Full text of "A study of St. John's Gospel : to which are added 1. The Julian and Jewish Calendars for A.D. 27-29 ; 2. A diary of all events in our Lord's Ministry which are mentioned in the Gospels ; 3. Tables showing how the Fourth Gospel dovetails with the three synoptics"

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A STUDY OF ST JOHN'S GOSPEL

A STUDY OF

ST JOHN'S GOSPEL

TO WHICH ARE ADDED

T. THE JULIAN AND JEWISH CALENDARS FOR A.D. 27-29

II. A DIARY OF ALL THE EVENTS IN OUR LORD'S
MINISTRY WHICH ARE MENTIONED IN THE
GOSPELS

HI. TABLES SHOWING HOW THE FOURTH GOSPEL DOVE-
TAILS WITH THE THREE SYNOPTICS

BY G. H. TRENCH

AUTHOR OF

' THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST '

"the BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF JESUS CHRIST"

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1918

PKINTED BY

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,

LONDON AND BECCLKS, ENGLAND.

PREFACE

In the following pages I understand the writer of the
fourth gospel to be John the Apostle, son of Zebedee and
Salome. Such is the tradition of the Church throughout
the centuries ; and the defenders of this traditional author-
ship have, to my mind, established and held their position
impregnable against all attacks. John is second cousin
of our Lord by the mothers' side ; and second cousin, also
by the mothers' side, of John the Baptist.

This attempt to restate the fourth gospel, whose diffi-
culties arise from the very simplicity of its terminology,
is due to the author's conviction that a recognition of this
gospel involves nothing less than a recognition of the whole
body of Catholic dogma on our Lord's Personality and
Incarnation as set forth by Athanasius, Augustine, Leo,
and the Fathers generally. They are all saying in other
words what John is saying in his prologue, what he records
the Baptist as saying, and what he records our Lord as
saying of Himself. Dogmatic theology is not in favour
in England ; but there ig no escape from the whole body
of it, once this gospel is axjcepted.

If I seem to have ignored the "modernist" school,
whose home is Germany, it is not from want of acquaint-
ance with it, but from a conviction that its spirit is alien
and hostile to the Faith of Christianity as originally
delivered by Jesus Christ and as expanded in the con-
sciousness of the Catholic and Roman Church to-day.

With regard to the short ministry of under two years,
as against the commonly received three or three and a half
years, it is supported by the explicit statement of many of
the early Fathers ; it is also supported implicitly by a
general consensus of the Fathers, for no juggling with
dates can reconcile the longer terms with (1) their practically

vi PREFACE

unanimous testimony that the Crucifixion took place on
March 25 of a.d. 29, and they appeal to the Roman
archives, which seem to have been extant till the beginning
of the fifth century; (2) Luke's notice that the fifteenth
year of Tiberius was the year of John's baptizing, and that
Jesus was "about thirty years old" at the time. I have
examined both these points at some length in earlier books.
Incidentally it is worth mentioning that between the years
A.D. 18 and 35, the only year in which March 25 was a
Friday is a.d. 29.

As for the Diary of events, it is put forth with some
confidence, once we are rid of the interpolated verse,
John vi. 4.

I am aware that the idea of a literal millennium
(Rev. XX. 2-7) is not in favour among Catholics ; but no
one can read the Fathers of the first four or five centuries
of our era without recognizing their strong and unanimous
belief in it. Owing to extravagant and sensual anticipa-
tions as to the delights of that Age among a certain body
of Christians known as Chiliasts or Millennarians, the
whole subject of a literal millennium fell into disrepute
among the main body of Catholics in the fifth century and
became quietly shelved. About a hundred and fifty years
ago the Spanish Jesuit Lacunza, in the guise of a converted
Jew (Ben Ezra), brought the question into prominence
again, and laid the foundation of a saner exegesis of the
Hebrew Prophets than had prevailed during the preceding
thirteen centuries. He failed, however, to distinguish the
promises made to the House of Israel, to which (in Joseph)
belongs the birthright, from those made to the House of
Judah, to which belongs the crown. Now that we have
reached the closing century of the sixth millenary (6th
Day) of Adam's race and are nearing the 7th Day or
Sabbatic millenary, the subject assumes a livelier practical
and political significance.

G. H. T.

TyES, STAPLEPIEIiD, SUSSKX.

March, 1918.

CONTENTS

A.D. 28.

Jan. 18-Mar. 4.

Fri., Mar. 5.
Sun., Apr. 4.
Apr. 5-10.
Apr. 11, 12.
Apr. 13-16.
Apr., May.
Tues., May 25.
Thurs., June 3.
Sat., June 5.

Sept. 23-Oet. 4.

Tubs., Oct. 5.

Wed., Oct. G.

Wed., Oct. G. ^
Thurs., „ T.S

Thurs., Oct. 7.
Dec. 7.

A Diary of our Lord's Public Ministry

§ 1. John i. 1-14. Who it was that became on the
time plane incarnate as Jesus Christ

§ 2. John i. 15-end. John the Baptist's witness.
The foundations of the new organization
that was to supplant the Sanhedrin

Note on " The Son of Man "

Note on " The Messiah " . . . .

§ 3. John ii. 1-12. The first return of Jesus to
Galilee after His baptism. His first sign

§ i. John ii. 13-end. Passover at Jerusalem.
Jesus and the Sanhedrin

§ 5. John iii. 1-end. The New Birth. John the
Baptist's self-effacement

§ 6. John iv. 1-42. Samaria and the Samaritan
woman .......

§ 7. John iv. 43-end. The second return of Jesus
to Galilee. The courtier's son healed

Note on the Galilean Ministry, blocked in
from the Synoptists ....

§ 8. John V. 1-end. Pentecost at Jerusalem. The
paralytic healed .....

§ 9. John vi. 1-21. The third return of Jesus to
Galilee. The feeding of the Five Thousand

§ 10. John vi. 22-end. In Capernaum. The new
Manna or Bread from Heaven

The

Note : June-Sept, in Gentile districts,
fourth return to Galilee .

§11.

§ 13.
§14

§15,
§1G

John vii. 1-36. From Galilee to Jerusalem.
Feast of Tabernacles ....

12. John vii. 37-52. The last and great day of
the Feast ......

John vii. 58-viii. end. The eighth day. The
adulteress. Jesus and the Sanhedrists .

John ix. 1-end. The cure of the man born
blind .......

John X. 1-21. The Sheepfold : The Shepherd.
He withdraws to Perpea ....

John X. 22-end. Feast of Dedication at
Jerusalem, He returns to Persea .

PAOE

ix-xxxi
3-13

14-45
46-48
48-53

54-63

64-73

74-94

95-112

113-120

121-127

128-145

146-158

159-175

176-178

179-191

192-19G

197-222

223-234

235-243

244-252

Vlll

CONTENTS

A.D. 29.

Mar. 2-lC.

Mar, 6-12.

§17,

Mar. 13-18.

Mar. 19, 20.

§18.

Wed., Mar.

23.

§19.

Tlaurs., Mar.

24.

§20.

Thurs., Mar.

24.

§21.

Thurs., Mar. 24.

Tiiurs., Mar. 24.

Night of Thurs.
Fri.

Fri., Mar. 25.

Sun., Mar. 27.1
Sun., Apr. 3. j

Sun., Apr. 10.

§22.

§23.

^24.

§25.

§26.
§27.
§28.
Note

Note : dovetailing John xi. into Luke xiii. 22-

xvi. 31 252-255

. John xi. 1-end. The raising of Lazarus
(Sun., Mar. 6). The retirement at
Ephraim 256-270

The last journey, from Ephraim to Beth-

phage : how Luke and John dovetail . 273, 274

John xii. 1-19. Supper at Bethany (Sat.,
Mar. 19). Palm Sunday (Sun., Mar. 20) . 277-285

John xii. 20-end. The deputation of Greeks.

His last words in the Temple . . . 286-296

John xiii. 1-30, Our Lord's last Passover . 297-313

John xiii. 31-xiv. end. The discourse to the

Eleven in the Supper-room . . . 314-326

Synoptical Table of incidents in the Supper-
room . 327-328

John XV. 1-xvi. end. The last discourse to

the Eleven in the city .... 329-346

John xvii. 1-end. The request of Jesus

Christ for His Church .... 347-356

John xviii. 1-27. The arrest in Gethsemane.

The inquiry in Caiaphas's house . . 357-366

John xviii. 28-xix. 16. Jesus and Pilate . 367-387

Synoptical Table of this morning's events . 388

John xix. 17-end, The Crucifixion, The

Burial 389-410

John XX. 1-end. The Resurrection.

He manifests Himself again . . . 411-429

John xxi. 1-end. The government of the
Church is vested in Peter . . . 430-440

A. — Mary sister of Martha, Mary Magdalene 441-445

B.— Our Lord's Agony .... 446-449

Index

451-453

A DIARY OF OUR LORD'S PUBLIC

MINISTRY

The following table is based on the constant tradition of the
Church that the Crucifixion took place on a.d. viii Kal. Ap.
diiobus Geminis coss., which without question is " March 25,
A.D. 29 " ; and it may be added that between the years a.d. 18
and A.D. 35 there is no year but a.d. 29 in which March 25 was a
Friday, as may be verified by the Dominical Letter : and Friday
is the week-day which alone satisfies another constant tradition
of the Church as to the day of the Crucifixion.

We thus have Thursday, March 24, as the Day of the last
Passover eaten by our Lord and the Twelve, which must have
been, on the JeAvish ecclesiastical scale, Nisan 14. From this
one datum we can correlate the Julian and Jewish calendars
backward day for day, taking care not to neglect any possible
intercalary month.

This is not the place to explain at length the Jewish calendar
in use in our Lord's time by which the Festivals were fixed,
many years in advance, for the use of the pilgrims who came up
to Jerusalem three times a year from the farthest limits of the
Roman empire. It consisted of an 84-year cycle containing
exactly 12 complete Sabbatic-year cycles : the 12 months of
a common year were of 30 and 29 days alternately, with an
intercalary month thrown in Just before Nisan at two or three
years' intervals in order to prevent Nisan 14 (Passover Day) fiom
falling earlier than the spring equinox, and, rarely, at one
and four years' intervals owing to the intervention of a
Sabbatic-year.

Seeing that in a.d. 29, Nisan 14 was the equivalent of March 24,
or, in other words, fell at the earliest permissible date (for the
spring equinox of A.D. 29 fell on March 23), it is evident that
there cannot have been an intercalary month in a.d. 29 nor yet
in A.D. 28. Nor again can there have been one in a.d, 27, for
from Oct. of a.d. 26 to Oct. a.d. 27 was a Sabbatic year, and the
Rabbinists tell us that Sabbatic years were never intercalary.
Therefore in the spring of a.d. 26 there must have been an

X A DIARY OF OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MLNISTRY

intercalary month and also in the spring of a.d. 30, but none in
the interval.

At the time in question the Jewish ecclesiastical months did
not correspond with the moon's phases : and their "new moon "
festivals (exactly like the Greek vovf^-qviat for some centuries
before) celebrated no longer the new moon but the first day of the
calendar month. Later, after the revolt of the nation from
Rome in a.d. 66, changes seem to have been made in the Jewish
calendar, and attempts to make months and moons correspond as
in archaic times whilst still keeping in sight a reckoning by solar
years— attempts which at length culminated about a.d. 320
in the Jewish calendar which is in use to-day.

The following table of Julian and Jewish equivalents begins
in A.D. 27, with Sat., Sept. 27=Tisri 1. The call of John the
Baptist can hardly have occurred before the latter half of a.d. 27,
for he only reached the quahfying age of 30 in June of that
year. We shall perhaps not be far out if we date his call from
about Tisri 10 of a.d. 27, the great Day of Atonement, the
opening day of the 30th Jubilee year, or rather the day that would
have begun that Jubilee had Jubilee years been observed through
and after the Babylonian Cajativity. The Jubilee era like the
Sabbatic-year era is Oct. of 1444 B.C. The first Jubilee year
began in autumn of 1395 B.C. ; the second at 50 vears' interval
(both terms being counted) began in autumn of 1346 B.C. ; the
third in autumn of 1297 B.C., and so on. The Jubilee scale did
not break the Sabbatic-year scale, but was superimposed on
it, so that a Jubilee year followed immediately on every seventh
Sabbatic-year and fell on the first year of a fresh hebdomad or
Sabbatic-year cycle. Both kinds of year — Jubilee and Sabbatic
— began in autumn, as did also the civil year, though each on
different days : the ecclesiastical year began in spring.

The Jubilee year in which our Lord's public ministry began
— the Iviavrov Kuptou Se/crdv, the " welcome Lord's-year (Luke
iv. 19) — was the 30th Jubilee in a straight count from 1444 B.C. :
it began on Tisri 10=Mon., Oct. 6 of a.d. 27 and ran out on
Elul 29=Sept. 14 of a.d. 28.

The following table covers about 19 months, from the call
of John the Baptist in a.d. 27 till the day of the Descent
of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Sundav, Mav 15 (Si van 7) of
a.d. 29.

A DIARY OF OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MINISTRY xi

xii A DIARY OF OUR LORD'S PUBLIC MLNISTRY

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A STUDY OF

ST JOHN'S GOSPEL

§ I

JOHN I. 1-11
The Prologue

In which John defines the Personality whom he calls The Word
(viz. of God), and the Light of men.

(1) " In the beginning was the Word," i.e. when there was
a beginning, when anything began, there already was
existing {hi') the Word. " In the beginning " postulates
that which is not self-existent : for that onlv has a begin-
ning. God, being self-existent, cannot have a beginning.
Had the Word a beginning ? John says, ' No : for if
we reach back to any beginning, there already was in
existence the Word.' At once it is evident that to
John's vision " The Word " is no other than God the self-
existent.

But that is not all : he continues —

" And the Word was toward God {h> irpog tov Geov)."
There is, therefore. Another who also is God : and the
relation of God the Word to this Other is expressed not by
the idea of existence with, but by the idea of existence
toward ov facing, for this and no other is the idea conveyed
by TT/ooc and the accusative. And, to cut short any timid
reluctance there might be to admit that there could be
more than one Person in the Godhead, he states abruptly
and without reserve —

" And the Word was God." Here, then, already are
plainly two Persons, of whom Each is Gorl : and of these
the One " exists toward " the Other— as though the
reflection in a mirror was as real as the person reflected,
and was for ever moving towards him to merge in him,
and yet for ever rested unmerged in him.

3 B 2

4 JOHN 1. 1

]\Iuch niiolit be said here about the tendency of the
Rabbinical schools before John's time to personify " the
Xa?7i€ of the Lord," '" the Presence of the Lord," and
especially " the Word of the Lord," in their exegesis of
the Old Testament : but none of the Schools, nor even
Philo who went furthest, had ventured to identify this
personification with God. The mystery of the Trinity
lay hidden until our Lord came to reveal it : and the Jews
were, as they still are. Unitarians.

John, however, had seen the vision of Truth, had been
initiated into the Mystery by the great Hierophant, and
declares " The Word " to be God from eternity.

As the Word of God was the medium by which God
communicated with His people in the Old Covenant (see
the common phrase in the Prophets " the Word of the
Lord came to "), so the Person by whom He manifested
Himself to men under the New Covenant is called by John
" The Word," viz. of God. Ideally, the word or speech
of a man is that man's expression of himself to others ;
" The Word " is the metaphor which John in his prologue
chooses by which to describe Him who is the self-expression
of God to men.

Other metaphors to indicate tliis Revealer of God are
elsewhere employed — each and all of them inadequate,
because language being of its nature metaphorical is unable
to represent the Absolute. Among them are The Xame
of God, for ideally the name of a person is the ])erfect
connotation of that person : The Glory of God : The Image
{hk(i}v) of God (2 Cor. iv. -i) : The Stamp of God's Person
{\apaKT))p rjK v~o(Trdcn(i)Q avrov) (Heb. i. 3) : The Radiance
of God's glory {cnravyarrna ttjc Sos^c), ib. Yet another
that attempts to express the relationship of the First and
Second Persons of the Trinity to each other is Father and
Son, the eternally Begetting One and the eternally Begotten
One.

Here then in the three opening sentences of John's
gospel he has sought to represent to us the Life or Being of
God, the eternal Flux and Reflux of the Absolute, before
as yet any person or thing was created or had beginning.

JOHN I. 2-4 5

(2) " This One (ovroc) was in the beginning toward
God." \Mien first anything came into being This One
(the Word) was already existing toward God. Having
thus again stated the eternal existence of the Word, and
the essential quality of that existence, viz. existence towards
God, or the Reflux of God back to God, John continues
where the book of Genesis begins — with the creation of
that which is not self-existent.

(3) " All things through Him {i.e. the Word) came into
being (fyA'fro)." God the Word is the mediate Agent,
as God the Speakino- One is the originating Agent ; but as
neither can act without the other. Each is rightly termed
Creator.

" And apart from Him not one thing came into being
(iytvETo) which has come into being (yc'yorf)." This is
the charter of Christian thought which denies the eternal
existence of matter as though it were, as the Pantheists
hold, a mode of God — the Reflux of God into Himself.
Pantheism thinks of matter with relation to God in terms
which the Christian faith asserts belong only to the
Word. \Miereas Pantheism thinks of God and the
creature as the Flux and Reflux of Deity, the Flood
and the Ebb, the Outward and the Homeward, viewing
the creature as the manifestation of God to Himself,
Christianity reser\'es these correlations for " God " and
'^The Word." the "First "and the "Second" Persons
of the Godhead.

Again, wdiilst the Creature is not self-existent, is
not a mode of God, but was made by God, neither
does it continue to exist apart from God the Word.
For—

(4) " In Him was Life." In so far as any created
thing lives it is linked to Him ; for in Him Life inheres,
and outside of Him there is not any Life. He did not make
matter inert : He made it quick, energizing ; but the
quick principle issues from and inheres in Him. Were
He to withdraw from matter, nothing would remain :
it would, ipso facto, cease to exist ; for there is no such
thing as dead matter. We neither know what matter is.

6 JOHN I. 4

in its ultimate analysis, nor can form any mental image
of its primordial coming into being.

" And the Life was the Light of Men." In so far as
man Lives, or is Man, it is in virtue of the Light which
shines into his intellect from God the Word and is reflected
back by his intellect into God the Word. When God is
said to have breathed into Adam * the breath of Life
(Heb. Lives pliir.. Gen. ii. 7), the Life that differentiated
Adam and his descendants from all other animated creatures

* The Bible deals with none but Adam's race — the type that began about
6000 years ago : it says nothing of the types of man that preceded Adam on
earth. As for the cosmogony of the first chapter of Genesis : — ^the construction
of the Hebrew original marks a break in the narrative between verses 1 and 2 :
so that a wholly new section starts with the second verse. This section (Gen.
i. verse 2 to Gen. ii. verse 3) seems to refer to a literal heptameron, seven days,
the week of Adam's creation. It does not pretend to be an account of the
original creation of the heavens and the earth and the things in them : that has
been briefly stated in verse 1, and then left : that verse 1 covers the long
process of evolution extending over millions of years. The new section is an
account of a new inauguration following upon a cataclysm of water or of vapour,
which had blotted out the face of the earth leaving it " waste and void " {tohu
va holm, these same words arc employed in Jer. iv. 23, and are again joined
together in Is. xxxiv. 11), and completely obscured for a time from the light
of the sun. Nor need we suppose that the cataclysm was universal over the face
of the earth, nor yet that all life in sea and on land was destroyed. None of
the three verbs which the A.V. renders by " bring forth " or " bring forth
abundantly," in verses 11, 12, 20, 21, 24, is ever used in the sense of a mother
bringing forth progeny. Rather, owing to the cataclysm, vegetable life had
been swamped and its energy suspended : and animal life had been diminished
and its vigour enfeebled. With the heptameron of Gen. i. 2 to ii. 3, life on the
earth and in its waters and in its atmosphere was rcvsumed at the point where
in the long process of the ages it had arrived before the cataclysm. The only
new creation of this heptameron was Adam, who represented a distinct
advance on the human type which had preceded him : his excellence consisting
in his power to see God. Gen. i. verse 11 should be rendered "let the earth
sprout {tadse) grass" : 12, " And the earth put forth (tos/) grass" : 20, "let
the waters creep (yisrsii) with the creeping living creature " : 21, '" every living
creature that crawleth with which the waters crept," i.e. swarmed : 24, " let
the earth put forth {tose) the living creature after its kind, cattle," etc., not
as from a womb, but as from places of storage, such as caves and refuges : the
temporary torpor of life gave place to vigour.

Also, in the record of the Flood, account must be taken of the word rendered
earth, which in Hebrew is commonly used of a very limited part of earth's
surface : so too of the word rendered all or every, which in Hebrew is commonly
used loosely and hyperbolically — much more so in Semitic languages than
with us. That record is by an eye-witness, of what he saw, not by a wireless
operator. How far had Adam's descendants spread themselves over the
earth ?

JOHN I. 5-G 7

on earth (as also, we suspect, from the pre- Adamite man)
was the Divine Light which ilhimines his intellect, the
Light whereby he apprehends and reflects God (" is made
in the image of God," Gen. i. 27). Whereas God the Word,
or God the Son is the reflection of God the Father to Him-
self. Adam and his descendants are made with the
capacity to reflect back God the Word : and his Light is
God the Word in him. The highest mode of Life in man
is the Light which shining into him shines back toward
God the Word.

In created things other than Adam and his descendants,
life takes modes other than intellectual Light.

(5) Although created thus radiantly and immaculately
God-reflecting, Adam by his fall obscured this radiance
both in himself and in all those who sprung from him, so
that ever since the sin in Eden—

" The Light shines in the darkness " : the Light which
is God the Word shines ever outwards into man, but the
mirror — man's intellect — is no longer luminous, no longer
sensitized to catch that radiance, but dimmed it lies in
the darkness : — a state which man unwittingly made for
himself as the effect of sin. Sin is nothing but the act of
turning awav from God or the state of being averse from
Him. What else is Darkness ?

" And the darkness did not apprehend it," viz. the
Light. The dimmed mirror no longer caught the Light :
Man no longer saw God aright.

Such was the state of darkness in which the human
race was still blindly groping, when John brings upon the
scene that man " than whom no greater man has been born
of woman " — John the Baptist,* whose mission it was to
be the Forerunner and Herald of the Light.

(6) " There came into being a man, sent from God, his
name (7) was John. This one came for witness, in order
to give witness concerning the Light " : (that Light which

* The coming of this man had been divinely announced by Gabriel, as is
told by Luke in the first chapter of his gospel, where also are recorded his
conception, his sanctification in his mother's womb, his birth, the divine pro-
phecies about him, his growth and his consecrated life.

8 JOHN I. 7-8

man had lost the power to apprehend and reflect, in other
words, to see) : " in order that all men may believe by
means of him." The evangelist does not say " in order
that all men may see by means of him," but " may believe."
The power to see God was lost, but the power to believe
remained : and belief would eventually end in sight.
Manv under the Old Covenant had believed in the coming
Redeemer of the Race, heroes of the Faith, whose names
are given in chap. xi. of the Epistle to the Hebrews, begin-
ning with Abel the first martyr. Nor can it have been in
Abraham's line alone that the Faith was handed on, e.g.
we find it in the Gentile Magi of the East. In every religion
of the world some fragments of the primeval gospel of
Eden (Gen. iii. 15) have survived.

Also faith varies infinitely in intensity and in clear-
ness : from a merely formal assent in some minds, to a
burning, transmuting conviction in others. In some it
is as a germ cell hardly as yet active : in others it is
developed into the seeing eye and reasoned confidence.

The object of John's mission was " that all men may
believe " : though the Baptist's range was confined to
the circuit {inpixt^pog), or Valley, of the Jordan, among his
disciples were the future Apostles whom he prepared for
Christ to take over and perfect. From those Apostles
the Faith has spread upon the world, and is destined to
become universal : in this way the Baptist's witness is
said to have world-wide results.

What exactly was the Baptist's " Avitness concerning
the Light " ? We shall sec that later, when we come to
consider chapter i. 15-36 and iii. 27-30.

(8) " That one " (k-avo?, i.e. John the Baptist) " was
not the Light, but (he came) in order to give witness
concerning the Light." At the time John the Evangelist
wrote his gospel (about 100 a.d.) there were those who
refused to believe that the Baptist was superseded l)y
Jesus : even to this day the Mandccans of the Tigris
river regard John the Baptist as the one and only true
Prophet.

(9) " The Light, the true Light, which lightens every

JOHN I. 9 9

man, was coming into the world (i]v . . . lpx*Jixivov)y
This Light is the Light which (see at verse 4), by shining
into man's intellect, differentiates man from all creatures
on earth. Its nature is to fully enlighten every man :
give it time it will yet do its work : meanwhile, in so far
as every man's intellect is not fully Light-reflecting, it is
because the Light can only dimly penetrate the darkness — •
that inability to see — which is the result of aversion from
God, inherited and confirmed by each one of us. To
rekindle this light in man, to enable man again to see God,
was the purpose of the Incarnation.

This liight — God the Word — " was coming into the
world * {i]v . . . lp\6fXivov 8ig rov (cotr/xoi;)," i.e. was on
the point of coming into the world, viz. at the time the
Baptist was sent. This coming of the true Light into the
world is the Incarnation of God the Word. This Incarna-
tion took place (March, B.C. 4) six months after the con-
ception (Sept., B.C. 5) of John the Baptist : the birth of
the Incarnate Word took place (Dec, B.C. 4) six months
after the birth of John the Baptist : and the public ministry
of the God-Man began (Jan., a.d. 28) some three months
after the beginning (Oct., a.d. 27) of the official ministry
of John the Baptist, His forerunner and herald.

The Greek term, rendered throughout John's gospel,
by '' the world," is o koct^oc. Its proper meaning is the
created world in all its ordered beauty. But John uses it
throughout to express the world considered in its micro-
cosm— man : for man is the sum, the culmination thus
far of the long process of God's evolution hitherto of the
world. Owing to the sin of Adam the microcosm, the

'to

* This appears to be almost certainly the meaning of the Greek original,
taking the words " coming into the world " as referring to the nom. " the Light,"
and constniing them with '' was," rather than joining " coming into the
world " with the ace. " every man." The best comment on the passage is the
similar phrase in iii. 19, " the Light has come into the world," where our Lord
is talking of Himself as Incarnate among men : and again xii. 40, where He says,
" I am come (as) Light into the world."

The Latin Fathers, depending on the Old Latin, or on Jerome's version
(venientem), refer " coming into the world " to " every man " : nor could it
occur to them, being unfamiliar with Greek, that any other meaning was possible,
for the Latin tied them down to that. The Greek Fathers were not so hampered.

10 JOHN I. 9-12

physical world (koo-^uoc) is regarded as alienated from God,
for this physical world is bound up with man : with the
fall of Adam, the recently reformed earth and all life upon
it suffered a set-back ; and when his redemption shall be
perfected, the physical earth and all upon it will feel the
uplift, beginning with Hol}^ Land as the focus during the
millennial Age.

(10) The Evangelist here passes on to the time when
" The Light " no longer " was coming into the world,"
no longer was on the threshold, but was now come, was
actually born into the world — moving among men as Man :
" He was in the world : and the world was made through
Him " {^i avTov, by means of Him., as he had already
said in verse 3), " and the world did not recognize Him."
When He came among men as Man they collectively failed
to recognize Him as their Creator ; for the Roman empire,
acting as the at that time representative of man's highest
civilization, put Him to death as a felon. And as for His
own people the Jews, were they any better ? No : for

(11) " He came to His own " (ro 'Iha, i.e. His own
home, His own land. His own throne), " and His own
people " {oi 'i^ioi, i.e. the Jews) " received Him not to
themselves " (ou TrapiXal^ov). It was that very people
who suggested and successfully insisted on His being put
to death.

(12) " But as many as received Him," whether among
His own people or among the nations, " to them He gave
a right to become children of God, even to them that
believe into His name " (rote mcTTfvoixnv tic rb ovof.ia avTov),
i.e. who accept Him implicitly as being all that He
may assert Himself to be. Ideally, a man's name is the
full expression and connotation of the man's personality.
The " name " of God is the complete manifestation of
God's being and action. The " name " of the God-Man is
everything that is implied in His Godhead, and everything
that is implied in His Manhood, e.g. all that is implied in
His Incarnation, in His life, in His death, in His resur
rection, in His Ascension, and in all that He has yet to do.
None can grasp His fulness : none can make all of it

JOHN I. 12-14 11

explicit to himself : we believe into all of it implicitly and
thence move on to sight : some come to see more than
others even in this life, make explicit to themselves some-
thing, be it more or less, of what was before implicit ; but
the link of one and all to Him in this life is faith.

The phrase " to believe into Him " {TriaTemiv hq avrov).
which we shall come upon later, has very much the same
meaning as " to believe into His name."

(13) " Who were begotten, not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." All
who receive Him, or in other words " believe into His
name," do so by virtue of some principle of Life implanted
in them from God analogous to the principle of life im-
planted from a human father. And this new state of being
" begotten " does not originate " from blood," i.e. does
not depend on racial origin such as the being physically
descendants of Abraham : nor yet does it originate " from
the will of the flesh," i.e. does not depend on human
affection, for neither brother nor friend can secure it for
brother or friend : nor yet does it originate " from the will
of man," for man cannot secure it for other men, however
wide or warm his sympathies with the race may be, nor
vet can he secure it for himself unaided : but it originates
from God. None can believe unless God first come to
aid him.*

(14) " And the Word became flesh." In these words
John goes on to explain to us in what way it was that the
Light " came into the world " : in what form God the
Word " came to His own " and was rejected by His own
people. He came as Man, not as unembodied man, nor
yet with a body consisting of matter peculiarly modified
as the Docetse thought : but He came among us with

* What then of the mass of the human race ? We may believe that there
is a vast organized Ministry working in the underworld started by our Lord
Himself when " He descended into Hades " and " preached to the spirits which
were in ward which sometime were disobedient what time the long-suffering
of God waited in the days of Noah " (1 Pet. iii. 19, 20). Certainly the ministry
in Hades was not confined to them : they are named merely as representing
the highest pitch of wickedness reached by Adam's race. If the gospel was
brought to them, tlicn much more to all others.

12 JOHN I. 14

man's material body of flesh, nerve, blood, bone : His
body was of matter similarly modified as is the matter of
our own bodies.

By taking to Himself that material body of flesh, He
has signified that matter shall never be annihilated, how-
ever He may modify it.

In saying He " became flesh," John does not say lie
became a Man, but rather He became Man : for, in assuming
human nature to Himself, He did not assume also a second
Personality : His Personality is single, He is God the
Word, God the Son : He never laid aside His Divine
nature : He merely linked to it a human nature— the link
being His Personality. As in Adam lay all his descendants,
so in the New Adam they lie re-formed.

" And dwelt among us." The word rendered " dwelt "
is £(TK/'/vwo-£v, the root idea of which seems to be a shelter
or dwelling place (and only incidentally a tent or a booth).
As such, it exactly corresponds with the Heb. sakan = to
dwell (hence miskan = dwelling-place) : and the radical
letters are s, k, n in both Greek and Hebrew. We may be
certain that John had in his mind the Heb. miskan, the
regular word in the Old Testament for the Tabernacle,
the Dwelling-place of God, consisting of wooden walls and
ceiling-curtains, as distinct from the mere tent-curtains
Cohel) that covered these. There would seem to be no
allusion in John's word laiciivtDaiv to the shortness or
transitoriness of His sojourn among us : for though the
idea of temporariness might attach to a tent, this appears
to be the exact opposite of what was meant to be con-
veyed l)y the institution of the Feast of Tabernacles or
Booths {aKi)voiTr]yia), viz. a promise of permanent occupation
of a land of their own as against a nomad tenting in the
wilderness.

" And we beheld His glor}^ a glory as of the Only-
Begotten from The Father {kcu WeaaaueOa r»)v d6t,av cwtov,
^o^av <i)g Movoytvovt; Trapa Flariooc)." In these words John
carries on the idea of the word taKtivwacv — how our
Lord's human body corresponds with the miskan, the
Tabernacle, the Dwelling-place of God under the Old

JOHN I. 14 13

Covenant. As in the Tabernacle miskan, the dazzhng cloud
of glory showed the presence of God, so from this other
miskan or Dwelling-place of God, viz. our Lord's human
bodv, was seen to emanate His dazzling glorv. In saving
" we beheld," John refers to the night of the Transfigura-
tion on Mt. Tabor when for once our Lord allowed His
glory to shine forth : such glor}- as might be expected to
pour forth from Him, and Him alone, Avho is the Onl}-
Bcgotten Son, come from the presence of The Father to
earth — yet ever being Begotten by, and ever present with.
The Father. To that same night Peter refers in 2 Pet.
i. 17, 18.

" Full of Grace and Truth." This clause, in the Greek,
is probably in apposition * to the subject of " dwelt among
us." As John looks back on Him in memorv, or contem-
plates the ever-present image of Him, this is how he sums
Him : " full of Beauty {xafuroc;) and of Truth " : Beauty
(or Grace) to appeal to, and to perfect, man's ethical and
aesthetical nature ; Truth to appeal to, and to perfect,
man's intellectual nature. Beauty and Truth : in these
two ideas all is summed for Man : as Augustine felt when,
regretting his wasted youth, he cried, " Too late have I
known Thee, ancient Truth : too late have I loved Thee,
perfect Beauty."

{With verse 14 ends the Prologue.)

* Substantially it matters nothing whether wc take the word 7TA7;p7;$ ('' full
of ") to bo a declinable adjective, or indeclinable as recent discoveries in
Hellenistic Greek seem to warrant.

§ II

JOHN I. 15-51

John the Baptist'' s ivUneas. The founding of a new organization
to take the place of the Sanhedrin.

(15) Here the Evangelist begins the record of what his
earhcst teacher, his cousin John the Baptist, had taught
about the person of Jesus : — a teaching which John the
EvangeHst, the pupil, has just been amphf\ ing in his
prologue. The record begins Avith the opening day of
our Lord's ministry, the day of His baptism by John.
As for the month and day of that baptism, see pp. 31, 32.

(15-18) This is the Baptist's first witness that the
Evangelist quotes. It Avas spoken not earlier than the day

A.D. 28. of the Baptism of Jesus : —
Jan. 18 )g (15) "John bears witness concerning

Tebeth 25 1 ' Him, and he hath cried aloud " {KtKpuyn, sc.
officially and with no uncertain voice) " saying — it was this
man [sc. John Baptist] who spake — ' He who comes after me,
etc.' " Such is the reading adopted by Westcott and Hort.
The Evangelist thereby draws especial attention to the fact
that the words which follow are those of the greatest of all
the prophets, of one greater than any mere prophet, viz.
the Messiah's official herald the Baptist.

The witness refers,

A. to the eternal pre-existence of Jesus Christ : — " ' He
who comes after me,' " sc. in point of time into the world,
and in point of place as being preceded by His herald,

has become {yiyovi) in advance of me, because He was
before me {on TrpwTog jxov ^v).' " The phrase irpwToc; /xov riv
arrests attention : this pregnant use of irpwrog with a geni-
tive is common in Hellenistic Greek : it signifies not onlv
" was in existence before me (irplvt or Trporapog),'' but also

JOHN I. 16 15

was the first of any to have existence : it occurs again at
verse 30 : cf. also xv. 18.

B. to His Divine relationship to us : —

(16) " 'Because' " (the Evangelist is still quoting* from
his earliest master the Baptist) " ' it was out of His fulness
that we all received, and grace for grace,' " i.e. He gave
to us all to share in His Fulness. What Fulness ? The
same which Paul also names as " dwelling in Jesus Christ "
(Col. ii. 9), " all the Fulness of The Godhead " {ttSlv rn
iT\i)pb)fia rrjc Gcorjjroc), and again (Col. i. 19) " in Him all
the Fulness {ttolv to TrXi'ipwfxa) was well-pleased to dwell, and
ijy means of Him to change-back-again all things unto Him."

Who are " we all " ? The emphatic " we " (I'lfmc)
points to a definite body of people among whom the
Baptist includes himself ; and these can be no other than
Christians : " all we " Christians whether Jew or Gentile.
" We all received " : When ? When we became Christians
by faith and baptism. The Baptist speaks for all Christians,
Gentile and Jew, for he was well aware (as we shall see)
that the Jews would reject the Lord, and be replaced,
for a time, by Gentiles. He talks from the standpoint
of a full, baptized. Christian : because, as S. Evodius
(1st century and immediate successor to Peter as bishop
of Antioch) says in his epistle to (^wc, the Baptist was
baptized by Christ immediately alter he had baptized
Christ : so also says Chrysostom, Origen, Gregory Nazi-
anzen, and Jerome.

" ' And (we received) grace upon grace {\((piv avn
XapiTog).^ " When ? When by faith and baptism we
received of His Fulness : for we then received an automatic
stream of grace from Him which was to be ever present for
our daily needs — not perhaps as we see our needs, but as
He sees them.

(17) " ' Because whereas the Law was given by means

* Origen, and, I think, the Fathers in general extend the quotation of John
the Baptist's words to the end of verse 18, for they perceive the Evangelist's
motive in quoting the words of the Forerunner and Herald. The modems
are misled, both here and at iii. 31-36, by a difficulty in crediting the Baptist
with so clear a vision and by an unwarranted inference as to stj'lc and ter-
minology.

IC JOHN I. 17-18

of Moses. Grace and Truth came by means of Jesus Christ.' "
The Law or Old Covenant of Sinai was no doubt a great
gift and privilege bestowed on Israel by God by means of
Moses. Its conmiands kept alive ideals of virtue though
it gave not power to attain : and its ceremonies were an
adumbration of a reality, though the reality — means and
end — was not yet manifested. But a far greater gift was
to come, viz. —

" ' Grace and Tru.th came by means of Jesus Christ,' "
i.e. Firstly, Jesus Christ brought to us grace to attain to
that ideal Grace, that moral Beauty, that Virtue, to which
the Law kept pointing, but to which it could not lift : —
that ideal relationship between God and man, away from
which wc fell in PMen, but back to which all the sacrifices
and ceremonies of the I^aw indicated a sometime return.
In this ideal status human nature was manifested in the
person of Jesus Christ, and through union with Him by
faith and baptism all may ultimately attain to it.
Secondly, Jesus Christ brought to us truth — power to see
Truth — by rekindling His Light in our intellect.

(18) Far away greater is Jesus than any before Him :
for, continues the Baptist, " ' The Godhead {Qeov without
the article) no one (not even Moses) has ever yet seen :
God Only -Begotten who is in the bosom of The Father,
He interpreted Him.' " Moses saw but the " back " of
God (Exod. xxxiii. 20-23) : but Jesus Christ not only
has seen Him, but is- the Godhead-Begotten {Owg fxovojtvijg)
Who dwells eternally in the " bosom " of the Godhead -
Begetting {rov Ilarpo'c) : and it is this Godhead-Begotten
Who became man as Jesus Christ and interpreted to us
the Godhead. Such is the Baptist's clear vision of the
Person of Jesus Christ, viz. as being the Godhead-Begotten
by the Godhead-Begetting : nor is any one else so, for He
is the Only-Begotten, ixovojtvvfj. For though we, the
adopted sons, are " begotten of God," not as He, so we.
He the Essential Son, we sons by creation and l»y grace.
Here is the Baptist's statement of that eternal Flux and
Reflux of the Godhead whom we call The Father (Begetting)
and The Son (Begotten).

JOHN I. 15-18 17

Such was the witness borne by the Baptist on the day
he baptized Jesus (Sunday. Jan. 18, A.n. 28), and was in
turn baptized by Him : for this was the first day he received
warrant for his official nomination of Jesus to the nation
as the Christ, or Messiah, as he here calls Him (verse 17).
The Baptist's annoinicemejits recorded in Matt. iii. 7, 12 :
Mark i. 7, 8 : Luke iii. 7-14, were given before this day,
and therefore do not name the Messiah, but only announce
that He is coming, and that He is a greater One than His
herald. The Baptist knew all along that Jesus is this
Messiah — had always knoAvn it — but had been told to wait
for the appointed sign before he made his official nomina-
tion.

But, it is objected, is it possible that the Baptist coidd
have had so clear a vision of our Lord's Divinity ?

If he had not this clear vision he was not competent
to ' make the way straight before Him.' What sort of
herald would he be who does not understand the King
whom he announces ? What sort of witness to the Light
(John i. 8) would he be who knows not the Divine nature
of that Light ? The Baptist's knowledge and vision of
the King was such as none other before him had had,
except the Mother.* For this reason he had been sancti-
fied in the womb by the visit to Elizabeth of Mary bearing
within her God-Incarnate : at the very sound of the voice
of the God-bearing Mother, the unborn six-month babe had
leapt for delight (Luke i. 40-45). For thirty years in the
desert had the Baptist lived in unbroken contemplation
and communion with God, ever musing on the mystery
of his own mission as declared in his father's prophecy,
" thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High,
for thou shalt go-before to prepare before Jehovah His
ways " (Luke i. 76) ; and as declared in Malachi's prophecy
(iii. 1), " behold Me, I send My messenger and he shall
prepare the way before Me." ' Therefore,' mused John,
' He who sent me is the same as He for whom I am to

* It is the Catholic tradition that not only was the Mother baptized by
Jesus, but Joseph also was baptized by Him : and thus these two were illumined
even before John the Baptist to the perception of the Trinity.

18 JOHN T. 15-18

prepare the way : therefore He whom I herald existed
previously to me, as Micah seems to have seen, saying
(v. 2), " His goings forth have been from of old from ever-
lasting " : indeed my father's prophecy says that He whom
I herald is Jehovah Himself, as also Malachi (iii. 1) implies,
and of this, Isaiah (ix. 6) seems to have had intimation
when he calls Messiah " Mighty God " and " Immanuel,"
or God is with us.'

This mystery that Messiah was no other than the
manifestation of Jehovah was for the Baptist the key to
the books of Moses and the Prophets : his vision grew in
clearness with the years. From his earliest infancy he
had known that his little Cousin Jesus was the Messiah :
therefore Jesus must be somehow God incarnate : and the
amplitude of light as to how and in what sense Jehovah
was incarnate in Jesus burst upon him on the day he
baptized Jesus with water ; for later on that day, as the
Fathers have handed down, John was in turn baptized,
but with a greater baptism — baptized by Him who alone
baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Being thus illumined by
this baptism, he would understand the words he had heard
immediately before when ascending out of the river from
baptizing Jesus, viz. " This is My beloved Son " : and in
a flash would grasp the mystery of the Trinity — how
Jehovah is three Persons in one Godhead, and all Three
were here present, the Godhead-Begetting (or The Father)
speaking of " My Son " : and the Godhead-Begotten (or
The Son), viz. Jesus, " My Son " — and the Breath of the
Godhead {Trviv/Lia), viz. the Holy Spirit, under the form of
a dove (Matt. iii. 16, 17 : Mark i. 10, 11 : Luke iii. 21, 22).

We rarely do justice in our thoughts to John the Baptist
" than whom a greater hath not been born of woman " :
he who was " more than a prophet," for he was the Mes-
senger to prepare the way before Messiah-Jehovah, and, as
such, fully qualified by knowledge of Messiah's two natures,
God and Man. Officially the Church has marked the
greatness of the Baptist in that he alone with Jesus and
with Mary has his birthday commemorated.

What exactly was the position immediately before

JOHN I. 15-18 19

John's official nomination of Jesus as the Messiah, " who
baptizeth with the Holy Spirit " ? John had hitherto
been universally recognized by people and Sanhedrin as
Messiah's forerunner, whose mission it was to prepare the
nation for Him, to identify Him officially, and to make
His nature known to them : — the details of John's birth
being familiar to all. Not only so, but the Boy Jesus up
to the age of twelve had been recognized by the nation
and Sanhedrin as being the Messiah — many details of His
birth also being familiar to all (but not His being born of
a Virgin). In the case of Jesus, however, there arose a
strong and growing prejudice against Him, owing to His
up-bringing in Galilee and in the obscurity of Nazareth,
instead of in Judaea and the royal cities of Jerusalem and
Bethlehem. So late as His thirteenth year a n m
He is still the hope of the Sanhedrin : see
the honour with which they treated Him (Luke ii. 46, 47).
Thereafter, as He held back at Nazareth, though noAV
no more a Child, occupying Himself as a carpenter, the
resentment against Him increased. In vain, as each
year He came to the festivals, did He converse with the
representatives of the nation and the theologians in the
temple, seeking to modify their carnal views of Messiah's
reign and to raise them into the atmosphere of a Kingdom
based on a moral and spiritual re-formation of mankind :
a Kingdom wherein the King shall literally communicate
His own excellence to all His subjects individually —
beginning with His own nation in Holy Land and extend-
ing thence to the ends of the earth. His talk would be
confined to the Sanhedrin, for His aim would be to win
them first, seeing that otherwise the nation could not be
won. To the Sanhedrin such views of Messiah's Kingdom
were alien and abhorrent, for they themselves were alien
to the Spirit of God. Their resentment had grown to open
hostility against Him, and to a definite rejection of One
who came preaching a Kingdom of God of so unattractive
a form. The people had followed their lead, being no
less alien to God's Spirit than were their leaders, for a
nation has ever the leaders it deserves.

20 JOHN I. 15-18

When John the Baptist opened the 30th Jubilee *
with a national call to a baptism of " repentance

A.D. 27. unto remission of sins," it was known
Oct. 1 that he would soon officially make known

Tisrif the Messiah and so complete his mission : the

Sanhedrin were aware that he was only waiting for the
sign by which (as had been divinely told him) he should

A.D. 28. know Him. Such was the position when
Jan. 18 I - suddenly the Baptist announced officially to
Tebeth25l * the Sanhedrin {fiaprvpH Koi KBKpaye, John i.
15) in Jan. a.d. 28, that he had seen the sign, and that
the Messiah was Jesus whether they liked it or no. The
announcements of Matt. iii. 7-12 : Mark i. 7, 8 : Luke iii.
7-14, are, as has been said, of an earlier date than that of
John i. 15-18.

How was the intelligence received ? Jesus had at
once (Sun., Jan. 18) withdrawn into the desert and there

A.D. 28. for forty days (until Thurs., Feb. 26) remained
Sun., Jan. 18 to in retirement : — forty days of respite given to
Thurs., Feb. 26. the Sanhedrin during which to reconsider
their position now that John had spoken, — John whom all

* The Jubilee era or starting-point was Oct. 1444 B.C., when the nation
were first able to sow in peace (Joshua xi. 23). Thus the 1st Jubilee year was
the year Oct. 1395 to Oct. 1394 b.c. : the 2nd was Oct. 1346 to Oct. 1345 B.C. :
the 3rd was Oct. 1297 to Oct. 1296 B.C. : and so on : the 15th being Oct. 709 to
Oct. 708 B.C., see Is. xxxvii. 30, where " the second year " is the Jubilee year
Oct. 709 to Oct. 708 B.C., following the Sabbatical year Oct. 710 to Oct. 709 b.c.
Thus the 30th Jubilee would be, in a straight count, the year Oct. a.d. 27 to
Oct. A.D. 28. It was in Oct. a.d. 27 that the Baptist began his ministry, and
it was in Jan. a.d. 28 that Christ began His ijublic ministry with His Baptism.
In this same Jubilee year, "a welcome Lord's-year" (eviavThi/ Kvpiov SektoV,
Luke iv. 19), He was preaching in Nazareth.

True, no Jubilees were observed after the return from Babylon, but the
straight run from the Jubilee era will bring the 30th Jubilee to the year Oct.
a.d. 27 to Oct. A.D. 28. Jubilee years and Sabbatical years began like the civil
years in the autumn, in Tisri, the " seventh "" ecclesiastical month. Only the
ecclesiastical year began in the spring, in Nisan ( =Abib), the '" first " ecclesi-
astical month, and that only since the Exodus (Exod. xii. 2 : Deut. xvi. 1).

The Jubilee-year scale did not break the Sabbatical-year scale, but was
superimposed upon it ; so that a Jubilee year always followed on a Sabbatical
year, and came every 50th year (both termini being counted), and coincided
with the first year of a Sabbatical-year cycle. The Jubilee-year was not so
much the wind-uii of a past period aa the inauguration of a new one with new
hope.

JOHN I. 19 21

admitted to be a prophet and sent for the very purpose
of making Messiah known.

It appears that the Sanhedrin refused to modify their
attitude with regard to Jesus, refused to entertain again
the idea of Him as Messiah, took refuge in the quibble that
Mieah had prophesied He should come from Bethlehem,
how then could He be from Nazareth ? They purposely
confound Ik that marks the place of nativity with aTro that
marks the place of residence : again, it was a tenet of the
schools that when Messiah came none would know His
parentage (John vii. 27), whereas " ' do we not all know
Jesus to be the son of Joseph and Mary ? ' " Herein they
ignored what during all His early years they had admitted,
viz. that He was Messiah and therefore somehow of Divine
origin.

On the other hand, they could hardly afford to ignore
John and his testimony — such a hold had he upon the whole
nation. What should be done ? They would compromise
with John. They would bribe him with an offer to recog-
nize him as the Messiah, instead of Jesus. Would he
consent ?

(19) With this object they sent an official a.D. 28.
deputation to him. Feb. 26) -,.

It is at this point that John the Evangelist ^^^^ ^)
resumes his narrative to give the second momentous
testimony of the Baptist. The date is (Thurs., Feb. 26
of A.D. 28) forty days after that of the first testimony
recorded in verses 15-18. It is the last day of our Lord's
forty days of retirement : the day on which He had thrice
repelled the temptations of Satan (Matt. iv. 1-11). John
also shall to-day come forth victorious. It seems to be
the afternoon : and Jesus, straight from His recent victory,
is present (verse 26).

To understand the interview (19-28) that follows, we
must picture the publicity in which it took place, the
attendant crowds who are present to hear John's formal
answer to the Sanhedrin's formal inquiry. The Sanhedrin,
we may suppose, have already felt their way by hints
formally conveyed to John ; perhaps John has purposely

22 JOHN 1. 19-21

let them deceive themselves as to his intentions, in order
that their confusion to-day may be the more public. It
is this dramatic moment to Avhich Luke refers in iii. 15-17 :
at no other moment can any one (let alone the nation
collectiveh ) have awaited John's declaration of himself
as Messiah. The deputation cannot overtly offer their
bribe ; overtly they can only suggest ; but they know
that John will understand.

(19) The question the deputation put to John, " Thou,
who art thou ? " {av rig «) is an invitation from the
Sanhedrin to John to announce himself as Messiah, and is
also a promise that they are in that case ready to recognize
him as such. This is clear from the next sentence :

(20) " And he confessed (sc. Jesus), and denied not
(sc. Jesus) : and his confession was in these words, ' it is
not I who am the Christ {ovk dfu lyo) 6 Xpiarog).^ " That
was John's first discomfiture of them.

(21) " What then ? Thou art Elijah ? " i.e. ' Say
you are Elijah and expectant of a Messiah shortly to
come : but you must deny that Jesus is the Messiah :
and the Sanhedrin will support 3'ou.' Ani Elijah, perhaps,
they had long thought him to be — the Elijah promised by
Malachi (iv. 5, 6) — until he opened his mission by an-
nouncing himself, not as Elijah of Mai. iv. 5, but as " a
Voice of one crying," etc., quoting Is. xl. 3 : — a Voice
not at all auspicious for them as they read on to that
horror of the herald's vision in verses 6, 7, where he sees
no sequel of happiness and blessedness, but the People
mysteriously blighted and dying under the simoom of
God's wrath.

" I am not," answered John. For John knew that
Elijah was to be the forerunner of Messiah's second Coming,
and would be successful in his mission to the nation (Mai.
iv. 5, 6) : whereas he, John, was the forerunner of the first
Coming, which was to be followed by the terrible judgment
on the nation foretold by Malachi (iii. 1-3). To this
prophec3% as to all others that were inauspicious, the
scribes or exegctists shut their eyes. This was his second
blow.

JOHN I. 21-23 23

" Then perhaps thou art The Prophet ? '* alluding to
Deut. xviii. 18, 19, i.e. ' You have but to say so, and we
promise you from the Sanhedrin their support.' This
Prophet of Deut. xviii. 18 Avas by many understood to be
the same as Messiah (see John vi. 14), and rightly so
(see Acts iii. 22, etc. : vii. 37) ; so, too, understood by the
Samaritans (John iv. 26) : but by others this Prophet
was distinguished from Messiah (vii. 40, 41) and variously
identified as (1) a reappearance of Jeremiah (Matt. xvi. 14)
whose end was wrapped in mystery, for none knew where
he died ; or (2) a reappearance of one of the archaic
prophets (Tr/oo^i/rj/^- Tiq t&v apxa'nov, Luke ix. 19), viz.
Enoch who had not died. ' Anyway,' reasoned the San-
hedrin, ' there is doubt about the identity of the Prophet
of Deut. xviii. : and if John refuses to pass as Messiah or
as Elijah, let him claim to be the unknown Prophet, and
we will support him : his own father's words (Luke i. 76)
will not be amiss : in shorty let him advance any claim for
himself, provided only he withdraws his nomination of
Jesus as Messiah.' Assuming John to be tempered like
themselves, and liable to an appeal to ambition and self-
seeking, they had hoped to silence his awkward testimony
to Jesus.

