not yet ; 6
because Jesus was not yet glorified." 6 — Modern exegesis criti
cises the explanation here given by St. John of the saying of
Jesus. The future pevaovaiv, says Liicke, is relative, and
dependent solely on the condition of faith ; hence the fact in
question is one to be immediately accomplished in the life of
the believer; besides, the hving water, the eternal hfe which
the behever derives from the words of Jesus, is not the Holy
Spirit. This passage is also one of those cited by Reuss, in
proof of his assertion that St. John " is mistaken concerning
the significance and bearing of some of our Lord's sayings."
Scholten regards it as one of the many glosses which he dis
covers in this Gospel. And certainly, if ver. 3 8 were only a
repetition and development of ver. 3 7, there might be some
foundation for this criticism. We have seen, however, that
the promise of ver. 3 8 far surpasses that of ver. 3 7, and hence
there are no exegetical grounds for denying that, while the latter
might be immediately realized, the former refers to a more dis
tant and more advanced state of believers. It is very evident
from their history, that if the apostles quenched their own
thirst before Pentecost, it was not tiU after that event that
they began to be a fountain of living water to the world.
Jesus clearly defines the difference between these two states,
1 X It""' : iXtyiv instead of iw».
2 The Mjj. are divided between au (X D, etc.) and a (B E, etc.).
3 B L T read orimuentrts instead of <r<r«i/i»rs;, which is the reading of T. R.
\\ ith 14 Mjj. (among which is X) Mnn. It., etc.
4 We omit xyiov, with X K T Cop. Or., in opposition to the other Mjj. and Vss.
s rj UpioriT'e SyrMh add o~to*o/*ivov (was not yet given). D adds sv' xurois.
e H reads ^•to^ero instead of iio^xelm.

CHAP. VII. 39. 299
ch. xiv. 17, 18; and no one could be more conscious than St.
John of the total change effected by the Pentecostal gift in
the inner life of the apostles. It is only necessary to remember
St. Peter, the Twelve, the hundred and twenty, proclaiming the
marvellous acts of the Lord at Jerusalem, and bringing three
thousand persons on that very day to the faith ! St. John
does not, as Liicke excepts, confound the Spirit and eternal
life ; but the figure used by Jesus combines in a single view
the Spirit as the principle, and life as the effect. — The reading
8e8op,evov is certainly a gloss intended to explain what might
have seemed too absolutely expressed by the words : was not.
To explain St. John's expression, we must remember that say
ing of Jesus (xvi. 7) : " If I go not away, the Comforter will
not come," and other passages in chs. xiv. and xvi. which show
that this coming of the Spirit is the spiritual presence of Jesus
in the heart. " 2" will not leave you comfortless ; I will come
unto you " (xiv. 1 8), says Jesus in explanation of the promise :
" the Spirit shall be in you," xiv. 1 7. Before the day of
Pentecost the Spirit had undoubtedly acted upon men, but He
had not been in them. It is for this reason that St. John uses
this strong expression : the Spirit was not, — that is, had not
as yet His permanent abode in human nature, or, which, seeing
the article is omitted before Trvevp,a, is a better rendering of
the thought of St. John : The spiritual life was not yet, and
that because the principle of this higher life had not yet come
down into man.
The relation laid down by St. John between the glorifica
tion of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, has been
variously explained. According to Hengstenberg and others,
i8o^do-dv designates the fact of the death of Jesus, which was
the condition of the gift of the Spirit, because this gift pre
supposes the forgiveness of sins. The idea is a true one ; but
the expression : to be glorified, is nowhere applied to the death
of Jesus ^as such. In this sense we should, in any case, need
the term vtymdrjvai, to be lifted up. According to de Wette
and Vinet, as a fine passage cited by M. Astie shows, the con
nection between the glorification of Jesus and Pentecost lies
in the fact that, if Jesus had remained visibly on earth, the
church could not have walked by faith, nor, consequently, have
lived by the Spirit. But by the word i8oljdo-dv it is not the

300 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
notion of putting off the flesh, but of being clothed with glory,
which is emphasized. This remark seems to me to obviate
the explanations of both Reuss and Liicke. " It was necessary
that the veil of the flesh should fall, that the liberated spirit
might freely flow forth in the church " (Liicke). It is neither
the atoning death, nor the bodily disappearance of Jesus, but
the positive glorification of Jesus by His restitution to His
glory as Logos (xvii. 1, 5), which is laid down by St. John as
the condition of Pentecost. If the work of the Spirit, in the
Christian sense, really consists in causing Christ Himself to
live in the heart of the behever, it is evident that the Spirit
could not come till after the personal consummation of
Jesus. For it was not a non-perfected Christ that the Divine
Spirit was to communicate to humanity, but the God-man
arrived at His full stature. Besides, this communication of the
glorified Jesus is effected by Himself when He sends the
Spirit, and such sending presupposes the reinstatement of
Jesus in the plenitude of His divine condition. It was
therefore by all means necessary that Jesus should have been
personally glorified in heaven before He could be so by the
Spirit in the hearts of believers, and by them upon earth.
The epithet dyiov, holy, was probably added (see the various
readings) with the view of distinguishing between the Spirit
specifically Christian and the Spirit of God in the Old Cove
nant. But if this epithet was really added for such a purpose,
its interpolators were mistaken ; for it is just by reading
irvevpM quite briefly that it is most easy to understand this
word in the special sense required by the context, and in
which it is so frequently employed in the Epistles of St.
Paul, viz. as spiritual life, the fruit of the Holy Spirit's
presence in the church.
2d. Vv. 40-44. The impressions made upon the multitude.
Vv. 40-44. " Many then of tlie multitude1 who had heard
this discourse} said, Truly this is tlie Prophet. Others3 said,
He is the Christ ? But otliers said, Doth the Christ tlun come
1 X B D L T X It*1"1"" Vg. Cop. Or. read i* rou oXXou out xxaur. instead of
koXXoi out ix rau oxXau xxaur., which is the reading of T. R. with 11 Mjj. Mnn.
It""' Syr.
2 T. R., with S X A, Mnn., reads tov Xoyov. The thirteen other Mjj. Mnn.
It. Vg. Syr"* Cop. Or. read ruv Xayuv. X B D L T U add rturuv. X X add xurau.
3 B L T X read ai It instead of xXXoi (X D etc.) or aXXo, Si (T. R. with Mnn.).

CHAP. VII. 40-44. 301
out of Galilee ? Hath not tlie scripture said, That the Christ
cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem,,
where David was ? So there was a division among the people
because of Him. And, some of them desired1 to take Him ; but
no man laid hands on Him!' — These short descriptions of the
impressions made upon the hearers, which follow each of the
addresses of Jesus, serve to mark the double development
which was being effected, and to prepare us for understanding
the final crisis. The picture here presented is history " taken
in the very act," and could not be explained from the pen of
a later writer. St. John gives only a summary of the speeches
of Jesus, as is evident from the plural twv Xoymv, these speeches,
which, according to authorities, must be considered the true
reading. — We already know who was the Prophet of whom
some of His hearers were thinking. Comp. i. 21, vi. 14.
The transition from this supposition to the following one :
" This is the Christ" is, according to the second of these
passages, easy to understand.
There were two gradations of favourably disposed hearers,
and two are also brought before us by St. John in the hostile
party. Some stop at raising objections (vv. 41 and 42), — a
feature which suffices to mark their moral separation from
those last spoken of. Others (ver. 44) aheady desired to pro
ceed to action (ver. 44). De Wette, Weisse, and Keim ask
why St. John does not refute the objection advanced ver. 42,
which he could easUy have done if he had known or admitted
that Jesus was born at Bethlehem, and infer from his silence
that either he was unacquainted with or denied the whole
legend of our Lord's Davidic descent and birth at Betldehem.
But it is just the opposite conclusion which must be drawn
from this silence. For if the objection had seemed to him well
foimded, he would have tried to obviate it. St. John often
delights in reporting objections which to his readers — versed
as they were in the gospel history — would be transformed
into proofs.2 It was to show, at the same time, how much
less sure a guide that critical spirit which the adversaries of
Jesus followed had been to them than the moral instinct
1 X has tXtyot instead of nhxav.
2 Hilgenfeld (Eint. p. 749) candidly owns that this passage assumes its
author's knowledge of the fact that Jesus was born at Bethlehem.

302 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
by which the followers of Jesus had attached themselves to
Him. — The ydp, for, of ver. 41, involves an imphed negative :
Not so, for . . . — The pres. epxeTai, comes, is the pres. of the
idea, the expression of what ought to be, according to pro
phecy. — "Ottov rjv, which we translate by where was, properly
means : where his home was.
3d. Vv. 45-52. The meeting of the Sanhedrim.
Vv. 45-49. " Then came the officers to the chief priests and
Pharisees ; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought
him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this man} The
Pharisees answered them, Are you also deceived ? Have any of
the rulers or of the Pharisees believed2 in him? But this multitude,
that knoweth not the law, is cursed." 3 — Although a holy day, the
Sanhedrim, or at least a portion of this body, was sitting
and undoubtedly awaiting the result of the mission of their
officers (ver. 42). These latter, by their candid answer, paid
involuntarily, as we may weU beheve, a strange compliment
to these doctors whom they were constantly accustomed to
hear. Tischendorf has, in his later editions, rightly restored
the last words of ver. 46, the omission of these words by the
Alex, doubtless arising from the repetition of dvdpwnos. — By
then ye also (ver. 47) the rulers appeal to the pride of their
subordinates. — John again records with pleasure (ver. 48) one
of those sayings of our Lord's enemies on which the denial of
facts impressed the stamp of ridicule (comp. ver. 50 and ch.
iii. with regard to Nicodemus). — Ver. 49 has given com
mentators occasion to record the contemptuous expressions
used by rabbinical writers concerning the ilhterate. " The
ignorant is impious ; only the learned shaU have part in the
resurrection." See also the expressions : " people of the earth,"
" vermin," applied by learned Jews to the common people. —
By the words, who knoweth not the law, the rulers give it to
be understood that for then part they possess unanswerable
reasons derived from the law for rejecting Jesus. Sacerdotal
anger is fond of putting on esoteric airs.
But there was one among them who caUed them to order
1 B LT, Cop. Or. omit »s ouros a xtlpuwos. D, It"11' read us auras XxXu. X: us
ouros XxXu a xv6p.
2 X D read vritrriuu instead of i-xienuatv.
3 X B T, 2 Mnn. Or. read mxpxroi instead of torixxrxpxroi.

CHAP. VII. 50-52. 303
in the name of that very law which they claimed alone to
understand. Vv. 50-52. "Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to
Him1 by night, being one of them), Doth our law then judge a
man before2 it hear him, and know what he doeth ? They
answered and said unto him, Art thou then, thou also, of
Galilee ? Search and look : that no prophet has arisen3 from
Galilee." — The part played by Nicodemus on this occasion is
an evidence of the progress effected in him since his visit to
Jesus, a fact brought to our notice by the apposition : he that
came to Jesus by night. The omission of these words by the
Sinait. is probably owing to a confusion of ainov<s and ainov.
— Nvktos, by night, is omitted by the Alex. ; but it accords
perfectly with the context, and well contrasts the present
boldness of Nicodemus with his former caution. The nrpmTov
or irpoTepov, formerly, added by the Alex., is perhaps borrowed
from xix. 39. The word, however, serves to establish the
. relation between the present behaviour of Nicodemus and his
preceding conduct. The second apposition : being one of them,
is a cutting reference to their question, ver. 48.
The term d vop,o<i, the law, ver. 51, stands first ; it includes
a sharp allusion to the claims of the rulers to be alone learned
in the law (ver. 49). — The subject of the verbs d/covcy and
yvm is the law personified in the judge.
Ver. 5 2 shows how passion regards and judges impartiahty.
It is wont to detect therein an indication of secret sympathy,
and is not always mistaken. The Sanhedrim maliciously
assume in their reply that no one can adhere to Jesus without
being, like Him, a Galilean. — The last words are generally
understood to say : Acknowledge that no prophet has ever arisen
in Gablee, and then the statement is regarded as a contradic
tion of the fact that several prophets — Elijah, Nahum, Hosea,
Jonah — were natives of that country. Hence it has been
inferred (Bretschneider, Baur) that the members of the San
hedrim, who must have been acquainted with then own sacred
1 T. R., with E G H M S r A It"11' Vg. Syr., reads o ixlm vuxros Tpos xurav.
a iXSut tfpos xurov orporspot is the reading of B L T Sah. o iXt)uv vpos xurov vuxros
ro <!rpurov of D. X omits the whole.
2 XBDKLTXn Or. read vrpurot instead of nporipov.
3XBDKTrAn, 30 Mnn. ItPleri"le Vg. Syr. read tyuptrxi instead of
tyttytprxi.

304 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
history, could not have uttered these words, but that they have
been put into their mouths by the evangelist, and are an
indication of the untruthfulness of his narrative. The reading
iyetpeTai, ariseth, does not mend matters, the present only
serving to give the fact the character of a rule. We should
rather say that the meaning usually given to this passage
(reading the perfect iyrjyepTai) : " that no prophet lias ever
arisen" is incorrect, and would require not only the pronoun
oi/8ek with •n-poobijT'ns, but especially the aorist r)yipdv instead
of the perfect.1 If the perfect iyriyepTai is the true reading,
the sentence signifies, not that a prophet never has arisen in
Gahlee, but that in the person of Jesus there has not now, as
the people suppose, really arisen a prophet in Galilee. It is
true that they rest this conclusion upon past experience :
search and see that . . . But this appeal to history is easUy
justified, for the Gahlean origin of three out of the four
prophets cited (Elijah, Nahum, Hosea) is either incorrect or
uncertain (see Hengstenberg). Elijah was of Gilead ; Hosea,
of Samaria ; Nahum, of El-Kosh, a place whose situation is
unknown. As for Jonah, this prophet forms an exception,
which passion might have caused them for the moment to
lose sight of, and which, if it had been objected to the rulers,
would have been put aside by them as an isolated fact which
proved nothing against the principle that Galilee had been,
and still was, the refuse of the theocracy. The present
iyeiperai, ariseth, adopted by Tischendorf (ed. 8), has the same
signification as the perfect, rightly understood. It relates to the
idea, the principle. Biiumlein so strongly feels the grammatical
necessity of this meaning, that he understands by tt/jo^tjtt?? the
prophet in an absolute sense, the Messiah : The Messiah ariseth
not from Galilee, — a meaning naturally impossible.
The Narrative of the Woman taken in Adultery. —
vii. 5 3 -viii. 11.
Three questions arise with respect to this paragraph : Does
it really form part of the text of St. John's Gospel ? If not,
how was it introduced therein ? and, What are we to think of
the truth of the narrative itself ?
1 Why docs Meyer, who answers the first objection by appealing to iv. 44 (a
far from identical case), take no notice of the second ?

CHAT. VII. 53-VIII. 11. 305
The most ancient testimony in favour of this passage, is the
use made of it in the Apostolic Constitutions (i. 2, 24) to justify
the employment of mild measures towards the poenitentcs in
ecclesiastical discipline. This apocryphal work seems to have
received its definitive form towards the close of the third
century. If, then, this passage is not genuine, its interpola
tion in this Gospel must reach as far back as the third or
second century. The Fathers of the fourth century (Jerome,
Ambrose, Augustine) admit its genuineness, and think that it
was omitted in some documents by men weak in faith, who feared
lest " their wives should make immoral inferences therefrom "
(Augustine). Certain Mss. of the Itala (Veronensis, Colbertinus,
etc.) from the fourth to the eleventh century, the Vulgate, the
Syriac tradition of Jerusalem, the Mss. D F G H U r n from
the sixth to the ninth century, and more than three hundred
Mnn. (Tischendorf), read this passage, and leave it unmarked
by any sign of doubt. On the other hand, it is absent from the
Peshito and two of the best Mss. of the Itala,— the Vercellensis
of the fourth, and the Brixianus of the sixth century. Ter-
tullian, Cyprian, Origen, and Chrysostom do not mention it.
xABCLTXAof the fourth to the ninth centuries, and
50 Mnn. (according to de Wette) entirely omit it (L and A
leaving a blank space) ; E M A and 45 Mnn. mark it with signs
of doubt. Lastly, in some documents it is transposed; one
Mn. placing it after vii. 36, ten others at the end of this Gospel,
and four in the Gospel of St. Luke, after ch. xxi. Euthymius
regards it as a useful addition ; Theophylact omits it.
1. In such a state of things, it is impossible to regard the
omission of this passage in so large a number of documents as
purely accidental. If it is genuine, it must of necessity have
been purposely omitted, and for the reason supposed by some
Fathers. But at this rate, how many other deductions may not
have been made from the N. T. ! And would such licence have
been suffered with respect to a text decidedly recognised as
apostolic ?
2. Besides, there are very considerable variations in the text
in those documents which admit this passage, sixty various
readings being found in these twelve verses. 'Griesbach dis
tinguishes three entirely different texts : the ordinary text, that
of D, and a third resulting from a certain number of Mss. No
genuine apostolic text has ever undergone such alterations.
3. How does it happen that the entire passage is so variously
placed in the documents : after vii. 36, in Mn. 225 ; at the end
of St. John's Gospel, in 10 Mnn. and several copies of the
Armenian translation; at the end of Luke xxi., in 4 Mnn. ; not
to speak of Mss. and Vss. which place it between the seventh
GODET IL U JOHN.

306 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
and eighth chapters of St. John ? Such hesitation is equally
unexampled in the case of a genuine apostolic text.
4. The style does not exhibit the Johannean stamp, but
rather manifests the synoptic characteristics. The ow, the most
frequent form of transition with St. John, is entirely absent,
and replaced by Se (eleven times). The expressions: optlpou
(John uses vpuf) na; 6 Xabg, xu6i<fu; ibidaaxiv, oi ypa./a/j,a,rzTg xal ol
&api«u/oi, have no parallels in St. John, and recall synoptic forms.
Whence, then, should these subtle differences arise if the passage
were genuine ?
5. The preamble, vii. 53, presents, as we shall see, no exact
meaning, but is suspiciously amphibological.
6. Lastly, there is an utter want of harmony between the
spirit of this narrative and the context of St. John. In the
latter, the sahent feature is the testimony which Jesus bears to
Himself, and the position of faith or unbehef in Him occupied
on this occasion by His hearers. From this point of view, the
narrative of the woman taken in adultery can only be regarded
as a digression. It is no sooner omitted than the connection
between the. testimony which precedes and that which fol
lows is perfectly evident. It is expressly marked by the
iruXiv, again, of ver. 12, which is unmeaning except as connect
ing the new statement of viii. 12-20 with that of the great day
of the feast, vh. 37 sqq.
The genuineness of this passage is also no longer admitted
but by a small number of Protestant exegetes (Lange, Ebrard,
Wieseler), by the CathoUc expositors (Hug, Scholz, and Maier),
and by some opponents of the genuineness of the Gospel, who
have made a weapon of the internal improbabilities of the
narrative (Bretschneider, Baur). So early as the times of the
Reformation it was considered not genuine by Erasmus, Calvin,
and Beza, and was subsequently expunged by Grotius, Wetstein.
Semler, Liicke, Tholuck, Olshausen, de Wette, Baur, Reussj
Luthardt, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Lachmann, .Tischendorf, etc.
Hilgenfeld, in his Introd. to the N. T, persists in defending it.
According to this scholar, the evidence in its favour is pre
ponderant ; but it transports us, he says, after the first day to
the middle of the feast, which is the time when the follow
ing scenes occurred ; and finally, that it is exacted by the say
ing viii. 15. Such reasoning needs no refutation.
How, then, was this passage introduced into St. John's
Gospel ?
Hengstenberg attributes the composition of this narrative to
some behever hostile to Judaism, who intended to represent
under the image of this woman, degraded by man but restored
by Jesus, the Gentile world in a state of grace. He thinks

CHAP. VII. 53-VIII. 11. 307
that its author, to give more credit to this fiction, inserted it
with a preamble in the text of this Gospel, and that it was
afterwards admitted into a certain number of copies. We shall
discuss the objections raised by Hengstenberg to the internal
veracity of this narrative. As for the transition vii. 53, it
would be indispensable, even if the interpolation had been made
without fraudulent intention.
It seems to me more natural to regard this passage as an
editorial introduction of some ancient tradition. A copyist
may first have added it in the form of a marginal annotation
to his Ms., whence it may have subsequently entered the text
of Mss. derived from this document. Eusebius relates (H E.
ih. 40) that the work of Papias contained "the history of a
woman accused before the Lord of numerous sins, a history
contained also in the Gospel of the Hebrews." Meyer, relying
on the expression : " numerous sins," used by this Father, casts
a doubt upon any connection between the narrative in question
and that of Papias. But the exhortation of Jesus : go and sin
no more, does not refer to a single act of sin : and it seems to us
very difficult not to recognise in the history spoken of by
Eusebius that included in the paragraph, John vii. 5 3— viii. 11.
It was undoubtedly placed as a note, by some reader of Papias
or of the Gospel of the Hebrews, at first after the coUection of
the Gospels, and consequently at the close of St. John, which
generaUy stood last (hence its place in 10 Mnn.). A more
fitting position was subsequently sought for it within the Gospel
history itseh. Some inserted it here because, as an example of
the machinations of the rulers, it combined naturaUy enough
with the account of the sitting of the Sanhedrim, vii. 45 sqq,
and prepared for the saying, viii. 15 : I judge no m,an. Others
assigned it a position after Luke xxi. 38, a passage to which it pre
sents a tolerably striking analogy (compare especiaUy vv. 1 and 2
of John with this verse of Luke). Thus it also formed the close
of that series of tests to which first the Sanhedrim, and then more
especiaUy the Pharisees and Sadducees, subjected Jesus on that
memorable day during the last week of His Ufe. If this be the
case, this narrative- must be ranked among those extra-scriptural
facts preserved by the oral tradition of primitive times.
Holtzmann supposes that this section originaUy formed part
of the work which was, according to him, the source of the
three synoptic Gospels (A, or the pretended primitive Mark),
and was omitted by the Synoptists on account of the scandal
produced by the manner in which the crime of adultery was
treated in it. He further considers that it was, on the other
hand, admitted into the Gospel of the Hebrews, and thence
found access to different places in our Gospels. But he offers

308 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
no explanation as to how so complete a change took place in
the feelings of the church, nor how so unanimous a rejection
was so soon succeeded by so general a restoration. Our ex
planation is, we think, more natural, and far less hypothetical.
The only question which now remains, is as to whether this
narrative is the true tradition of a fact which actually occurred,
or a legend without value. A detaued consideration of the
passage can alone furnish the answer. We subjoin the passage,
marking only the chief various readings.
vii. 53-viii. 11. "And every one went away1 to his own
house. But Jesus went away to the Mount of Olives. And at
daybreak He returned 2 to the temple, and all the people s came
unto Him ; 4 and He sat down, and taught them.6 Now the
scribes and Pharisees bring6 unto Him a woman taken7 in
adultery ; 8 and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto
Him} Master, this woman was taken in the act 10 of committing
adultery. Now, in tlie law, Moses commanded u us to stone 12 such :
but thou}3 what sayest thou ? TJiis they said, tempting Him, that
they might be able to accuse Him.1* But Jesus stooped down, and
with His finger wrote upon the ground.15 As they continued ask
ing Him, He lifted Himself up}6 and said unto them, Let him that
is witliout sin first " cast a stone at her. Then He again stooped
down, and wrote on the ground.13 They having heard this}9 and
being reproved by their conscience}0 went out21 one by one}2
beginning at the oldest, unto the last}3 and Jesus was left alone,
with the woman standing2* in the midst. Tlien Jesus, lifting
Himself up}5 and seeing no one but the woman}6 said unto her,
Woman}7 where are thine accusers?23 hath no one condemned
1 D M S r : ivroptufaext. U: xxyiXhv. A : xvrnXffov.
2 D : rrxpxyivirxi, U : iiXt'.v. Mnn. : orxpnXltv.
3 G S U Mnn. : oxXos. * 5 Mjj. omit rpas xurot.
6 D, 6 Mnn. omit the words xxi . . . xurous. 6 Others : ftpouri, a-poa-ntiyxxv.
7 E G H K : xxrxXntyfonTxv. D : uXviptfjuwiv. 8 D : tvi xptxpnx.
9 E G H K : mtpx^ovrts. D: ixortipx^avrts xurot oi itpus ivx sfcueit xxrtiyopixt xurou.
10 U: rxurrjt tupofttt tor' xurotyupu. 1JD: txiXlueiv.
12 D M S U A : Xitx&it. Mnn. : Xi6xZ,iefxi. " D : <ru h tut.
14 S U: xxrnyopixt xxr xurou. D M omit the words reuro . . . xurou.
15 E G H K, 90 Mnn. add pc» vpao-roiov/uvos.
36 D M S Vss. : xvtxu^tv xxi. U A: xvx/iXi^xs. » E G H: rpurot.
18 U: ivas ixxerou xurut rxs xpixpnxs. 19 D: txxeros it rut loulaiuv.
20 D M U A Mnn. Vss. omit the words xxi . . . ixtyxopavoi.
21 L : tfyxhv. M : anxupvext. 22 D omits us xxi' us.
23 E G H K M Vss. omit tus rut sex*™*- D reads uS n rxvrxs t^ixlut.
24 All the Mjj.: ouex instead of ieruo-x. s0 A, Mnn. : xtxfixi^xs.
26 D M S omit the words xxi . . . yuvxixos. U a replace them by uht xurnt xa.
27 D E F G H K Vss. omit * ym„. M S U A : yuvxi.
28 8 Mnn. and Augustine omit the words tou . . . eeu (there are various other
readings).

CHAP. VII. 53-VIII. 11. 309
thee ? Slie said,1 No one, Lord. Jesus said unto her, Neither do
I condemn 2 thee : go} and sin no more." 4
Ver. 53. Does the expression: every one went away, refer, as
would seem most natural from the context, to the departure of
the members of the Sanhedrim to their homes after the meeting,
vii. 45-52 ? In this case the remark is an utterly idle one. Or
does it relate to the whole people who, after the termination of the
feast, would leave the temple and return to their homes ? This
sense is the more probable, and is perhaps that which the verse
possessed in the text from which this narrative was separated.
But nothing in the context of St. John leads to such a meaning
of the word : every one, and hence we have a manifest proof of
interpolation by another hand.
viii. 1 and 2 are analogous, both in form and matter, with
the synoptic narrative. Comp. Luke xxi. 38.
Vv. 3, 4. Tpa/tfAUTiTs, the scribes, is an aVag y^yopivov in St.
John, and synoptic in style. Besides, it is doubtful whether
the scribes would at this period have submitted such a question
to the decision of Jesus, and have thus conceded to Him so
much authority in the eyes of the people. Comp. vii. 26.
Ver. 5. Stoning was only commanded by Moses for unfaith
fulness in a betrothed virgin (Deut. xxii. 23, 24) ; the kind of
death was not prescribed in the case of an adulterous wife (Lev.
xx. 10). According to the Talmud, when the penalty was not
specified, the law meant, not stoning, but strangling. Are we
then (with Meyer) to regard this woman as unfaithful to her
vows of betrothal, or (with Tholuck and Ewald) to admit, in
opposition to the dicta of the Talmud, that where the law was
silent the penalty of stoning was employed, or to acknowledge
an error in the narrative, by the substitution, on the part of the
narrator, of the term to stone for the more general expression to
put to death? The supposition of Meyer seems forced, and the
idea of an error in the narrative improbable. The second
supposition, on-' the contrary, is confirmed by comparing Ex.
xxxi. 14 and' xxxv. 2 (where the penalty of death is attached
to the violation of the Sabbath) with Num. xv. 32-34, where
this penalty is, in a particular case, and without explanation,
inflicted under the form of stoning.
Ver. 6. In what did the snare consist ? Many (Aug., Luth.,
Calv.) explain it thus : If Jesus had answered that she should
not be stoned, He would have contradicted Moses, and might
therefore have been accused before the Sanhedrim as a false pro
phet; if He had commanded to stone her, He would have been
denying His usual principle of showing mercy to sinners.
1 D : xxxutn u<xiv xuru. ~ E F G K Mnn. : xpivu.
3 D : uorxyi. 4 D M U Vss. add x*o rou vuv before xpoxprxn.

310 (iOSPEL OF JOHN.
But this second alternative could not have exactly given rise to
any accusation. Others (Euthym., Thol., Hengstenb.) say that
they certainly expected an answer on the side of clemency, and
consequently in opposition to the Mosaic statute. But if this
were so, there was really no snare, except in the case of a
negative answer. Hug and Meyer think that if He had rephed
in the negative He would have contradicted Moses ; if He had
answered agreeably to Moses, He would have come into col
lision with the Roman law, which did not punish adultery with
death. But the Romans did not impose their own legislation
upon the provinces ; and the snare, resulting in a purely juridical
conflict between the two codes, would not have involved any
principle sufficiently popular to do serious damage to the cause
of Jesus. The solution seems to me very simple. Had Jesus
replied : Moses was in the right, stone her, they would have
gone to Pilate, and accused Him of encroaching on the rights of
the Roman authority, which here, as in aU conquered countries,
had reserved to itself the jus gladii. If He had answered : Do
not stone her, they would have defamed Him before the people,
and accused Him before the Sanhedrim as a false Messiah ; for
the Messiah was to restore the supremacy of the law. It was
precisely the same combination as when the question concerning
paying tribute to Csesar was proposed to Him (Luke xx. and
its parallel passages). Luthardt explains this verse exactly as
we do: "Jesus seemed forced to occupy a position opposed
either to the law or to the Roman authority." Meyer objects
that even an affirmative decision on the part of Jesus would
have left the right of execution by the Romans unchaUenged.
But it would have been very easy, in bringing the accusation
before PUate, to make no account of this distinction, and to
represent the decision as a summons to instant execution, for
this was precisely the character of stoning. — The act of Jesus,
after this question (His writing on the ground), is not, as gene
rally understood from certain examples derived from Greek
authors and Rabbis, simply a means of isolating Himself, or of
testifying His indifference to the question proposed. Heng
stenberg justly objects to this explanation, that it makes the
act of Jesus a mere piece of acting, incompatible with His
moral dignity. If Jesus seemed to be writing, He must have
actually written. And what He wrote naturally was, as it
seems to us, the saying which He immediately afterwards
uttered (ver. 7); the first part, when He stooped down and
wrote for the first time (ver. 6) ; the second, when He again
assumed this attitude (ver. 8). By writing, Jesus aUuded to
the office of judge, which His adversaries were at that time
attributing to Him. For a judicial sentence is not only pro-

CHAP. VII 53-VIII. 11. 311
nounced, but written ; and this saying of Jesus deserves the
name of sentence in a twofold sense, as being at once a con
demnation of the accusers and an acquittal of the accused.
Vv. 7, 8. The wonderful art, combined with simplicity, dis
played in the answer of Jesus (ver. 7), consists in its removal
of the question from the judicial sphere, in which His adver
saries had placed it, to that moral province beyond which He
did not for the present care to extend His authority ; comp.
Luke xii. 14, A judge may certainly, in his judicial capacity,
both judge and condemn, though himself also a sinner. But
such' was not at this time the position of our Lord, who
was not invested with the office of judge. Nor was it the
position of those who proposed this question. For them to
have any claim to constitute themselves the representatives
and executors of the justice of God, they ought to resemble Him,
at least, by the purity of their lives. It is evident that this
answer assumes, as was actually the case, that the theocracy
was subjugated, and deprived of its ancient constitution. — Ex
positors who, like Liicke, Meyer, and many others, restrict the
apphcation of the term, without sin, to adultery, or to impurity
in general, strangely weaken the thought. For is it not said :
Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point,
he is guilty of all (Jas. ii. 10) ? The skill of the answer consists
in the manner in which it disarmed the self-constituted judges
of the woman, without in the shghtest degree impugning the
Mosaic ordinance. The law remains unaltered, only there is no
one to carry it into execution.
Ver. 9. If the Pharisees had been sincere in their indignation
against the crime of the accused, they would now have taken
her to the lawfully constituted judge. Their departure was a
tacit avowal both of their mahcious design in coming and of
their defeat. Tlptepunpoi is not here the name of an office, but
means the eldest, who, as the most venerable representatives of
pubhc morahty, were at the head of the party; 'ie-^aroi does
not signify the youngest, or the lowest in social position, but
those who went out last.
Vv. ip and 11. This result attained, Jesus gives the woman
to understand by the oWe iyu, nor I, that there was nevertheless
One there who, even by the rule laid down (ver. 7), might have
reaUy lifted the first stone, if He had thought weU to do so, but
who renounced this right through the charitable desire' of
giving her the opportunity of returning to the right way : Go,
and sin no more. The saying of Jesus to this woman must not
be confounded with a positive declaration of forgiveness,
like that found Luke vii. 48 and 50. She had not, like that
contrite sinner, come to Jesus in faith, and He simply granted

312 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
her time to repent and beheve. It was a declaration of suffer
ance, not of justification. Comp. Rom. ih. 24, 25 (xupistg).
Thus vanish, as it seems to us, all the moral inconsistencies
which Hengstenberg claims to find in this narrative, which
is in every respect worthy the wisdom, holiness, and goodness
of Him to whom it is attributed. It seems to be at the foun
dation of that sublime passage in which St. Paul, placing him
self under the segis of Christ, defies, in a stiU more elevated
sense, the whole universe : Who is he that accuseth ? who is he
that condemneth ? (Rom. viii. 33, 34.) It could no more have
been invented than any other feature in the inimitable life of
Christ. Its internal characteristics place it chronologicahy at
the same epoch as other similar facts related by the Synoptists,
viz. immediately after the triumphal entry (Luke xx. ; Matt.
xxii., etc.). Before that day we can hardly understand so
explicit a recognition of the authority of Jesus on the part of
the Sanhedrim.

2. Jesus the Light of the World. — viii. 12-20.
We have in this passage, 1st, a testimony (ver. 12); 2d,
an objection (ver. 13) ; 3d, the answer of Jesus (vv. 14-19) ;
4th, an historical notice (ver. 20).
Ver. 12. " Then again Jesus spake to tliem, saying, I am the
light of the world : he that followeth me shall not walk1 in dark
ness, but slwdl liave2 the light of life." — If we were to retain in
the text the narrative of the woman taken in adultery, ver. 1 2
would have to be connected with the words of ver. 2 : and He
sat down and taught them. But the irdXiv. again, seems rather
to announce a second testimony analogous to that of vii.
3 7 sqq. The true sense, then, of these first words is as follows :
Jesus, after having thus applied to Himself one symbol, again
spoke for the purpose of applying to Himself a second. St.
John does not tell us whether this new address was delivered
on the same day as the preceding ; nothing in the text obliges
us to decide to the contrary, nor are the arguments in favour
of the supposition decisive. — The term eXdXwae, He said, in
dicates a less solemn tone and attitude than the expressions :
He stood and cried, of vii. 37. It is a continuation and com
pletion of the preceding address, — a circumstance which would
1 T. R. with D E, etc., orspiorxrwu. X B r, etc., trtpitrxmen.
2 X e read ixu instead of ¦{«.

CHAP. VIII. 12. 313
seem to speak in favour of the identity of the day. In any
case, however, we may say, with Luthardt, that " the historic
thread, which the author was concerned to preserve, was any
thing but one of days and hours."
On what occasion, then, did Jesus designate Himself the
Light of the World ? Hug and others have thought that He
was aUuding to the two great candelabra which were lighted
in the evening during the feast in the court of the women,
and whose light, according to the Rabbis, shone all over
Jerusalem. This ceremony was of a very noisy kind. A
sacred dance, in which grave men participated, took place
around the candelabra ; the temple was fiUed with the sound
of singing and musical instruments, and the festivity was
prolonged till daybreak. The celebrated Maimonides states
that this ceremony took place on each evening during the
feast, which would agree with the explanation of Hug. But
the Talmud only mentions its occurrence on- the first evening ;
on which account Vitringa and other commentators have
endeavoured rather to connect this saying with some passage
from the prophets, which might have been read in the temple
during the day, e.g. with Isa. xiii. 6, " I vnll give thee for a
covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles!' Comp. also Isa.
xlix. 6, 9. It is not, however, certain whether regular read
ings from the 0. T. took place in the temple ; and even the
existence of a synagogue within the sacred enclosure is doubt
ful (see Liicke). Jarchi speaks only of a synagogue " situated.
near the court, upon the temple mountain." Those com
mentators who adopt the idea of an allusion to the candelabra
of the temple seem to me to commit the same error which we
pointed out in the explanation of the preceding testimony.
Thinking only of the ceremony as it was celebrated in the
times of our Lord, they forget what is far more important, viz.
the miraculous and gracious act of which this ceremony was
but the memorial, and which would certainly be, in the view
of Jesus, the essential matter. Of what importance to us are
these candelabra, and consequently the question whether they
were lighted on one or on each evening during the feast?
That which really concerns us is the meaning of the feast of
Tabernacles, which the people had met to keep. This feast
was designed to commemorate the favours they had received

314 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
from God during their sojourn in the wUderness. Hence the
booths of foliage. Now among these favours, the two chief
were the water from the rock and the pillar of fire. Jesus
had just applied to Himself one of these types. He now
appropriates the other (hence the irdXiv, ver. 12). It was
thus that Jesus kept the feast of Tabernacles, transferring it
in some sort to His own person. Israel, however, was from
henceforth to be the /coauos, the whole world, just as in ch. vi.
Jesus was the manna, not for the multitude only, but for the
whole human race, and in vii. 37 the living water for whoso
ever thirsteth. — L¥e have aheady explained, i. 4 and hi. 19,
the term light ; it is the perfect revelation of moral good. —
The expression : he that followeth me shall not walk . . .,
refers not, as some have thought, to the torch dance which
took place in the court, but to the wandering of Israel in the
wilderness. They arose, advanced, stopped, encamped at the
signal of the fiery cloud. With such a guide, the traveUers
knew no darkness. In hke manner is the natural darkness of
human life dispersed for the man who has received Jesus into
his heart, and who, at every step which he has to take, begins by
looking to Him and seeking in Him the revelation of hohness,
that only substantial truth. It is truth of this kind, essen-
tiaUy vital truth, that Jesus means by the light of life. The
future ¦jrepi'iraTrjo-ei in the Received Text is probably a correc
tion to suit e£ei. The aor. conjunctive (ov pir) irepi,n-aTr](rn) is
found in many passages (e.g. x. 5), followed, as here, by the
fut. indie. The form ov pjf\ is used because of the natural
mistrust of the heart : There is no fear, whatever the obscurity
around and within, that he wUl still be constrained to walk in
darkness. — -'E£et : he shall possess within.
The deep-lying connection between this and the preceding
testimony is brought out by that saying of the prologue (i. 4) :
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. — In vii. 38,
Jesus presented Himself as the life (v8mp £<bv) ; in viii. 21, He
offers Himself as the light which emanates from hfe. With
respect to the manner in which man must respond to these
divine offers, the mere receptivity of faith is more brought out
in the first passage (shall drink) ; the activity of practical
obedience in the second (shall walk).
Ver. 13. "The Pharisees therefore said unto Him, Tliou

CHAP. VIII. 14. 315
givest testimony to thyself ; thy testimony is not true!' —
Liicke infers from the words : the Pharisees, that the pilgrims
had aheady left Jerusalem, — an inference quite unnecessary,
for Pharisees might have been found among the front ranks
of His hearers, even whUe the multitudes who came up to the
feast were still present. — The last words : is not true, do not
here signify: is false, but rather is not sufficiently attested,
not worthy of faith. His opponents seemed intimidated, and
only raised a question of form. In support of their objection,
they could even allege His own admission, ver. 31. In His
reply, Jesus began with the main question, to return sub
sequently to the question of form, vv. 15, 16.
Ver. 14. " Jesus answered and said unto them, And even if
I bear testimony of myself, my testimony is true : because I know
whence I came, and whither I go ; but1 you, ye do not know whence
I come, nor2 whither I go." — Jesus here claims His true position,
which He had voluntarily given up by the saying of ver. 31.
The rupture between Himself and His hearers being now
further developed, He asserts Himself more positively. Two
things are guaranteed by the perfect holiness of Jesus — first,
the truthfulness of His words ; and then the absence of any
internal illusions concerning His Person. Illusions are the
fruit of pride. If, then, Jesus is holy, — and He here starts
from this supposition, which He regards as a concession
extorted by the power of fact from the conscience of His
opponents, — His testimony to Himself is accompanied by
guarantees which are wanting to that given to themselves by
other men. — The term otSa, / know, designates that constantly
clear, unobscured consciousness which He had of Himself, and
which testified at once to the place whence He came and
whither He would return. That place was heaven. Jesus
had direct consciousness of Himself as a Being coming from
above and returning thither, to whom earthly life was con
sequently only a transition from heaven to heaven. Chris
tianity is entirely based upon Christ's consciousness of
Himself, and it is the heroism of faith to rest upon the
extraordinary testimony which this Being gave to Himself. —
1 X F H and K omit it.
8 We translate according to the reading uinBDKTUX and A. T. R.
reads xxi, after X E F G H L and many Mnn.

316 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
The words : as for you, ye know not, do more than state a fact ;
they include also a reproach. For they too, had their minds
been but a little open to receive it, might have known. In
the perfectly holy character manifested in Jesus, every upright
mind may discern the divine nature of His origin as weU as
of His destination. — The disjunctive particle r), nor, in the
second proposition (see the critical note), is more emphatic
than the mere Kai, and, in the first : As for Jesus, He adds
knowledge to knowledge ; hence the and. But as for them,
whether they are questioned on one point or on another, they
will always show the same ignorance ; hence the nor.
Vv. 15, 16. " You judge after the flesh; I judge no one.
And yet if I judge, my judgment is true ; 1 because I am not
alone, but I and the Father that sent me." 2 — The objection
brought forward by the Pharisees, ver. 13, actuaUy con
tained a judgment against the claims of Jesus. By it they
treated Him as an ordinary man, as a sinner hke themselves.
It is this with which Jesus reproaches them in the words ¦
you judge after the flesh. The flesh does not here designate
the veil drawn over the eyes of one who judges falsely,
but rather, according to the article ttjv, the apparent weak
ness of Him who is falsely judged, by reason of which He
is not, at first sight, distinguished from other men. But
the first meaning is naturally included in the second ; for
the Jews, if more spiritually-minded, would certainly have
recognised in Jesus a Being of a higher nature, and would -
have assigned to Him in the midst of humanity a place by
Himself. That superficial appreciation on their part, of
which Jesus found Himself the object, made Him sensible
of the contrast now presented. Wlule these bhnd ones, with
perfect confidence in then own lights, and without taking
counsel with a Higher Intelligence, allowed themselves to judge
Him, He, the Incarnate Light, judged no man in this manner.
Thus they who were ignorant, aUowed themselves to judge,
while He who knew, denied Himself this right. And yet it
cannot be denied that Jesus judged also ; as He declared that
He did in ver. 16. Much pains have been expended in
'T. R., with 12 Mjj. (X r a, etc.) and almost all the Mnn., reads aXuhs.
while B D L T X read xXtituv.
2 X and D omit rxrtip after • «^^c,- pa.

CHAP. VIII. 15, 16. 317
explaining this contradiction. The word : no man, has been
paraphrased as : no man after the flesh (CyrU) ; or : no man as
you judge me (Liicke) ; or : no man, novj, as opposed to the
judgment to come (Augustine, Chrysostom) ; x or again : no
man, with pleasure, with dehght (Tholuck, de Wette). The
passage has been explained : My present office is not to judge,
but to save ; and if I do exceptionally judge, it is only those
who wiU not allow themselves to be saved (Calvin, Beza,
Meyer, Asti£; Luthardt, with slight variations). To judge
is a result of His mission, not its aim. Luthardt : If my
testimony is, through the unbelief with which it is received,
converted into judgment, it is then a true judgment, because
it is exercised in communion with the Father. But the
notion of such exceptional judgments is excluded by the word
ov8iva, no man, of ver. 15 ; and all these explanations seem
to me either to weaken the sense of the expression used, or
to introduce ideas not contained in the text. The solution
reaUy consistent with the context is indicated by Storr in
translating iyd>, I,hy: I alone, and is very clearly shown
by St. John himself in ver. 26. What Jesus blamed the
Jews for was, that they thought themselves competent to
decide upon the person and mission of Jesus by themselves,
without consulting One greater. It was they by themselves
who judged (vueis, you) : As for me, says Jesus, so far as I
am left to myself, reduced to my human individuality, isolated
from my Father, I judge not. We have here the same idea
under a negative, as at ver. 30 under an affirmative form :
As I hear, I judge. The accent is there on the pronoun iyd>,
I, emphasized and placed in relief by its position in the sen
tence ; and this is the reason that Jesus can, without contra
diction, add, ver. 1 6 : and yet if I judge. When He judges,
it is not actuaUy Himself who judges, for He only delivers to
the world the sentence of the Father ; He is not therefore the
author of the sentence, but confines Himself to the announce
ment of what the Father has dictated. — The Received reading,
dXT)dr)<;, is certainly better suited to the context than the Alex.
1 Hilgenfeld, Einleit. p. 728, concludes from this verse that the fourth Gospel
rejects all external judgment, and makes " the reign of the Spirit end directly at
the last day." Such conclusions are arbitrary, and make the writer contradict
himself.

318 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
variation, aXvOiv/j. Jesus does not mean to say that in such
cases the sentence which He dehvers is a real sentence, but
that it is a true one, — that is to say, one fuUy worthy of faith,
— thus returning to the point whence He started, viz. the
truthfulness of His testimony to Himself. In this respect a
question of form was proposed to Him, and He solved it by
recurring to an article of the code :
Vv. 17, 18. " And it is, moreover, written 1 in your law, that
the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness
concerning myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness
of me." — The Mosaic law required at least two or three wit
nesses to make a testimony valid (Deut. xvii. 6, xix. 15).
Jesus declared that He satisfied this rule, because the Father
united His testimony to that which He bore of Himself.
Where the fleshly eye saw but one witness, there were in
reality two. It is usual to refer this testimony of the Father
to miracles, in accordance with v. 36. But ver. 16 sets us
on the road to a far more profound explanation. Jesus was
here describing an inward fact, apphcable both to the judg
ments He pronounced on others and the statements by which
He 'testified to Himself. He was aware that the knowledge
which He possessed of His origin and mission was not based
upon that ordinary phenomenon, of purely psychological
character, phUosophicaUy caUed the fact of consciousness.
He felt that it was in the Ught of God that He contemplated
and knew Himself. He knew, moreover, that the testimony
by which He manifested His inward feeling bore, in the eyes
of aU who had a sense for the perception of Deity, the seal
of this divine attestation.2 In the expression, your law, the
1 X reads ytypxfipoivov urn instead of ytypxwrai.
2 An anecdote may perhaps better explain this saying of Jesus than any com
mentary. About 1660, Hedinger, chaplain to the Duke of Wurtemberg, took
the liberty of censuring his sovereign, at first in private, but afterwards in
public, for a serious fault. The latter, much enraged, sent for him, resolved
to punish him. Hedinger, after seeking strength by prayer, repaired to the
prince, the expression of his countenance betokening the peace of God, and the
feeling of His presence in his heart. The prince, after beholding him for a
time, said : "Hedinger, why did you not come alone, as I commanded you ? " 
" Pardon me, your Highness, I am alone." The duke persisting with increasing
agitation, Hedinger said: "Certainly, your Highness, I came alone; but I
cannot tell whether it has pleased God to send an angel with me." The duke
dismissed him unharmed. The vital communion of this servant of God with his
God was a sensible fact, even to one whom anger had exasperated.

CHAP. VIII. 19. 319
opponents of the genuineness of this Gospel find a proof of the
Gentile origin of its author. M. Reuss, without going so far,
explains it by the spirit of this Gospel, which aims at nothing
less than a lowering and almost a degradation of the old dis
pensation. We have already seen, at the close of ch. v., what
such statements are worth. The fact is, that Jesus, in thus
expressing Himself, simply acted in accordance with the ex
ceptional position which He claimed throughout this whole
section. As He never said our Father, not even when address
ing God in prayer, but my Father or your Father (see xx. 1 7),
because God is not His Father in the sense in which He is
ours, so neither can He say our law, for it would be incom
patible with His dignity to include His relation and that of
the Jews to the Mosaic institutions in a common epithet.
Who does not feel that He could not, without derogating from
that dignity, have said, vii. 19, Did not Moses give us the
law ? Jesus felt Himself infinitely above aU Jewish law,
and even when His submission thereto was complete, His
moral hfe was independent of it. — The word men is not found
in the Hebrew text ; perhaps the contrast between ordinary
men, and the divine character of those two exceptional wit
nesses mentioned ver. 18, may have suggested this addition to
our Lord. It is evident that, under this judicial formula, He
expressed in reahty the same notion as when He spoke, ver.
16, of the inward certainty of His testimony. The idea of
this whole passage is : Since you demand a guarantee of what
I say of myself, I wUl give you one : It is in God that I know
myseh, as it is also in Him that I know and judge you. It is
in virtue of this divine light, which shines within Him, and by
which also He knows others, that He is the light of the world
(ver. 12).
The internal fact to which Jesus referred when He thus
expressed Himself, was certainly not of a nature to be under
stood by all ; hence, —
Ver. 1 9. " Then said they unto Him, Where is thy Father ?
Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father : if you had
known me, you would have known my Father also!' — All these
addresses are of so transcendent a nature, that they seem like
monologues in which Jesus repeatedly grasps the treasures
stored up within Himself, and displays them to us. Could any

320 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
of His disciples, with the exception of St. John, penetrate their
meaning ? And did not even he sometimes recaU them as
enigmas which the future would solve ? How many are there
who now, in this noonday of Christianity, understand what St.
Paul says (Rom. vii. 16) of the inward witness of the Spirit?
Hence the question of the hearers does not, as Reuss affirms,
betray anything which makes it impossible to admit it. Jesus
spoke of a second witness ; but if His testimony is to be re
ceived, He must be seen and heard. How otherwise could
they know that they had not a mere dreamer or impostor to
deal with ? Luthardt says : It is as though they meant to say
that any deceiver could also appeal to God. The meaning then,
as it seems to us, is : If it is God of whom thou art speaking,
let Him make Himself heard ; if it is any one else, let him
be seen. The answer of Jesus signifies that He cannot pos
sibly comply with this demand. God cannot be perceived by
the senses ; and had they possessed the spiritual organ needed
to discern God manifested in Jesus, they would not have
said : Where is He ? Comp. xiv. 1 0.
Ver. 20. " These words spoke Jesus as He taught near the
treasury in tlie, temple ¦} and no one laid hands on Him ; because
His hour was not yet come." — The position occupied by the
words TavTa ra pr]p.aTa, these words, at the beginning of the
sentence, gives them an emphatic meaning : words of such
importance. Even the remembrance of the locality in which
they were uttered remained engraven on the mind of the
evangelist. The term ya%o<pvXd/ciov, treasury, probably desig
nates, by reason of the preposition iv, in, the place in which
were deposited the sums collected for the maintenance of the
temple and all other pious purposes. Mark xii. 14 and
Luke xx. 1 show that even the thirteen trunks or chests
of brass for the reception of the gifts of worshippers were
properly called by this name. These were placed in the
court of the women, and each bore an inscription indicat
ing the use to which the money placed therein was devoted.
It was opposite that destined for the poor that Jesus was
sitting when He saw the widow cast in her mite. Probably
the apartment called the treasury was that in which the
sums collected in these trunks were kept, and was near at
1 X omits iiixrxuv iv ru nfu.

CHAP. VIII. 21, 22. 321
hand. Hence this locality was almost contiguous to the hall
in which the meetings of the Sanhedrim were held, between
the court of the women and the inner court (Keil, Handb.
der bibl. Arch&ol., pt. 1, p. 146, note 13). This latter circum
stance accounts for the importance which the evangehst
attaches to the mention of the locahty. It was, in some sort,
under the eyes and ears of the assembled Sanhedrim (vii.
45-52) that Jesus was teaching when He uttered these say
ings. The words, in the temple, serve to bring out the sacred
character of the place referred to : in the treasury, in the very
midst of the temple at Jerusalem ! The and which follows
evidently acquires the sense of: and nevertheless. If there
was a place in which He was under the hands, and appa
rently at the mercy of His enemies, it was here ; but their
hands were stiU paralysed by their consciences and by public
opinion. 3. It is I. — vhi. 21-29.
Jesus had just applied to Himself two special types which
the feast naturally commemorated. The testimony which
foUows is a more general statement concerning His mission,
and one which recapitulates and completes the two which
precede it.
Vv. 21, 22. "Then said Jesus unto them again} I go my
way, and ye shall seek me, and ye shall die in your sin :
whither I go, ye -cannot come. Then said the Jews, Will he
hill himself? for he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come." —
The then seems to refer to the liberty which Jesus continued
to enjoy (ver. 20), notwithstanding His preceding declarations.
There is nothing to prevent our admitting that this fresh
testimony was dehvered during the same day, the last and
great day of the feast. This supposition is also in accord
ance with the grave and solemn tone of the following dis
course. It was the last time that Jesus was present in the
midst of His assembled people, before that feast at which He
was to shed His blood for them. When to-morrow should
come, this multitude would have dispersed to aU parts of the
world. ' X : iXiyit out instead of writ out ¦rxXit.
GODET II. X JOHN.

322 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Ver. 21 warns His hearers of the importance of this hour.
Jesus, and in Him the Messiah, wUl be with them but a httle
longer. When once their rejection of Him is consummated,
heaven, to which He is about to return, wUl be closed against
them, and perdition alone wUl remain. This declaration is a
more emphatic repetition of vii. 33, 34. The seeking of the
Jews, as Meyer says, is not the seeking of faith ; it wiU be
but a desire for external dehverance. 'Ev tj) dpiapTia. vpimv,
in your sin, indicates the state of internal depravity, and con
sequently of condemnation, in which death wUl surprise them,
and from which Jesus alone could have delivered them.
Hengstenberg and others translate : by your sins, a rendering
Of iv which is possible, but not so suitable to the plural
dpMpTiai, which we have, ver. 24, in a saying exactly resembhng
this. Sin here means the departure of the heart from God,
general alienation from Him, and in ver. 24 the particular
manifestations of such a disposition. In xiii. 33, Jesus speaks
to the apostles of the impossibility of foUowing Him, in the
same terms as in the end of this verse ; but for them this
impossibility wUl be but temporary (dpn, at this time), for
He wiU return to fetch them, xiv. 6. For the Jews, on the
contrary, there wiU be no longer a bridge between earth and
heaven; their separation wiU be consummated by then rejec
tion of Him, without whom no man cometh to the Father
(xiv. 6). — The Jews, on then part, and as if they desired in
some sort to retaliate, went beyond the answer they had given
to His former statement, vii. 35. Then they ridiculed Him
as the Messiah of the heathen ; now they stigmatize Him as
that of the dead. Certainly, they say, if it is to Hades that
thou art going, we have no desire to foUow thee there. This
banter need not be explained by the notion, that a peculiar
penalty awaited in Hades those who deprived themselves of
life (Josephus, Bell. jud. ih. 8. 5). — The imperf. eXeyov,
said, indicates that in these discussions of the Jews with
Jesus they persevered in the objections which they brought
forward. Vv. 23-25. "And He said1 unto them, Ye are from beneath;
I am from above : ye are of this world ; I am not of this world.
Therefore said I unto you, that you shall die in your sins : for
1 X B D L T and X have tXtyiv instead of usriv.

CHAP. VIII. 23-25. 323
if ye believe 1 not that I am . . . you shall die in your sins.
They said then unto Him, Who art thou ? Jesus saith2 unto
them, Exactly what I also declare unto you." — An abyss sepa
rates heaven, life in God, the home of Jesus, and earth, the
life of this world, the natural and moral home of the Jews ;
and faith in Jesus could alone have bridged over this abyss
(ver. 24). The parallelism between the expressions, from
beneath and of this world (ver. 2 3), does not allow us (as we
formerly thought) to include in the former the notion of
Hades (ver. 22). The terms, from beneath and from above,
designate only oppositeness of origin and nature ; the second
antithesis : of this world and not of this world, adds to this
natural contrast that of moral disposition. Neither can be
surmounted and reconcUed but by faith. The world signifies
human hfe, as constituted independently of, and consequently
in opposition to, the wiU of God. The negative form : I am
not of this world, forcibly expresses the repugnance with which
this whole system of human life, destitute of the divine afflatus,
inspires Him.
Hence their perdition is, if they refuse to embrace Him,
certain, since He alone could have raised them to heaven
(ver. 24). The short proposition by which Jesus formulates
the contents of faith, if you believe not that I am, is remark
able by reason of the absence of any attribute. The whole
attention is thus fixed^ponTEe~subjectTe7w, I. I, and none
other. According to what precedes, the unexpressed attribute
is: He whom you seek and expect, He who alone can dehver you
from condemnation, and raise you to heaven ; or, in its ultimate
analysis, the idea of the Messiah. Many derive the attribute.
from the verb, and interpret, according to Ex. iii. 14 : " that I
am that I am;"' but this assimilation is authorized neither by
the expression itself nor by the context. Hengstenberg, with
more reason, compares the expression with Deut. xxxii. 39 :
See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me
(LXX. : 'l8eTe on iym etui) ; and Isa. xliii. 10:" that ye may
understand that I am He." In both these sayings the under
stood attribute is evidently : God, the true, the only God, afT
thatyou rnean~wheh~you utter this word, and consequently
1 X and D read paoi after orio-rtuftirs,
2 X and D. read out after unit.

324 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
He in whom is found the complete satisfaction of aU your
desires. The saying of Jesus has essentiaUy the same mean
ing, and but for His consciousness of Deity it would be
utterly incomprehensible that He should have appropriated to
Himself a formula which was, so to speak, the Old Testament
sign-manual of Jehovah.
By thus expressing Himself, Jesus evidently declared Him
self to be the expected One. He avoided, however, the term
li^essiah, asjsubject to too much misunderstanding among the
Jews. "It was, however, just this term which His hearers
desired to extor^ from Him, and it was with this object that
they asked the question: Who art thou? In other words:
Have at last the courage to speak out plainly. In fact, an
express declaration on this point might have furnished them
matter for a capital accusation. The answer of Jesus is one
of the passages in this Gospel which has been the subject of
a large amount of controversy. Interpretations range under
twjj chief classes: 1st. Those which give to apx^h^egvhning^~
a temporal meaning. Some of these take the sentence in an
affirmative sense : What I said to you from the beginning of
my teaching (Tholuck and others), or : I am from the begin
ning, from eternity, what I declare myself to be (Cyr., Fritzsche,
Hengstenberg, etc.). But, in the first case, the inversion of
tt)v dpxijv is very harsh, and the perf. XeXdXr)Ka would have
suited better than the presJAaXw. In the second, the mean
ing of dpxn would have been utterly impenetrable to the
hearers of Jesus, and instead of the term Xa\<3, which bears
only on the form, we should have required X4ya>, which refers
to the contents. Lastly, in both cases, the expression e£ apx?)?,
or air' apx^, would have been clearer. Others give an inter
rogative turn to the phrase — e.g. Meyer : What I teach you
concerning myself from the beginning ? (is that what you want
to know ?). But He was asked who He was, not what He
taught, and the /cat, even, with XaXw, is thus deprived of any
value. — 2d. Those which give to dpxr) a logical, and to tt)v
dpxtfv the adverbial meaning : above all, or absolutely. Un
doubtedly this use of the word is unexampled in New Test.,
though frequent in classical Greek. Luthardt: Above all,
what I declare unto you ; whence it results, that if you wish to
know who I am, you have only to begin by well weighing my

CHAP. VIII. 23-25. 325
testimony concerning my person. This meaning is good ; but
this above all would allude to some other subsequent means
of knowing Him which is left uncertain. Liicke : In general,
how happens it (why is it that) I again speak with you ?
But the thought is vacant in itself, and relates neither to what
precedes nor foUows. The meaning which seems to me most
probable is that defended by Winer in his Gi-ammar of the
N. T. (§ 54. 1) : Absolutely, what I also declare to you. In
other words : What am I ? Neither more nor_ jfiss_ than_..
¦jjiywords imply. He appeals to His own testimony as the
adequate-expression of His nature. They have only to fathom
the series of statements He has made concerning Himself, and
they wUl find therein a complete analysis of His mission and
essence. This meaning completeby aocpunts for — 1, the pro
minent position of the wotcTt^ apx^v; 2, the choice of the
pronoun 6 n, whatever : whatever I may have told you ; 3,
the particle /cat, also, which expressly brings out the identity
between His nature and His words ; 4, the use of the verb
XaXeiv, to declare, instead of X4yeiv, to say, to teach; for
Jesus here lays stress upon the identity of the form (the
speaking) with the matter (the being) ; and lastly, 5, the pre
sent tense of the verb, for His testimony has not yet come to
an end. It may certainly be objected that ttjv dpxvv has
this meaning only in negative propositions. But the sense of
this proposition is essentially negative : Who am I ? Abso
lutely none other^han^_announ.ce_myself to be. Besides,
strictly classical diction is not to be expected "from the N. T.
— We omit a host of explanations which are either only varia
tions of these leading ones, or too entirely differ from them to
be taken into consideration.
The application of this reply of Jesus was that, to discover
His true nature and the position He fiUed towards Israel and
the world, it was sufficient to weigh the testimony which He
had for some time borne to Himself. Neither more nor less '
was to be expected from Him than He Himself stated. In
this manner He would be successively recognised as the true
temple (ch. ii.), the living water (ch. iv.), the true Son of God
(ch. v.), the bread of heaven (ch. vi.), etc. And thus His
name of the Christ would be in some sort spelt out letter by
letter in the heart of the behever, would there take the form

326 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
of a spontaneous discovery, which would be infinitely more
advantageous than if learnt by rote under external teaching.
In fact, the confession : " Thou art the Christ," to be a saving
one, must be, as with St. Peter (vi. 66-69), the fruit of
the experience of faith. Comp. Matt. xvi. 17:" Flesh and
blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is
in heaven." Such was the source of the homage at the
triumphal entry, and Jesus never either sought or accepted an
adherence arising from any other principle. This reply is one
of the most characteristic traits of our Lord's wisdom, and
perfectly explains why He so frequently, according to the
Synoptists, forbade the Twelve to say that He was the Christ.
Vv. 26,27. "I have many things to say and to judge of you :
but He that sent me is true ; and what I have heard of Him} that
speak 2 I to the world. They understood not that He spake to
them of the Father." 3 — Many ancient and modern expositors
closely connect this verse with the preceding, by making the
words on /cal XaXm vpiiv an inserted proposition, and "ifclxXa
h'X<» the continuation of the proposition begun by tt)v
dpXW (so Bengel, Hofmann, and Baumlein) : at present,
undoubtedly, I have yet — as I am also doing — much to say to
you. But this meaning of ttjv dpx^v is useless, and so is the
inserted proposition. Ver. 26 does not continue the thought
of ver. 2 5, but resumes from ver. 247ver7"2"J> being~occasioned_
by^ahlnterrupciohr'on'the part of the hearers. " Jesus had, in
vv^~21^247 spoken severely of the moral condition of the
people, and continues, ver. 26:1 have many more (troXXd at
the beginning of the phrase) of these statements (XaXeti/) and
of these sentences (icpiveiv) to pronounce concerning you. But,
He adds, however painful this mission may be to me, I cannot
dispense with fulfilling it. For He who dictates my message
is The Truth, and I am in this world only to declare to it what
He reveals to me. The context thus understood is so clear,
that I feel I may dispense with enumerating the different
explanations given by Liicke, de Wette, Meyer, etc. The
latter finds in these words the foUowing contrast : Though I
reveal many things, I nevertheless reveal but a part. But the
1 X reads orxp xuru instead of w«/ xurou.
2 The Mss. are divided between Xiyu (E F G, etc.) and XxXu (A B D, etc.).
3 X D, 3 Mnn. If1"'''"" and Vg. add rot dov at the end of the verse.