Again he answered, abruptl}^ " No." This was their
third discomfiture.

(22) " Therefore they said to him, ' Who art thou ?
that we may give an answer to those who sent us ' " :
Finding John deaf to the three definite offers the San-
hedrin had commissioned them to make, the deputation
suggest to him to name his own terms : what shall they
report to the Sanhedrin ? Then, to their confusion, they
hear him say

(23) that he is that herald whose voice Isaiah spoke of.
" I am a Voice of one crying in the wilderness, ' Make
straight the way of Jehovah,' as said the prophet Isaiah "
(Is. xl. 3) : and let them remember how the glad voice of
that herald was turned to dismay and horror at the vision
of the People blighted by the blast of the Lord instead of
being vivified : and why ? (lb. xl. 6, 7.)

24 JOHN I. 24-26

(24-27) The interview is continued to its close.

(24) " And there had been sent certain from among
the Pharisees," i.e. some of the above dei^utation belonged,
as Mas natural, to the sect of the Pharisees. It was these
who, speaking qua Pharisees, now began to save the face
of the Sanhedrin by (25) questioning John's right to baptize
at all. ' It was whilst you were baptizing that you saw
the sign : but why are you baptizing at all ? You say
you are not Messiah ; He we know will baptize with
water and with The Spirit as Ezekiel (xxxvi. 25-27) and
Joel (ii. 28) have foretold : you say you are not His fore-
runner Elijah, nor yet the unknown prophet ; each of
them no doubt will baptize us with water preparatory to
the new Covenant of Messiah — it would be analogous with
that sprinkling of water with which we were baptized *
preparatory to the Covenant of Sinai. It was only because
we understood you to be Elijah or possibly the unknown
Prophet, that we came to your baptism or approved it for
the people.' The Pharisees are speaking as the super-
visors of rites and ceremonies without which all religions
risk a degeneration to formless chaos.

(26) ' Though I am not Elijah (who is to come here-
after), nor yet your unknown Prophet, I am still Messiah's
forerunner : such, as you have always known, Gabriel
(Luke i. 17) and my father (Luke i. 76) announced me.
For that reason I prepare you for Him, and come baptizing
you with water as a seal of the fast-approaching remission
of your sins by the King at His coming, if there is repent-
ance and confession. But Messiah I am not : His bap-
tizing, as you rightly say, will be with the Holy Spirit and
with the fire that scorches sin — sin, from whose tyranny
my baptizing- with- water has no power to deliver. He is
the Mighty One : I am but His herald in advance. He
stands there among you (juIctoq vjiCjv otiikh) ' — pointing
to Jesus — ' the Man whom you know not (sc. whom you
refuse to recognize because you cannot understand Him) :

* So the Rabbis understood Exod. y.\x. 10. Similarly they recognized an
earlier baptism of the whole of Jacob's household (Gen. xxxiv. 2) in the year
of his re-entry into Holy Land west of Jordan.

JOHN I. 27-29 25

the Man upon whom I saw the promised sign, and whom
I named to your Sanhedrin ofRcially six weeks ago. You
invite me to come forward in His stead ; why, I am not
worthy to loose His shoe : you think to set your faces
against Him ; I warn you He is come to winnow the
chaff from the wheat ; your time is short ; the issues of
to-day's decision are momentous for you and the nation.'

Such was the purport of John's answer to-day, as we
gather from a comparison of John i. 19-27 with Luke iii. 15-
17. It is no new thing that the Baptist has told the
deputation : they make no inquiry as to whom he means :
they know he means Jesus of Nazareth, the Man whom for
thirty years the Sanhedrin have had under observation,
and from whom they have long since split.

(28) The interview took place at Bethany (House of
the ferry-boat) on the east bank of Jordan at the spot
called in Origen's time Bethabara (House of the ford) —
the traditional place * of the passage of the Ark and the
nation under Joshua (Joshua iii. 14-17).

Perhaps the Evangelist's reason for naming the place
is a reflexion that if the deputation of to-day had been
sent to welcome John's nominee, here was He standing
on historic ground ready to enter the Promised Land as
the promised King of the nation.

Disappointed, the embassy return to Jerusalem to
report that John is intractable, and that there is no change
in the situation.

(29) Meanwhile on the banks of the a.D. 28.
Jordan the drama unfolds : and the Baptist Feb. 27\p .
gives his third momentous testimony : — Adar 6J

" On the following day (Friday, Feb. 27) John sees
Jesus coming to him," coming from the grotto in the
Qarantal Mountain (behind Jericho), where His forty days
of fast had been passed. He comes in order that John
His forerunner may bear witness to the future that awaits
the King. " Behold," says John, " the Lamb of God
who bears the sin of the world." At the hands of His
people He will suffer death : He will give Himself as the

* The place is some five miles north of the pi'esent north end of the Dead Sea.

26 JOHN I. 29

expiatory Sacrifice not only of the sins of His people,
but of the germ of all sin in Adam's descendants, the sin
of the world, the apostasy in Eden : thus wide and deep
is the Baptist's vision. 'H? is the Antitype of every
sacrifice ordained (Gen. iii. 21, " skins " : Gen. iv. 4)
since Adam's sin : He is the archetypal sacrificial Lamb
prefigured on the primeval Book of the Heavens — the
Aries of the Zodiac, the Lamb who was slain from the
foundation of the world (otto KaTaftoXr]c Koafxov, Rev.
xiii. 8 : 1 Pet. i. 20 : and cf. Heb. ix. 26) : He is the Lamb
whom God was to provide for Himself (Gen. xxii. 8) : He
is the Paschal Lamb of Israel (Exod. xii. 3-14) : He is
the Lamb whom Isaiah (liii.) saw to be no other than the
Man who was to be " despised by us," the nation, the Man
upon whom " Jehovah laid the iniquity of us all," the
Man who was to " bear the sin of many." ' He is the
Lamb whom the Baptist, with yet clearer vision, has
already declared (John i. 15-18) to be not only Man,
but also the eternal Son of the eternal Father : He is
Jehovah who says of Himself (Zcch. xii. 10) " they shall
look upon Me whom they pierced."

The phrase used here by the Baptist, alpnv aiiapTiav,
" to bear sin," is exactly the Hebrew nasa' /i^i'=" He bore
the sin of many " (Is. liii. 12) ; the idea of the Greek and
Hebrew verbs being that of lifting up and so of carrying :
the same Hebrew verb occurs again in Lev. xvi. 22, where
the scapegoat is said to " bear upon him all their iniquities
unto a land not inhabited " : and again in Lev. x. 17,
where the priests by eating the sin-offering are said to
" bear the iniquity of the congregation."

" Behold, the Lamb of God who beareth the sin of the
world." The words are said aloud by John for all present
to hear : his annoiuicement made six weeks ago to the
Sanhedrin (the nation's appointed rulers) has been in vain :
he now declares publicly, but mysticalljs for such as have
ears to hear, the expiatory death of this Messiah God-and-
Man. Only afterwards could the Evangelist, as he looked
back, have caught the Baptist's full meaning.

(;30) " This is He on Ijchalf of whom I (ty^', I whom all

JOHN I. 30-33 2T

know to be the appointed herald) said, ' After me cometh
a Man who has become before me : because He was
before me.' " * 'At first (from Oct. to Jan.), I foretold
His coming without identifying Him : to-day (Feb. 27)
I point Him out to all, as, six weeks ago, I pointed Him
out officially to the Sanhedrin immediately after I saw the
sign ' (viz. on Jan, 18).

(31) " And I was not knowing Him (icayto ovk i'l^uv
avTov),"" i.e. officially. ' Remember, my witness to Him
is not consequent on my intimate acquaintance with Him
from of old. Though I personally knew Him all my life
to be Messiah, as for many years our Sanhedrin also regarded
Him, I made no official announcement about Him ; for
as yet I had no warrant to do so : my commission was
definite : as you all know, I came {i]\dov) baptizing the
nation, having been divinely informed that it would be
during this baptism that Messiah would be manifested to
Israel.'

(32) So important does the Evangelist think it that his
readers should know what the Baptist said here on this
matter, that he gives an exact Greek rendering of the
Aramaic words which he himself had heard spoken : —
" I have beheld {T^diafxai) The Spirit descending as a
dove out of heaven, and it abode on Him : (33) and I
was not knowing Him : but He who sent me to baptize in
water He said to me, ' Upon whomsoever thou shalt see
The Spirit descending and abiding on Him, that is He
who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' " " That is He who
baptizes in the Holy Spirit," i.e. incorporates into Himself

* " Was before me " {-npSiros /j-ov ^iv). But the Greek means much more :
not only " was before me " (i.e. existed before I existed), but also " was the first
of any to have existence." See also verse 15, and xv. 18. For this use of a
superlative with a genitive cf. 2 Mace. vii. 41, eVxaTr/ ra>v vlSiv rj f^t^Trip
(riMuTTjaev, " the mother died last of all and later than her sons." This
pregnant use of irpuTos seems to be the explanation of Luke ii. 2, where the
idiom means " this was the first census ever made, and it was made hejore
Quirinius was governor of Syria " : the notice thus distinguishes it from the
census made under Quirinius some nine years later, in a.d. 6 ; to which later
one reference is made by Gamaliel in Acts v. 37. See Wieseler's Synopsis,
Part I. chap. 2, where will also be found a liyt of many famous grammarians in
support.

28 JOHN I. 33-34

by baptizing in the Creative Spirit, The Spirit which pro-
ceeds from His Godhead and rests in Its entirety on His
manhood. This integral descent and abiding, symbohzed
by the one and integral form of a dove (as against the many
and distributed tongues of fire in Acts ii. 3) signified that
He on whom it descended was the integral Godhead : ' for
God gives not The Spirit by measure to Him.'

The divine communication to John was not " that is
the Messiah " : that much John knew already : but " that
is He who baptizes in (ev) the Holy Spirit," What then ?
Here was a distinct invitation to John to ask Messiah to
baptize him that so the Holy Spirit might illumine him
yet further : and that John did so ask, and was baptized
in turn by Jesus, is the tradition of the Fathers.

The words " and / was not knowing Him " {kcIjio oi;k:
(iSfiy avTov) must be understood of official as against private
cognizance : ' my private knowledge of Him as Messiah
I was at this moment ignoring, waiting for the official sign
of the Dove ' : this appears from Matthew's account of
the Baptism (iii. 14, 15), from which it is plain that the
Baptist had privately intimate acquaintance with Jesus,
and knew Him to be the Lord (so Augustine in loannem.
Tract. V, 8). The words must also be understood of
imperfect knowledge as against perfect : ' even I, His
herald, who knew Him to be Messiah, God-and-Man, did
not as yet understand in what sense exactly He was
Jehovah, for I knew not as yet the nature of the Three in
One ' : this is plain from the words that follow.

(34) " And I have seen (twjoaKa)," continues the
Baptist, "■ and have given-witness {/uefiaprvpriKa) that this
is The Son of God." Have seen what ? The dove
descending and abiding on Him ? No : that he has
already told us in verse 32 : rather, ' I have seen that this
is The Son of God : on that day (Jan. 18) six weeks ago, I
not only saw upon the Man the sign that I was told to wait
for — the sign we were all awaiting, but I was to seek
yet further illumination from that Man : I did so on that
day and was baptized by Him in, or with, The Spirit,
and was illumined as to His Person in the Trinity : with

JOHN I. 34 29

the result that I have seen and have given my witness
(verses 15-18), that He is The Son of God.'

In naming Him " The Son of God," the Baptist speaks
with unclouded vision : he means nothing less than the
full Christian doctrine that the Man Jesus is also the
eternal Son of the eternal Father, co-equal, co-eternal.
As we have seen (at verse 18) it was on the day he baptized
Jesus (Sunday, Jan. 18), and was himself baptized by
Jesus, as the Fathers * have handed down, that John
received full illumination concerning the Trinity, and there
and then witnessed to Jesus as being " God only-Begotten,
He who is in the bosom of The Father " (verse 18), which
is the full import of the term " The Son of God," as used
by him to-day (Feb, 27).

In John the Baptist, the econom}'^ of the Law and the
Prophets reached its acme. In John was focussed every
ray of light that had vibrated in the Prophets across the
mists of the times of expectation — John the last of the
Prophets under the Law, the greatest of them, the sum of
them. In the very womb of his mother he had recognized
the God whose Incarnate presence he was later to announce.
The flickering torch, that John received as the heir of all
who went before, became in his hands " the lamp that
burns and shines " (John v. 35) : but not until after he
was baptized by Messiah was he fully illumined as to
what exactly was meant by the Divinity of Messiah, viz.
that He is the Godhead-eternally-Begotten by the Godhead-
eternally-Begetting. Not until Peter, some months later,
makes his confession of Jesus as "the Christ The Son of the
living God," shall we hear so clear a witness to our Lord :
and even so, with Peter the vision stayed not : not till
the Resurrection was his faith unalterably fixed.

As for the vision John had seen on Sunday, Jan. 18,
A.D. 28, it is probable that only Jesus and he beheld it :
" The heavens were opened unto him {i.e. to John), and he

* So Evodius (1st Century) says in his epistle, rh (pus, quoted by Baronius,
that the Baptist immediately after baptizing Christ was baptized by Him with
the Spirit : so too the tradition is handed on by Gregory Naz., Chrysostom,
.Terome. I have not been able to verify Baronius's quotation from Evodius.

no JOHN I. 34

saw the Sj^irit of God descending as a dove and coming
upon Him. And lo, a Voice out of the heavens, saying,
' This is My Son the Beloved in whom I am well pleased ' '*
(Matt. iii. 16, 17) : where it is John, not Jesus, who is said
to see the vision and hear the Voice, as appears from the
lettering of the MSS. i-rr avrov, on Him (not £^ aurov, on
Himself). The same appears from John's account (i. 32,
33). In Mark the lettering hq avTov leaves it doubtful
whether the avrov is aspirated or not : but Mark will
naturally be interpreted by the other Evangelists. It
was for John's sake and not our Lord's that the vision
came ; as at the Transfiguration it was for the sake of
the three Apostles, and not our Lord, that the vision
was seen ; and in the Temple (John xii. 30) it was for the
sake of the Greeks, and not our Lord, that the Voice was
heard.

What was the significance of the vision to John as he
meditated on it ? He had seen the whole Godhead qua
Holy Spirit descending out of heaven like a dove, and
abiding on Jesus : and had heard the whole Godhead qua
the Father, or Godhead- Begetting, speaking, " This is My
Beloved Son," sc. the Godhead-Begotten. This Jesus, then,
is the Godhead Incarnate. Nearl}^ thirty-one years ago
(March 25, B.C. 4) the whole Godhead, qua the Holy Spirit,
had brooded over Mary and begotten of her a human
embryo who is at once the Godhead-Begotten or eternal
Son of God and humanity-begotten or Son of Adam.
Whilst a Child He had grown and waxed strong in spirit,
being filled with wisdom {-rrXi^povfjievov ao(}>iag, Luke ii. 40) :
i.e. being unceasingly and automatically filled in His human
organism (body, soul, and spirit) according as that organism
developed to its full strength. Again, as Boy and Man
He had " advanced in wisdom and stature and grace with
God and men " (Luke ii. 52), until He reached the full
stature or age (jjAttcm) of man's capacity — the age or I'lXiKia
at which Adam had been created full-formed.

Whilst His manhood was yet embryotic in His Mother's
womb Jesus was perfect God, had been so from eternity :
but not till the age of thirty was He perfectly-developed

JOHN I. 34. 31

man, because not till that age is the human organism
perfected in its powers, the age at which service in the
Tabernacle was originally allowed by Moses to begin
(Num. iv. 3, 23, 30, etc.), the age at which a man could
first be recognized as a teacher or Rabbi in Israel. And
thus Luke, who told us of the Child being unceasingly filled
{■rrXiipov/^evov) and of the Boy's constant advance {TrpoiKoirre),
now tells us that He was " about thirty " {i.e. not to a day,
but thirty years of age and some days over) at the time
of His baptism or " beginning " of His ministry (iii. 23),
and that He was Jull {wMpnc:) of The Spirit when He
returned from His baptism (iv. 1) — as though He were now
at length fully developed man.

For all that, Jesus received nothing at His Baptism
that He had not before : the Baptist merely saw that day
in a visible symbol that which had actually and invisibly
taken place nearly thirty-one years ago (on March 25,
B.C. 4) : with the difference that in B.C. 4 the descent of
the Godhead had been upon an embryo or germinating cell,
whereas in a.d. 28 it was upon that embryo full grown.
From that earlier day the " descent and abiding " of the
Godhead had been unceasing : completed in the first
moment that Mary gave her consent, and yet unceasing.

Whereas the eternal Son was Begotten complete
without beginning, and is unceasingly being Begotten of
The Father, for to God all time is Now ; the Incarnation
took place at a moment in time, and the union of Godhead
to Manhood in the Person of Jesus then completed is
thenceforth unceasing.

The date of the Baptism cannot be accurately known.
It is commemorated by all the Churches in January, and
generally on Jan. 6, along with the Epiphany and the
miracle of the water into wine : not that these three
events are supposed to have occurred all on Jan. 6, but
they each mark an inaugurating manifestation and as such
are fittingly commemorated together on the anniversary
of one of them. The first is known as the Epiphany or
first manifestation to the Gentiles of God Incarnate :
the accurate historical date of this was Jan. 6. B.C. 3.

32 JOHN I. 35

The second is His official manifestation as the Son of God,
to the nation in the person of John His forerunner : this
was at His Baptism in a.d. 28. The third is the first
manifestation of His power as God, in the opening miracle
of His public ministry, the turning of water into wine at
Kana, in March a.d. 28.

The only definite clue to the date of His Baptism is
given in Dan. ix. 26, where it appears that " after the
sixty-two weeks the Messiah shall be cut off." According
to Hebrew usage, " after sixty-tAvo weeks " may mean
either " in the sixty-second week," or " after the sixty-
second week is ended " : the former is much the commoner
and more idiomatic. If, then, we understand it as " in
the sixty-second week," we may place the Baptism to
Sunday, Jan. 18, in a.d. 28, for the sixty-second week
thereafter will be the week from Sunday, March 20, to
Saturday, March 26, of a.d. 29, which was the week and
year in which His Passion and death occurred.

To return to the Evangelist's text : —

In verse 29 (p. 25) we were told that " on the day
after " the Baptist had received and answered the San-
A.D. 28. hedrin's deputation, " he sees Jesus coming
Feb. 27jp. to him." The day seems to be Friday,
Adar 6f ' Yeh. 27. Jesus was coming doubtless to
converse with the Baptist and possibly to tell him that
henceforth He opens His public ministry and begins to
receive disciples : as the Sanhedrin ignore Him, He must
work without them and train a society of His own to do
the work those others should have done. Perhaps our
Lord stayed with the Baptist this night.

(35) " The next day " (Saturday, Feb. 28) " John wis
standing and two of his disciples ; and he looked upon
F b 28 Jesus walking and saith," etc. The contrast

Adar ^\^^^^ between the " standing " still and the " walk-
ing " is marked : it seems to point to the
Baptist's resting on the Sabbath like every one else —
1000 yards walk being the maximum distance allowed on
a Sabbath ; whereas Jesus as Lord of the Sabbath walked :
cf. our^Lord's manifest violation of the Sabbath in John

JOHN I. 30-39 38

V. 8, in bidding the man carry his bed (see Jer. xvii. 21),
which, as Chrysostom remarks, He there justifies (verse 17)
by insisting on His own Godhead : and cf. Mark ii. 28.
The contrast between John standing still and Jesus walking
will also point to John's work being now finished when
Jesus begins His : " He must increase, but I must decrease."

(36) It must not be supposed that the utterance
" Behold, the Lamb of God " ('/Se, o afj.vog rov Qeov) was
all that John said on this occasion : these five words
would hardly justify the use of XaXovvrog, " talking,"
in verse 37. Rather they represent the pith of John's
talk. John thus transfers over to Jesus, for initiation into
deeper mysteries, such of his own disciples as were ready
for the change.

(37) The first two to move (for probably all the twelve
apostles were originally among John's disciples) w^ere
Andrew and John the Evangelist : for that the unnamed
one was the Evangelist is asserted by the consensus of
Church tradition. And they followed Jesus.

(38) And Jesus turned and saw them following, and
saith to them, " What seek ye ? " He knew perfectly
l)ut wished to encourage them to come and talk. They
said to Him, " Rabbi, where abidest Thou ? " Thereby
they say they take Him as their Master, to be taught by
Him ; and imply they wish to go with Him for that purpose
to wherever He is temporarily staying ; where that is they
naturally do not know, seeing that for the last six weeks
He had entirely withdrawn Himself from public. Though
the word Rabbi may seem inadequate after John's pro-
nouncement about Him, it will convey their implicit
acceptance here and now of all that the Baptist meant and
of all that Jesus may have in store to tell them. All
Faith is implicit before it can become explicit.

(39) " He saith to them, ' Come and ye shall see.'
They came therefore and saw where He abides." The
place was probably the grotto in the eastern face of the
hill above Jericho, where all tradition says He had passed
the forty days of His fast after His baptism : this grotto
is some hundreds of feet above Jericho and has a noble

34 JOHN I. 39-40

view over the Jordan plain with the mountains of Moab
rising beyond the river and the Dead Sea. In saying
" Come and ye shall see," sc. where I abide, our Lord
meant more than the material grotto where He was
dwelling : He meant also and mainly, ' Come and I will
show you the sort of heart and disposition I require in
My disciples if I am to abide in them.' And that day
they learnt. As John subtly says, " they came and saw
(not where He was abiding, but) where He abides (ttoO /utva)."

"■ And they abode with Him that day : it was about
the tenth hour," i.e. 10 a.m. : for John reckons the hours
as we do — twelve hours from midnight to midday, and
another twelve from midday to midnight — a method of
notation not uncommon in the province of Asia (Ephesus)
where he wrote. (See Acts of Polycarp^s Martyrdom,
VII. : Pliny, Hist. Nat. II. 70 : Pliny, Epist. III. 5.)
The other three instances of reckoning hours in John's
gospel (iv. 6 : iv. 52 : xix. 14) will be considered in their
places. The synoptic gospels reckon hours always as did
commonly the Greeks, Romans, and Jews, viz. twelve
hours from sunset to sunrise divided in three "" watches,"
and another twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. The
practice of the Roman forum, again (not infrequent to-day
in South Italy and Sicily), was to reckon the hours from
sunset to sunset in an unbroken count of twenty-four.
The common interpretation, which assumes that John's
reckoning is the same as that of the Synoptists, makes
the " tenth hour " to be 4 p.m. : but, the time of year
beng end of February, there will be no time for the sub-
sequent events that occur to-day — it will be dark at 5 p.m.

(40) Our Lord, therefore, with Andrew and John the
Evangelist, arrives at the grotto in Jebel Qarantal behind
Jericho at 10 a.m. The two stay with Him
*' * ' that day to be taught by Him and no doubt
shared His hospitality at the midday meal. Andrew goes
to find his brother Simon, and brought him to Jesus — of
course to the grotto : and it seems that later John too
found his brother James and brought him — at least such
is the fair inference from the words -rrpwrov . . . rov 'l^iov.

JOHN I. 40-42 35

" Andrew finds first of all his own brother Simon " : which
implies that afterwards the brother of the other of the two
was also found and brought to the same place and on the
same day. Both Simon and James were also doubtless
among the Baptist's disciples, which will account for
their being at this time in the neighbourhood of Jericho :
it is also probable that all the twelve apostles had been
first prepared bj^ the Baptist.

(41) " We have found the Messiah," says Andrew to
his brother. ' We all know how the Baptist announced
officially six weeks ago that Jesus was He — the Jesus who
has been brought up at Nazareth, whom we all know,
whose birth was attended by those strange events, whom
the Sanhedrin long recognized as Messiah till they threw

. Him over with contempt : but whom the Baptist, that
great prophet, the forerunner, insists is He. We (John
and I) are not only satisfied as you are that the Baptist
is right, but we have found where the Messiah has been
staying in retirement these last six weeks and where He is
still. We have been with Him, listening to Him : He is
about to come publicly forward ; come and see Him.'
Simon needed no urging : ever since John the Baptist had
officially spoken, he had been ready to throw over the
Sanhedrists and cast in his lot with Jesus of Nazareth,
of whom in His early years it had been generally under-
stood that He would one day come forward as the Messiah.
Clearly Andrew and John and their brothers Simon and
James had long been keenly interested in this matter of
Jesus being the Messiah.

(42) Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. " Jesus having
looked on him," as though reading his heart, which like
all hearts was open to His sight, and approving him, " said
' Thou art Simon the son of John : thou shalt be called
Kephas ' : which [the Evangelist adds for his Greek
readers] is by interpretation Petros." As to this name
Kephas : the Hebrew word is t]?. (Keph) and means
rock (TTfVpa), the outcropping rock, and never a stone :
the Aramaic form (as our Lord spoke it) is X2''5 (Kepha'),
cf. Ki'pha' (in the Syriac), and means a rock as in Hebrew,

3G JOHN I. 42

though in the later Aramaic of the Targums it means also
a stone. Kcpha' becomes in Greek form Kephas — the
Greeks in such cases habitually turning a final weak
guttural aleph ( =') or he ( =h) into S, e.g. Yehudah (Judah)
becomes {ov^acj (Judas) : Manasseh becomes Manasses :
Elijah becomes Elias ; Jonah, Jonas, etc. Thus John,
writing in Greek our Lord's Aramaic, naturally made His
Kepha' (proper name) into Kephas, then wishing to turn
this proper name into a Greek proper name with the same
meaning of rock, he was in difficulty, for if he rendered
the Aramaic word (now Kephas, rock) into the Greek for
rock, he would have to write Uirpa (Petra), which would
be a feminine and not a masculine ; this, therefore, he had
to make into ritr/joc (Petros), the only possible masculine
form. It was, he knew, not satisfactory, for this Greek
word in the masculine happens to mean a stone, and not
a rock, but the fault lay with the structural difference of
the two languages.*

* Precisely the same difficultj', inherent in rendering one language into
another, occurs in Matt. xvi. 18, " And I say to thee thou art Petros, and upon
this petra I will build My church," etc. Our Lord's words, in the Aramaic
He spoke, must have been (and see the Syriac version), "thou art Kephfi' (XS*P),
and upon this Kepha' (i<S\3) I will build," etc., i.e. He must have used, as does
the Syriac, exactly the same word in each half of the sentence : but in the
turning of the words into Greek, the Greek language necessitated in the first
clause (" thou art Kepha' " =petra=rock) the change of the feminine termina-
tion petra, "rock," into the masculine termination petros, to make a masculine
proper name out of it, but thereby the original became obscured : obscured,
however, only for a moment, for the following words prevent all misconception
as to our Lord's meaning ; for had He meant kepha' in the late Aramaic sense
of a stone (TreVpos), Matthew's Greek translator (unless incompetent) must have
rendered the Aramaic by iirl toutoi toj Trerpqi = on this stone, instead of by
€7Tt ravTr} rp TTtrpq. = on this rock. The English language, translating
straight from the Aramaic, would have given an exact equivalent, " thou art
Rock (proper name Simon Rock — rock in nature and henceforth Rock in name),
and on this Rock I %vill build," etc. : but as the English of our Lord's words is
a translation of a Greek translation, we suffer for the structural difference of
the Greek and Aramaic tongues. The Latin has the same abundance of inflexion
as the Greek : " Tu cs Pctrus et super banc petram " presents exactly the same
obscurity, in place of the simplicity of the original Aramaic. Endless con-
troversy had been spared us on this point had the Greek and Latin languages
had as few inflexions as the Aramaic and English : the advocates of Peter's
supremacy and see have in consequence been at a disadvantage in pressing Peter's
claim, so long as their opponents could point in good faith to the difference

JOHN I. 43 37

(43) " On the following day (Sunday, Feb. 29, a.d. 28)
He willed to go-out into Galilee." This use of ndiXyirr^v
(" willed ") seems to be John's Greek render- a.D. 28.
ing of the Hebrew '?\x"in, ho'U, whose meaning Feb. 29) „
is "to will and begin," commonly rendered ^dar 8 5
by the LXX by vp^aro, " began," though the Toot means
to will emphatically (see Gesenius's Heb. Lexicon, hi<l, and
Thesaurus). John thereby marks our Lord as deliberately
making an initial move : as though this going-out (out of
Judaea, the home country of the nation) into Galilee, an
outlying province, noted a crisis ; it is as though Judah
(the Jews proper) were on this day recognized by our Lord
as intractable. " He willed to go-out," and of course He
went and the four disciples with Him. It would be better
to punctuate this verse differently, and place a full stop
after "Galilee": for what follows, viz. "And He findeth
Philip, etc.," seems to have taken place on His arrival in
Galilee, four days later. The words " on the third day "
(ii. 1) are not to be reckoned from the date of His leaving
Judaea (as is generally assumed), but from the date of His
arrival in Galilee.

From Jebel Qarantal (behind Jericho), whence He
started for Galilee, it is a four days' journey, whether
(by way of Samaria) to Nazareth and Kana,
or (by way of the Jordan valley) to Bethsaida . , ' o[Sun.
and Capernaum. We are not told where in
Galilee He went, but from the mention of His " finding "
Philip, and of Philip's being " a resident of (otto) Beth-
saida," it is natural to suppose that He went to Bethsaida,
and there found Philip. What He " found " He was
seeking, and knew where to find, and did not come upon
by accident.

Yet another reason makes it probable that our Lord
went, not to Nazareth, but to Bethsaida and Capernaum,
when " He willed to go-out to Galilee," viz. His wish to

between Petros (btone) and petra (rock), as though " Peter " and " this rock "
had different denotation ; but stoutly the Catholics stuck to what they knew
was meant, even whilst the general unfamiliarity with the Semitic tongues
hindered them from driving home the argument.

38 JOHN I. 436-44

prepare for His approaching removal to Capernaum from
Nazareth (ii. 12). Here at Capernaum He would on this
occasion be the guest of Peter, His chief disciple. All
tradition places Peter's house in Capernaum (and cf. Mark
i. 29) : and further says that it was in Peter's house that
our Lord lodged whenever He was in Capernaum, for house
of His own He had none.*

(43&) Thus it was as He was nearing Capernaum and
passing through Bethsaida, that " He finds Philip," not
accidentally, but having gone to get him
-, ..[Wed. (so, too, at ix. 35): and, as we suppose, at
Bethsaida his place of residence. This Beth-
saida is defined (xii. 21) as " Bethsaida of Galilee," it is
the modern Khan Minieh, two miles south of Tell Hum
(Capernaum), on the west coast of the lake of Galilee,
and at the north end of the plain of Gennesareth. It is
thus distinguished from the Bethsaida (Julias) which was
at the north-east corner of the lake, and not in Galilee,
but in Philip's tetrarchy east of Jordan.

(44) It is the mention of Bethsaida and the implica-
tion of Capernaum in this verse that seem to give the clue
as to the part of Galilee to which our Lord " willed to
so-out." But the meaning of the verse hardlv comes out
in the R.V., and is totally obscured in the A.V., where no
distinction is marked between the two Greek prepositions
£(c and f/TTo. The Greek says, " And Philip was from (htto)
Bethsaida," i.e. Bethsaida was his place of residence :
but in the same verse he is said to be " out of {Ik) the city
of Andrew and Peter " : i.e. he was a native of, or born at,
the city of Andrew and Peter : which city was always
known to be Capernaum. This subtle distinction between
Ik and utto is frequently of great importance in John's
gospel, but is never made clear in the English versions.
See also at xi. 1.

Philip appears to be as well acquainted with our Lord
as were our Lord's cousins (second cousins on the mothers'
side) James and John (the sons of Zebedee), and their

* Peter's house at Capernaum was early converted into a churcb, and its
walls were still standing in fourth century when St Sylvia visited it.

JOHN I. 44-45 39

partners in business Andrew and Peter. Like them he
must have heard of the Baptist's announcement of January,
and been prepared to follow as soon as Jesus reappeared
from His withdrawal to " the wilderness " : — though
perhaps with a self-diffidence which required a direct call
from our Lord personall3^ The " Follow Me " (43) must
be understood not merely of a spiritual following, but also
literally : Jesus is on the road to Capernaum, and is
passing through Bethsaida : Philip of course joins those
who are accompanying Him. Thus our Lord passes
through Bethsaida and arrives at Capernaum on the fourth
day from Jebel Qarantal, viz. on Wednesday,
March 3, accompanied by five and P^O" Adarlli^®**'
bably by many others who had attached
themselves to His train.

(45) On the next day (Thursday, March 4), i.e. the
second day since arrival in Galilee, occurred the call of

Nathanael. Nathanael is to-day generallv „ , ,

March 4i
understood to be the^same person as Bar- ^^^^ ^2^Thurs.

tholomew, one of the Twelve : Nathanael
being the personal name, Bartholomew (son of Tolmai)
the patronymic. This identification, so extremely probable
in itself, seems to have been unknown to antiquity before
the ninth century. Tradition makes Bartholomew of
noble birth ; cf. Jerome, Epist. ad Eustachium, " non Petro
vili pescatori Bartholomaeus nobilis antiponitur " : and
records of Nathanael that he was learned in the Scriptures
(Augustine in Joan : and cf. Gregory, Mor. xxxiii. 21).

" Philip findeth Nathanael." As we know from John
xxi. 2, that Nathanael was " from (aVo, i.e. a resident of)
Kana of Galilee," it is natural to suppose that Philip found
him there, and there brought him to Jesus : — Jesus, with
His disciples and Philip among them, arriving at Kana
to-day in preparation for to-morrow's festivities, and
He will be Nathanael's guest to-night. Kana, according
to both Greek and Latin tradition, is the modern Kefr
Kennah : it is some seventeen miles south-west of Caper-
naum, and nearly four north-east of Nazareth. But see
note on p. 54.

40 JOHN i. 45

Philip's words to his friend Nathanacl arc "• Him of
whom Moses in the Law wrote, and of whom the pro])hets
wrote, we have found : Jesus, son of Joseph, who is from
Nazareth." The form of the sentence suggests that he
and Nathanael as well as the four others, had constantly
discussed the question of Jesus being the promised De-
liverer of the earliest gospel (Gen. iii. 15), and the promised
Messiah of the Prophets. In childhood and boyhood He;
had, they knew, been generally recognized as such, at least
by all who looked for the redemption of Jerusalem, by all
who attached any belief to Moses and the Prophets as being
inspired, and by the doctors of the Law. True the doctors
had subsequently tacitly disavowed Him, as not being a
Messiah to their liking : but John the Baptist, whom all
knew to be a Prophet and the Forerunner whose mission
was to point Messiah out officially to the nation, had seen
the appointed sign on Him, and had countered the doctors.
For Nathanael and his friends it was a choice between the
Baptist's decided Yea and the Sanhedrin's insinuated Nay.
The head and front of the Sanhedrin's objection to Him
was His preference for the obscurity of Nazareth and a
carpenter's trade to the splendours of the royal city and
the pomp that alone embodied their idea of Messiah.
They had used this citizenship of Nazareth as an argument
against His claim : for, according to Micah v. 2, Messiah
was to be min = " from " Bethlehem.

To understand the position clearly it is necessary to
remember that the Hebrew (of the Prophets) and the
Aramaic (the language of Palestine in our Lord's time)
have but one preposition min to express what are two
distinct meanings accurately indicated in Greek by Ik (place
of birth), and aVo (place of residence). Jesus might therefore
truly be styled min Bethlehem (place of birth) and min
Nazareth (place of residence). The Sanhedrists had taken
advantage of the equivocal Hebrew min to pretend that,
as Micah (v. 2) had said that Messiah was to be min Beth-
lehem, Jesus could not be Messiah seeing that He was
min Nazareth : but Mi(;ah meant min Bethlehem in the
sense of Ik (native of) Bethlehem, and so the LXX had

JOHN I. 45-47 41

rendered him, and so the Sanhedrin had understood the
passage thirty years ago when they had as yet no motives
for dissimulation (see Matt. ii. 4-6). This did not preclude
His being min Nazareth in the sense of (resident of) Naza-
reth : of this the Sanhedrists were aware, but it suited
them to seize on the equivoke.

The sense comes out clear in John's Greek rendering
of the Aramaic language spoken by Philip and Nathanael :
Philip's words were " Jesus . . . who is mm Nazareth" :
Nathanael's words were (46) " min Nazareth can anything
good be ? " Philip meant " min Nazareth " in the sense
of resident at Nazareth, and so John has rendered him
" TOP drro Nazareth " : Nathanael meant " min Nazareth "
in the sense of native of Nazareth, and so John has ren-
dered him " k Nazareth." Not that Nathanael had
misunderstood Philip, but he is saying, ' There is one sense
in which Messiah cannot be min Nazareth, viz. that of Ik
(native of) it : for Micah and tradition will not allow of
it : and so there is a sense in which the Sanhedrists are
right in their declaration that Jesus, being min Nazareth,
cannot be Messiah, But (he has argued to himself) the
Sanhedrists are disingenuous ; for there is another sense
in which Messiah might be min Nazareth, viz. that of d-rro
(resident of) it, as is Jesus, whilst still being inin (native of)
Bethlehem : " min Bethlehem " and " min Nazareth "
are not incompatible as they would have us to believe.'
Philip, following his line of thought that min Nazareth
(in spite of the doctors) is no argument against Jesus, nods
agreement and adds " Come and see."

(47) Had Nathanael not been sincere, he might have
sheltered himself behind the quibble, as others did (vii. 41,
42, 52), and pretended that as Jesus was min Nazareth,
He could not be Messiah, or that as Messiah must be min
(fk) Bethlehem Messiah cannot be min (aVo) Nazareth.
It was this intellectual honesty of his that called forth our
Lord's approbation, " Lo, an Israelite of the true stock,
in whom guile is not " : — contrasting his honesty with the
disingenuousness of the scribes exemplified in their equivo-
cation in the matter of min k and diro. Pretending to be

42 JOHN I. 48

impartial investigators, they seized on any excuse to
justify their rejection of Him. (See again at vii. 42.)

(48) Nathanael overheard our Lord's remark, and was
aware that it appHed to the crisis in his hfe where his
natural candour had had to break with the duplicity of
the Sanhedrists in their search for arguments against
Jesus. ' But how,' he asked, ' had Jesus so well read
the processes of his mind ? and from how long back does
that knowledge of him date ? ' Both meanings inhere
in the words TroOtv /.<£ yivMaKng ; " whence knowest thou
me ? " but the latter — " from how long back hast thou
knowledge of me ? " — is perhaps the principal one.

Jesus answered him, " Before Philip called thee, when
thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee." Under the jig
tree : Nathanael is arrested at this strange acquaintance
with the exact circumstances of that crisis in his life : he
had thought them known to himself alone : he remembered
vividly that day last autumn when he was sitting under
the fig tree studying the Law and the Prophets upon this
very matter of the Messiah and Jesus of Nazareth, where
he had formed his critical decision, viz. to break with the
Sanhedrin and follow John the Baptist's lead. It is said
of Rabbi Hasa in the tract Bereshith that he and his
disciples were in the habit of studying under a fig tree :
the old idyllic picture of sitting under one's fig tree is
oddly at variance with the habits of the East to-day :
by the modern Levantine the fig tree's shade is specially
shunned as unwholesome. Are they too fanciful who see
in this " fig tree," so strangely introduced, a second thought,
a subtle reference to the Jewish polity ? On the three
other occasions where the fig tree is named in the gospels
(Matt. xxi. 19 : xxiv. 32 : and parallels : and Luke xiii. 6)
the fig tree is the symbol of the Jewish polity : perhaps
here, too, is a similar symbolism for " under the San-
hedrin's authority," i.e. under their disavowal of Jesus,
from which Nathanael had had to free himself to follow
the authority of the prophet John the Baptist who was
above the Sanhedrin itself.

(49) The minute circumstantial detail connected with

JOHN I. 49 43

that critical hour was given by our Lord to show Nathanael
that all things were known to Him and all hearts open to
Him : so Chrysostom. To a mind already persuaded,
little is needed to produce conviction : " Rabbi " (and
thereby Nathanael acknowledges Him as Master and
Teacher), "Thou art The Son of God, Thou art King
of Israel." In calling Him " The Son of God " Nathanael
purposely adopts the title given to Him officially by the
Baptist seven weeks ago (cf. verse 34) : he thereby pro-
claims he accepts the Baptist's testimony as against the
Sanhedrists, accepts it implicitly, for he by no means
knows as yet all that that title means. Peter will use the
same words later (Matt. xvi. 16), " Thou art the Christ,
The Son of the Living God " ; but, as says Chrysostom,
' Nathanael does not forestall Peter : for when Peter uses
the words, he means, " The Son of God " as being Very
God, as appears from Christ's words to him immediately
after : but when Nathanael used them, he understood
" The Son of God " in a limited and vague sense as being
only man, though a wondrous Man.' For one moment
Peter saw then what the Baptist too had seen — the eternal
unceasing generation of The Son from The Father :
Nathanael sees not, but accepts what the Baptist saw,
and believes with his belief.

That " The Son of God " was at the time of our Lord
understood by the doctors and the Sanhedrin to be a title
of the Messiah (" Christ ") is absolutely clear from the
High Priest's questioning in Caiaphas's house (Matt,
xxvi. 63), " tell us whether thou be the Christ, The Son of
God," and (Mark xiv. 61), "art thou the Christ, The Son
of the Blessed One ? " That the Promised One of Gen.
iii. 15 was to be not only the Seed of the woman but also
somehow God was known from the beginning, known to
Eve (see the Targum of Jonathan on Gen. iv. 1). To
Mary, as she pondered on the mystery of her Son — that
Son who had been announced to her (b.c. 4) by Gabriel
as " Son of the Most High " (Luke i. 32), and again as
" Son of God " (Luke i. 35)— the mystery had long since
been made clear : how that He was the Second Person of

44 JOHN I. 49

the Holy Trinity incarnate, the Word (Memra) of Jehovah,
the Shekinah : and we have seen the Boy teaching His
parents this mystery in Luke ii. 49 (a.d. 10). But it was
John the Baptist, the Forerunner, who had first pubhcly
and officially applied the title to Jesus Christ, on the day
he baptized our Lord (a.d. 28, Jan. 18) and was himself
baptized by Him : it was he who had announced its full
significance as the Evangelist declares (John i. 15-18) and
had made the title current among the -people and the doctors.
From that date it became one of the recognized titles of
Messiah : and, as we see in the trial in Caiaphas's house
(above), the doctors refused it to Jesus only because they
refused to see in Him Messiah. Similarly (John x. 33)
they will seek to kill Him for blasphemy, for " making
thyself God " — the blasphemy being not that He who
claimed to be Messiah claimed to be God, for the two went
together as they knew, but that He whom they refused
to recognize as Messiah claimed Messiah's prerogative
of being God, a claim which they rightly asserted to be
blasphemy in a mere man.

How widely the title became known as denoting Messiah
may be seen, not only in the use of it by the doctors (Matt,
xxvi. 63 : Mark xiv. 61 : John x. 33), but in the use of it
by Nathanael here, by " them that were in the ship "
(Matt. xiv. 33), by the centurion (Matt, xxvii. 54), by
Peter (John vi. 69, where he speaks from faith rather than
from vision), by our Lord (John ix. 35, where He assumes
the man will know whom He means), by Martha (John
xi. 27).

In calling Him " King of Israel," Nathanael confesses
Him as the Messiah, and gives Him the same title that the
crowd from the provinces will give Him on Palm Sunday
of next year (xii. 13) : neither they nor Nathanael were
Jews, but Israelites. The name " Judah " and " Jews "
might be merged in " Israel," as it frequently is, after the
return from Babylon, when Israel proper had disappeared
and Benjamin represented with Judah the Covenant
kingdom : but " Israel " is never merged in " Judah,"
nor would any Israelite have regarded " King of Judah "

JOHN I. 49-51 45

as an equivalent for the more glorious " King of Israel."
Though the crown came from Judah, the kingdom and
birthright of empire was Joseph's (1 Chron. v. 1), and
therefore in the divided Nation the title " King of Israel "
had been borne by the northern kingdom alone so long
as it endured. This distinction is marked again in the
final question which the eleven Apostles (none of them Jew)
ask our Lord on the day of His ascension (Acts i. 6), " Lord,
wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom (not the Crown)
to Israel ? " i.e. bring Israel (the non-Jew tribes) again
into favour, seeing that Judah proper had rejected Him.

(50) ' Did My power to read thine inmost heart, and
My knowledge of the smallest details of thy life have such
effect on crystallizing thy faith ? Thou shalt see greater
things than these when I begin to manifest My authority
by My acts of more than human power.'

(51) And speaking to Nathanael (" He saith to him "),
" Verily, verily, I say to you " {hjxlr, plural, i.e. to you
disciples here present), " ye shall see Heaven opened "
{avitoyoTa, lying permanently open) : " and the angels of
God ascending and descending on The Son of Man." He is
the ladder of Jacob's vision (Gen. xxviii. 12) set up on earth
and reaching to heaven, upon which the angels of God had
been seen by Jacob passing up and down — an imperfect
symbol. But it is promised to the disciples that their
eyes shall be opened to understand that symbol, to see that
Heaven now lies open to Earth, and that He is the arche-
typal Ladder, the means whereby Heaven and Earth are
linked together, the living Personality in whom Godhead
and Manhood are One, and in whom men may become God.

This allusion by our Lord to the vision of Jacob's
ladder looks as though this vision had been the subject of
Nathanael's meditation on the day referred to, when he
sat last autimm under his fig tree's shade : the Baptist
had at the time (Oct. a.d. 27) just begun to announce his
message that the kingdom was at hand, also the King
who should bring Jacob back from exile (Jer. xxx. 10, 11 :
and Gen. xxviii. 15, spoken from above the Ladder).

46 NOTE: "THE SON OF MAN"

NOTE: "THE SON OF MAN"

As for the title " The Son of Man " (6 i;tos rov dvOpwTrov, with the
initial Greek article) : it occurs 83 (perhaps more correctly 80) times in
the gospels and once in Acts (vii. 56), and nowhere else. Of these 83 (80)
times, 32 (30) are in Matthew's gospel, 14 in Mark's, 26 (25) in Luke's,
11 in John's. In every case the title denotes our Lord alone : and in every
case it is used by Him alone with the one exception of Acts vii. 56, A\here
it is used of Him by the dying Stephen. None other ventm-es to call Him
The Son of Man : angels and men and demons call Him the Son of God :
it is He Himself who, while claiming the latter title, deigns to call Himself
also The Son of Man, and insists on this lesser name. The Church, from
John the Baptist onwards through Apostles and Evangehsts, naturally
preferred to give her Lord a higher title such as The Christ (= The Messiah),
or The Son of God, or God's Son, or The Lord.

This name, " The Son of Man" (with the initial Greek article, 6 vlos t.
dv6p.), occurs nowhere in the LXX nor yet m the apocryphal books. The
Aramaic words used by, our Lord, which are thus rendered in the Greek
text of our gospels, were not bar vasha , lit. " the-son-of-man " (plur.
Vne ndsha), a phrase which had come to mean in Aramaic simply " man "
or " the man," or " mankind," the har (son) havuig lost all distuictive
force: but hreh cVnashci, lit. "his son, (viz.) man's," which represents
an idiom very common in Aramaic and is an emphatic form in which the
har (son) retams its value. That this was the term used by our Lord
appears from the Syriac (an Aramaic dialect) versions of the N.T. : they
always preserve the phrase hreh (Tnosho'' when used by our Lord of Himself
alone, and they reserve the phrase to denote Him alone : * whereas they
habitually employ harnoshd' or har'nosho' (lit. the-son-of-man) when the
CJreek has simply avOpturro^ (man) or 6 av^pwTTos (mankind), used generic-
ally for any and every man, e.g. Matt. iv. 4 : xii. 12, 43 : xv. 11, 18 : xvi.

* It is so also even in the four places where the Greek has merely vlhs avepdnov
(without the initial article), viz. John v. 27, " (because He is) Man's Son," vlhs
avdpccTTov. Here the Greek insists on His having taken human nature to
Himself, rather than on His being the one true representative of humanity :
similarly God's Son {vlhs &eov, or vlhs tov &eod) is sometimes used of Him
instead of The Son of God (o vlhs rod ©eoC). The Syriac here {breh d'nosho')
is really in the nature of a gloss.

Heb. ii. 6. "(or) Man's Son" {vlhs avOpdnrov), Syr. breh d"nosho\ Here
again the Syriac is a gloss, explaining the term as referring cryptically to our
Lord ; as does the writer of that epistle (verse 9).

Rev. i. 13 : xiv. 14. " One like a-son-of-man " {ofj-oiov vthv avepdnov). Here
again the Syriac breh cVnosho" is a gloss. John's reference here is to Dan. vii. 13,
where Daniel's Aramaic has (k)&«r' andsh= (One like) a son of man, i.e. (One
like) a man : John, no less than his Syriac Version, was aware that the " One
like a son of man " seen in his own and Daniel's vision was our Lord.

The omission of the initial article in all four cases calls attention to the
(human) nature, rather than to the Personalitj-, of our Lord.

NOTE: "THE SON OF MAN" 47

26 : xix. 6 : Mark ii. 27 : v. 8 : vii. 15, 18, 20, 23 : viii. 36, 37 : x. 9 :
Luke iv. 4 : ix. 25 : John ii. 25b : iii. 27 : v. 34 : vii. 22, 23, 46, 51 : or
used for one of the genus man as against God, John i. 6 : v. 34 : x. 33, or as
against demons, Mark v. 8 : Luke viii. 29 : xi. 24, 26.

Evidently the authors of our four Greek gospels had before them a
peculiar Aramaic terra, fere/t cV^msha, never used before, and preserved for
us in the Sp-iac versions. The}' therefore coined the new term 6 vlb'? toS
avOpwrrov in order to mark it.

We may safely assume that the authors of oiu" Greek gospels were
fully capable of dealing Avith Aramaic idioms seeing that Aramaic was as
familiar to them as Greek. Again, the authors of the SjTiac Versions of
the N.T. are clearly aware that the title used by our Lord of Himself,
and rendered in the Greek by 6 vtos tov avOpwirov, has a particular value,
for, as has just been shown, they reserve for it, and for it alone, a particular
phrase.

It appears indeed that this title " The Son of Man " as used by our
Lord was a new title and coined by Him for Himself. Just as " Son of God,"
hitherto used vaguely, had been recently defined by the Baptist as meaning,
when applied to Jesus Christ, Godhead only-begotten (/Aovoyevrys 0eos), ex-
pressing the eternal and unceasing generation of the Second Person of the
Trinity by the First: so bar ?ia5/ia.':=" the-son-of-man," hitherto used
merely for "the man" or "mankind," is now modified by Jesus Christ
into " hreh d'ndsha' " The Son of Man " and with a meaning applicable to
Himself alone.

In what sense does He use it ? He certainly does not repudiate the
titles " The Son of God," " King of Israel " (in other words, Messiah), that
Nathanael has just given Him : but He adds hereby another element in
the connotation of Messiah, viz. that He is " The Son of Man." *

(1) As being the one perfect representative of the race = The Man :

(2) As bemg that Seed of the woman of the primeval gospel (Gen. iii. 15)
who was to bruise the serpent's head :

(3) As asserting His incarnation : ' I, The Son of God, a stranger to
the race because its Creator, am here amongst you bearing your own nature,
but in its original spotlessness : and I take to-day My title therefrom.'
The title Messiah had come to carry with it a false conception of the
Kingdom which He was come to set up. The true conception of Messiah
meant The perfect Man who, by uniting in His own person perfect human

* It is an old remark that our Lord often calls Himself The Son of Man at
moments when He claims to be acting as God, e.g. casting out demons (Matt.
xii. 28-32), forgiving sins (Matt. ix. 6 : Mark ii. 10), modifying the Sabbath
because He Himself had made it (Mark ii. 27, 28) : or again at the moment after
He has asserted Himself to be The Son of God (Matt. xxvi. 63, 64 : Mark xiv.
61, 62), and again before the Sanhedrin on the following morning (Luke xxii.
69, 70) : or again whilst asserting that He was in Heaven before His Incarna-
tion and never left Heaven even whilst Incarnate (Jolin iii. 13). For whatever
can be predicated of The Son of Man can bo predicated of The Son of God and
conversely : because His Person is One only, though He has two natures.

48 NOTE; "THE MESSIAH"

nature to perfect Godhead, is not merely Himself the perfect Man, but
is also the living Laboratory in which all men by sacramental union with
Him are to be gradually assimilated by Him into HLs likeness : — a process
not possible unless this living Laboratory were alt^o God the Creator, un-
ceasingly workmg to perfect this new creation. Thus the true conception
of Messiah meant a King — at once God and Man — who unites all His
subjects to Himself, eliminate? all their imperfections by the transfusion
of His own perfection, until King and subjects form one new creation
The perfect Man : — that mystical Body of Paul's metaphor, where the
King is the head and His subjects are the members.