CHAP. VIII. 28, 29. 327
real antithesis is : I declare many things in vain, but they
are none the less true.
Criticism declares the want of intelligence, mentioned ver.
27, as exhibited by the Jews impossible. We cannot adopt
the expedient of Meyer, who thinks that the persons here
spoken of were new hearers who had not been present at the
preceding discourses. It must, however, be- remarked, that so
far Jesus had spoken solely of Him who had sent Him, with
out uttering either the word God or the Father. Now, even
supposing His usual adversaries were incapable of mistaking
the meaning of His words, might not the crowd composing His
audience, when they heard Him speak mysteriously of "Him
who had sent Him" think of some other being than God Himself,
e.g. of one of those Messianic prophets of whom a considerable
number was expected, and with whom Jesus might be secretly
in relation, as the Messiah was to be with Elijah before His
manifestation ? For ' what strange misconceptions are attri
buted by the Synoptists to the apostles themselves ! After
eighteen centuries of Christianity, many things in the dis
courses of Jesus appear plain to us, which, by their very
novelty and the opposition they encountered from inveterate
prejudices, must have seemed extremely strange to the greater
number of our Lord's hearers. Undoubtedly, their minds
would have been more awake if then hearts had been better
disposed. With this want of intelligence in His hearers, Jesus con
trasts the broad light which wiU exist concerning Himself and
His mission, subsequently to the great national crime they
were about to commit.
Vv. 28, 29. "Jesus then said unto them} When you have
lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am, and
that I do nothing of myself ; but as my 2 Father hath taught me,
so3 1 speak ; and that He who sent me is with me. The Father *
hath not left me alone ; because I do always those things which
please Him." — The use of the second person : you shall have,
shows that the lifting up of the Son of man refers first of all
1 B L T omit xurois after unit. X D add orxXiv,
2 Mou is omitted by X D L T X and ItPleri"".
3 X : ourots instead of rxurx.
4XBDLTX, 5 Mnn. ItP1"1""' Vg. and Cop. omit o *xr*if after /ton,.

328 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
to the death of the cross. But Jesus could not hope that the
cross would of itself cause the scales to fall from the eyes of
the Jews, and extort from them the admission : it is He ! It
could only produce this effect in so far as it became a step
ping-stone to the throne and the passage to glory. The word,
to lift up, in this verse contains the same amphibology as in
ih. 14, and the second person plural thus acquires a decided
tinge of irony : " When you shall, by putting me to death,
have raised me to the throne." The term, Son of man, recalls
that humble appearance which was the true cause of His
rejection. The conviction here predicted took place in the
conscience of all the Jews without exception, when, after
the sending of the Holy Spirit, the perfectly holy and divine
nature of His person, work, and teaching was manifested in
Israel by the preaching of the apostles and the existence of
the church. Misunderstanding will then be over for all,
whether they wiU or not, and its place will be taken in some
by faith, in others by wUful obduracy. This conviction con
tinues to be effected in Israel by the sight of the church's
development, and wiU end in the final conversion of the
nation, when they shall cry with one voice : " Blessed is He
that cometh in the name of tlie Lord " (Luke xiii. 3 5). What
calm dignity, what serene majesty, is expressed in the words :
" Then shall ye know . . . !" They recall, as Hengstenberg
observes, those solemn and threatening declarations of Jehovah :
" Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity . . . ;
and ye shall know that I am the Lord," Ezek. vii. 4. Comp.
the same formula, Ezek. xi. 10, xii. 20; Ex. x. 2, etc. The
presence of God in Him who thus spoke was more than
confirmed, it made itself directly felt to every genuine Jew.
Some expositors consider that St. John ought to have written
ovTms instead of Tama, and that we have here a slight in-
accuracy. But the thought is : and I declare these things
(raOra) agreeably with (icaddx;) the teaching which I have
received from the Father ; and the expression is perfectly cor
rect. — It seems to me that the end of the verse, from oti$
and even the beginning of ver. 29, depend upon yvmaeo-de, you
shall know. Jesus here returns to His, former statements, and!
reiterates them as the anticipated matter of that future pre
dicted conviction : that I am He ; comp. v. 24 : that I do and

CHAP. VIII. 28, 29. 329
teach nothing of myself ; comp. vh. 16, 17 : that the Father is
with me (and that we are reaUy two); comp. viii. 16, 18.
This verse, then, signifies : you will yourselves then say amen
to all the statements which you to-day reject. While con
fronting that present which is escaping Him, He confidently-
grasps the_future, for the Fatheris with Him, L Thus does this
solemn verse seal all those preceding discourses, by which the
last and great jlay of jthejfeast hasjbeen made hlustrious.
The" close of ver. 29 ("the Father hathTnot leffrnlTaTone")
has been generally regarded (as by Tholuck, Liicke, etc.) as a
consolation addressed by Jesus to Himself: You may forsake
me, but God will forsake neither me nor my cause. But-thj3Sg_
last words are too, naturally connected with jhose jwhkh im-
medialelyprecede them : And He that sent me is with me,
to make ^'~"pl5ssible~ thus to isolate them, by attributing to
them an entirely different end. Jesus is merely justifying
the idea of His constant communion with the Father (29a)
by the fact of His own fidelity, which is its condition. One
feels tempted to take the words owe dffiice as meaning : When
the Father sent me, He did not let me come below alone, but
was Himself pleased to accompany me. This would be the
most simple, sense of the aorist d<pf}ice ; but then how should
we understand the words : because I do always those things
that please Him, which foUow ? Hengstenberg has recourse
to the divine foreknowledge : He hath not suffered me to come
alone, knowing that I should always be faithful to Him in all
things. But it is simpler to understand the aorist d^rjice in
the sense in which it is used Acts xiv. 1 7 : God left not Him
self without witness; God has not at any moment of my career
left me to walk alone, because I do at every moment that
which pleases Him. If Jesus had for one single instant
acted or spoken of Himself, that instant would have been the
signal of a rupture, for God would have departed from Him
the moment, and in the proportion, that a will of His own had
been forme"d4within Him ; for it was His voluntary and com
plete dependence which was the constant condition of the
Father's presence. x. 17 and xv. 10 express the same
thought. — Td dpeo-Ta axiTm, the things pleasing to Him, desig
nate the will of the Father, not from the point of view
afforded by the letter of any code, but in its most spiritual

330 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
and inward property. This saying shows that not only was
Jesus conscious pf never having committed the shghtest posi
tive sin, but also of never having omitted the smaUest good,
either in thought or deed.
The tendency of our Lord's first discourses, from the time of
His arrival at the feast, had been apologetic, and this was also
the character of this last saying, in which, with noble candour,
He bore testimony to the irreproachable purity of His whole
hfe in the sight of God Himself.

*B

4. I and you. — viii. 30-59.
Jesus had, in His second discourse (w. 12—20), attributed
to HimseU two modes of teaching, — testimony, by which He
revealed His nature and origin ; and judgment, by which He
disclosed the moral condition of His hearers. In the ensuing
paragraph, both these forms attain their highest degree of
force and solemnity : / have many things to say and to judge of
you, were His words, ver. 2 6 ; and it is in the first two para
graphs of this discourse that we meet with those more severe
sentences which Jesus had reserved for a favourable opportunity:
1st. Israel is the slave of sin, xv- 30-36 ; 2d. The devU is his
spiritual father, vv. 37-47. Then the testimony of Jesus to
Himself caUed forth by the insults of His hearers rises to its
chmax : 3d. Jesus destroys death, w. 48—53; and 4th. He
is before Abraham was, vv. 54—59.
1st. Vv. 30-36. The bondage of IsraeL
Vv. 30-32. "As Jesus spoke these words, many believed on
Him. Then said Jesus to those Jews who had become believing,
If ye continue stedfast in my word, you shall be truly my dis
ciples ; and you sliall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free." — The term believed is undoubtedly used to designate
an inclination, openly expressed, to acknowledge Jesus as the
Messiah. Among this somewhat considerable number of
believers were perhaps included several members of the San
hedrim, for we are told, xii. 42, Many of the rulers believed in
Him. They certainly perceived that there was something
more than an empty boast in the words Jesus had just uttered.
But equaUy undazzled by this apparent success as He had
been by the confession of Nicodemus (hi. 1, 2), and the

CHAP. VIII. 30-32. 331
enthusiasm of the GalUean multitude (vi. 14, 15), instead of
treating these new behevers as converts, He forthwith puts
them to the proof by addressing to them a promise which,
notwithstanding its greatness, is under one aspect profoundly
humiliating. It is thus that Jesus frequently acts, disclosing,
in response to homage offered to Himself, stiU deeper treasures
of divine truth. Then those whose faith is but superficial
take offence at the hohness of this new revelation ; while
those whose conscience has been struck, persevere and pene
trate more deeply into the nature of things. — The particle
then, ver. 31, summarizes the connection of ideas which we
have been developing.
This new scene could hardly have taken place on the same
day as those which preceded it. Ver. 3 1 may be most naturaUy
explained by admitting that such pUgrims from distant parts
as believed in Him had departed the day after the close of
the festival, and that from that time Jesus was surrounded
only by beheving hearers, who had tiU now belonged to the
Jewish party. At first sight we feel surprised to meet with such a
combination of words as Jews who believed in this Gospel. But
this contradictio in adjecto is intentional on the part of the
author, and even furnishes the key to the passage which
foUows. For these behevers were still essentiaUy Jews, and
continued to share the Messianic aspirations of their nation ;
but were disposed to see in Jesus the man whose mission it
was to satisfy them. Their state of mind was very nearly that
of the Gahlean crowds before, ch. vi. ; and the violent crisis
which soon took place in Judea is analogous with the severe
test previously employed by our Lord among His Gahlean
adherents. What leader of a party, what man actuated by
interested motives, ever acted thus ? In our translation we
have not rendered the pronoun avrm (in him), preferring to
give the sense of the participle perfect ireTTio-TevicoTes (having
become believing).
The nature of the promise made by Jesus, w. 31 and 32,
was admirably adapted to the end He had in view. He knew
that dehverance from . the Roman yoke was the great work
expected of the Messiah. He therefore spiritualized this hope,
and presented it under this more exalted form to the hearts
of these new behevers. — 'Tpiefc, you, as opposed to the multi-

332 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
tude. — The expression, to continue stedfast in, includes the
notion of perseverance. Jesus gave them to understand that
their new-born faith would find obstacles to contend with,
that His word would encounter in theh own hearts inveterate
prejudices, against which its power might fan, and that hence
they were in serious danger of relapsing into unbehef. — By
the image, to continue in, the word of Jesus is compared to a
fertile soil, in which true faith, if it is to grow and bear fruit,
must ever take deeper and deeper root. — Kat (ver. 32) : and
on this condition; this is a more far-reaching promise than
that of ver. 3 1 ; from that very moment they are (eor£,
present, you are), if they persevere, disciples, and so continuing,
they shaU one day attain to greater Ulumination, which shaU
complete in them the work of moral liberation. There is
here an allusion to the gift of the Spirit (vii. 38, 39). — The
truth is the full revelation of the true nature of things — that
is to say, of the sacred character of the relations between God
and man as a moral being, and consequently of salvation. It
is contained entire in the word of Jesus, and wiU be dis
closed to these new behevers when a higher hght shaU enable
them to penetrate to the true meaning of this word. And thus
they shall be delivered, not from a foreign pohtical power, but
from the inward power of sin. On what, then, is the empire of
sin in the human heart reaUy based? Upon a fascination.
Let truth shine into the heart, and the speU is broken ; the
wiU becomes disgusted with that which seduced it, and, to
use the words of the Psalmist, " the bird escapes out of the
snare of the fowler." This is the true deliverance which the
Messiah comes to effect; if there is to be another and an
external one, it will be but the complement of this.
Vv. 33, 34. " They answered Him, We be Abraham's seed,
and were never in bondage to any man : how say est thou, Ye
shall become free ? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, that whosoever committeth sin is a slave (of sin)." 1 —
Who, then, are they who thus question and are thus answered
by our Lord ? According to most modern expositors, they
cannot be the believing Jews of ver. 30. For how could
Jesus have reproached them, ver. 37, for seeking to put Him
to death, and have subsequently called them chhdren of the
D b OQlit rr,i (tfxap?iaf.

CHAP. VIII. 33, 34. 333
devil? To meet this difficulty, Liicke regards vv. 30-32 as
parenthetical, and connects ver. 33 with the preceding dialogue
(ver. 29). Luthardt attempts a compromise, and thinks that
among the group of well-affected persons by whom Jesus was
surrounded, and who had just been spoken of, there were also
some of His opponents ; that these, having at this moment
pressed to the front, were the spokesmen, and that to them
Jesus more specially addressed Himself from ver. 37. But in
either of these cases we should have to admit that the narra
tive of St. John is singularly inaccurate. - It is impossible,
when reading ver. 33, to suppose any other subject than the
behevers of vv. 30—32 ; and we shall see that the last words
of ver. 37 equally forbid any other apphcation. Xet us then
consider our text somewhat more closely, for certainly this
strange combination, Jews who believed, is not used without a
purpose by the evangehst. In fact, we find in these people
two natures, the nascent believer and the old Jew, still active;
to the former Jesus addresses the glorious promise, vv. 3 1 and
32, by which the latter feels injured, and hastens to reply.
Hence they soon faU back into solidarity with their nation, from
which they had but temporarily and superficiaUy separated
themselves. A commentary on the whole passage is furnished
by ii. 23, 24 : "In Jerusalem many believed in His name. . . .
But Jesus did not trust in them." He discerned beneath the
belief of the moment that old Judaic basis which was as yet
neither transformed nor even seriously attacked, and which
would not faU soon to stumble at His word. An experience
similar to that described by St. Paul, Rom. vii., the agony of
an earnest but- impotent struggle against sin, would have been
needed in their case, before the promise uttered by Jesus
could evoke a responsive vibration in their hearts. But they
had felt nothing of the kind, and consequently their faith could
be of no long duration. This Jesus foresaw when He said :
If you continue stedfast in my word, and added : then shall
ye be my disciples indeed. Far from finding confusion in the
narrative of St. John, we can but admire the delicacy and
nice discrimination of his style.
The bondage which the hearers of Jesus denied could not
have been of a political nature. For were not their fathers
bondmen in Egypt, subjected to all kinds of nations in the

334 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
time of the Judges, and afterwards captives under the sway
of the Chaldeans and Persians ? Nay, were they not them
selves at that very moment under the yoke of Rome ? It is
impossible to conceive them so blinded by national pride as
to forget facts so patent as these (as de Wette and Meyer
suppose). The explanation of Hengstenberg and Luthardt,
who refer this saying solely to the spiritual autonomy and
religious pre-eminence above aU other nations which the Jews
attributed to themselves, is stiU more forced. — Vv. 35, 36
clearly prove that the hearers of Jesus were here thinking of
neither their national independence nor their spiritual superi
ority, but of the civil and consequently individual liberty which
they as Jews enjoyed. This easUy explains the relation be
tween the two assertions of ver. 33 : we are Abraham's seed,
and were never in bondage. With the exception of a single
case, which was speciaUy foreseen, the law forbade the con
dition of slavery with regard to members of the Israehte com
munity. It was thus a very rare occurrence for a Jew to
be reduced to the condition of a slave. For the most part,
the dignity of freedom shone on the brow of aU who bore the
name of the seed of Abraham. These Jews had found no
difficulty in understanding that the deliverance promised by
Jesus was no liberation from the Roman dominion, for in this
case what could have been the meaning of the expression :
the truth shall make you free? Such words could point only
to a dehverance of a moral and purely individual nature.
Now, as, besides theh national dependence, they knew of no
other servitude than civU or personal bondage, they, assuming
that Jesus had addressed them as slaves, protested against it.
Thus they changed a glorious promise into an insult, " and
lo ! " as Stier says, " their faith had already come to an end,"
— a faith which we now plainly see Jesus was right in not
trusting. The genitive tt}? dp,apTla,<;, of sin, omitted by the Cantabri-
giensis and an important document of the Itala, seems tb be a
gloss. Without this complement the sense would be : he is
a slave (in the house of God). Fear and servility characterize
his relation to God. This meaning perfectly combines with
what feUows, where servitude, with respect not to sin but to
God, is spoken of. With this reading, then, the sense is :

CHAP. VIII. 35, 36. 335

whatever you may think him, such an one is truly a
If, however, we retain, with most authorities, the comple
ment, of sin, we must admit that the reply of Jesus has rather
a moral than a logical character. It is to the conscience that
he says : He who commits sin has truly a master, and this
master is sin itself. In fact, sin most frequently hurries the
sinner whither he would not, and at last confiscates his very
wiU. The passage Rom. vi. 16-18 presents an idea analo
gous to that of this verse thus understood. — -The pres. part.
ttoiwv, who commits sin, unites the two notions of act and
state ; and the genitive TJ75 dpiapna^, if retained, brings out
strongly the degrading character of the alleged servitude.
Vv. 35, 36. "The slave abideth not for ever in the house:
the son abideth ever} If then the Son shall make you free, ye
shall be truly free!' — If we read the words TJ75 d/tapnas, of sin,
at ver. 34, the transition from ver. 34 to 35 is incomprehen
sible, unless we admit that there is here a fresh apphcation of
the notion of a slave. For while in ver. 34 the master was
sin, in w. 35, 36 it is God, or Christ acting in His house as
His representative. The introduction of this modification in
the notion of moral slavery is undoubtedly admissible, and
may be explained by the idea that the slave of sin becomes
by that very fact a slave with respect to God, — an idea which
lies at the basis of St. Paul's Epistles. For even were such
an one a member of the theocracy, he would only fiU a ser
vile position therein ; ruled as he is by sin, that tyrant whose
wiU is opposed to that of the Master of the house, he could
render to the latter only a forced obedience. AovXevm trot, I
serve thee, says the elder son to his father in the parable of
the prodigal son (Luke xv. 29). It is in vain that such a
man bears the name of son ; for in his relation to God he is
in truth a slave. The connection is, however, far simpler
when the complement, of sin, ver. 34, is omitted. He who
commits sin is a slave (with respect to God). Now, such a
moral condition cannot ensure a man a permanent abode in
the house of God. For, being inwardly an alien from the
Father of the family, he is no true member of the latter.
" He only remains in the house so long as the master chooses
1 X X and r omit the words 0 mos ptxtu us rov xiuvx (a confusion of the two us
rot motx).

336 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
to make use of him." — When opposed to this term slave, the
title son seems at the first glance to have an abstract sense,
and to designate a quality instead of the person of the Son
of God. But ver. 36 obliges us to give the concrete sense to
the term Son in ver. 35. In the case in question, indeed,
the species and the individual are mingled. In fact, Jesus
takes the image He here uses from a house in which there is
but one son, who sums up in himself the entire gens; and
thus the term son becomes the personal title of Jesus, and
.applies in reality to Him alone. — The passage Gal. iv. 21-31
seems to be only a development of this saying of our Lord.
Comp. also the distance of the eldest son from his father's
house in the parable of the prodigal son.
Hence the Jew, so far as he is the servant of sin, has only
the position of a slave, and consequently a transitory place in
the theocracy ; and the hearers of Jesus, good Jews as they
were, needed to be moraUy enfranchised by the Son if they
would be permanent members of the house of God. Ver. 36
formulates this conclusion, and thus completes the demonstra
tion of the statement of vv. 31, 32. — It is the right of the
son, as the representative of the family and heir of the
patrimony, to pronounce the enfranchisement of the slave, and
to raise him to the rank of a member of the famUy. Jesus,
because He is The Truth living among men, and because truth
only shines upon them through His word, here substitutes
His own person for that truth of which He said, ver. 32, it
shall make you, free ; His word is therefore to the behever what
the formula of his manumission was to the slave. It makes
a free man of him, by dispeUing the delusive prestige on which
the empire of sin is based. In the word truly there is an
allusion to the false pretensions of the Jews, ver. 33. — This
promise is reproduced almost literally by St. Paul, Rom. viii. 2 :
Tlie law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus lias made me free
(f)Xevdepm<r4 p,e) from the law of sin and death.
Jesus, having answered the second assertion of ver. 33:
we were never in bondage, now proceeds to attack the first :
we are Abraham's seed, on which it was based, by showing
the true origin, i.e. the moral parentage, of the individuals
before Him. It is this which forms the subject of the second
passage.

CnAP. VIII. 37, 38. 337
2d. Vv. 37-47. The spiritual origin of Israel.
Vv. 37, 38. " I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye
seek to kill me, because my word does not advance in you. As
for me, I speak that which 1 I have seen with the Father ; 2 and
you, , you do the things which 3 you have heard from your
father." 4 — Jesus does not deny the authenticity of those
civil registers in virtue of which His hearers assert their
descent from Abraham, but alleges a moral fact which anni
hilates the worth of this physical affiliation in the sphere of
things divine. This is exactly the same polemical method
used by John the Baptist, Matt, hi., and St. Paul, Rom. ix.
and Gal. iii. — The last words of ver. 37 : ye seek to kill me,
have been especiaUy appealed to, to prove that this whole
discourse could not have been addressed to Jews who believed
(ver. 31). But such a reproach might be directed against
them, as still forming a part of that Israelite community
which was increasingly desirous to get rid of Jesus, and that
for the very purpose of urging them to break the last tie of
moral solidarity with a people animated by such a disposi
tion. — Unfortunately, Jesus could at that time not faU to
perceive that an opposite tendency was prevailing among
them, and that they were again plunging yet more deeply
into the midst of that national life from which they had
apparently begun to free themselves. " My word," He says,
" does not advance in you." The word xwPe^v ^as ^wo prin
cipal meanings : one transitive, to contain (ii. 6), — a sense
inapplicable here ; the other intransitive, to change place, to
advance. This verb is, in this latter sense, applied to water
flowing, to a dart piercing, to a plant growing, to one body
penetrating another, to money invested and paying interest.
Starting from this intransitive meaning, many have explained :
has not changed place (to display itself) in you. But in this
1 X B C D L X Or., some Mnn., and Cop. read x instead of o, which is the
reading of T. R., with EFGHKMST"UrAA, Mnn. It. and Syr.
2 B C L T X Or. omit ptou, which is the reading of T. R., after the other Mss.
and almost all the Vss.
3 X B C D K X (not L) read x in the second proposition. T. R., with the
others, reads o.
4 B C K L X, 15 Mnn. Cop. Or. (frequently) read nxouo-xn irxpx rou irxrpos ;
T. R., with X D E F G, etc., If1'"""', etc. : tupxxxn nxpx ™ vxrpi.— B L T
omit upiut after rou trxrpos.
GODET II. T JOHN.

338 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
case we should lose the notion of movement which is inherent
in the term. Or it has been translated : " has no entrance, no
access among you" (Ostervald, RiUiet, etc.). But then we
should expect the regimen et? u/wi? rather than iv vpZv.
Besides, this sense would not apply to those who had mani
fested an incipient belief. We must then (with Meyer)
understand : does not advance within you. The word of Christ,
as facts aheady proved (comp. ver. 33), met with the same
national prejudices in them as in theh compatriots. From
the first it came into collision with that Jewish heart which
they had not yet cast aside, and met with the fate of seed
faUing on rocky ground, which perishes after beginning to
germinate. Theh conscience having never undergone any
serious travah, they were incapable of rising to that spiritual
intuition of divine things whence the word of Jesus emanated.
This was the reason that He, from the beginning, put them
on guard against themselves, and said : If ye continue. Thus
we see how it was that, in view of a defection the beginning
of which He already discerned, He could say : You seek to
kill me, just as He said to Nicodemus : You do not believe.
By such words He would either force them to consummate
theh rupture with the Jewish party, or would Himself break
with them.
Thus we find that there is neither inconsistency nor inac
curacy in the narrative, and that to those who wiU look
beneath the surface, and judge of the facts from the point of
view of Jesus, and of John himself, everything is perfectly
connected and completely accounted for.
In ver. 38, Jesus explains the resistance which His word
meets with in them by theh moral lineage, which was of a
nature opposed to His. For, speaking as He does, He obeys
the principle by which He is governed ; and they, in acting
as they do, are the instruments of the power by which they
are subjugated. — To decide between the numerous various
readings presented by the text of this verse, we naturaUy
start from the principle, that copyists would seek rather to
make the two paraUel propositions conformable to each other,
than to introduce differences. If we apply this rule, we shall
arrive at just the text, viz. that of the Ms. K, which actuaUy
presents the best intrinsic meaning. This text of K is that

CHAP. VIII. 37, 38. 339
which we have — with the exception of the pronoun p,ov,
which, on the same principle, should perhaps be omitted in
the first proposition — foUowed in the translation.1 — The ex
pression : what I have seen with the Father, does not refer, as
Meyer and others think, to our Lord's state of divine pre-
existence, the paraUel proposition : what you have heard from
your Father, excluding this apphcation. It is a fact of incal
culable moment in man's moral life which is here in question.
Behind the particular acts of each man there hes concealed a
permanent basis, and, if I may be aUowed the expression, a
mysterious anteriority. The human hfe in each of us is in
communication with infinity- — an infinity of good or of evil,
of light or of darkness — which opens up within us, and mani
fests itself in our works (whether words or acts). This is the
fact which Jesus here represents under the figure of the
paternal home, whence we come forth, and whence, as a son
in his father's house, we derived our habits : It is easy to see
from my words and your deeds from what home you and I re
spectively come. But this is not aU : at the foundation of
both this infinite good and this infinite evil with which man
is in constant relation, and of which he becomes the instru
ment, Jesus discerned a personal principle, an inteUigent and
free wiU, the father of the fanriTy, who governs the whole
household : my Father, your father. From this father the
initiative arises, from him emanate all impulses. But it is
just because the prime mover is by nature personal, and not
fatal, that the state of dependence in which man finds himself
with respect thereto is also free and voluntary. Jesus faith-
fuUy cultivates communion with the Father : hence He finds
in this relation the initiative of aU good (what I have seen
and what 7" am seeing, perf). The Jews cultivate their in
ward relation to the opposite wiU, to the other father ; hence
they are constantly receiving from him impulses to aU kinds
of impious works (what you have heard — aorist : a series of
particular impulses from their father).
The then which unites the two paraUel propositions has
certainly, as Meyer perceives, a tinge of irony : In doing evU
you are consistent with your principle, as I am with mine in
1 Eyu o iuoxxk vxpx ru orxrpt XxXw xxi u/ius out x tixoucxri orxpx rou irxrpof
v/auv vretsri.

340 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
doing good. The omission of the pronoun p.ov after traTpl
characterizes God as the only Father in the true sense of the
word. The sing, pronoun 6, that which, in the first member,
suits perfectly the essential and permanent unity of the
tendency to good, in which there is neither vacUlation nor
contradiction. The plur. a, the things which, is, on the con
trary, characteristic of the capricious inconsistency of diabolic
vohtions. This contrast is also carried out by the perfect
ewpaica and the aorist r)/covcraTe : the former designating one
who is what he is through the fact of having seen ; the latter, a
series of temporary and special inspirations. Nor is the choice
of the two terms, to see (on the part of Jesus), and to hear,
on that of the Jews, less significant. For sight is the symbol
of a clear intuition, such as is only possible in the sphere of
divine light and revelation : " It is in Thy light that we see
clearly" (Ps. xxxvi. 10). And the expression: to hear from,
is applicable to the muttered suggestions which the deceitful
lips of an impostor whisper in the ears of his agents. St.
Paul, describing the bondage of man to evil, says in the same
sense : I do not understand (do not discern, ov yiyvmo-Km) what
I do. Evil is the darkness in which we can hear but not see.
Even down to the two prepositions, irapd (with the dative),
along with, and irapd (with the genitive), from, there is not
a word which does not contribute to the effect of this inex
haustible saying : with relating to the notion of sight, as from
does to that of hearing. If Jesus mentions on His part
speaking (XaXeiv), and on that of the Jews doing (Troieiv), it is
because His work consisted essentially in His testimony and
teaching, while the Jews responded by hostile measures and
murderous designs (ver. 3 7). Hengstenberg gives the impera
tive sense : do, to 7rotetTe; but the particles /cat and ovv, by which
the two propositions are united, do not point to this meaning.
Vv. 39-41a. " They answered and said unto Him, Abraham
is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were1 Abraham's
children, ye would do2 the works of Abraham. But now ye
1 X B D L T Or. (ten times) read urn (if you are) instead of tin {if you were),
which is the reading of 12 Mjj. and nearly all the other authorities, Mnn. Vss.
and Or. (three times).
2 All the Mss., even thoso which read urn, have iTomn {you would do). Or.
(ten times) has trtairt {do or you do). Vg. and Augustine have facite. — A» is
omitted by 11 Mjj., 80 Mnn., Or. (twelve times).