NOTE: "THE MESSIAH"

It is vain to say, as do many moderns, that our Lord did not at the
opening of His public Ministry admit Himself to be the Christ, the Messiah,
and therefore the King of Israel. The announcement that He was so had
been openly made by the angel to the shepherds on the night of His birth
(Luke ii. 11) by the Magi from the East (Matt. ii. 2), by Simeon on the day
of His presentation in the Temple (Luke ii. 26-32), and by Anna the
prophetess (Luke ii. 38) : it had never lapsed from the consciousness of the
nation until in disgust with Him they threw Him over before ever He came
forward, at the age of thirty, to be baptized. From that moment John
the Baptist proclaims it (John i. 17) officially : the Sanhedrin, however,
refuse to acknowledge Him, refuse also thereafter to accept the Baptist
as a witness to Him.

A.D. 28. In the circle of His immediate disciples He always uisisted

Feb. 28, Sat. ^^^ jjj^ Messiahship : see at the very outset of His public
Ministry, Andrew and John, His two earliest disciples, have
been but a few hours with Him, and they come away to Simon
and James saying, " we have found the Messiah " — clearly
He had not repudiated but reasserted the Baptist's statement.
A.D. 28. Again, when it is said of the large body of disciples who

Adar'lS^j ^'''- were with Him at Kana that "they believed into Him"
(tTTto-Tcncrav ets dvrov, John ii. 11). it is obviously as into
the Messiah, the God-Man of the Baptist's announcement
(John i. 15-18), that they believed into Him : no other behef
could be called " belief into Him " * : vague it was of neces-
sity, but it was implicit ; it will develop later into clear
definite outlme.
A.D. 28. Again, at the first visit to Jerusalem (April, a.d. 28) He

NUan is}"^""" clearly proclaimed Himself Messiah (or did not repudiate
what all knew He claimed to be) : how else could " many
believe into His name" {ivLa-Tivarav ets to 6vo[xa avroti,
John ii. 23). See p. 72.

* TTia-Tfveiv eh avTov (of. credere in Deum), very common in John's
writings, always means genuine Faith.

NOTE: *'THE MESSIAH" 49

Wlierein did the Baptism \\'hich He announced (John A.D. 28.
iii. 3-21), and which He administered by His disciples (John *"''" ^^°-
iii. 22-iv. 2), differ from the " baptism of John," except that
the latter was only in water and the former was in water and
in the Holy Spirit which only Messiah could dispense ?

He proclaims Himself openly as Messiah to the Samaritan A.D. 28.
woman (John iv. 25, 26) (April, a.d. 28), and to the '^'"■'' ^^-^^•
Samaritans (vv. 40-42).

When He moves on into Galilee (April, a.d. 28) to begin A.D. 28.
to preach there, saying, " Repent ye : for the Kingdom of '^'""" ^^'
Heaven is at hand," what else could He be understood to
mean except what the Baptist meant (using the very same
words), viz. that the King was come and that Jesus was He ?
Three months ago the Baptist had identified Jesus for the
nation as being the Messiah : none could fail to understand
that Jesus was carrying on what His herald had begun ;
that the Man whom John had identified was not repudiating
John's proclamation of Him, but was here assenting to it,
and aAvaiting a national recognition, -NAhich none the less He
knew M'ould not be given.

As Messiah the Galileans gladly welcome Him (April, a.d. A.D. 28.
28) — the memory of the signs done by Him recently in ^'"^''' ^^^'
Jerusalem fresh in their minds — and crowds come to Him
from the regions north and east of Galilee and from Judaea,
Peraea, and Jerusalem itself. It can be only as Messiah that
He is teaching (Matt, v.-vii.) : see esp. v. 11, "for My
sake " ; v. 17, " think not I am come to destroy the Law,"
etc. ; V. 22, 28, 32, 34, 30, 44, where of His own authority
He amplifies the Law. What else means the centurion's
cry, " Lord, my servant," etc. (Matt. viii. 6), but that he
implicitly recognizes Jesus to be all He claimed to be and
all that was implied in the Jews' Messiah ? Hence the
commendation he obtains as against Israel (verses 10, 11).
What else means the leper's cry, " Lord, if thou wilt/' etc.
(viii. 2) ? or the disciple's cry, " Lord, suffer me first," etc.
(verse 21)? or, "Lord, save us, we perish" (verse 25)?
The cry of the blind men (i.x. 27), " Son of David," can mean
nothing but that they know Him to be claiming to be Messiah,
and recognized Him as Massiali, and were right to do so, see
His words, "according to your Faith," etc. So, too, the
crowds', 'Take care, is He not, after all said against Him by
the scribes, what He clamis to be — The Son of David,' i.e. the
Messiah (Matt. xii. 23) ? What el«e can He mean (verse 28)
by " If / by the Spirit of God cast out the demons, then
Ihc Kingdom of God. is come upon you,'''' than that the kingdom
of Messiah is come upon you, and I am the Messiah here among
you ?

50 NOTE: "THE MESSIAH"

It is not as a chance reformer who has suddenly appeared
in Je^ry that He is opposed by the Scribes and Pharisees
in Jerusalem and in Galilee : but as the Man who from His
birth had been pointed out to the nation as Messiah, had been
recognized as such by all for many years, had been gradually
tacitly cast off by the nation as not being to their liking,
had been again (at the age of thirty) identified for them by
John the Baptist -whom from his birth all had recognized as
being a Prophet and the Forerunner of Messiah. This is the
Man whom they are opposing : whether He choose to call
Himself the Messiah, or The Son of God, or The Son of Man,
or The Son of David, or whatso else, is of no moment : it
is as One claiming to be the Messiah that they refuse to
tolerate Him.
A.D. 28. Again, on His next visit to Jerusalem (at Pentecost, end

Sivan b\ ^"' of May, a.d. 29) it certainly was not as merely a reformer who
habitually cured on a Sabbath that the Jews sought to kUl
Him (John v. 16) : that charge was but a handle by which
they sought to lay hold on One whom they akeady hated
as their discarded Messiah, who still refused to withch'a-w,
Avho still insisted on teaching them the Divinity of Himself
even as His herald the Baptist had asserted Him, Jesus, to be
" Messiah," " God only-begotten " (see under John i 17, 18).
June 5 ( c . When, ten days later,* in the Synagogue at Capernaum

Sivan 17} ^^^ 2&-59), He is challenged to show some sign equal to

those done by Moses if He wants them to believe Him, it
is obvious that the speakers in comparing Him w'ith jMoses
are talking to One whom they know to be claiming to be
Messiah. Xo one but a self-styled Messiah would they have
put on a parity wath Moses.
A.D. 28. Again, immediately afterwards, owing to the presence

June. [j^ Galilee of Scribes and Pharisees who have come from

Jerusalem (Matt. xv. 1) to hunt Him down m accord-
ance with then- recent decision to kUl Him (John v. 16), He
retires for three months to the Gentile districts of Tyre and
Sidon and the Decapolis (Mark vii. 24, 31) : and we are told
(vii. 24) that " having entered a house He Avould not that
anyone should know." Know what ? That He, Jesus, was
the Jew's Messiah ? No : but that He, Jesus, was present
there in the house : for if it got about that He was there,
it would ipso facto be known that " the Jews' Messiah " w^as
there. And so it fell out. " He could not lie hid (Xa^etv) " :
His presence in the house -was known : at once a Gentile
woman comes forth acclaiming Him as "Son of David"

* That the verse John vi. 4 is an interpolation from a marginal note and did
not form part of the original text, see p. 148.

NOTE: "THE MESSIAH" 51

just as Galileans had addressed Him (Matt. ix. 27 : xii. 23)
using no other than a title of IMessiah — as she knew He
claimed to be.

Again, in mid-September, a.d. 28, He lands once more on A.D. 23:
the western shore of the lake of Tiberias (Matt. xv. 39). j^sri i}wed.
At once His old enemies the Sanhedrist party (xvi. 1) come
out at Him, and He crosses back into Philiji's tetrarch3^
Dm-mg His long absence in Gentile lands, the efforts of the
Sanhedrists from Jerusalem (they of Matt. x-v. 1) have been
eminently successful in undermining His influence and
persuadmg the people against Him. Fully aware of it, He
calls His disciples' attention to it by the words (Matt. xvi. 13),
" Whom do the folk {ol avOpaiiroi) say that I The Son of
]\Ian am ? " — in other words, ' Whom are the people here-
abouts now saying that I the Messiah am ? Not long ago
they were acclaimmg Me here as Messiah, and wishing to
make Mc King (see John vi. 15) : see how little was then'
acclamation Morth, for it was not due to spiritual insight :
no longer am I to them Me^ssiah, I am become only John
the Baptist or Elijah, or one of the prophets. But whom do
yo^i say I am ? Are you also about to fall away 1 ' And
then follows Peter's confession of Faith, ' We fall away ?
No. We say to-day what we have ever said since v/e came
to you, what you have always taught us to say, " Thou art
the Messiah," and by that ^\'e mean not merely The Son of
Man, but also " The Son of the livmg God," incarnate as
Man.'

Agam, Matt. xvi. 20, " Then charged He His disciples that A.D. 28.
they should say to no one that He is the Christ." The date j^sri' 2} "'"''"'■•
of this incident (Matt. xvi. 13-20) seems to be the day fol-
lowing the critical interview Avith the Pharisees and Sadducees
(xvi. 1-4), which had caused His hurried return to the eastern
side of the lake. This charge to His disciples does not mean
that He ceases to assert His identity with Messiah, but it
means that the disciples are not at this crisis qualified to
proclaim Him as Messiah : they still retain much of the
national misconception about Messiah's glory : there is
serious danger that they may (-without altogether meaning
it) work upon the passions of the crowd, excite them to faction
against the Sanhedrin, who, as all knew, had declared open
Avar on Him, and to rebellion against the civil power. He
alone is at this crisis competent to proclaim Himself to the
public, for He alone knows what Messiah has first to endure ;
and, by insistmg on His humiliations to come. He is able
to restram any popular excitement. His public insistence
on His claims appears there in verses 24-28, where He is
speaking not only to His disciples, but also to the crowd

52 ^OTE: "THE MESSIAH"

(iMark viii. 34). 'Die cio\\d knew perfectly that by " The Son
ot Man commg in the glory of His Father with His angels,"
He meant Himself and meant the Messiah : but, He s^ays,
not as Ihey had pictured Messiah : there would he no facUc
honours for His friends, no coui'tl}' titles, no lust of the eye
or pride of life ; rather, the opposition that had driven Him
from Jerusalem (John vi. 1), and had kept Him for the last
three months out of Galilee, would prove so strong that His
enemies will succeed in putting Him to death upon the
gallows : this, He tells them, is the King's highway by which
He ^\ ill pass to His throne : but none other saw the fitness
of the road. From that time forth (xvi. 21) He openly
proclaims ^\■hat He all along had known — that the Sanhedi'iii
are incorrigible, that the visible Kingdom will not at this
time be set up : with the brief inter-v'ie-w of yesterday' (Matt.
xvi. 1-12), a crisis in the nation's history has closed.

A.D. 23. Agam, Matt. xvii. 9, " Tell the vision (of the Trans-

Tisri 10 ( ^'''" figuration) to no one until The Son of Man be risen from the
dead." It is His synonym for Messiah, and that the three so
understood is clear from their question in verse 10. This
charge to the three does not mean that He Himself ui any way
is ceasing His claim to be Messiah, but it means that they are
not to speak of the vision of His glory ^vhich they have just
seen on Mt Tabor ; for if the other disciples and the public
hear of it, there Avill be roused a blind enthusiasm to make
Him king — an enthusiasm that will be fanaticism because
untempered bj^ kno^\ledge and impatient of authority.
Similarly in Mark ix. 30, " He would not that anyone should
know," sc. of the vision, for fear lest there should be an
outburst in His favour : it would take little to rouse the
Galileans no\v that He is back in Galilee after three and a half
months' absence. But His work in Galilee is done : within a
Aveek He will have left it for good, to open His mission in
Persea after the Feast of Tabernacles, Though He keep His
title of Messiah in relative abeyance, there is never any
doubt, whether among " the Jews " of Jerusalem or among
" the crowds " of Galilee, about HLs claim to be Messiah :
all knew that He has come forward as Messiah no matter
what the title b}^ which He may prefer to call Himself.

A.D. 28. Again, when the Jews of Jerusalem ask (John x. 24),

K?s!ev25V "^^' "How long dost thou keep us in suspense? If thou art
(not 'if thou be') the Christ tell us plainly," they are not
asking for a clear statemeul as though none such had yet
been made ; see His answer, " I told you, and ye believe not " :
what they are insisting on is some startling " sign," some bit
of thaumatmgy such as they have been ever seeking and have
laid down as the stipulation necessary to their belief. Again,

NOTE: "THE MESSIAH" 53

when they ask, " Who art thou ? " they are not asking Him
for a statement in words, but for a convincing sign that
shall be to their liking : see His answer, " What I have been
telling you from the beginning."

As to the word "Messiah": it represents the Hebrew
Masiah, meaning (The) anointed one, and is rendered by
the Greek Xpicrros (Christ), which means (The) anointed one.
It is not without interest, when reading the N.T., to sub-
stitute the word "Messiah" wherever the word "Christ"
appears: for that, neither more nor less, is the exact value
of " Christ."

§ HI

JOHN II. 1-12

The first return of Jesus to Galilee after His baptism. His

first sign

(1) " And on the third day there was a marriage feast in
Kana * of GaHlee." The " third day " does not mean the
A.D. 28. third since leaving Jebel Qarantal, for from
March 5^_. that neighbourhood to Kana is a four days'
Adar 13) ' journey (see under i. 43) : but the " third
day " since the arrival in Galilee that was implied in verse
43 of last chapter (see p. 37).

The first day would be the day of arrival in Galilee

* " Kana of Galileo " (Gk. Kava, Heb. Qanah) : to distinguish it from the
other Kana (Heb. Qanah, Joshua xix. 18), seven miles south-east of Tyre, which
liad once belonged to the tribe of Asher and to the Galilee of the Old Testam ent
times, but was now (in the time of our Lord) outside the province of Galilee and
belonged to Phenicia and the T3Tians ; (see the restricted borders of the later
Galilee on west and north as given by Josephus ( War, III. iii. 1 ) ). The Kana
(Qanah) of Asher was assumed by Eusebius (early 4th century) to be the Kana
(Kava) of the gospel — ^he not observing how the old limit of Galilee had shrunk
in our Lord's time. By the close of the 4th century that Kana (Qanah) of
Asher had rightly been rejected as impossible, and the village of Kenna was
being pointed out to pilgrims (as it is to-day) as the Kana of the gospel, the
" Kana of Galilee " (Kara rris VaXtXaias).

John's " Kana of Galilee '' must be the same as the " village of Galilee
which is called Kana {Kava),'" where Josephus (TAfe, 16) says he was staying on
a certain occasion (a.d. 60), for there could not be two places in Galilee called
Kana {Kava) at tJiat time, or John's note of distinction would be worthless.
Many will be in favour of identifying " Kana of Galilee " (of John and of Jose-
phus) with the ruins of Qanah, eight miles north of Nazareth, fifteen west of
Tiberias, eighteen west by south of Capernaum : for the Greek spelling Kana
exactly represents the Semitic Qanah.

Local tradition to-day, however, of both Greek and Latin Churches favours
the village of Kenna, four miles north-east of Nazareth, twelve west of Tiberias,
seventeen west by south-west of Capernaum. But the spelling Kenna {Ktwa)
does not suit a Semitic Qanah, nor does the modern Arabic spelling Kemia
suggest an original Semitic Qanah. Jolin's " Kana of Galilee '' must have been
the transliteration of a Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic " Qanah of Galilee," since
he had to distinguish from another Qanah, viz. that of Asher. By Eusebius'a
time the Qanah of Galilee of the gospel wa« probably (owing to the Jewish war)
ahead}' a ruin as it is to-day.

JOHN II. 1-2 55

(Wednesday, March 3) : the second day would be Thursday,
March 4 (see under verse 45 of last chapter) : and the
" thh'd day " is Friday, March 5. In this year a.d. 28
the Day of Nicanor (Adar 13) fell on Friday, March 5.
This Feast of Nicanor, on the day before the Feast of
Purim, dated from B.C. 161 : its formal ordainment " to
be kept year by year " is given in 1 Mace. vii. 49, and see
2 Mace. XV. 36. In later times the day came to be observed,
as it is still, as the Fast of Esther. The Talmud tells us
that Wednesdays and Fridays were the regular days for
the marriage of maidens, and Thursdays for that of widows.
Marriage feasts were held always in the evening.

" And the mother of Jesus was there." At whose
house was the marriage feast ? There is no tradition of
any value to help us. The marriage feast would be held
in the house of the bridegroom, not in that of the bride.

(2) " And Jesus also was called, and His disciples, to
the marriage feast." We certainly gather that the marriage
was that of one who had accepted the Baptist's announce-
ment of Jesus as being the Messiah : one in whose house
our Lord's mother would be given a prominent position,
and where she could take naturally a place of some authority
(verses 3 and 5) ; one to whom our Lord was dear, for it is
clear that the religious and political leaders of the people
must have been already roused to a strong hostility against
Jesus, more especially since the day of the Baptist's official
designation of Him as the Messiah : this hostility of the
Sanhedrists was not a thing to be lightly ignored : yet in
the face of it we have to notice the large invitation extended
to His disciples because they were His disciples — such
would seem to be the force of the Greek (k-XT/Or;, sing.).
There is again the a priori probability that our Lord
would wish the first manifestation of His divine power to
be made in the presence of His nearest relatives as having
His especial care, just as after His resurrection it is to His
" brethren " that His first message of assurance was sent
(John XX. 17). Perhaps we shall not be amiss if we con-
jecture that all His near relatives were here present as
guests and before He and His disciples arrived.

56 JOHN TI. 2-3

This is the first mention of " His disciples " as a body.
Who are they ? At first siglit we might su}:)pose the word
means the six of John's first chapter, viz. John himself
(inferred from i. 40, 41), Andrew, Simon Peter, James,
Philip, Nathanael ( =Bartholomew) : but it appears from
the failure of the wine (verse 3) that at a late moment there
had arrived a large number of guests who had not been
expected or provided for : the addition of our Lord and
merely six others is not enough to account for the failure :
from which we may fairly argue that there were a con-
siderable number of followers who had already during the
last two days attached themselves to the Man whom the
Baptist had officially designated as the Messiah : nor is
it other than probable that among this crowd of His
" disciples " were all the Twelve * who were to be later
chosen as Apostles, for it was to be one of the qualifications
of these Twelve witnesses that they had been with Him
" from the beginning " (John xv. 27) : others among the
crowd might be Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias, see Acts
i. 21-23, where the same qualification is required and where
the " beginning " must include this " beginning of the
signs " by which " He manifested His glory " (John ii. 11).

(3) The mother of Jesus was not eating and drinking
with the guests at table, for women did not recline at
table among the men, they dined in a separate room, as
is still the Oriental custom.

Hearing that the wine was run out (uo-rfpT/o-ai'roc), i.e.
that the last supply had been drawn and sent up to table,
the mother of Jesus goes to Him as He reclined among the
guests and says to Him privately, " They have no wine "
— privately, because she wished to prevent the failure of
the wine becoming known. She goes, as Hilary says, from
compassion for the bridegroom, who is out of counten-
ance at having failed to lay in a sufficiency : she goes

* The call of Matthew, for instance (Matt. ix. 9 and parallels), is certainly
not the first time Matthew has accompanied our Lord : it is his final call to leave
Ills ordinary occupation. Similarly the call of Peter and Andrew and James
and John (Matt. iv. 18-22 and parallels) is not the first occasion on which they
accompanied our Lord, for it is some six weeks later than the events of John
i. :}7-42.

JOHN II. 8-t 57

to Him because it was owing to the invitation to Him and
His large company of disciples that the wine had failed :
she goes to Him because He has already told her that He
means to inaugurate to-day His public Ministry by showing
His first " sign " of more than human power, and she
would not have so great a day marred : indeed she suggests
the occasion of the " sign."

Her words " they have no wine " certainly contain an
implied petition to Him to supply the need : and, if so,
they contain also an expectation of a sign of His Divine
power.

(4) His answer to her, " What have I and thou in
common, O Woman ? " has been strangely thought by
some, notabl}?^ by Chrysostom, to contain a reproof to His
mother as to one too forward and presuming on her intimacy
with Him : Christendom, whether Catholic or Orthodox,
has learnt by now to know the Mother better, and is quite
certain that in this Chrysostom erred. It is clear that a
just apprehension of the scene must depend on the tone
and the look accompanying the words, and on a just
appreciation of the thirty years of intimacy between our
Lord and His mother : it is also certain that John, accord-
ing to his habit, has given us only salient sentences, leaving
us to imagine the rest.

It will not be possible to admit that there is here even
a tinge of a reproof if we at all realize what must have been
the grace and tenderness ever existing between those Two ;
the perfect Son and the perfect Mother : He the God-Man,
she made by her Creator all holy, immaculate from her
conception, for it is so that we know and love her to-day.
How conceive of her as moved by a touch of vanity or
presumption or forwardness ? Dare we impute to her so
elementary and undisciplined a nature ? to her who for
thirty years had lived with God-incarnate in utter harmony,
in tenderest intercourse, in mutual dependence day by
day ; to her, His mother, the highest created being He ever
made ? Christendom to-day. Catholic or Orthodox, will
have none of it.

His answer to her, " What have I and thou in common,

58 JOHN II. 4

O Woman ? " is to her alone ; and would be at once
understood by her, if, as we cannot but assume, He had
already told her that He meant to-day to begin to lift the
veil that had for thirty years concealed His Divinity,
and to-day to inaugurate in public His Ministry.

'^ What have I and thou in common, O Woman ? {ji
\\x6i KOI aoi, yvvai ;)." We have many instances of the
phrase in the O.T., and with many various shades of
meaning : e.g. —

(1) Reproof from a superior to an inferior (1 Sam.

xvi. 10 : xix. 22).

(2) Haughtiness of an equal (Judges xi. 12), resenting

interference, denying the other's right. Stand
off ! (cf, the similar Joshua xxii. 24).

(3) The whine of an inferior, if we suppose the demons

to be speaking : or the deprecation of a patient
shrinking from pain, if we suppose the men to be
speaking (Matt. viii. 29 : Mark v. 7 : Luke viii. 28).

(4) Confession of sinfulness in presence of holiness

(1 Kings xvii. 18 : cf. Luke v. 8).

(5) Friendly assurance that no hostility exists (2 Chron.

XXXV. 21).
(G) Loving appeal to all that there is in common
(John ii. 4), welcoming interference, loving to assert
the other's right. See what I and thou have in
common ! It is as though to her humility and
constant consciousness that He to whom she spoke
was her God, He stooped cncovu'aging, welcoming
her intervention, putting it to her that though
He was her God He was also her Son : nay, that
to her alone He — God — actually owed His man-
nood : no man was His father, only woman was
His parent. Hence the dignity of His title,
" Woman " rather than the tenderness of the
title " Mother." Again in that tender farewell
from the Cross, He will use not the personal
" Mother," but the race-wide " Woman."

' What have I and thou in common, that thou
shouldst ask a petition and I should grant it ?

JOHN IT. 4-5 59

Wh}^ so far as I am Man, everything : for I have

in common with thee, and thee alone, a sinless

human nature : ask freely : I refuse no request

of thine.' And that she so understood Him

is evident from her immediate words to the

attendants, " Whatso He tells you, that do ye."

The words imply that she even knew what He

was going to do. This He may have told her

privately : for the conversation between them

had been private : she having come to Him as

He reclined in the place of honour, at the angle

of the triclinium. Would He have interfered

without her intervention ? The implication is

that He would not.

He adds, " My hour is not yet come," as saying that

whilst He gladly grants her petition, the exact moment

for His action has not yet quite come. It will not be

come until the wine is finished, as Augustine says, lest any

might think He had merely mixed wine with water to

increase its bulk rather than changed water into wine.

Or the words may rather mean that, instead of creating

a supply upon the moment, He intends to act under such

conditions as shall exclude all suspicion of collusion, furnish

many and credible witnesses, and also point to the symbolism

of His act which shall distinguish it from an empty thau-

maturgy.

(5) His mother knows that her petition is granted, and
from her words to the servants it would seem she is also
aware that it will be made by Him the occasion for the
first manifestation of His Divinity. Christendom, Catholic
or Orthodox, has long seen in this His first miracle the value
our Lord attaches to His mother's supplications and the
pleasure He has in granting them. The circumlocution
" His mother " or " the mother of Jesus " which John
uses many times in his gospel (never giving her simply
her name) seems due to a wish to emphasize the dignity
of her position — the " blessed among women." We may
suppose she sent the servants to our Lord where He
reclined at table, telling them to get His instructions

60 JOHN II. 6-8

and to carry them out however strange they might
seem.

(G) The six stone water-jars " containing two or three
firkins apiece " seem to have been of different sizes and
contained each from 18 to 27 gallons, say an average of 22
or 23 gallons, and a total of 135 gallons. Earthenware
jars of similar size and often very much larger are commonly
used to-day in Italy for holding water for household
purposes. These of the gospel were necessary for the
constant ablutions customary with the Jews, whether of
hands or of cups and pots, etc. (Mark vii. 3, 4). In this
mention of " the Jews' manner of j)urijying {KuQapKTfioc),''''
John is implying a comparison with the Christians' manner
of purifying, viz. Baptism, of which KaQapiaf^ioQ is one of
the technical Christian terms. And herein lay the sym-
bolism of this the first " sign " : the water of Jewish
cleansing became the wine of Christian Baptism, the one
a ritual cleansing of the body, the other a sacramental
inebriating of the soul.

The word " there " (ka) need not be pressed to mean
in the guest chamber, for the ruler of the feast seems to
have known nothing of the doings of the servants : it
may mean no more than in the courtyard of the house,
used loosely as in Matt, xxvii. 55, " and there were there
(kfi) many women beholding /rom afar ojf {airh juaicpoOiv).^^

(7) " Jesus saith to them, ' Fill,' " etc. The orders are
given to the servants in a low tone secretly, as we gather
from the ignorance of the ruler of the feast (verse 9).
This order to " Fill the water- jars with water," and the
notice that " they filled them up to the brim," were meant
to preclude any suspicion that wine was secretly poured in.

(8) The servants having carried out His orders come
to Him for further instructions, and receive them : " Draw
out now and bear unto the ruler-of-the-feast." They
were of course to draw out from the water-jars which they
had filled with water. The now (vvv) seems to contrast
with His former words, " My hour is not yet come," viz.
for supplying wine, but now the conditions He wanted
have been observed. The ruler-of-thc-fcast {dpxirp! h:\ivoc)

JOHN II. 9-11 61

would be one of the bridegroom's near friends and a guest,
as is argued from the merry famiUarity with which he calls
to him (verse 10).

(9) No one in the guest chamber seems to have been
aware of what had been going on, beyond that they may
have noticed the servants coming to and from Jesus,
though this might easily have passed unmarked in the
general noise and hilarity. The miracle is done in the nick
of time. When the new supply was brought first to the
ruler of the feast for him to taste, he and all the guests
would at first attribute the slight delay (if any) in bringing
it to some care in unsealing a special vintage : after tasting
it he calls to the bridegroom by name {<pojvt7) and con-
gratulates him on this his excellent wine.

(10) The truth would at once be out amid the surprise
and thanks of the bridegroom for so splendid a wedding
gift,* the bewilderment of the many, and the enthusiasm
of the disciples at this first sign (11) of Messiah's power.
The result of the " sign " was that " His disciples believed
into Him " (iwiaTivcrav tlcj avrov) f : not that they had
not believed " into " Him before from the moment they
attached themselves to Him, but Faith has many degrees
from simple assent to certitude. The miracle would merely
arrest the attention of non-believers, whereas it was certain
to deepen the faith of disciples. It was the " beginning
of His signs," the first act of our Lord qua God, God the
Son, QtoQ fiovojevriQ, as the Baptist, realizing the mystery
of the Trinity, had called Him : and, as the Evangelist
says, it was a " manifestation of His glory " (ii. 11), viz.
the " glory of Him qua Only-Begotten come from The
Father " to earth {rijv ^6t,av aiirov ^6^av wc fxovoytvovtj TTupa
Uarpog) (John i. 14).

* We may remember that there had been no vintage last year, for from
Oct. A.D. 26 to Sept. A.D. 27 was a Sabbatic year : the gift would have a special
value in the spring and summer of a year followmg a Sabbatic.

t " Believed into Him." This phrase TnaT^vetu els aurov, or agam
TTLffTfveiy eis to uvo/j.a avrov, '' believe into His name," always represents
genuine belief : it means so to believe as to merge into, and is perfectly rendered
by the Latin credere in Deum of our Creeds. It is not at all the same thing as
■jTKTreveiv avT(p. See under viii. 31.

62 JOHN II. 12

It appears that some of the details given by John were
"iven to him bv the Blessed Virgin.

(12) " After this He went down to Capernaum, He and
His mother, and His brethren and His disciples." The
A.D. 28. Greek iiera tovto " after this," expresses not
Sun., March 7, a mere sequence in time, such as would be
at the earliest, the meaning if fura ravra had been used,
but also an ethical sequence, i.e. that this going down to
Capernaum was in part due to this " beginning of His
signs," this His first public act by which He began to show
who He was, and by which He began to train a body of
disciples to replace the Sanhcdrin who had failed Him.
The busy Capernaum was a city better suited than Nazareth
to be His headquarters in His new scheme. We infer
that they went straight from Kana to Capernaum, that all
named had been present at the wedding, and that they
all went down from it together : say on Sunday, March 7,
for the Saturday, March 6, would be a day of obligatory
rest.

The Greek text by the form of the sentence and its use
of KaTtj5)i (sing.) implies that this removal was owing to
our Lord, and that the others named went because He
went. It marks a definite and final break-up from
Nazareth, explained by the engrained prejudice of the
Nazarenes against accepting their carpenter as the Messiah :
and it marks a removal to Capernaum as to their future
residence. The house which our Lord made use of at
Capernaum was according to all tradition that of Simon
Peter (see p. 38), who had been already indicated as the
chief of the disciples (i. 42 compared with the later Matt,
xvi. 18). It is improbable that His mother lived in the
same house : she with her modesty would wish to remain
as much as possible in the background, and He would
wish her to be shielded from the publicity which must
inevitably henceforth centre round any house in which
He lived : she may likely enough have lived here with
her " sister," i.e. first cousin and nearest relative, Salome,
the mother of the Apostles James and John, and wife of
Zebedee.

JOHN II. 12 63

The " disciples " who accompanied Him to Capernaum
were probably for the most part residents of Capernaum
and its neighbourhood : they had set out with Him (so we
have supposed) from Capernaum to Kana and now return
with Him : they have none, as yet, received the final call
to abandon their ordinary occupations.

But who are these who are called " His brethren " ?
It is a question that has for many centuries vexed the
Church and has been answered varyingly at various
times. The general outcome seems to be that by the
term " brethren " are meant His nearest relatives, in agree-
ment with the common Hebrew use of the word, of which
many instances occur in the O.T. They are the sons
of Clopas (also known as Cleopas), the half-brother of
Joseph by the father's side, and are therefore our Lord's
first cousins and nearest relatives. They are certainly
not sons of the Blessed Virgin : nor are they sons of Joseph
by a former marriage : Joseph was virgin as was Mary
his wife. Had they been sons of Joseph by a former
marriage, the heir to David's throne would have been the
eldest of them (viz. James the Little), and not our Lord,
for our Lord's legal claim to the throne lay through Joseph,
who in the eye of the Law was His father. The whole
royal stock of David, so far as was known, had died out
with the exception of Joseph (and he was heir only by the
law of Levirate) and Mar}' : this latter was the only known
blood descendant left, being the only child of Joachim, the
last male blood descendant.

Capernaum is beyond doubt to be identified with the
modern Tell Hum on the north-west shore of the lake of
Tiberias. The distance from Kana to Capernaum is eighteen
miles, about a day's journej^ : leaving Kana on Sunday,
March 7, they would arrive at Capernaum in the evening

" And they continued there not many Till about end
days." Evidently they all not only went of March,
down there together, but also all left it at A.D. 28.
about the same time together : and the reason for their
leaving appears in the next verse, viz. the approach of
" the Jews' Passover," to which festival the people of
Galilee naturally went up.

§ IV
JOHN II. 13-END

Passover at Jerusalem. Jesus and the Sanhedrin

(ii. 13) " And the Passover of the Jews was near, and
Jesus went up to Jerusalem." It is the Passover of a.d. 28.
The 14th of Nisan (the day the Passover was killed) was,
this year, Sunday, April 4. The bulk of Galilean pilgrims
to the Feast would arrive at Jerusalem on Friday, April 2,*
leaving Capernaum or other centres toward the end of
March : thus the " not many days " of verse 12 will cover
at the most three weeks.

" The Jews' Passover." The words arrest. Whj^
" the Jews'' Passover " ? John uses the term " the
A.D. 28. Jews " throughout his gospel to signify the
April 4)_ hostile party, the nation qua represented by
Nisan 141 tj^g Sanhedrin. It would thus seem that

he means to imply that though Jesus " went up to Jeru-
salem " at that date, He did not do so in order to keep the
Passover. The nation had already rejected Him, and
the Baptist's testimony to Him : their national Passover
had thenceforth no virtue that He should keep it this year
with them (see Origen in Johann.). The same inference
will be drawn at v. 1 (Pentecost of this year) : f and
again at vii. 2, 8 (Tabernacles of this year). In xii. 1 and
xiii. 1, John is speaking of the last Passover eaten by our
Lord and the Twelve (twenty-four hours before the nation
ate it), and therefore he does not add " of the Jews

* Others, requiring special Levitical purification of seven days, such as
Nazirites who had touched a dead body (Num. vi. 9, of. Acts xxi. 23-27 : also
of. John xi. 55 and Josephus, War, VI. v. 3) would arrive in Jerusalem as early
as Friday, March 26.

t John vi. 4 is spurious — this verse being a marginal note by a commentator
which has found its way into the text (see pp. 148, 149).

JOHN II, 13-15 65

in xix. 14, " the Preparation of the Passover," see the true
meaning of the phrase as given there, pp. 379, 380. In
xviii. 28 the context shows of course that " the Passover "
in question is that which " they " (the Jewish nation)
meant to eat that evening, and therefore the quahfying
words " of the Jews " were not needed.

Arrived at Jerusalem, our Lord entered the Temple
area. If the date of the following scene is the morning
of Sunday, April 4, this cleansing of the Temple would
coincide with the symbolic cleansing of every house which
was obligatory this morning (Nisan 14)— consisting in the
removal of all leaven.

(14) " And He found " : not as coming upon inci-
dentally, but as having found what He went to find and
knew He should find. It was an abuse which

He must have noticed every year He had wjsaniAr^^*
come up to the festivals — an abuse which only
now He undertakes to correct, now that He has reached
the age of thirty, the age of a qualified Rabbi. The part
of the Temple {i^pi^) in which " He found " the sacrificial
animals and their sellers would be the Court of the Gentiles,
the large outer court where a year later He again foimd
them (Mark xi. 17, where the words " for all the nations "
point to this particular court). The day may be the
morning of Sunday, April 4, which in this year was
Passover day, Nisan 14 : or it may be some days
earlier.

The " changers of money " (/ct/j/iano-rac) seem to be
those who supplied small change for the shekel. Any one,
for instance, buying doves for " purification " or for
" sin-offering " would be required to put the exact value
of the doves according to the day's market scale of prices
into the particular treasury-chest appointed for that
purpose : it was the priests' business to convert the money
in this chest at the end of the day into doves and sacrifice
them. (See Edersheim's Life and Times of the Messiah,
I. 368-370.)

(15) The scourge made of " twisted rushes " {c>\(nvi(i)v)
was not to cause pain, but was merely a symbol of authority.

66 JOHN IT. 15-lC

The animals were driven out, and the sellers would, of
course, go with them, by a gate which seems to have
opened at the south-east corner on to the ramp which ran
along the outside of the east wall of the Temple enclosure :
it would be the only gate by which animals for sacrifice
could be driven into the court.

" Poured out the small-money (Kipiiaru) of the ex-
changers (koXXvj^kjt&v).'" The k-oAXi;/3fCTrai M^cre those who
changed foreign money into shekels : for no coin bearing
a king's or emperor's head or symbolic animal was accepted
in the Temple treasury. The Kipfiara (small coins) of these
koXAu/Storat would represent the percentage deducted by
them : it was these K^pixara that alone were " poured
out " and the tables of the KoWv^^iarcd alone that were
upset — as though to protest against the percentage or
making of profit in the Temple area.

(16) The doves which were ordered to be taken up
would be lying tied together in bundles, and would be
taken away on poles on the sellers' shoulders.

" Make not My Father's house," etc. He does not
identify Himself with the nation : He speaks to them of
My Father (as He will again frequently later on), using the
words in a sense peculiar to Himself, as previously in
Luke ii. 49. He is publicly asserting His Divine Sonship
as Messiah. The Jews' leaders and Sanhedrists who
quickly arrived on the scene are aware of His meaning :
they know He is claiming to be Messiah : they have alwaj'S
known His claims, ever since His birth, but they have long
since put Him aside as rejected, nor have they been in-
duced to reconsider their position by the recent testimony
of the Baptist whom they had always known to be Messiah's
herald. It is the first occasion on which He shows Himself
to them as One having authority, for it is the first time He
has been in Jerusalem since He became thirty, the age at
which His Ministry began.

The object of the Court of the Gentiles, which He
thus clears, was to serve as a symbol that the Gentiles had
a right and a status in the House of God though they came
not in on the same terms as Israel. He asserts their rights,

JOHN II. 16-18 07

whilst He objects to their Court being turned into a ware-
house {oiKov IfXTTopiov) for the sacrificial animals which
were meant for the Mosaic ritual : a ritual that was not
to be imposed upon the Gentile.

It may be that in this act of cleansing the Temple He
was exercising a more than human power, letting His
Divinity emanate from Him so that no resistance was
possible to His will : one and all fell back passive in that
Presence (cf. xviii. 6). Here is no impetuosity of a fiery
zealot, it is the calm of irresistible authority. The pilgrims
from the provinces would watch the expulsion with some
enjoyment : they had no sympathy with the scandals and
extortions of the Temple-market, of which the profits
went in great measure to the chief priests and other promi-
nent Temple officials. His disciples would watch it with
a deeper interest, as the first overt act of Messiah face to
face with the leaders of the nation whom they kncAv to
have already disavowed Him : it woke in them no fore-
boding of trouble to come : the idea of possible failure had
not occurred to them.

(17) They called to mind the words, " Zeal for Thy
house shall devour (K:ara(^a7£rat) Me," and they remembered
how all the Prophets, each in his turn, had found himself
in similar opposition to the formalism of the hierarchy and
of the civil authority of his day.

(18) The court being cleared, the Sanhedrists come to
Him indignant that this Man should find fault with the
system they had sanctioned, ignoring their authority :
this Man of whom they had had a life-long cognizance,
Avhom in His youth they had made much of as the long-
promised King, but whose views of Kingship were so alien
from their own that they had cast Him off. For thirty
years He had made no move, living in obscurity in Galilee :
impatiently had they watched Him : vainly had they
urged Him to come forth and do some sign worthy of the
nation and the King that were to dominate Rome and the
world. Has He at last begun to act ? Will He at last
consent to do some startling " sign " worthy of Messiah ?
Some sign such as Moses worked when he brought out the

68 JOHN II. 18-19

nation from the Egyptian bondage. ' What sign * do you
show us to justify this act ? Without some supernatural
sign of your power, some startUng physical phenomenon
brought about by you and approved by us, w^e shall not
recognize you, and without us you cannot win the nation.
Long ago we gave you to understand our terms : you went
your own way. Even if you are the appointed Messiah,
we refuse you unless you comply with our conceptions of
what Messiah should be and do. Is it, then, peace or war ? '

(19) Jesus answered them, knowing them better than
they knew themselves, seeing the inevitable outcome of
the thoughts that were working in them — the death that
awaited Him at their hands, though they themselves had
hardly as yet formulated the ultimate issue.

He would give no such sign as they required : He had
ever refused it. Any such sign, far from helping them,
would blind them more. As years ago He told them, He
had not come to work the vanities of thaumaturgy : He
had come to make a holy people : and not till He had a
holy people would He set up the visible Kingdom here in
Jerusalem. He knows that the issue between them and
Him is one of life and death : and He accepts. They
cannot have the sign they want, but they shall have a
greater. Listen, " Destroy this Temple (vaov), and in
three days I will raise it up." He spoke to be under-
stood : He was speaking to learned theologians, to students
of the Law and the Prophets, familiar with every theory
of Messiah's personality, familiar with strange details of
His own birth, familiar with His life-long claims to be

* The recorded occasions of a formal request for " a sign " are five in
number : —

(1) At Jerusalem, at this Passover of a.d. 28, by " the Jews " ; John
ii. 18.

(2) At Capernaum, about May of a.d. 28, by " Scribes and Pharisees " ;
Matt. xii. 38.

(3) In Capernaum synagogue, on June 5 of a.d. 28, by " They " ; John
vi. 30.

(4) At Dalmanutha, about mid-Sept., of a.d. 28, by " Pharisees and Saddu-
cccs " : Matt. xvi. 1 : Mark viii. 11.

(5) In Peraea, on Feast of Purim, Feb. 24 of a.d. 29, by " some of them " ;
Luke xi. 10.

JOHN II. 19-20 69

Messiah, familiar with the recent testimony of John the
Baptist — Prophet and herald of the King — who had
announced Him as " God only-Begotten " and " Man "
(John i. 18, 30) : and they understood His meaning :
knew that by " this Temple " He meant His Body,* the
true Temple {vaog, lit. dwelling-place) of the Incarnate
God. That the Sanhedrists knew also that He was refer-
ring to raising His Body from the dead f seems to follow
from their words to Pilate a year later (Matt, xxvii. 63),
"■ we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet
alive, ' After three days I will arise.' " It is more probable
that they have in mind this interview in the Temple than
either of those recorded by Matthew (xii. 39, 40 : xvi. 4).

(20) As, however, they had long decided not to recog-
nize Him as Messiah, it suited them to ignore His mean-
ing ; and with some insolence they wrested His words
to the stone sanctuary of that Temple in which they were
standing. The Jews, therefore, said to Him, " In forty-six
years was this Temple (imoc) built, and wilt thou in three
days raise it up ! " mocking Him. The rebuilding by
Herod was begun in his eighteenth year (Josephus, Ant.
XV. xi. 1) : his eighteenth year, according to Jewish
reckoning, began on 1st of Nisan (about April) of B.C. 20 :
if the Temple was begun in the autumn of that year, it
would have been 46| years a-building J in April of a.d. 28.
This reckoning by completed years, instead of by current,
is also employed in the " seven years " of the building of
the first Temple (1 Kings vi. 38, where " seven years "
means 7| years completed, as is clear). So also here, the

* That they knew His words had a subtler meaning appears from the
report of this His saying given a year later at His trial in Caiaphas's house
before the Sanhedrin. There one of the " two false witnesses " describes our
Lord as having said that He would " build another Temple not-made-with-hands"
{axeipoTro'iTiTou, Mark xiv. 58). This word shows it was common knowledge
that He had not been talking of rebuilding the stone Temple.

t The resurrection of the body was a thesis familiar to both the Schools of
which the Sanhedrm consisted : the Pharisees mamtaining it, the Sadduceea
denying it (see Acts xxiii. 6-8).

t For this use of the aorist (aj/coSoAn'/^ij) see the Greek of Ezra v. 16, anh rJre
€ws Tov vvv (^KoSofx-fiOri Kol ovK eTe\e(T0r], " from that time until now it has
been building and is not finished."

70 JOHN II. 20-22

" forty-six years " are=46| years completed. They were
not aware of the irony in their words : for the autumn
of B.C. 20 seems to have been the very date of the Blessed
Virgin's birth, and with her birth began in a sense the
building up of that human Body which He took from her
immaculate body. Thus both the Temple of which they
were speaking and the Temple of which He was speaking-
had been " forty-six years " in building at this April of
A.D. 28. Mary was fifteen at the Annunciation, March
25 of B.C. 4.

(21) John adds, lest his readers might miss that which
the Sanhedrists knew, " But He was speaking concerning
the Temple {vaov) of His body," i.e. the Temple which
was His body.

(22) Not till He was risen from the dead, a year later,
did His disciples understand what He meant by ' being-
killed, and rising again in three days ' : how predicate
death of Messiah ? But when He was risen they " re-
membered that He used to say {eXeyev) this." In this
" used to say " John has in his mind two other occasions
at least where our Lord refers to the sign of the prophet
Jonas and the three days and nights in the grave, see
Matt. xii. 39, 40, spoken to " scribes and Pharisees " :
and Matt. xvi. 4, spoken to " His disciples."

" And they believed [i.e. after His resurrection] the
scripture and the word which Jesus had said," i.e. they
received an increase of faith and intuition : that crisis
in John's own case is recorded in xx. 8. Both here (ii. 22)
and in xx. 8, " the scripture " is the prophecy contained
in Ps. xvi. 10, which seems to have been so commonly
interpreted of Messiah that both Peter (Acts ii. 31)
and Paul (Acts xiii. 35) assumed that their application
of it to Messiah would be at once admitted by their
hearers.

It is obvious that this interview between Jesus and
the Sanhedrists presupposes a long mutual acquaintance :
nothing but a long-standing hostility on their part, an
obduracy that has been proof against many appeals in
the past, would account for the abruptness with which He

JOHN II. 23 71

attacks their systematic Temple abuses, refuses to confer
with them, and foretells the issue of the war Ijetween them
and Him. It is the encounter of old-time opponents.
There is no new breach here.

(23) " When He was in Jerusalem at the Passover on
the festival-day " (fv ry topr?!, and so Jerome die festo),
i.e. Nisan 15, which in a.d. 28 was Monday, a.D, 28.
April 5. The term ij ^oprrj, when con- April 5j„^j^
nected with the Passover, seems to mean Nisan 15 j
(and so Jerome always renders it) the one day, Nisan 15 :
Avhich in common speech meant the twelve daylight hours
of that Day, just as with us. John reckons all Days from
midnight to midnight, as did the Romans, and not from
sunset to sunset ; his one exception is, and necessarily,
the Jewish Sabbath. Thus Iv ry topry here is not tau-
tological with Iv Tio ndo-x«, " at the Passover, during the
feast " (R.V.), which hardly is sense : but " at the Passover,
on the festival-day " (as A.V., following Jerome) : John
thereby specifying the exact day of the octave of the
feast, viz. Nisan 15.

For John's habitvial use of to riao-xo to signify the
whole octave of Unleavened Bread, Nisan 14-Nisan 21
inclusive, see at xix. 14.

It was, therefore, on Monday, April 5, Nisan 15, that
He did the many " signs " of His Divine nature which
induced " many " to " believe into His name " when they
beheld them {BsiopovvTSQ, the word implies seeing with
some intelligence).

" Believed into His name " : believed with genuine
faith {eiriarevcrav tie, see p. 61) into His name, i.e. into
Him as being what He called Himself, and what He had
been called by Divine announcement, e.g. by the Angel
of His nativity, " a Saviour, Messiah the Lord " (Luke
ii. 12) : by the prophet Zecharias ' the world's long-
promised Deliverer,' " ' AvaroXri (n»^' Semah) * from on
high " (Luke i. 68-79) : by the prophet Simeon, " the

* The exact meaning of this remarkable title I have shown in my Birth and
Boyhood of Jesus Christ to be the star Semah, i.e. the Child in the arms of Virgo
(the Virgui) of the primteval zodiac.

72 JOHN II. 23-25

Lord's Christ," i.e. Jehovah's Messiah (Luke ii. 26-32) :
by John the Baptist, " Jesus Christ," i.e. Jesus the Messiah,
" God only-Begotten," '' The Baptizer with the Holy
Spirit," " The Son of God " (John i. 17, 18, 33, 34) : and
by the Father's Voice, " My Son, the Beloved " (Matt,
iii. 17, and parallels). All these attestations to Him were
known to the nation * ; some had been known ever since
His Infancy.

The phrase " believe into His name " is used only four
times in the N.T. John i. 12 : ii. 23 : iii. 18:1 John v. 13.
None can ever grasp the whole of what is connoted by
" Jesus Christ, The Son of God " : some will see deeper
than others, but the link of one and all to Him is faith ;
and all true faith is implicit, whether it be a cold assent or
a burning certitude.

These " many " who " believed into His name " were
doubtless not only from the provinces of Galilee and
Persea and yet further afield, but also from Jerusalem :
still they were in the main Benjamites, Levites, and
members of the ten tribes : the Jew proper (of Judah) did
not accept Him.

(24) But, in spite of these " many," Jesus " did not
trust Himself to them " : not as though their faith was
no faith, for as we have seen it was genuine of its kind
{rriartg f/t,-) although timid f • but "" because He of
Himself knew all men " and therefore knew that these
who believed into Him, being but a tiny fraction of the
nation, would not be able to withstand the pressure put
upon them by His enemies, for the nation and its ^-epre-
scntatives were obdurately hostile to Him : and (25)
" because He had no need that anyone should bear witness
concerning man," i.e. He knew men without any possibility

* The message given by Gabriel to Mary would not be common know-
ledge, in which He is called "Jesus," i.e. Salvation of Jehovah: "Son of the
Highest " : " King for ever " : " God's Son " (Luke i. 31-35). Nor yet would
the message by Gabriel to Joseph (Matt. i. 20-23) be common knowledge, in
which He is called " conceived of (e/c) the Holy Spirit " : " the Saviour of His
people from their sins " : "The Virgin's Son," the "Immanucl " of Is. vii. 14.

t We sliall find again the same .faith, genuine of its kind, but as j'et timid
and weak, in " many even of the rulers " (i.e. members of the Sanhedrin), a year
later Just before the Passover of a.d. 29. See xii. 42.

JOHN II. 25 73

of error — His knowledge of each individual not depend-
ing on outside sources : " for of Himself He knew what
was in man," i.e. in each individual case He read man as
God reads him, and before the man himself was aware of
the issues to which he was moving.

§ V

JOHN III. 1— END

The New Birth. John the Baptist's Self-effacement.

The date of the following interview with Nicodemus is

probably the night after the festival-day on which the

A D 28 ' '^ig^^ " (ii- ^3) had been done : i.e. the

!Mon., night following Nisan 15, the night following
after Monday, April 5. The scene is not improbablj'-
sui^- that Garden of Gethsemane on the foot of
the Mount of Olives where our Lord so fre-
quently passed the nights later in this year (John viii. 1)
and again in the following spring, Luke xxi. 37 : xxii. 39
Matt. xxvi. 30, 36 : Mark xiv. 26, 32 : John xviii. 2
where still is shown to-day the large natural grotto
which tradition marks as the frequent night-shelter of Him
and His disciples.

(1) Nicodemus was not only "a nder {apx<ov) of the
Jews," he was also one of the Sanhedrin (vii. 50), and a
Pharisee. He has been thought by many to be the Nico-
demus spoken of in the Talmud as one of the richest
and most distinguished citizens of Jerusalem — Nicodemus
being his Greek name, his Hebrew name being Bunai son of
Gorion ; and there is a Bunai mentioned in the Talmud
among the disciples of Jesus. (See Edersheim's Life and
Times of Jesus, III. 6 : and Lightfoot's Hor. Heb. on this
passage in John's gospel.) He was doubtless one of the
" many " mentioned in ii. 23, who " believed into His
name as they beheld the signs which He did " : believed,
that is, that He was what they knew He had been declared
to be at His birth, and what the Baptist had pronounced
Him to be to the Sanhedrin's delegates six weeks ago
(i. 19-27) : and of these delegates Nicodemus had, not

JOHN III. 2 75

improbabl}^ been one — one of those " from among the
Pharisees," verse 24.

(2) He came because his faith was as yet nebulous,
vague, wanting outline : and he came as to a Divine
Teacher who he knew could teach him. He came by night
not because he was pusillanimous and afraid of consequences
to himself if he were seen : want of courage, as we shall
see later, is not at all a note of his character : but because
in the tumult and excitement that must have filled Jeru-
salem to-day there had been no possibility of having any
conversation with our Lord, nor was there any better
prospect for to-morrow : he sought to secure quiet and
leisure for the interview which he knew would be for him
decisive. Again, he came by night out of a generous
prudence : since the purging of the Temple he feared
that the feud between this Man and the Sanhedrin might
end in death : he was aware how hostile was the feeling
of the Sanhedrin : had not the Christ but yesterday
foretold and accepted His doom " though ye destroy this
Temple (His body), in three days I will raise it up." He
— Nicodemus — was quite clear about his own decision to
abide by Jesus, but there was no public object to be gained
by his declaring as yet openly for Him : could he not
better aid the cause by concealing his attitude from the
rest of the Sanhedrin, so being in a better position to
deflect the torrent of their mischief by his counsels (cf.
vii. 50, 51) ? The same course, according to tradition, was
adopted by Gamaliel (Acts v. 34-39), he being at the
time secretly a Christian.

So Nicodemus is come for light. He calls Him only
Rabbi, though he believed Him to be Messiah and therefore
somehow Divine, just as we have heard Andrew and John
the Evangelist calling Him simply Rabbi (i. 38), though
they also at the time believed Him to be Messiah. As they
there, so Nicodemus here, implies that he takes Him
implicitly for his Teacher and that he is come to have his
faith made explicit. From his word " we know," some
have inferred he did not come alone ; anyway he is speaking
for certain others also whom he knows to be in similar case

76 JOHN III. 3

with himself, and who have appHed to him " the teacher
of Israel " for advice : they, like him, reflecting on
(BewpovvTtc, ii. 23) the " signs " they had seen to-day, have
seen in them the quality which removes them from a sense-
less thaumaturgy and marks them as stamped with the bene-
ficent activity associated by the Prophets with Messiah.*

(3) " Jesus answered him." In the following account
given by the Evangelist, he has preserved, as is his invariable
custom in recording our Lord's discourses, only certain
salient sentences spoken by Him, from which he leaves
it to his readers to fill in the context. John does not
venture to recast our Lord's discourses in a diction of his
own : he merely abridges by preserving what he saw to
be the critical headings. Undoubtedly the interview was
one of considerable length : and John may well have been
present at it.

(3) " Jesus answered him " : No doubt Nicodemus had
gone on to put his difficulties into words — not that his
words were necessary to our Lord, seeing that of Himself
He knew exactly what was in each man (ii. 25). As His
" answer " was the answer to what was uppermost in the
thoughts of Nicodemus, from that " answer " we may
formulate them somewhat as follows : that whilst believing
Him to be the Messiah and to be all that the Baptist His
forerunner had announced, he cannot reconcile that
inglorious life at Nazareth with what was expected of
Messiah and His Kingdom : also he wishes to learn what
is that " Baptism of The Holy Spirit " upon which the
Baptist had laid such stress in connection with Him.

And the answer is to the effect that the Kingdom of
God is not what they all understood it to be : if it were,
it would be a thing disastrous both for them and for the
world : what would it profit them to have their heel
upon Rome ? what woidd it profit the world to merely
change the Roman for the Jew ? The Kingdom of God
was something other : and to belong to it a radical change

* It was to this quality in Hi3 " signs " that our Lord appealed when seek-
ing to convince John's disciples that He was indeed Messiah (Matt. xi. 4, 5).
See note to x. 25.

JOHN III. 3-5 77

was needed in man's spiritual vision, a change such that
only the grace of God could confer, a change so vast that
it was literally a birth into a new life : without which
new birth a man " cannot see the Kingdom of God." *

(4) Nicodemus : ' If the change be so great as to be
literally a new birth, where is the power that can compass
it ? The world has grown old, and all its systems have
disappointed : I too am grown old in Judaism, nor have
I found any vivifying pov/er inherent there. Is so unheard-
of a change possible to us ? How can it result from the
simple rite of that baptism which you bring, and of which
indeed John the Baptist spoke so high ? '

(5) Our Lord abates not one jot. Nicodemus had
understood Him to be speaking literally of a new birth,
and He insists He means no less. Thev themselves talked
of the water-baptism of proselytes as a new birth, but
Nicodemus was rightly aware how little that availed to
holiness ; it was but a metaphor : rightly too might he
complain of the national baptism by John the Baptist,
how little it had availed. But John's baptism was only
in water, and was only preparatory : it was a formal
sign, promise, assurance, that if repentance were present
all sins were about to be remitted at the advent of the King
who was already at the door : it did not pretend to quicken
to a new life.t Had not Nicodemus heard John announce
that He the Messiah was to baptize not only with water,
but also with the creative Spirit ? There, in The Spirit,
lay the vital principle of the new Birth. John the
Baptist himself had asked to be baptized with this Baptism

* " Cannot see the Kingdom of God," i^ilv tV ^aaiXeiav rov &(ov. A
common Hebraism for cannot enter into it, enjoy it, belong to it, as again in
Luke ix. 27. The same idiom ocem's in " to see death," IZi'iv Qdvarov, i.e. to
die (Luke ii. 26 : Heb. xi. 6) : " to see corruption," l^elv Siacpdopdv, i.e. to
suffer decay (Acts ii. 27, 31 : xiii. 35) : " to see good days," lSe7v ^/^epas
ayadds (1 Pet. iii. 10) : " to see grief," nevdos ISelv (Rev. xviii. 7), etc.

t John's baptism in water was a baptism " unto repentance," eh fj-erauoiav
(Matt. iii. 11), and " unto remission of sins," ds &(peaiv a/j-apnuiv (Mark i. 4),
and " of repentance unto remission of sins," ixtrauoias els dipicnv a.p.ap-n5iv
(Luke iii. 3). It was a preparation for, and a formal assurance of, an approach-
ing enduring repentance and remission of sins : but it could confer neither the
one nor the other. Both the one and the other are the work of the Holy Spirit.

78 JOHN III. 5-8

(Matt. iii. 14) : it was necessary to all who were to be
members of the Kingdom of God — the new creation :
without it a man " cannot enter into the Kingdom of
God." Again our Lord insists with His emphatic afii)v, ci/uliiv,
on the necessity of Christian Baptism,* and on its nature
as being a new Birth. The rite of Christian Baptism takes
effect though the effect is not necessarily apparent in or
to the child or man. It is an actual grafting into the
spiritual body (the a&na TrvevixariKov) of Christ, so that
there, as in a Living Laboratory, the new Sap of His God-
head and sinless Manhood may circulate, and, as it were,
work a chemical change. The rite is effective on all on
the spiritual j^lane, and the seal will be visible to us all
after death. To the consciousness of the recipient it may
not begin to be effective till after death.

(6) That a ncAv creative act is necessary to raise the
human race Nicodemus must himself allow. " That which
has been born of the flesh is flesh " : man, since his Fall,
can reproduce but his own likeness, fallen man, a nature
at conscious war with itself, ever proclaiming to itself its
own discord, seeing the better way but unable to follow it.
On the other hand, " that which has been born of The
Spirit is Spirit " : the creative Spirit of God reproduces
the likeness of Itself : if the creative Spirit work in the man
It will make him into a new creation : but without this
new vitalizing power man must remain without help or
hope. Therefore (7) " Marvel not that I said to thee,
' Ye (vnar) must be born anew ' " : ye Jews no less than
Gentiles, for he (Nicodemus) must allow that the ones no
less than the others were bound by their chains, enslaved
by the inherent taint.

(8) But let no one think that this new Birth, this Crea-
tive act, must take effect with sudden objective manifesta-
tion or subjective consciousness : not with observation
does it come : " The Spirit breathes where It wills and Its

* The laws of God are made for man, not man for the laws. None will
venture to bind Him within the limit of His norm. The law of the Sabbath
was His, but we shall hear Him proclaiming Himself Lord of the Sabbath, and
therefore not immutably bound by it.

JOHN III. 8-9 79

voice thou hearest, but thou knowest not whence It comes
and where It goes " : at one moment It is heard insistent,
at the next It is become imperceptible— so it is with the
Spirit Birth and the stirrings of the Spirit Life in the
baptized. None can observe its beginning, or can define
the law of its action.*

(9) Nicodemus asks, " How can these things happen ? "
He is not incredulous : he is amazed. He believes this
Divine Teacher implicitly, but he wants more light. His
is not the cry of a man who refuses to consider mysteries
he cannot understand : he would not so have found light :
he accepts the teaching though it is beyond him, because
he has accepted the Teacher as divine : he asks to under-
stand how a baptism, apparently consisting in nothing but
the application of water accompanied by a formula of
words administered by Jesus or His disciples, can operate
the new Birth he has just heard of. The whole thought
is new to him, if it means a literal new Birth, and the
Divine Teacher insists on no less.

* At first sight it seems to us strange to have in this discourse of our Lord
Christian Baptism presented in its full doctrinal bearing, at this the beginning
of the public Ministry. But the Baptist's momentous announcement must
have fired all imaginations — that announcement to the whole nation that the
baptism he was himseK administering was as nothing to that Baptism of The
Spirit which was to be given by Him whom he heralded. Again, there was the
Baptist's proclamation to the Sanhedrin's delegates that the Man, the Messiah,
who was to operate this Baptism of the Spirit of God was Jesus and none other,
whether they liked it or no : it must have set all the theologians (Nicodemus
among them) and doctors of the Law agog to inquire into the significance of
this Baptism of The Spirit foretold by Ezekiel (xxxvi. 25-27) and Joel (ii. 28).
Again, we may fairly suppose that our Lord had recently begun His Baptizing
by means of His disciples, for immediately after this interview with Nico-
demus we read of His removal into the country (yvv) of Judaea, as opposed to
the city of Jerusalem, and of His Baptizing there — with nothing to make us
suppose that it was a new beginning on His part that day. Nicodemus there-
fore came inquiring into the objective efiicacy of this new Christian Baptism :
could it really operate without visible result ? was it more than a symbolic rite ?
His question has been often repeated down the centuries. The answer he
received may be a hard saying, but it is plain : we can take it or leave it : we
shall come to a similar parting of the ways in chap. vi. pp. 168-170.

Let us say it boldly, the Sacramental system is a system of " magic," insist-
ing on definite rites and formulae of words, accompanied by intention on the
part of the hierophant and a state of assent on that of the postulant or his
legitimate proxy. The sole real Hierophant is Jesus Christ, the agents here are
but His proxies. The Christian Sacraments are not mere sjTnbolic rites.

80 JOHN III. 10-12

(10) The answer : " Thou art the teacher of Israel and
recognizcst not these things ? " The teacher (o StSao-KaAoc),
as though Nicodemus was allowed by the Sanhedrists to
be the wisest among them. This remark of our Lord
implies that the doctrine of a re-birth of water and Spirit
(t^ v'^aTot; Kcd Trvtv/iaTog) as being due when Messiah came
was not unfamiliar to the patriarchs, prophets, and seers
of the Old Testament, and should not have been strange
to Nicodemus as one of the teachers of Israel — at least now
that he had heard it recalled : it was familiar to John
the Baptist.

(11) The subject is widened : " Verily, verily, I say to
thee : what We know, of that We talk : and what We have
seen, of that We bear witness : and Our witness ye receive
not." The " we " cannot refer to His disciples, nor even
to the Baptist, for their knowledge was not first hand, and
in verse 13 as also in v. 34-37, He puts aside all merely
human witness as being inadequate ; the " we " can mean
no other than the Triune Godhead, of Avhose three Persons
only two are expressly named in viii. 16-18, viz. the
Father and I, — the Two adequate witnesses of viii. 16-18,
whose witness, however, was not received either there or
here. As constantly when talking with the theologians
afterwards, so here to Nicodemus, He is speaking of the
mysteries of the Godhead, for to make known the nature
of the Three in One He " was sent " and " came."

In " ye receive not Our witness," the reproach is not
addressed to Nicodemus, or to those for whom he was
spokesman, but to the Sanhedrin collectively as being the
nation's representatives : also His allusion is not to any
recent break with them, but to their long-standing hostility
of many years.

(12) " If I told you the earthly things and ye believe
not." Here again the allusion can hardly be, as is generally
assumed, to the conversation just held with Nicodemus :
the words are not, " if I told thee — and thou believest not,"
but, " if I told you — and ye believe not " : it is the San-
hedrin whom He has in view. Nicodemus was not one
who believed not, but one Avho believed. It is also hard to

JOHN III. 12-13 81

see how " the earthly things " (-« iTrlyna) can possibly
mean the hidden mysteries of the Sacrament of Baptism,
which would naturally come under the head of " the
Heavenly things " {tu iTrovfjtuna). Rather is the allu-
sion here to talks held by Him with the doctors ranging
over long years, ever since He began them at the age of
twelve (Luke ii. 42-47), talks about the true nature of the
Kingdom of God upon earth, the purpose of Him the King-
now that He is come upon earth, and the attitude towards
Him to be taken by the nation if the Kingdom of Righteous-
ness is now to be set up upon earth : little to the liking of
the doctors were His views : long ago they had virtually
rejected Him : of the same mind are they now, now that
He has publicly come forward as Messiah. And He is
fully conscious of His doom.

" How shall ye believe if I tell you of the Heavenly
things ? " Again the reproach is not to Nicodemus, but
to the collective Sanhedrin whose ears are closed to the
whole message concerning the Heavenly things, the Sacra-
mental mysteries, the nature of the Three in One, the
Incarnation of God, and the nature of the union of mankind
to Him which means for them Life : mysteries not suited
to the simple understanding of the peasants of Galilee,
and therefore never mentioned in the synoptic gospels.
But John's gospel shows that our Lord spoke often of
them to the theologians of Jerusalem, who ought to have
been competent to receive them.

(13) " And no one hath ascended into Heaven," etc.
And none but He could be thcHierophant of these mysteries :
for here is not one who has gone up into Heaven from
earth and come back again ; none has done so, and none
could do so : but here is One whose home is Heaven —
even God, One who has come down thence to earth in
becoming Incarnate as Man, though still remaining in
Heaven as God. And why became He Incarnate ? That
to Him the whole sinfid race of man may be united by a
Sacramental union : and He thus being incorporate with
all the sins of the world may purge them in that Living
Laboratory, His body, by the alchemy of the Holy Spirit.

82 JOHN III. 14-15

(14) " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so shall The Son of Man be lifted up." What sort
of a reception was the God-Man to be given ? He here
foretells not merely His death at the hands of the nation
which He had already declared in ii. 19, but a death upon
the Cross which He will again announce in viii. 28, and
again in xii. 32. There is no doubt at all in His hearer's
mind as to His meaning : for Nicodemus being the great
teacher of the Law, knew that the serpent lifted up by
Moses (Num. xxi. 8, 9) was " a symbol of salvation . . .
for he who turned to it was saved not because of that which
he gazed upon, but because of Thee the Saviour of all,"
i.e. Thee whom it symbolized (Wisdom xvi. 6, 7) : and see
Just. Mart. Apol. I. 60 : Dial. 94. Also Rabbinical
tradition has it that the pole of the brazen serpent set up
by Moses was in the form of a cross.* (See Buxtorf's
Rab. Lex. and Buxtorf's Comm. on Deut.)

The death of Christ was due to the presence of sin in
the world, for had it not been for sin — alienation from the
sanctity of the God-Man — neither Jew nor Gentile would
have crucified Him. In the desert all who were bitten
of the serpents' poison were bidden to look on the uplifted
serpent, type of Him who was " made sin," and in whom
sin was killed ; and all who did so were healed. So should
The Son of Man be lifted up, (15) " that every one who
believes in Him should have eternal Life." It is belief
in Him, the God-Man, that confers union with Him, but
belief must be complemented with the rite of Christian
Baptism : His words are quite plain, " born of water and
Spirit " (verse 5) : and he who is so united to Him has in him
the ffcrm of eternal Life.

* There is a remarkable notice by Ibn Ezra (1150 a.d.) the Jew, a famous
astronomer and commentator on the O.T., who speaks of a south polar con-
stellation which according to ancient tradition was in the shape of a Cross,
like the pole on which the brazen serpent was lifted up. From this ancient
tradition we may assert that the Southern Cross was one of the forty-eight
original constellations : but being the most southern, it had jiassed partly or
wholly out of sight to Mediterranean latitudes before Eudoxus of Cnidus (b.c.
370 : lat. 36° 40') wrote his PhoenomerW; or at least before HiiDparchus of Rliodes
( B.C. 1 50 : lat. 36° 30') made out his list of the stars of the separate constellations.

JOHN IIT. 16-19 83

(16) It is our Lord, not John, who speaks on to the
close of verse 21. Were The Son of Man merely man, there
would be no life-giving power in him : but this Son of
Man is also the eternal God : qua Man He was crucified and
died, qua God He is not susceptible of death but is Himself
the Author of all life : for He is not an adopted Son of God ;
He is co-eternal with The Father, being eternally generated.
Without union with this Author of life, the world (<> ko'o-juoc,
i.e. man, as being the microcosm) has no life : for by
his Fall he has alienated himself from God; an alienation
that every man inherits and bequeaths, and that alienation
is the real Death.

(17) " God sent not The Son to the world to judge the
world, but so that the world may be saved by means of
Him." It is not because the world rejected the Incarnate
God that sentence lies against the world ; the world
was already alienated and lay, wittingly or no, self-con-
demned. The Father sent The Son in order to win back
the world to Life by means of Him.

(18) " He who believes into Him (6 irKjTivwv ilg
auTov) does not come into judgment {ov Kpivsrcu),^^ is not
in process of being judged : " but he that believes not
has been already judged," i.e. shows ipso facto that the
sentence lies against him, " in that he has not believed
into the name of the Only-Begotten Son of God." But
for the sin in him, the alienation he has for God, he would
have leapt to the Author of Life as iron leaps to a magnet :
that he is not so drawn is itself the verdict.

(19) " And this is the judgment, viz. that the Light
has come into the world, and mankind loved the darkness
rather than the Light ; for their works were evil." He, the
Light of the world. He who is for the intellect Truth and
for the moral perception perfect Beauty, He became In-
carnate and lived among men ; and what happened ?
Did they crowd to Him to draw and absorb Light and
Truth and Beauty ? They cast Him from them ; they
did away with Him : there was no room, they said, for
them and Him. He is aware the Sanhedrin have years
ago rejected Him : He knows how the end will be.

84 JOHN III. 20-22

(20) " For every one whose actions arc ill (o <\,uv\a
TTfjuaahtv) hates the Light, and comes not toward the Light ;
so that his works ma} not be reproved.

(21) " But he who does the Truth comes toward the
Light, so that his works may be manifested as having been
wrought in God." Does the Truth, '' right action is true
thought realized," as Westcott comments.

Here ends the account of the interv^iew with Nico-
demus : but there will be little doubt that before he left,
he asked for and received Christian Baptism. He had
come to our Lord acknowledging Him to be a Divine
Teacher (verse 2) : he had been instructed this night in the
mysteries of the Spirit birth, and solenmly {ufiiiv, u}xnv)
informed of its necessity. Christian Baptism was already
being administered by Christ's disciples (see iv. 1).
Assuredly Nicodemus did not leave without first sub-
mitting himself, and obtaining so great a privilege.

Many moderns maintain that verses 16-21 are the
Evangelist's words and not our Lord's, on the ground that
" nowhere does St. .John attribute to our Lord the key
words of his own terminology." The truth, rather, is
that the terminology used by John is the exact Greek
rendering of the Aramaic terminology used Vjy our Lord.
John has steeped his thought in our Lord's terminology
and has made it his own. John has borrowed from Him,
and not sought to improve upon Him. Much the same
had happened to John's earlier teacher, John the Baptist
(see verses 31-36). For the simple terminology and
metaphors of our Lord's talks as recorded by John's
gospel, whether to Jewish theologians accustomed to
abstract thought, or to the Twelve whom He is initiating
into the mysteries of Theology, sec notes on viii. 16, 42,
.54 ; xvii. 6 : and at close of chap. xvii.

(22) " After these things Jesus and His disciples came
into the rountry of Judaja " (tic Tr]v 'lovcuiav ynv), i.e.

A.D. 28. ii^to the country part of Judaea as opposed
April 6»_ to the c?7?/ of Jerusalem : a similar distinction
Nisanl6 5 occurs again in Mark i. 5, "all the country

of Judaea and all the Jerusalemites " {irarTu // 'loncaia X'-V"

JOHN III. 22 85

Koi o'l 'itpocToXviuLHTai Trarrtf,-), and again in Acts xxvi. 20,
' ' at Jerusalem and in all the country of Judaea " (' I tpoo-oA vi^ioig
f(C 7r(i(Tav n ti)v xojftav tj/c" 'lovoalai'). Amisiuidcrstanding
of this yriv accounts for the spurious 'lov^aiacj in Luke iv. 44.

" His disciples " : wc have already had notice of them
in ii. 2, and have inferred that they form a not incon-
siderable number, and include, along with others, the
Twelve who were later selected out.

" And there He tarried with them and baptized."
The particular part of Judaea where He tarried or delayed
{SuTpi^it) was probably Birch (Beeroth of a.D. 28.
the O.T.). It was the regular halting-place (April 6-10
of the first day on the route from Jerusalem iNisan 16-20
to Galilee : to its abundance of water was due its name.
It was here that Joseph and Mary, eighteen years before,
discovered that the Boy was not in their company. Here
at Birch He would be on the route of the pilgrims re-
turning to Galilee from the Passover which was just over :
no other place would be so suitable to catch them : many
of them had been drawn to believe into Him by the " signs "
which He had done in the City on the festival-day (ii. 23
and iv. 45), and had doubtless heard Him teach there.
As for the Jews proper of Judaea they were never drawn
to Him : His one object in coming to Birch, and there
delaying, was to intercept the Galileans, and to baptize
those who believed into Him. Such as were admitted to
Baptism would naturally linger at Birch with Jesus and
His other disciples.

As for the time of year of this delay at Bireh, it seems
to have been from Tuesday, April 6, to Saturday, April 10,
as will gradually appear. Passover (Nisan 14) in this
year a.d. 28 was on Sunday, April 4 : the "■ festival-day "
would therefore be Monday, April 5. The Galileans and
other provincials were required to stop at Jerusalem only
the two first days of the eight-day festival, from midday
of Nisan 14, on which day the Paschal lambs were killed
and eaten, till sunset of Nisan 15, or })erhaps (for this is
not clear) till the morning of Nisan 16, when the 'omer or
first sheaf of the new barley harvest was " waved." Thus

86 JOHN III. 22

the Galileans would begin their return on Nisan IG (this
year, Tuesday, April 6) ; halt that night at Bireh ; move on
the following day to Nablus (Sheehem) ; and reach Jenin
on the border of Samaria and Galilee on Thursday evening,
April 8. On the evening of " the festival-day " (Nisan 15,
Monday, April 5), as we have seen, was held the interview
with Nicodemus : on the following day (Tuesday, April 6,
Nisan 16) it seems our Lord and His disciples left the City
early for Bireh, there to await the pilgrims who would
pour in on that evening. We have already seen (ii. 13)
reason to suppose that during this the year of His public
Ministry He kept none of the national feasts with the
nation, though He went up to Jerusalem for them : all
were voided for this year by the national apostasy, but
became valid again in the following year when His new
Church (as yet purely Hebrew) was instituted on the day
of Pentecost. He and His disciples would not be bound
by any Rabbinical requirement to stay over the morning
of Nisan 16 before leaving the City.

(22) As to the nature of this baptism by Christ : the
weight of patristic authority is almost entirely in favour of
the view that this baptism administered by Christ or
rather by His disciples (iv. 2) was no other than Christian
Baptism — that " Birth of (ek) water and Spirit " which has
been already so recently and so urgentl}^ insisted on by our
Lord in His talk with Nicodemus.* The phrase " to be
baptized in the name of Jesus " (Acts ii. 38 : viii. 16, etc.)
would mean to be baptized into all that that name con-
noted, and into all that He claimed to be or to teach.
Explicit definite knowledge was not necessary to Faith
then, nor is it now. This Baptism by Christ, or rather by
His disciples (iv. 2), was never repeated on its recipients,
nor was ever sid^stituted by or complemented by a later
one. Those who had received it were recognized after
the resurrection of Christ as requiring no other : whereas

* TertuUian is tlic chief objector, maintaining that this early baptism
administered by the disciples of our Lord before His resurrection and the day
of Pentecost was no more than the baptism administered by John tlie Baptist.
He has support from Chrysostom, but is opposed by the Fathers generally.

JOHN III. 22-23 87

those that had received the baptism of John had sub-
sequently to receive Christian Baptism (Acts xix. 3-5).
This Baptism by Christ or by His disciples (John iv. 2) Avas
the same in quality as Christ's own Baptism in which The
Spirit had " bodily " descended on Him and remained
there (i. 32) : Christ transmitted this Baptism by baptizing :
but " He Himself baptized Peter only : after which, Peter
baptized Andrew and the sons of Zebedee : these, again,
baptized the rest of the Apostles " (so Evodius, to 0u»c, as
quoted by Baronius, Annales, xxxi. 40. Evodius succeeded
Peter as bishop of Antioch). The same statement is made
by Clement Alex. We cannot say that the efficacy of this
Baptism remained latent till after Pentecost : the seal was
once for all and indelible. It is not probable that this
Baptism of regeneration was bestowed on many in these
early days at Birch, and certainly not with that facility
with which John's " baptism of repentance " was given :
but it would have certainly included the Twelve who were
later selected out of the body of disciples. The report
brought to the Baptist (iii. 26) that " all are coming to Him "
(Jesus) was purposely an exaggeration, as was also that
brought to the Pharisees (iv. 1) that " Jesus is making and
baptizing more disciples than is John."

(23) Meanwhile the Baptist had moved from the east
bank of Jordan (Bethany i. 28), where being in Herod's
kingdom he had been secure from the Sanhedrin, and
going north was now on the west bank : and " was
baptizing at Aenon near to Salim, because there were
many waters there." This Salim (i:«/\a/x) is identified by
Eusebius, and by the best opinion to-day, with a place
he calls Salumias, six or eight miles south of Scythopolis
(Bethshan), and on the borders of Samaria and Galilee :
it would be the modern Tell Rid'ah where there are
copious springs ; it is in the Jordan valley, near where
the road from Scythopolis to Shechem (Nabliis) left the
valley. Salim (SaXa/i) must not be confounded with
Salem (SaA?';//), an ancient name of Jerusalem (Gen. xiv.
18 : Heb. vii. 1, 2 : Joscphus, Ant. I. x. 2 : and War,
VI. X.), nor yet with the Salem which was near Shechem

88 JOHN III. 23-25

(Nabliis), in the heart of Samaria. At this latter place
John would have been far outside the jurisdietion of
Herod, who was also tctrarch of Galilee, whereas Herod
evidently seizes him at Aenon (on the borders) immedi-
ately after the interview of iii. 26-36. The warmth of the
Jordan valley would be necessary to John's baptism.

The " many waters " {v^ara iroWa) points to a copious
volume of stream or else to water spread over a large
surface as in a lake or in flood, or in large reservoir : the
notice implies that John required abundance of water in
that his baptism was by immersion, whereas that of
Christ's disciples was by aspersion or affusion.

John at Aenon would be on the high road from Nablus
(Shechem) to Gaulonitis and Damascus, and would thus
intercept the pilgrims from the east, as they were re-
turning from the Passover.

" And they came to him (TrapeyivovTo) and were bap-
tized " : these are the pilgrims from the east, not the
natives of Palestine ; for the latter had been

. ^,'^^^c\ coming to John for baptism all the last six
April 10, Sat. , m, p .i ^ ^ i i 4.

months. These of the text are clearly postu-
lants who had had no earlier opportunity. This large
body would arrive here on the evening of Thursday, April 8
— Aenon being about twenty miles, or one day's journey,
north-east from Nablus ; whilst Jenin was one day's
journey due north from Nablus. Nablus was thus the
point of divergence for the two pilgrim streams returning
(1) northwards via Jenin to Galilee and Csele Syria, and (2)
north-eastwards via Aenon to the Hauran and Damascus.
These latter, arriving at Aenon on Thursday evening, would
be baptized on the following days, Friday and Saturday,
April 9, 10 : the Saturday being a day of obligatory rest.

(24) " For John was not yet cast into prison." We
have here a note of the last day of John's freedom. We
have reached Saturday, April 10, and it was perhaps on
Sunday evening, April 11, that he was seized by Herod
as we shall see. (See under iv. 43.)

(25) " There arose, therefore, a questioning on the part
of John's disciples with a Jew about purifying." The

JOHN III. 25 89

" therefore " has, of course, reference to the two different
baptisms that were being concurrently administered, the
one by Christ's disciples, the other by John. a.D. 28.
The "questioning" concerns the relative April 10) „ .
merits of the two, and carries a protest Nisan20l
against what seemed to be a competition Avith John. The
two baptisms were clearly not the same : that of Jesus
was meant to supersede John's, as surely as Jesus the
Messiah meant to supersede John His herald. We must
bear in mind that the disciples of Jesus had previously
been disciples of John, but that only a few of the vast
numbers baptized by John had gone on to declare for
Jesus in spite of John's urgency, for all the efforts of the
Sanhedrin and the doctors were put forth to hold them
back.

This " questioning " (^>'/r>jo-tc) arose among, was started
by (bk), John's disciples, who were supported and backed
up by intra) a certain Jew unnamed : for this is the
meaning of the /ueTa 'lov^alnv, " along with," " aided b},"
" in common with, a Jew." Had the meaning been that
the dispute was between John's disciples on one side
against a Jew on the other (as is the common view), the
phrase would probably have been irpog 'louSotov. Cf.
Mark ix. 14, avZ^irovvTat; irpoQ awrouc = disputing with,
i.e. against them : Acts ix. 29, (Tvve^ijTH Trpog mvg
'EAAi7vtoTfH= disputed with, i.e. against the Hellenists:
XV. 2, ZrjTiiattog irphg avTovg = a questioning with, i.e.
against them : xxv. 19, ZnT^iiara uxov . . . -Fpbg avrov,
they had questions with, i.e. against him.

In view of John's habitual use of the word " Jews "
throughout his gospel we cannot but understand " Jew "
in this passage in the same sense : he must be a typical
Jew, hostile to Jesus, an adherent of the Sanhedrin, and
almost certainly a representative and delegate of the
Sanhedrin. What, then, is he doing here ? We shall not
be far off the mark if we conjecture that he is voicing the
thoughts of John's disciples, and that he has been sent
down from Jerusalem by the Sanhedrin on an embassy to
John to make a last attempt to come to terms with him.

90 JOHN III. 26 29

Thinking John will prove as venal and self-seeking as
they were themselves, the Sanhedrin have sent this pleni-
potentiary to work upon John's self-esteem, (26) to join
Avith his disciples in indignant protest that Jesus is sup-
planting him, to point out how " all " men (the exaggeration
is intentional) arc falling away to his rival : ' how fatal
has been that witness you gave to Jesus three months
ago (Jan. 18), and again six weeks ago (Feb. 26), when the
Sanhedrin's deputation came urging you to repudiate
him : even now it may not be too late to undo the mischief :
the Sanhedrin would support you : why not work with
them ? They need your authority, but also you need
their protection against Herod, who is being urged by
your enemy Herodias to put you to death. Again they
put it to you, why not come out as Messiah yourself ?
they and you working together could put it through.'

(27) John's answer : Why come with such futile guile ?
" A man cannot take anything unless it has been given
to him of Heaven." How should I feign to be what I
am not ? Each man has his own work laid out for him by
God : beyond it none may or can go.

(28) " You yourselves," and in this very appeal, " bear
me witness that I said, ' it is not I who am the Messiah/
but ' I have been sent before Him.' " John here recalls
his answer to the delegates of the Sanhedrin (i. 20), and his
unvarying declaration to the nation that he was Messiah's
herald, not more nor less.

(29) ' Yonder is the Messiah The Son of God who, as
Jehovah, promised through the prophets that He would
wed the nation, as a bridegroom * a bride : and the seal
of this His new union is not the merely external rite of the
old covenant with Abraham, but the infusion of His Spirit
into man's spirit — that very rite of the Baptism which He
is administering, and of which you come complaining.
I am but the Bridegroom's friend and right-hand man,

* Sec Is. Ixii. 5, " A Bridegroom rejoicing over His bride, thy God shall
rejoice over thee." Cf. Hos. ii. 19 : also our Lord's assertion that He was the
Bridegroom (Matt. ix. J 5). an assertion made to these very " disciples of John "
three weeks later in Galilee.

JOHN HI. aO-32 91

whose duty it was to make all preparations for the wedding,
that there might be no delay when the Bridegroom came
to claim the nation as His bride. My work is done :
henceforth I " stand " and wait : for He has come : I
have heard His voice and delight to hear it. This is the end
to which I worked and waited. It is the fulness of my joy.'

(30) " It must be that He increases, but that I de-
crease " : ' Henceforth, gladly I stand aside and pass into
oblivion, while He moves down the ages on from strength
to strength.'

(31) * " He who comes from above," as does He, " is
above all " : the " comes " signifies His coming into the
world in His Incarnation.

" He who is of (e/c, native of) the earth is of (k) the
earth, and talks of (h) the earth." ' Such is the position
of every son of Adam : all of us belong to this earth and are
subject to the limitations of this sphere of being : not
one can talk at first-hand of things of Heaven, he can only
know and talk of them in so far as has been revealed
to him.'

" He who comes of (k, native of) Heaven," as does He,
" is above all " : is above all men and all created things.

(32) " And it is of what He has seen and heard that
He bears witness." ' In telling us of Heavenly things He
tells us of what He knows at first-hand, for Heaven is His
home : as, for instance, when He tells us of the nature of
the Godhead and of the Sacramental mysteries.'

" And His witness no one receives." ' And yet no
one credits His report.' Not, of course, absolutely " no
one," but relatively ; in that the nation officially by its
representatives the Sanhcdrin, and collectively as being
misled by them, did not receive Him : of this the Baptist
was aware all along ever since the critical announcement on
Jan. 18.

* It is the Baptist who is still speaking and to the end of the chapter, as
Chrysostom and others have clearly seen. It is foreign to the Evangelist's
mind to recast or to amplify the discourses of onr Lord or of the Baptist in words
of his own. Those two had been his teachers, and their words were too precious
to him to permit of his placing his own on a parity. The Baptist's peculiar
mission lent moment to the exact words of his witness to Jesus.

92 JOHN III. 33-36

(33) But " he who receives His witness seals the
statement that ' God is true.' " The aorists o Xaji^v and
t(T(ppciyi(Ttv, seem to be gnomic aorists, and as such are
idiomatically to be rendered by the present rather than by
the past ' received,' ' sealed.' The Baptist is making a
formal dogmatic pronouncement : — whoso receives as true
the witness that Jesus bears is ipso facto affirming that God
is true,, that God is to be trusted : for whoso trusts Jesus
is trusting God, for Jesus is God (see i. 18).

(34) " For He whom God sent * talks the things of
God" ((Oj'j/xara = things qua described or narrated).
Jesus is sent as The Father's Representative, and is the
only adequate Representative. He cannot but give the
true account of The Father, and of the whole Godhead.

" For not by measure does He (viz. God) give The
Spirit " to this His Representative. The Baptist here
utters the mystery of that which he saw in the vision
on Jan. 18, when he saw The Spirit descending integrally
as a living dove and abiding on Him (see i. 33), signifying
that upon this Man the whole Godhead abides. To
other men The Spirit is doled out by measure according
as they can contain : Jesus the God-Man contains the
whole : and seeing that He has The Spirit in all fulness,
He manifests God adequately.

(35) " The Father loves The Son," this God-Man who
is the eternal Son ; " and all things has He given into His
hand " : for by means of The Son He formed the world
of created things and beings, and by means of The Son He
will re-form creation.

(36) " He who believes into The Son has life eternal " :
for it is belief into the God-Man, accompanied by the
Baptismal rite, that confers union with the God-Man,
the Author of Life, whose divine Saji thenceforward flows
in, and transforms, those who are united to Him.

* Jesus was " sent "' if we regard the Incarnation from the standpoint of
The Father's share in it. He " came " if we regard it from that of The Son.
Or again, we may talk of the whole Godhead sending and of the whole Godhead
commg, for the whole Godhead is in The Father and the whole Godhead is in
The Son.

JOHN III. 8G 93

" But he who disobeys The Son shall not see Life."
The word iItthOmv (rendered " disobeys ") means to be
" refractory to," to " refuse to be persuaded by " : it is
the Heb. sorer (n^iD) in Is. Ixv. 2, " unto a refractory
People," where the LXX render InrtidovvTa. " Shall not
see Life," i.e. shall not enter into Life (see note on iii. 3),
whilst they remain refraetory to The Son : for there is
no other Door to Life.

" But the wrath of God abides upon him " as being
by sin in Adam already alienated from God, and as not
having laid hold of the only means whereby may l)e
effected (1) his adoption as a son, (2) the transformation
of his nature, (3) his union with the Godhead.

So ends the last recorded witness * of the Baptist :
the utterance of one who has his vision fixed on the mystery
of the Incarnation of God in the Person of Jesus, and on
the mystery of the Holy Trinity. It is the vision of
absolute Truth. Already (in i. 18) we have seen him
intimately and divinely illumined as perhaps no other
man, so as to be capable and adequate to " bear witness
concerning the Light " — the ^wc, the Divine Aoydc. That
was his commission.

Where all language is inadequate, the very simplest
metaphors of " coming," " sending," "■ seeing," " hear-
ing," " Son," " Father," are preferred. Wherever, in
this gospel, our Lord speaks to trained theologians or to
the Twelve whom He is training, or the Baptist speaks to
theologians, the diction is the same whenever attempt is
made to render into words the vision of abstract Truth :
also John the evangelist, in his epistles, is found using the
phraseology of our Lord and of the Baptist ; those Two
had been his teachers. The two Johns, who seem to
have surpassed all men in keenness of vision, drew ultimately
from one and the same fount. The Synoptists, who write
for popular use, preserving the words of our Lord, and
of the Baptist as they were spoken to popular audiences,

* He will yet make from prison a last effort (Matt. xi. 2, 3 : Luke vii. 19)
to transfer his own disciples to Jesus : for this is the true meaning of that
incident which has been misrepresented by the later commentators.

94 JOHN III. 36

make no attempt to record the teaching addressed to
trained theologians.

The interview (26-36) took place (so we have suggested)
on Saturday, April 10. John's answer has been so
A.D. 28. decisive and final that, as we conjecture,
April 11 >„ " the Jew " holding the Sanhedrin's warrant
Nisan21) ' (ef. the warrants issued to Saul, Acts ix. 2)
hands him straightway over to Herod the tetrarch who
at once imprisons him, Sunday, April 11. Herod had
not ventured to arrest him before, being afraid of the
national veneration for John : but now that the Sanhedrin
are with him he can act. Thus was John " betrayed "
[TTaps^oOru Matt. iv. 12 : Mark i. 14) by the Jews to
Herod and " imprisoned " by him (John iii. 24 : Luke
iii. 20), as we suppose on Sunday, April 11.

NOTE ON JOHN THE BAPTIST

As to our Lord's comraendation of John (Matt. xi. 11), "Among
them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John
the Baptist, but he that is less in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than
lie": the meaning is probably to be got from Matt, xviii. 1-4, " Who is
greatest in the kingdom of Heaven ?"..."• Whoever shall humble
himself as this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven."
We should therefore understand " but he that is less {i.e. humbler than
John, if there be such a one) is in the kingdom of Heaven greater than
John," i.e. humility is the great virtue in the kingdom of Heaven, and
none is greater than John, because none is humbler. Our Lord is not
contrasting John with the members of the kingdom; for John, having
been baptized by Christ (as the Fathers have handed down), was a
member of the kingdom of Heaven : and in the Nobis quogtie of the Mass
he is named at the head of the martyrs, before Stephen.

§ VI
JOHN IV. 1-42

Samaria and the Samaritan Woman

(1) To return to our Lord. We left Him (p. 85) at Bireh
on Tuesday, April 6, baptizing among the returning
pilgrims, the bulk of whom would pass on from Birch to
Nablus on the following day, Wednesday, April 7. Our
Lord did not pass on with them but delayed (S/ar|0</3f,
iii. 22) at Bireh or in the neighbourhood (say from April
6-11) until He learnt that exaggerated reports of His
activity among the pilgrims had reached the Pharisees
at Jerusalem — reports purposely exaggerated by the
indignation of John's disciples and by the malice of the
hostile Jews.

" When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees
heard ' Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples
than is John,' * He left Judsea and departed a.D. 28.
again into Galilee." The reports would be April ll^g„«
carried to the Pharisees of Jerusalem on Nisan213
Thursday, April 8, and intelligence of the effect caused
would be brought back to our Lord on Friday, April 9.

(3) Aware of their malice He anticipated action against
Him by leaving Judaea on Sunday, April 11 (immediately
after the Sabbath) to go into Galilee,

* Verse 2 has the parenthetical notice that " Jesus Himself was not
baptizing, but His disciples were," i.e. His disciples were with His authority
baptizing with that same Baptism " in water and The Spirit " that He had
already operated on them (see the remarks on iii. 22, p. 86). Thus this notice
iv. 2, is reconciled with the statement of iii. 22. The place and the time are the
same in both notices. It is of course not John the Baptist's symbolic baptism
that our Lord's disciples are administering, but that efficacious Baptism which
had been the theme of His discourse with Nicodemus on the night of April 5
(pp. 76-81), as given in the first half of last chapter, and had called forth John
the Baptist's answer (iii. 25-36) at the dispute on the two baptisms (pp. 88-93).

96 JOHN IV. 4-5

(4) " And He had to go through Samaria." The haj
(or pilgrim) route between Judaea and GaHlee lay through
Samaria : the regular first day's halt was at Jacob's well,
close to Sychar and Nablus (Shechem) : the distance
from Bireh is a full day's journey of twenty-three miles :
He would therefore arrive here with His disciples in the
evening of Sunday, April 11, at sunset (" the sixth hour,"
John iv. 6).

(5) " Therefore cometh He to a city of Samaria which is
called Sychar " : the force of the " therefore " is that
this city of Sychar and its territory was the natural halting-
place. There is scarcely a doubt that Sychar is the
modern village 'Askar : the Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 a.d.),
our earliest post- Apostolic authority, distinguishes Sychar
from Neapolis ( = Nablus on the col between mounts
Ebal and Gerizim), and from " Sichem " (=Shechem of
O.T., which the LXX render by Sychem, SuxfVj ^s does
Stephen in Acts vii. 16) : which latter he says lay at the
foot of the hill and in the plain : Eusebius also distinguishes
the three : and they are constantly mentioned as distinct
down to the 12th century. Neapolis (Nablus) was built
by Vespasian in the latter half of the 1st century a.d. to
replace Shechem (Sj^chem) which had been probably
destroyed in his recent war though it survived as a
village to the 12th century. Neapolis was built close
to, and to the west of, Shechem : it did not exist in our
Lord's time, though Shechem and Sychar did. To-day
Shechem no longer exists : but is commonly merged in
Nablus. Sychar (modern 'Askar) lies about 1| miles east
of Nablus, and some 650 yards north of Joseph's tomb,
and abovit half a mile north of Jacob's well. The five
sites of Nablus, Shechem, Sj^char, Joseph's tomb, and
Jacob's well, all lie in an isosceles triangle of which the
two sides measure 1 1 miles each ; with a base of half a mile
occupied by Sychar, the tomb, and the well ; the apex
])eing Nablus, on the west.

" Near to the field {x(^>piov) which Jacob gave to his
son Joseph." From a comparison of Gen. xii. 6 : xxxiii.
18, 19 : xlviii. 22 : Joshua xxiv. 32 : and Acts vii. 16

JOHN IV. 5-6 97

(" which Abraham bought ... in Shechem," R.V.), it
would seem that Abraham originally bought the field at
Shechem where he first pitched his tent in Palestine, and
where the Lord appeared to him for the first time since he
entered the land, and where he built his first altar to the
Lord : that he bought it for a sum of silver, as he after-
wards bought Machpelah in Hebron : and that he bought
this Shechem field from the sons of Emmor : that to this
very spot came Jacob 180 years later, on his return from
Mesopotamia with great wealth and retinue, following
in Abraham's track ; came, knowing that this piece of
land was his by right of inheritance from his grandfather
who had bought it : found that by lapse of so long a time
his claim was disputed : had to fight for it, and won it
by his bow and spear (Gen. xlviii. 22) " from the Amorite " :
and, having established thus his claim to it, yet thought
it prudent to go through a formal act of purchase for a
merely nominal price, " 100 lambs " (£lO or so) : thus
conciliating his neighbours who owned the surrounding-
land, and precluding any subsequent dispute of his claim.
Anyway, tradition seems to have it that the " field "
where Abram first pitched his tent and built an altar
(Gen. xii. 6, 7) was the same field that Jacob won with his
bow and spear and bequeathed to Joseph (xlviii. 22) and
also bought for " 100 lambs " (xxxiii. 19) : in it was
Jacob's well, sunk by him, to which Christ came (John
iv. 4) : in it was Joseph's tomb (Joshua xxiv. 32) — the
tomb and the well are 180 yards apart : in it was the famous
oak by Shechem where the teraphim or " strange gods "
were buried by Jacob (Gen. xxxv. 4) : and under the
same oak Joshua set up the great stone (Joshua xxiv. 21)
" by the sanctuary of the Lord," i.e. by the holy place where
Abram had set up his first altar.

(6) " And Jacob's spring (Tniyri) was there." This
" spring " of Jacob is beyond doubt that known to-day by
Samaritan, Jew, Christian, and Moslem as the " spring "
Cain), or " well " (bir), " of Jacob." Its present depth is
no more than 75 feet owing to accumulation of stones and
rubbish at the bottom (so Anderson, who went down it in

98 JOHN IV. G

1866) : Maundrcll (end of 17th century) found it to be
105 feet deep : whilst Arculf, in 7th century, who drank
from it, says " the well that I saw has a depth of twice
twenty orgyiae," and he gives an orgyia correctly as about
six feet ; he therefore gives the depth as about 240 feet in
his time. Maundrcll found fifteen feet of water in it as
late as May. It is not to-day a spring [Trnyri) properly so
called, where water gushes up from below, but a very deep
cistern {<ppeap) into which water percolates from above :
and it is dry all the summer. Doubtless Jacob sank it in
drought till he struck the gushing spring, as did Isaac
further south (Gen. xxvi. 19), till he reached the " living
waters " or spring. But that Jacob should go to the vast
labour of sinking this well in a neighbourhood of abundant
rivers and surface springs may be explained by his being
a stranger with many flocks in a countrj^ already strongly
occupied, exactly as the O.T. describes his position : cf.
Isaac's similar position (Gen. xxvi. 14-22).

" Jesus, therefore, being wearied from the journey,
was sitting thus at the spring," i.e. at what was still
known as Jacob's spring, though it was now no more than
a cistern {<ppiap, verses 11, 12). The " therefore " implies
that this well was the usual halting-place of pilgrims
traversing Samaria. " Was sitting thus," i.e. as one
tired, as one simply resting, as though without any other
immediate purpose.

" And it was about the sixth hour." As to the hour,

we have already seen (at i. 39, p. 34) that this Evangelist

reckons the hours differently from the three
Aoril 11
Sun sunset Synoptists. Whereas they reckon twelve

hours from sunset to sunrise and another

twelve from sunrise to sunset, so that the " sixth " hour is

with them midday, John reckons them as we do, viz.

twelve hours from midnight to midday, and another

twelve from midday to midnight, so that the " sixth "

hour with him is sunset (and sunrise). This passage (iv. 6)

is the second that proves it. The common interpretation,

which assumes John's reckoning to be the same as that

of the Synoptists, makes the " sixth hour " to be midday :

JOHN T^\ G-7 99

but this halt at Jacob's spring is clearly paralleled by the
regular halt here for the night by all Galilean pilgrims to
and from Jerusalem : it is the midway point between
Judsea and Galilee — the only place at which pilgrims
passed a night on Samaritan territory : they had to break
the journey somewhere, and probably here alone did the
Samaritans allow their unwelcome rest. Again, He would
not be " wearied by the journey " at midday, though He
might easily be so by sunset. Again, midday is not the
hour at which women draw water for the house, but sunset is.
Again, at midday the men {avOpcoiroi) would not have been
in the city (verses 28, 30), but in the fields at work : whereas
after sunset they would naturally be in the city and near
the evening meal.

(7) " There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw
water." " Of Samaria " {Ik ryg 'Eafj.apeiag), i.e. a native
of the country called Samaria. It is not necessary to
suppose that she lived within the walls of the city of
Sychar, half a mile off : her house was probably nearer
Jacob's well than was the city of Sychar, but Sychar was
her nearest city (see verse 28). The people who lived within
the walls do not seem to have used this well, it being too
far off, and there being an abundance of good water within
shorter distance.

It is obvious that the Samaritans, ever since the Baptist
came preaching six months ago, must have been moved
by his announcement of the Messiah's approach, and at
the news that he had marked out the Man : they must
also have heard and been startled by rumours from Jeru-
salem telling how the Jews' Messiah had come publicly
forward, doing " signs " last week in the City at the Pass-
over. It was but three days ago that northern pilgrims
returning along this road had been discussing with anima-
tion what they had seen and heard. The bitterness
between Samaritan and Jew would probably be more than
commonly keen just now : for it is usual that when one
sect is stirred by special religious exaltation, its neighbour
feels a corresponding fervour, and the sense of differences
between them is intensified.

100 JOHN IV. 7-11

The woman suspecting nothing comes to the well.
She sees a solitary Jew, seemingly one of the pilgrims,
returning from Jerusalem, sitting on the well-head as
though wearied with the day's journey. Without a second
glance she lets down her pitcher, draws it up full, and is
about to return, when suddenly the stranger begs her for
a drink.

" Jesus says to her, ' Give Me to drink.' " What ! a
Jew making a kindl}'^ advance to her, placing himself
under an obligation to her, showing his friendly feeling to
her so that she may talk freely with him (see a similar
opening in Gen. xxiv. 17). Had He not been alone but
been accompanied by His disciples, the woman would
certainly not have ventured to come near and talk : hence
John's remark that —

(8) " His disciples had gone away to the city {i.e.
Sychar) to buy food." No doubt she gives Him the
pitcher to drink from, and He, having drunk, returns it
to her.

(9) " Therefore the Samaritan woman says to Him,
' How is it that thou being a Jew askest drink from me
being a Samaritan woman ? for Jews do not have inter-
course with Samaritans : ' " She implies, of course, that
the intolerance lies with the Jews. Yet, to her surprise,
here was a Jew taking the initiative in friendliness, going-
even so far as to ask for a drink from her pitcher, which
other Jews would have held to be unclean.

(10) Jesus replies with a tender but compelling tone,
which must have arrested her, that if she knew what gift
God was in these ^ays giving, and Who the speaker was
that was asking her for a drink, their mutual positions
would have been reversed : she would have asked of Him,
and His gift to her would have been Living water ; for
that was what God was now giving.

(11) The woman answers, " Sir " (kvp/f) : she had not
so addressed Him at first : she has now recognized in Him
something above the common : already the beginnings
are stirring that will end in Faith : already the miracle
of His grace is working in her : He has sensitized her soul.

JOHN IV. 11-14. 101

A similar case occurs in iv. 49, where again the use oi" the
word Kvpa marks an access of spiritual insight. " Thou
hast nothing to draw with, and the cistern {(lypiafi) is
deep" : she is slowly realizing that He is not speaking of
literal physical water, for He has no means of reaching it
and has even begged for it. Also the cistern {(ppiap) did
not contain ' living water,' for it was no longer a irriyrj, a
gushing spring. " Whence therefore hast thou the Living
water ? " ' By this " Living water " (so she argues),
He must have some bigger meaning. He must imply a
claim to be a greater than the patriarch Jacob, for the
best the patriarch could do for us was to give us this (spring
which is now but a) cistern, and this water which is no
longer living or gushing.'

(12) " Can it be thou art greater than," etc. (/k) to
fxuZ,u)v H . . . ). The phrase does not mark incredulity,
but marks a dawning belief that startles : precisely as in
verse 29, ju»';rt owroc lonv o XfnaTog ; means " can it be
that this is the Messiah ! " So here, ' I half believe thou
art greater than, etc., and that thou art dealing with a
Spring and Water greater than Jacob's well.'

(13) His answer is in effect that she is right in her
surmise : for " Everyone who drinks of this water shall
thirst again, l)ut whoso drinks (14) of the Water that I
(emphatic iyw) shall give him shall never thirst." This
Living Water He will give is the "" water and Spirit " of
iii. 5, which originates the new Birth.

Here one might ask, ' What then ? shall the baptized
not thirst ? rather " blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness," and who should so hunger and
thirst but the baptized ? Therefore the promise that he
" shall never thirst " refers not to this life, but to the
Resurrection life when the work begun here in the new
Birth shall have been perfected by the complete sloughing off
of the old and by the complete putting on of the new Man.

" The Water which I shall give him shall become in
him a Spring (7r»r/j)) of Water leaping-up into eternal
Life." This " Water leaps-up into eternal Life " because
it is animate with the Spirit of God, the Divinity of our

102 JOHN IV. 15-18

Lord : and rising like sap in His mystical Body makes all
His members live the eternal Life. Weak though the
Spring be to-day because of the obstructions it meets with,
there is promise of a more copious flow.

(15) The woman is noAV quite aware that His meaning
lies not on the physical but on the spiritual plane : and
that He is talking in metaphor. She was no ignorant
peasant, nor was He talking ' over her head.' Though
no one ever grasped the whole of what He meant, He
never spoke above the dawning intelligence of a bond fide
listener : to do so would have been to belie the principle
of the Incarnation — the coming down to be within reach
of a hand. In her answer, " Sir, give me this Water, that
I thirst not nor come all this way {^upx'ofjiai) hither to
draw," the woman is not making a silly jest : she is boldly
and intelligently carrying on the metaphor which He had
begun. Her meaning is that she may neither herself
thirst nor yet (he whom she loves, viz.) her man, for whom
she comes here drawing water : she asks for the draught of
Life both for herself and that she may pass it on to her
" husband."