CHAP. VIII. 41-43. 341
seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have
heard of God : this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your
father." — The Jews, feeling themselves assailed by the insinua
tion of ver. 38, again assert, with a feeling of wounded dignity,
their descent from Abraham. Jesus takes up again and
developes the answer He had given, ver. 37, affirming that
there can be no moral descent where there is contrariety of
conduct. — The Alex, reading : If you are . . . you would do,
though defended by Meyer, Luthardt, Tischendorf, etc., destroys
itself by its very inaccuracy. Meyer quotes Luke xvii. 6 ; but
there too the reading is doubtful. This Alex, reading is but
a corrupt mixture of an arbitrary correction of Origen's (who
of his own accord changed the eVotetre, you would do, of the
principal phrase into the imperative Troiehe, do) and of the
true reading, ?)Ve, maintained in aU the Mss. ; hence we accept
the Byz. reading as genuine. Abraham was distinguished by
his absolute docility with regard to divine truth (Gen. xii,
xxii.), and his reverential affection for those who were its
organs (Gen. xiv, xvih.). What a contrast to the conduct of
his descendants according to the flesh ! Notice here the gra
dation — 1st, to kUl a man ; 2d, a man who is an organ of the
truth ; 3d, of the truth which comes from God. Having thus
dismissed theh descent from Abraham, Jesus asserts in their
case a parentage altogether different, and that in virtue of the
same principle, viz. the nature of their conduct (ver. 41a).
JJoietTe is evidently the indicative (you do), and not the
imperative (do).
Vv. 415-43. "Then1 said they to Him, We are not born2
of fornication ; we have but one Father, God. Jesus said3 unto
them, If God were your Father, ye would love me : for I pro
ceeded forth and came from God ; neither came I of myself, but
He sent me. Why do ye not recognise my language ? because
ye cannot ^understand my word!' — The Jews, having nothing
effectual,to object, take advantage of the moral sense in which
Jesus had spoken of parentage, and try to cite it in their own
favour : If thou wilt have it so, we will leave off speaking of
Abraham ; for after all, in that spiritual sphere, of which it
1 X B L T ItP1"1'"" Syr. omit out.
3 B D : aux lytvvnfaptsv instead of ou ysysvvtiuie'x.
' The out of the T. R. has only 7 Mjj. (X D M, etc.) in its favour.

342 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
seems that thou art thinking, God is our Father. To under
stand these words, which have been so variously interpreted,
it must be remembered that marriage with a heathen woman
was, after the return from the Babylonian captivity (comp.
the Books of Nehemiah and Malachi), regarded as impure, and
the children of such marriages as iUegithnate, as belonging,
through one parent, to the famUy of Satan, the god of the
heathen. These Jews then mean to say : we were born under
perfectly legal conditions ; we have no idolatrous blood in our
veins ; we are Hebrews, born of Hebrews (PhiL iii. 5), and are
hence, by our very birth, protected from aU pagan and diabolic
affihation. As truly as they are the pure descendants of
Abraham, so certainly do they beUeve themselves to be
descended, in a moral point of view, from God alone ; and
even when rising, with our Lord, to the moral point of view,
they are incapable of freeing themselves from theh own idea
of natural parentage. The meaning adopted by Meyer : Sarah,
our mother, was a woman incapable of adultery; that of
Liicke and de Wette : We have never, in our worship, mingled
monotheism and paganism (iropveia, in the sense of Hos. h. 4),
which might contain an aUusion to the Samaritans (Paulus) ;
and other explanations (Meyer), seem to us either grossly
repulsive or artificial and forced (de Wette).
Jesus again deprives them of this higher prerogative of
sonship to God. And He does so by the same means which
He had used, ver. 40, to deny their patriarchal filiation, viz.
by laying down a moral fact by which their claims are shat
tered (ver. 14). Jesus knows that His appearing is, in con
sequence of its origin, of which He has distinct consciousness,
attested by a divine seal. Hence every true chUd of God
wiU love Him, and the ill-wiU borne by the Jews towards
Him is sufficient to annihUate their claim to the title of
chUdren of God. The true translation of the words eym yhp
. . . fjiceo would be : I came forth . . . and here I am (tficm.
pres., formed from a perfect). Jesus presents Himself to the
world, while the abode He has left is quite fresh in His con
sciousness. — 'E^rjXdov, I came forth, undoubtedly refers to the
fact of the incarnation, by means of which Jesus came forth
from His heavenly existence to live here below. Nor is it the
person of Jesus alone which proceeds from God, but also His

CHAP. VIII. 44. 343
mission. This inhabitant of heaven did not come to do a
work of His own, but obeyed a divine injunction which traced
out the task He was to fulfil (comp. x. 36). This confirms
the preceding idea (for also) ; and had they loved God, they
would aU the more have recognised the divine character of
His person, inasmuch as it was confirmed by that of His
mission. It seems, then, that nothing ought to have been easier than
to discern the divine accent, and, if we may so say, the heavenly
tone of His language. Why then did all this escape the Jews ?
Because they lacked the organ by which the spiritual is com
prehended. — AaXid differs from \070s as the form differs
from the contents, the discourse from the doctrine : You do
not distinguish my discourses from merely human language.
Do you ask why ? Because you are incapable of penetrating
the meaning of my doctrine ; my teaching does not reach your
inmost thoughts, so as to become transformed, in your case,
into apprehended truth. 'Aicoveiv, to hear, which we have
translated to understand, signifies : to hsten with such calm,
serious, willing attention as to understand. They had that
very moment given proof of this incapability, vv. 31—33.
The inward organ was wanting. It is the same idea as that
presented by the ov ^ce/jetv of ver. 37. Jesus brings out the
ultimate cause of this incompetence, viz. the bondage in which
they were to an enemy of truth, who, by filling theh hearts
with violent and hateful passions, made them deaf to the
voice of truth speaking by Jesus.
Ver. 44. " You are of this father1 the devil, and the lusts of
your father you are anxious to do: he has been a murderer
from the beginning, and is not in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh from his own
resources : for he is a liar, and 2 the father of the liar." — The
hght could not penetrate this Jewish medium, because it
was subjected to a principle of darkness. — 'Tp,ei<s, you, is
strongly emphasized : You who boast of having God for your
father. HUgenfeld thinks he here detects the evangelist in the very
act of gnosticism. According to him, the words must be trans-
1 T. R., with some Mnn., omits rou before orxrpts.
• It»u' and some Fathers read xxius xxi instead of xxi.

344 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
lated : You are of the father of the devil, and not : of the
father who is the devU. This father, he says, can be no other
than the God of the Jews, the Demiurge, the creator of the
visible universe, who is here, in conformity with the doctrine
of the Ophites in Irenseus,1 designated the father of Satan.
But was Jesus, we ask, here dealing about the parentage of
the devil ? Was it $ot that of the Jews of which alone He
was now speaking ? Besides, if it were necessary, in opposi
tion to the sense of the whole paragraph, to translate : of the
father of the devil, would not this make the Jews, not the
children, but the brethren of the devU ? (You are descended
from the father of the devil !) The hteral meaning is : You
are sons of this father (tov irwrpoi), whose name is the devil
(tov 8iaBoXov), and by no means of the other father, God,
from whom you claim to descend. The unruly passions
(iiridvp,tai) which animate this father, and which he communi
cates to them, are disclosed in the second part of this verse :
these are, first, hatred of man ; then, aversion ' to truth, — the
very tendencies with which Jesus had just reproached the
Jews, ver. 40. The verb diXere, you are desirous, is contrary
to the fatalistic principle attributed by Hilgenfeld to St. John,
expressing, as it does, the voluntary consent, the fuU sympathy
with which they set to work to realize the aspirations of their
father. The first of these diabohc appetites is the thirst for
human blood. Several expositors, both ancient and modern
(Cyril, Nitzsch, Liicke, de Wette, Reuss), explain the word dvdpm-
ttoktovo'}, homicide, by the murder of Abel. Comp. 1 John ih.
12, 15. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his
brother. . . . Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer. But Scrip
ture does not expressly attribute any share in the murder of
Abel to the devil ; and the relation which Jesus here asserts
between the murderous malice of Satan and his character of a
liar, rather lead us to refer the word murderer to his seduc
tion of man, whereby he has been subjected to death. In
enticing him to sin by lying means, Satan has devoted him
to both physical and spiritual death. He had recognised a
rival in man, and hoped to get rid of him by means of sin, in
conformity with the threat : In the day that thou shalt sin, thou
1 The Ophites called Jaldabaoth (the creator of the world and the God of the
Jews) the father of the serpent {Einl. p. 725).

chap. viii. u. 345
slialt die. The expression : from the beginning, may in this
case be much more rigorously explained. The meaning of
dpyr\, beginning, does not differ from that of this word in i. 1,
except in here signifying the beginning of mankind, and there
the beginning of creation. As to the quotation from 1 John, it
proves nothing in favour of the other explanation, for in the
Epistle no share in the crime of Cain is personally attributed
to Satan, this act being merely cited as the first example of
the diabolic hatred of a man to his brother. When Jesus
said, ver. 40 : You seek to kill me, a man, He was already
thinking of that murderous hatred expressed by the word
dvdpmnroKTovo'i. — It may be asked whether this hatred of Satan
may not have arisen from his own presentiment that man
was to be the future organ of divine truth, and the destroyer
of his hes ? In this case it would be quite natural that his
hatred should be concentrated on Jesus, in whom this mission
assigned to the human race was realized. This idea, too,
establishes a very close relation between the proposition we
have just commented on and that which follows. Several
expositors, ancient and modern, have applied the expression
oi>x eo-TrjKev, he has not placed himself, and is not in the truth,
to the fall of the devU. Vg. : in veritate non stetit. Arnaud :
il ne s'est point tenu dans . . . Ostervald : it n'a point persisti
dans - . . But the perf. eaTrjica does not mean, lias not continued
in, its signification, whether in sacred or in classic Greek,
being, " I have placed myself in a certain situation, and I am
in it." Jesus, then, does not mean to say that the devil did
not continue in that realm of truth in which he was at first
placed by God, but rather that he did not take his place therein
when God offered him the opportunity, and that consequently
he neither abides nor moves in it now. This realm of truth
is also that of holiness, the true nature of things. And why
does he not hve in this region ? Because, adds Jesus, there
is no truth in him. He is inwardly destitute of truth (in
the subjective sense), that uprightness of wUl which aspires
to divine reality, to holiness. The absence of the article
before dXndeia, truth, in this latter proposition should be
noticed. Satan is without (inward) truth, and this is the
reason why (objectively speaking) he does not abide in. the
truth, in that truth which God reveals, in God Himself mani-

346 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
fested. The on, because, is the pendant to that of ver. 43.
Like father, Uke son, — the one as weU as the other Uves and
works in falsehood, because he is false.
What Jesus has just pointed out in a negative form, He re
produces in a positive form in the second part of the verse.
Deriving nothing from divine truth, Satan draws aU that he
says from his own resources — that is to say, from the nothing
ness of his own subjectivity ; for the creature, apart from God,
is incapable of either possessing or originating anything real.
In this condition, then, lying is as much his natural language
as speaking truth is the natural language of Jesus, in the state
of communion with God in which He hves. — 'Etc rmv t'StW,
of his own resources, admirably characterizes the creative faculty
of a being separated from God, who is indeed capable of pro
ducing something, and even of occasionaUy performing great
wrorks, but whose creations are, in proportion as they are
effected apart from God, at all times but a vain phantasmagoria.
— The word ¦<r'evo-Tr}';, liar, reproduces the idea : there is no
truth in him. When Jesus says of Satan that he is a har,
and also his (or its) father, the expression may either signify •
the father of the liar, or the father of lying (the notion of lying
being derived from what precedes). We hold, with Liicke,
Meyer, and others, that the context is decisive in favour of the
first alternative. In fact, the matter here in question is not
the philosophical origin of lying, but the moral parentage of
the Jews who were liars;1 and it is to this idea that the
verses which foUow refer.
This passage contains the most decisive statement that ever
issued from the lips of Christ concerning the existence, per-
1 The reading xxliis xxi {as also his father), in the Itala and certain Fathers, is
a correction due to the Gnostics, who wanted, with Hilgenfeld, to find here
mention of the father of the devil. The Fathers, however, accepted this reading
only on conditio.i of reading in the preceding phrase as xv {lie who) for orxt {when,
whenever) : whoever tells a lie speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar,
as is also his father (that is, the devil). Hilgenfeld, who applies the pronoun
xurou, his, or its, to the devil himself, finds here a second mention of the father
of the devil. But, as Riggenbach points out {Die ausseren Zeugnisse, etc.,
p. 66), if it is true that the father of the devil had already been spoken of in
the beginning of the verse, the expression : his father, would designate the father
of the father of the devil ! (see Introd. pp. 221, 222). Besides, this whole
explanation is positively excluded by the identity, assumed throughout St. John's
Gospel, of the Creator of the world with the Father of Jesus Christ.

CHAP. VIII. 45-47. 347
sonahty, and agency of Satan. It is impossible to apply here
that theory of accommodation by which it has been attempted
to dUute the meaning of the words of Jesus when addressing
demoniacs. It was spontaneously and directly that He here
gave positive information concerning this mysterious being.1 —
Jesus now returns from the father to the clrildren, who, like
him to whom they are in bondage, are the enemies of the
truth. Vv. 45—47. " And as for me, because I tell you the truth, ye
believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin ? And if2
I say the truth, why do ye not believe me ? 3 He that is of God
heareth God's words : ye therefore hear them not, because ye are
not of God." — GeneraUy, the reason why a man is believed, is
that he speaks the truth. But the experience of Jesus was,
in the case of the Jews, an opposite one. They were so ruled
by the hes with which their father had bhnded theh hearts,
that it was just because He spoke the truth that He obtained
no credence from them. — 'JE70S stands first, me, the organ of
truth. To justify their mistrust of His word, they ought at
1 If St. Augustine, and after his example Catholic and many modern exposi
tors, were wrong in seeing in the expression alx 'Urnxiv an allusion to the fall of
the' devil, Frommann and Reuss are no less in error when they find in this passage
the idea of an eternal principle of evil. The term io-rnxtt simply expresses, as
Meyer says, the actual fact : " This passage announces the evil moral condition
of the devil, as it now is, without giving any information concerning its origin.
. . . But the fall of the devil is necessarily assumed by this saying. " I do not
know whether we ought not to go a, step further. For the perfect 'inrnxx not
only designates the present condition, but implies, besides, the notion of a past
act by which that condition was reached. The aux Icmxiv then signifies that
the devil, not having placed himself in tlie truth, is not in it at present. The
expression includes, if I am not mistaken, the notion, not of a fall from known
truth, but of a refusal to enter into, and take root in, revealed truth. Every
free being is called upon at some moment of his existence voluntarily to sacri
fice his natural autonomy, and to subordinate his ego to the manifestation of
good, to disclosed truth, to God revealing Himself. This is that decisive test
which neither man nor angel can escape. To refuse this voluntary self-annihila
tion, in presence of the revelation of good, of God, is evil in its first form (a
purely negative one). Exaggerated self-assertion, positive evil, is its direct
result. This refusal to retire before truth, to come out of self and be planted
in God, constitutes the fall, whether of man or devil, and could not be better
described than by the words : " not to have placed oneself in the truth, and not
to be in it. "
2 T. R. with 11 Mjj. has u h. X B C L X n, 20 Mnn. It. Vg. Cop. Syr.:
u only. 3 D omits ver. 46 (confusing the two ou Tio-nutrt ptoi).

348 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
least to be able to accuse Him of some wrong action ; for truth
and hohness are closely related. The defiance which Jesus
casts at His enemies in the first part of ver. 46, shows that
He felt Himself perfectly exculpated by His defence, ch. vii,
from the crime of which He had been accused, ch. v. We
must be careful not to take dfiapTia, sin, in the sense of error
(Calvin, Melancthon), or even of lying (Fritzsche). We have
here the same thought as in vii. 18 : Jesus asserts that His
moral conduct affords no suspicion against the truth of His
teaching. — This question was foUowed by a pause ; Jesus was
sUent, to aUow any one who should choose to accuse Him an
opportunity of speaking. But no one who heard Him open
ing his mouth, He made the admission implied by this silence,
the premiss of the foUowing argument. WeU then, if, as your
silence shows, I teach the truth, why do you not believe me ?
Here there was a second pause ; He had invited them to con
demn Him, He now left them time to condemn themselves.
After this second silence He uttered the sentence: You are
not of God ; this is the true reason you do not beheve me.
The expression, to be of God, designates the state of a soul
placed under the influence of divine agency. Such a state
does not exclude, but implies, the free determination of man.
Otherwise, the tone of reproach which prevails in this verse
would be unjust, and even absurd. — ,Aicoveiv, properly to hear,
has here the meaning of intelligent hearing (hence the regimen
in the accusative) ; comp. the manner in which His statement
concerning the truth which makes free (ver. 32) had been
received. — Aid tovto, for this, because, serves to apply the
general principle laid down in the former part of the verse,
and again expressly brought forward by the proposition which
follows. The perfect holiness of Christ is in this passage demonstrated,
not by the silence of the Jews, who might have chosen to
ignore the sins of their questioner, but by the assurance with
which His direct consciousness of the purity of His whole life
is in this question affirmed. Had He been merely a super
eminently holy man, with a conscience as tender as such a
degree of sanctity implies, He would not have suffered the
smaUest sin, whether in His life or heart, to pass unperceived ;
and what hypocrisy it would in this case have been to put

CHAP. VIII. 48-50. 349
to others a question whose favourable solution would have
rested only on their ignorance of facts which He Himself
knew to be real.
3d. Vv. 48-53. The believer dehvered from death.
Vv. 48-50. " Then1 answered the Jews, and said unto Him,
Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and liast a devil ?
Jesus answered, I have not a devil : but I honour my Father ; and
you, ye dishonour me. But I seek not mine own glory : there is
one that seeketh and judgeth." — Some (Hengstenberg, Astie) think
that when the Jews caUed Jesus a Samaritan, they meant to
charge Him with heresy, because He had made Himself equal
with God. But the term Samaritan can hardly be regarded as
synonymous with blasphemer. The Samaritans were esteemed
the national enemies of the Jews ; and Jesus seemed to them
to have committed an act of hostility against Israel by accus
ing His hearers of being children of the devil. — Such language
they thought could only be explained by the ravings of mad
ness, and this they express by the words : thou hast a devil,.
which form as it were the pendant to the reproach of Jesus.
The meaning of their retort comes to this : Thou art as wicked
as thou art foolish.
"Who," says St. Peter, "when He was reviled, reviled not
again, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously "
(1 Pet. ii. 23), a saying which seems derived from these 49th
and 5 0th verses. Jesus meets all these insults with a simple
denial. 'Eym, I, stands first, and seems uttered with a deep
feeling of the contrast between His personal character and
the manner in which He was treated. Jesus substitutes
the true explanation of His preceding discourse for the false
one given by the Jews. It is not hatred which impels me to
speak thus of you, but I do it to honour my Father. The
testimony which I bear .against you is a homage paid to the
divine holiness. But as for you, instead of listening to the
voice of Him who teUs you the truth which is from God, you
load Him with insults (Samaritan, devil, etc.), even Him who
glorifies the God whose chhdren you claim to be. The con
clusion is : How can you, who insult Him who speaks only to
honour God, be the children of God ?
Jesus asserts, nevertheless (ver. 50), that the affronts which
1 X B C D L X omit out.

o

350 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
they heaped upon Him were of but little importance to Him
self. They were God's concern ; for He committed the care of
His honour to God, of whose sohcitude for Him He was fully
assured. He desired to be honoured only in proportion as
His Father should give Him glory in the hearts of men. The
two words : who seeketh and judgeth, give a presentiment of
those divine acts by which the Father wiU glorify the Son and
chastise His calumniators ; in the one case, by the work of the
Holy Spirit ; in the other, by the destruction of Jerusalem,
and the last judgment. Besides, even now aU did not dis
honour Him, for many honoured Him by theh faith :
Vv. 51—53. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, If any one keep
my saying, he shall never see death. Tlien 1 said the Jews unto
Him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead,
and the prophets also ; and thou, thou sayest, If any one keep my
word, he shall never taste death} Art thou greater than our
father Abraham, who is dead ? And the prophets also are dead :
whom makest thou3 thyself?" — Various attempts have been
made to explain the relation of ideas between w. 50 and 51 ;
but these explanations have been unnatural. It is evident
that with the last word: who judgeth, of ver. 50, Jesus had
for the present done with His present questioners. But He
knew that among those Jews who believed, and of whom the
greater part had, when put to the test, immediately succumbed,
there was a certain number who fulfilled the condition laid
down by Him, ver. 31 : If you continue stedfast in my word,
and it was to these that He addressed the promise, ver. 51.
The expression: keep my word, is but a reproduction of that
of ver. 31 : continue in my word; and the promise of never
seeing death is opposed to the threat of ver. 35 : The slave
abideth not in the house for ever. — Death is not here taken in
an exclusively spiritual sense, as though Jesus meant to say:
shaU not be condemned. The word never does not suit this
sense, and there would have been a certain amount of char
latanism on the part of Jesus had He seemed to say more
than He really meant. It is indeed death, death itself, and in
1 X B C omit am.
2 B reads txvxrat «/ pin iuipnrti (like ver. 51). T. R., with E F H: ytuo-irxi,
AU the others : ytutrvrai.
3 Sb is omitted by 10 Mjj. (X A B C, etc.), 50 Mnn. It. Vg. Syr. Cop. Or.

CHAP. VIII. 54-56. 351
the fuU sense of the word, which He denies in the case of the
believer; see vi. 50 and xiv. 3. What encouragement to
those who should persevere !
The Jews, then, were by no means mistaken, as is supposed,
concerning the meaning of His statement, when they concluded
therefrom that Jesus promised His people a privilege which
neither Abraham nor the prophets possessed, and that He
made Himself greater than them, since it is manifest that He
must Himself have possessed a prerogative which He assured
to His people. — The expression, to taste death, is based on the
comparison of death to a bitter cup which man is condemned
to drink. — The word et? tov almva, for ever, in vv. 51 and 52,
must not be explained in the sense of : he shaU indeed die,
but not for ever. The meaning is : He shaU never perform the
act of dying. Comp. xiii. 8. — The pronoun oo-tis, instead of
the simple 6'?, signifies : Whoever, even were he Abraham . . .
4th. Vv. 54—59. The eternal pre-existence of Jesus.
If Jesus is the conqueror of death for His people, it is
because He Himself belongs to the eternal order. He comes
from a sphere in which there is no transition from nothingness
to existence, and consequently no fall from existence to death,
unless He Himself consents to dehver Himself iip to this
power. Vv. 54—56. " Jesus answered, If I glorify1 myself, my glory
is nothing : He that glorifleth me is my Father ; He of whom
ye say, that He is your2 God. And yet you do not know Him ;
but I, I knoio Him : and if I say that I know Him not, I shall
be like you} a liar : but I know Him, and keep His saying.
Abraham your father rejoiced in the hope of seeing my day ; and
he saw it, and was glad." — In a certain sense Jesus does glorify
Himself whenever He gives testimony to Himself; but the
iym, I, is here emphatic, I alone, i.e. without the Father, by
attributing to myself on my own account privUeges which the
Father does not give me. Comp. the similar form, vv. 15, 16.
This is -His answer to the question: Whom makest thou
i S BCD Itali' Or. read ia^xo-u instead of Xag«2>, which is the reading of
T. R., with 12 Mjj., and the Mnn.
2 Instead of u/uit, which is the reading of T. R., with X B D F X, most of the
Mnn., and Iti,leri'ue, the twelve other Mjj., 90 Mnn. Syr. read npuv.
* Instead of u/mv of T. R., with A B D, the others read uput.

352 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
thyself ? Nothing but what the Father intended I should be.
And this will of the Father was manifested by notable signs,
which the Jews would have eashy discerned if God had
really been, as they claimed Him to be, theh God. But they
did not know Him, and that was the reason they did not
recognise Him who came from Him, and was so clearly
accredited by Him.
This ignorance of God which Jesus encountered among the
Jews, excited within Him, by the law of contrast, the feehng
of the real knowledge of the Father which He possessed, and
this prerogative He affirmed with triumphant energy in ver.
55. We find here, so to speak, the paroxysm of that faith
which Jesus had in Himself, a faith based upon the certainty
of His direct consciousness of God. Thus are the unheard of
statements which foUow, vv. 56 and 58, prepared for. OlSa,
I know Him, designates direct, intuitive knowledge, in opposi
tion to iyvmKUTe (literally : you lmve learnt to know), which
relates to acquired knowledge. — By the last words, / keep His
saying, Jesus asserts that in "His faithfulness to His Father's
instructions, He possesses the same guarantee of victory over
death as that which shaU be possessed by His people, through
their persevering obedience to His word.
Having thus answered the reproach : TJiou glorifiest thyself,
Jesus comes to the principal question : Art thou greater than
our father Abraham ? and hesitates not to plainly reply : Yes,
certainly, for after being the object of his hope on earth, I
became that of his joy in paradise. There is a cutting irony
in the apposition, Abraham, your father. Their father rejoicing
in the expectation of a presence which excited only their
malice and hatred. The word rejoiced indicates the joy of
hope, as indicated by the "va i8v, so that he might sec. This
was the aim and object of this emotion. What is here spoken
of is evidently the state of the patriarch's heart when he heard
from the mouth of God such promises as : In thy seed shall all
the families of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed
my voice (Gen. xxii. 18). — The use of Xva with the term
dyaXXidcrdai is explained by the sentiment of desire of attrac
tion (hastening towards the still happier day of possession). —
The expression : my day, can only indicate the epoch of Christ's
appearance on earth (Luke. xvii. 22). The explanations of

CHAP. VIII. 54-56. 353
Chrysostom and Bengel, the former of whom understands it of
the day of His passion, the latter of the day of His second
advent, are by no means justified by this passage. Hofmann
and Luthardt suppose the promised birth of Isaac, in which
Abraham beheld the pledge of that of Messiah, to be intended.
But the expression : my day, can only refer to a fact concern
ing the person of Christ Himself.
The relation between this iva 'I8n : that he might see, and
the he saio which follows it, proves that the latter expression
refers to the reahzation of the desire which had formerly filled
the patriarch with joy during his sojourn on earth, — in other
words, to the appearance of Jesus in this world. The second
aor. passive exdpv weU expresses the calm joy of sight, as op
posed to the tumultuous gladness of expectation (r)yaXXidaaTo).
Jesus here then discloses, as most expositors agree, a fact of
the invisible world, with which He alone was acquainted.
As at the transfiguration we find that Moses and Ehas were
acquainted with the circumstances of our Lord's earthly life,
so here does He declare that Abraham, the father of the faith
ful, was not, in his abode of glory, ignorant of the accomplish
ment of the promise that had been made him, but that he
beheld the coming of Christ on this earth. Of course we do
not know under what form events which transpire in this
world may be made sensible to those who live in the bosom of
God. Jesus simply affirms the fact. — This is the only inter
pretation which leaves to the words their natural meaning.
The Fathers apply the etSe, he saw, to the types, such as the
sacrifice of Isaac, etc., in which the patriarch beheld the
accomphshment of the promises. The reformers imagine this
sight to have been a kind of prophetic vision vouchsafed to
him. Hofmann and Luthardt explain it of the day of Isaac's
birth, on which Abraham's hope was reahzed. But aU these
explanations are excluded by the evident apposition established
by the text between the joy of expectation and that of actual
vision. This is also the case with that of Hengstenberg, who
apphes the last words of this verse to the visit of the angel of
God (Gen. xvih.). In this apphcation of it a forced sense
must be given to the expression, my day. The Socinian ex
planation : Abraham would have rejoiced if he had seen my
day, need only be mentioned in passing, for with such an
GODET II. Z JOHN.

354 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
interpretation what can we make of the second member of the
sentence ?
By bringing out this twofold joy of Abraham, on the one hand
at the time of the promise, on the other at that of its fulfilment,
Jesus gave the Jews cause to blush at the contrast between
their feelings and that of him whom they claimed as theh father.
Vv. 57, 58. "Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not
yet fifty1 years old, and hast thou seen Abraham ? 2 Jesus said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was
born} I am." — It seemed a natural consequence of Abraham's
having seen Jesus that He must also have seen Abraham.
This question is the expression of indignant surprise. — Fifty is
a round number, and fifty years expresses the close of middle
age. The meaning is : Thou art not yet an old man. No
conclusion can be drawn from these words as to the true age
of Jesus, inasmuch as ten or twenty years more or less would
in this case be indifferent. — I am not only his contemporary,
is the reply of Jesus, but I even existed before him. The
formula, amen, amen, announces the greatness of this reve
lation concerning His Person. WhUe yeviadai, was bom
(hteraUy : became), designates the transition from nothingness
to existence, elul, I am, indicates a mode of being, not the
result of such a transition : viz. existence (am) as an attribute
of the personality (I). Jesus says : 1" am, not : / was. This
latter expression would have designated mere priority with
respect to Abraham, and would be strictly compatible with the
Arian view of the Person of Jesus, while the former expression
places the existence of the subject who thus speaks in the rank
of the Absolute, the Eternal, the Divine. It recaUs the words
of Ps. xc. 2 : " Before the mountains were brought forth, or
ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, Thou art, 0 God !" It was un
doubtedly from the depths of His human consciousness that
Jesus derived this expression, but only after He had received
the revelation of the identity of His Person with that of the
Eternal Son : " Thou art my beloved Son." This conscious
ness which Jesus had of Himself, after hearing these words of
1 A, 3 Mnn. Chrys : nto-xpxxovrx {forty).
2 X : *"' A/»f. lupxxiv <rt {and Abraham lias seen thee),
8 D It"1" omit ytvurixi.

CHAP. VIII. 57, 58. 355
the Father, is analogous with that which the believer has of
Jesus after the Spirit has revealed to him His glory. Eternity
must not be regarded as properly anterior to time. The term
irpiv, before, is a symbolic form derived from the purely human
consciousness of Jesus, to express the dependent relation of
time to eternity in the only manner in which we are capable
of conceiving it, viz. under the form of succession. — At the
present- day, when rationalism has freed itself from the autho
rity of Scripture, it no longer feels the need of recurring to
the various forced explanations of this passage proposed by
different commentators, e.g. that of Crell, de Wette, etc., who
give to the words / am the merely ideal sense : I am in the
divine intelligence ; of Socinus, Paulus : I am as the Messiah
promised ; of the Socinian catechism : "Before Abraham could
justify his name of Abraham (father of a multitude, of
numerous converted pagans), I am the Messiah of you Jews."
Even Scholten, while seeking to retain what truth may
exist in these different meanings, owns (p. 97 sq.) that they
are insufficient. According to him, we must not translate :
7" exist (iym elpii), but : I am (the Messiah), iyco elui ; Jesus,
however, could only have been the Messiah predestined from
before the days of Abraham on condition of having really and
personaUy existed before that patriarch. We doubt whether
the above-named exegetes would acknowledge themselves con
quered by such reasoning. And we do not think that the
evidently intentional apposition between the verb yive&dai, to
become, and the verb eivai, to be, will aUow us to give to the
latter any other sense than that of to exist, according to the
usual accentuation eyib elui. As Gess says: "to Abraham,
becoming; to Jesus, existing." — Beyschlag, to avoid the idea
of the personal pre-existence of Christ, which seems to him
incompatible with the reahty of His humanity, thinks that
Jesus meant to say that He realizes in His Person an eternal
but impersonal principle, that of the real image of God. But
this impersonal image of God cannot exist except in the divine
inteUigence, and we then return to the explanation of de
Wette. " If," says Luthardt, " it foUows from the apposition
between to be and to become, in this saying, that the existence
of Christ is eternal, it foUows quite as clearly from the iym
that this existence is personal." This, too, is proved by the

356 gospel of john.
comparison with Abraham. For there would have been
a touch of charlatanism on the part of Jesus in suddenly
substituting an impersonal principle for His Person, in His
reply to the Jews, who were accusing Him of making Himself
the contemporary of Abraham. If one of the two existences
compared is personal, the other must be so too, otherwise this
statement, marked as it is by the greatest solemnity, is not a
serious one.1 — This saying is certainly among those from which
St. John derived the fundamental idea of the first verses of
the Prologue. It bears within itseK the guarantee of its
authenticity, first by its sublime conciseness, then by its very
meaning. For what historian would choose to put into the
mouth of his hero words which would bring upon him the
imputation of being mad ?
Ver. 59. " Thereupon they took up stones to stone Him: but
Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple." 2 — This ray of
divinity on the part of Him whom they were interrogating
left nothing to the Jews but to worship — or to stone Him.
The word r/pav, properly: they lifted up, indicates rather a
volition, a threat, than a determined purpose. Comp. the
rather stronger expression, x. 31. The stones were probably
lying in the court, for the rebuUding of the temple, which
was not yet completed. The word iicpvBVi hid Himself,
does not imply, but rather excludes, the idea of a mhacle,
Jesus being at this time surrounded by a circle of disciples
and friends who assisted His escape. — However weighty may
be the authority of the documents and Vss. by which the
reading of the T. R. is in this instance supported, it is evident
that the last words are a marginal gloss, occasioned by the
first words of the foUowing chapter and Luke iv. 30. Baur
defends their authenticity for the purpose of extracting from
this passage a proof of the Docetism of its author. But from
1 Beyschlag himself felt this, and has now recourse to another expedient, pro
posed also by Weizs'acker, namely, the distinction between the two theologies
found in juxtaposition in this Gospel, that of Jesus Himself and that of the
evangelist, to the latter of which alone he considers the idea of pre-existence to
belong. But it is not easy to understand how the authenticity of this Gospel
can, from this point of view, be defended, as it is by Beyschlag (comp. the more
particular discussion of this subject, Introd. i. pp. 186, 187).
2 After npou, T. R., with ACEFGHKLMSUXaa, the Mnn. Syr. Cop.,
reads iisxtuv hx pturau xuruv xxi rxpnyiv xurous {passing through the midst of them,
and so went out) ; these words are wanting in X B D It*1"1'"9 Vg. Sah. Or. Chrys

CHAP. VIII. 59. 357
a Docetic point of view the normal expression should have
been, not e/cpvBv (He hid Himself), but a^)ai/TO? iyeveTO (He
vanished). Such was the termination of the most violent opposition
which Jesus had as yet had to sustain. From henceforth He
graduaUy abandoned to His adversaries the field of battle, until
that other special eicpvBn, xii. 36, with which His public
ministry in Israel closed.
We have now seen that all the improbabihties which
criticism declares to be so numerous in this and the preceding
chapter vanish before a calm and conscientious exegesis. The
answers and objections of the Jews, which M. Reuss taxes
with grotesqueness and absurdity, have seemed to us, when
looked at from the point of view of those who made them,
logical and natural. The reasoning of our Lord, which,
according to M. Renan, " is, if judged according to the rules
of Aristotehan logic, very weak," only appears so because it is
forgotten that there were things which Jesus, reckoning on
the moral consciousness of His opponents, thought He might
lay down as axioms. There certainly is not in these 7th and
8th chapters a single improbability which at aU approaches
that which would be created in supposing such conversations
to have been subsequently invented, outside the historical situa
tion with which they so completely harmonize. We have here
no verbiage, no incongruity, no break of continuity. In fact,
these conversations are reproduced with such delicacy, that
one cannot without difficulty dissent from the hypothesis of
Bertholdt, a rationalist of the last century, who supposed that
the evangelist took notes of the discourses of his Master at
the time when he heard them. Two features especiaUy strike
us in these two chapters : 1st. The colloquial form, so fuU of
reaUty> and so far more likely to be engraved on the memory
of the hearers than a consecutive discourse ; 2d. The summary
character of the testimonies of Jesus, presenting as they do
grand and simple statements without developments, vii. 37,
38, viii. 12, 31, 32. Developments were only added to
testimony, properly so caUed, in proportion as it became a
matter of dispute, whether between Jesus and His hearers, or
between the latter themselves. These two features would
suffice to prove the historical character of the narrative.

358 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
SECOND CYCLE.
IX. AND X.
The consequences of the first point of departure, viz. the
cure of the impotent man, ch. v., were now exhausted, when a
new miracle produced a fresh access of hatred among the Jews,
and caUed forth a new phase of theh hostility. Matters had
now, however, come to a climax. The incipient faith which
had just been manifested in Judaea had come to nought. The
test which these believing Jews had not been able to stand
was the absolute spirituality of the word and work of Jesus,
who from henceforth began to leave this erring community to
their bhndness, and to labour chiefly in gathering around Him
the few who were to form the germ of the future association.
Hence the incisive character of the preceding dialogues was
now exchanged for the accents of resignation and of affec
tionate sadness.
1. Ch. ix., a new miracle opens this second cycle.
2. Ch. x. 1-21 contains a first discourse connected with
this miracle, and then a delineation of its immediate effects.
3. Ch. x. 22—42 includes a second discourse, which, though
dehvered rather later and in a different locality, is, with respect
to its subject, a continuation of the first ; and lastly, a short
historical notice.
FIRST SECTION.
IX. 1-41. — THE MIRACLE.
I. The Fact— w. 1-12 ; II. The Investigation — w. 13-34;
III. The Moral Result — w. 35-41.
I. The Fact.—vy. 1-12.
Vv. 1-5. " And in passing, He saw a man blind from birth.
And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who sinned,
this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind ? Jesus
ansusered, Neither he nor his parents sinned: but it is tlmt

CHAP. IX. 1-5. 359
the works of God may be manifested in him. I1 must work
the works of Him who sent me} while it is day ; the night
cometh, in which no man can work. While I am in the
world, I am the light of the world." — These first five verses
describe the circumstances in which this new miracle took
place. If the last words of the preceding chapter in the
T. R. were authentic, the first of this would closely connect
this scene with what precedes it. Comp. kai irapdymv with
¦jraprjyev outco?. There would in this case be an improbability
in the narrative ; for, as de Wette points out, the question
addressed to Jesus by the disciples, ver. 2, assumes a calmer
state of mind than that which they could have possessed on
leaving the temple, after the scene of ch. viii. But nothing
in the genuine text compels us thus directly to combine these
two facts ; the formula /cat vapdymv, and in passing, only
requiring us not .to interpose too long an interval between
them. If the scene, viii. 30-59, took place in the morning,
that which foUows might weU have happened in the evening
of the same day. And this time of day weU suits the figure
which our Lord employs, w. 4 and 5. — The blind man was
accustomed to sit at one of the gates of either the temple,
or more probably the city, to beg. The disciples had learnt
from himself or others that he had been blind from his birth.
Their question seems to have been called forth by the marked
attention with which Jesus regarded (elSev) him. From the
point of view of Jewish Monotheism, suffering appeared to be
in aU cases the consequence of sin. But the difficulty was
how to apply this principle to the present case. The only
two alternatives presented to their minds, and indicated by
the question of the disciples, viz. that either his own sin or
that of his parents was the cause of his misfortune, seemed
equally inadmissible. The doctrine of metempsychosis and
that of the pre-existence of souls, which might have lent some
probabhity to the former supposition, were never popular in
Israel. It would therefore have been necessary to admit that
this man's misfortune was either a chastisement inflicted in
anticipation of his future sins, or the punishment of some sin
1 X B D L Cop. Or. read nptxs {we must do) instead of t/ts {1 must do), which.
has in its favour the fifteen other Mjj., the Mnn. It. Vg. Syr.
2 X L Cop. : tiptxs {us) instead of pit {me).

360 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
committed in the embryo state (Ps. Ii. 7), both very impro
bable explanations. As to the second supposition, viz. that
he was suffering for the sin of his parents, it seemed opposed
to the justice of God. Hence the disciples, perceiving no
reasonable solution, asked Jesus to decide. — The ha always
retains some notion of purpose : " that he should have been born
thus according to the divine plan." — The context sufficiently
explains our Lord's reply. He does not deny the existence
of sin either in this man or in his parents ; but neither does
He recognise the necessity of any moral connection between
this individual or famUy sin and the blindness with which
the unfortunate man was visited. Individual suffering is not
often connected, except in a very general manner, with the
collective sin of humanity (see ver. 14). Hence it gives us
no right to judge those who suffer, but only furnishes a
summons to fulfil a divine mission towards them by assisting
them. As truly as evil exists in the world, so truly has God
His work on earth ; and His work consists in finding matter
for good in evil itself. Hence all the acts by which we concur
in the accomplishment of this divine purpose are called the
works of God. But this word is here more specially applied
to acts which bear the seal of Divine Omnipotence, such as
the physical cure of the blind man (vv. 6 and 7), and his
spiritual illumination (vv. 35-38). The caU to heal this
unhappy one had made itself felt in the Lord's heart at the
very moment when His eyes beheld him, and it was with this
feeling that He fixed them upon him (ver. 1). From ver. 3
Jesus seeks to make His disciples share with Him the point
of view from which He regards suffering, and which He
developes, w. 4 and 5, by applying it to His personal task
during His sojourn on earth.
When the master who has entrusted a task to the worker
(6 Tr4p,yjra<:, he who sent) gives the signal, the latter must
continue to work as long as the hours of labour last. This
signal Jesus had just recognised ; and even though it was the
Sabbath, He could not delay obeying it till to-morrow. He
might perhaps at this moment have been contemplating the
sun descending towards the horizon : " When night comes,"
said He, " the workman's labour ceases ; my work is to en
lighten the world as the sun does. But in a short time I,

CHAP. IX. 1-5. 361
like him, shaU disappear, and my work will cease ; hence I have
not a moment to lose." — The reading ^/xa? (we must work) is
defended by Meyer, Lange, and Luthardt. But is it not
evidently a correction, intended to generalize the application
of ver. 4, and to change this saying into an exhortation
addressed to the disciples ? Besides, a certain amount of
unsuitableness is felt in the direct application to the Lord of
the words : the night cometh vihen no man can work — words
which seemed incompatible with His heavenly glory. After
changing iui into 17/ia?, the p.4, me, which foUows, ought
logically to have been similarly corrected. For there is here
a strict correlation between the two notions : to be sent, and to
do the work of . . . Only two of the Mss. (x and L) have
been consistent throughout ; the others (B and D) have con
demned themselves by neglecting to make this second change.
It is important to remark that the ancient versions, the Itala
and the Peshito, support the Received reading. The contrast
of day and night can, in this context, only designate that of
the time of labour during the day, and the time of rest during
the night. There is then no sinister meaning here in the image :
the night. But it may be asked, In what sense can the image
of rest be applied to the heavenly life of Jesus Christ ? The
work of His earthly hfe was for Him, as it is for us, that of
sowing ; in His heavenly state He only reaps what He sowed
below. It is His Person, as revealed during His brief earthly
ministry, which He glorifies in the hearts of men by the Holy
Spirit. Consequently, one single opportunity of doing good
neglected by Him, one single moment lost below, would have
left an irreparable void in that work of God on earth which
furnishes the Holy Spirit with the material of His regenerat
ing and sanctifying agency till the close of the present dis
pensation. The expression : I am the light of the world, ver. 5, has no
relation to the figure of day and nighi, ver. 4 ; the latter re
ferring solely to the contrast between work and rest, while
the idea of light is chosen with reference to the special work
which the Lord was now about to accomphsh of giving
physical and spiritual sight to one born blind, and to the
more general work of enlightening the human race, of which
this cure was an emblem and example. The conjunction

362 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
otov, whilst (properly : when it happens that), shows how
transitory and incidental was in His own eyes His sojourn
in this world. How, then, should He not hasten to employ a
season which was so soon to terminate ?
Vv. 6, 7. " Having said thus, He spat on the ground, and
made clay of His spittle, and He anointed with the clay the
eyes of the blind man} and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool
of Siloam (which is, by interpretation, Sent 2). He went away
then, and washed, and came back seeing!' — The evangelist, by
the words : having said thus, makes the act which foUows the
direct appUcation of the principle just laid down by Jesus. —
In Matt. xx. 34 (Mark x. 46), Jesus cures a bhnd man by
His touch alone. In Mark vh. 33, viii 23, He makes use of
His saliva to effect cures. The fact that He employed this
means only in certain cases, shows that it was not the vehicle
of His miraculous power (Meyer), but a symbol calculated to
make the sufferers feel in particular cases (those in which the
patient had no other means of putting himself in moral con
tact with Jesus, as e.g. that of the deaf mute, Mark vii 33 sq.),
that their cure emanated from His Person ItseK. This know
ledge was' to them the point of departure whence faith, in the
higher sense of the word, might be formed in them. But in
the present case Jesus did more than anoint the eyes of the
blind man with saliva : He applied to them a lump of clay,
thus adding an artificial to his natural blindness, and then
sent him to wash in SUoam. What, then, it may be asked,
was His purpose in acting in this altogether unusual manner ?
We are here reduced to suppositions : according to several
expositors, He desired to test the obedience of the blind man ;
according to Liicke, to give, on the contrary, some support to
his faith ; others think that He wanted to give the crowd
time to disperse ; Baur, that His intention was rather to make
the miracle more striking ; while, lastly, many are of opinion
that this being the case of one born bhnd, Jesus meant to
give the organ, which had never performed its function, time
1 Instead of the reading of T. R., xxi imxp. rou x. tori r. ofl. rou i-i/px. {He
anointed with clay the eyes of), which is supported by 14 Mjj., most of the Mnn.,
It0"' Syr,oh, X B L have xxi itrixp. (B C : inttixi) xurou rtv -r. in r. otpl. • A the
same, with the addition of rou ruipxou, He applied His clay to the eyes of . . .
2 This parenthesis is missing in the Syr. and in a Persian translation.

CHAP. IX. 6, 7. 363
to develope (Meyer). But besides the improbabilities attached
to many of these suppositions, none of them accounts for the
choice made by Jesus, under these circumstances, of the pool
of SUoam. It was the nearest pool, says Meyer. But this
particular is exactly contrary to the purpose supposed by this
exegete. And is not Lange in the right, we would ask, when
he brings into the question the part played by this fountain
in the feast which had just terminated ? By a solemn and
dahy hbation, the fount of SUoam had figured as the em
blem of theocratic favours and the pledge of aU Messianic
blessings. This rite harmonized with the 0. T., which had
aheady contrasted this humble fountain, welling forth silently
at the foot of the temple mountain, the waters of.Shiloah, which
go softly, with the strong waters, the emblem of the brute force
of the foes of the theocracy (Isa. viii 7). We have seen that
Jesus had, during the course of the preceding festival, applied
to His Person the theocratic blessings and symbols which it
commemorated. Why then should He not, in the present
instance, also express by an act what He had hitherto de
clared in words ? He had said : I am to the believer the
spiritual rock, the light-giving cloud. He now declares Him
self by an act the true fountain of SUoam, the reality of all
those divine blessings of which the waters of SUoam were a
type. By adding to the real blindness, which He alone could
cure, that artificial and symbohc bhndness which the waters
of SUoam were to remove, he declared in fact : what SUoam
effects typically, I accomplish in reality. The omnipotent
grace of Jehovah, typified in the ancient covenant by this
sacred fountain, dweUs truly in Me, has even acted through
Me. It may be, that by thus making this fountain, which
was regarded, as sacred, play a part in the miracle, — which He
had not done ch. v., — He had a mind to place this fresh sab
batic cure more evidently under the protection of Jehovah
(Lange). Perhaps it is by the symbolic part given to the water of
SUoam in the cure of the blind man that the remark of the
evangehst : a name which signifies Sent, must be explained.
In a phUologic point of view, the correctness of the transla
tion given by St. John is not disputed. It is admitted that the
name SUoam is a verbal substantive or adjective, from rbv, to

364 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
send, and derived either from the participle passive Kai, or
rather from the Pihel (with the solution of the Dagesh forte
into i). What, then, was the origin of this denomination ?
The pool of Siloe, discovered by Robinson near the place where
the valley of Tyropeon opens on one side upon the vaUey of
Hinnom, on the other on that of Jehoshaphat, is supplied, as
it seems, by a subterraneous conduit, which starts from the
fountain of the Virgin in the vaUey of Jehoshaphat, and
traverses in a zigzag direction the rock Ophel, the southern
spur of the Temple hill. The name : Sent, has been explained
by this circumstance, which would thus signify water brought
from a distance. Ewald and Hengstenberg are of opinion
that this name rather designated the spring itself, the fountain
of the Virgin which supphes the pool, whether the word
signifies simply a conduit or jet of water, or whether, as Heng
stenberg thinks, this sacred water was so caUed as sent from
Jehovah, springs being regarded in the East as gifts of God.
In any case, Israelite consciousness had been, as we have seen,
forcibly struck by the fact that this spring flowed from the
Temple hill itself, the residence of Jehovah, and had from the
earliest times, from the prophetic era, attached to this water
a Messianic signification. It was undoubtedly this relation,
with which the mind of the whole nation was penetrated,
that St. John meant to bring forward in the parenthesis con
cerning the meaning of the word Siloam. The command : Go
to SUoam (the typically Sent) to cleanse thyself from that
which causes thine artificial bhndness, was in his eyes figura
tive of the call : Come by faith to me, the reaUy Sent, who
alone can cure thy blindness, both physical and moral
Meyer and others are not afraid of doing violence to the
good sense of the evangelist, by admitting that St. John saw,
prefigured by this name : Sent, the sending of the blind man to
Siloam. As if there were the slightest logical relation be
tween the individual thus sent and the name of the pool to
which he was sent ; as if, especially, the name of Sent were not
the constant title of Jesus Himself in this Gospel. Liicke, to
get rid of this parenthesis, which perplexed him, has recourse,
with some hesitation, to the hypothesis of an interpolation.
The Peshito, indeed, omits these words, but his supposition
cannot find sufficient support in this omission ; for the Syriac

CHAP. IX. 8-12. 365
translation might easily have omitted, as useless, the Greek
interpretation of a Hebrew word. The Alex, reading offers a
repugnant sense, his clay ! — The prep, et? is used with vtyai,
probably because the blind man had to descend into the pool.
Meyer thinks rather because, in washing, he was to let the
clay fall into it. — The blind man would easily find a guide
among those present. — When the evangelist says : he came
back seeing ;¦ he does not mean that the bhnd man found Jesus
where he had left Him ; he sought Him there that he might
thank Him ; but not finding Him, returned to his home, as
is shown by the expression foUowing, the neighbours, and by
vv. 35 and 37.
Vv. 8—12. " The neighbours therefore, and they which before
saw him beg} said, Is not this he that sat and begged ? Some
said, It is he : others, He is like him.2 He said, I am he.
Then they said to him, How vjere thine eyes opened ? He
answered and said} A man* called Jesus made clay, and
anointed my eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam}
and wash. Having gone there and vjashed, I recovered sight.
Then said they to him, Where is this man ? He said, I know
not." — These verses express in the most natural and dramatic
manner the return of the bhnd man to his house. — The evan
gelist makes a distinction between his neighbours and those
in general who were accustomed to see him (dempovvTes)
begging. — The question of ver. 8 is asked by aU; but two
different spirits are directly manifested in the solutions offered
ver. 9. Some candidly own the fact; others are already
seeking some expedient for eluding it. According to the
Byzantine reading, even the latter positively concede a resem
blance calculated to establish identity ; while, according to
the Alex, variation, they admit only an accidental hkeness.
Whichever shade of difference is adopted, it was evidently the
latter who, after hearing the statement of the blind man, put
to him the questions of vv. 10 and 12. — The expression: to
1 T. R., with 9 Mjj., reads ruipXas ;XABCDKLX, 10 Mnn. It'11' Vg.
Svr. Cop. read trpotrxirtis ; ItPlerl'ue : ru^Xos nv xxi vpotrxirtis.
2 X B C L X It"11' Vg. Syr. Cop. have : m%i xXXx opuoias {no, hut he is like him)
instead of opioios (he is like him), which is the reading of T. R., with all the others.
3 Kxi u*iv is omitted by X B C D L It"11'.
4 X B L and some Mnn. read a before xvlpuvos.
* X B D L X It"11' Syr!Ch : us rot liXuapo instead of us mv xoX. rou 2iXua/i.

366 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
recover sight (ver. 11), is used because bhndness, even though
original, is an unnatural state.1 The question of ver. 12
betrays an intention to provoke an inquiry, and forms the
transition to what foUows.

II. Tlie Investigation. — w. 13-34.
First appearance of the bhnd man, w. 13-17. The bhnd
man confronted with his parents, vv. 18—23. Second ap
pearance of the blind man, w. 24—34.
Vv. 13-17. "They bring to the Pharisees him that before
was blind. Now it was the Sabbath day that2 Jesus made the
clay, and opened the eyes of this man. The Pharisees in their
turn also asked him how he had recovered sight. He said unto
them, He. put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see.
Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God,
because he keepeth not the Sabbath day. Others said, How can a bad
man do such miracles ? And there was a division among them.
Speaking again to the blind man, they say to him, And thou,
what sayest thou of him, in that he opened thine eyes? He
answered, He is a prophet." — Those who urged an investiga
tion were the iU-disposed questioners of w. 10 and 12.- — The
term, the Pharisees, cannot designate the whole Sanhedrim
(comp. vii. 45). It is probable that the important sect of the
Pharisees had a certain organization, and that the persons here
indicated were its chosen representatives, its committee of
management. It was undoubtedly now the day after the
miracle. — The words : he made clay, are aptly added to bring
out the anti-Sabbatic work in the miracle. Renan says of
our Lord, " that He openly violated the Sabbath," an opinion
which we have refuted (p. 160). In the present case, as weU
as in ch. v., Jesus trampled not on the Mosaic Sabbath, but
on its Pharisaic caricature. — The irdXiv (literaUy : again)
1 With respect to the term xvifiXi^t (literally : he again saw), Meyer quotes a
passage of Pausanias {Messen. iv. 12. 5, ed. Schubart), in which that author also
uses this term concerning the cure of one born blind. The fact being in itself a
very interesting one, we add the following details : A Messenian diviner named
Ophioneus is spoken of as rot Ix yivirns ruQXo'v {blind from birth), who, after a
violent attack of headache, recovered his sight (ivi^Xsi^iv ir xbrou). It is true
that Pausanias subsequently states that he soon afterwards lost it.
2 X B L X It"11' read it « n/xipx instead of on.

CHAP. IX. 18-23. 367
and the repeated and (ver. 15) are derived from the impres
sion made upon the blind man, who was wearied by these
questioners, whose purpose he already discerned. This also
explains the somewhat abrupt brevity of his answer. The
division which had manifested itself among the pubhc now
appeared in this narrow circle also. Some, starting from the
inviolabUity of the Sabbatic law, refuse to concede to Jesus, as
a transgressor of this law, any divine mission, whence logicaUy
foUows their denial of the miracle. Others, starting from the
fact of the miracle, infer the holiness of Jesus, and imphcitly
deny the violation of the Sabbath. The choice of the premiss
depends here, as ever, on moral liberty ; it is at the starting-
point that the lovers of hght and the lovers of darkness
separate ; what follows is a mere matter of logic. — 'AuapTmXo*;
must not be translated by sinner. The defenders of Jesus
were not intending to assert His perfect hohness ; and the
termination o>Xo? expresses abundance, custom; hence a man
without principle, hke the pubhcans. — The question addressed
to the blind man, ver. 17, was designed to extort from him
something which might furnish a pretext for suspecting his
truthfulness. On his part, in accordance with received opinion
(hi. 2), he recognised in this miracle the sign of a divine
mission, and frankly owned it.
Vv. 18—23. " The Jews then did not believe that he had been
blind, and recovered sight, until they sent for the father and
mother of him that had recovered sight. And they asked them,
saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind ? how then doth
he now see? His parents answered them, and said, We know that
this is our son, and that he was born blind : but how he now
seeth, we know not ; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not :
he is of age, ask him;1 he shall speak about what concerns him
self. The parents spoke thus, because they feared the Jews : for
the Jews had 'agreed already, that if any man did own Him for
the Christ, he should be excluded from the synagogue. Therefore
said his parents, He is of age, ask him." — From this point the
investigation was conducted by the party decidedly hostUe to
Jesus (ot 'IovSaioi). They suspected some coUusion between
Jesus and the bhnd man, and desired on that account to
1 X omits the words xurov ipurwxn. B D L X ItPleri'ue place them before
HXtxixv i%u.

368 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
examine his parents. Of the three questions contained in ver.
19, the two first, referring to the original blindness of their
son, and the identity of the cured man with this son, are
immediately answered in the affirmative by the parents. There
is a touch of the ridiculous in the three avros, he, by which
they remit to him the solution of the third. — The term
a-vveredeivTo, they had agreed, ver. 22, indicates a decision come
to, and not, as Meyer thinks, a simple intention. This is
brought out by the word tfSv, already, and by the knowledge
the parents had of this measure. — It is probable that at this
time only the first of the three degrees of excommunication
subsequently allowed by the Rabbis was resorted to. This
penalty consisted in exclusion from the synagogue, and the in
terruption of domestic relations for thirty days, which might
be prolonged. This was a new branch thrown out in the
development of hostUe measures against Jesus, and formed the
point of transition between the mission of the officers (ch. vh.)
and the decree of ch. xi. The cowardice of the parents was a
prelude to that of the whole people.
Vv. 24—34. " They summoned for the second time tlie man
who Imd been blind, and said unto him, Give glory to God: we
know tliat this man is a bad man. He answered} Whether lie
be a bad man, I know not : one thing I know, that, having been
blind, I now see. They said to him again} Wliat did he to
thee ? how opened he thine eyes ? He answered them, I have
told you already, and you did not hearken : wherefore would
you hear it again ? will you also become his disciples ? They
reviled him, and said to him, Tliou art his disciple; but we are
Moses' disciples. As for Moses, we know that God spake to him :
but this man, we know not wlicnce he is. The man answered
and said unto them, Wliy, herein3 is tlie marvellous thing} that
you know not whence he is, and yet he hath opened my eyes.
Now we know tlmt God heareth not the wicked : but if any one
honours Him, and docs His will, this man He hears. Never lias
it been heard that any one opened the eyes of one bom blind. If
1 The Alex, omit xxi utiv, which the T. R. adds.
2 X B D It*1"1"" Vg. omit trxXiv.
3 T. R. with 11 Mjj. : iv yxp rauru; X B L : m rouru yxp; D Syr. : «>
orouru out j X A : iv yxp rouru,
4 X B L, 3 Mnn. Chrys. read to before (xupixo-rot.

CHAP. IX. 24-34. 369
this man were not of God, he could do nothing like this. They
answered and said to him, Thou wast altogether born in sin,
and thou teachest us ! And they drove him out." — A delibera
tion, in which the violent party prevailed, took place after
the bhnd man had been thus confronted with his parents,
and it was decided to extort from him a disavowal of the
miracle on the ground of the Sabbatic principle ; in other
words, to annihilate fact by dogma. The expression: to
give glory to God, designates homage rendered to one of the
divine perfections temporarily obscured by some word or
act which seemed to impugn it (Josh. vii. 19 ; 1 Sam.
vi. 5). The blasphemy in this case was the blind man's
assertion : He is a prophet, which, as giving this title to one
who had broken the Sabbath, was regarded as impeaching both
the truth and holiness of God. Hence they demanded that
this guilty assertion should be blotted out by the contrary one :
He is a bad man. — We know, said the rulers, thus setting them
selves up as the representatives of theological knowledge in
Israel. According to their knowledge, the miracle could not
take place, therefore it did not. The blind man, on his side,
while wisely owning his incompetence in theological questions,
simply opposes fact to knowledge, and, conscious of the bad
faith of his opponents, uses language decidedly ironical.
The latter, sensible of the strength of his position, again
question him respecting the circumstances of the fact (ver.
26), hoping to discover, in some of the detaUs, the means of
attacking the fact itself. Having failed to overthrow it by
dogma, they endeavour to undermine it by criticism. This
return to a phase of the investigation which had already been
gone through, made the blind man indignant, and at the same
time emboldened him. He triumphed in their impotence, and
his answer overflowed with irony : You did not hear : you are
deaf then ! ¦ To cover their confusion, they revUe him, and
declare their choice made between Jesus and the Sabbath, or,
which comes to the same thing, between Jesus and Moses.
The blind man, finding that he was argued with, grew bolder
and bolder, and began to argue in his turn ; if he had not
studied theology, he at least knew his catechism. What
Israelite is unacquainted with the theocratic axiom that a
miracle is an answer to prayer, and that the prayer of
GODET II. 2 A JOHN.

370 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
the wicked is not answered? — The construction of ver. 30 is
doubtful. Meyer, Luthardt : " Under the circumstances, it is
very strange that you should not know whence he is, and that
he has opened my eyes." But in this sense the last words are
needless. We think, on the contrary, that the idea : " and that
he has opened my eyes," is the supposition of the preceding
phrase : whence he is, and that it would be better to make the
proposition on . . ., the development of the iv Tovrm, and to
regard the last proposition as principal and antithetic, intro
duced by /cat, and, and yet, as is often done in this Gospel •
Herein is truly a marvel, that you know not whence this man
is, and yet he has opened my eyes ! Tap, for : in fact, this
is somewhat strange. — We know, we Jews in general (ver. 31),
as opposed to the arrogant we know of these doctors in w. 24
and 29. — The reasoning is close; ver. 31 is the major, ver.
32 the minor, whUe ver. 33 draws the conclusion.
Vanquished by such remorseless logic, whose point of sup
port is simply the principle, that what is, is, the adversaries
of Jesus betake themselves to invective. In saying to the
bhnd man, Thou wast altogether born in sin, they aUude to the
bhndness with which he was born, and which they regard as
a proof of his having been born under the curse of God (vv. 2
and 3), and do not perceive that, by this very insult, they do
homage to the reahty of the mhacle which they aim at deny
ing, theh unbelief at last giving itself the lie. — The expression :
they drove him away, means only that they violently expelled
him from the haU. Excommunication, properly so caUed, could
only be pronounced by the Sanhedrim, and in virtue of a formal
deliberation ; but it would naturaUy result from this scene.
If the simple and dramatic character of any narrative is a
voucher for its truth, it is so in the present case. The fact was
pot invented to support a metaphysical discourse, for no such
discourse exists. There is so httle ideality in the whole scene,
that it is, on the contrary, based from beginning to end on
reality, as even Baur acknowledges. "The reality of the
fact," he says, " was the point against which the opposition of
the adversaries was broken."1 And yet this fact was, in his
opinion, invented! What land of man could the evangelist
have been, to write a whole chapter to show how theologic
argument was refuted by a fact, while he himself did not beheve
1 Theol. Jahrb. vol. iii. p. 119.

CHAP. IX. 35-38. 371
in the reality of this fact ? Does not criticism here fare as the
Pharisees do at ver. 34, and give itself the lie ? In fact, the
entire chapter shows modern criticism its own portrait. The
defenders of the Sabbatic statute reason thus : God cannot lend
His power to a violator of the Sabbath, hence the miracle attri
buted to Jesus does not exist. A non posse ad non esse valet
consequentia. The opponents of the miraculous in the gospel
history reason in exactly the same manner, merely substituting
a scientific axiom for a religious statute : The supernatural
cannot exist ; therefore, however weU attested the cure of one
born blind may be, it does not exist. But the fact holds good
against the statute of whatever kind it may be, and wUl in the
end force it to abdicate.