(16) Jesus reading her desire, which He Himself has
wakened, to possess and to spread the spiritual Life, falls
in with her desire, but out-tops her hopes, bidding her to
go and call this her " husband," to bring him she loves
along with her here to the fountain-head to the Giver of
Life. He speaks of her " husband " purposely, though
knowing the man is not so : by showing a generous con-
fidence in her. He means to compel her to a generous
confidence in Himself, which will result in her making a
full and generous avowal of her position.

(17) She answers, " I have not a husband " : the
words are her confession of her irregular life. She has
reflected ' will this Man of God be so kindly to me when
he knows the whole truth about me ? but at all costs I
will tell it out to Him.' She was of those who are won
by trust, not by rebuke.

(IS) " Jesus says to her, well saidst thou, ' Husband
I have not,' for five husbands hadst thou, and he," etc.

JOHN IV. 18-20 103

His answer came that, though all her life lay open before
Him, she had done well to confess her position, viz. that she
was living with one who was not her husband : and as
a proof of His knowledge of her past He tells her that she
had had five husbands (of whom at any rate four, and
possibly all five, were either dead or legally separated from
her) and that he whom she now had was not her husband.
Also that in her confession she had shown a love of truth
in that she had made no attempt to screen herself.

(19) This proof of His knowledge of her past takes her
aback : she was certain that her past was unknown to her
neighbours : she had probably not always lived here. The
effect in her case is similar to that in the case of Nathanael
(see under i. 48, 49) : a fresh light breaks upon her with
regard to this Stranger : the knowledge He has shown
argues that He can be no less than a Prophet, for to the
Prophets many secret things lay open : but she has no
idea that He is more : " Sir, I perceive that thou art a
Prophet."

Although a Jew, He being a Prophet may be trusted
to solve that question which was at the root of the hostility
between Samaritan and Jew — the question whether
Jerusalem was or was not the one religious centre for all
Palestine, a question that must have become urgent
with many Samaritans in view of the Baptist's activity
during the last six months.

(20) Samaritans had long had their religious centre in
Samaria, in their temple on Gerizim, built 4th (or 5th)
century B.C. as a rival to that at Jerusalem. Jews, on
the other hand, maintained that no Temple was per-
missible in Palestine except the one at Jerusalem, though
there was no restriction as to the number of synagogues
that might be built. Men might worship at the latter by
prayer and by listening to the reading of the Law and the
Prophets : but at the Temple alone was plenary, sacrificial,
worship allowed ; and to the Temple the nation had to
journey three times a year to the great festivals. The
Jews had succeeded in destroying the Samaritan temple
about B.C. 130, and had hitherto prevented their rebuilding

104 JOHN IV. 20-24

it. Samaritans were willing to recognize both Temples,
one at Gerizim for themselves, one at Jerusalem for Jews :
what they objected to was the exclusiveness of Jeru-
salem's claim — the claim to be the only place where a full
worship was possible. The woman wants to know how
the truth stands.

(21) The reply is to the effect that an " hour " is
coming when neither the worship at Gerizim nor the
worship at Jerusalem would be the acceptalDle worship of
The Father.

(22) Gerizim is ruled out because " you (Samaritans)
worship that which you know not," viz. a God whose
character, and whose purposes toward the human race,
as revealed through the Prophets, were unknown ; inas-
much as Samaritans recognized no revelation later than
Moses : whereas " we * (Jews) worship that which we
know," i.e. Jews are acquainted with the character and
purposes of the Being they worship, having before them the
further revelation made through all the Prophets from
Samuel till John the Baptist ? " For (the promised and
expected) Salvation comes forth from (k-) the Jews," as
Samaritans themselves must admit from Jacob's prophecy
(Gen. xlix. 8-12). The woman might therefore think that
He was, in His answer, pronouncing in favour of Jerusalem.
But no :

(23) Jerusalem too is ruled out : for " an hour is coming,
indeed now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
The Father in spirit and truth : for indeed The Father
seeks that those who worship Him should be such :

(24) " God is Spirit : and they who worship Him must
worship in spirit and truth." In " spirit and truth "
instead of in a mere formalism which had lost touch with
the Truth ; of which its sacrifices were types, but only
types.

His words did not dissolve the obligation of the Jew to
worship at the centre of unit}', Jerusalem ; nor did the

* He here identifies Himself, not so much with the Jews as with the Prophets
of His nation, among whom the woman ranked Him, as she had just expressed
in verse 19. So Chrysostom.

JOHN IV. 24-25 105

Apostles so understand, as may be seen from the practice
of the Hebrew Christian Church : for so long as the Temple
was standing, the Hebrew Christians of Palestine took part
in all the Temple ritual and worship, as did also HebrcAv
Christian pilgrims from abroad, as is clear from the book
of Acts of the Apostles. But the time was fast coming
when the Temple and its ritual was to end, because the
nation failed to recognize the Antitype or Truth, of whom
all their ritual was but a figure. Had the Jews, alongside
of ritual and symbolism, worshipped in spirit and tnith,
as all their Prophets were ever trying to secure, they would
not have come short in their day of trial, nor would their
Temple and nation have been destroyed : and the obliga-
tion to worship at Jerusalem would still/or them have stood.
We may suppose that when the conversion of Judah comes
about toward the end of this Age, and the reunion of the
ten tribes with Judah is effected, and the Temple rebuilt,
as Ezekiel saw in vision, Jerusalem will again be the centre
of religious unity rather than Gentile Rome : the change
being accompanied by that vast effusion of The Spirit of
which Joel speaks, and of which only the pledge or earnest
has as yet been given.

(25) The woman is arrested by our Lord's words about
the necessity of worshipping in spirit and truth, and b}^ His
promise that the time of such worship was not merely
coming but at hand. She says, yes, " I know that Messiah "
(who is called Christ) * " is coming." John the Baptist's

* o Xeyojxivos Xpiffros, " Who is called Christos," i.e. Anointed. The
words are not the woman's but the writer's, as in everj' other case m the N.T.
They are not merely or mainly his Greek rendering of the Hebraic word Mcssias,
but are rather a statement of the name that was more familiar to his readers.
This is made more certain by instances where the second name has not the same
meaning as the first, e.g. Matt. i. 16 (and often), 'l-rja-ovs o \ey6fj.€vos Xpi<rr6i,
" Jesus who is called Christos " : Matt. iv. 18 (and x. 2), SiVo-i/a rhv KiySfuvov
Uerpov, " Simon who is called Petros," where Petros is the name by which this
Simon was better known to the Greeks for whom the Greek version of Matthew
was made: Col. iv. 11, 'Itjo-oOs 6 Aeyo/xevos 'lova-ros, "Jesus who is called
Justus," where Justus is the Latin name by which this Jesus was better known
to the Colossians. It is the same m John xi. 16 : xx. 24 : and xxi. 2, ewfias 6
AeYoVej/os AiSv/xos, " Thomas who is called Didymus," where " Didymus "
(Twin) is only incidentally the Greek rendering of the Hebrew " Thomas."

106 JOHN IV. 25-29

mission must have roused the whole of Palestine — Samaria *
as well as Judaea and Galilee — to the expectation of
Messiah's imminent advent. " When He (emphatic Ikuvo^,
He at last, He for whom all have waited) " comes, He will
announce to us all things " — will reveal to them all Truth.
So only would they know Him whom they worshipped :
so only would they give Him proper worship. She would
readily admit that Messiah was to come from the Jews :
she would also recollect that many said He had appeared
last week in Jerusalem and had done " signs." It
probably even flashed upon her suddenly ' what if this Man
were He ? ' and, with the flash, came His words —

(26) " I that am talking to thee am He."

(27) " Hereupon came His disciples," who were pro-
bably a considerable number, including among others all
who were later selected as the Twelve (see under ii. 2) :
" and they were wondering that He was talking with a
woman " : it being against Rabbinical etiquette that a
Rabbi should talk with a woman in a public place. " How-
ever no one said, ' What seekest Thou ? ' or ' What talkest
Thou with her ? ' " Great as was their surprise, they
felt it was not a matter for their intrusion, unless, or until,
He chose to speak to them of it.

(28) At the coming of all these people, " the wornan left
her pitcher " there — showing she meant quickly to return —
" and went off to the city " of Sychar : " and she says to
the men " (or " the folk," ro?c ^avBpiliiroLq) (29) " ' Come !
see a Man who told me all things that (ever) I did ! Can
this be the Christ ? ' " " Can this be " {ixwi ovtoq lanv),
exactly as in verse 12, 'it almost seems to me that He

* There is remarkable evidence of the veneration in which the Baptist
was held by the Samaritans. After the Jews had betrayed him to Herod,
Herod had him carried to Machterus in Pcrsea (Jos., Ant., 18, v. 2), there
imprisoned him, beheaded him, and handed over his head to Herodias's
daughter : the body was taken by John's disciples and buried. Where ?
According to all tradition, at the city of Samaria {Rufin., xi. 28: Jerome ad
Marcellam: Theodorct., iii. 3). With the Samaritans his body was safe, for
Samaria was independent of the Sanhcdrin and of Herod. Here, in a rock
tomb alongside that of the Prophet Elisha, his bones lay, until in the reign
of Julian (a.d. 361-303) they were scattered. The cenotaph of the Baptist
is held in veneration to-day by Christian and Moslem alike.

JOHN IV. 29-34 107

must be.' ' Come and talk to Him, hear Him, feel His
personality ; and you will agree with me. This must be the
Man of whom John the Baptist spoke as being the Christ
or Messiah : this must be the Man we hear of as having
come publicly forward in Jerusalem as Messiah.'

Neither she nor the Samaritans as a body associated
with the Messiah (the Christ or the Anointed One) anjT^
very definite idea : at any rate He would be a very wonderful
Prophet (Deut. xviii. 15, 18), about whom there was much
mystery and great expectation : and He would prove to
be the long-promised "" Saviour of the world " (see at
verse 42).

(30) " They went-forth out of the city " of Sychar—
no doubt her " husband " among them — " and they were
on their way to Him." The distance between city and well
being half a mile.

(31) " In the meanwhile the disciples were asking Him
' Rabbi, eat ' " ; as they produced the food they had
brought back with them. They call Him Rabbi (see
under i. 38) : that He was really God dwelling among them,
the disciples had not yet learnt to realize, though they
believed all that the Baptist had said of Him. How many
of us too repeat bond fide the Creeds without at all realizing
all that the words import.

(32) To their anxious care for Him He replied, " I
(eyw, emphatic) have a food for eating which you do not
know " — a food which to you is not food. And thereby
He drew a distinction between Himself and them, whilst
not denying that their physical hunger was shared by Him.

(33) " The disciples therefore," not understanding Him,
" said one to another, ' Can it be that some one brought
Him food to eat ? ' " i.e. in their absence.

(34) Jesus, knowing what they were whispering, says
to them that He was not talking of their sort of food, but
" My food," viz. that of which I spoke just now as being
not known to you as food, " is to do the will of Him that
sent Me and finish His work." The aorists TronVw, " do,"
and TtXtMdw, " finish," show that He has here in mind,
not so much the constant aim of His life as that aim

108 JOHN IV. 34-38

exemplified on this particular occasion, Avhcrc He has made
so rapid a finish in the conversion of the Samaritan woman.
In the following verses He lays the stress on the idea of
finishing, on the rapidity with which He finishes, on the
power He shows in bringing a work to a finish almost as
soon as He sets His hand to begin it. And in that again
He differs from them.

(35) " Do not you (emphatic vndg) say," i.e. is it not
a common proverb among men at sowing-time, " ' Yet a
four-month * and the harvest comes ' ? " i.e. among men
seed-time and harvest are far apart, a long and tedious wait
is needed for all growth before its end is reached, so that
the man who sows is often not the man who reaps. But
see the difference here where I have been the husbandman :
" Look, I say to you, lift up your eyes and behold the
fields, how that they are white unto harvest." His metaphor
is taken from barley fields : barley whitens to harvest,
wheat reddens. But His appeal is to the human harvest,
viz. the Samaritans from the city of Sychar who are seen
hurrying to Him.

(36) " Alreaihj " (emphatic) " the Harvester " (mean-
ing Himself) " is receiving wages, and is gathering fruit
into Life eternal, with the result that the Sower " (viz.
Himself) " is rejoicing along with the Harvester," i.e. it
is not an hour ago that I began to sow, and already I am
reaping the harvest : it is not as when men sow and they
have to wait long fbr the harvest to mature.

(37) ' Not with Me has the proverb held good that the
sower is one and the reaper another ; but that saying is
true in your case, in this that {Iv tovtu)) (38) I sent you to
harvest what you {v/hhq, emphatic) never laboured to grow :
the work of tilling and dressing and sowing the ground in

* 4'ti TiT pd,fjir}v6s ia-TLv = " yet a four-moiilh."' Seed-time in Palestine
was from middle of Tisri (October) to middle of Kislev (December) : see Wiese-
ler's Synajms, Sect. 2, chap. 2, for Rabbinical statement. From end of seed-
time (mid-Dec.) to beginning of harvest gives thus an interval of four months,
for the barley harvest begins mid-April in the Jordan valley and on the lake of
Tiberias. The date at which our Lord is speaking in the text seems to be
accurately, Sunday, April 11, of a.d. 28. Barley harvest begins at Nablus in
May.

JOHN IV. 38 109

Israel and Judah was done by other hands — the hands of
Moses and of the Prophets : you {vfiHtj) enter into the
benefit of their labour.'

What exactly is the bearing of this whole episode ?
or at least what is the instruction conveyed in it by our
Lord to the disciples ? He seems to use it as a means of
heartening them up to the work before them. His public
active Ministry has but recently begun : it is but a week
since His first overt appearance as Messiah in Jerusalem :
the Sanhedrin and the doctors of the Law have shown their
open hostility to Him : His disciples may well have been
despondent at the prospect, doubting the possibility of
overcoming the difhculties ahead. He will do a sign to
encourage them. In the space of half an hour, during
which they were absent buying food. He has converted to
a belief in Himself as Messiah one of that most stubborn
Samaritan race — a race that for five centuries had been
more bitter against the Jew than any other race upon
earth : and not only so, but so vivid is the Faith He has by
His divine power breathed into her that she has hurried to
the town, a-flame to make public her discovery, and so
strangely has the grace of God co-operated with her,
touching the hearts of her hearers, that she is now hastening
back to Him with all that town behind her. If He can do
this in so short a time, with such perverse material as
Samaritans, how simple should prove the task He has given
His disciples, viz. that of converting their own people
who for centuries had been instructed as to Messiah
by the Prophets with an ever- increasing clearness of
definition.

On the spiritual plane, this work of His was analogous
with that first miracle at Kana on the physical plane.
In one case. His instantaneous change of water into wine
as against His ordinary lengthy process by which He causes
the vine to elaborate water into wine : and in this othei
case, His instantaneous conversion of the Samaritan sinner
as against that secular process of education by means of
the Prophets which He used with Israel and Judah.

(39) " And of that city many of the Samaritans believed

110 JOHN IV. 39-40

into Him, because of the word of the woman bearing
witness ' He told me all things that (ever) I did.' " Such
is John's comment on the marvel of that day as he looks
back on it and ticks off the details one by one : —

1. It was but one city, and a small one : but 2, it pro-
duced many believers : and 3, they were genuine believers
(tTr/oT. Etc (ivTov) : and 4, of that difficult material Sa-
maritans : and 5, the effect was done by one simple argu-
ment : and that 6, uttered by a woman : and 7, she was
the notoriouslv lax woman : and 8, her witness could not
he corroborated, for it dealt with secrets known only to her.

(40) After making this pregnant reflection, the Evan-
gelist continues the narrative. " When, therefore, the
Samaritans were come to Him, they asked Him to abide
with them " {irap' uvtoiq, at their city). As, in any case,
our Lord and His disciples would have passed the night
here (it is the night between Sunday and Monday), the
Samaritans by this request meant that He should not leave
them on the following morning as did all other pilgrims,
but that He would prolong His stay : which He did.
For—

" He abode there two days " : * which means that He
stayed there the remainder of that day (Sunday) and the
next day, Monday, April 12. Greeks, Romans, and Jews,
in numbering days, habitually reckoned both terms {a quo
and ad quern). So He must have left the city Monday
evening.

Whilst He Himself stayed at Sychar " two days " He
seems to have sent on His disciples ahead to Galilee. An
invitation by the people of Sychar to Him to be their guest
cannot be supposed to cover all His followers. A friend-
ship for Him personally would not efface the ingrained

* Although John reckons the civil Day (twenty-four hours) as we do, and as
the Romans did, from midnight to midnight (see at iv. 53 : xx. 19), he like every-
one, whether Hebrew, Greek, Roman, or modem European, reckons the
natural day (as opposed to night) from sunrise to sunset. In all these languages
one word has to serve for these two different meanings. It is only the context
that can determine whether the Heb. yom., the Gk. r)fxipa, the Latin dies, the
English day, etc., means the twenty-four hours or only the hours of daylight.
John is here using rjjxipa (day) in the sense of the civil Day.

JOHN IV. 40-42 111

prejudice between Samaritans and His co-nationals. The
custom would still be binding, as regards His disciples,
that they should pass on as quickly as possible out of
Samaritan territory, viz. on the morning of the morrow,
Monday, April 12. Further, as we shall see later. He seems
to have given an intimation to at any rate some of them
to make arrangements for finally leaving their several
occupations, so as to be able to join Him more continuously
when He arrives in Galilee after them. And again, they
would be told to spread the news in advance of Him that
He was coming almost at once.

(41) " And " during His stay at Sychar " many more
believed because of His word." In the Greek there is
no contrast between the effect of His word and that of the
woman's word : the A.V. wrongly inserts " own." John's
meaning is simply that during the stay His reasoning and
discoursing added greatly to the number of the believers
and supplemented the woman's work.

(42) " And to the woman they said (imp. l^Xsyov),
' No longer is it because of thy talk that we believe : for
we ourselves have heard and know that this One is indeed
The Saviour of the world.' " They are not ungenerously
disparaging her work, but they are saying that the im-
pression they all received from hearing Him was precisely
the same as was hers : all alike in His presence became
aware that their inmost thoughts and all their past were
bare to His vision : in that blaze of light which revealed
to each his own true self, each recognized how this Man
knew and responded to all his needs.

In calling Him " The Saviour of the world " (6 Swd^^o
Tov Koajuov) they not only confess Him to be The Saviour
of the race first promised in Eden (Gen. iii. 15), but they
see in Him The Saviour of the world of whom their own
patriarch Joseph was the type : for the title conferred on
Joseph at the time of the famine by Pharaoh (Gen. xli. 45)
of {Sapnaih Pa'aneah, or as the Coptic is better preserved
by the LXX). "i^ovdojucpavrix meant The Saviour oj the world
according to modern Egyptologists and Gesenius, thus
agreeing with Jerome who rendered it Salvator mundi.

112 JOHN IV. 42

No more is heard of these converts : for Acts viii. 5
deals not with Samaria the province, but with Samaria
the capital town (?? iroXig), which was some seven miles
distant to the west of Sychar. The readiness with Avhich
the district (verse 25) received the gospel may have been
due to this beginning at Sychar.

The name of the Samaritan woman of John's account
is given in the Greek hagiology as St. Photinia.

NOTE.

The notice (verse 40) " He stayed there two days," coupled with that in
verse 43, "after the two days He went out thence," makes it certain that
He did not prolong His stay in the city beyond the Monday evening, for
had He stayed on to Tuesday morning, Jolm must have said, " He stayed
there three days" and "after the three days He went out" — according to
the constant usage of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: e.g. Mark's "after three
days" ifXiTUL rpel'; rj/xepas), viii. 31 : ix. 31 : x. 34 = Matthew's " on the
third day" (ry TpiTyrjfjiipa.), xvi. 21: xvii. 23: xx. 19. Also see Matt,
xxvi. 2 and Mark xiv. 1, where "after two days " ^ to-morrow. And
again, John xi. 6, pp. 254, 258.

We may infer, perhaps, that leaving the city on Monday evening He
passed that night alone in prayer in the open, as He did at other crises in
the Faith of His disciples. The crisi« here would be due to yesterday'*?
betrayal by the Sanhedrin to Herod of His herald John the Baptist.

§ VII

JOHN IV. 43-54

The second return of Jesus to Galilee. The courtier'' s son healed.

(43) " And after the two days He went out thence."
■ Leaving the city on Monday evening, He presumabl}^ left
the district on Tuesday, Ajiril 13. Apart from
the request of the Samaritans, there was pro- „? ' oo^Tucs.
bably a secondary reason that determined
this " two days " stay at Sychar. At iv. 1-3 we have seen
reason to name Sunday evening, April 11, as the date of
the arrival at Jacob's well : at iii. 23, 24, we saw reason
to name Sunday, April 11, as the date of John's betrayal
to Herod at Aenon on the north-east border of Galilee and
Samaria.

Now, it seems that Herod had but recently returned
from Rome (the voyage mentioned by Josephus, Ant.
XVIII. V. 1) to his tetrarchy of Galilee and Perasa, and
yet more recently married Herodias in spite of John's
protest. It seems also that almost immediately after
this return from Rome to Tiberias, his capital, he was
forced to move to Machserus his southernmost fortress
ninety miles off on the frontier of Peraea and Arabia :
it had recently been transferred to him from Aretas (pro-
bably as a result of Herod's late interview at Rome with
the emperor), and here his presence was for some months
required as a check upon that powerful sheikh. Hither
he took with him his new wife, his court and army, and his
prisoner John. Herod's long residence here accounts for
his never having seen Jesus before the Passover of the
following year (Luke xxiii. 8).

We may conjecture that one object of our Lord's

113 I

114 JOHN IV. 43-45

waiting the two days at Sychar was to give time for Herod's
removal to Peraea before He Himself ventured to return
to Galilee.

The news of the Baptist's " betraj^al " or " delivery
over " to Herod would reach Sychar (eighteen miles from
Aenon) on the following day, viz. Monday, April 12.
On Tuesday, April 13 (Herod now being well on his way to
Machaerus), our Lord was free to return into Galilee.
Thus the data given by the Evangelist John tally exactly
with the account of Matthew (iv. 12) who says that " Jesus
on hearing that John had been betrayed " (or " delivered
over," TTapi^oOn), " withdrew into Galilee " ; and with
Mark (i. 14), " after John had been betrayed {TrapaSo9r]vaL)
Jesus came into Galilee " : and with Luke (iv. 14), " Jesus
returned in the power of The Spirit into Galilee." The
three Synoptists leave a complete blank between the
Temptation of our Lord and His return to Galilee — a
space of seven weeks from February 26 to April 13, which
John has filled in.

Leaving Sychar district early on Tuesday, April 13,

He would reach Jenin (Engannim of O.T.)
Aoril 13 V to '

J ' — the regular next stage — on that evenmg :

it is on the border of Samaria and Galilee

and about twenty miles from Sychar.

(44) Why, it might be asked, did He go into Galilee
instead of preaching in Judaea ? for Judaea was His
native country, and Jerusalem the national centre.
Because, says John, " Jesus Himself bore witness that
' A prophet in his own country has no honour ' : " i.e. in
His own life Jesus was a remarkable instance of the truth
of the proverb that, etc. " In his own country " applies
in this case to our Lord's natal Judaea, He having been
born at Bethlehem. The proverb is again quoted in Matt,
xiii. 57 — Luke iv. 24, where the application is to Nazareth
(in Galilee), His home of thirty years.

(45) " When therefore He was come to Galilee, the
Galileans welcomed Him, having seen all that He had done
in Jerusalem on the festival-day (see p. 71), for they too
went for the festival-day " : the term >'/ topT^i (the festival).

JOHN IV. 45 115

when used in connection with the Passover,* means
the one day (Jerome's dies festus), Nisan 15 (the hag,
topT}), festival-day of Num. xxviii. 16, 17). This (accord-
ing to the popular usage of reckoning days whether of Jew,
Greek, Roman, or ourselves) was reckoned from sunrise
to sunset (the twelve hours of daylight). According to
the Jewish ritual usage, stringently observed by all Jews
in the case of their weekly Sabbath, the Day (twenty-four
hours) began twelve hours earlier at sunset just as the
ecclesiastical Day does in the Latin and Greek Churches
still. According to the civil usage throughout the Roman
empire, the Day (twenty-four hours) began at midnight,
six hours later than the ecclesiastical Day and six hours
earlier than the daylight day, just as it docs throughout
Christendom to-day.

It may be added here that the interval between sunrise
and sunset was divided into twelve cairic " hours," so that
an hour of daylight was necessarily longer in summer than
in winter and only corresponded with our hour at the
equinoxes. The interval between sunset and sunrise was
divided into four equal " watches " of three cairic hours
each, an hour of night being shorter in summer.

In the present passage (verse 45) the term // iopTt)
(the festival-day) means the one day Nisan 15, whether we
reckon it by popular, or by civil, reckoning : nor had our
Lord, as it seems, stayed in Jerusalem beyond Nisan 15
(April 5), though the Galileans as a body might remain there
till after the morning of Nisan 16, April 6 (see at iii. 22).

The disciples wh o had left Sychar on Monday morning,
April 12 (see at verse 40) would have arrived that same
evening at Jenin : they had a day's start of Him, and would,
of course, have spread the news as they crossed into Galilee
that He was following on the next day : the chief of them,
Peter, Andrew, James, John, would reach home at Caper-
naum on Tuesday evening, April 13. Thus, when our
Lord crossed the Galilee frontier at Jenin, He would be met

* When, however, this term v eopxTj is used in connection with the Azyms
(Feast of Unleavened Bread), or with the Feast of Tabernacles, it is applied to
the whole eight or seven days over which each of these two festivals extended.

116 JOHN IV. 46

and welcomed by many Galileans who were waiting for
Him.

(46) " He came therefore again to Kana of Galilee,
where He made the water wine " : He is without His
disciples, and seems to have gone from Jenin straight to
Kana, where five weeks ago He had made the water wine.
He would thus arrive there on the evening of
jj?^' 24,}^®*^' ^^^^^^'^c^clay, April 14. The distance from
Jenin to Kana is twenty or twenty-six miles,
according as we take Kana to be the modern Kefr Kcnna
or Qanah (see p. 54).

At first glance Luke (iv. 16-30) appears to imply that
He went first straight to Nazareth. Further consideration,
however, will show that Lid<;e has not pretended here to
use chronological order, for it is clear from his verse 23
that our Lord must have done signs and Avonders in Caper-
naum before this visit to Nazareth : whereas from John
(iv. 54) it is also clear that the " sign " described by
him in verses 46-53 must have preceded any signs and
wonders done in Capernaum. A close examination
of Luke's gospel will show that the section from iv.
16-ix. 15 consists of documents whose arrangement has
been purposely based by him on an order other than
chronological.

Our Lord did not go at this time to Nazareth : for so
strong was the prejudice there against accepting the
carpenter as the Messiah that a month ago, immediately
after His first miracle at Kana, He had removed definitely
from Nazareth to Capernaum, which became henceforth
His headquarters (see at ii. 12).

In revisiting Kana the intention may have been to
revisit those two at whose marriage feast He had been a
guest five weeks ago — a household which were probably
all believers in Him.*

" And there was a certain nobleman whose son was ill

* Many of the early Fathers are of opinion that that marriage was never
consummated : that His presence transformed it, evoking a rarer conception
of sexual values : and that both bridegroom and bride, becoming His disciples,
followed the counsel of perfect chastity.

JOHN IV. 46-49 117

at Capernaum." This nobleman (/Saa/AfKoc, a man belong-
ing to Herod's court) had possibly been detained by his
son's illness at Capernaum and therefore had not accom-
panied Herod when the latter set out for Machaerus two
or three days ago. It has been conjectured that he was
the same as Chuza, Herod's " steward " or " deputy "
{eiriTpoTTog) of Luke viii. 3, the husband of Joanna. The
word iTt'iTpoTTOQ ranges from a viceroy to a farm bailiff.

(47) " This man having heard ' Jesus is come out of
Judaea into Galilee,' went-off to Him," on behalf of his
son. The news as to our Lord's arrival in Galilee would
easily reach him on Wednesday evening, April 14 : he
would learn through those disciples who had arrived homo
at Capernaum yesterday evening (Tuesday, April 13 : see
at verse 45), that Jesus was to be at Kana to-night (Wed-
nesday), and that He would be coming on to Capernaum
on Friday. On Thursday, however, when a turn for the
worse caused his boy's life to be despaired of, he could not
afford to wait till Friday, but hurried off at once to Kana
where he would arrive in the evening (April 15, Thursday).
He is already acquainted with Jesus and His claims.

" And he asked Him to come down and heal his son,
for he was at the point of death." It is improbable
that this man would have requested and April 15,
expected Jesus to come away twenty miles Thiirs.
off unless he knew that He was expected evening,
anyhow at Capernaum to-morrow.

(48) " Jesus, therefore " {i.e. as reading his heart)
" said to him, ' Unless ye see signs and wonders, ye will not
believe,' " i.e. believe Me to be what I claim to be. It
would seem as though this courtier had said to himself,
' If Jesus succeeds in healing my son, I will believe His
claims, for the boy is past all human help.' Hence our Lord's
reproof : and it was accepted aright as being deserved.

(49) " The nobleman saith unto Him, ' Sir, come
down before my child dies.' " The point lies in the word
" Sir " {KvpL^). Precisely as in verse 11, where the same
word marked an access of spiritual insight, so here : the
magnetism of our Lord's presence has stirred beginnings

118 JOHN IV. 49-53

that will grow into Faith. It would seem that the father
is no longer making conditions or mental reservations.

(50) ^ Jesus saith to him, ' Go thy way : thy son
liveth.' " The state of mind that our Lord desired in him
has been effected : the healing of the boy now will serve
to help on the father to a fuller faith : and where the
father leads, the son and the household will follow (verse
5Sh). " The man believed (aorist) the word that Jesus said
to him," viz. that his son is past the crisis and will live.

" And he went his way " (imperfect). There should

be a full-stop before this clause : for it is

jj? ' fi}^^'* ^^^^^ from what follows that the father's

return did not take place till the following day

(viz. Friday, April 16) : for —

(51) " Whilst he was on the journey down to Capernaum
his servants met him with the message that his boy is
living " : and

(52) To his inquiry as to the hour at which he began
to mend, they replied, " yesterday during the seventh
hour the fever left him."

(53) " Therefore the father recognized that it was at
that hour in which Jesus said to him, ' Thy son liveth.' "

The " seventh " hour is 7 p.m. according to John's
mode of reckoning hours, which has been explained at
i. 39 (p. 34) and iv. 6 (p. 98). This is the third passage
that proves John's method. The common reckoning,
used by the Synoptists, would make the " seventh "
hour to be 1 p.m. : but that will require us to believe that
the father stayed on at Kana all that afternoon ; and
we ask, why, when having been told to go his way, did he
not hasten back to that son whose life he had secured.
Whereas, if the hour was 7 p.m., he would naturally not
return till the morrow, as the crisis was past : but with
the early morning he would start for home, and the account
then reads straightforward and natural.

W^e further find from this x^^c (" yesterday ") that
John reckons Days as we do, and as the Romans did, viz.
from midnight to midnight. See also xx. 19. The words
" yesterday at the seventh hour," etc., should not be taken

JOHN IV. 53-54 119

as the actual words used by the servants, else we should
have to suppose that they too used John's ' Asiatic '
notation of hours. John has not quoted them word for
word — why should he ? but he has given the gist of their
words in terms that would be plain for his readers of Ephesus.
Also in verse 51 he has not quoted their very words, for the
true reading is " met him, saying that his son lives "
(\tyovT£(j oTi I) TToig avTov ^/J), not as A.V., " met him,
saying, ' thy son lives.' "

" And he himself believed and his house " : he would
bring up his boy and other children in his own Faith ;
and the rest of the household would, not uncommonly in
those days, follow the master's lead.

(54) " This again as a second sign did Jesus, having
come out of Judaea into Galilee." The " again " refers
back to the similar peculiarity that had accompanied the
first sign (ii. 11) He did : viz. that it was done on a return
from Judsea into Galilee (i. 43). John does not mean
that this was the second sign Jesus ever did, for he has
already at ii. 23 told us of signs done at Jerusalem in the
intervening time ; but he means that this was the second
sign He did having the same peculiarity of being done
on a return from Judcea to Galilee. This was therefore the
first sign He did in Galilee after this return.

With the close of this fourth chapter in John's gospel,
there follows an interval of five or six weeks from Friday,
April 16, to Tuesday, May 25, which is occupied by the
first Galilean mission between Passover and Pentecost of
A.D. 28. Details of this interval are given by the Synoptists
who begin their account of the Ministry with this return
of our Lord into Galilee immediately after the imprison-
ment of the Baptist, which is the point to which John
has brought us.

Our Lord went straight from Kana to Capernaum,
as we suppose, on Friday, April 16. On arrival there, it
is His intention to begin at once an active ^^

propaganda in Galilee, recognizing that the ^.^^^^ 2qV^^'
authorities in Jerusalem were intractable.
His work will have to be done not by means of them.

120 JOHN IV. 54

nor yet merely independently of them, but in the face of
their opposition. John, His faithful herald, has been
betrayed to Herod and thrown into ]:)rison. Heneeforth
He Himself will take open action.

His preaching is in identical terms with what the
Baptist's had been, " The Kingdom of God is at hand :
Repent : and Believe the good news," viz. that Messiah
is here and ready to set up the Kingdom of God upon earth,
if they are ready to receive Him on His own terms. And
in this adoption of the Baptist's language. He identifies
Himself with the work of His forerunner, and sets to it
the seal of His approval. The Baptist had pointed out
Jesus as the Messiah, and had said the Kingdom was at
hand : now that the Baptist is in prison Jesus comes with
the same message, that He Himself is the Messiah and that
the Kingdom is at hand.

As the Sanhedrin have failed Him, the next step will
be to train a body of men who shall take their place.

On this Friday, April 16, on His way to Capernaum,
occurs the call of Peter and others, e.g. Mark i. 16, Matt,
iv. 18, Luke v. 2 : it is their second call, the call to sur-
render henceforth their ordinary occupations. They had
received a first call to discipleship some six or seven
weeks ago (John i. 37-42), and they will receive yet a
third call (viz. to the Apostolate) a month hence (May 2,
Sunday).

To the interval between the close of chap. iv. of
John's gospel and the opening of chap. v. belong —

Matt. iv. 18-end of xiii.
Mark i. 16-vi. 13.
Luke iv. 15-ix. 6.

The Galilean ministry between
Passover of a.d. 28 and
Pentecost of same year.

The interval extends from Friday, April 16, of a.d. 28
to Tuesday, May 25, of the same year, and falls in what
would have been the 30th Jubilee year (October, a.d. 27 to
October, a.d. 28) had Jubilee years been still observed
after the return from Babylon.

Inlewal between John iv. 54 and v, 1

121

A.D. 28.
April 16, Fri.

17, Sat.

NOTE ON THE GALILEAN MINISTRY (APRIL AND MAY OF
A.D. 28) AS BLOCKED IN FROM THE SYNOPTISTS

The diary of thifi interval seems to be as
follows. Mark gives the chronological sequence
more nearly than does either of the other two
Synoptists : but none of the three attached
importance to the mere time-sequence of the
incidents related. It is an interesting study to
trace the reasons that have governed the order
in which those incidents are placed by the three
severally.

In the following brief outline I have dealt
with Mark's scheme as being the simplest. It
is easy to fill in on this framework the further
details given by Matthew down to the end of
his chap, xiii., and those given by Luke down
to his chap. ix. 6.

The definite call of Simon and Andrew,
James and John, to leave their former occupa-
tions.

In the Capernaum synagogue, lasting till
late afternoon. The fame of Jesus at once spread
to all the region adjacent to Galilee. On this
afternoon falls the incident ii. 23-28, rubbing
the ears of wheat : their hunger must have been
great to justify a breach of the Sabbath regula-
tions : it would be due to the long session in
the synagogue lasting far beyond the hour of the
mid-day meal. In the Jordan depression, in
which lie the lake of Tiberias and Capernaum,
wheat harvest begins toward end of April. For
the exact day of this incident see the footnote,*
viz. the Saturday which fell this year on April
17, Nisan 27.

* This incident of rubbing the cars of corn is fixed to this Saturday by
Luke's eV ffa^^aTui SevTepo-Kpoorw, a phrase which needs explanation and has
been satisfactorily explained by the authors of VArtde Verifier les dates {vol. li.
of 2nd series), and, so far as I know, by them alone. Of the seven Sabbaths
or Saturdays that necessarily fall in the fift}' days between Nisan 16 (the day
of the wave-sheaf. Lev. xxiii. 11, 15) and Sivan 6 (Pentecost, Lev. xxiii. 15, 10),
the first is called Sabbath of Pesah, the second is called First Pereq, the third is
Second Pereq, and so on, and the seventh is Sixth Pereq. The word Pereq
means chapter : and these six Sabbaths are so called because on each of them
is read one of the six chapters of the book of Aholh, which is in the Talmud.
This explains Luke's SevrepoTrpwrcv, " on Second-First Sabbath," viz. the
Sabbath that was the second Sabbath in the fifty days, and was also called
First Pereq, the Sabbath on which the first of the six homilies was delivered
whose gist now forms the book of Abolh.

Mark

16-20.

„ 21-28.

[11.23-28.]

122

Interval between John iv. 54 and v. 1

A.D. 28. Mark

April 17, Sat. i. 29-31.

1) >>

32-34.

„ 18, Sun. „ 35-38.

39.

Si) sun- ,.40-44.

45,

In Peter's house in afternoon : the cure of
his mother-in-law, who at once provides them
with food.

Cures done at door of the house immediately
sunset closed the Sabbath.

Next morning our Lord goes with His
disciples to the neighbouring towns : a circuit
begms of nearly a fortnight ; Chorazin (Kerazeh)
and Bethsaida (Khan Minieh) are among the
towns visited.

Summary of the whole Galilean ministry :
the summary is followed bj^ specified instances.

Cure of the leper at the very beginning of
the circuit of verse 38.

Results of that cure : they culminate after
a fortnight in the incident of ii. 1-12. This
accounts for chap. ii. being out of place chrono-
logically in regard to chap. iii. and the follo^\ing
block doAvn to v. 21«. For its beginning
(ii. 1-12) is intimately connected with the
cure of the leper just recorded in the last verses
of chap. i. Mark's intention is to follow up
the ethical consequences of that cure of the
leper. The leper had been told on April 18,
Sunday, to go and show himself to the priest.
This, of course, necessitated his going to Jeru-
salem : give him three days for his journey,
and a week in Jerusalem to fulfil the require-
ments of the Law (Lev. xiv. 10). There the
Scribes and Pharisees are greatly stirred by
the amazing cure \\'hich has just been verified
by the priest (April 27, Tuesday). They
hurry up to Capernaum to counteract our Lord's
influence in the province of Galilee, and are
already in Capernaum when Jesus re-enters the
city "after some days" (Mark ii. I), viz. a
fortnight since He cured the leper.

This return of His to Capernaum is the same
as the return mentioned again m v. 21a, on May 3,
Monday, early.

Mark ii. 1-12, May 3, Monday (the paralytic
cured and his sins forgiven). The presence of
these " Pharisees and doctors-of-the-Law "
" out of Galilee and Judaea and Jerusalem "
(Luke V. 17 describing this scene), is no doubt
due to the verification at Jerusalem of tlie

Intewal between John iv. 54 and v. 1

123

A.D. 28.

Mark.

May 1 , Sat.

iii. 1-6,

leper's cure : so that that verification has had
the effect Jesus intended (€ts fjiaprvpLov avrois,
Mark i. 44), viz. of bringing the doctors of the
Law up to Him in Galilee that they might re-
consider their position. This scene of Mark
ii. 1-12 as described by Luke where " Pharisees
and doctors-of-the-Law out of every township
. . . were seated," certainly suggests a formal
session of inquiry, before which Jesus has been
summoned.

The reason havmg thus been shown why the
section Mark ii. 1-12 holds the position it does,
the next incident (ii. 13-22) comes naturally :
for not only did it happen on the same day (as
appears from Matt. ix. 9, " passed-by from
there,'' viz. the house), but just as vv. 1-12
showed the hostility of the hierarchy because
He claimed power to forgive sins, so did this
next incident (vv. 13-22) show their hostility
because " He ate with publicans and sinners,"
and did not keep the fasts of the Pharisees,
viz. Mondays and Thursdays.

This leads Mark to recall a third and earlier
occasion for their hostility, viz. His authorizing
His disciples " to break the Sabbath " under
stress of great hunger (ii. 23 to end of chapter).
That day, as we learn from Luke vi. 1, was
Saturday, April 17 : see footnote, p. 121.

That, again, leads Mark to mention yet a
fourth occasion (iii. 1-6) for then- hostility,
viz. His " healing on the Sabbath." But with
this fourth incident of iii. 1-6 (healing the
withered hand) Mark resumes the chronological
order which he had abandoned at ii. 1, and he
does not again break it.

[The above block of uicidents (IMark i. 40 to
iii. 6), viz. 1, the leper's cure ; then, after an
interval, 2, the cure of the paralytic and forgive-
ness of his sins ; 3, the eating with publicans and
sinners ; 4, the charge against His disciples of
Sabbath breaking ; 5, the healing of the withered
hand ; 6, the consequent decision of Pharisees
and Herodians to kill Him,— occurs entire in
Luke also (v. 12 to vi. 11).]

Healmg of the withered hand in the syna-
gogue— of Capernaum' no doubt.

124

Iniewal between John iv. 54 and v. 1

A.D. 28.
May 1, Sat.

:> V)

May 2\_
lyariajSun.

»f >•

>» JJ

„ afternoon.

*i 9>

after )
sunset. /

Mark

iii. 7-12.

iii. 13«.

„ 13ft-19f/.

I9b.

„ 22-etiri.

iv. 1-34.

„ 35.
„ 36-entl.

May 3, Mon. v. 1-20.
„ 21a.

»9 3)

>) »

[II. 1-12.

He withdrew to the shore of the lake, fol-
lowed b}' the great multitude : healed them :
charged them not to make Him conspicuou.s
{(jiavepov): e.g. by caasing riots out of enthusiasm
for Him (Matt. xii. 9-23).

Went up the Mount of Beatitudes in the
evening after sunset, and passed the night in
prayer there (Luke vi. 12).

Next morning on the mount the appoint-
ment of the Twelve to the Apostolate. Same
day the Sermon on the Mount (Luke vi. 13 to
end : Matt, v-viii. 1).

He returns home (ci's ot/cov) to Capernaum :
healing the centurion's servant on His way
(Luke vii. 1-10 : Matt. viii. 5-13).

The crowd so throng Him that it was im-
possible to eat the mid-day meal, so that His
friends come to rescue Him, saying He is beside
Himself (for want of food).

His discourse to the Pharisees and Scribes
from Jerusalem, who accused Him of working
by Beelzebul (Matt. xii. 24 to end). They are
specially referring to the cure of the demoniac
yesterday (Matt. xii. 22, 23. Between vv. 23
and 24 of Matt. xii. come the Sermon on the
Mount of this morning). His mother and His
brethren come.

On this same day (Matt. xiii. 1) He went forth
to the shore of the lake and taught the crowd
from Peter's ship (the ship to which the " boat "
of yesterday, Mark iii. 9, belonged) in parables :
explaining the parables afterwards to His dis-
ciples in the evening in the house (Matt. xiii. 1-52).

He gives orders to cross the lake.

They cross the lake in a tempest, to Gerasa
on the east side (Matt. viii. 18-28).

At Gerasa : the demoniacs and the swine
(Matt. viii. 28 to end).

Recrosses the lake to Capernaum (Matt.
ix. 1) where a great crowd gathered to Him.
For they were all waiting for Him (Luke viii. 40).
This is the return to Capernaum of Mark ii. 1 :
its place chronologically is here, as appears from
Matt. ix. 1.

Cin-e of the paralytic and forgiveness of his
sins (Matt. ix. 2-8. See pp. 122, 123).

Interval between John iv. 54 and v. 1

125

A.D. 23.
May 3, Mon.

» )»

9> »

» S>

it %l

Mark

ii. 13.

14.

„ 15.

18-20.

„ 21-22.

He went forth (from the house) again, by
the lake side : the crowds : He taught them.

"And as He passed-by " (Matt. ix. 9 has
"as He passed-by from there," i.e. from the
cure of the paralytic). He bids Matthew {i.q.
Levi) to follow Him (Matt. ix. 9). This is not
Matthew's first call any more than was the call
of Peter and Andrew, James and John on the
lake, April 16, a first call for them (see p. 56).
It is probable that all the Twelve had been with
our Lord and had recognized themselves as His
disciples (among a number of others) ever since
He came to Galilee early in March, t\vo months
ago : for they were all probably present at the
opening miracle at Kana of Galilee on March 5,
see p. 56. All the Twelve had been appointed
to the Apostolate yesterday morning on the
Mount of Beatitudes. Matthew with the rest
of the Twelve had no doubt crossed with Him to
Gerasa last night.

We may suppose that this morning Matthe^\'
has been making his arrangements at the
custom house for a final withdi'awal. Neither
public nor private business could be abandoned
suddenly without notice and due formalities.

The feast in Matthew's house. This great
reception-feast (So^^ [/.cydXyj) made by Matthew
seems to have been a mid-day dinner. Not
improbably it was given to celebrate the appoint-
ment yesterday of the Twelve to the Apostolate.
It would have been arranged for overnight :
and the rumour about it \\'Ould account for all
the people having been expecting His return
this morning (Luke viii. 40).

The Pharisees and Scribes murmur at this
feasting with publicans and sinners (Matt. ix.
11-13).

Also the Pharisees and John Baptist's
disciples (John himself is in prison) murmur at
any feasting at all on this particular day
(Matt. ix. 14, 15), it being a Monday:
Mondays and Thursdays were fast days with
Pharisees.

His answer to them (Matt. ix. 16, 17). The
scene of this interview between the Pharlsecf;,
etc., and our Lord was the shore of the lake,

126

Interval between John iv. 54 arid v. 1

A.D. 23.
May 3, Mon.

jj J)

)> )»

May 8, Sat.

May 9-15.

May leioun
lyar 26/ sun-

May 16-20.

May 16, Sun.

about
Sivan U ' ""'^5'

Mark
jj. 21-22.]

V. 216.
„ 22-end.

vi. Ic.

„ Ib-ba.

bb.

„ 7-11.
„ 12-13.

* The section Matt. xii.
order with what precedes.

cf. Matt. ix. 18 with Mark v. 216 : so after the
feast in Matthew's house He went out to the
shore. It is Matthew (ix. 18) who shows that
the section Mark ii. 1-22 comes chronologically
immediately before Mark v. 21&.

And He was by the sea : i.e. Sea of Galilee =
Lake of Tiberias.

Jairus's daughter is raised to life (Matt,
ix. 18-26).

This is followed by the cure of two blind
men and a dumb demoniac (Matt. ix. 27-34).

He leaves Capernaum and comes to Nazareth.

At Nazareth with His disciples. (Matt. xiii.
54-end ; Luke iv. 16-30, a section which is chrono-
logically out of order as is evident from verse 23.)

A circuit of about a week. (Matt. ix. 35
to end of chapter. The " harvest plenteous,
laboiu:ers few," is a metaphor taken from the busy
wheat-harvest going on around, at mid-May.)

Here falls the incident of the ^vidow of Nain's
son raised to life (Luke vii. 11-17).

The commission of the Twelve, who went
out by twos (Matt. x. 1 to end of chapter).

The doings of the Twelve during the follow-
ing two or three weeks, until they meet om*
Lord again at Capernaum at beginning of June,
after His return from Jerusalem, at Mark vi. 30.

Meanwhile, "after ending His charge" to
the Twelve, " He removed to teach and preach
in their cities," i.e. without the Twelve (Matt.
xi. 1) : the cities being chieflj^ Chorazin, Beth-
saida, and Capernaum — a group at the north-
west part of the lake.

Here follow the incidents of Matt. xi. 2 to
end of chapter * and Luke vii. 19-35, viz. —

John Baptist from his prison at Machaerus
(some ninety-five miles to the south), sends two
of his disciples to Jesus.

Jesus's answer to them and John : His
praise of John Baptist (Matt. xi. 4-19).

He upbraids the cities Chorazin, Bethsaida,
and Capernaum, where most of His acts of power
had been done. This marks the close of His
Galilean ministry (Matt. xi. 20 to end of chapter).*

1 to end of xiii. is a block that is not in chronological

John V. 1-end occurs durim Mark vi. 12-13 127

24, Mon.

25, Tues.

25, Tues. i
evg. (

During

Mark

vi. 12-13.

A.D. 23. ,^

May 21, Fri. There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus

went up to Jerusalem " (John v. 1) : it is the

Feast of Pentecost (Tuesday, May 25). Leaving

Galilee, May 21, Friday, He might arrive at

Jerusalem, May 24, IMonday evening.

John Baptist is beheaded this evening at
Machajrus.

The Feast of Pentecost. Our Lord at
Jerusalem (John v. 1 to end of chapter). The
Twelve are not with Him — having been sent
forth on their mission on Sunday, May 16.

On this evening the supper (at Bethany,
see p. 441) given by Simon the Pharisee (Luke
vii. 36 to end of chapter). [Luke viii. 1-3 is the
jom-ney through Tyi-e and Sidon and Dccapolis
(June 6 to Sept.), when He had no headquarters :
it began after the return from this visit to
Jerusalem at Pentecost, and thus Ls naturally
mentioned here after the supper — the coiinec-
tion of thought being " Mary the Magdalene "
of viii. 2, who was the same as the " woman
who Avas in the citj% a sinner," ot vii. 37.*]

* The section Luke viii. 4 to end of chapter is another block not in chrono-
logical order with what precedes. It is interesting to trace the reasons why the
chronological sequence is departed from. Obviously, many reasons might
induce a writer to neglect it in his details.

§ VIII
JOHN V. 1-47

Pentecost at Jerusalem : the paralytic healed

(1) Omitting all details of the first, the Galilean, ministry,
which he thought had been sufficiently described in the
three earlier gospels, John proceeds to block in a second
gap which had been left by the Synoptists, viz. the visit
to Jerusalem at the time of the Feast of Pentecost of this
same year a.d. 28.

The Twelve are not with our Lord on this visit. They
had been sent out on their commission on May 16 (p. 126).
and will not rejoin Him till early June after His return
to Capernaum from Jerusalem (p. 146).

" After these things there was a feast of the Jews : and
Jesus went up to Jerusalem." IVhra -aura (" After these
things "), unlike fxtra tovto (" after this ") of ii. 12,
implies no dependence on, or ethical connection with,
what precedes, but expresses merely a temporal sequence.
He woidd leave the Galilean frontier on Friday, May 21,
and be at Jeiiisalem on May 24.

This " feast " was the Feast of Pentecost, as the early
Fathers held, e.g. Tertullian, Origen, Cyril, Chrysostom,
A.D. 28. Thcophylact : the chief exception being
May25)_ Irenaeus, who thought it was a Passover, but

Sivan6i ' ^g yr^^ induced to that opinion by his faulty
premiss that the Ministry lasted three years and a half,
so that in his contention with the Gnostics he was driven
to eke out the gospel details as he best could so as to cover
that length of time.

The calendar shows that Pentecost (Sivan 6) fell this
year on Tuesday, May 25.

" Feast of the Jews." From John's peculiar use of

128

JOHN V. 1-2 129

the term " the Jews " throughout his gospel, he impHcs
here (as we have also seen at ii. 13, and shall see again at
vii. 8) that our Lord did not keep this feast with the nation,
nor any of the feasts in this the year of His Ministry. His
rejeetion by the nation had voided their festivals of all
virtue and significance. But He will go up to Jerusalem
at their several seasons to meet the concourse of the people.

(2) " And there is at Jerusalem by the Sheep (Gate)
a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethzetha, having five
porticos." The " is " {tcm) clearly asserts that when
John Avrote (101 a.d.) the pool was still extant and had not
been destroyed at the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus in
A.D. 70. The " Sheep (Gate) " is no doubt the same as
the " Sheep Gate " mentioned by Nehemiah (iii, 1, 32 :
xii. 39), which stood at the north-east corner of the old
city walls, considerably to the north of the Temple.

As to the pool that stood by this Gate, it is in all pro-
bability to be identified with the twin pool * re-discovered
during excavations in a.d. 1888, thirty yards to the west
of the church of St Anne, on the hill which Josephus
{War, V. iv. 2) calls Bezetha. The pool was extant and
well known for some centuries after the war of a.d. 70 ;
but after the ruin caused by the Persians in a.d. 616, and
by the Saracens in 636 a.d., it was lost under piles of
rubbish : thereafter a tradition gradually greAv by which

* This, the true pool of Bethzetha, is some three or four hundred feet
north of the Birket Israel : it is a twin pool, for it consists of two communicating
pools side by side excavated out of the solid rock : they were found vaulted over
with wagon vaults of heavy masonry, the crown of the vaulting being flush with
the original surface of the ground, which was many yards below the present.
The five porticos were not porticos around and between two oblong open
pools, but round and between the two vaultings over the pools ; and access was
got to the water by steps down through the vaulting. In these five porticos
lay the sick folk, and on the site of one of them have been found the ruins of
the church that was built toward the close of the 4th century, to commemorate
this miracle. No church had yet been built here as late as 370 a.d., and the five
porticos had been in ruins from, probably, the date of the destruction by
Titus. Peter of Sebaste 371 a.d. is the earliest writer to mention the church.
The pool and church and market-place here were known as the irpofianKri (i.e.
belonging to the Sheep Gate) until the 7th century. The pool was known
in Eusebius's time (4th century) mdiffercntly as the wpojiaTiKv KoXu/x^-rtdpa
(Sheep pool) and the xlfxyat diSv^ioL (Twin ponds).

130 JOHN V. 3-4

the name was transferred to the great Birket Israel, whicli
was in reaUty the enormous fosse which alongside the
Castle of xlntonia defended the north of the Temple area.

(3) " In these (porticos) were lying a multitude of the
infirm, blind, halt, withered ; waiting for the moving of
the water." For the last clause of this verse see under
verse 4

(4) " For an angel of the Lord at a certain season used
to go down in the pool and trouble the water : he therefore
who was first to go in after the trouliling of the water
used to be made whole of whatsoever disease he had "
(lit. " no matter what disease he was held by ").

From MSS. evidence, this verse and the last clause of
verse 3 seem not to be by John, but to be a very early
insertion (at least as early as Tertullian, 2nd century)
from oral tradition, to explain the position which verse 7
had left obscure. " An angel of the Lord " : Ambrose,
Augustine, Chrysostom, etc., agree that the angel was one
of the invisible host, and not a human official ; and, as
Ambrose says, " the water was visibly moved in order to
show that the angel had descended," and that the water
was now endowed with healing property : for the angel
came and went unseen.

" At a certain season " : i.e. as Tertullian and Cyril
say, ' once a year, viz. at Pentecost.' The crowd of infirm
folk were not lying here all the year, but they came or were
carried here just before the day of Pentecost (Sivan 6)
each year : for how many years past the pool had had this
particular property on this one day of the year does not
appear, but evidently for a considerable number, as the
phenomenon was well established.

This angel who quickened the water so that it healed
was a type of the Holy Spirit who qiuckens the water of
Christian Baptism so that it washes of all sin, as many of
the Fathers comment. Chrysostom here observes, ' When
God wished to instruct us in the belief of Baptism now
nigh at hand, He drove out by means of water not merely
pollutions (external, such as water might naturally reach),
but diseases (internal, for which water could not naturally

JOHN V. 4-9 131

avail).' And He healed the man beside the pool, but
without his touehing the pool, to show that He could heal
without the water — typical, avc might say, of Baptism
of intention.

" Of whatsoever disease he had " : a clear indication
that the healing power of the water was not natural but
miraculous, i.e. supranormal : though it was a power
effective against every disease, it was bestowed only at
a certain season and available only to the first comer ;
and in these limitations it contrasted with the boundless
powers inhering in the water of Baptism.

(5) " And there was a certain man there who had been
thirty-eight years in his infirmity."

(6) Jesus seeing this man lying thus and knowing of his
long infirmity says to him, " Wilt thou be made whole ? " —
not as though there were doubt about it, else why was he
here ? but as rousing him from apathy or despair to hope :
He wishes the man's will to co-operate with Him. It is
at this moment, so it seems, that the water was troubled,
and the man, pointing to the turmoil, the shouting, the
pushing of the crowd to secure the first dip, explains to
the Stranger his (7) difficulty, how that he has no man to
help him into the pool before another forestalls him in
going down the steps. The man is touched by the sympathy
and dignity of this Stranger who, at a moment when every
one else is absorbed in watching the efforts to reach the
pool, turns with keen and kind interest to his distress.

(8) It is during this confusion all around them that
Jesus says to him, " Rise, take up thy bed * and walk."
The command, though threefold, is one and indivisible :
the man was not to stop at the " Rise " and think himself
cured : the terms on which he was cured were that he should
go on to taking up his bed on his shoulder and then walking
with it.

(9) " And immediately the man became whole and
took up his bed and began to walk " (irepuTraTei, imp.).

* Kpa^aTTov. this " bod " is a light wooden frame on four short legs, the
corded sacking supports a thin mattress clear of the ground. They are still
seen in Egypt.

132 JOHN V. 9-10

" And there was a Sabbath on that day." This last
clause does not mean that the day was a Saturday :
the peculiar phraseology, h' Se aa/S/Sarov Iv k-t/vy t?j iifupa,
shows the meaning to be that " on that day (it being
a Feast day, viz. Day of Pentecost) there was a solemn-
rest {(Ta(5l5aTov).'" Similarly by (ra^ijiaTov the Greek trans-
lators of the O.T. render the Hebrew word Sabbaton
(" solemn-rest ") in Exod. xvi. 23, and again the Hebrew
word Sabbat in Lev. xxiii. 326, where it is used of the Day
of Atonement as being a day of " solemn-rest " : and in
Lev. XXV. 2, where it is used of the Sabbatical year as
being a year of " solemn-rest " : and in Lev. xxiii. 15a,
Avhere, according to Rabbinical use and exegesis, the word
means, not the Saturday, but the festival-day of the
Passover. The Day of Pentecost was another of these
days of rest from servile work (Lev. xxiii. 21). Thus the
" solemn-rest " or Sabbath was not confined to Saturdays,
it extended to the great festivals of the year, which fell in
different years on different week-days : exactly in the same
way as our " day of obligation " is not confined to Sundays.

The calendar shows that Sivan 6 (Feast of
Mav 251

Sivan eF"®^" Pentecost), the day with which we are deal-
ing, fell this year a.d. 28 on Tuesday, May 25.
(10) The man had walked but a few steps carrying his
bed, before " the Jews," i.e. the Sanhedrists, the party
of the hierarchy, caught sight of him and stopped him,
saying, " It is a Sabbath " {i.e. a day of solemn-rest),
" it is not lawful for thee to take up (and carry) thy bed."
They were perfectly right, from their point of view, in
stopping the man from violating the Sabbath (see Jer.
xvii. 21) : no doubt they forcibly stopped him there and
then : no doubt, too, our Lord knew he would be stopped,
and for that reason had not told him to go home or to
carry his bed to his house, as He had told the paralytic in
Mark ii. 11, where the day was not a Sabbath. It seems
that the man had gone but a few steps before he was
stopped : for when, after being stopped, he tried to point
out our Lord, he is still in the same place thronged by the
crowd at the pool, though our Lord had edged away.

JOHN V. 11-] 5 133

(11) The man justified his action, saying, " He who
made me whole, it was He who said to me, ' Take up thy
bed and walk.' " It is as though the man said, ' I am aware
it is a day of rest, and that carrying any burden to-day is
technically unlawful, but look at me, you all know me,
the helpless cripple of thirty-eight years : not five minutes
are gone since I was suddenly cured, not by being dipped
in the pool, but by a man who simply told me to rise, take
up my bed and walk : those I understand to be the con-
ditions of my cure : if men may carry me into the pool to
be cured and not break the law of " rest " in doing so,
cannot I carry my bed to secure my cure and not break the
law of " rest " in doing so ? '

(12) " They asked him, ' Who is the man that said to
thee, " Take up (thy bed) and walk " ? ' " The Greek
idiom is not so much asking for the name as wanting the
person identified by being pointed out.

(13) But he that was healed neither knew His name,
nor was able to point Him out : " for Jesus had with-
drawn : a crowd being in the place," viz. in the porticos
over the pool. The reason of the crowd being here was
to see the cure which they knew was due to be done in the
pool to-day : their attention was evidently occupied in
watching the water and the cure that was being effected
in it : hence no one had been aware of our Lord's healing
of the paralytic done behind their backs, nor yet noticed
His withdrawal from the place.

(14) " After these things," and probably on this same
day, " Jesus finds him in the Temple {hpcTi), and said to
him, ' Behold, thou art become whole : sin ^^^^
no more, lest a worse thing come to thee.' "

The words recognize that in some cases, without prejudice
to any particular case (ix. 3), physical infirmities are the
natural consequences of sin.

(15) " The man went away and told the Jews, ' It is
Jesus ' who made him whole." A needless difficulty has
been made as to the man's motive in telling the Jews who
it was that healed him. Our Lord, probably on the day
of the cure, went to the Temple, where, of course, He knew

134 JOHN V. ir>-16

the man was, to find him : and there had further talk
with him (of which we have only a fragment given in
verse 14), for it was His habit to heal the whole man and
not only the body : and as the result, the man thence-
forth was won. In his zeal for the new-found Messiah
he goes to " the Jews," i.e. the Sanhedrists, and tells them
that ' the Man who worked that cure on me was no other
than Jesus, the Man of whom we have all heard both here
and throughout Galilee as the healer and Messiah, the Man
to whom John the Baptist witnessed when you yourselves
sent your deputation to ask him, the Man you have all
obstinately set yourselves against : look to it : I at any
rate take my stand with Him : make what you like of it.'
The man's position is closely similar to that of the blind
man of ix. 30-33 in his impatience of what seemed to be
the culpable blindness of the hierarchy.

(16) " And for this cause were the Jews persecuting
Jesus,, viz. that He was doing these things on a Sabbath "
or day of solemn-rest. " Doing these things," i.e. violating
the Sabbath by causing a man to carry a burden on a
Sabl^ath. The imperfects " were persecuting," " was
doing," show that this was not the beginning : but that
our Lord, when in presence of the Sanhedrists, had already
violated the law of the Sabbath as given for man, and had
justified His action on the ground that He, as being the
God-Man and Author of the Sabbath, was not tied by the
Sabbath as were they, for the Sabbath had been appointed
for those who were only men.

He had already in Galilee frequently healed on the
weekly Sabbath (Saturdays), and the defence of His
action that He made on these occasions seems to have
permanently silenced His objectors, for thereafter He was
not again accused of breaking the Sabbath by merely
healing on a Sabbath. As Augustine observes : " On this
occasion " (at the pool of Bethzetha) " the Jews did not
blame the Lord for healing on the Sabbath, lest He should
answer them " (as He had already done in Capernaum)
" that if any of them had a beast fallen into a well he would
pull it out on a Sabbath day : but they objected to His

JOHN V, lG-17 135

telling the man to carry his bed " on a Sab]>ath. This
carrying of his bed, as Chrysostom here observes, ' was a
manifest violation of the Sabbath,* and was in no way
necessary to the miracle : but this order given to the para-
lytic Christ justified to the objecting Jews by insisting on
His own Godhead (verse 17), and on His right to deal with
His own laws.'

A previous rather similar instance occurs in Mark ii. 28
(—Matt. xii. 8 : Luke vi. 5) at the very beginning of His
Galilean ministry, where He argues that the Sabl^ath was
made for the sake of man and not man for the sake of the
Sabbath ; and He gives a case where man's necessity
overrode the ritual law (Mark), and another case where
even the ritual law overrode the Sabbath law (Matt, verse 5)
— much more shall He The Son of Man, the Messiah, the
God-Man, be Lord of the Sabbath, for He was Author of
the Sabbath, Maker of the ritual law, and Creator of man for
whose sake all divine laws were made.

(17) " My Father works until now : I too work."
' The cure was My Father's and Mine.' Here is the justifi-
cation our Lord gave of His order to the paralytic to take
up and carry his bed. The object in so ordering the
paralytic had been to attract the attention of " the Jews,"
to have a handle as it were to His discourse (of which only
the pith is given) in verse 17, to the effect that just as The
Father continues to work on the Sabbath by maintaining
the course of Nature and interfering as it were constantlv
in His own laws in order to counteract the otherwise
disastrous effects of man's errors, or as here at the pool by
requiring that under given conditions burdens (viz. sick
men) shall be carried on a Sabbath, so did He The Son.
The Jews had seen clearly the issues : ' yes, God may
modify His own laws for man's emergencies, but no man
has authority to modify them : who is the man (avOpMirog)
that dared to bid thee take up thy bed ? (verse 12).' And
our Lord answers them here in verse 17. ' If I Avere
indeed but man you would be in the right to withstand

* See Jer. xvii. 21. "Thus saith the Lord, 'Take heed to yourselves and
bear no burden on the Sabbath day ... as I commanded your fathers.' "

136 JOHN V. 17-19

me, but I am also God, God The Son, and as such I have the
same authority to act as has God The Father, for the
One cannot act without the Other.' The discourse is
given exceedingly concisely by John, as usual, — just the
pith of it. But he shows (verse 18) that " the Jews "
(the Sanhcdrin and the high priests) understood our
Lord quite correctly, as meaning that His Father was God,
and that He too was God and co-equal : His relation as
Son to The Father was peculiar and was not shared by any
other man.

(18) And understanding Him so, " the Jews sought the
more to kill Him for this cause, viz. that He not only was
loosing the Sabbath," i.e. violating the Sabbath regula-
tions as in commanding the paralytic to carrj^ his bed,
" but also was saying that God was His own (ISiov) Father,
making Himself equal with God." The Jews were in no
sort of doubt as to His meaning, viz. that He claimed abso-
lute equality with God, nor has the Christian Church any
doubt about it. The Jews, not imderstanding how it
was possible, refused to believe Him : the Christian Church,
believing Him, moves on to understanding.

(19) " Therefore," i.e. because they understood not,
" Jesus answered and said to them, Verily, verily, I say

to you, The Son " — whether as God or as
' * Man — " cannot do anything of Himself unless
He see The Father doing it : for whatever things He
(The Father) does, these The Son also," whether as God or
as Man, " likewise does." He is teaching the mysteries
of the Holy Trinity, explaining the relation of The Father
and The Son in the Godhead : how The Son cannot act
without The Father originating action, and how The Father
cannot act without The Son's executive. Hence The Son,
the God-Man, is omnipotent as The Father. He is explain-
ing also, by inference, the mystery of the Incarnation—
that God The Son in becoming Man ceased not to be God,
and that the Personality of Jesus is the Personality of God
The Son. He is talking to Jewish theologians, to members
of the Sanhcdrin, to doctors of the Law who might follow
His meaning : He is initiating them into the deepest

JOHN V. 20-21 137

mysteries of the Christian Faith : Ho therefore uses
language very different from what He used when talking
in Galilee to disciples in their novitiate or to the multitudes
for whom such teaching would not have been suitable.

(20) " For The Father loves The Son and shows Him
all things that He Himself does " : hence the God-Man
is omniscient as The Father.*

" And greater works than these," viz. such miracles
as they had already seen worked by Him whether in
Galilee or here at the pool " will He (The Father) show
Him," and, by implication, will The Son, the God-Man,
do, " so that ye may wonder." The Hellenistic 'Ivu with
subjunctive " so that," expresses result quite as often as
purpose : it is the Hebrew h with infinitive. Every
Greek and Hebrew student is aware of the influence the
Aramaic language had upon the classic Greek between
the age of Alexander's conquest of the east and the second
century of our era. Mixed colonies of Greek and Jew
spread from Persia to the western Mediterranean ; almost
monopolizing, with the Syrians, the trade of the inland Sea.

The effect upon the Jews of the " greater works " yet
to be done by our Lord would be wonder : He hardly
promises that the wonder will pass into Faith. The
" greater works " here named will be the raising of Lazarus
from corruption to life again on this physical plane — the
great miracle of nine months hence, spcjially meant for
the Jews : also His own Resurrection to life on the physico-
spiritual plane — the crowning miracle of all : also the
raising to life on the same physico-spiritual plane of "many
bodies of the saints who had slept " (Matt, xxvii. 52).

(21) ' You Pharisees admit that The Father raises
from the dead and quickens. My message to you from
The Father is that it is The Son's act every whit as much
as The Father's.' The resurrection of the dead was

* Mark xiii. 32 is explained by the theologians thus :— Nescience of the day
and hour of the judgment is predicated of The Son not absolutely but kut'
olKovop.iav, i.e.. though absokitely and in Himself He knows it (for He knows
all that The Father knows) ; yet olHcially, and qml our Teacher and Revealer
of God's purposes to us, He knows it not ; for to reveal it to us would not be
expedient for us.

138 JOHN V. 22-27

already a tenet among the Pharisees, though the Saddiicees
denied it.

(22) Let them not wonder at this : for The Son has a
yet more awful prerogative, viz. that of the final judgment.
" It is not The Father who will pass judgment on any one,
but He has given all the judgment to The Son," to the God-
Man who as being Man will judge all men :

(23) " So that all should honour The Son even as they
honour The Father, Whoso honours not The Son honours
not The Father who sent Him." The Incarnation is
every whit as much The Father's act as it is The Son's :
The Father " sent," The Son " came."

(24) " Verily, verily " (words always preparatory to
a mystery lying beneath the surface-meaning), " I say to
yoii, he who hears My word and believes Him who sent
Me," as having sent Me and as speaking through Me,
i.e. believes implicitly all that I am teaching about the God-
head of The Son and all that is involved in the Incarnation
of The Son, " has Life eternal," for by his faith into the
Man-God he partakes of His life, " and he does not come
into judgment," for he is already reconciled to The Father,
" but he has passed-over out of Death into Life."

(25) " Verily, verily, I say to you an Hour is coming,
and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of The Son
of God, and they that hear shall live." The reference is
not to all the dead (see verse 28), but only to those who
belong to the " first resurrection " (Rev. xx. 4, 5b), which
immediately precedes the Millennium. [An " Hour "
{u)pa) on the great dial of the equinoctial precession is a
space of some 2000 years more or less, varying with the
constellations — in this case Pisces.]

(26) " For as The Father has I^ifc in Himself, so also
to The Son He gave to have Life in Himself " which He
imparts to those who arc united to Him.

(27) " Also He gave Him authority t<> execute judgment,
because He is Man's Son," * and. He being Man, all men

* This is the only instance in the gospels where the term " Man's Son "
{vlhs avdpdnrov, without the article) is applied to our Lord. In every other
instance, and there are some eighty, ih.c title is " Tlie Son of Man " (b vlhs
Tov avdpwnov) : see at i. 51 (p. Hi).

JOHN V. 27-30 130

have guarantee that fullest sympathy and understnnding
will accompany His judgment in each individual case,
whilst His being God is guarantee against error. The
Greek vIoq avdpwirov, " Man's Son," lays stress on His true
Human nature rather than on His Personality : the
Syriac (which renders by breh d'n6sh6\ as though the Greek
had the article 6 vlog -ov avOp., "The Son of Man")
is really a gloss laying stress on His Personality by using
one of His titles.

(28) "Wonder not at this," viz. what He says of
executing judgment, for there is to be a judgment of all
soon or late, " for an Hour is coming in which all that are
in the graves shall hear His voice :

(29) " And they shall come-forth (of the graves) :
they that wrought good, unto a resurrection of Life ;
they that acted evil, unto a resurrection of judgment."
The " Hour " of the general resurrection (verse 28) is not
the same as the Hour of the first resurrection, of verse 25 :
for, whereas the first resurrection precedes the Millennium
(Rev. XX. 4, 5b), the second or general resurrection follows
after the Millennium (Rev. xx. 5a, 12-15) — we may suppose
during the Hour of Aquarius which follows on that of
Pisces.'^

(30) As for the justice of His judgment, " I am not
able, I (tyw), to do anything of Myself : even as I hear,
I judge." So intimate and indissoluble is His union with
The Father that He cannot act apart from The Father :
as nothing is hidden from God The Father, so is nothing
unknown to God The Son. ' Here is the guarantee against

* Those who hold with Origen that all will in the long, long run be saved,
so that the works of the devil shall be destroyed (1 John iii. 8) will hold that
for those who are still found reprobate at the second or general resurrection,
there waits a further term or terms of probation in " The Lake of The Fire "
(Rev. XX. 14). Phrases such as els rhv aluva, " for the Age," or " for ever,"
and eh rohs alui/as rSiv altiivwv, " for the Ages of the Ages," or " for ever and
ever," are essentially dissimilar from the phrase of the Creed " without end,"
which is predicated of His Kingdom. The idea of infinity does not inhere in
the words " everlasting " or " eternal " which derive from cevum, alwv (Age).
It is urged that eternal Life is unending becaiLse it is God's Life : but that
eternal punishment must end when its aim (reform) is attained, and God's aims
do not fail. To infinite Love would not the final loss of one soul be failure.

140 JOHN V. 30-33

error, that I the Judge nm not only Man, but also The Son
who " hears " and voices The Father.'

" Also My judgment is just " — beyond all possibility
of error — from yet another aspect, viz. " because I seek
not My own will but the will of Him who sent Me." ' My
human will is in perfect harmony with My Divine Will,
and the will of the Sent with that of the " Sender." '

(31) " If I (tyw) bear witness about Myself, My witness
is not true," i.e. ' If I stand alone (such is the force of the
ijio) in bearing witness about Myself, etc' Our Lord not
so much disavows all self-interest, self-seeking qua His
Manhood : as asserts that another Personality, viz. God
the Father, affirms all that He Himself asserts. He is not
arguing with the doctors : He is teaching them truths
about His own human nature and about the relationship
of The Father and The Son in the Godhead (see under
viii. 17).

(32) "There is Another [aXXog) Who bears witness
about Me." This Other is certainly not John the Baptist,
but seems to be God the Holy Spirit : and aWog (one of
three or more) is used in preference to 'irEpog (one of only
two), as implying that besides The Father " Who sent Me,"
there is yet a Third in the Godhead, viz. the Holy Spirit,
Who witnesses to Him in men's hearts.

" And I know that the witness which He witnesses about
Me is tnie," i.e. ' I as perfect sinless Man know how the
Holy Spirit witnesses in men's hearts in proportion as they
are knit to God.' (This truth is further expressed in
verses 37 and following.)

(33) Though the witness of the Holy Spirit in men's
hearts is witness enough where hearts are clean. He had
provided for their weakness an outside witness even John,
whose birth had been supernaturally foretold to them by
an angel in the Temple : John, whom as boy and man, they
had ever regarded, and rightly regarded, as Messiah's
forerunner. " You have sent unto John." and rightly,
to ask who was the Messiah, " and John has borne witness
to the truth." ' But did you accept his witness ? the
witness of him whom you had for thirty years known to

JOHN V. 33-35 141

be Messiah's forerunner. And why did you not ? ' The
allusion is to the Sanhedrin's embassy to the Baptist
(i. 19 : in Feb.), and again to their later and final attempt
(iii. 25, 26 : in April), to suborn him.

(34) '• But I {iy(o) accept not My testimony from man.
But these things I say in order that you may be saved,"
i.e. ' Though you refused this eixiergency-witness, viz.
John, whom in view of the dulness of your spiritual percep-
tion I had provided for you, his is not the essential testimony
to which I appeal : I remind you of John's witness to Me
only because you once looked upon him and rightly looked
upon him as the Prophet specially appointed to guide you
to Messiah.'

Lest John's disciples should say that John had ap-
pointed the Messiah and had given authority and status
to Jesus as Messiah, John's last act had been to send two
of his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He was the Messiah —
not as though John were in doubt, but as showing his
disciples that his own warrant lay ultimately in Jesus
God-and-Man : and that apart from Jesus there was no
witness on earth worth anything (Matt. xi. 2 : Luke vii. 19).

(35) " He (Uelvo^) was * the lamp that burns and
shines," i.e. The failure of John's work was no fault of
John's : so far as he was concerned (such is the force of
the emphatic Ikeivoq) he did all that could have been
done : he gave no uncertain flicker but a steady flare,
lighting the way toward Me as Messiah.

" And so far as you Avere concerned {v/j-ng), you were

* The " was " {^v) seems to imply that John was at this time dead — a fact
known to our Lord. It was not yet generally known at Jerusalem, for
Machaerus, where John was beheaded, was forty miles distant. We may
hypothetically place John's death to the late evenmg of yesterday, Monday,
May 24.

The notice Matt. xiv. 13 (Thursday, June 3) does not imply that our Lord
did not know of the fact before June 3, though John's disciples thought that
was the first He knew of it, just as it was the first the public knew of it. His
withdrawal by ship into Philip's tetrarchy was in order to remove His own
disciples from the excitement caused by the news : the moment was critical :
the populace wanted to force His hand and make Him king : His enemies
and Herod Antipas had, perhaps, resolved to arrest Him that night (p. 159).
"The Jews," as we have seen at John v. 18, were already resolved on His death.

112 JOHN V. 36-37

willing- to exult for an hour in his light," i.e. ' You had
eagerly awaited John's pronouncement as to Messiah's
identity and Personality — for a time : but the instant
John pointed to Me as the Messiah, you turned your back
upon him as well as upon Me.'

(36) "However, as for Me (tyw c>l) I have as My
testimony a greater testimony than John's : for the works
Avhich The Father has given Me to accomplish — the very
works which I do — it is these that witness concerning Me
that The Father sent Me," i.e. The essential testimony
to His incarnation as Messiah is not human testimony, not
even that of John the forerunner, but the testimony given
by His works : they are the very works foretold of Messiah
by the Holy Spirit. The " works " to which He refers
embrace His whole life and conduct, His magnetism that
draws this and repels that, showing what He values and
what He contemns, in short all that declares His thought
and Personality, including those supernormal works done
since the public ministry began. It was J}ut last week
that up in Galilee He had, quoting Isaiah, appealed to
these last-named works when seeking to convince John's
disciples (Matt. xi. 5). But without the Spirit of God in
the hearts of men to interpret those works aright, they
will miss their effect, for the testimony to Jesus is the
Spirit of God : and for this reason His mighty-works
{^vvafiHg) were not done where there was no incipient
faith (Mark vi. 5) : they were not done as thaumaturgy, to
excite an unreasoning wonder.

(37) " Also The Father who sent Me He has borne
witness concerning Me," i.e. Not only do His works witness
to Him inasmuch as they correspond with the works fore-
told of Messiah, but The Father also He has borne witness
to Him, esoterically in the hearts of all who are drawn to
Him or shall be drawn to Him, and exoterically at His
Baptism (Matt. iii. 17 : Mark : Luke). But " you have
never yet heard His voice," whether within or without,
" any more than you have ever seen His shape." This
latter indeed was not possible. But why was His voice
not apprehensible by their ear ? Because —

JOHN V. 38-45 143

(38) '' You have not His word abiding in you : for Him
whom He sent you beheve not," i.e. If His word were
abiding within them and not only carried in their phy-
lacteries, they would have been sensitized to receive the
impress of God Incarnate : whereas, as it is, they cannot
recognize Him, so alien are they to Him.

(39) " You search the scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal Life " : and you are right,
" those very scriptures are what witness concerning Me."
And yet sec how alien are you to their Spirit (such is the
force of the contrast, vjxuq . . . kavfu) ; for Avhcn I, of
whom they witness, come, (40) " you are not willing to
come unto Me in order to have Life " — that etcrnnl Life
which they declare to be in Me alone.

(41) " It is not glory from men that I accept," i.e. I
make no call on that vain show which you so desire in
your Messiah — the desire which makes your search of the
scriptures vain.

(42) I appeal to " the love of God " in men's hearts ;
had you the love of God in your hearts, you woidd have
accepted Me : Love of God would respond to God.

(43) " / am come in My Father's name," as the repre-
sentative and manifestation of Mv Father, for The Son
is the manifestation of The Father : " and you do not
accept Me, because you have not the love of The Father
in you : but if another * come in his own name," i.e. seeking
his own glory, " him you will accept," because his spirit
of self-seeking will be akin to your own.

(44) " How can you believe ? you who accept glory
from one another, and seek not the glory which comes from
the Only One, God." The spirit of self-seeking, of wanting
recognition and gloiy from men, is deadly to Faith.

(45) " But " do not think that / will accuse you before
The Father " for not recognizing Me : " there is one that
accuses you, viz. Moses, in whom you have set your hopes."

* This other wlio was to come in his own name and be accepted by the
Jews as their Messiah is that false Messiah JBar Cochab, whose rebellion (a.d.
131-135) under Hadrian led to the ruin of the nation and their exile from
Jerusalem.

144 JOHN V. 46-END

(46) " For had you believed Moses, you would have
believed Me : for of Me he wrote " : — he (t/cai^oc, emphatic),
though you who read him are not aware.

(47) " But as you believe not his writings " because
your spirit is opposed to his who sought not his own glor}-,
but the glory of God, " how shall you believe My sayings ? "
for his spirit and his writings were informed by My spirit.

Note to Verse 5

This man, cured after thirty-eight years of sickness, has always been
held to be a type of the Jews : the thii'ty-eight years have been regarded
as pointing to the 38| years' wandering in the desert between tlie pro-
nouncement of the doom in Num. xiv. 23 on the 10th day of Ab according
to their tradition, in 1490 B.C., and the entry into Canaan on the 14th day
of Nisan in 1451 B.C. : also the " five porticos " in which the sick lay
have been compared with the five books of the Mosaic La-w.

But we seem to require that the cure of this man after his thirty-eight
years of sickness {i.e. in his thirty-ninth year of sickness) should be a
prophetic tyjie of a yet futm-e healing of the Jews, for they certainly have
not yet been healed. What then will the thirty-eight years signify in such
a prophetic type 'i It has been suggested that each of these thirty-eight
years represents a Jubilee-year : reckoning from the 30th Jubilee which
was beyond question the year from Oct. a.d. 27 to Oct. a.d. 28 (the year
in which the events of chapter v. took place), thirty-eight more Jubilee years
Avould run out in Oct. 1889-1890 a.d., and the 39th will not be finished
till 1939 A.D., which will be the 69th since the cycle began in Oct. 1444 B.C.
Elsewhere also the seventy " weeks " or hebdomads of Dan. ix. 24, have
been viewed as seventy hebdomads of Sabbatical years (^=70 Jubilee-year
periods), and the 70th " week " or hebdomad would begin with 1939 a.d.,
and would run out with the 70th Jubilee year, ^\•hich begins in Oct. 1987

A.D.

Intewal between John v. end and vi. 1

145

A.D. 28.
May 25 ) ^
Sivan6) '"«*•

May 26, Wed.

28, Fri.

The interval between chapters v. and vi. of John's gospel may be
filled in thus : —

On this evening (Feast of Pentecost), im-
mediately after the events of chapter v., occurs
the supper in the house of Simon the Pharisee
(Luke vii. 36-end. See p. 127 and pp. 441, 442).

The interval between chapters v. and vi.
of John's gospel is very short : see at vi. 4.

Leaving Jerusalem on Wednesday, May 26,
immediately after the Feast of Pentecost, our
Lord might be back in Galilee by May 28,
Friday evening.

The disciples of John the Baptist having
taken away his dead body from Machserus
and buried it (tradition says at the to^n of
Samaria, where it would be secure from both
Herod and the Sanhedrin), came and told
Jesus : about June 3.

The Apostles re-assemble at Capernaum,
joining Jesus there, and report to Him on what
they had done and taught since He had sent
them forth about a fortnight or three weeks
ago : see at p. 126.

Matt.xiv.l2.,

about \
June3,Thurs. f

June3, Thurs. Mk. vi. 30.

§ IX

JOHN VI. 1-21

(Cf. Matt. xiv. 13-34 : Mark vi. 31-53 : Luke ix. 106-17)

The third return of Jesus to Galilee. The feeding of 5000 men

This chapter seems to follow on chapter v. at an interval
of nine days. Between chapters v. and vi. come chrono-
logically Matt. xiv. 12 : Mark vi. 29-31 : Luke ix. 10a.

(1) "■ After these things Jesus went away across the sea
of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias." This verse corre-

A.D. 28. sponds with Matt. xiv. 13 : Mark vi. 32 :
June 31 ^. Luke ix. 106 : and for the feeding of the
SivanlSi flyg thousand, about to be described bv

John, we have all four gospels to draw from. The day
seems to be Thursday, June 3, a.d. 28.

Jesus has returned from Jerusalem to Galilee and
Capernaum where He has been joined by the Twelve (Mark
vi. 30), no doubt by a previous appointment. The Twelve
had been to Israelites beyond Galilee (where He shortly
will follow) since their Commission on May 16, and had not
been with Him at Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.
News of John the Baptist's death has been brought to
Him to-day by John's disciples (Matt. xiv. 12), who
have taken the body and buried it : and this is probably the
first authentic information the public have of that crime
of Herod's. Mark (vi. 31) tells of the excitement that was
seething at the time (in Capernaum) : on the one side,
the populace always favourable to our Lord would be
urging Him (cf. John vi. 15) to take decisive action and
at last to show His hand : on the other, " the Jews " or
Sanhedrist party have decided to put Him to death
(John V. 18), and have hurried up from Jerusalem (Mark
vii. 1) to Capernaum in order to counteract Him in Galilee ;

146

JOHN VI. 1-3 147

and we may conjecture that Herod Antipas the king means
to arrest Him this evening (cf. Luke ix. 9).

(1) To avoid the fanatical zeal of His friends and the
danger from His enemies, He " went-away across " the
lake of Tiberias with the Twelve, in Peter's

ship, from Capernaum (Tell Hum) to the "I^^^J'
north-east corner of the lake, to the thinly-
inhabited district there (ip^inog tottoc = desert place,
Matt., Mark) belonging to the city of Bethsaida- Julias
(Luke). The site of this city is to-day marked by the
ruins of ct Tell, about IJ miles from the north-east shore.
The point they made for seems to be determined by
" the mountain " (John vi. 3, 15), which juts out into the
lake at the Wady Shukeiyif, for there is no other hill in
this neighbourhood near the lake : it is four miles south
of Bethsaida-Julias. The site of the miracle is further
identified by the " much grass in the place " (10), and by
Mark's (39) " green grass " (see below at verse 10). The
miracle that follows is the only one of our Lord's Ministry
of which all four Evangelists have left an account.

(2) The crowd fanatically enthusiastic for Jesus,
and many of them may have come in to Capernaum
with the Twelve, seeing Him embark and make for the
opposite (east) shore, ran round by the north shore of the
lake and reached the east side before the ship (Mark).
The distance straight across by ship from Capernaum to
the site of the miracle is five miles, that by road is seven
miles.

When He stepped out of the boat {lt,e\du)v, Mark),
" He saw a great crowd and was moved to pity for them"
in that the Sanhedrin and Herod (their appointed leaders)
were misleading them :

(3) " And He went up into the mountain " (which
here juts into the lake, at Wady Shukeiyif) " and there sat
with His disciples " : sat, says John, i.e. teaching His
disciples and the crowd, sitting being the formal attitude
for a teacher among the Jews, Luke adds that '" He
received them and talked to them about the Kingdom of
God, and healed those that had need of healing." His

148 JOHN VI. 4

talk about the Kingdom of God would be a corrective of
their expectation that His temporal reign was now about
to begin.

(4) " And the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was
nigh." This verse is an interpolation from a false marginal
gloss. Whilst there is no patristic authority in its favour
earlier than Constantine's time, there is the very strong
authority of Irenseus and Origen (West and East, 2nd
and 3rd centuries) against its genuineness. See pp. 241-
243 of The Birth and Boyhood of Jesus Christ.

Briefly, the argument in favour of the verse is that
all the MSS. extant and all the versions have it. On the
other hand, none of the MSS. is earlier than B (Vaticanus),
about A.D. 340. But against the verse we have much
earlier evidence extant in the writings of two of the earliest
Fathers of West and East, viz. Irenaeus (died c. a.d. 202),
Bishop of Vienne in France, and Origen of Alexandria
(died c. A.D. 253). These two happen to be the only
Fathers before Diocletian's persecution who throw any
light as to this verse : their evidence is decisive that it
did not exist in any MS. they knew of : and Origen was
the greatest collator of MSS. of the gospels as well as the
greatest expert on the N.T. text that the Church had before
modern times, also he had the famous library of Alexandria
to his hand.

1. Irenseus, contending against a Gnostic theory of
a one-year Ministry, brings forward, three passovers from
John's gospel, viz. the first, " after Kana " ; the second,
when our Lord " cured the paralytic " ; the third, at the
Crucifixion. It is impossible that he could have omitted
vi. 4 (which would have proved his case to the hilt), had
it existed in his MSS., rather than strain at v. 1, which did
not prove his case. (See his Hcer., II., xxii., 3.)

2. Origen (on John iv. 35) arguing against the Gnostic
Heracleon's theory that the harvest was a " four-month "
ahead and that the time, therefore, must be winter, prefers
the view that the seed-time was a " four-month " back,
and that the actual time of John iv. 35 is havley-harvest
(April), because, says he, mark the sequence of events in

JOHN VI. 4-5 149

the succeeding chapters : how chajjter iv. is closely followed
by the " feast " of v. 1, and that again by the " feast
of Tabernacles " (vii. 2). The argument obviously requires
the absence of any intervening Passover at vi. 4 : it proves
that verse vi. 4 was not in Origen's MSS. Clearly neither
orthodox nor heretic had ever heard of this verse before
Diocletian's persecution, when for ten years (a.d. 303-313)
the resources of the empire were employed in the attempt
to destroy every MS. of the New Testament canon.

This verse, at first a marginal chronological conjecture,
crept into the text early 4th century, when owing to the
dearth of old MSS. and to the multiplication of copies
from Eusebius's faulty MS. the interpolation became
perpetuated and universal.

It is this interpolation that has been the main cause of
the difficulties in determining the dates of our Lord's birth
and death. Until we are again rid of it those difficulties
remain insoluble in spite of all juggling with fact : and
until we are again rid of it, it is impossible to reconcile
Luke's date of the Baptism " in the fifteenth year of the
reign of Tiberius Csesar " (iii. 1, cf. his use of " Cjesar "
in ii. 1, " Caesar Augustus ") with the unanimous testimony
of the Fathers that the date of the Crucifixion was Friday,
March 25, a.d. 29 — a date they could always verify in the
archives of Pilate's governorship, archives to which the
early apologists refer the sceptics. This latter date falls
in the fifteenth year of Tiberius's reign according to the
Western and official reckoning of reigns, viz. from the day
of accession : whilst Luke has followed the Eastern reckon-
ing of reigns, viz. from the day of New Year preceding
accession. I have explained this at some length in The
Birth and Boyhood of Jesus Christ, pp. 74-80.

(5) The day wore on (Mark, 35), and the crowd kept
gathering in ever-increasing numbers throughout the
afternoon. The disciples suggest sending them away
that they may get themselves food in the neighbouring
villages and hamlets (Luke and Mark). Jesus, however,
means to entertain them as host : ' No : give ye (emphatic
iifrnq) them to eat (Mark) : they shall be our guests for

150 JOHN VI. 6-10

this evening ' : and He asks Philip, " Where can we
buy loaves to feed them ? " not asking as for information,
but (6) as testing Philip's faith in His resource.

(7) Philip is in despair : " Two hundred pennyworth *
of loaves is not sufficient for them that each of them may
take a little."

(8) Andrew, however, Simon Peter's (elder) brother,
says to Him in effect : —

(9) ' There is our own food here, which was meant for
this evening's meal — five loaves of coarse barley bread and
two fishes : gladly will we be the hosts : but that is all
there is.' Is Andrew half venturing to suggest ? he might
call to mind that scene of three months ago, where water
was made into wine. The two fishes were evidently
already cooked and ready for our Lord and the Twelve.
The word " small " in A.V. is certainly wrong : the Greek
word {o\papiov), though in form a diminutive, had lost its
sense of diminutiveness : and to-day the modern Greek
{4>api) for a fish, however large, is the same word as that
used here by John, and again in xxi. 9, 13.

(10) Jesus said, "Make the men {avOpa)Trovg=uien,
women, and children) sit down." Mark adds, " by com-
panies on the green grass."

John continues, " And there was much grass in the
place." This notice marks, not the time of year, but a

peculiarity of the place. The place is the
Thurs ' well-irrigated plain of Butciha, where the

never-failing streams would supply a succes-
sion of mowings down to end of May. This plain is some
three or four miles long north to south : on the north it
immediately adjoins the city of Bcthsaida-Julias, and is
closed on the south by " the mountain " (verses 3, 15) at
the Wady Shukeiyif, where is the cove off which the " ships"
from Tiberias (23) arrived on the following morning.!

* Two hundred " pennies "" (Sr]vdpia) : if %vc reckon one " penny "
ISrjvapiov) as the amount of a labourer's daily wage (see Matt. xx. 2), say
'6s. []3re War rate], the sum would figure out to a value of £30 of our money

t The traditional site of this miracle (as early as end of 4th century. iScc
St Jerome and St Sylvia) is on the icest side of the lake and in the little ba^' of
ct Tabigah, just north of the other Bcthsaida — the " Bcthsaida of Galilee "

JOHN VI. 10-11 151

" Therefore they sat down, the men {uvoptg= men only)
in number about five thousand," i.e. not counting the
women and children who sat with them, and who must
have raised the figures considerably. To secure order,
method, decency, promptitude, they were arranged in
groups, each group consisting of fifty men besides the
contingent of Avomen and children belonging to each.
Fifty into five thousand gives one hundred groups, which
Mark (40) has noted, " and they sat down in companies
reckoned by (Kara) a hundred and reckoned by (Kara)
fifty," i.e. a himdred clumps of fifty men each, agreeing
with Luke's " in clumps of about fifty each " (ava).

(11) " Jesus therefore took the loaves and gave thanks
and distributed to those that were reclining, and likewise
of the fishes, as much as they would " : or, as Luke wastes,
rather more fulh' (agreeing with Matthew and IMark),
" having taken the five loaves and the two fishes He looked
up to heaven (= John's " gave thanks ") and blessed them,
and He brake them, and He gave (imp. = kept giving) to
the disciples to put before the crowd." In blessing the
loaves and fishes He qualified them to serve His beneficent
purpose. It was not the integral loaves or integral fishes
that were multiplied, but the broken portions of them,
to signify a closer unity than separate loaves would have
indicated.

(xii. 21), the modern Khan Miniyeh. But it is not possible to reconcile this
site with the data of the Evangelists. Tradition was probably led astray by
I. The gradual obliteration of the name of the eastern " Bethsaida " after its
change to "Julias " (see Josephus, Ant., XVIII. ii. 1) : 2. The fact that the
bay of et Tabigah (corrupted from the Greek eirTairriyoi') — the little bay just
north of the western Bethsaida, and separated from it by the hill promontory
of Tell Oreimeh, which juts into the lake — was the traditional and true site of
the miiacle of Jolin xxi. where one loaf and one fish fed seven disciples : this
latter meal of our Lord's providing was known as the Mensa Christi (Christ's
Table), and the great stone at which He and the seven sat on that occasion
was long pointed out here under that name. The name Mensa Christi came
not unnaturally to be applied to that other Christ's Table— Table of our Lord's
jiroviding — where five loaves and two fishes were multiplied to feed five
thousand men : 3. The faulty reading of a few MSS. such as the Codex Sinaiticus.
which describes the scene of the miracle of the five loaves and two fishes as
being near to Tiberias. This same MS. has been also responsible for much
confusion as to the site of the Emmaus of Luke xxiv. 13 : for instead of " 00 "
furlongs it reads " 160.''

152 JOHN VI. 12-15

(12) And when all (including of course the Twelve)
had eaten and were filled, He said to His disciples, " Gather
together the jragments {KkuajxaTa) that remain over, so
that nothing be lost." The fragments are not the half-
eaten morsels and crumbs Avhich might well be left for
birds and beasts, but the broken portions which He had
handed for distribution.

(13) So the disciples gathered together twelve baskets *
— full of the fragments ((cXaa/xorwi') of the loaves, and of
the fishes.

(14) " Therefore the men {avSpwirui), having seen the
sign which he did, said (£A£7oi'=kept saying), ' This one
is of a truth The Prophet who comes into the world ' " :
i.e. The Prophet promised at Deut. xviii. 15, 18.

" He who comes into (or to) the world (o tpxofxtvog elg
Tuv Kocr/iov)," is a title of the Expected One : so also in
xi. 27. Cf. " I have come into (or to) the world (tXiiXvOa t}g
Tov K-o<T;Uov)," xii. 46 : xvi. 28 : xviii. 37. The shorter
title, " The Coming One " (6 tpxof^^vog) has the same
meaning.

(15) " Jesus, therefore, perceiving that they were
about to come and take Him by force to make Him king,
withdrew again into the mountain Himself alone," i.e. the
mountain where He had been sitting before (3).

We learn from Matthew and Mark that " immediately "
after the miracle " He compelled His disciples to embark
on board the ship and to go before Him across f the lake
while He dismissed the crowds." But it is from John that

* The word for basket used in connection with this miracle by all four
Evangelists is K6(pivos, a sort of basket especially used by Jews (cf. Juvenal
iii. 14 : vi. 542) such as this crowd would be called. But in connection with
the similar miracle of the feeding of the four thousand, where the crowd was
mainly Gentile, the word used for their baskets is cnrvptSes : see Matthew
(xv. 37 : xvi. 10) and Mark (viii. 8, 20), who alone record or refer to it.

f irpodyfiv avThv els rh irepav (Matthew), which is quite plain, viz.
to the far side of the lake, i.e. the west side. Tlpoayeiv eis rh nripav -Kphs
BiidaaiSdv (Mark) = to the far side of the lake (i.e. west side) facing (irpbs)
Bethsaida (Julias). Had Mark meant toward Bcthsaida (viz. the Bcthsaida
of Galilee, the modern Khan Minieh south of Capernaum) he would have said
eis (and not wphs) as is the constant usage of the N.T. writers when speaking
of cities or countries. Matthew and Mark, therefore, both agree with John,
who says (verse 17) that they were going " across the sea to (tls) Capernaum."

JOHN VI. 16-17 153

we gather the reason {"or His sending away the disciples,
viz. that He saw the crowds were in great excitement and
were meaning to come and violently carry Him off and
declare Him their king and Messiah in ojjposition to the
civil power ; perhaps already He saw His disciples beginning
to be caught in that wild enthusiasm. It Avas not for
them to choose His times : when His time for Kingsliip
is come, as King He will come. So, having first sent off His
disciples into the ship, He dismissed the crowds and went
away up the mountain alone " to pray " (Matthew, Mark).

Meanwhile what of the Twelve ?

(16) John (omitting to say that they had been ordered
to do so) tells how " when evening {6\p(a) was come, His
disciples went-down to the sea.

(17a) " And went on board ship : and they were
going (npxovTo) across the sea to Capernaum."

From Mark (vi. 47) we learn that it was still " evening "
(o^j'a) when they were halfway across {Iv fxicroj r^c
6aXa(Tay]c), i.e. when they had gone some 2| miles.
" Evening " (oipla) is from sunset onwards : say, in that
latitude and in beginning of June, from our 7 p.m. till,
at latest, the end of the first watch. For the two meanings
of u-ipia see note on xx. 19.

(176) " And it had already become dark " (aivorm),
" and Jesus had not yet come to them." Not that He
had promised to join thefn on board, for there was no
other boat for Him (32), and they did not expect Him to
walk the sea, as is clear from their fright when He did :
but John looking back afterwards on that night's events,
wishes to bring out the fact that, although through that
night they were in so sore a plight, and although as the
event proved it would have been so easy for Him to come
and set all smooth, He chose to let them fight it ovit alone
and endure. It was because of His absence that they
were in difficulty : but His absence was only temporary.
His coming at the close of that night brought for Peter's
barque calm upon the waters : His second Coming at the
close of this Age will bring for His Church calm on the
world's strife.

154 JOHN VI. 18-19

(18) " And the sea was rising high (^/ir/a'ptro) by
reason of a great wind blowing." Verses 176, 18, cover a
dark night * of storm and toil lasting from 8 p.m. till 4 or
5 a.m. Similarly, between verses 47 and 48 of Mark vi.
there is the interval of the long night till Jesus sees them
in the dawn still struggling and distressed {ftaaavLZo/iXivovf:)
at the oar, " for the wind was contrary," i.e. a head or west
wind (Mark).

(19) " When therefore they had roAved about twenty-
five or thirty stades, they behold {Oa('>povai expresses their
concentrated gaze) Jesus walking on the sea and drawing
nigh unto the ship." Now, as they had got halfway across
(Mark, 47), or some twenty-three stades, whilst it was
yet " evening," and as when He came to them in the
early dawn they had gone only some twenty-five or thirty
stades (John), they had made but about half a mile through
the night, or little more than held their own. A " stadc "
is roughly a furlong. Mark (48) says He came toward
them " about the fourth watch of the night," i.e. towards
its close and in the early dawn, say about 4.30 to 5 a.m.
of Friday, June 4, the latitude being about 33°. And he
adds the remarkable detail that Jesus " meant to pass-by
them " (vj^cAty Trap^Xduv), i.e. overtaking, as though He
had Avished that the mere vision of Himself should prove
sufficient support and assurance to them. It was their
fright whilst not yet recognising Him that caused Him to
modify His action.

(19) The " therefore " of the verse belongs to the
word " rowed," Avhich in the Greek is the emphatic word
and begins the sentence : 'E/\>?AaKor£c,' ovv. When they
had therefore rowed, etc. Its meaning is that owing to
the violence of the head Avind it had been impossible to use
the sail and that all hands had been at the oars to keep the
ship head on : in this position, as roAvers facing rearAA^ards,
they saw Jesus coming up their wake.

That night of storm and effort symbolized the close of
this Age of Peter's captaincy till our Lord comes visibly

* The moon was entering her last quarter to-day, and would not be rising
till late.

JOHN \I. L'O-21 155

again : just as does that other night of toil and Httle
profit (John xxi. 5). The one occasion marks the perils
that will assail the Church in the days of Antichrist ;
the other marks the small results she will then be
showing till He joins her. On both occasions Peter steps
forth as captain of the ship eager to lay down his charge.
" And they were afraid." From Mark and Matthew
we learn that th-ey thought " it is an apparition," and
they cried out for fear : for all saAv Him and were troubled.
Clearly none recognized Him until He spoke.

(20) " But He saith to them, ' It is I, be not afraid.' "
Here Matthew adds Peter's venture, " Lord, since it

is Thou (d (TV £?), bid me come unto Thee upon the
waters." And He said, " Come " (singular). " And Peter
went doAvn from the ship and walked upon the waters and
came toward Jesus." [Such seems to be the correct reading,
K-ai rjA0£y.] " But seeing that the wind was strong, he
was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, saying,
' Lord, save me.' And straightway Jesus stretched out
His hand and laid hold of him : and He says to him,
' O-thou-of-little-faith, why didst thou doubt ? ' And when
they (Jesus and Peter) were come up into the ship, the
wind ceased."

(21) John, omitting this incident of Peter, as being
already adequately recorded by the earliest Evangelist,
continues, " Therefore they were willing to receive Him
into the ship. And straightway the ship became (tyt-vfro)
at the land to which they were going." From this detail
given by John it is inferred that the ship seemed to move
automatically, without sail or oar, in obedience to His
will : so that without effort of the disciples or crew it
quickly passed over the remaining distance (two miles
or so) and came to shore.

Matthew, having said that on the entry of Jesus and
Peter into the ship the wind ceased, adds, "and they who
were in the ship worshipped Him, saying, ' Verily God's
Son art Thou.' " The words " and they who were in the
ship " seem to distinguish the other eleven apostles, who
had not left the ship, from Peter who had made the

156 JOHN VI. 21

venture just described ; as though the writer were pointing
liow it was Peter who first of them had had the eye to see
Him and the ear to hear Him and the heart to recosnize
Him, whilst as yet the rest were scared. If on this occa-
sion it was Peter who first identified Him, on a later one
(John xxi. 7) it was John.

Mark tells how " they {i-e. the disciples) were greatly
amazed," evidently at our Lord's command over the
forces of Nature, wind and wave : and adds the reflection
that they had not adequately understood, or were not
properly intelligent about, the matter of " the five loaves,"
Avhere His complete command over the phenomena of
matter had been already demonstrated.

The question arises, where exactly did they come to land
on this early morning ? John says the ship arrived " at
the land to which they were going " (IttI tt^c
g. .g|Fri. 7r/(,- £(c rjv vtrriyov), which from verse 17
seems to have been Capernaum, i.e. the rural
district belonging to that city. Mark (45) says they had
been ordered to go " to the other side over-against Beth-
saida " {tig to irifmv irpog BijOaaidav), i.e. to the west side
of the lake opposite the territory of Bethsaida- Julias, and
in verse 53 he defines this landing-place as " Gennesaret,."
i.e. the fertile plain called Gennesaret, which is on the west
shore and extends about three miles north and south,
reaching from Magdala on the south to Tell Oreimeh on the
north, 1| miles from the city of Capernaum (Tell Hum).
Matthew (xiv. 22) agrees with Mark that they had been
ordered to go to the other side (ug rb iripav), i.e. to
the west side, and says (34) that having crossed over
{^laTTi-pcKTavTig) " they came to land at Gennesaret "
{r]\dav im rriv yriv ug Ffvinjo-ajOfV). Perhaps the northern
end of this plain belonged to the district of Capernaum,
this being the chief town of the neighbourhood.