III. The Moral Result. — w. 35-41.
Vv. 35-38 present the moral result of this miracle, and
vv. 39-41 express that of the agency of Jesus in general.
Vv. 35—38. "Jesus heard that they had driven him out;
and finding him, He said to him, Dost thou believe in the Son of
God ? 1 He answered and said, And 2 who is He, Lord, that I
may believe in Him ? Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both
seen Him, and He who is talking with thee is He. He said,
Lord, I believe. And he prostrated himself before Him." 3 — To
attain the end at which Jesus was aiming, the bodily cure of
the blind man must terminate in his spiritual Ulumination ;
and truly his courageous fidelity in presence of the enemies of
Jesus made him worthy to obtain this fresh favour. This
transition is expressed in the text by the first words of ver.
35 : Jesus heard . . . and ... In the question addressed
by our Lord to this man, the reading : Son of God, is un
doubtedly to be preferred to that of three ancient Alex. : Son
of man, for it alone explains the act of worship with which
the scene terminated (ver. 38). We have already shown (vol.
i. pp. 435 and 452 sq.) that the term Son of God is never
synonymous with Messiah. It does not indicate a theocratic
office, but always expresses a personal relation between God
and the individual thus designated. Here, however, as also at
1 Instead of rou hou, X B D and Sah. read rou xvtlpuwou,
2 Em is omitted by A L, many Mnn. It. and Vg., but is maintained by 14
Mjj. and a large number of Mnn.
3 X omits ver. 38 and the first words of ver. 39 (as far as us xpipox, exclusive).

372 COSPEL OF JOHN.
i. 34, we must distinguish between the fuU meaning which this
term possesses in the mind of Him who uses it, and the con
fused presentiment which it excites in the mind of His hearer.
— The question : Dost thou believe ? does not mean : Art thou
disposed to beheve ? (Liicke). It is one of those questions
often put by Jesus, which, surpassing the actual hght of those
to whom they were addressed, were by that very fact calcu
lated to lead to the desired explanation. Thou who hast just
behaved with so much courage, dost thou then beheve ? Jesus
imparted to the conduct of the blind man a value which as
yet it possessed only by implication. The man had perceived
Him to be a prophet, and had courageously declared Him to be
one ; he had thus obliged himself to receive the testimony of
Jesus concerning Himself, whatever it might be. The blind
man unhesitatingly accepted this consequence of his own
declaration, a particular very vividly expressed by the particle
/cat, and, at the beginning of his question. This word, in fact,
serves to identify the light which he waits for with that which
Jesus has just offered hhn. Comp. Luke xvih. 26. — Jesus
might have rephed : It is myself ; but He prefers to designate
Himself by a paraphrase which recaUs His work, for His work
was the guarantee of His testimony. The words : thou hast
seen Him, remind the man of the miracle by which he has been
enabled to behold Him who was then speaking to him. He
says, as it were : Thy healer, hi whom thou hast recognised a
prophet, and this very prophet who is now speaking to thee
with divine authority, is Himself the Son of God. There is
a nice correlation between the first /cat in the answer of Jesus :
Thou hast both seen Him, and that in the question of the blind
man. These repetitions of and show how readily, easily, and
naturaUy the moral facts which form the essence of the narra
tive are linked together. In this rapid development one
advance does not wait for another. — Ver. 38 expresses, both
by word and fact, the climax of this gradual iUuminatiou.
Under these circumstances, in which there was neither for
giveness to ask, nor supplication to offer, genuflexion could
be nothing else than the homage of worship. Besides, this act
certainly relates to the expression, Son of God ; and, as Meyer
remarks, the term irpocrKweiv, to prostrate oneself, is always
applied by St. John to divine worship (iv. 20 sq. and xii. 20).

CHAP. IX. 30-41. 373
At the sight of this man thus prostrate at His feet, and
inwardly enhghtened, our Lord felt caUed upon to proclaim
the general effects which would be produced upon the world
by His ministry.
Vv. 39-41. " And Jesus said, I am come into this world to
exercise this judgment ; that tliey which see not might see, and that
they which see might become blind. And those of the Pharisees
which were with Him heard these words} and said unto Him,
And we, are we blind also ? Jesus said unto them, If ye were
blind, ye should have no sin : but now ye say, We see ; therefore2
your sin3 continueth." 3 — Elirev, He said, without any personal
regimen, indicates a general reflection by Jesus with respect
to what had just taken place. — Properly speaking, the end
of His coming is to give light to the world; but this being
unattainable in the case of those who refuse to be enlightened,
there is a secondary one, viz. that they who reject the light
should be blinded thereby. — The term icpipxi designates rather
a result of the coming of Jesus than a judicial act exercised
by Himself (/cptert?). This result, though undoubtedly designed
(et?), is properly the work of man. The term, into this world,
recalls the expression, light of this world, ver. 5. Most expositors
(Calvin, Liicke, Meyer, etc.) give to the expression : tliose who
see not, the subjective meaning : those who feel and own that
they do not see. This interpretation arbitrarily weakens the
meaning of the expression used by our Lord, and does not
suit the context; for the man whose cure occasioned this
saying, was not more sensible of his blindness than other
blind men whom Jesus did not cure. Tliey which see not are,
then, persons who are really in a state of ignorance ; such per
sons as the rulers themselves spoke of, vii. 49 : as this crowd
which knoweth not the law, the ignorant in Israel, called by
Jesus, Luke x. 21 : vrprioi, babes. They vjho see are conse
quently those who, throughout this chapter, say of themselves :
we knoiu, the experts in the law, caUed by Jesus, in the same
passage of St. Luke, tlie wise and prudent (ao(f>ol Kai crweTol).
While the former have no knowledge of their own to prevent
their surrendering themselves to the revelation of truth brought
1 X D Itr'1"*!" Vg..and Cop. omit rxurx.
* X B D K L X, some Mnn. ltP'er"u', Vg. and Cop. omit out.
3 D L X : xi xptxprixi . . . fitvouo-it (instead of the singular).

374 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
into the world by Christ, the latter, regarding theh imperfect
knowledge as perfect, oppose it to the new revelation, and, as
we have seen in this chapter, even attempt to do away with
facts by their theological axioms. Hence, whUe the former
eagerly welcome the beams of that sun which is rising upon
the world, the feeble hght possessed by the latter becomes
totally obscured, and they relapse into utter darkness. — The
dehcate distinction between fir) BXeirovres (they who see not),
in the first clause, designating a vision not yet developed, and
Tv<pXo£, blind, in the second, designating the total blindness
resulting from the destruction of the organ of sight, should be
remarked. This passage therefore expresses the same thought
as the saying of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels : " 7" thank thee,
0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden
these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them
unto babes " (Matt. xi. 25 ; Luke x. 21). Meyer objects that in
this case the seeing and not seeing refer to the law, and the
becoming blind to the gospel, and that the ambiguity thus
created makes this reference inapphcable. But in the eyes
of Jesus (comp. v. 45 sq.) the law and the gospel are but one
and the same increasing hght, and acquaintance with the law
would lead, if earnestly apphed, to acceptance of the gospel.
Certain Pharisees, who were at this time among those who
surrounded our Lord, ironicaUy ask Him whether He ranked
them, the learned of Israel, among the bhnd of ver. 39. They
do not, as it seems to me, strictly distinguish between the not
seeing and the blind of ver. 39, but keep to the general idea
of blindness, and ask whether it applies to themselves also.
The reply of Jesus to this sarcasm (ver. 41) is one of
crushing severity. Instead of treating them, as they un
doubtedly expected, as bhnd, He says, on the contrary : Would
to God that you were so ! He here uses the word in the
sense of those who see not in the first proposition of ver. 39,
viz. those who do not possess the rehgious knowledge result
ing from a profound study of the law. This was indeed the
meaning of the expression which was uppermost in the thoughts
of those who interrupted Him. Had they reaUy belonged to
the ignorant portion of the nation, their unbelief might have
been merely a result of surprise or seduction : it would be the
sin against the Son of man, which may be forgiven in this world,

CHAP. X. 1-21. 375
or even in another. But, enlightened as they were by their
knowledge of the law and the prophets, it was knowingly that
they rejected the Messiah : This is the son, the heir ; come, let us
kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. This was the sin
against the hght of the Holy Spirit, against truth clearly dis
cerned, and was unpardonable : pievei, it abideth. — This meaning,
which is also that adopted by Luthardt, seems to me much
more natural than that of Calvin, Meyer, and most others : If
you felt that you do not see, if you consented to acknowledge
your ignorance, I could cure it ; but you arrogantly boast of
your knowledge, and for that reason your disease is incurable.
The expression : you, you say (yourselves say), proves nothing
in favour of this latter sense and against ours, as Meyer
asserts; for these words contain an aUusion to the ironical
question of the Pharisees (ver. 40), by which they denied theh
bhndness, thus testifying with their own mouth that they were
not without hght. You yourselves own, by saying on every
occasion : we know (see the whole of the preceding narrative),
that you are not among those who are ignorant of the prepara
tory revelations which God has granted to His people. You
are therefore without excuse.
The relation here pointed out between the ignorant and
the learned in Israel was reproduced on a larger scale in the
relation between the heathen and Jesus, and with the same
result. The sin of the heathen, who so long persecuted the
church, has been pardoned ; whUe the crime of rejecting the
Messiah, consciously committed by Israel, stUl weighs upon
this people. Jesus well knew that this judgment, which His
coming would entail, embraced the whole world. Hence He
said : For judgment am I come into this world, that . . . The
same sentiment reappears at the close of the next paragraph.
Comp. x. 3, 4, 16.

SECOND SECTION.
X. 1-21.  THE FIRST DISCOURSE.
The foUowing discourse comprises three parables : that of
the Shepherd (vv. 1-6), of the Door (vv. 7-10), and of the

376 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
Good Shepherd (vv. 11-18); these are succeeded by an
historical notice (w. 19-21).
This discourse is not, like those of ch. v. and vi, the develop
ment of a theme furnished by the miracles which respectively
preceded them. Jesus does not therein explain, on the occasion
of the cure of the man born blind, that He is HimseK the
Light of the world. StiU it is no less closely connected with
the facts related in the preceding chapter, and is, properly
speaking, only a reproduction of these facts under the para
bolic form. The violent irruption of the thieves into the
sheepfold represents the tyrannical proceedings of the Phari
sees in the theocracy, proceedings of which ch. ix. furnishes a
specimen. The charm exercised over the sheep by the voice
of the shepherd, and the docility with which they follow him,
recall the simple and persevering faith of the bhnd man.
Lastly, the treatment, so fuU of tenderness, of this ill-used
and insulted individual by Jesus, is portrayed in the picture
of the good shepherd interposing in behalf of his sheep.
The three parables form three pictures in gradational suc
cession. On the occasion of the violent expulsion of the man
born blind, Jesus beheld with affection that true Messianic
flock which was already beginning to separate itself from the
ancient Israelite community. This forms" the first picture.
He next depicted the happy and glorious privileges which this
flock, when once it was gathered around Him, would enjoy,
in contrast with the cruel treatment which those members of
the ancient people who remained under the evil direction of
their present leaders would incur. This is the second picture.
Lastly, He brought out that sentiment which was the soul
of His Messianic ministry, His_love for His..fl"^ : a love
extending to the complete sacrifice of Himself. This is the
third picture. There is nothing vague or commonplace in
these delineations, which present a faithful reflection of the
state of things at the time when Jesus was speaking.
I. The Sliepherd. — vv. 1-6.
Vv. 1-5. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth
not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some otlier
way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he tliat entereth in

CHAP. X. 1-3. 377
by the door is tlie sheplierd of the sheep. To him tlie porter
openeth ; and the sheep hear his voice : and he calleth 1 his own
sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when lie hath put
forth all his own sheep} he goeth before them, and the sheep
follow him : because tliey know his voice. A stranger will they
not follow,3 but will flee from him : for tliey know not the voice
of strangers!' — This picture deserves rather to be called an
allegory than a parable. In the parable, the thought is
clothed in a form which, to a certain extent, has a meaning
independent of its moral application ; in the allegory, the appli
cation is directly felt in each feature of the picture, and there
is no time for the image to take a form independent of the
thought. A parable is a picture ; an allegory, a transparency.
It has been thought that the images here employed by our
Lord must have been borrowed from some sight which was at
the moment before His eye; that it was, for example, the
hour at which the shepherds were bringing home their flocks
from the neighbouring pastures to Jerusalem.4 This supposi
tion might also be extended to the second picture, by assum
ing that Jesus was near the sheep gate when He uttered the
7th and succeeding verses.5 Such suppositions are not im
probable. But in any case, it is evident that our Lord, who
in the preceding discourses had applied to Himself all the
theocratic symbols, is here continuing the same method.
David had already invoked the Lord as his Shepherd (Ps.
xxiii). Jehovah, in His supreme manifestation as the Messiah,
had been represented by the prophets as the Shepherd of
Israel : Isa. xi. 11; Ezek. xxxiv. ; Zech. xi. The latter pas
sage even presents a remarkable analogy with the actual
situation : the Messiah makes a last effort to rescue the flock
of Jehovah from slaughter ; He tries to feed it ; He dis
misses the three shepherds who had fed it before Him, but
only succeeds in attaching to HimseK the poorest of the
flock ; he breaks His staff after a month's labour, receives
thirty pieces of sUver as his wages, like a servant of the
1 X A B D L X and some Mnn. read tpuvu instead of xxXn.
2 B D L X, some Mnn. It*11' and Cop. read iSix trxvrx {all) instead of i$m
xpofixrx, X and some Vss. read ro iiix only.
3 Some (ABD, etc.): xxoXoulmouitit ; T. R., with the others (X K L, etc.),
axoXouffnturtt. 4 Neander, in his lessons. 6 F. Bovet, Voyage en Terre-Sainte.

378 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
lowest class, and leaves the flock to the bad shepherds, who
lead it to the slaughter. Now, what was Jesus doing at this
very time ? After having vainly endeavoured to gather Israel,
He renounced the hope of saving the nation ; and, leaving to
the Pharisees the government of the flock in general, which
was led by them to the slaughter, He confined HimseK to
leading out of this flock the few poor sheep who, hke the
bhnd man, looked unto Him. It is almost impossible to
suppose that Jesus had not the picture drawn by'Zechariah
in His mind when He uttered the words in question.
Liicke justly observes that the formula, Amen, amen, never
begins anything quite new, but always closely connects what
foUows with what went before, whether by way of contrast
or confirmation. — A sheepfold in the East is not a covered
buUding hke our stables, but a mere enclosure surrounded by
a waU or palisade. The sheep are brought into it in the
evening, several flocks being generaUy assembled within it.
The shepherds, after committing them to the care of- a common
keeper, the porter, who is charged with theh safe keeping
during the night, retire to their homes. In the morning
they return and knock at the closely-barred door of the en
closure, which the porter opens. They then separate each
his own sheep, by calling them ; and after having thus col
lected their flocks, lead them to the pastures. As to robbers,
it is by scahng the waU that they penetrate into the fold.
Calhng to mind these customs, described by Bochart in his
Hierozoicon, and confirmed by most modern traveUers, almost
explains the aUegory. — The sheepfold represents the theocracy.
The irruption into the enclosure, by the two means of strata
gem (/c\e7TT77?, the thing) and violence (a^ct^?, the robber),
signifies the hypocrisy and audacity by which the Pharisees
had succeeded in establishing within this spiritual enclosure
an authority unsanctioned by any commission from God. In
fact, nothing in the law justified the mission which this party
arrogated to itself, and the despotic power it exercised in IsraeL
In opposition to this unauthorized agency, the image of the door
naturaUy designates the legitimate entrance, viz. a function
divinely instituted, and especially, as shown by the context, the
Messianic office, announced and prefigured throughout the
0. T. The shepherd is therefore the Messiah, with a view to

CHAP. X. 1-5. 379
whom this normal entrance was prepared. The subst. Troip>r\v,
shepherd, being in Greek without an article, and consequently
adjectival, designates the quahty and not the individual : he
enters hke a shepherd (not like a robber). The reality of
his divine vocation is proved by the manner of his entrance ;
he has no need to scale the waU, for the porter opens the
door to him. — Who then is the porter ? According to Bengel,
Hengstenberg, and Gess, God Himself, because it is the Father
who draws souls to the Son (ch. vi). But could God, the
owner of the flock, be fitly represented by a servant of a
quite inferior and subordinate position to the shepherds them
selves ? According to Stier and Lange, he is the Holy Ghost,
to which meaning the same objection equally applies. Be
sides, by this image our Lord must have meant to designate
some historical function, some ministry as positive as that of
the Messiah HimseK. According to Chrysostom, the porter is
Moses, because the law leads to Christ — a notion which seems
rather far-fetched. Modern expositors (Liicke, de Wette,
Meyer, Luthardt) think that this individual is but an embel
lishment of the picture. But this cannot be conceded, seeing
how speciaUy the part assigned him is defined. Lampe under
stands by the porter those in Israel who were waiting for
Christ, and especiaUy John the Baptist. The whole com
mencement of this Gospel shows that it was indeed the latter,
but the latter alone, whom Jesus had in mind ; for it was he
whom God raised up in Israel for the express purpose of
announcing the Messiah, and introducing Him into the theo
cracy. " There was a man sent from God to bear witness to
the hght, that all men through him might believe" (i 6, 7).
His testimony, invested with divine authority, ought to have
immediately opened the door of aU hearts to Jesus.
The shepherd is not distinguished from the robber by his
mode of entrance alone, but also by the manner in which,
when he has entered, he gathers the flock. The thief seizes
the sheep with violence ; the shepherd confines himself to
caUing them; his sheep recognise his voice, and, separating
themselves of their own accord from those which belong to
other shepherds, gather around him. The entire theocratic
nation was not the flock of the Messiah, as Jesus well
discerned. Hence a selection must take place ; but there was

380 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
no need that He should Himself take steps for such a purpose ;
it was enough that He should speak, for there is a pre-estab
lished harmony between the heart of the sheep and the sound
of His voice. Is He not Jehovah, the shepherd of the Old
Covenant, whose voice was already known by His own sheep
(1 Cor. x. 4, 9) ? When He presented Himself to Israel,
did He not come unto His own ? The expressions ol 18101, His
own, and ra X8ia, His own dwelling-place, ill, are certainly
borrowed from the discourse we are explaining (w. 3 and 4).
This was the reason that, as soon as Jesus appeared, He
seemed one already known and loved to every Israelite
indeed, to every Nathanael. — Several exegetes (Meyer) apply
the expression sheep, in w. 2 and 3, to the members of the
theocracy in general, in opposition to the term His own slieep,
in w. 3 and 4, which designates, they think, behevers only.
But this distinction is untenable, for it would compel us to
give to the expression, hear His voice, an entirely external
sense, which would be contrary to the paraUel verse (27) and
to the context. The term slieep, vv. 2 and 3, as weU as His
own sheep in the succeeding verses, signifies only such Israehtea
as were moraUy disposed to beheve in the Messiah. If Jesus
afterwards added the epithet i8ia, own, it was not to distin
guish them from those previously mentioned, but to emphasize
the new value they acquire in His heart when once they
have come to Him, and have become by faith completely His.
Then He names the particular name of each, — for this is the
meaning of the reading <f>mvei, — or He invites them to foUow
Him by caUing them by name, which is the meaning of the
reading icaXei. In either case there is a more special element
than in the preceding and general call to faith, indicated by
the word, His voice. After having drawn them to Himself,
He bestows upon them quite personal marks of His knowledge
of, and favour towards, them. The name is in Scripture, as
Hengstenberg remarks, the expression of personahty. This
special name, given to every sheep, is a proof of individual
acquaintance and tenderest affection. Witness the name of
Peter given to Simon (i 43), and the address : Mary, in which
Jesus sums up all that Mary is to Him, aU that He is to her ;
also the thou, believest thou, addressed to the healed bhnd
man, ix. 35.

CHAP. X. 1-5. 381
Unless we are mistaken, exegesis did not, before Lange,
grasp the bearing of the words : and lie leadeth them out. To
understand them, it was necessary to have penetrated more
deeply into the thought and plan of St. John'-s Gospel than
had tUl late been attempted. We have in these words not a
mere every-day description of the shepherd leading his flock
to pasturage, but a precise statement by Jesus of a definite
historical situation. The time had come for Him to lead His
own flock out of the theocracy which was devoted to destruc
tion. He recognised the signal of this inevitable rupture in
the expulsion of the man born blind (ix. 24), in the decree
of excommunication which struck both Himself and His fol
lowers, and generaUy in the violent hostility of which He
found Himself the object (ch. vii. and viii.).
The shepherd, having called and gathered his sheep, and
bestowed upon each of them a mark of special affection, leads
them out from the field in which they had been shut up. The
term iicBdXXeiv, to cast out, to throw out, ver. 4, forcibly expresses
the leading idea of the passage. The word designates an ener
getic and almost a rough act on the part of the shepherd in
assisting any sheep, who might stUl be hesitating, to quit the
pale within which it had been hitherto kept, and fearlessly to
surrender itself to the chances of the new existence which the
call of the shepherd opened to it. The remainder of the verse
describes the hfe of the Messianic flock thus collected in those
spiritual pastures to which its divine leader had introduced it ;
then the persevering faithfulness of the sheep, of which that of
the blind man had just furnished an example ; and lastly, the
close relation henceforth existing between these sheep and their
shepherd. There is a remarkable tenderness in the words, "when
he hath put them forth, he goeth before them." So long as they
were yet within the fold, he stayed behind to urge them on
wards, that not one might remain (Trdvra, all, according to the
Alex.). But when once the departure is accomplished, he, puts
himself at their head to lead the flock to pasturage. In fact,
every separate feature of the picture exhibits an admirable
accuracy. Ol8acri, they know, says more than d/covei, they hear
(ver. 3), this latter term being used to designate their reception
of the first call, the former referring to that personal acquaint
ance already formed which is the result of daily intercourse.

382 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
As the sheep pursue their way, the voices of strangers
are heard on the right hand and on the left, seeking to
entice them from the footsteps of their shepherd ; these are
thieves, who, not daring openly to act the part of robbers, try
to fill that of seducers. Perhaps our Lord was alluding to the
hypocritical exhortation of the Pharisees, ix. 24 : Give God the
glory, and to their sarcasms, ix. 41. But inducement was as
powerless to break the tie, when once formed, as violence had
been to prevent its formation. The sheep were already so
familiar with the voice of the shepherd, that any other than
his only repeUed and estranged them.1
Many of the best modern exegetes, Liicke, Meyer, Luthardt,
and even Lange, who has so weU grasped the relation between
this parable and the entire situation, apply the image of the
shepherd, not to our Lord, but to the pastors of the New Testa
ment. The chief reason adduced by Meyer in favour of this
interpretation is the saying of Jesus (ver. 7) : I am the door,
from which it is inferred that He cannot be the shepherd
in the first picture, but that this part is filled by the disciples
and other future pastors of His church. Jesus was to them
the door, because by His word and by His Spirit He opened
for them an entrance into men's hearts. But the reason
aUeged is of no value, for the two pictures are, as we shall
see, and as is proved by the separation made between them by
ver. 6, absolutely different. Besides, this apphcation entirely
breaks the connection between this disclosure and the scene
which precedes it, and the general connection between this and
aU the discourses as yet reported. For what are these but so
many testimonies to the Person of Jesus Himself ? Again, if
the disciples had taken an active part in the preceding scene,
it might be inteUigible that Jesus should contrast them, as the
representatives of the ministry of His church, with the Phari
sees. But this was by no means the case. Jesus had stood alone
in the breach, and it is impossible to understand what could
induce Him to oppose to the Pharisees any other individual
1 There is a well-known anecdote of a Scotch traveller, who, meeting under
the walls of Jerusalem a shepherd bringing home his flock, changed garments
with him, and thus disguised proceeded to call the sheep. They, however,
remained motionless. The true shepherd then raised his voice, when they all
hastened towards him, in spite of his strange garments.

CHAP. X. 7-10. 383
than Himself. If Meyer objects, ver. 9 : I am the door, to my
interpretation, I have quite as good a reason to object, ver. 1 1 :
I am the good shepherd, to his. In either case there is a change
of the imagery, whether between the first and second parables,
or between the second and third ; and finaUy, we shall see
what a forced interpretation of the second parable is necessi
tated by giving this meaning to the first.
The idea of the organic unity of the Old and New Testa
ments, of which the Tubingen school of M. Reuss declare no
trace is to be found in the fourth Gospel, is very clearly
brought out in this passage.
Ver. 6. " This similitude spake Jesus unto them ; but they
understood not what things they were which (Fr., what was the
meaning of what) He spake unto them." — The word irapoipila,
similitude, properly signifies a path beside the road, hence a
figurative discourse. This word and irapaBoXr), parable, are
indifferently used by the LXX. to render ^>b»d. Meyer is
nevertheless of opinion that the former designates rather a
sententious discourse, an allegory ; the latter, a picture assum
ing the historic form, a parable properly so called. The
vigorous expression Tiva r)v arises from that which is the
essence of a figure, viz. its meaning.
II. The Door. — vv. 7-10.
Vv. 7—1 0. " Then spake Jesus unto them x again} saying,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All 2
those who came before me3 are thieves and robbers: but the
sheep did not hear them. I am the door : by me if any man
enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find
pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill,
and to destroy : I am come that they might have life} and that
they might have superabundance!' — The relation between this
and the former similitude is one, not of identity, but of grada
tion. Jesus, having described the simple and normal manner
1 X omits trxXiv, and X and B xurois. 2 Tlxtns is omitted by D b.
3 Upo tf&ou is placed before nxfov by T. R. with some Mnn. only. A B D K L X A,
60 Mnn. and Cop. place these words after nxhv. They are entirely omitted in
the nine other Mjj., 100 Mnn. It. Vg. Syr0*.
4 X adds xiuviot.

384 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
in which the Messiah forms His flock, in opposition to the
arbitrary and tyrannical procedure by which the Pharisees had
succeeded in usurping authority in the theocracy ; now depicts
in a new allegory, having but a slight relation as to form with
the preceding (comp. in St. Mark the parables of the sower
and the ear, iv. 3 sqq. and 26 sqq), what He wiU be to His
flock, the abundance and safety they shall enjoy, in opposition
to the destruction with which those souls are threatened who
remain in the ancient fold, where they are abandoned without
defence to the intruders who are their self-appointed masters.
The word irdXiv, again, ver. 7, was omitted by the Alex.
because, by reason of the analogy of the imagery, it was
thought that this picture was only a continuation of the pre
ceding. This word here, as frequently, indicates a fresh dis
course and picture ; comp. Matt. xiii. 44, 45, 47. Jesus
delighted in depicting the same idea under diverse aspects,
either by modifying the first image, or adding to it a new one.
The picture, vv. 1—5, which described the forming of the
Messianic flock, and its departure from the theocratic fold,
was a morning scene. The second .similitude, w. 7-10,
which describes the life of the flock when formed and led
by the Messiah, is taken from a scene at mid-day. The
sheep go at wiU in and out of a fold situated in the midst of
the pasture. When they desire shelter they enter it ; when
hunger urges them they leave it, for its door is constantly
open to them. They thus possess both safety and abundance,
the two essentials to the prosperity of a flock. In this new
image the shepherd disappears, and it is the Door that plays
the chief part. The fold no longer represents the ancient
covenant, but Messiah's salvation, and that complete happi
ness which behevers who have accepted Him enjoy. In the
former parable, God caused the porter to open the door to the
Shepherd ; in this, the Messiah Himself is to His sheep the
door of a constant and daily salvation.
Those who apply the former figure to the pastors of the
N. T. dispensation (Meyer, Luthardt, etc.) explain the words :
I am the door of the slieep, as signifying: I am for pastors
the door which gives them access to the sheep. Even at the
first glance, it is evident that this meaning is not natural.
Then, according to their view, the succeeding words : He shall

chap. x. 7-10. 385
l>e saved, must refer to the salvation of the pastors them
selves ; and those next following : he shall go in and out, and
shall find pasture, to those means of edifying His flock with
which the Lord wUl furnish faithful pastors. Luthardt goes
so far as to quote here the words of St. Paul to Timothy : Thou
shalt both save thyself and those that hear thee. I confess that
to me it is difficult to understand how such exegetes as Meyer
and Luthardt can maintain such an interpretation. What
motive could induce Jesus, in the present situation, to assure
His disciples, and, in them, the future pastors of His church,
of their own salvation, and of the success of their ministrations
to their flocks ? According to our interpretation, the meaning
is quite simple: the door of the sheep is that by which the
sheep themselves go in and out at pleasure, as described ver. 9,
and signifies Jesus Himself as daily fulfilling His mediatorial
office. He promises to recent Jewish believers, such as the
bhnd man, — and these really stood in need of encouragement,
— that with Him they shaU want for nothing, neither shelter
in case of danger, nor food to satisfy then spiritual wants.
In Him they shaU possess inward peace and divine strength.
It is evident that in ver. 8 Jesus had in view the same
intruders as in ver. 1, viz. the Pharisees. This is brought
out by the context in general, and by the special epithets :
thieves and robbers, which are found in both verses. The only
difference is, that in ver. 1 Jesus compared Himself with
them, inasmuch as He is the Shepherd, and here, inasmuch as
He is the Door. In fact, in ver. 1 it was the illegal source of
their authority which He desired to point out, whUe here it is
the detestable and injurious use they make of it in the midst
of the flock belonging to them which He meant to characterize.
Not only had this audacious caste usurped the most despotic
authority within the theocracy, but had gone so far as to inter
pose between the soul and God, and to declare itself the sole
medium by which He was to be approached. They had taken
possession of " the key of knowledge" (Luke xi. 52), and had
made the understanding of the Scriptures their own monopoly.
They distributed without appeal certificates of orthodoxy and
salvation, and recourse was even had to their intercession
(Matt. xxhi. 13). They arbitrarUy disposed of the kingdom
of heaven in Israel (xiii. 14). They claimed to be mediators,
GODET II. 2 B JOHN.