It was already day when they came to land — say about
sunrise, our 5 a.m. ; for Mark (54) says that when they
disembarked, " straightway " the folk recognized them
and ran about that whole region and began to carry about
on their beds those that were sick where they heard that

JOHN VI. 21 157

He was ; and wheresoever He entered, into villages or
into cities, or into open country {liypovi:), they laid the sick
in the market-places and besought Him that they might
touch but the hem of His cloak, and as many as touched
it were made whole." With this account Matthew's
closely agrees. These are the details that filled up the
busy day of Friday, June -i, as He travelled about that
thickly populated district. Both Matthew (xiv. 34, 35)
and Mark (vi. 53, 54), after naming Gennesarct, are careful
to limit the activity that follows to " all that neighbour-
hood " or region {oXr]v rriv ireptx^iJOv lKHvt]v and oAi/i; Triv
Xhjpav lKeivi]v), i.e. of Gennesaret. The mention of
" villages, cities, hamlets," does not argue a tour of several
days : this whole region of Gennesaret and Capernaum
was densely populated, cf. the notice at Mark vi. 33, where
at brief warning, crowds run together afoot ""from all the
cities " and outran the ship as it crossed the lake from
Capernaum to Bethsaida-Julias : see again Mark vi. 36,
where even in a place which is called " desert," there is
mention of the surrounding " hamlets and villages " as
being in reach of thousands of folk for the purchase of food
within the last hours of an evening.

We must remember that a crisis has been reached in
the relation of our Lord to the Sanhedrin and to Herod.
News has just been made public of the death of John the
Baptist at Herod's hands : our Lord has but just returned
from Jerusalem where the Sanhedrists have resolved upon
His death (John v. 18). The Sanhedrists have hurried
up from Jerusalem {Matt. xv. 1 : Mark vii. 1) in order to
counteract His influence in Capernaum and to drive Him
out of Galilee. It is His last day of activity here, for
to-morrow (Saturday, June 5) will take place His last two
disputes with the Pharisees and Scribes in Capernaum
synagogue, viz. —

A. John vi. 25-59, followed by His talk to His disciples

(vi. 60-end).

B. Matt. XV. 1-9 : Mark vii. 1-13 : followed by His

farewell caution to the crowd (Matt. xv. 10-11 :
Mark vii. 13-16) :

158 JOHN VI. 21

and His sabsequcnt talk to the disciples (Matt. xv. 12-20 :
Mark vii. 17-23) in the house that evening.

On the following morning (Sunday, June 6) He will
leave Galilee for three months, to be passed in the borders
of Tyre, in Sidon, and along the midst of the borders of
Decapolis. The names of the ten cities that formed this
Greek confederacy are given on p. xx.

§ X

JOHN VI. 22-71

In Capernaum. The new Manna

(22) But to return to the scene of the miracle of Thursday.
It is the next day, Friday, June 4 : and the croM'd wlio
had passed the night there are looking about
for Jesus. They had seen the disciples g""^ ir}^'^'*
put off in the ship's boat {TrXoiapLov) yesterday
evening and join the ship (ttAoTov) and start for the opposite
shore : they had also seen that there was no boat there by
which the ship could be reached except the ship's boat in
which the disciples had pushed off : they had also seen
that Jesus had not subsequently joined the ship and
the disciples by that boat, but that the disciples had gone
off in the ship without Him. And yet He is not here.
Where, then, is He ?

(23) Although at nightfall there had been no other
boat or ship here, there had arrived near to the scene of
the miracle, during the night, ships {irXola) from Tiberias
(Herod's capital on the west side of the lake, seven or eight
miles south of Capernaum) : these ships may have been
caught by the storm and driven before it, and their owners
might now be glad to make a profit by transporting the
crowd across to Capernaum by means of the ships' boats
{■rrXoiapia, verse 24).

It has, however, been not inaptly conjectured that
Herod Antipas, foiled in his desire to arrest Him yesterday
and hearing that He escaped across the lake, sent these
ships from Tiberias (his capital) in the night with troops
on board, with orders to capture Him if He returned in
Peter's ship. They came '' nigh to the place where," etc.,
for the troops could not land, as this east side of the lake

159

160 JOHN VI. 24-26

was not Antipas's territory, but belonged to his brother
Philip Herod. Other soldiers also would naturally have
been sent to prevent escape round the head of the lake
at the bridge. It was these preparations to arrest Him
that, becoming known to the crowd next day (Friday),
caused them to ask Him, ' when did He get to Capernaum,
for were not both the ways of passage barred ? '

(24) To Capernaum and its neighbouring cities the
crowd belonged : to Capernaum they decide to return,
expecting that Jesus will soon rejoin His disciples there :
and they take advantage of the " boats " {TrXoidpia) and
the calm after the storm. These " boats " are, of course,
the boats belonging to the ships {irXola) from Tiberias ;
each ship towed her own boat : cf. Acts xxvii. 16, 17.

By sunset of this day, Friday, our Lord would be back
in the town of Capernaum for the Sabbath which then
began : and here until the Sabbath was ended He would
be safe from Herod and His enemies.

(25) On Saturday morning the people, who had crossed
yesterday from the east side of the lake, finding Him in

Capernaum, ask Him in the synagogue there

g. .„|sat. (as appears from verse 59), "Rabbi, when

didst thou get here ? " implying that they had

been vainly searching for Him on the other side, and that

they were surprised to find Him here.

The crowd are no longer in the wild enthusiasm for Him
that moved them on Thursday evening when they wanted
to seize Him and make Him king. What has happened ?
Since their arrival at Capernaum yesterday, Friday, they
have again come under the influence of the Scribes from
Jerusalem who have come up (Matt. xv. 1 : Mark vii. 1)
to Capernaum to counteract Him and drive Him away.
And so successful are these His enemies that to-morrow
(Sunday, June 6) He will leave Galilee for Gentile districts.

(26) " Verily, verily, I say to you, ye seek Me not
because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves and
were filled," i.e. not because they saw in Him and in that
miracle what they ought to have seen, viz. the sign that
He their Messiah, who in His care for their bodily needs

JOHN VI. 26-29 101

had created bread for them and dispensed it to them,
was willing and able to feed them with Bread for their
spiritual needs : but they sought Him because they had
seen a bit of thaumaturgy which, while incidentally
satisfying their bodily hunger, appealed to their craving for
a vain show of power. They had thought yesterday that
they believed in Him as their Messiah, but that belief had
not been genuine or adequate : it was not based on Faith —
a God-given grace. Augustine's remark comes to mind :
' It is not because we believe the miracles that we believe
in Thy Divinity, but because we believe in Thy Divinity
we believe the miracles.'

(27) Let them work not for such bread as He had given
them on Thursday evening, which was in itself dead, and
of which the effect was but temporary : but let them work
for the Food whose effect is eternal Life : Food which He,
The Son of Man, would give them. " For Him {tovtov,
this One, pointing to Himself) The Father, i.e. God, sealed."
Sealed, marked with His own seal as His own, set apart
consecrated to this purpose, viz. of giving Food which shall
issue in eternal Life. There is, no doubt, an allusion to the
visible seal, or sign, by which Jesus had been, as all had
heard, marked out to the Baptist, viz. the Holy Spirit
descending in a bodily form in the likeness of a dove and
abiding on Him at His baptism. Hence the term io seal
became a common ecclesiastical synonym for to baptize.

(28) ' And how,' say they, ' are we to act so as to work
for the spiritual food you speak of, and work the works of
God ? ' i.e. collaborate with God.

(29) ' This is collaboration with God : viz. beheving
into Him whom He sent as having indeed been sent by
Him.' Our Lord has, of course, in mind all that is implied
and contained in that statement : therein contained is the
whole Christian verity which by long contemplation the
Church has slowly evolved and expressed in her dogmas :
and as with the Church, so with the individual ; the
indefinite becomes definite as he ponders on a truth ;
and the individual and the mass (the Church^ see alike
when their Teacher is One and the Same.

"SI

162 JOHN VI. 30-34

His hearers, of course, only get tiny glimpses of His
meaning : and John has given us only a vew brief abstract
of the discourse.

(30) They reply, ' Belief in you ? but give us an over-
whelming sign. (31) The miracle of the loaves and fishes
by which you fed us on Thursday was wonderful : but you
can do much more than that, if, as we think, you are the
Messiah : that miracle, great as it was, is not comparable
to Moses' achievement ; for he gave us bread out of the
skies, and not common bread, but manna, and his gift
was on a vaster scale, viz. to the whole nation, and repeated
daily for near forty years : do us some sign as much greater
than his, as Messiah is greater than Moses.'

(32) " Verily, verily, I say to you, Moses," etc. The
mystery words, " Verily, verily," make it probable that the
English should be, " Moses gave you not The Bread out of
(k) Heaven," i.e. ideal Bread.

(32-33) The contrast was not what they made it, viz.
Moses and the manna, as against Jesus and the multiplica-
tion of the loaves and fishes. The real contrast was Moses
and the manna as against ' My Father ' and ' Me who am
The Bread.' The contrast in our Lord's mind is threefold :

1. Moses gave the one ; but My Father gives the Other :

2. The manna was only from the air (as we talk of the birds
of heaven) ; but this other Bread is out of the Bosom of
God The Father, for It is the eternal Son : 3. The manna
fed only the body and for a time ; this other Bread is the
ideal Bread, for it feeds body and soul, and generates in
them Life eternal.

(33) " For the Bread of God's giving is that (Bread)
which cometh down out of (k) Heaven." The Greek
can equally well be rendered, " He who cometh down out
of Heaven," i.e. from the Presence of The Father, i.e. He
who became Incarnate ; and this is the meaning present
to His mind though not, of course, to theirs: "and
giveth Life," not merely bodily sustenance : and " to the
world," not merely to one nation.

(34) They caught on only to the idea of bread, but
understood that the kind spoken of resembled the manna

JOHN VT. 34-39 163

of Moses in coming down from the skies and so being
supernormal : they perceived also that it surpassed the
manna of Moses in that it was to give Life instead of mere
sustenance ; and in being not for one nation only, but
for the whole world, which argued a world-wide empire.
They therefore said to Him, ' Lord, give us this bread and
give it us always (as Moses did his) and that sign will be
good enough for us.'

(35) " Jesus said to them, ' / am (tyw ujdi) the Bread
of Life ' " : in other words, He replies that He is giving
It : inasmuch as He is that very Bread He spoke of, which
gives Life : that whoso comes to Him to be fed shall
never hunger unsatisfied : and whoso believes into Him
shall never thirst unsatisfied.

(36) ' But as I said to you., you have seen Me living
among you doing signs among you, but you do not believe
into Me ' : they had indeed wanted to make Him King
two days ago, but it was a king made to their own fancy
that they had acclaimed : they thought they had in
Him the king they were looking for : they thought they
believed in Him : He was not the sort of king they had
in their mind : it was not in Him that they were believing :
they were wanting Him to realize their ideal — in other
words, to come to them : whereas it was they who must
come to Him.

(37) "All, which The Father gives to Me, shall get
home to Me {irpot; kfii v'jSa)." The totality (irav) of the
race is given and shall reach Him its goal : it is The
Father's gift to Him : " and no individual that is on
the way (rov epxof^^vov) to Me will I cast out." No argu-
ment can be found here against the Universalists — their
position being that while the whole human race has been
given by The Father to The Son, the individuals get home
to Him at long intervals reaching over various Ages.

(38) ' For I have come down from Heaven ' (become
Incarnate, though His hearers knew not how) ' to do the
will of Him who sent Me as His representative, and not to
act apart from Him.'

(39) ' And this is His will as regards all that collective

164 JOHN VI. 39-41

body of individuals, that totality {tt&v) which He has given
to Me, viz. that I lose no fraction of it : but that I raise
it up whole at the last day.'

(40) And as to the scheme by which that end shall be
gained —

" This is the will of My Father, that every one who
gazes on (OttopCov) The Son, and believes into Him, shoidd
have eternal Life : and that I should raise him up at the
last day." In this " gazes on " The Son there is certainly
a reference to the bronze serpent that was lifted up by
Moses in the wilderness upon a pole (shaped like a cross,
as Rabbinical tradition says), and every one who looked on
it was healed. The simple act of looking on that bronze
serpent is now replaced by the act of believing into Him
whom it typified, viz. God The Son, who in that Living
Laboratory, His crucified body, eliminates the sin of all
who by faith are grafted into Him, and transfuses into them
His own Life. The process is slow : begun here, it is
continued in the underworld, and is consummated at " the
last day." There is no necessity to suppose that " the
last day " here is one only day for all individuals alike :
for to each Age there would be its own "last day."

41-46

The Jews, the hostile party, members and adherents
of the Sanhedrin, here interrupt. They are the Pharisees
and Scribes who are mentioned here by
' * Matt. XV. 1, as being " from Jerusalem,"
for the discourse of Matt. xv. 1-20 belongs to the
evening of this same Saturday. They for many years
past had rejected Him in spite of knowing He was the
One whose birth was heralded and accompanied by such
wonders : they had never lost sight of Him, and had
through His Childhood and Boyhood centred their hopes
upon Him : with advancing years they had rejected
Him, for we must suppose that each year as He came to
Jerusalem to the festivals He had continued the practice
of teaching the doctors which He had begun the year He
became legally adult (Luke ii. 42-47) : and unless the

JOHN VI. 41-15 165

doctors accepted Him, the Nation would not. The
doctors had rejected Him for no other reason than that He
would not fall in with their views : in other words, would
not co7ne to them. Having rejected Him, they had to deny
that He was anything more than an ordinary man.

(41) " Therefore the Jews nmrmured concerning Him
because that He said, ' / am the Bread which came down out
of Heaven.' " They quite see He is claiming to be God.

(42) " And they said," i.e. aloud to the public in the
synagogue where the talk is taking place, see verse 59,
" ' Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know ? ' " The emphatic " we " {vfxug)
means primarily the Jewish doctors who are speaking :
it means ' we whose business it is to see that you are not
led astray, we who have gone into the matter of this man's
claims. Do not you all know we have decided that he has
no right to them and is no more than a mere man, the son
of Joseph and Mary ? How can he be saying now, after
all these years of obscurity among you, " Out of Heaven
I have come down " ? '

(43) " Jesus answered and said to them," viz. to " the
Jews," i.e. to the doctors and Sanhedrists, " ' Murmur
not among yourselves ' : " i.e. as though this were some
new claim of His : they, the doctors, had long ago and
often heard it : they had long ago rejected it. Their
rejection neither dismayed nor surprised Him, for —

(44) ' No one can come to Me in the right spirit unless
The Father who sent Me works in him to draw him : and
what The Father begins in him I (tyw) will complete in him
by raising him to full Life at the last day when the long
process is complete : for neither The Father, nor I The Son,
can work independently of each other : what the One
wills, that the Other wills.

(45) ' As the prophets say, " they (the sons of the true
City) shall all be taught of God " : all, therefore, that
" come " to Me are taught by God, The Father : and the
fact that one " comes " to me is proof that it is The Father
that opened his ears and understanding : for by no other
way can any one come to Me.'

166 JOHN VI. 46-50

(46) ' Not that any one has direct or immediate com-
munication with The Father except the eternal Son : for
The Father communicates with all through The Son, and
all communicate with The Father through The Son.' That
is the law of Life : the Son of God, the God-Man, is the
medium of union between God and man. Even when The
Father draws, He draws through The Son ; the whole
Godhead works together : but it draws through and to
the Godhead-Incarnate : and it is the Godhead-Incarnate
that is the link between God and man to lift the human
race.

He is teaching the theologians about the Godhead,
how that the Unity of God is not the final word of revela-
tion concerning the one God. So long as it is thought that
there is but one Person in the Godhead, the Incarnation
and the whole scheme of Redemption cannot possibly be
understood.

47-51

After the foregoing diversion, of verses 41-46, caused
by " the Jews," He resumes His discourse
' * to the Galileans at the point where He had
been at verse 40.

(47) " Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believes has
eternal Life '' already in him. " He that believes " is
a shortened form for " he that believes into Me " or " into
The Son " : for there is no other genuine Faith. And
" he has eternal Life " already, because in virtue of that
faith the germ of eternal Life is already in him, the new
manhood begotten of God has already begun to be formed
in him.

(48) He here returns to the subject of the manna and
the Bread of Life, last mentioned at verse 35.

" / (tyw) am the Bread of Life " : i.e. the Bread that
gives Life.

(49) The manna which their fathers ate in the wilder-
ness h;id no germ of Life in it : they ate it and died.

(50) " This," pointing to Himself, " is the Bread which
comes down out of Heaven," not merely out of the sky,

JOHN VI. 50-53 167

as did the manna, " in order that a man {tuj, indefinite)
may eat of It and not Die." And lest any should think
He was speaking merely metaphorically, and also in order
to call special attention to His words. He repeats —

(51) " / (^7^) am the Living Bread, that came down
out of Heaven." Came down, i.e. in being conceived and
born of Mary : " came down out oj Heaven,'^'' but at the
same time never left Heaven, for He never ceased to be God.

" If a man (rtc) eat of this Bread," pointing to Himself,
" he shall Live for ever." The manna sustained life on
the physical plane, and for a time : and they that ate it
assimilated it to themselves, and died. But the Living-
Bread originates a new Life on the spiritual plane, and
for eternity : and It assimilates the eaters to Itself, so that
they Live for ever

" And the Bread which / will give is My Flesh, on behalf
of the world's Life." By " M?/ Flesh'' is meant Mij
human nature, i.e. body, soul, spirit : as in the phrase,
" The Word became Flesh'' which means God the Word
assumed to Himself human nature. It is only because
that human nature continues linked to His divine Person-
ality, that it can give eternal Life to those who are united
to it. And He gives His Flesh so that the world may
Live—" the world " (o Kocr^oe) being mankind, the
microcosm in whom this earth is summed.

52-53

(52) Again the hostile party (" the Jews ") cause a
diversion. " The Jews therefore wrangled ^^^^^ ^ ^^^

\^ {IfxaxovTo) with each other, saying, ' How (ttwc,

in what way) can this one give us his flesh to eat ? ' "

(53) " Jesus therefore said to them, ' Verily, verily,
I say to you, Unless ye eat the Flesh of The Son of Man
and drink His blood ye have not Life in yourselves.' " He
does not answer their wrangling question, " How ? "
They were in no mood to learn. The how is not essential :
it is enough to accept implicitly our Lord's meaning : but
reverence itself will urge us to try to understand.

168 JOHN VI. 53-56

At any rate, to " the Jews," the hostile party, He made
no attempt to explain away His startling words as though
they were but metaphor. But He gave them a further
statement which they, doctors of the Law well versed in
the theory of Sacrifices, would not fail to understand.
The " eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood " was
a plain allusion to the Sacrificial idea. It had already
been suggested in verse 51, " the Bread which I will give
is My Flesh, on behalf of the world's Life." Where
animals were sacrificed, they were so killed that all the
blood was drained out from the body and offered apart.
Similarly in the ritual of the Mass, the Sacrifice is symbolized
by the separateness of the two species bread and wine, each
of which is severally consecrated to symbolize that the
Victim has been sacrificed, inasmuch as the Blood is separate
from the Body. In the same ritual, later, the Resurrection
is symbolized by the dropping of a fragment of the Wafer
into the Wine, signifjdng that the union of the Body and
Blood has again taken place, and that Life has returned
as at the Resurrection. Again, in every religion he who
eats of the sacrifice is incorporated into the sacrifice.

(54) "He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My
Blood " : i.e. whoso is sacramentally united to Him, the
world's Sacrifice, has the germ of eternal Life already in
him : and by virtue of this sacramental union, " / will
raise him up at the last day." " / " because our Lord is
the germ of Life which the Sacraments plant and foster
in us. " At the last day " because the process of sanctifi-
cation is a slow one, and is not consummated until the
resurrection of the body : not that growth ceases then,
rather the conditions are then at last favourable to
growth.

(55) " For My Flesh is true Food, and My Blood is true
Drink." What we eat and drink to sustain physical life
is but a dim figure of the spiritual Food and Drink which
originates that spiritual Life which alone is tme Life.

(56) " He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood
abides in Me and I in him." The eating and drinking
of this Sacrificed Victim is a continual process {rpwyuiv . . .

JOHN VI. 56-61 169

KOI TTivwv, pres.), and not an act done once and done with
(aorist). He who eats of this Victim is ipso facto united
with that Victim. The act of union once effected, the
slow assimilation to that Living Victim begins.

(57) Jesus was sent as the representative of the Living
Father — The Father who is self-existent. Jesus is also
the eternal Son, Living because of The Father {cut tov tt.) ;
for there is no Son without The Father, and no Father
without The Son. Whoso eats the Flesh of Jesus and so
is one with Him, shall Live Ijecause of Him {Si t/xi) :
for whoso eats of that Flesh is also participant in the self-
existent Godhead, inasmuch as in Him the God-Man
Humanity and Godhead are united.

(58) " This," pointing to Himself, " is the Bread which,"
etc. Once again He sums up the contrast between the dead
manna from the skies and the Living Bread from Heaven
which gives eternal Life.

(59) " These things He spoke in synagogue, teaching
in Capernaum," and no doubt on a Sabbath, as several
MSS. add. The notice seems to cover the whole discourse
from verse 26. The day, from a comparison of the four
gospels, seems to be Saturday, June 5, of a.d. 28.

The scene here shifts from the synagogue to the
house (Peter's house), which was our Lord's
habitation when in Capernaum. The day ^'

is still the Saturday.

(60) " Many therefore from among His disciples,
having heard it said, ' Hard is this saying : who can hear
it ? ' " It seems probable from verse 67 that these mur-
murers did not include any of the Twelve. The murmurers
had understood Him literally when He spoke of " eating
My Flesh and drinking My Blood," and He had meant it
literally : but the literal meaning needed to be understood
correctly.

(61) " Jesus, aware within Himself that His disciples
arc murmuring about it, said to them, ' Is this a stumbling-
block to you ? ' " He does not unsay anything : He
does not tell them He has been speaking allegorically or
that there is nothing that may not be explained away.

170 JOHN VI. 61-65

He had been speaking the Hteral truth Avhen He talked of
" eating My Flesh " : but He helps them over one mis-
conception.

(62) Did it seem impossible to them to believe that
He meant a literal eating of His Flesh ? Let them not
think of His Flesh as they see It now. " If therefore ye
behold The Son of Man going up to where He was before "
— that should help them. Suppose they were to see this
very Flesh of His not merely risen from the dead but
ascending to Heaven, they would find it easier to under-
stand, for they would then realize that this Flesh of His
exists not only as they see It now, viz. in Its phenomenal
or physical mode, but that It exists also in a spiritual
mode. And it is in Its spiritual mode that He gives It as
Food : but under either mode It is one and the same Flesh :
for matter has many modes, and the Sacraments energize
mainly on the spiritual plane of matter.

(63) " It is the Spirit that quickens : the flesh profiteth
nothing " : it is when eaten in Its spiritual mode that
His Flesh quickens : if eaten in Its " physical," sensuous
mode (like the flesh of sacrificed sheep or cattle) It would
profit nothing, for spiritual Life does not belong to that
plane: and "the things (64) (jot/^oto = things spoken
about) which I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life,"
i.e. belong to that spiritual plane of matter with which
alone life that is Life has to do.

" But there are from among you certain who do not
believe " : i.e. do not believe into Him : and therefore
cannot feed on Him. And He knew exactly the state of
mind of each individual there present. He does not say
they will not hereafter believe. " For," explains John,
" Jesus knew from the beginning who they are that do not
believe and who he is that shall betray Him " — ^knew before
the persons themselves knew.

(65) " And He said, ' This is why (g/a tov-o) I have
said to you (viz. at verse 44) that no one can come unto
Me unless it have been given to him of The Father.' "
Many there who called themselves His disciples were
about to leave him : He knew it : He knew whicli they

JOHN VI. 66 171

were : had known all along. Had The Father drawn
them, The Son could not but know ; neither could The
Son fail to know that The Father had not drawn
them as yet : for The Father does all things through
The Son.*

(66) " From this time many from among His disciples
went away back and no longer walked with Him." Had
He been talking allegorically or symbolically, He would
not have let these go off and away under a misconception
that He was talking literally. He made them certain
He was not talking symbolically, but literally ; and thus
it seemed to them impossible nonsense : but the nonsense
lay, perhaps, in their misconception of matter.

It is the crisis of the first great apostasy in His Ministry.
His enemies, " the Jews," have to all appearances carried
the day. His greatest Prophet, John the Baptist, had
been put to death some ten days ago : He had Himself
been driven from Jerusalem by attempts to kill Him some
ten days ago (v. 18) : it is probable that Herod Antipas,
induced by the Sanhedrists, had planned a sudden attempt
to seize Him yesterday in Galilee which He frustrated by
crossing for a few hours to the east side of the lake beyond
Herod's jurisdiction : His enemies. Scribes and Pharisees
from Jerusalem, have arrived in Capernaum (Matt. xv. 1 :
Mark vii. 1) hot foot, to oppose Him in Galilee, to silence
Him by orders from headquarters at Jerusalem, to stifle
the growing movement here at its source, to hunt Him from
Galilee as they had already hunted Him from Judsea,
and they will be successful. After the dispute that will
take place in the synagogue this afternoon (Matt. xv. 1-11 :
Mark vii. 1-13), followed by the instruction given in the
house to His disciples (Matt. xv. 12-20 ; Mark vii. 14-23),
He will leave Galilee to-morrow for, as it seems, some

* If none can " come " unless The Father draw him, is- he then for blame
who does not " come " ? If The Father has not drawn him, there is some reason
that makes it either "impossible " (in view of free will and circumstances), or
inopportune (in view of the large scheme of the Universe) that he should be
drawn as yet : but the " as yet " of this life covers but a tiny fraction of the
individual's existence. Did He not wait till mankind, at its central focus,
was ripe for His first Coming ? Is He not waiting, and there, again ?

172 JOHN VI. 67-69

three months' absence in the pagan districts of Phoenicia
and Decapolis (Matt. xv. 21 : Mark vii. 24), where large
numbers of Israehtes dwelt as Gentiles, among Gentiles.

(67) " Jesus therefore," as though abandoned by all
others, " said to the Twelve, ' Will ye also go ? '" It
is the first mention of " the Twelve " by this Evangelist :
and the reason is simple. In chapters i.-iv. no mention
is made of them, for the Twelve had not yet been chosen :
they were chosen in the interval between the events
recorded in chapter iv. and those recorded in chapter v.
They are not mentioned in chapter v. because they were
not with Him in Jerusalem for Pentecost (the Festival of
chapter v.), He having sent them on a mission to Israelites
in the regions beyond Galilee (Matt. x. : Mark vi. 7-11).*

(68) Simon Peter as spokesman for the Twelve answered,
" Lord, unto whom shall we go away ? It is matters of
Life eternal that Thou hast {p^jxaTci ^w?lr aiMv'iov c'xttc)."
To whom should they go ? To the Scribes, the doctors of
the Law ? No : they stayed with Him, to learn of Life,
fuller Life, ever-expanding Life.

(69) " And we (viz. we the Twelve) have believed and
have come to know {l-yvioKUfiiv) that Thou art The Holy
One of God." They had believed it when they first came
to Him last February' at the bidding of John the Baptist
the greatest of the Prophets : — John whom the Sanhedrin
themselves for thirty years recognized as having been
sent in order to prepare them for Messiah and to " officially
nominate Messiah unto Israel " (cf. avaSa'^twc avTov
[John's] irpo^ Tov '\apai]\, Luke i. 80) : John whom they
only this year disowned because the Messiah whom he
nominated was not to their liking.

Since then, the Twelve, by constant converse with
Him, had found their assenting faith developing toward

* The section Matt, xii., xiii., is not in chronological order In reference to
what precedes it. None of the Synoptists has attempted to follow a chrono-
logical order in the account of the Galilean mini.stry from mid-April to early
June. John alone has accurately preserved the time sequence throughout
his Gospel, a sequence which has unfortunately been obscured for us by a con-
jectural and misleading copyist's note (viz. vi. 4) having become incorporated
into the text early in the 4th century.

JOHN VT. 69-71 173

conviction ("we have come to know ") that He was The
Holy One of God. The Holy One (o I'lyioc) means the
consecrated One, The One specially set apart by God and
for God's purposes. The phrase is like that in verse 27,
" This One the Father sealed.''

(70) Peter's declaration on behalf of the Church is
approved by our Lord : but He adds a caution that there
will always be disingenuous ones and traitors in even high
places in the Church : for even in the inner circle of the
Twelve is one, and one whom He had Himself deliberately
placed among the Twelve — not from having mistaken the
man, but in order to teach them that very lesson. " Was
it not I myself who chose out you the Twelve ? and from
among you one is a devil." The etymological meaning
of the word, 8io|3oXoc, from which is formed our word
devil: is one who throws, or is thrown, into confusion (St«
jiaXXtiv), one who disorders what was in order ; there is
not necessarily inherent in the word intentional malice —
that will depend upon the personality of him who con-
fuses, and on his motives of action.

(71) "■ He was speaking of Judas, son of Simon Iscariot :
for it was this one who was to betray Him, one from among
the Twelve," Not only was Judas's father from Karioth,
but Judas himself was from Karioth, as we learn from all
four gospels. For all call him Iscariot, which means
" a man of Karioth," or in its Hebrew form Qeriyoth :
see Joshua xv. 25, where it is named in a list of the southern
cities of the tribe of Judah. This Judas was the only Jew
(accurately so called as meaning of the tribe of Judah)
among the Twelve : the other eleven being from Galilee
(Acts i. 11) and belonging to the tribe of Levi and possibh'^
other tribes.

The miraculous extension of modes of matter, displayed
in the feeding of the five thousand, was meant by our
Lord to be an aid to the imderstanding, preparatory to
the discourse on " eating His Flesh " that followed it in
the synagogue of Capernaum, as recorded by John : and
mainly as such has John repeated an account of this miracle
which had already been described by all three Synoptists.

174 JOHN VI. 71

It is the onl}^ point at which they and John are in contact
until Passion week.

The difficulty felt by the disciples who (verse 66) fell
away was due to a nxisconception of matter. It is doubt-
less de fide that matter was called into being by God as
certainly as the so-called immaterial spirits were called into
being by Him. Matter is indestructible by any process
at the command of man. Though no single mode of matter
is essential to it, it cannot subsist apart from mode.
Although bread is matter under one modification, and
water is matter under another, and flesh is matter under
another, matter exists apart from all the accidents or
modes that appeal to our present senses : e.g. it exists as
ether, and ether is our so-far ultimate analysis of matter :
or rather, as it hitherto defies detection by any physical
sense, ether is a postulate of science, necessary to account
for certain phenomena, a postulated mode of matter
pervading all denser modes, and in which all denser modes
swim.

Matter, it seems, exists at one and the same moment
in a " physical " mode and in a " spiritual " mode, on a
" physical " plane and on a " spiritual " plane. There is, as
Paul says, a physical {(^hxjikov) body, and there is a spiritual
{■KvivixuTiKov) body, but the one no less than the other
must be regarded as matter. Our Lord's " flesh " or
physical body that was born of Mary and that hung upon
the cross is the verv same material Body which He gives
and which we receive in the Holy Sacrament — only the
modes of Its matter differ.

To Christ during His life on earth, matter had no limita-
tions. Only dependently on His will, and not abso-
lutely, can the matter of His earthly body be said to have
been subject to the limitations of matter as we know
matter. This is so whether before His resurrection or
after it : whether when Incarnate on earth or since His
Ascension : for He was always Lord of matter, seeing that
He never ceased to be God.

Thus, water He made into wine, wine He made into
His Blood : bread He made into His Bod\ : loaves and

JOHN VI. 71 175

fishes He extended indefinitely : He walked on water,
making His body probably imponderable : He instantly
transferred the ship from one point to a point some two
miles distant. Not onlj^ did His risen body pass through
solid rock, but He similarly caused His earthly body at
His birth to pass through the closed womb of His mother.

That same earthly body He showed (to the three on
Tabor) modified in a state of transcendent glory, as the
Shekinah or Indwelling Presence of the Godhead shone out
of it. That same earthly body He showed after His
resurrection, again modified.

His divine will was not confronted by any limitations
in His relation to matter : His human will was aware of
them : but they vanished if or when He summoned His
divine will.

Not being self-existent, matter might conceivably be
annihilated by Him who called it into being. We are
perfectly certain it never will be so annihilated, for in the
Incarnation God has assumed it to the Godhead, when
He assumed the whole human race to the Godhead — that
race to whom matter is indissoluble^ bound.

For the mind that has grasped the truth that to the
all-seeing Eve there is no Before no After, no Then no There,
no Time no Space, but all is Here and all is Now, and that
the primordial cell is no older than is the tree or the man
we look upon, the Universe is but the caravanserai of all
created things, as the eastern sage expressed it. The self-
existent He alone abides : but as He has assumed human
nature (body as well as spirit) to Himself, He thenceforth
invested man, as well as matter (in one mode or another),
with an existence without end.

176 The Intcnml hdiveen John vi. end and vii. 1

A.D. 28.
June 5, Sat.

SivanlS

I Sun.

THE INTERVAL BETWEEN JOHN VI. END AND VII. 1.

The interval between chapters vi. and vii. of John's
gospel may be filled thus : —

On the afternoon of this day on which our Lord delivered
His discom-se of chapter vi. in the synagogue of Capernaum
occmred His mterview with " Pharisees and Scribes who
had come from Jerusalem " (see at p. 157) : His words to
the crowd on the same subject : and His words to the
disciples in the house on the same subject (Matt. xv. 1-20 :
Mark vu. 1-23).

From there (Capernaum) He arose and " withdrew to
the districts of Tyve and Sidon," and " through Sidon to the
Sea of Galilee tlirough the midst of the borders of Decapolis "
(Matt. XV. 21-28 : Mark vii. 24-31). This is the circuit of
Luke viii. 1-3, during which " the Twelve were with Him,
and certain women," viz. " IMary who is called the Magda-
lene '" (see pp. 441-445) " and many others." The Twelve,
as we saw at p. 145, had recently rejoined Him at Capernaum,
about June 3 : and Mary Magdalene had been recently
cured at Jerusalem (pp. 441, 442): these "women" are
named by Luke to show how the wants of our Lord and His
companions were supplied during this long circuit outside
of Galilee, during which they no longer had a headquarters
in Peter's house in Capernaum.

Returns "to the Sea of Galilee," from the borders of
Tyre, Sidon, and Decapolis — all of them Gentile districts.

" He went up on to the mountain and sat there " (Matt.
XV. 29). Neither the text nor tradition seems to help us
toward the identification of this mountain on the lake : we
neither know whether it belonged to the Decapolis con-
federacy or not, nor on which side of the lake it was. For
though He took ship from it to reach Magadan, nothmg is
said of His crossing the lake.

The "three days ' of Mark viii. 2. Great crowds came
to Him there, bringing their sick, and He healed them all.
Tliese are Gentile Israelites, as appears from then phrase,
" the God of Israel " (Matt. xv. 29, 31 : Mark vii. 31-end).
The miracle of the seven loaves (Matt. xv. 32-end :
Mark viii. 1-10). These seven loaves are of Gentile baking
and the baskets are Gentile baskets (crc/jupiSes) : hence
their distinction in Mark viii. 20 from the loaves of JewLsh
baking and the Jewish baskets (/co^ti/oi) of viii. 19.

Tentatively the date Sept. 14 is suggested, as being this
year = Elul 29, the last day of the Jubilee year, to which
an allusion seems to lie in Matt. xv. 31. Much depends
on the date of the Transfiguration. On this same day He

Sept.

Sept.l2/ .„_
Elul 27 pun.

Sept. 12-14.

Sept. l^J T,,„
Elul 29f '"®^-

The Inteiual between John vi. end and vii. 1 177

A.D. 28.
Sept. 15 ( ^ .

Sept. 16, Thurs.

Sept. 18, Sat.

Sept. 23, Thurs.
evp.

Sept. 24? p.
TisrIlO) '^'^'•

and the Twelve came by the ship to Magadan or Magdala or
Dalmanutha, on the west side of the lake.

The Pharisees and Sadducees come out to Him for a sign.
The day here suggested was Tisri 1, the first day of their
civil year. This is probably a formal, and is also a hostile,
deputation of Sanhedrists after His long absence from Galilee.
The terms they require are the old ones, " a sign from
heaven."

He crosses to the other side of the lake (to the north-east
corner) (Matt. svi. 1-12: Mark viii. 11-21). They come
to the district of Bethsaida-Julias (at the north-east corner
of the lake), where He heals a blind man (Mark viii. 22-26).

He comes to the district of Caesarea-Philippi : the town
is a day's joiu:ney from Bethsaida-Julias. " On the way
Peter's confession of the Faith, and the promise to Peter.
Our Lord " began " to point out to His disciples that He must
be rejected by the Sanhedrin and be killed in Jerusalem
and rise again " on the third day,'" alluding to the " sign of
Jonah " which He yesterday told the Sanhedrists they should
have (Matt. xvi. 13-21 : Mark viii. 27-31 : Luke ix. 18-22).

He was talking openly {napp-qtr ta) about this His rejection
and death, so that Peter rebukes Him privately, and is
rebuked : He calls the crowd to Him and even to them
speaks plainly of His death by crucifixion (Matt. xvi. 22-end :
Mark viii. 32-ix. 1 : Luke ix. 23-27).

" After six days " (Matt. xvii. 1 : Mark ix. 2), " About
eight days after these words (Xoyovs) " (Luke ix. 28), He
goes up Mt Tabor in Galilee. Matthew and Mark date
their " six " days from the close of this new teaching about
His death (Saturday), whereas Luke dates his " eight "
days from the beginning of it (Thursday). The " began "
of Matt. xvi. 21 and Mark viii. 31 implies a continuation on
subsequent days.

This night after midnight of Thursday-Friday He was
transfigured before the three disciples on Tabor (Matt.
xvii. 2-8 : Mark ix. 2-8 : Luke ix. 29-36). The day is
Tisri 10, the great Day of Atonement, when the high priest
clothed in shining -\vhite hyssus entered the Holy of Holies.
At the Transfiguration Jesus A\-as doubtless seen standing
between Elijah and Moses : is it merely a coincidence that
this night of Tisri 10 stands exactly midway between lyar 11
(May l),the day on which is commemorated the Assumption
of Elijah, and Adar 7 (Feb. 16), the day of the death of
Moses ? This Tisri 10 is also the day on Avhich Moses received
the Tablets of the Law the second time and came dowai
with face shining (Exod. xxxiv. 29), and a similar glory
seems to have still radiated from the face of our Lord many

178 The Interval between John vi. end and vii. 1

A.D. 28.
Sept. 24, Fri.

Sept. 24-28.

Sept. 27, Mo 11.

hours after His traasfigiu'ation (see i^€6a/j.fty]0r]aav, Mark
ix. 15). The day i? also the Julian autumnal equinox
(Sept. 24) : as other cardinal points are marked by the
Annunciation, the Birth, the Passion.

In the morning He came down from the Mount ; and at
the foot of it healed the lunatic demoniac (Matt. xvii. 9-21 :
Mark ix. 9-29 : Luke ix. 37-43ff) : the traditional site of
the miracle is the village of Dabiiriyeh at the north-weet
foot of Mt Tabor. The moon had been full on Wednesday,
Sept. 22.

For these days " He abode in GaiUee," John vii. 9.
Mark (ix. 30-32) has " they went on their way through
Galilee," i.e. from Mt Tabor, and He taught His death and
resuiTection to His disciples, i.e. the disciples of Galilee whom
He had not seen for three months. Matthew (xvii. 22, 23)
has " whUst they were gathering together (crticrTpe^o/xevojv)
in Galilee," i.e. the little band of His genuine disciples
who were rallying together to accompany Him and the
Twelve to Jerusalem — the pilgrim caravan having started
before (John vii. 9, 10).

At Capernaum : the collectors of the half-shekel for the
Temple. According to Rabbinical authorities this half-
shekel might in different localities be paid at any of the
three great festivals (Greswell, Dissertations, ii. 378) : e.g.
on this occasion, just before the Feast of Tabernacles. The
collectors A\ould assume that He was not going up to Jeru-
salem, as the other pilgrims had already started, and so
they collect it at Capernaum (Matt. xvii. 24-end). " In
that hour " came the disciples : the dispute as to who is
the greatest, etc. His answer and His subsequent discourse
(Slatt. xviii. 1-end : Mark ix. 33-end : Luke ix. 46-50).

Now we shall see how John takes up and caiTies on from
Sept. 23.

§ XI

JOHN VII. 1-36

From Galilee to Jerusalem. Feast of Tabernacles

(1) John resumes the story in late September, after an
interval of over 3| months (viz. from early June to late
September) — an interval only slightly touched
upon by Matthew (xv. 21-xviii. 35), by Mark Latt'se f'
(vii. 24-ix. 50), by Luke (ix. 18-50). During ^ ® ®P *
this interval our Lord has been absent in the Gentile
districts of Tyre, Sidon, and Decapolis, has landed (mid-
Sept.) for a few hours at Dalmanutha (Magdala), has
withdrawn for a few days to the neighbourhood of Caesarea
Philippi, and has just returned to Galilee (Mt Tabor,
Sept. 23, 24). It is at this point that chapter vii.
begins.

(2) The Feast of Tabernacles (Tisri 15-Tisri 21) pre-
ceded His death by six months, and fell in this year
A.D. 28 on the seven days from Wednesday, September 29,
when it began, to Tuesday, October 5, when it ended.
The eighth da}^, Tisri 22 (Wednesday, Oct. 6), was a separate
Feast (p. 198).

As both Friday and Saturday (Sept. 24, 25) were, this
year, days of obligatory rest, for Friday was Tisri 10,
the great Day of Atonement, the Galilean pilgrims would
collect at Jenin (on the border of Galilee and Samaria)
on Thursday, Sept. 23 : stay here for the two days of
obligatory rest (Sept. 24, 25) : leave Jenin on Sunday,
Sept. 26, reaching Nablus that evening ; leave Nablus on
Monday, Sept. 27, and arrive at Bireh (on the frontier of
Judaea) in the evening : leave Bireh on Tuesday, Sept. 28,
and reach Jerusalem at noon.

179

180 JOHN VII. 2-4

Thus on Thursday, Sept. 23, the various pilgrhn bands

would be collecting and converging on Jenin,

Tisr"' 9('^^^^5- ^^"^d to-day in the neighbourhood of Mt Tabor

He would intercept His brethren and other

pilgrims (Tabor lies just halfway between Capernaum

and Jenin) : and to-day He had the conversation with

His brethren (John vii. 3-9), who might see

Tisri'ioi^^'* ^^'^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ disciples were not going up
to Jerusalem. To-night, after midnight of
Thursday-Friday, and therefore on Friday, Sept. 24, He
will be seen " transfigured " on Mt Tabor, by Peter, James,
and John (p. 177).

(3) His " brethren " are His first cousins ; who, as being

His nearest of kin, are technically termed " brethren " :

this terminology is seen again and again in
Sent 23) »j & o

Tisri gf'^hu'^^' the Old Testament. They are the sons of

Clopas (same as Cleopas), the half-brother

of Joseph — Joseph and Cleopas having the same father,

Jacob of the tribe of Levi : but Joseph was in the eye of

the Law the son of Eli of the tribe of Judah : for Jacob

" raised him up " as seed to the dead Eli, in accordance

with the Levirate law. Thus Clopas and his sons are

of Levi's tribe, whilst Joseph is of Judah's. These

" brethren " of the text are James the Little, Joses,

Simeon, Jude, none of whom was of the Twelve.

They urge Him, " Remove from here and go to Judaea,

that so Thy disciples also {'Iva kuI ol /xaOr]Tai aov) shall

clearly see " {duopyaovaiv, which always means to observe

with careful attention, or else to see with the intellect)

" Thy works that Thou doest," i.e. they too shall see as

clearly as we already do (such is the force of the k«() the

result to which your action is leading : it must end in your

being put to death by the hierarchy, and that will be the

end of the movement.

(4) ' You claim to be the nation's Messiah : come out
then into the open and face the authorities instead of
living here in a remote province, or hiding in Phoenicia
and Deca polls : come up to the metropolis, where the whole
nation is gathering for the great Festival of the year.

JOHN VIT. 4-7 181

If you do these great works we all hear of, and we do not
deny it ' (for such is the force of £» . . . 7rotf?c, indie),
' show yourself to the world, win the world's admiration,
so that it will follow you : for unless you win the world's
approval, you will effect nothing. But obviously you
have no chance against the hierarchy.'

(5) " For not even His brethren believed into Him "
{evicrTsvov, imp., i.e. were as yet believing, afterwards they
did believe). His brethren were thinking that His success
depended on the world's attitude to Him : in other words,
they believed in the world rather than in Him. They are
often confused with the Apostles James son of Alphseus,
Judas {=-- Lebbaeus = Thadd8eus) son of James, and Simon
the zealot. After the Resurrection they were famous
in the Church : three of them, viz. James the Little,
Simeon, and Jude, being the three first bishops of
Jerusalem.

(6) " My time is not yet at hand." Far from seeking
the world's approval as His brethren wished, He was
aware that the world in self-defence would first compass
His death. The time in the world's history had not yet
arrived for the setting up of the visible Kingdom or for
His open and universal triumph,

" Your time is always ready." From their point of
view the time was all ready for Him to come forward as
the world's king, was always ready, nothing needed
changing, He haid but to fall in with the times and
declare Himself as the embodiment of the national
ambition.

(7) " The world cannot hate you, but Me it hates,
because I testif}^ of it that its works are evil." They
were in entire harmony with the prevailing temper of the
world, and with the carnal outlook of the nation, which
merely wanted a king who should wrest the world's empire
from Rome and perpetuate and fidfil the world's vain
self-complacency. Whereas He, He was in utter anta-
gonism to it ; for the spirit of the world's self-sufficiency
is restive under the very thought of God, and seeks to set
Him on one side and forget Him.

182 JOHN VII. 8

A universal empire indeed awaits the reunited Twelve-
tribed Nation, as had been promised them ; but they must
first be ripe for it.

(8) " You, go you up to the Feast." They were in
harmony with the spirit in which it was kept : they
approved of the prevaihng temper, outlook, and ideal.

" / do not yet go up to this Feast," i.e. to keep it :
" for My time is not yet fulfilled." This Feast of Taber-
nacles He would not keep until He keeps it at a later
Coming that will usher in a better Age : not till then
would His time for it be fulfilled. It is probable that the
reason why He did not go up with the pilgrims was that
He was aware of a plot among the Jews to seize Him on
the road or immediately on arrival in Jerusalem. For
their set determination see verses 1, 11, 19, 25, 30.

From the beginning of His public Ministry our Lord
was out of harmony with the nation at all their festivals :
none of them did He keep with the nation ; though He
went up to Jerusalem, as their dates came round, in order
to have the vast crowds for His audience and witness.
The Jews' rejection of Him already had made all their
festivals meaningless, for He was the fulfilment and the
only meaning of them all. This appears from John's
marked phraseology throughout : e.g. ii. 13, " The Jews'
passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem " :
V. 1, " There was a feast of the Jews [i.e. Pentecost),
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem " : vii. 2, " The Jews'
Feast of Tabernacles was at hand ... I go not yet up
unto this Feast . . . but when His brethren were gone up
to the Feast, then went He also up." These words, " to
the Feast," in verse 10 are most unfortunately
" ° ^^ ' misplaced in the A.V. and in the commonly
received Greek text, and the whole passage is thus
obscured. He did not go up to the Feast, i.e. to keep
the Feast, He only xvent up, i.e. to Jerusalem. He did
not keep the Feast in Jerusalem ; for the day of obliga-
tion Avas the first day. By John's peculiar use of " the
Jews " throughout His gospel to represent the hostile
and anti-Christian party of the day, he shows that these

JOHN VII. 9-10 183

feasts as kept by them had no longer any vitality. So
Origen, on ii. 13, remarks that the words " the passover
of the Jews " point to the emptiness of the ceremonial.

He has transformed the Feast of the Passover in
sacrificing Himself as the Paschal Lamb (and we should
note the " with you " of Luke xxii. 15 : and the " with
My disciples " of Luke xxii. 11, meaning not with the
nation). He has transformed the Feast of Pentecost :
He has yet to transform the Feast of Tabernacles,

(9) He and His disciples did not go up with the pilgrims,
but " abode still in Galilee " (vii. 9), evidently for a very
few days, as He still arrived in the Temple when the Feast
was only half through {i.e. on Saturday, Oct. 2).

We have placed the Transfiguration to the night of

Sept. 23-24. After this talk with His brethren (p. 180) He

then travelled back from Mt Tabor through Galilee (Mark

ix. 30) to Capernaum (Mark ix. 33) : there at Capernaum

occurred the incidents of Matt. xvii. 24-xviii. end, Mark

ix. 33-end, Luke ix. 46-50. The collector of „ ^ „„.

Scot 27 1
the half-shekel (Matthew) naturally came to Tigri i3(^°"-

collect it when our Lord arrived at Caper-
naum : for he would assume that Jesus and His dis-
ciples were not going to Jerusalem for the Feast, seeing
that all other pilgrims had left, and so would argue that
He would pay the money here at Capernaum if at all.

(10) " But when His brethren had gone up to the
Feast, then He too went up." This is the correct reading :
and see the R.V. as against the A.V.

This His departure from Galilee (end of Sept.) is that
named in Matt. xix. 1,* Mark x. 1, f Luke
ix. 51. On Tuesday, Sept. 28, He and His Sept.^8, lues.

* There should be a full stop at the word " Galilee " in Matt. xix. 1 : for
He did not go to Persea straight from Galilee, but was at Jerusalem during
the latter part of the Feast of Tabernacles : thence He moved " to the frontiers
of Judsea beyond Jordan " (f(s to opia rris 'lov^aias irepav rov 'lopSdvov), i.e.
went to Persea, which was east of Jordan.

t Mark, like Matthew, takes no notice of the short visit to Jerusalem, but
merely mentions that He removed from Galilee, changing the scene of His
Ministry "to the frontiers of Judaea, even {i.e. viz.) beyond Jordan "' {^h ra
Hpia rris 'lovSaias, Ka\ irtpav rod 'lopUvov) ; Peraea being on the frontier of
Judsea, whereas Galilee was not, for Samaria divided Galilee from Judsea.

184 JOHN VII. 10-12

disciples would leave Capernaum ; and be at the frontier
of Samaria in the evening.

On Wednesday, Sept. 29, He would arrive at the hostile
village in Samaritan territory indicated in

Tisri 15 S^®^' ^^^^^ ^^- ^^' ^^^^ ^* the friendly one of verse

56. That He sent messengers in advance
to make preparations (Luke ix. 52) would be because all
the pilgrim caravans to the Feast had passed some days

ago, and thus His arrival would not be
j^gj,j'^gJThurs. expected : also there were many travelling

with Him to be provided for. On Thursday,
Sept. 30, they would arrive at Birch, the last halting-place
O t 1 F ■ ^^ *^^ route. On Friday, Oct. 1, they would

reach Jerusalem, and so be in the city before

the Sabbath began at sunset of Fridav.
Oct 2 / **

Tisri 18 r^*' "^^^^^ He would naturally appear in the

Temple on Saturday, Oct. 2, on the middle
day of the seven days' Feast (verse 14).

(10) John remarks on this journey that He went up
" not openly, but as it were covertly," i.e. not in company
with the pilgrim caravans, nor yet by the pilgrim route :
also not as Jesus, but incognito. Hence the strange opposi-
tion shown by the Samaritans on this occasion (Luke
ix. 53). On the great pilgrim route from Galilee to Jeru-
salem (viz. via Jenin, Nabliis, Birch), the Samaritans
would be by usage of centuries, and probably by written
treaty, tolerant of the pilgrims' passage : but off the main
route (the Haj route as Moslems would say to-day) their
hostility to the pilgrims would be always keen.

(11) Meanwhile, at Jerusalem, His delay was causing
much agitation. " Therefore " — seeing that He was late,
_ „ „ and not among the pilgrim caravans — " the

Jews (the hostile, hierarchical, national party)
were seeking for Him at the Feast and saying-, ' Where is
Ae ? ' " (emphatic he, Ikhvoq, the one man we want) : for
they meant to kill Him at the first good opportunity that
offered (vii. 1, 19 : v. 18).

(12) " And there was much muttering concerning Him
among the crowds " who were from the provinces : some —

JOHN VII. 12-14 '■ 185

the more independent temperaments — venturing to say,
' He is a good man : there's no harm in liim ' : others
objecting, " Nay : but he is causing the crowd to go
astray "—away from the doctors. These latter are the
more conservative party who might rather be afraid that
His influence was Hkely to snap the principle of authority,
although as to Him personally they were in His favour; if
only the authorities could see their way to recognize Him.

(13) " However, no one was for talking (eXaXii)
openly about Him, for fear of the Jews." Though the
crowds were as a whole favourably inclined to Him, no one
spoke out boldly in His support, because they knew the
hierarchy were against Him and the movement.