386 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
and excluded the Messiah beforehand from the part which
had been divinely prepared for Him. If they are here again
caUed thieves and robbers, it is no longer, as in ver. 1, with
reference to the manner in which they got possession of the
sheep, but to the selfish end of their usurpation, and with a
view to the fatal termination to which they would not faU to
lead those who should remain under their guidance. The
explanation of the variously interpreted expression: all that
came before me, results from this general sense of ver. 8. What
ever HUgenfeld, in his desire to show this Gospel to be a semi-
gnostic work, may say,1 Jesus most certainly could not here have
been speaking of Moses, or the prophets, or of any legitimate
theocratic authority. We have seen, and shall see, that the
language of the evangelist himself is a protest against any
such supposition (v. 39, 45-47, vi. 45, x. 34, 35, etc.). The
word r)Xdov, came, by the opposition to ver. 7 and ver. 9,
defines itself in the sense of : came as the door, i.e. as making
themselves mediators between God and the soul. The Messiah
is the sole necessary medium between God and man (xiv. 6).
AU who before Jesus dared attempt to fulfil this office in
Israel, deserved the names which He here apphes to them.
Undoubtedly^ the expression came does not agree with that of
the door. But in ver. 10 Jesus also combines these terms
when speaking of Himself. He here uses images with con
siderable freedom, — a freedom justified by the difference be
tween an aUegory and a parable. The observation of Meyer,
that history knew nothing of false Messiahs tiU the times of our
Lord, is a very just one, but does not apply to our explana
tion. For this deals with individuals who usurp, not the title
and external part, but only the moral position of the Messiah.
This interpretation of the first words of ver. 8 seems to us
demanded by the context. Hence we may dismiss the nume
rous proposed explanations, which more or less differ from it,
without discussing them at length, viz. those of Camerarius,
who takes irpo ifiov in a local sense : Passing before and
outside the door, — -of Wolf and Olshausen, who give to irpo the
sense of xaP^ '• Separating themselves from me, the true door,
— of Lange, who takes irpo in the sense of avri: In my place,
1 This before me, he says, embraces the whole Jewish past ; and the all those
who . . . applies to all former leaders of God's flock.

chap. x. 7-10. 387,
— and of Calovius, who makes the expression before me mean :
Before I had sent them. That of Gerlach : Before the door
was opened in my person. That also of Jerome, Augustine,
Melanchthon, and Luthardt, who give to came the quite special
meaning : Came of themselves, without being sent. And
finaUy, that of Chrysostom and many others down to Weiz-
sacker: Came as false Messiahs. Nor is it needful, with
Tholuck and de Wette, to renounce the hope of arriving at
any satisfactory conclusion, and to assert, with the latter, that
this saying does not harmonize with the usual gentleness and
moderation of Jesus. The various readings, particularly the
omission of the words irpo ep,ov, are merely attempts to get
over the difficulty.
The pres. elcri, are, well shows that in the mind of Jesus
the persons here designated were a caste existing at the time
He was speaking, whose representatives were not to be sought
at any great distance ; whUe the last words : the sheep did
not hear them, recaU the profound dissatisfaction left in the
hearts of many Israelites by the Pharisaic ministrations. To
whom shall we go ? John vi. 68. "Come unto me, all that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart :
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and
my burden is light" Matt. xi. 28-30."
In opposition to these pretended Saviours, who are in reality
but slaughterers, Jesus renews and developes His statement
(ver. 9) : I am the door. When He said : If any man enter by
me, He was speaking of entrance into a state of reconcUiation,
of a participation by faith in the salvation offered by the
Messiah ; but when He afterwards spoke of" going in and out,
it is evident that He did not mean to say that the sheep would
quit a state of salvation to return to it again. These two
verbs are the exposition of what is included in amdrjoerai,
shall be saved. To go in and out is an expression frequently
used in Scripture to designate the free use of an abode, into
which one may enter, and from which one may depart, without
hindrance, which supposes that the individual thus acting
belongs to the house, and is at home there (Deut, xxviii. 6,
xxxi. 2; Jer. xxxvii. 4; Acts i 21). Jesus here uses the
term, to go in, to denote the satisfaction of a desire for repose,

388 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
the possession of a safe retreat ; and the expression, to go out,
to indicate the satisfaction of the need of nourishment, the
enjoyment of rich pasturage (Ps. xxhi.). This is also shown
by the words immediately foUowing : and shall find pasture.
Simple, clear, and beautiful as this image of going in amd out
is when applied to believers, it would be utterly insignificant
if applied to pastors, as such. — The idea of pasture is further
developed, ver. 1 0, by that of life, to which Jesus even adds
the idea of superabundance, of superfluity. By this He cer
tainly does not, as Chrysostom thinks, indicate something
more exceUent than hfe, such, for instance, as glory, but means
to say that the spiritual pasture wiU always contain more
nourishment than the sheep wiU make use of, vi. 12, 13.
Such wiU be the happy future of the Messianic flock, whUe
the mass of the people, who remain under the leadership of
the Pharisees, after having contributed to the satisfaction of their
pride, ambition, and cupidity, wiU, under theh guidance, perish
morally, and at last wUl even perish externaUy. The three
verbs seem to express a gradation : KXe^rj (to steal) relates to
the monopoly exercised over these souls ; dvcrrj (to kill), to the
moral corruption which is its result : diroXicrri (to destroy), to
the total perdition in which the Pharisaic road terminates.
III. The Good Slicpherd. — vv. 11-18.
Vv. 11-13. "I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Sliepherd
giveth1 His life for the slieep. But2 the hireling, wlw is not a
shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming,
and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth ; and the wolf catclieth them, and
scattereth the flock} The hireling fleeth} because he is a hireling,
and careth not for the sheep." — The first picture shone with
the fresh tints of morning, the second depicted the hfe and
employment of the flock in the middle of the day, the third
seems to bring us to the time when the shadows of evening
are spreading, and the sheep, which are being brought back
by their shepherd to the fold, are suddenly exposed to the
1 X D It*11' Vg. and Augustine read iiiuo-iv instead of nfao-iv.
a B G and L omit 3s after pmriuros.
8 X B D L n and some Mnn. omit rx orpafixrx.
* X B D and L omit the wordo of the T. R. : a it putiuros fu/yu.

CHAP. X. 11-13. 389"
attacks of the wolf, who was lying in wait in their path.
Jesus is here again represented as the Shepherd. This third
aUegory is not, however, confused with the first, in which the
prevailing contrast was between the thief and the shepherd,
while in that which is now the object of our attention the
antithesis is between the Good Shepherd and the mercenary
guardian of the sheep. In this third allegory the wolf plays
the decidedly hostile part which was in the first attributed to
the thief.
The word koXo<;, beautiful, was used by the Greeks to
designate goodness as the highest moral beauty. The sequel
will show in what this goodness consists, viz. in a devotion
carried out to complete self-sacrifice. — Several expositors.
(Meyer, Luthardt) find in the expression tyvxyv ndivat
(literaUy : to put one's life) the idea of a pledge : Jesus pledg
ing His life as a ransom for ours. But the idea of a ransom
is foreign to the image of a shepherd and his sheep, and still
more so to that of the wolf, by which the enemy is repre
sented. Hengstenberg thinks it more probable that the ex
pression is borrowed from Isa. liii 10 (CS3 D1SJ>). Is it not,
however, more simple to derive its meaning from that which
we meet with John xiii. 4 : ifidna Tidevai, to lay aside His
garments, and that willingly, with His own hand ? The idea,
then, is voluntarily to lay down life. Comp. Huther on
1 John ih. 1 6 (where the expression is again found) ; and just
as St. John says, xhi. 1 2 : /cat e\a/Se ra IfiaTia (He took again
His garments), so does he here say, ver. 17 : "va irdXiv Xa/3o>
avT-gv (that I may take it again).
Ver. 12 must be translated : who is not a shepherd, and
not, as by Ostervald and Arnaud : who is not the shepherd : it
is the rank of shepherd which is refused to a hireling. Who,
then, did Jesus mean to represent by the hirehng ? Almost aU
expositors take this individual for the Pharisees. But then
they would be. here presented under a light differing too
widely from that in which they are exhibited in the first
simUitude. A cowardly keeper is very far removed from a
robber and an enemy ; and if the hireling means the Pharisees,
what is the meaning of the wolf? According to Luthardt, the
devil, the chief enemy of the kingdom of God, acting by
means of the adversaries of the church. But our Lord too

390 GOSPEL OF JOHN
completely identified Phariseeism with the diabolic spirit
(ch. viii), to oppose them to each other as the wolf is here
opposed to the hireling. Lange, in his Leben Jesu, under
stands by the wolf the Roman power. But it was not reaUy
under the blows of the Roman power that Jesus actuaUy feU.
According to Meyer, in his first edition, the wolf represents
every anti-Messianic power, the Pharisaic included; the result
of which would be, that the hireling fleeing before the wolf
would represent the Pharisees flying before the Pharisees !
Hence Meyer was obhged, in his fifth edition, to give up this
explanation, and he now considers that the wolf represents the
future mercenary pastors of the Christian church. But how
should Jesus, and especially His hearers,, have thought at this
time of such an explanation ? It seems to me that the pas
sage, xii. 42, sets us upon the right track for discovering the
true meaning of the images, the hireling and the woK. It
is there said, that " among the chief rulers many believed on
Him ; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest
they should he put out of the synagogue!' The Pharisaic party
had such possession of the mind of the people, and had so
worked upon the national pride, that any one, even among
the rulers, who did not submit to its dictation was thereby
discredited. The legitimate authorities instituted by God
Himself, the -priests and Levites, whose vocation it was to
oppose this noxious tendency, were either themselves infected
by it or submitted to its tyranny, just as the priests and
bishops of the Church of Rome have yielded, and to this day
do yield, to the dreaded power of Jesuitism. One alone was
found who ventured to confront the ruhng party, even Jesus,
whose death was the reward of His courage and faithfulness.
" Crucify him, crucify him ! " was the answer to His : " Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " The woK, then,
represents the principle which is positively hostUe to the
Messiah and the kingdom of God, viz. the Pharisees. In this
case the hirehng can only signify the legitimate authorities in
Israel, the priests and Levites, the appointed teachers of the
law, whoso position made it their duty to fulfil the task
accomplished by the self-sacrifice of Jesus. One fact which
proves that there was more of cowardice than of actual hos-
tUity in theh conduct, is the circumstance mentioned Acts

CHAP. X. 11-16. ;391
vi. 7, that " a great company of the priests were obedient to the
faith." Comp. also ix. 16, which shows that even in the
Sanhedrim there was a party weU disposed towards Jesus,
but not daring openly to oppose the violent intrigues of the
Pharisaic party against Him. He is here bringing forward
only the historic factors who concurred in accomplishing the
decree of His death, and not the deep and divine reasons
which overruled the decree itself. Hengstenberg and others
see in the hireling only a fictitious personage intended to
bring out, by way of contrast, the character of the Good
Shepherd. But why in this case are two whole verses devoted
to the description of this person, his character and motives ?
— The word dpird^ei,, seizes, is apphed to the individuals
whom the wolf reaches (avTd) ; whUe the action of cr/copirl^eiv,
to scatter, bears upon the whole flock. Hence the to irpoBaTa
of the Byz., a word which we must avoid omitting, with the
Alex., as Tischendorf now does. — After thus describing the
cowardly keepers, Jesus returns to the description of the Good
Shepherd and his conduct towards the flock, and apphes this
image more expressly to Himself (etyo, I, ver. 14).
Vv. 14-16. "As for me, I am the Good Shepherd,, and I
know my sheep, and I am known of my sheep} As the Father
knoweth me, and as I know the Father : and I give 2 my life for
the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold:
them also must I bring, and they shall hear 3 my voice ; and
there shall be one flock, one Shepherd." — The repetition of the
words of ver. 11, " I am the Good Shepherd," is occasioned by
the contrast presented by the image of the hireling ; and the
epithet good is explained by that tie of tender love which
unites Jesus to His sheep. In the first place, He feels so
lively an interest in them that each is individually known to
Him, that He discerns what He possesses in each, and aU
that each wUl be to Him. There is a close relation between
the verb I know and the possessive my sheep. But this
knowledge is mutual. For behevers also, when they contem
plate Jesus, discern how He feels for them, and what He will
1 T. R., with 11 Mjj. all the Mnn. and Syr., reads, yivuo-zapoxi u*o rm t/tuv.
X B D L It. Vg. and Cop. : yivuo-xoutiv poi rx ipox.
2 X D : tiiupu instead of nfapu.
3 The Mss. are divided between xxouo-oumv (B D, etc.) and xxouo-uim {)& A, etc.).

392 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
be to them. From this relation between Himself and His
sheep, Jesus ascends to that which is at once its pattern and
source, His own union with the Father. The term icadm?, as,
does not express a simple comparison, as mairep would, but
characterizes the knowledge which unites Jesus to His sheep
as being of the same nature as that which unites Him to God.
It is the same intimacy, in such wise that this relation of
Jesus to God is the only medium in which the communion
of Jesus with His sheep can be formed ; comp. xvii. 9 : They
are thine . . . Thou hast given them to me.
After thus ascending to the ultimate source of the relation
He is describing, Jesus comes to the second feature which
distinguishes Him as the Good Shepherd. The words, " I give
my life for the sheep" form a kind of refrain (comp. w. 11,
17, 18), such as we frequently meet with in this Gospel in
moments of exalted feeling (iii. 15, 16, iv. 23, 24, vi. 39, 40,
44, 54). This saying of Jesus, even when the term sheep is,
according to the context, confined to believers only, does not
contradict that of St. John : " He is the propitiation, not for
our sins only, but for those of the whole world " (1 John ii. 2).
For the death of Jesus was, in the divine purpose, for all,
though in reality it only benefits behevers. Jesus weU knew
that the vir4p, on behalf of, would be realized only for the
latter. But it is impossible that this sacrifice, the work of the
holiest and most devoted love, should have for its object only
those few behevers, such as the disciples and the man born
blind, who consented to separate themselves from the un
believing multitude. The survey of Jesus extends in breadth
(ver. 16) in proportion as He soars to heights and plunges
into depths (ver. 15). The death of such a Being as the Son
must . obtain an infinite reward. Tlie other sheep, whose
acquisition wiU compensate Him for the loss of those who
now. refuse to follow Him, are evidently heathen believers. Of
these Jesus declares : I have, not merely : I shaU have, them ;
for all who are of the truth, in aU mankind, are His from
all eternity (xviii. 3 7). We here meet again with one of the
most profound thoughts of this Gospel, a thought which flows
directly from the relation asserted in the prologue between the
Logos and the human souL The Logos, the life and light of

CHAP. X. 17, 18. 393
unfallen man, continues to fulfil this office for the sinful world
(i. 10) ; and among the heathen themselves, all who obey this
inward hght will recognise their ideal in Jesus, and wiU follow
Him as His sheep. — The demonstr. adj. TavTv<>, placed as it is
after the substantive, this fold, assumes, as de Wette believes,
and whatever Meyer and Luthardt may object, that Jesus is
here regarding pagan nationalities also as kinds of folds, as
preliminary groupings divinely instituted to prepare for the
gospel. Meyer, again, committing the same error as in his
explanation of the first allegory, viz. that of explaining the
images of one similitude by those of the other, understands
the expression dyayeiv in the sense of to feed, according to
the image of vv. 4 and 9, and is now foUowed by Luthardt.
But does not the end of the verse clearly show that the idea
with which the mind of Jesus was at this moment filled was
that of a great union to be effected ? And is it not evident
that the /cat before yevr/aerai must be explained : and then,
which assumes the meaning bring, and not feed ? Vulgate :
adducere. Besides, the parallel passage, xi. 52 : avvayayeiv
et? ev, does not admit any other explanation. When the
historical application of the first simihtude is well understood,
the historical sense of the term dyayeiv cannot be doubted.
It is, in fact, the work of St. Paul and the labours of succeed
ing missionaries that are described by this expression ; and
thus this third similitude, which announces the call of the
Gentiles, corresponds with the first, which represented the
separation between the church and the synagogue. — The
words : " Tliey shall hear my voice," recall the expression at
the close of the Acts : " The salvation of God is sent to the
Gentiles ; and they will hear it" (xxviii. 28). — There is much
solemnity in the last words, standing as they do in simple
juxtaposition : One fold, one shepherd. They contain the
grand thought which forms the text of the Epistle to the
Ephesians : " the breaking down of the wall of partition
between Jews and Gentiles by the death of Christ " (Eph. ii.
11-22). This prophecy is, by the work of missions, being
daUy fulfiUed before our eyes with respect to the heathen
world. As to the final conversion of Israel, it is neither
directly nor indirectly alluded to here.
Vv. 17, 18. " Tlierefore doth my Father love me, because I

;394 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
give my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh1 it from
me, but I give it of myself. I have power to give it, and I have
power to take it again. This commandment have I received from
my Father." — The notion of a free gift is contained in the
expression Tr)v tyvxyv Tidevai (to put one's life). But the
image just employed by Jesus might have obscured this
important idea. For though there is devotion, there is also
impotence in the death of a shepherd who lets himseK be torn
to pieces by a ferocious woK, to give his flock time to escape.
This was undoubtedly the reason that Jesus, before concluding,
brought out so strongly and expressly that essential feature, the
complete freedom with which He accepted death. Aid tovto,
for this, refers, as generally in St. John, to an idea previously
expressed, but about to be again taken up and developed in
the succeeding proposition, beginning with on (ver. 18). The
idea which Jesus means to bring out in this ver. 17 is not,
then, that of the principal proposition : that His Father loves
Him, but that of the subordinate proposition : that He loves
Him, because He gives His life freely. Undoubtedly the Father
loved the Son eternaUy ; but when once made man, the Son
could be approved and loved by Him only on the condition that
He should perfectly reahze the new law of His existence as
Son of man. This law, which is that He should give His hfe,
results from the solidarity into which He entered with a faUen
race by uniting HimseK thereto. The constant willingness of
the Son to accept this obhgation of love forms the object of
the infinite satisfaction (the dyairav) of the Father. It was in
this sense that St. Paul caUed the death of Jesus " an offering
of a sweet savour" (Eph. v. 2). — The last words : that I
may take it again, cannot, as Calvin and de Wette think, be
simply added for the purpose of recalling the result of Christ's
death. Nothing authorizes us in giving this diluted meaning
to iva ; nor must we, on the other hand, bring these words into
such rehef as to make them echpse the idea, because I give my
life, on which they are dependent. To grasp the sense, it will
be sufficient to paraphrase as follows : My Father loves me,
because I give my life, and that not to forsake it, but to take
it again. The self-devotion of the Son in consenting to give
His life, is infinitely pleasing to the Father. But it would be
1 X and B read tipit {lias taken) instead of xipu {taketh).

CHAP. X. 17, 18. 395
no longer pleasing to Him unless accompanied by a resolu
tion on the part of the Son to recover this sacrificed hfe.
WiU not the love which urges one friend to expose himseK for
another, also prompt him to do everything to rejoin his friend
after having saved him ? He who gives his hfe through love,
could not do so but with the intention of recovering it. The
seK-devotion whose end was not union would be of an inferior
land, and could not be pleasing to God, who is love. As
Luthardt exceUently remarks : " Jesus means to take His hfe
again, for He designs to carry on in His, glorified state His
office of Shepherd to the church, and especially to the heathen,
whom it is His mission to gather in" (Eph. ii. 17). If Jesus,
in devoting Himself to death, had not done so with a deter
mined purpose to rise again, He would have but half given
Himself. His death would have been a withdrawal, at the
same time that it was a gKt. And this incomplete gift of
Himself to mankind would not have obtained the fuU appro
bation of the Father.
This absolute spontaneity of the Son, this free disposal of
Himself, whether dying or taking His life again, is asserted
with fresh energy at ver. 18. First, in a negative form :
nothing limits it ; it is not through impotence that the shepherd
wiU yield to the hostile power, but because a time wUl come
when He wiU freely consent to His defeat (xiv. 31). And to
be afterwards deUvered from the bonds of death, He has only
to will it. The word oiiSek includes every creature ; indeed,
we may include in it God Himself, since if, in dying, the Son
obeys the desire of the Father, He nevertheless does it freely ;
and the last words of ver. 18 seem to affirm the freedom of
Jesus with respect to the Father Himself. — It is evident that
the words i^ovaiav ey», / have power, are purposely repeated,
for they express the essential thought of the passage. They
recall the saying of Jesus to Pilate, xix. 1 1 : Thou couldest have
no power over me . . . Jesus was not obhged to die, for He
had not sinned, and death is the wages of a sinner. Being
holy, He was at liberty to retain His holy hfe. At its very
last moment, He could have claimed the assistance of twelve
legions of angels to snatch Him from the hands of His enemies.
— So also, having given His hfe, He was not forced to take it
again. The resurrection was His own work, as well as the

396 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
work of the Father's power. For it depended on HimseK to
demand it or to leave it unclaimed. As Luthardt says : In
these two acts (His death and resurrection) the agency of the
Son meets that of the Father. This is i%ovaiav eyeti/, to dis
pose freely of His own Person. Undoubtedly it was, as we
are told in so many passages, the Father who raised Him, but
not without the energetic action of His own will. The treasure
of life was open to Him as to His people, through the infinite
love of the Father (xi 42) ; He had but to stretch out His
hand to take it. — The last words : This commandment have I
received, are generally apphed to the command to die and to
rise again, which was given Him by the Father. But this
notion would weaken that just expressed by Jesus, and be con
trary to the motive of this discourse, which is to assert our
Lord's complete independence. Would it not be better to
apply the term ivToXr), command, to the mandate with which
Jesus came into the world, and which consisted in the power
of being able to die and to rise again at wiU ? This free dis
posal of His person, with respect to lhe and death, was the
privUege He enjoyed here below. To cover this incompar
able privilege with a veil of humility, He thought good to
caU it a command, evroXr). This, then, was the tenor of the
mandate with which the Father sent Him : Thou shalt die or
not die, Thou shalt rise again or not rise again, according to the
free promptings of Thy love.
IV. Historical Conclusions. — vv. 19—21.
Vv. 19-21. "There was a division therefore1 again among
the Jews by reason of these words. Many2 among them said,
He hath a devil, and is mad ; why hear ye him ? Others said,
T/iese are not the words of one that liath a devil : can a devil
open the eyes of the blind ?" — Always the same result, a division
preceding a final choice; comp. vii 12, 30, 31, 40, 41, ix.
8, 9, 16. The word irdXtv, again, caUs attention to the con
stant repetition of this result. — The words, Why hear ye him ?
show the uneasiness with which the hostUe party observed
the favourable impression made on the better disposed by the
discourses of Jesus. — The answer of the latter (ver. 21) con-
1 X B L X and It. omit aw. - X and D here add cut.

CHAP. X. 22-42. 397
tains two arguments placed in juxtaposition. The first is the
expression of their own experience. The second, which might
be united to the first by : and besides, is added with a view to
the opponents, on whom the words of Jesus had not made
the same impression.
Thus do the sheep of Jesus, within the vast fold of the
theocracy, increasingly separate themselves from the body of
the flock ; and I and you, which formed the theme of ch. viii.,
is more and more replaced by : I and mine, which forms a
brief summary of the new situation.

THIRD SECTION.
X. 22-42. — THE SECOND DISCOURSE.
In ch. vii. we saw Jesus return, in a discourse dehvered at
the feast of Tabernacles, to the fact of the cure of the im
potent man, by which His preceding stay at Jerusalem, at the
feast of Purim (ch. v.), had been distinguished. In hke manner
does He, in the second part of ch. x., take up the thread of
the discourse delivered after the cure of the man born
bhnd, and reported in the first part of this chapter. We have
aheady explained this manner of proceeding (see p. 143). The
exasperation of His enemies in the capital not having suffered
Him to carry out His subjects fully, He took them up again
at His next visit, as matters still in hand.
The feast of the Dedication (ver. 2 2) was .kept towards the
close of December. Where, then, it may be asked, did our
Lord sojourn during the two months which elapsed between
this feast and that of Tabernacles, and which must be neces
sarily interposed between vv. 21 and 22? Meyer, Hengsten
berg, and others infer from the silence of St. John that He
continued in Jerusalem and its neighbourhood. But is such
a supposition compatible with the precautions He had been
obliged to take at the feast of Tabernacles, the end of which
had evidently been to give this journey the character of a sur
prise ? Can we admit that, in this state of affairs, He could
have dwelt in peace two whole months in the presence of the
hostile party, especiaUy after the contest had been further

398 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
aggravated by the scenes related in ch. vii-x. 21 ? Certainly
not ; for such a stay, whether at Jerusalem itseK or in the
neighbourhood, would only have accelerated the crisis, and
brought on the final catastrophe. Moreover, the narrative of
St. John positively excludes this supposition. In the discourse,
x. 25—30, Jesus reproduced in substance that which He had
dehvered after the cure of the man born bhnd. He even ex
pressly quoted it (ver. 26 : as I said unto you). Could this
have been possible if He had remained at Jerusalem during
the two months which elapsed between these two discourses ?
This fact, on the contrary, evidently assumes that this was the
first time He had found Himself in the presence of the same
hearers since the feast of Tabernacles, when He had first em
ployed the aUegory of the shepherd and the sheep. This
being the case, it may be weU, without entering into harmonistic
hypotheses, to bring forward the foUowing facts from the
synoptic narrative. St. Luke describes in detaU the departure
from GalUee, when Jesus finaUy left that province to betake
HimseK to Judaea and Jerusalem (Luke ix. 5 1 sqq). To this
act our Lord gave the greatest notoriety, by His fareweUs to
the villages in which He had exercised His ministry, by the
mission of the seventy to prepare for His appearance, and by
the slowness with which He performed this journey ; so that
the report of this itinerant preaching reached even the ears
of Herod, and gave him uneasiness (xiii 31). This journey
could not then have been that mentioned, John vh. 10, as
taking place as it were in secret, and bringing Jesus suddenly to
Jerusalem. Either, then, He must have returned to Galilee
after the feast of Tabernacles, or this whole narrative of St.
Luke (as also that of St. John) is a fiction. But are we justi
fied in treating as such two narratives which are so easUy recon-
cUed, although there is not in either the slightest aUusion to
the other ?
Already in ch. v. the return to GalUee was not mentioned,
and the narrative went on (vi. 1) as though the abode of Jesus
in that province were taken for granted. And this is also the
case here. The silence of the narrator simply implies the
return of Jesus to the place where He had previously dwelt,
and which He had but temporarUy quitted on the occasion
of the feast. This is proved by the fact that when, after the

CHAP. X. 22-42. 399
feast of the Dedication (x. 40), Jesus left Judaea to go else
where than to GalUee, His new place of abode (Perea) is ex
pressly mentioned by the evangelist : and He abode where John
baptized. After His return, then, Jesus resumed for a time His
GalUean ministry ; it was not tiU afterwards that He caUed
upon His foUowers to break the last ties, for the sake of follow
ing Him to Jerusalem ; that He sent before Him into the
towns and viUages of Southern GalUee His seventy disciples,
to prepare them for His last appeal ; and that He pronounced
the condemnation of the cities on the shores of the Lake of
Gennesareth. This prolonged tour, the recital of which occupies
nine chapters of St. Luke (ix. 51— xvih. 18), must have been
interrupted by a short journey to Jerusalem ; for the account
which he gives of Jesus at the house of Mary and Martha
(Luke x. 38—42) suddenly transports us to Bethany; and the
parable of the Good Samaritan, which immediately precedes it,
seems also to harmonize with a sojourn in Judaea. What,
then, was this excursion to Jerusalem, assumed in the docu
ments used by St. Luke, though no account of it is given by
himself ? It is impossible not to be struck by the remarkable
coincidence between this journey and that to the feast of the
Dedication, recorded by St. John. After this rapid excursion
to Jerusalem, Jesus must have continued His leisurely tour in
Southern Galilee, and then have crossed the Jordan to go to
Perea, as we are positively informed by Matthew and Mark.
This sojourn in Perea is the point at which the four Gospel
narratives meet, Matt. xix. 9, Mark x. 1, John x. 40-42, and
Luke xvhi. 15 sq., where the paraUehsm between the third
Gospel and the other two Synoptists is resumed (the bringing
of the httle children, and the question of the young ruler).
Thus the fdur accounts agree with each other, while each
pursues its' independent course.
The succeeding paragraph contains an historical introduc
tion (w. 22—24) ; a first address by our Lord, in which He
shows the Jews the abyss which separates them from HimseK
(25-31) ; and a last instruction, in which He endeavours once
more to do away with that accusation of blasphemy which
was to them the great stumbling-stone (vv. 32-39). The
paragraph finishes with the description of His abode in Perea.

400 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
I. Historical Introduction. — vv. 22-24.
Vv. 22—24. " Now x it was at Jerusalem tlie feast of the Dedi
cation} it was winter. And, Jesus walked (Fr., came and went)
in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him,
and said unto Him, How long wilt thou make us to doubt ? If
thou be the Christ, tell 3 us plainly." — The feast of the Dedica
tion was instituted by the Maccabees in remembrance of the
purification of the temple after its profanation by Antiochus
Epiphanes (1 Mace. iv. ; Josephus, Antiq. xii. ,7 . 6). It lasted
eight days, from the 8th Chisleu, which, if this were A.D. 29,
fell that year, according to the aheady quoted computation of
M. Chavannes, on the 19th or 20th December. It was caUed
ra <pmTa, the lights, on account of the briUiant Ulumination
with which it was celebrated, not only in Jerusalem, but in
the whole country. Jesus made it the occasion of addressing
once more, before the Passover, a last appeal to His nation.
We may conclude, from what has aheady been said, that He
probably made this hasty journey to Jerusalem, while the
seventy disciples were accomplishing in GalUee the mission
with which He had entrusted them, and there preparing one
place after another for His last appeal.
It was the rainy season, and remaining in the open air
was no longer possible. Hence Jesus frequented Solomon's
porch, an ancient peristyle, the last remains of the old temple,
situate in the eastern part of the court, above the vaUey of
Jehoshaphat. The place was endeared to the evangelist by
the remembrance of the circumstance which he was about to
relate, and seems to have been equaUy sacred in the eyes of
the primitive church of Jerusalem (Acts hi. 11). The nature
of the locality facilitated (thcn,vev. 24) the kind of manoeuvre
at this time executed by the Jews, and described by the term
iicvicXmcrav, they surrounded Him. WhUe Jesus was walking
under this colonnade, they seized a favourable moment to
interpose themselves between Him and His disciples, and to
•surround Him. Such is, whatever Meyer may say, the mean-
1 B and L replace Ss by ran.
'SBDGLXn It"1" and Cop.omit xxi before x'-'.um i»i which is the read
ing of T. R. with all the rest.
3X: uitot instead of urt.

CHAP. X. 25, 26. 401
ing of this unusual expression. Their fixed design was, not
to leave Him at liberty tiU He should have uttered the deci
sive word. It was a repetition, in an intensified degree, of
the scene recorded viii. 25. They were tired of replies which
seemed to them ambiguous, whUe many among them undoubt
edly felt that never had any man so nearly approached the
Messianic ideal. Let Him only consent at last to play in
good earnest the part of Messiah, to purge the land from the
Roman power, as formerly Judas Maccabaeus had purified the
temple from Syrian profanations, and they were ready to haU
Him at that very festival. If not, let Him frankly own that
He is not the Messiah, and cease to excite the expectations
of the people ! — The expression ttjv tyvxyv a'lpeiv, properly :
to raise the mind, was very applicable to an agency like that
of Jesus, which inflamed the national hopes without satisfying
them. Philo employs the term p.eTempi%eiv in exactly the same
sense. II. First Address. — vv. 25-31.
Vv. 25, 26. " Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed
not : the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness
of me : but you, ye believe not ; because 1 ye are not of my
sheep, as I said unto you" 2 — Never had the position of Jesus
with respect to the Jews been at such a state of tension. He
could not answer : I am ; for the meaning which they attached
to the word Christ had, so to speak, nothing in common with
that in which He used it. StiU less could He reply : I am
not ; for He was indeed the Christ promised by God, and in
that sense He whom they expected. His answer is mar-
veUous for its wisdom. He appeals, as in viii. 25, to those
preceding testimonies by which He had applied to Him
self aU the Messianic symbols of the Old Covenant, and had
in some sort ^o spelt out His title of Christ, that, if they
desired to believe, they had only to pronounce it themselves.3
1 X B D L X, 12 Mnn. ItPIeri'ue Vg. Syr"11 and Or. read on «m instead of ou yxp.
2 X B K L M n, some Mnn. It"1" Vg. and Cop. omit the words xxius utrov upt.it,
which are supported by 12 Mjj., almost all the Mnn. ItPleri'u<! and Syr.; some
Mnn. and Vss. repeat them : As I said unto you (ver. 26) : Did I not say unto
you (ver. 27) ? •
3 Gess (p. 99) rightly brings forward the perfect harmony here manifested
between St. John and the Synoptists. In the latter also, Jesus, while accepting
GODET II. 2 C JOHN.

402 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
It is thus that His answer : I told you, may be explained,
although He had never uttered the word. To His own testi
mony is, moreover, added that of the Father. His miracles
were aU the works of the Father, for they were aU performed
with the invocation of His name ; and if Jesus had been an
impostor, would God have thus answered Him ? But this
divine testimony, not less than that of Jesus HimseK, faUed
when opposed to theh unbehef (ver. 26). He was not such
a Messiah as theh hearts desired, and that was why they
affected not to understand that which was so evident. The
subject vpieh, you, standing first, implicitly contains the expla
nation which foUows : you are not of my sheep. The Jews did
not recognise His voice as that of the Messiah, of the Divine
Shepherd, because they did not possess the moral dispositions
by which the sheep destined to form His flock were dis
tinguished. — The form of quotation, as I told you, is omitted
by the Alex. Mss. But this omission may have arisen from
the circumstance that these words are not found textuaUy in
the preceding discourses ; or for the stiU more simple reason
of an accidental confusion of the syUables fimv (ip,mv) and
aiv (ifiiv). The authority of 12 Mss., supported by that of
the most ancient Vss., seems to vouch for theh genuineness.
Almost aU exegetes, editors, and translators connect them with
ver. 26. In our first edition we thought it preferable, for the
foUowing reasons, to regard them as the preamble of ver. 27 :
1st. In several analogous though not identical cases (vi. 36, 65,
vh. 38, xiii. 33), the formula of quotation bears upon what fol
lows; 2d. This formula seems to have a rather languid effect if
used to conclude a subject ; 3d. The verse which foUows con
tains an almost hteral quotation of the words of the preceding
discourse (w. 3-5), whUe ver. 26 presents only a distant
resemblance to preceding sayings. There is, nevertheless, one
point which seems to me decisive in favour of the connection
with ver. 26, and that is the pronoun v/uv, as I said to you.
For Jesus never apphed to unbelieving Jews such promises as
are found in ver. 27, while He frequently addressed to them
reproaches similar to that in ver. 26. On such a reproach, in
(in the conversation at Csesarea) the title of Christ from His disciples, forbids
them to utter this word before the people. As in St. John, He desires the thing
and not the name (Matt. xvi. 20 and parallel passages).

CHAP. X. 27, 28. 403
fact, the two first allegories, vv. 1-5 and 7-1 0, understood in the
historical sense which I have given them, are founded. Reuss
finds in this quotation an indisputable proof in favour of his
own opinion concerning the discourses in the fourth Gospel :
" Nowhere had Jesus thus spoken." And again: " The aUegory
of the sheep was dehvered to an entirely different audience."
But the first difficulty is obviated by ever so slight a compre
hension of the preceding shnUitudes ; for had He not, by oppos
ing in vv. 1—5 and 7-10 His sheep to the theocratic flock,
said to the Jews who desired to remain such : You are not of
the number of Messiah's sheep ? The second difficulty does
not really exist, for the discourse was not really addressed,
as Reuss insists, to the pUgrims from a distance who had come
to the feast, but in answer to some of the Pharisees who asked,
Are we blind also ? Now these latter were certainly inhabi
tants of Jerusalem, and hence it is not surprising that Jesus
should again find Himself in their presence, or in that of
members of their caste, at the feast of the Dedication. The
assertions of critics have indeed great need of supervision !
In the words which foUow, Jesus describes the privileges
attached to the relation created by faith between Him and His
sheep. Although He and His adversaries are separated by a
great gulf, yet the image here introduced certainly contains an
invitation ; for as yet a bridge is cast across the chasm, and
Jesus has not renounced the hope of seeing some among them
come to Him.
Vv. 27, 28. "My sheep hear1 my voice, and I know them,
and they follow me; and I give, unto them eternal life; and
they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them from my
hand!' — The six propositions of these verses have been divided
(Bengel) into three pairs. Luthardt prefers dividing them
into two groups of three each : on the one side, the faith of
the believer, his personal union with the Lord resulting there
from, and^lastly, the faithfulness with which He continues
in this union (ver. 27); on the other, the gift of hfe bestowed
on the behever by Jesus, the salvation assured by Him, and
the divine protection enjoyed through Him (ver. 28). But
this division into two groups evidently faUs by reason of the
1 X B L X, Homel. and Clem. : xxauount instead of xxouu, which is the reading
of T. B. with 14 Mjj., etc.

404 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
two Kayd), and I, at the beginning of the second and fourth
propositions. These two pronouns indicate a repeated reci
procity between the conduct of the behever and that of Jesus,
and therefore speak in favour of Bengel's division, which is
as foUows : first pair, the faith of the behever in the word
(hear my voice), and Christ's act of personal communion with
the behever (I know them) ; second pair, the practical fidehty of
the behever who is thus known and loved (they follow me), and
the communication on the part of Christ of eternal hfe (/ give
unto them . . .); the third pair mentions a state rather than
an act of the behever — his certain salvation (they shall never
perish), and then the act of Jesus who ensures him this privi
lege (no man shall snatch . . .). The first pair reproduces the
idea of the simUitude, vv. 1—6 ; the second that of the aUegory,
w. 7—10; the thhd, that of the picture, w. 11-18. — The
hand is not here the emblem merely of power, but also, and
above all, that of property.
Vv. 29, 30. "My1 Father, which gave2 me them, is greater9
than all ; and no one is able to pluck them out of my* Father's
hand. I and my Fatlier are one." — One feels almost tempted
to find, with Luthardt, a strict syUogism in the thoughts
expressed vv. 29, 30. Major: My Father is greater than all
(ver. 29). Minor: I and my Father are one (ver. 30). Con
clusion: Therefore no one can take them from me (ver. 29).
Only, is not this too logical ? The reasoning of Jesus gene
raUy tends rather to extend after the manner of a spiral, than
to return upon itself hke a circle. And this is the case here ;
the sentiment both rises and enlarges. To the first guarantee
of the believer's safety, viz. that which results from the sheep
being in the hand of Jesus as His property (ver. 28), He
adds a second, that which is based upon the fact that this
right of property is shared by God Himself, who, because no
power equals His, wiU certainly be able to maintain it.
Thence the thought of Jesus rises still higher, even to the
intuition of that relation in virtue of which everything is
i x ItP,Ml'"">oniit|M!>.
- X B L It. Vg. and Cop. read a itiuxtv {what He gave) instead of os Ss3«i*s»
{who gave), which is the reading of T. R. with 14 Mjj. and Syr. — D has a l~sluxus.
3 A B X It. Vg. Cop. : piuZot instead of pou^uv, which is the reading-of T. R.
with 15 Mjj.
4 X B L X and Or. omit ptau.

CHAP. X. 29, 30. 405
common to the Father and the Son, viz. their substantial
unity. This gradation is entirely one of sentiment, of the
consciousness of Sonship exerted in its utmost profundity.
There are four principal readings of ver. 29, — 1st. That of
T. R. and 11 Mjj. (T A II, etc.), 6'? and fielfav. the Father
who gave them me is greater than all. 2d. That of B and It.,
o and fielXflv : what the Father hath given me is greater than
all. 3d. That of A and X, o? and fiei&v : the Father ivho gave
them me is greater (neuter) than aU. 4th. That of x and L, a
and fiei^mv, which is reaUy without meaning unless we can
resolve to give a masculine attribute (ael^mv) to a neuter
subject (6, what the Father . . .). One must be much pre
possessed in favour of the Alex, text, the documents of which,
in this case, aU contradict each other, and present an almost
equally intolerable meaning, to prefer it, under either of its
forms, to the Received text. Luthardt himself is obliged to
return to the latter. " The context," he says, " requires us,
in spite of the best authorities (?), to keep to the Received
text." In fact, how can we suppose St. John to say, according to
B, that what the Father has given to Jesus is greater than all?
We should be obliged to give to greater the sense of more pre
cious, which is forced, especially in this context, where the
power to be exerted is the point dwelt on. The reading of A,
preferred by Meyer, is no less repugnant. For how could we
give to God the attribute greater in the neuter : some greater
thing ! The Received reading is, then, the only one possible.
The safety of believers, already guaranteed by the power of
the Son, to whom they are given (ver. 28), is stiU further
ensured by the power of the Father, by whom they have been
given to Him. For this power it is which acts through the
instrumentality of the Son, and which is above all created
power. Is this double guarantee to be referred also, as Heng
stenberg insists, to the faUs of believers ? Nothing indicates
this ; and when Jesus said greater than all, it is evidently of
external enemies, and not of the unfaithfulness of the sheep
themselves, that He intended to speak.
To me it seems probable that the relative proposition 6?
SeSw/cev was first replaced by the more flowing form o
8e8mKct>i (the reading of D). From this o arose, by a mixture

406 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
With the primitive reading, that of X and B : o 848mtcev ; and
lastly, from this neuter the neuter p,ei£ov in B, as the attribute
of o. Such is the probable origin of these various readings.
Several exegetes find in I and my Father are one
only a unity of wUl. Evidently, however, the context re
quires more. The goodwiU of the shepherd would not
suffice for the safety of the sheep. Hence Calvin and most
moderns (Meyer, Luthardt) rise to a unity of power. This,
with the addition of the notion of community of property, is
logicaUy required by the context. But even this does not
come up to the fulness and copiousness of the absolute ex
pression of ver. 30. The thought of Jesus rises stiU higher,
even to the notion of a unity of nature, whence arises a unity
of will, power, and property. Have we not here the cul
minating point of this discourse, as in the saying viii. 58, the
chmax of the preceding discourses? If our Lord did not
give to these words that transcendent meaning which we
attribute to them, would He not have corrected the misunder
standing of the Jews, who, after having heard Him, set about
stoning Him as a blasphemer ? — St. Augustine says that as
the word we are refutes SabeUius, so does the word one refute
Arius. Nor is he in the wrong. We might even say that
Arius is already refuted by the former of these two expres
sions. For even this plural : we are, would be blasphemy in
the mouth of a mere creature. — It has been objected that the
expression : to be one, is elsewhere apphed to the relation of
Jesus to His people, and that this proves it to have only a
moral signification. But the union of Jesus and His people
is no mere harmony of will, but a consubstantial union. The
incarnation has established a relation of nature between Jesus
and ourselves, and this relation henceforth embraces our whole
physical and moral personahty.
Ver. 31. " Then 1 the Jews brought stones again to stone Him."
— Ovv, then: on account of the blasphemy (ver. 30); comp.
ver. 33. — IldXiv, again, alludes to viii. 59, only there we had
r)pav, they lifted up, whUe here St. John says iBdcrTacrav, they
carried. They had not these stones at hand in the porch, but
were obliged to fetch them from the court, at some distance.
This was no mere demonstration, as in ch. vhi, but a real
1 Out is omitted in X B L It*"'.

CHAP. X. 32, 33. 407
preparation, for at last accomplishing the so frequently threat
ened act of stoning Him. How completely is the testimony
of an eye-witness, noting with increasing anxiety these dif
ferent degrees of malice, revealed by the delicacy with which
these varying shades are rendered !
III. Second Address. — vv. 32—39.
The answer of, Jesus deals with two subjects, — 1st, the
blasphemy which was imputed to Him (w. 32-36); 2d,
His relation^ to God, which was contested (vv. 3 7-3 9).
Vv. 32-36. The charge of blasphemy.
Vv. 32, 33. " Jesus answered them, Many good works have I
showed you from my Father ; 1 for which of those works do ye
stone me ? The Jews answered Him} For a good work we stone
thee not, but for blasphemy ; and 3 because that thou, being a
man, makest thyself God!' — This time Jesus did not withdraw
as at vhi 59, but forced the stones from His enemies' hands
by a question. Good works would be more literally rendered
beautiful works, the epithet KaXd designating not the benefi
cent character but the moral beauty of these works, the
completeness of theh holiness and power, as weU as their
goodness. — The term e'Setfix, properly: I have shown, charac
terizes these works as splendid specimens of those which the
Father keeps in reserve, and as sensible and glorious proofs of
the favour with which He regards the Son. The Father
shows Him these works in the ideal sphere (vv. 19, 20), and
He shows them to the world in that of reality. — The preposition
e/c indicates that the power by which Jesus performed these
works proceeded from the Father. — The question of Jesus is
full of cutting irony, expressive of the deepest indignation.
Undoubtedly the motive for which the Jews intended to stone
Him was not that which Jesus here imputes to them. But
by alleging another motive they imposed upon their con
sciences, and He by this question disclosed the true state of
affahs. Had not their murderous hate been first manifested
1 X B D omit poou.
2 T. R., with 9 Mjj. (D E G, etc.), and against 8 Mjj. (X A B, etc.) 20 Mnn,
It. Vg. and Syr., adds Xtyovrts.
3 X omits xxi.

408 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
on the occasion of the cure of the impotent man (ch. v.) ?
Had not the cure of the blind man increased its violence
(ch. ix.) ? And would it not be a third miracle, the raising of
Lazarus (ch. xi.), which would bring it to its fatal climax?
Jesus knew well that it was these great and good works
which, by marking Him as the Son, destined Him to their
fury. This is the heir; come, let us kill him. — This question so
paralyzed them, that Jesus was able again to address them.
In ver. 33 the Jews formulate the point in dispute as it
appears to their deluded conscience. — The term blasphemy
expresses the general notion, and the proposition foUowing :
and because . . ., specifies the charge, and apphes it personaUy
to Jesus.
Vv. 34-36. " Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your1
law} I have said, Ye are gods ? If it called tliem gods, unto
whom the word of God came, and if tlie Scripture cannot be
destroyed ; say ye of Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and
sent into the world, Thou blaspliemest ; because I said, I am the
Son of God ? " 3 — This reasoning has frequently been brought
forward as an implicit retractation of the expressions in which
Jesus seemed to assert His divine nature. In this sense He
has been understood to say : Mere creatures have been called
gods because they represent God in some one of His functions,
that of judge, for example ; now it is solely in this sense that I
assert my divinity. But Jesus is thus made to contradict aU
His preceding testimonies, the meaning of which is now
admitted even by rationalistic exegesis. We must not forget
that the only charge taken up by our Lord, in this first part
of His answer (vv. 34-36), is that of blasplwmy. With this
end in view, then, His reasoning is : Scripture caUs mere
human beings gods, inasmuch as they were endued with a
function in which they were the representatives of God Him
self. Hence, even were I nothing more than a mere man, I
should not, according to the Scriptures, have deserved to be
treated as a blasphemer for having caUed myself the Son of
God. The argument thus understood, however, always leaves
room for the objection, that Jesus had caUed Himself God in
quite another sense than that in which the Scriptures had
1 X D and It»»' omit uptuv. * X B D L and X here add •«.
3 X D E G : hou instead of rou hou.

CHAP. X. 34-36. 409
given the title of gods to the judges. But there is also a
second point to be noticed here, viz. a gradation : If Scripture
did not blaspheme when calling those individuals to whom
any revelation was addressed gods, how can I have uttered
blasphemy by declaring myself to be God, in whom God sends
into the world His revelation itself ? The monotheism of the
Bible is absolutely different to that cold, dead Deism ex
tracted by Jewish orthodoxy from the sacred writings, and
separating man by a great gulf from the Creator. This
petrified monotheism is indeed the bond of union between
degenerate Judaism, Mahometanism and modern rationalism ;
but it is only a gross caricature of the scriptural conception.
Every theocratic function conferred by, and exercised in the
name of, Jehovah places him to whom it is entrusted in a
living relation with the Most High, makes him share His in
spiration, and constitutes him His agent. Thereby the man,
whether king, judge, or prophet, becomes relatively a manifes
tation of God Himself: "In that day, the house of David shall
be as God, as the angel of the Lord," Zech. xii. 8. The 0. T.
is, in its deepest tendency, ever advancing towards the incar
nation, the climax of the increasing approximation between
God and man. It is on this that our Lord's argument is
reaUy based : if there is nothing blasphemous in the whole
current, the end to which it is flowing, the appearance of a
man who declares himself one with God has nothing in itself
derogatory to the sovereignty of God.
The quotation is from Ps. lxxxii. 6 ; and the term law
here, as in vii. 49, xii. 34, etc., designates the entire 0. T.,
not as named a potiori parte, but rather because the whole
book constituted the law of Israelite life and thought. On
the expression, your law, see what was said on viii. 17.
Asaph was in this psalm addressing the theocratic judges.
Ver. 1 describes their greatness by reason of the exalted func
tion committed to them, of being the instruments of divine
justice. God; Himself sits in their midst ; hence it is from
Him that their sentences emanate. In vv. 2-5, Asaph con
trasts the sad reality with the ideal greatness of this function.
In ver. 6 he returns to the intuition of the first verse, that of
the dignity of their office ; and the words : I have said, Ye are
gods, refer to the saying of Asaph himself in ver. 1 : God sitteth

410 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
in the assembly of God, a saying in which it is evident that
the term God used the second time includes the persons of
the judges. Vv. 7 and 8 remind the judges that they wUl
themselves one day be judged, and have to give account of
that divine function with which they were endowed. Jesus
draws from the Psalmist's words a conclusion a minori ad
majus exactly Uke that of vii. 23. His argument is based
upon the principle, that the Scripture cannot blaspheme.
By those to whom the word of God came, Jesus understands
those judges whom the Holy Spirit addressed, saying : Ye are
. . . The expression : if the Scripture cannot be destroyed,
shows the unbounded confidence with which the word of
Scripture inspired Jesus.
Suppose it had been the evangelist who had invented this
whole argument, how could he, the creator of the theory of
the Logos, have resisted the temptation of here putting into
the mouth of our Lord that favourite title which He bestowed
upon him in the prologue ? The most natural gradation
would have been : The law calls them gods to whom the word
came ; how much less can I be accused of blasphemy, who am
the Word itself, when I attribute to • myseK the title of God !
St. John does not, however, yield to this temptation, which in
his case did not exist, because he confined himseK to recording
faithfully what his Master had said. — Jesus designates
Himself as Him whom the Father has sanctified and sent.
The first expression, strictly taken, might be referred to the
earthly hfe of Jesus, and more particularly to certain acts of
consecration, such as His mhaculous bhth, or His baptism.
But then, either the expression which foUows: sent into the
world, would have to be apphed to His pubhc appearance, to
the commencement of His ministry, or we must admit that
there is a retrograde movement in the saying — two supposi
tions which are both very forced. The term, to send into the
world, naturaUy refers to a fact anterior to the earthly exist
ence of Jesus, and indicates the mission with which He was
entrusted when God confided to Him the task of redemption.
The term, to sanctify, designates that divine act by which God,
before sending Him, specially dedicated Him to this mission.
The sending depends upon this dedication, which includes the
mandate, the ivToXij spoken of ver. 18. Comp. 1 Pet. i. 20.

CHAP. X. 37, 38. 411
The Father and the Son took counsel together prior to the
coming of Jesus into the world ; and of this counsel He states
the result when He says : I came down from heaven not to do
my own will, but the will of Him that sent me (vi. 38). How
infinitely superior is such a Being to aU those to whom the
divine word was addressed below ! WhUe indicating the
contents of the charge brought against Him, Jesus passes on
to the direct words : thou blasphemest. These vividly repro
duced the accusation of the Jews as it was stiU sounding in
His ears. The words which foUow : because I said, depend
not on: thou blasphemest, but on: ye say. The title, Son of
God, is here evidently the summary of the statement of ver.
30 : I and the Father are one, which was the subject of their
accusation. Again we see from this example how erroneous
it is to regard the title of Son of God as indicating an office,
even though the highest of theocratic offices. What bias-'
phemy could this term, understood in this sense, have involved ?
Could the Jews, who had that very moment addressed to Him
the question : " If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly," have
regarded it as blasphemy for Him to caU HimseK the Christ ?
Jesus here, as usual, includes His Messianic dignity in that
which pertains to Him as Son of God. For the former, rightly
understood, is but the coroUary of the latter. He strives then
above aU to infuse into the hearts of His hearers the feehng
of His deity, certain that the conviction of His Messiahship
wiU naturaUy flow from it, and that in this connection only
it wiU not be vitiated. Hence follows the conclusion :
Vv. 37-39. The divinity of Jesus.
Vv. 37, 38. " If I do not the works of my Father, believe me
not. But if I do, and you do not believe me, believe1 my works ;
that ye may know and acknowledge2 that my Father is in me,
and that I am in Him." 3 — Not only had He uttered nothing
that was blasphemous from a scriptural point of view, but He
had also stated nothing which was not truth itself, and demon
strated as such before them. Jesus gave to this assertion the
1 X B D, etc. : ocio-rtutri ; T. R., with AEG, etc. : mmurom.
2 Instead of xxi mmunrt {and that you may believe), which is the reading
of T. R. with 13 Mjj. (A r, etc.), B L X, some Mnn. and Cop. read «» yivuaxnn.
X : xxi vio-nunri. D and ItPleri'ue omit this second verb.
3 X B D L X read iv ru wxrpi ; T. R. with 12 Mjj. : iv aura.

412 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
form of an invitation full of kindness. He consented to their
not beheving Him on His own word, although the testimony
of such a Being as Himself carried its proof with it, to those
who had ears to hear. But the works which the Father had
wrought through Him had been added to His own testimony.
If they had not ears, they had at least eyes ; and if they were
not convinced by His words, they ought at least to be con
vinced by such works. — The reading of some Alex. : iva yvmTe
ical yivcoo-KVTe, seems to me preferable : that you may learn to
know (yvmre), and may at length acknowledge (yivmo-KVTe).
The union of these two terms expresses the long and painful
labour by which this discovery is arrived at, a discovery which
ought to have been made at the first glance : Come and see
(i 47). There is in this form of expression something
humbling, which perfectly harmonizes with the context. But
the apparent pleonasm of this reading, whose meaning was
imperfectly understood by copyists, caused them to give to the
text the more common form which we find in the Received read
ing : that you may know and believe. The words : the Father
in me, and I in the Father, which point out the contents of
this obtained knowledge, recaU the declaration of ver. 34 (we
are one), as weU as the title, Son of God, ver. 36. But we
must beware of finding, as has so frequently been done, in
this 38 th verse an exact rule for the sense of the two former
sayings. Ver. 30 was the direct expression of the personal
consciousness which Christ had of HimseK. Ver. 38, on the
contrary, only states the matter of His consciousness to the
extent to which it may and ought to be the object of the
believer's intelligence. — In saying : the Father in one, Jesus
expressed the full communication of the divine fulness to the
human being who is the instrument of God on earth. In
saying : I in the Father, He designated His entire self-abne
gation, by which He desired to have no life of His own, but
derived aU from the fulness and gift of the Father. It was
indeed the expression of the unity of the Father and the Son,
as it may become the object of our perception here below :
tliat you may know and acknowledge.
Ver. 39. " Tlierefore1 they sought again2 to take Him: but He
1 9 Mjj. (B E G, etc.) and 40 Mnn. omit out.
2 X D, 10 Mnn. ItP1"1'"' Vg. and Cop. omit trxXit.

CHAP. X. 40-42. 413
escaped out of their hands." — Perhaps the milder form under
which Jesus had just repeated the assertion of His divinity
may have had the effect of somewhat calming the irritation
of His hearers, as they renounced their design of forthwith
stoning Him. But while they were devising by what means
they might- arrest and bring Him before the council for judg
ment, He succeeded in breaking through the circle which they
had formed around Him, and, after joining His disciples, in.
leaving the temple with them. There is not in the narrative
the slightest intimation of a miracle.
It is absolutely impossible to suppose that a subsequent
writer, the inventor of the theory of the Logos, would have
invented such an argument as that found in this paragraph.
How could such an one have put into the mouth of Jesus an
argument which, superficially understood, seems to contradict
all that he had hitherto made Him affirm with respect to His;
deity? This mode of discussion evidently bears the impress;
of having been actually used on the occasion, while it, at the-
same time, testifies to such a vital understanding of the OldS
Testament as was possessed by Jesus alone.
Historical Conclusion. — vv. 40—42.
Vv. 40—42. " And He went away again beyond Jordan, into
the place1 where John had at first2 baptized ; and there He abode.
And many resorted unto Him, and said, John did no miracle :
but all things that John said of this man were true. And
many believed on Him there!'3 — As we have already remarked,
this sojourn in Perea, a short time before the last Passover, is,
also mentioned by the Synoptists (Matt. xix. 1 ; Mark x. 1 -r
and, in virtue of the paraUehsm, Luke xvih. 15). Jesus would
not have been able to stay long at Jerusalem without the
conflict coming to a climax. Hence He quitted the capital,,
and continuing the tour which had been interrupted by this-
short journey to the feast of the Dedication, arrived at.
Perea, where He stayed some time. St. John does not relate
any particulars of this sojourn, the Synoptists undoubtedly
containing all that was essential. We feel, from the apostle's
1 X omits the words us rov roTov.
2 X A : ro vrportpov instead of ro trpurav,
8 10 Mjj. (X A B D, etc.) make sxu the last word of the verse.

414 GOSPEL OF JOHN.
tone, that this brief sojourn was not without its charms for
our Lord. For there is a pleasure in finding oneself at the
close of a career in the same locahty in which it began.
Besides, Jesus was now reaping the harvest granted to the
faithful labours of His forerunner. — The word again (ver. 40)
by no means aUudes, as Lange thinks, to a supposed journey
to Perea between w. 21, 22, but to that spoken of by St.
John, i 28, when Jesus was at Bethany, near Jordan, with
His forerunner. The term to trprnTov (or, according to the
Sinait, to irpoTepov) equaUy recalls those early days with all
their serenity and brightness. — The meaning of the testimony
given by the behevers at Perea to John is : " If John did not
work miracles himself, he at least predicted aU that would be
done by Him whose coming he announced." Thus did the
greatness of Him who foUowed him, and to whom he bore
testimony, enhance in their eyes the greatness of John. — \E/cet,
there, ought certainly to be placed quite at the end of the
verse. The word is emphatic, for the faith which was so
quickly developed in Perea formed a striking contrast with
the persevering and increasing unbehef of the inhabitants of
Judea, as reported in the preceding chapters. This paragraph
then forms, as Luthardt observes, the last item in the grand
act of accusation brought against the Jews by this part of the
Gospel.

END OF VOL. U\

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

HANDBOOKS FOR BIBLE CLASSES.

Just published, in crown 8vo, price Is. 6d.,
THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE
CHURCHES OF GALATIA.
JKEitij EtttroUucttem attH 0,tAts
By the Rev. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D.,
Professor of Systematic Theology in the New College, Edinburgh.

' There can be no question as to the value of such handbooks. They will be welcome
to many persons quite apart from any class work, and should find a place in many
thousands of Christian libraries.' — Christian World.
1 Professor MacGregor has compressed into his small manual as much solid learning
and suggestive thought as is rarely found in books three or fom- times its size.' — Baptist

' A remarkably able introduction to the epistle.' — Nonconformist.
1 This part of the work is very well done ; and if the rest of the books should show an
equal condensation of thought, the result will be beyond praise.' — Sword and Trowel.
Just published, in crown 8vo, pice 2s.,
THE POST-EXILIAN PROPHETS-
HAGGAl, ZECHARIAH, MALACHI.
SHKitft Introlmcttmt aria $ota
By MARCUS DODS, D.D.

'No intelligent person who takes up this small book can fail to be struck by the
evidence it gives of extensive and accurate scholarship, and of philosophic thoughtful-
ness.' — British Messenger.
' In this little book we have commentaries which, so far as we have looked through
them, are all that can be desired.' — Homilist.
' Thoughtful, suggestive, and finely analytical.' — Evangelical Magazine.
Will shortly be published,
THE LIFE OF CHRIST.
By Rev. JAMES STALKER, M.A.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

In Four Volumes, imperial 8w, handsomely boimd, price 18s. each,
A POPULAR
COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS.
Edited by PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.
THE CONTRIBUTORS ARE —

Joseph Angus, D.D.
Principal David Brown, D.D.
Marcus Dods, D.D.
J. Oswald Dykes, D.D.
Paton J. Gloag, D.D.
The Very Kev. Dean Howson, D. D.
J. Kawson Lumby, D.D.

"William Milligan, D.D.
W. F. Moulton, D.D.
Edward H. Plumptre, D.D.
William B. Pope, D.D.
Matthew B. Riddle, D.D.
S. W. F. Salmond, D.D.
Rev. Canon Spence.

Maps and Flans — Professor Arnold Guyot.
IUustrations-W". M. Thomson, D.D., Author of ' The Land and the Book.'

Volume I— THE SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS. Now Ready.
Volume II.— ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL.- By W. Milligan, D.D., }
and W. F. Moulton, D.D. (
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the Very I ShorthJ'

Rev. Dean Howson and Rev. Canon Spence,

)

From the Right Eev. the Bishop of Gloucester and BristoL
' A useful, valuable, and instructive Commentary. It contains a large amount of in
formation, is judiciously illustrated, and, so far as I can judge, is likely to be of great use.
I have not tested it in difficult doctrinal passages, hut I see in it nothing to lead me to
doubt that it would stand the test. Its design seems to be that of a popular Commentary,
and this design, it seems to me, it has fully carried out.'
From the Sight Eev. the Bishop of Winchester.
' I have looked into this volume, and read several of the notes on crucial passages.
They seem to me very well done, with great fairness, and with evident knowledge of the
controversies concerning them. The illustrations are very good. I cannot doubt that
the book will prove very valuable.'
From the Very Rev. Edward Biekersteth, D.D., Dean of Lichfield and
Prolocutor of Canterbury.
'I have been looking into this volume, aud 1 am muoh struck with tho fulness and
accuracy of the annotations, wherever I have examined them, as well as with the
general excellence of the'work.'
From Rev. W. G. T. Shedd, D.D. (Presbyterian), Professor in Union Theological
Seminary, New York.
1 Having examined the volume with some care, it impresses me as admirably adapted
to the class for whom it is prepared, and calculated to promote a popular understanding
of the Word of God. It selects the important words and clauses, and explains them
concisely yet thoroughly. It grapples with the diflicult questions, and answers them
generally in a satisfiictiiry manner. The illustrations are well chosen, and the style in
which the book is mado is very attractive.'
From Rev. Professor Lindsay Alexander, D.D.
. 'I feel satisfied that, if the whole were completed after the same manner, it would be
the Commentary par excellence in the English language. Indeed, as a Commentary for
popular use I know nothing equal to it in any language'

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 02451 2296