(14) " When it was already the middle of the Feast,
Jesus went up to the Temple and He taught." The Feast
lasted seven days ; viz. in a.d. 28, from
Wednesday, Sept. 29, to Tuesday, Oct. 5 : °!;*;. Jjsat.
so He appeared on the fourth day, viz.
Saturday, Oct. 2, in the Temple, and began teaching. His
teaching, one may suppose, would be adapted to the vast
crowds as was His Sermon on the Mount, and woidd not
be the theological discourses which He addressed to a more
learned audience : e.g. to Nicodemus (chapter iii.), to the
woman of Samaria (chapter iv.), to " the Jews " (chapter
v.), to the spokesmen of the Galilean crowd in the syna-
gogue (chapter vi.), varied with " the Jews " in same
chapter, to " the Jews " and " the Pharisees " (chapters
vii., viii.) — in short, all the discourses preserved by John.
John is not concerned to give his readers the elementary
teaching of Christ given to the crowds, as recorded by the
Synoptic gospels, but wishes to select from our Lord's
teaching stronger food adapted to other needs.

As to the part of the Temple in which He taught : A few
days later (viii. 20) He was teaching in " the Treasury,"
i.e. in the porticos surrounding and giving on to the
" Court of the Women," which was the main court of those
reserved to the nation. On the other hand, two months
later (x. 23) the " Portico of Solomon" is named as the place
selected : that was on the extreme east of the Temple

186 ' JOHN VII. 15-18

area and bordered the largest court of all, viz. the " Court
of the Gentiles " — ojDcn to every one of all nationalities :
this " Portico of Solomon " was the part the Apostles chose
later to frequent (Acts iii. 11, and especially v. 12) as though
our Lord had habitually chosen it.

(15) " The Jews " (the hostile and hierarchical party)
listened on to the end of His address : and then, as the
great audience broke up, began expressing to each other
their astonishment at His learning. " Learning," to a
Jew, meant exclusively learning in the Law and Theology
and the sacred books. ' Where did He get it ? we know He
never learnt in the Schools, for we have never lost sight
of Him since His birth : it has been a matter for wonder
to us ever since He began teaching here in the Temple
at twelve years of ,age.' It is clear the Jews had no
definite fault to find with the teaching they had just
heard : their question implies it could not be said to be
unorthodox. It had been based on Moses and the
Prophets : it threw light on them and explained them :
it was not opposed to traditional exegesis, but it was
ampler. It seemed indeed to bring the sacred books and
the best Rabbinical exegesis into one large consistent whole :
but it went beyond in its freshness and clearness of vision.

(16) " My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent Me."
True He had never learnt in the Schools : for all that, His
doctrine was not the invention of a new teacher. It was
the teaching of God who sent Him to represent Him, just
as in earlier days He appointed Moses to take their training
in hand. His doctrine was the fulfilment, development,
of the principles inherent in the Law of Moses when that
Law is rightly understood.

(17) Nor could any of them, if his will was set to God,
be in doubt about the source or the truth of the teachiag
they had just heard. For it was the willing to do God's
will, as revealed hitherto in the principles of the Law, that
gave the power to recognize the voice of God when heard.
Like responds to like. (18) If a man teaches a new system
of his own he seeks praise for himself ; and his teaching,
being but his own, is worthless : but if a man's teaching

JOHN VIT. 19-23 187

seeks praise for God who sent him (for if he seeks praise
for God, he is sent by God), his teaching will be true.

(19) Did not Moses give them the Law ? they admitted
it was the expression of the will of God : and yet " not
one of you does the Law." Talk about it there was in
plenty : but will to do was the best interpreter of it. From
not willing to do it, they failed to know its spirit : from
not knowing its spirit, they thought He was breaking it.
But was He ? Let them formulate their charge. " Why
go ye about to kill Me ? " The Jews, or official party,
to whom He is speaking, gave no answer to His question,
remaining silent, not willing to admit openly that such was
their purpose.

(20) But the crowd from the provinces, who were
unaware of this extreme measure determined by the
hierarchy, gave as their own answer, ' Nay, nay, no one
seeks to kill you : we heard rumours indeed in Galilee
that you expected some such end : but it is a delusion you
are under.' They are speaking bond fide, and are friendly.

(21) Jesus, ignoring this remark of the crowd, and
still addressing the still silent Jews, gave the real answer
to His own question, " Why do you seek to kill Me ? "
viz. Because He seemed to them to break the Law against
bearing burdens on a Sabbath : as on the occasion of that
cure He did on a Sabbath the last time He was here :
which had offended them then (pp. 134-136) and was still
a matter of astonishment to them all {TravTeg Oavud^^Ti).

(22) " Look at it this way," He says, or " Reason it
out thus (Am TOVTO-) " : " Moses has given you circum-
cision— not that it dates from Moses, but from the Fathers
[long before Moses] — and on a Sabbath you circumcise "
without scruple as on any other day : for instance, if the
eighth day since a boy's birth be a Sabbath, he must be
circumcised on that day in spite of Sabbath laws (Lev.
xii. 3).

(23) But if one member may be as it were made sound
on a Sabbath, why be angry because He had made the
whole of a man sound on a Sabbath ? The former case
they justified in that the beneficent patriarchal (and

188 JOHN VII. 23-27

Mosaic) law, which required circumcision to take place on
the eijrhth day after birth, was older than and took pre-
cedence of the Mosaic Sabbath laws. The latter case He
justifies by God's yet older and wider laws of Humanity
which also take precedence of the Mosaic, purely national,
Sabbath law, which forbade a man carrying a burden on
the Sabbath (v. 16).

There is nothing here to warrant the idea that the
institution of the seventh-day rest dates from Moses,
but quite the opposite. It dates from the Adamic cos-
mogony : but at the time of the Exodus, Moses added
more stringent laws as to the Sabbath day, which were
never meant for any nation but Israel,

(24) ' Judge not superficially : but judge in accordance
with the underlying principles of justice.' Here this day's
teaching seems to end.

(25) We may suppose that on the following day, Sunday,
Oct. 3, He is again in the Temple teaching openly and

without hindrance, which causes surprise
' ' among certain of those who lived at Jeru-
salem. This group are not the hierarchical party, nor
yet do they belong to the crowds from the provinces :
they are " Jerusalemites," residents at Jerusalem, who
were familiar with the official objections raised against
Him, and aware of the Sanhedrin's intention with regard
to Him. They remark, " Is not this He whom they seek
to kill ? "

(26) ' And yet here He is in the very Temple boldly
confronting the rulers, and they are silent. Can it be
that, in spite of all they say, they are in truth aware thai:
this one is the Messiah ? ' (27) ' And yet, how can this
one be the Messiah ? for we know (oVSa^tv) all about
this man and his family : we remember the events connected
with his birth ; we have watched him grow from child to
man : but when Messiah comes, no one discerns {jivoxtkei.
ask as he may), whence He is.' They have in mind
Malachi's " He will suddenly come to His Temple " : where
Malachi means ' without their being prepared to recognize
Him/ for Malachi is there (iii. 1) talking of His first Coming.

JOHN VII. 27-28 189

They, however, took it to mean ' in full manhood sud-
denly ' — as against one who had grown up under their
eyes, and whose birth and parentage was known to them.
This is remarkable : thirty years ago, at the time of His
birth, the Sanhedrin had formulated no such tcachinji :
for, when asked by Herod where Messiah was to be
born, they said " at Bethlehem " (Matt. ii. 4, 5) : there-
fore in those days they expected Messiah to be born of
a mother like any other man, and no doubt expected to
know of His birth and watch Him grow to maturity. And
this had continued to be their opinion all the years of His
Childhood and Boyhood, so that we find Him at the age
of twelve welcomed by " the doctors " (Luke ii. 46, 47) as
the nation's Pride, their Hope, their Glory. It was not
till years later, when they gradually fell foul of His ideals
and tacitly disavowed Him, that they began to orientate
their outlook afresh and sought to recast their exegesis of
the ProjDhets in such a way as to exclude all possibility
of Jesus being the Messiah. Amongst other prophecies
they found this one of Malachi to their purpose, so explain-
ing it to the people that all might know that none whose
parentage and birth were known (as was the case with
Jesus) could possibly be Messiah : they would support their
teaching by that other dark prophecy (Isa, liii. 8), " Who
shall declare His generation ? " and as we have seen
(at i. 46), they had twisted Micah's " from Bethlehem "
to exclude Jesus as being " from Nazareth."

(28) He is aware of their surprise at His boldness,
and also of their intellectual difficulty. He emphasizes
for them His boldness by raising His voice as one speaking
with the weight of authority, there, in the very Temple :
teaching not this time the crowds, but those learned
objectors who had just expressed rabbinical and theological
difficulties.

' It was true they knew Him, and they knew whence
He was, for His human parentage was known to them.
And yet, along with that, they did not know whence He
w^as : and in this, their expectation about the Messiah
was being realized : for He was come from One whom

190 JOHN VII. 29-S4

they did not know, Him who alone has authority to send
the Messiah, Him who is the God of Truth : but what
Truth was there in them that thev shoidd recognize the
Sender or the Sent ? '

(29) " / know Him, for from Him I am (Trap' uvtov h/hQ,"'
i.e. from Him I have My being, by eternal generation, " and
He it is who sent Me," i.e. from Him I have also My
mission : but under both of these headings that saying
they quoted was true of them all, "when the Messiah
comes, no one knows whence He is."

(30) An unofficial attempt was here made by His
opponents to arrest Him : but, when it came to laying
a hand on Him, none was bold enough ; for a power went
forth from Him that stayed them. He could not be taken
till the hour of destiny came, when He and The Father
should allow His arrest. This emanant power was again
felt (xviii. 6) on the night of His arrest.

Our Lord's discourse is over : He perhaps here leaves
the Temple, crossing the great court, from the Portico
of Solomon toward the gate of exit.

(31) As a result of His discourse, " Many of the crowd "
from the provinces " believed into Him " as the Messiah ;
saying among themselves in vuider-tones : ' This must be
Messiah ; anyway when Messiah comes will He do more
signs by which we may know Him than this One did ? '

(32) It was, perhaps, on the next day, Monday, Oct. 4,
that the Pharisees moving about the crowded courts

heard these muttered remarks still echoing ;
' ' and, recognizing their dangerous tendency,
they and the chief priests sent certain of the Temple
police (who were Hebrews of the tribe of Levi) to take
Him before He left the Temple area to-day, or, failing
that, to take Him at the first opportunity when He
entered the Temple again — so we gather from verse 45,
where the time is fixed by verse 37 to Tuesday, Oct. 5.

(33) Jesus, being aware of what the}^ had done (for to
Him all things were known) said to this the national
party who refused Him : " For a little while yet I am with
you " (viz. another six months) : " and " (thereafter) —

(34) "I withdraw to Him Avho sent Me." The day

JOHN VII. 34-36 191

would come that the}^ should seek their Messiah who was
no other than Himself, and they should not find their
Messiah, because they sought their Messiah elsewhere than
in Him. His special reference seems to be to their vivid
expectation, forty-two years later, of a sudden deliverance
(see Josephus, War, VI. v. 2) by Messiah, which alone
supported them to resist Titus with such obstinate courage,
ending in the national ruin. " And where I am, ye cannot
come." Not until all their 'ideas about Him personally,
and about Messiah, were changed, could the gulf between
Him and them be bridged.

And with those words He passes out of the Temple
area. The gate of exit for the public lay in the north
half of the west wall : and that of ingress in the south
half of the same west wall. The gates in the north, south,
and east walls were not open to the general public.

(35) Therefore " the Jews " said among themselves,
' Whither is this one about to go that we the privileged
People shall not find him ? if he is Messiah, as he claims,
he cannot sever himself from us : for Messiah without us
is not thinkable.

' It cannot be that he is going to those of us who are
dispersed among the Greeks, and so teach the Greeks
also ? ' — a premonition of what actually did happen under
the Apostles, some thirteen years later.

The speakers might perhaps have had in mind the fact
that some three weeks ago, on returning through Decapolis
(which was a Greek confederacy) He had fed a crowd of
four thousand who were Gentiles, and probably Gentile
Israelites (Mark vii. 31-viii. 9). In any case the terms
ra Wvn (" Gentiles ") and "EAXjji'ec (Greeks) were at this
time frequently used synonymously by the Jews.

(36) And " What can he mean by that ' ye shall seek
Me and shall not find Me : and where I am ye cannot
come ' ? " They will hear the same words again on
Wednesday (viii. 21) and be equally perplexed.

Note. — The foregoing, f jora verse 14 to verse 36 inclusive, which has here
been taken as covering the three days Saturday, Sunday, Monday, may equally
well be taken as confined to the one day Saturday (of verse 14). In either
case verse 37 opens with the following Tuesday, Oct. 5, Tisri 21.

§ XII

JOHN VII. 37-52

The last and great day of the Feast

(37) " On the last day, the great day, of the Feast."

A.D. 28. The time is three days later than verse

Oct. 5>„ 14 : it is " the last " and seventh day of the
Tisri2l5 ' Feast, viz. Tuesday, Oct. 5, a.d. 28.

The Feast of Tabernacles lasted seven days : of which
the seventh and last was " the great day " and marked by
extra ceremonies. The " eighth day " was a different
Feast altogether, as Edersheim shows from Rabbinical
authorities ; and the peeidiar rites of the seven days of
Tabernacles were not observed on that day.

So, He is again in the Temple : " He was standing "
in some conspicuous place, for He meant to be seen of all :
" and He cried aloud," as with authority, " saying," etc.

(38) It is evident that our Lord here delivered a dis-
course, of which John has given us only the salient sen-
tences : a discourse in which He claimed to be the dispenser
of the Holy Spirit, of which the outpouring had been
figured by the ritual just performed. If they would but
understand, the whole ritual of the Feast prefigured, and
centred in. Him. His reference is to that pouring out of
water at the great altar, which was made on each of the
seven days of Tabernacles. On this, the seventh day
of the Feast, the procession round the altar was repeated
seven times : this seventh and last day was known as " the
Great Hosanna." The water-pouring was held by the
Rabbis to be significative of the pouring out of the Holy
Spirit in "the latter days," the days of the Messiah, when
the general harvest of the nations should be gathered in.
This outpouring of the Spirit prophesied by Joel yet awaits

192

JOHN VII. 38-40 193

its perfect t'lilfilment, ushering in the millennial Age, when
the conversion of the Jews will be as " life from the dead "
(Rom. xi. 15) to the Gentiles : for the Pentecost of a.d. 29
(Acts ii.) was but the firstfruits of The Spirit, and is but
firstfruits still.

The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost was the Feast of First-
fruits, or the beginning of wheat harvest ; whereas the
Feast of Tabernacles was the Feast of the general harvest
or ingatherings.

(38) " He that belie veth into Me, as said the Scripture,
rivers out of his belly shall flow of living water." " As
said the Scripture." The nearest approach in the O.T. as
we have it is Isa. Iviii. 11, " thou shalt be like a spring
of waters, whose waters fail not." See the very similar
figure in iv. 14, " The water that I shall give him shall be in
him a spring of leaping water, (leaping) unto Life eternal."

(39) " This He spake of The Spirit which they who
believed into Him were about to receive," viz. at Pentecost
to start with ; and, as we may believe, at a fuller outpouring
yet to come.

" For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus
was not yet glorified," i.e. not yet given visibly, copiously,
and with such manifestations as it was at Pentecost after
our Lord was glorified. Why was the Spirit not given
visibly and abundantly before His Ascension ? " In
order," says Leo, " that this gift and pouring forth of the
Holy Spirit might be acknowledged to be the fruit of His
Passion, Ascension, and Triumph : just as kings give
largesses on occasions of great joy, triumph," etc. The
sending of The Spirit was the sign of the glorification of
Christ.

(40) " Some of the crowd hearing these discourses "
or " words " (John, as has been said, has given only salient
sentences, or headings of the address), " said ' This one is
of a truth The Prophet.' "

" The Prophet " is the " Prophet " of Deut. xviii. 18,
whom Peter (Acts iii. 22) identifies with our Lord. See
also John i. 45, " Him of whom Moses in the Law . . .
wrote " : also under i. 21.

194 JOHN VII. 41-44

(41) " Others said," boldly and definitely, " ' This one
is the Messiah.' "

" Others said, ' How so ? for can it be that Messiah
comes out of (k) Galilee ? ' " The preposition rendered
'" out of " (k-) refers to birth and origin, not to residence.
(42) '' ' Said not the Scriptures that Messiah cometh out
of (Ik) the seed of David and from (avro) Bethlehem,
the village where David was ? ' " They were right that
Messiah was not to come out of {Ik, i.e. not to be native
of) Galilee, for He was to be out of (k-, i.e. native of)
Bethlehem. They were wrong, however, in thinking He
was to be a resident of (otto) Bethlehem and in that sense
to be from Bethlehem. The reference, of course, is to
Micah v. 2. " Out of thee, Bethlehem," etc. The Hebrew
and Aramaic preposition min has the meaning of both
the Greek prepositions k and otto; and may be rendered
by either. John's discriminating use here of k and otto
shows us exactly how the objectors were here understanding
or misunderstanding the Hebrew niin. See also under i. 45,
46. The LXX had rightly rendered it in Micah v. 2 by
k, and the Sanhedrin had so understood it (Matt. ii. 5)
before they became, many years later, disingenuous. His
opponents knew that He had been born at Bethlehem,
and therefore was Ik Bethlehem and not c/c Galilee : but
in view of the equivocal meaning of the Hebrew preposition,
they now disingenuously founded on it an objection to
Him for not being arrb Bethlehem, i.e. resident of Bethlehem.
Nathanael (John i. 45-47) had seen through the equivoca-
tion and their disingenuous mistake : hence our Lord's
commendation of him as being " without guile " : but
the subtlety of that passage and of this one has been
missed by the A.V., and is obscured even in the R.V. in
chapter i. by rendering cnrh sometimes by " of " and some-
times by " from."

(43) Thus there arose a cleavage in the crowd, because
of Him and their difference of opinion about Him : (44)
and some of them wished to go so far as to seize Him.
But this second unofficial attempt to take Him was frus-
trated (as the former one of verse 30), perhaps by a power

JOHN VII. 45-52 195

that went out trom Him. And at this point Ho leaves
the Temple area.

(45) The Temple poliee (Lcvites), who had been told
off yesterday (verse 32) to take Him at the first op])or-
tiinity on His reappearance in the Temple, came to the
chief priests and Pharisees to explain why they had not
done so to-day. The attempt made had not been made
by them : and the reason for their inaction was that they
had been so impressed by His words that they preferred
to have nothing to do with His arrest.

(47) "The Pharisees answered them." The Pharisees
take the lead as being the more religious, and more zealous
than the Sadducean chief priests. ' Can it be,' they ask,
' that you also, you Levites, have been led astray ?
(48) Has any one of the rulers (i.e. the Sanhedrin), or of
us Pharisees who know, believed into Him ? (49) Only
this ignorant crowd from the provinces have done so :
and they having no knowledge of Law or of theology, are,
as such, accursed and easily led astray.'

(50) Nicodemus, himself one of the Sanhedrin, and a
secret disciple of Jesus ever since he went to Him (iii. 2),
speaks up in the only way that could possil^ly be of service
to Him — using tact and judgment, (51) ' Are we not con-
demning Him unheard ? that is, against the Law.' As one
of the Sanhedrin, and speaking to rigid observers of legal
forms, he insists on the legal formalities being observed :
anxious for a formal hearing not only for our Lord's sake,
but also for the sake of the Sanhedrin, and of the nation
whose fate hung on the Sanhedrin's action.

(52) They reply with some impatience : " Can it be
that thou also art out of (k-, native of) Galilee ? " — the
same as were the ignorant crowd who were favourable to
our Lord. ' Now search and thou shalt find that out of
{Ik, native of) Galilee a prophet has not arisen in all our
history ' (lit. " does not arise ").

Westcott (on this passage) objects that " Jonah, Hosea,
Nahum, and perhaps Elijah, Elisha, and Amos, were of
Galilee," and implies that the Pharisees were, therefore,
here talking inaccurately. But he has failed to notice

196 JOHN VII. 52

the force of the k-. They did not mean that the Prophets
had not been residents of (otTro) Gahlee, Ijut that they had
not been natives of (tic) Gahlee. And they were right,
for though the six named above had Hved and prophesied
in Gahlee like our Lord, yet, like Him again, they were not
natives of Galilee. For —

Rosea * (according to Christian tradition v. Ephrem Syrus :
and there is nothing opposed to it) was of Issachar,
a native of Belemon, thought to be near Dothan :
and not in Galilee. A Jewish tradition makes him
a native of Gilead ; and not in Galilee.
Nahum,* a native of Elkosh. Though some put this
Elkosh in Galilee, others, with greater probability,
and see the Viice Profhetarum of 4th century, place
it south of Beit Jibrin, in Judaea, and make him to
be a Simeonite.
Elijah * was a native of Thisbe in Gilead (east of Jordan) :
see Josephus, Ant. viii. 13, 2 {Ik ttoAewc Qta^Mvm: rmj
a/\aaCLTLCO(j ^(^topag).
Elislia * was a native of Abel-Meholah, in the Jordan
Valley, twelve miles south of Bethshan and therefore
in Samaria and not Galilee.
Amos * was a native of Tekoa in Judaea {Ik QtKovt, ns

the LXX render Amos i. 1).
Jonah alone seems to have been a native of Galilee :
Gath-Hepher, his native town (2 Kings xiv. 25, tov
Ik riOxo({>ip) being the same as Gittah-Hepher in
Zabulon (Joshua xix. 13). The Pharisees might, how-
ever, ignore him in that his mission lay mainly to
Nineveh and not to Israel.

* See also Hasting's " Dictionary of the Bible."

§ XIII
JOHN VII. 53-VIII. 59

The eighth day. The adulteress. Jesus and the Sanhedrists

External evidence is perhaps against the twelve verses
(vii. 53-viii. 11) having formed part of John's original
text. If not John's, it was a very early interpolation : it
may possibly have had the sanction of Simeon or Jiide
(early 2nd century), the second and third bishops of
Jerusalem, " brethren " of our Lord, the last survivors of
the Apostolic age. These two seem to have been connected
with the editing of this gospel, for they are probably the
*' we " of xxi. 24, and the two unnamed disciples of xxi. 2.

But the last word has by no means been said on the
text of the N.T. The Western text may yet be found to
have been unduly slighted.

(vii. 53) " And they went each one to his own house :
and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives " (viii. 1). The
chief priests and Pharisees went from the a.D. 28.
Temple " each one to his own house " in the Oct. 5i _,
evening: the particular spot on the Mount Tisri21)
of Olives to which Jesus went was probably the garden of
Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount, and the natural
grotto in it, which tradition marks as the scene of His
final betrayal, '' the place to which Jesus often resorted
with His disciples " (xviii. 2).

(viii. 1, 2) These two verses closely resemble Luke xxi.
37, 38 (a passage belonging to the week of the Passion
five months later).

(2-11) Doubtless this incident is historical even if it
formed no part of John's text : and it
probably belongs chronologically to the place xjsri 22i^^*^*
it occupies in our text, viz. to the " morn-
ing " (verse 2) after " the last day, the great day, of the

197

Oct. 6

Tisri 22

198 JOHN VIII. 2-3

Feast " of Tabernacles (vii. 37). That is, it belongs to
the day after the seven days' Feast of Tabernaeles was
ended : that is, it belongs to the eighth day since the Feast
of Tabernacles began : it is the day called " the eighth
day " in Lev. xxiii. 36, 39 ; Num. xxix. 35 ; 1 Kings
viii. 66 ; 2 Chron. vii. 9 ; Neh. viii. 18 : a Festival by
itself, as Edersheim has shown from Rabbinical sources in
his Life and Times of Jesus, etc., vol. 2, pp. 156, 176, a
Festival known in the Jewish calendar as the Simhai-
Torah, "Joy of the Law." On this day (Tisri 22nd),
for those in Palestine the last portion of the Law was read
in the synagogues ; the year's cycle of lessons beginning
again on the following Sabbath with the 1st chapter of
Genesis.

(2) " And early in the morning He came again to
the Temple, and all the People kept coming {i'lpx^ro) to

Him." " All the People " {irag 6 \a6g). The
>Wed. phrase is often, but by no means always,

used as here of the bulk of the covenant
People — the commonalty — as against their leaders the
Sanhedrists {e.g. Luke iii. 21 : vii. 29 : xviii. 43 : xix. 48 :
XX. 6, 45 : xxi. 38).

" He sat down and He taught them." Whether He
taught them on this occasion in the Court of the Women
(where the Treasury was), or in the Portico of Solomon,
it is evident that the teaching was over and the audience
dispersed before the incident of verse 3 occurred : for
throughout that incident (3-11) the only persons present
seem to be Jesus, " the Scribes and the Pharisees," i.e.
members of the Sanhedrin, and the woman.

(3) In contrast to the eagerness of the commonalty
to be taught by Him, the narrative describes the position
of the Sanhedrists who come to set a trap for Him. The
scene has changed to the Court of Justice in the Temple
enclosure.* " The Scribes and the Pharisees bring a
woman taken in adultery, and having stood her {arijcravTeg

* This Court-hoiise, which was in the north-east of the Temple enclosure,
is not to be confounded with the Council Hall of the Sanhedrin, which ran
alongside the Court of the Women.

JOHN VIII. :3-7 199

avTni') in the midst," i.e. of themselves sitting ns her
judges, (4) " they say to Him " whom they have invited
to enter as one claiming to understand and to fulfil the
Law, " ' Master (StSorTKoAt), this woman has been taken
in adultery, in the very act : (5) and in the Law Moses
commanded us to stone such (women) : thou, therefore,
what say est thou ? ' " This was not a formal sitting of
the Court, for the day was a Feast da}^ : the object was
to get a damaging pronouncement from Him.

The passage in the Law that they refer to is probably
not Lev. xx. 10, nor Deut. xxii. 22 (for in these cases Tal-
mudic tradition says the mode of death was strangulation,
and not stoning), but Deut, xxii. 23, 24 : from which it is
to be inferred that this woman was betrothed but not
yet married, and that the man was not he to whom she was
betrothed. The Law of Moses was quite plain, but the
sense of the community was in our Lord's time averse
from so severe a punishment. Were they, then, to obey
Moses ? or, if not, how did He justify this non-fulfilment
of the Law ?

(6) They knew He would not on this point advise a
strict conformity with the Mosaic Law, for the public
conscience of the day was against enforcing the penalty
in all its rigour, and custom had long ignored it. It was,
however, one thing to tacitly ignore a command and
another to say formally that it was not binding. Here
was a difficulty with which the Scribes and the Pharisees
had long been faced, nor had any satisfactory defence yet
been fovmd for their habitual practice.

" But Jesus stooped down and with His finger He
wrote " (imp. KaTtjfja(j>ev, implying a prolonged action)
"on the ground." The gloss, "as though He heard
them not," gives correctly His purpose in so writing, viz.
to seem to have not heard their question, and to be pur-
suing a train of thought remote from His immediate
surroundings. He declines to act as judge here as again
some months later (Luke xii. 14).

(7) " But when they continued asking Him, He lifted
Himself up and said to them. ' He of you that is sinless,

200 JOHN VITT. 7-8

let him be the first to cast a stone at her.' " By this
answer He tacitly approved their non-exaetion of the
extreme penalty of the Law on the ground that the public
conscience of the day could not approve the penalty,
l)ecause the public morals of the day were too loose. The
nation were forced in practice to shut their eyes to this
provision of the Mosaic Law, because, and as long as,
the national conscience was callous to the sinfulness of
adultery. The fault lay not with the Mosaic Law, but
with the nation : the Mosaic Law was not too severe for
the sin, but the nation's conscience was too blunt to the
sin. He would not abate one tittle of the Law, but it
must lie in abeyance until the coming in of a better Age*

(8) Having thus implicitly asked them why it is that
they do not carry out the Mosaic penalty, He leaves their
conscience to give them the answer ; and an answer that

* We may suppose that when Holy Land is rcoecupied by the Repre-
sentatives of the reunited nation of Israel and Judali in the millennial Age,
the Mosaic Law will there (and, of course, there only) be observed in a perfection
and with a loving devotion such as it never yet received. We may suppose that
in the rebuilt Temple (see Ezek. xl.-xlviii.) the Mosaic ritual will be observed
as a type no longer obscure but fully comprehended ; whilst in the same Temple
the Christian ritual of the Mass will be celebrated ; and in both cases by a
Christian Hebrew priesthood. Outside of Holy Land, the Christian ritual of
the Mass will alone be observed. We must suppose (unless tlie O.T. prophets
are to be classed as fanatical neurotic visionaries) that in the millennial Age
the Tribes of Israel reunited to Judah will be a Christian nation imder their
national king actmg as Christ's viceroy : that they ^^•ill by their Representa-
tives reinhabit Holy Land— Palestine physically regenerated : that Jerusalem,
rebuilt on a remodelled ground-surface, will be the centre of the world : that
to that reunited nation will have been adjudged (Matt. xxv. ;}l-46, which is
the judgment of the iiations qiui nations) the kingdom of the whole earth —
an earth all Christian, whose focas of sanctity and social progress will be Holy
Land. This judgment of nations immediately precedes the millennium.

It would further seem that after the groat advance marked by the millennial
Age,andafterthegreat judgment of individuals which followsit (Rev. xx. 11-15),
there will succeed an Age as much better than the millennial as the millennial
will be better than is this of ours to-day. To that post-millennial Age belong
the last two chapters of Revelation. : in it our Lord reigns as visible Monarch of
tlie world, and the New Jerusalem takes the place of the milleimial Jerusalem :
even then the " nations " still need to be " healed " by " the leaves of the Tree
of Life," although death shall be no more among them. Not even in that
post-millennial Age are we at the goal : for beyond that far vista of the })rogress
of the race, tliere is due an Ag^- when our Lord " shall hand-over the Kingdom
to Cod, even to The Father '" (I Cor. xv. 24).

JOHN VIIT. 8-11 201

will incidentally solve the difficulty that underlay their
question of verse 5.

" And again He stooped down, and He wrote (imp.)
on the ground," as being no longer interested in the matter,
thus giving them opportimity to walk out without meeting
those all-seeing eyes that shamed them.

(9) " And they, having heard, went out " (the imp.
lt,i]pxovTo, marks the gradual action) " one by one, begin-
ning with the elder ones." The gloss, " being convicted
by their conscience," gives the correct reason of their
exit — the sense that not only they themselves, but the
whole nation for whom they acted, came too far short of
that ethical standard which the Law presupposed. It
would be injustice and hypocrisy to carry out the penalty
in one or two sporadic cases, taken at random out of a
multitude left unpunished.

" And He was left alone, and the woman being in the
midst " : in the midst, that is, of the Court-house where
she had been placed (3). There is no one else present.

(10) " And Jesus, having lifted Himself up, said to
her, ' Woman, where are they ? Did no one condemn
thee ? ' " Was there none found to pass judgment and
pronounce that the penalty be carried out ?

(11) "And she said, 'No one. Lord.' And Jesus
said, ' Neither do I condemn thee.' " The others had
been unable to condemn her to death, because conscious
of the laxity of morals prevalent among themselves and
the whole society of the day : Jesus was unwilling to
condemn her to death, because, though sinless Himself,
He knew the state of society was such that to enforce
the rigour of the Law would be to make justice unjust.
But, lest she or others should think that lenient to the
sinner He was careless of her sin, He dismissed her, " Go " :
but cautioned her and encouraged her, "" henceforth sin
no more." *

* In the forbearance shown to the adulteress (type of Israel and Judah)
on this festival of Simhat-Torah, "Joy of the Law," some have seen a guerdon
of the yet future forgiveness to be pronounced upon the reunited nation toward
the end of this Age, previous to their return to Holy Land, when the nation's
charter comes again into force.

202 JOHN VIIT. 12

(12) " Again therefore talked Jesus to them, saying,"
etc. This " again " does not refer to the incident (vii. 53-
viii. 11) here preceding (unless that formed
T" ■22(^®^' P^^^ John's original text), but refers to
chapter vii. 37-52, and implies that the
discourse viii. 12-59 took place on the day following.
We are thus, as explained at verse 2, at the morning of
Wednesday, Oct. 6, Tisri 22, and, of course, in the year
A.D. 28.

The following discourse (viii. 12-19) took place in " the
Treasury " {tm ya^o(l)v\aKtio, verse 20), the western one of
the four porticos that surrounded and gave on to the
Court of the Women, near the Council Hall of the Sanhedrin.

(12) "/ am the Light of the world." He may be
contrasting Himself with the lights from the great candel-
abra which had illumined the Temple during the last seven
days, and which were to-day standing unlit in the Court
of the Women. He is certainly claiming to be Messiah,
the world's King, whom the Rabbis figured as the En-
lightener : whom in His infancy Simeon had announced
to be " Light " for the nations, and the Covenant-People's
" Glory " (Luke ii. 32) : Him whom the Evangelist calls
the source of *' Life " and " the Light " that illumines the
intellect of every human being (John i. 4).

" He that follows Me shall not walk in the darkness " ;
the darkness which owing to man's inherited sin battles
with the Light in him. " But he shall have the Light of
Life," Light that is Life and that shall eventually disperse
the darkness.

John, as is his custom, has only given us salient sen-
tences of this discourse : and to imderstand it, we must
remember that the Pharisees were never in doubt as to
what Jesus claimed, nor as to what had been claimed for
Him by John the Prophet and Forerunner, nor as to what
had been proclaimed of Him at His infancy. As Child
and Boy He had been recognized by the nation as the
promised Messiah : but long before His public ministry
began He had been gradually disowned and definitely set
aside. It is because we do not correctlv estimate the

JOHN VITT. 13-14 203

historical relation of Jesus to the Sanhedrin in those lonir
years before His public ministry began, that we find it
difficult to-day to visualize the gospel history ; and more
particularly that part of it preserved by John, viz. our
Lord's theological discourses to the Jewish doctors or to
that inner circle of disciples whom He was training to take
their place,

(13) " Therefore, said the Pharisees to Him," etc.
The Pharisees quite understood His Messianic meaning :
but they will not have Him. ' You make statements
about yourself, but why should we believe you ? they are
corroborated by no evidence that satisfies us. We want
what we have wanted from years back — some unmis-
takable " sign " of your mission.'

(14) He admits He is bearing witness about Himself :
He accepts for the moment their objection : but let them
recollect, the sole object of all laws about witness is to
ensure the getting at the truth : and it belongs to the very
nature of this particular case here that He must give
witness about Himself: no one else is qualified to give
witness about His nature and about His essential work.
He alone can do that, for He alone knows who He is, or
what He means to do, or how He means to do it. None
of them, nor of the race of man, can bear witness at first
hand about His Being.

"As to My particular case," — such is the force of the
emphatic lyw, the first " I " of this verse : He says that
although He is bearing witness about Himself, His witness
is true in its facts (aA)j0(k), for He has absolute and per-
fect knowledge of His own nature (and that nature is the
point He is giving witness about) : seeing that He knows

(A) whence He came ; knows, that is, that He is the
eternal Son, the second Person of the Godhead, who came
to them by becoming incarnate as the God-Man : and

(B) whither He withdraws ; knows, that is, that He with-
draws unto God whence He came, withdraws incarnate
henceforth for ever bearing with Him the whole human
race : for He will withdraw (at His ascension). But
they know neither The Father from whom He came and

204 JOHN VIII. 15-18

to whom He returns, nor j'-et the work that He came to
begin and withdraws to finish.

(15) " You {v^HQ, emph.) judge according to the
flesh." Their judgment about Him was vitiated by their
Hmitations : even in their courts of justice they have to
judge in a rough-and-ready fashion, according to the best
evidence they can get : and their judgments are necessarily
imperfect, for they have to depend on evidence which is
human, and, as such, at best but approximately adequate :
— probable only, not certain, for man cannot have absolute
knowledge. " I {eyM, emph.) judge no one " : He has not
come (at this His first coming) to judge any one, acquit,
approve or condemn.

(16) " But, in My case (eyio), even if I do judge. My
judgment is true " {aXr}div})), ideally true, and not only in
accord with the forms of law : " because I am not alone,
but (there are) I and He who sent Me," i.e. His judgment
is true because He has absolute knowledge and omnis-
cience, seeing that He has always the Godhead with Him :
He is not merely man and, so, alone : there are always
The Father and Himself inseparable.

(17) And, again, in that matter of bearing witness
about Himself (referring back to verse 14) : It is written
even in their Law (Deut. xvii. 6) — imperfect as all human
systems must be — that the witness of two men {itvOphnrun;
not even the more worthy uvBfjwv) is to be accepted as true,
(a/\jj0»'/c), even though being human they are liable to err.

(18) ' But in this very case, where He is speaking about
Himself, there are two witnesses : and not only two
witnesses such as their Law requires, but what a Two !
viz. (A) God The Son, the Man-God, even He Himself
who is bearing witness about Himself,* for no other man
can, since no other man knows Him : and (B) God The
Father who sent Him."

We must remember that our Lord here is not arguing

* " If it be objected that a man could not bear witness in his own cause,
the same Rabbinic canon laid it down that this only applied if his testimony
stood alone. But if it were corroborated, it would be credited." Edersheim,
Life and Times of Jesus, etc., vol. 2, p. 169.

JOHN VIII. 18 205

with the Pharisees : He is teaching any among thcni who
had ears to hear. He is talking to theologians, and He
is talking pure theology to them, explaining to them who
He really is and what is His relationship to The Father :
how it was that He could be God and yet talk of Another
than Himself as God : how there can be Father and Son
in the Godhead : how The Father is so One in essence
with Him The Son, that whatever The Son asserts The
Father cannot but assert. He is stating simple dogmatic
truths of theology, truths about the nature of Himself and
of the Holy Trinity : He is passing on beyond the mere
unity of God — a truth familiar to them all — to the more
advanced doctrine of the Trinity, three Persons in one
Godhead, which was a truth not familiar to them, but one
which He came to teach. He is speaking for the benefit
of some one or more there present whom He knows to be
ready to assimilate His teaching ; and He is speaking to
Christendoin for all time, as John was aware. He never
wasted His words, nor yet His works of healing, nor yet
His manifestations of the more-than-human that was
in Him.

It is a common assertion with a certain school that our
Lord's teaching was all simple and easy for the poorest
intelligence to grasp : as though He had confined Himself
to parables, simple ethics, beatitudes and the like : and
in consequence they throw doubt on the genuineness of
John's gospel, or, reading it, fail to make anything of it,
and close it in impatience : for it does not square with the
scheme they have of Christ. They go on to say that the
Church is alien in her mind to our Lord's mind, because
she has defined dogma after dogma about our Lord's
Personality. Is she so alien ? Is her dogmatic teaching
so unlike His ? All her dogmas on our Lord's Personality
are in agreement with His teaching as left to us by the
N.T. writers, and John's gospel is the principal fount :
she has been quick to recognize the sheer theology of much
of this teaching ; statements requiring intense concentra-
tion and abstract thought to grasp them ; their simple,
bald, formal language clear of all poetry or emotion,

206 JOHN VIII. 19-20

hard and luminous as crystal, dry and accurate as all
philosophical and theological thought must of its very
nature be.

There were assuredly some present whose clear intuition,
or trained intelligence, illumined by His Spirit Avere able
to catch sight of His meaning, and for these He is primarily
speaking — it may be Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea,
or Gamaliel, or John himself.

(19) " Where is thy Father ? " z.c. ' You say,' say they,
' you are the Light of the world and this and that, and that
God is your Father, and that He corroborates you : we
are wasting words : you obviously cannot produce God,
and Avc obviously cannot get at Him to question Him :
so your statements still remain statements made by your-
self about yourself.' ' Ah,' He seems to reply, ' you say
you cannot get at Him to question Him : that is exactly
the position, and therein lies your condemnation.' How
could they possibly get at Him in the mood they and their
nation were in and had been in ever since He was born
among them ? To hear that voice required that a man
be seeking to live in unison with Him and to do His
will : keeping His Law of Moses (for He is speaking to
Jews), yet with ears open to His secret voice lest that
Law become a dead ritual : for this all the prophets were
sent. Had they sought its spirit beneath its ritual, as the
prophets implored them, sought to keep heart simple and
hands clean whilst still observing all its ritual, sought to
know Him, in short sought to do His will as was said to them
last Saturday (John vii. 17), they would have heard His
voice within them witnessing to Jesus ; they would have
leapt to Him, and in Him found The Father's manifesta-
tion : ' Had they known The Father they had known
Him : and conversely had they known Him they would
have known The Father.'

(20) " These sayings He talked in the Treasury." The
Treasury was in the colonnade that ran round and gave
on to the Court of the Women : this Court of the Women
was so called because beyond it no Avoman might go :
it was the most frequented Court — by men and women.

JOHN Vltl. 20-23 207

but no Gentile might enter it ; its colonnade contained
thirteen trumpet-shaped coffers, each of which was labelled
with the uses to which the money placed in it would be
applied. Along the south side of this Court of the Women
ran the Hall of the Sanhedrin. Yet even here, so near
His enemies, and although they had given orders for His
arrest (vii. 32), He is found teaching : and still " no one
arrested Him." It was the same last Saturday (vii. 32),
and again yesterday, Tuesday (vii. 44) : " for His hour
was not yet come " — the hour that He Himself should
select six months later.

(21) " Therefore," as knowing none could stop Him,
He is again in the Temple, later on on the same day
(Wednesday, Oct. 6), probably at the time of

the evening sacrifice — about 3 p.m. — when ,j,^ *. gg^Wed,

crowds would be again in the courts : " He

said again to them : ' I withdraw, and yc shall seek Mc' "

" I withdraw (iyw {nrajo})." He could not fall in with
their views of Messiah : they would not fall in with His :
He therefore must leave them, withdrawing to Him who
sent Him, there to finish His work.

" And ye shall seek Me," etc., i.e. they should seek their
Messiah who was really Himself : but, refusing Him, they
should not find their Messiah. To expect any other was
vain : and, expecting another, ' they should in that sin
meet their death,' viz. at the destruction of Jerusalem by
Titus. It was the expectation of a sudden deliverance by
Messiah that alone kept up the courage of the defenders
(Josephus, War, VI. v. 2).

" And whither I withdraw ye cannot come."

(22) " The Jews," therefore, said in mockery, ' What :
we to die in our sin ? and he to go where we cannot follow ?
Does he mean to kill himself ? then indeed he might
go where we cannot follow.' For one who committed suicide
was held to be guilty of murder : and to such the darker
region of Hades was assigned (Josephus, War, III. viii. 5).

(23) In saying " whither I withdraw, ye cannot come,"
He repeats what He had said yesterday (vii. 33, 34)
referring to His withdrawing to The Father and to the

208 JOHN VIII. 24-26

essential divergence of His way from theirs. They had
fallen under the domination of the world's spirit, and
were content to lie there, deaf to His efforts to raise
them to a higher conception of Messiah's office, refusing
to accept Him as their Messiah and to allow Him to
infuse into them His own nature of perfect Man, or again
of perfect God : for that, and no other, was His scheme
for lifting His own nation, and by means of them the
world, up to heights undreamt of by the race.

(24) In saying "" Ye shall die in your sins," He had
not been passing sentence of death on them. He was
but telling them of the inevitable end for which they,
as a nation and as individuals, were making. As they
were to-day, there was no living principle in them, not a
germ that promised anything but dissolution : how could
they be His salt of the earth ? " For if ye believe not that
I am (He), ye shall die in your sins."

Their only hope lay in an acceptance of Him, and on
His terms : there was no national deliverance or empire
possible by any such Messiah as they were looking for :
true deliverance lay in a regeneration of the individual,
and so of the nation : this was only possible to them by
a belief in Him at His own valuation. The world-empire
promised by all the prophets to their nation postulated
an antecedent regeneration of the nation, and that regenera-
tion was to have been the first of Messiah's works on them.

(25) They answer, ' Believe in you ? but who are you
that we should find in you deliverance ? We know all
about your history and the hopes that centred round your
birth : they have all proved false : we simply do not
accept you.'

' Who was He ? ' The very same that He had been
telling them from the very beginning {Trjv apxr]v on koI
XaXw vfiiv, and see x. 25) — telling them ever since He was
twelve, and still was telling them, the same that had been
foretold in Eden. (26) However, He was far from having
linishcd with them : He had yet many a thing to teach
the world about them, the Jews, and many a sentence
to pass that would affect them, the Jews, bringing disaster

JOHN VIII. 26-29 209

first (though afterwards blessing) upon their nation : but
so it must be : such were the Divine decrees, the decrees
of Him who is Truth, the decrees of The Father which He
The Son makes known through time : the world should
hear them and see, for on the stage of the world's history
should the drama be played.

(27) " They knew not that it was The Father He was
speaking of to them." Such is John's comment as He
pityingly looks back on the awful disasters that fell upon
that nation forty-two years later. John does not mean
that the Jews thought our Lord meant some one else :
they knew that He meant The Father, but they woiddn't
have it that He was right or had any authority to speak
for The Father as though He were Himself God. But
some da}^ they were to know His true relationship to The
Father : and how far they had strayed from The Father.

(28) " Therefore, said Jesus, ' When ye shall have
lifted up {i.e. crucified) The Son of Man, then ye shall
know that I am He.' " Then they should know who
He is and what is His mission, and that He The Son of
Man is also the eternal Son who in utterance and in history
manifests The Father's will : for The Father and He act
together.

In the " Then ye shall come to know {yvwaiaOt) "
our Lord seems to be alluding to the conversion of the
Jews still (1918) in the future, of which all the Prophets
assure us. In the word " then " (rort) He, like His
prophets before Him, jumps the secular gap, " the times
of the nations," that intervenes between the rejection of
Judah and her return.

(29) Also they shall come to know that when He
became Incarnate, He did not lay aside His Divine nature :
He is still The Son eternally generated by The Father, for
as Man no less than as God " I do always the things that
are pleasing to Him." The " I " (tyw, emphatic) calls
attention to His Personality which is one only, though
working in two natures. His Personality is God. Although
they would crucify Him, a day was to come when they
would know that, for all that, "The Father left Me not

210 JOHN VIIT. 29-31

alone " {ovk a^/i/jKfv fxs /xovov) : much the same statement will
be repeated on the night of the Agony, " I am not alone,
inasmuch as the Father is with Me " (oijk: eiVa fiovog, on o
TluTijf) f.uT i/Liov lariv, xvi. 32). It is impossible that
The Father can leave The Son for an instant, or The
Son The Father : any such separation would be a destruc-
tion of the Trinity : it is a contradiction in terms, a con-
tradiction of the eternal, unceasing, entire Generation of
The Son from The Father. And this must be borne in
mind when we seek to understand that mysterious dere-
liction on the Cross and the cry, " My God, My God "
(not My Father), " why didst Thou forsake Me? " That is
not the cry of The Son qua The Son to The Father. Jesus
qua the eternal Son of the eternal Father cannot lose
consciousness of His union with The Father : nor again
can Jesus qua the perfect and sinless Man lose consciousness
of His union with His own Divinity, for there is no sin in
Him to cloud His vision. It is the cry of the Man Jesus,
qua the sum of the j alien and sinful race which in virtue of
luiion with Him the Man-God is being ever re-formed in
that living Laboratory His Body into the new creation.

(30) " As He spoke these things [ravra . . . XoXoOi/roc)
many believed into Him." The " many " who " believed
into Him " {liTiaTtvaav HQ avTov) belong to the crowds
from the provinces, who were present on this day known
as the Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law : they were
not Jews proper belonging to the tribe of Judah. The
faith of these " many " is a genuine faith.

(31) " Therefore said Jesus to the Jews who had
believed Him." In the Greek the emphasis is on Jews.
These " Jews," who had believed Him" {rove TrswiaTevKOTaQ
avrw 'IovSu'iovq) are clearly distinguished from the " many "
who " believed into Him " of verse 30. To " believe
into Him " {TriarevHv f/^) is a vital process : it is the
"■ credo in Deuni " of the Creed, a belief implicit, com-
plete, without reservation. To " believe Him " (TriaTEviw
avTU)), or credere Deo, which is never used in the Creed,
is not necessarily any more than what demons do. It
is not n process, it is an isolated fact which may or

JOIIN VIII. 31-34 211

may not pass on into growth. Those " Jews who had
beheved Him " had behcved His statement that He was
the Messiah, and had beheved His claim that He was God :
so far, demons did as much : again and again they had
cried it aloud, " Jesus, thou Son of God," etc. Something
other was needed than such belief. They of verse 80 were
on the home track : not so they of verse 31, as is seen by
the sequel.

" ' If 2/e abide in My word, truly My disciples are ye : ' "
i.e. if these Jews (" you " emphatic) who as yet only
believed ab extra, without willingness to merge themselves
in Him, if these would continue in His teaching, and let
Him make their belief a living Faith, then even they would
truly be His disciples.

(32) " ' Also ye shall know {yvwcrecrOe, shall have learnt
by process) the Truth,' " the true estimate of all, — of Him,
and so of themselves, and so of all ideas. ' And it was
this knowledge of Truth that should make them free men.'
They were looking for a freedom from the Roman domina-
tion : there was a larger freedom than that : it was this
larger freedom that He, their Messiah, wished first to give
them, ' the freedom born of Truth.'

(33) They reply : ' A very excellent sort of freedom for
Greek or Roman : it is not what we want. As Abraham's
seed we have an inalienable right to freedom from all
domination of the Gentiles over us, nay, a right to world-
wide empire : it was promised to Abraham's seed by oath,
by covenant, and by all the prophets. It is our destinj' :
nothing can deflect it. True we have been momentarily
in subjection to Egypt and to all the world-powers of
Daniel's vision — Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome — for our
sins : but nothing can break us or enslave us ; we are
God's freemen : soon or late deliverance has ever come to
us : it will be the same with this last world-power, Rome.
Our claim to world-domination lies in our descent from
Abraham. What is this talk of a freedom based on percep-
tion of Truth : a Greek philosopher may be content with
it : not we.'

(34) He replied that it was the inner freedom that was

212 JOHN VIII. 34-40

the first essential, freedom from sin. '' Everj'one that
doeth sin is a servant — of sin." (35) A servant, not a free
man : and how should a servant have permanent dominion ?
This world was His Father's house, sin should not always
dominate in it : only the Son of the house could have
permanent dominion in it : He Himself was the Son in
this His Father's house, the world : there was no freedom
in it, but such as He the eternal Son possesses. (36) As
their Messiah He was offering to share the dominion with
them, Abraham's seed ; but on condition that He first
made them really free and Sons indeed.

(37) " I know you are Abraham's seed." ^Yithout
doubt the promises were made to them : but the promises
were made to them on the understanding that Abraham's
sons would resemble Abraham : and until that came
about, the promises were in abeyance. How little they
resembled Abraham was seen by their resolve to put Him
to death. " Ye seek to kill Me." Why ? " Because
My word hath not wa}- {ov \Mpu) among you," That
showed how little affinity they had to Him. for His revela-
tion of Himself found no currency among them.

(38) '• What things I (lyih) have seen with The Father
{irapu Ti?) YlaTp)) these I talk of" : i.e. His talk with them was
always the expression of what He knew to be His Father's
will : for The Son has intimate knowledge of The Father's
mind : and was He not here Incarnate in order to reveal
His Father to them ? Similarly their talk and acts toward
Him were the expression of their father's mind toward
Him. See how far apart His Father was from theirs.

(39) ' Far apart ? ' say they. ' ^Miy. our father is
Abraham himself, the Friend of God.' He replies that
though they descended from Abraham they were not as
yet sons of Abraham in the sense that they can claim to
inherit from him the promises. If they were Abraham's
children, let them act as such. (40) But in their present
mood {vvvl cl) — nothing is said of how it may be toward
the end of this Age — they were seeking to kill Him, a Man
(for by becoming Incarnate He had deliberately put Him-
self in their power so far) who had spoken to them as God's

JOHN VIII. 40-42 213

Representative. That was not the way Abraham acted,
who won for himself the title of the Friend of God (" My
friend," Is. xli. 8). (41) Rather were they acting as
genuine children of their genuine father, and they know^
whom He meant. They object, with a bond fide surprise,
' ' But zi'e are not the offspring of fornication," i.e. of idolatrous
abandonment of God : ' However our fathers may have
erred that way, they paid their penalty under Babylon :
we cannot be accused of that sin of idolatry : we recognize
but one God, and His offspring are we.' He answers —

(42) ' If they w^re indeed the spiritual offspring of
God, thev would of necessitv instinctivelv love Him The
Son : for He proceeded-out from {it,ri\dov iic) The Father
by eternal generation. Also from The Father He was
come Incarnate (/jiccu) into this world, Man among men :
nor in stooping so low was He acting alone : that too was
The Father's will : He but echoed The Father's thought.'

We must always remember He is talking to trained
theologians, used to subtle inquu'ies into the nature of
God, such as the relationship of the Word to God, in that
phrase so frequently recurring in the O.T., " the Word of
God came to," etc., or " spoke to," etc., or, again, the
''finger of God," or again "the Glorij of the Lord," etc.,
etc. We must also remember that the Jewish Rabbis
have always had a marked preference for the very simplest
anthropomorphical terms in their subtlest disquisitions
about God and His actions : in this, differing from the
thinkers of Greece who in their attempt to express abstrac-
tions sought to divest their language of all metaphor —
a vain attempt, for language is of its essence metaphorical.
The Rabbis are often despised for what seems their gross
anthropological language about God : and it is often assumed
that their conceptions of Him are equally gross. The
fact is rather that they saw the futility of trying to express
an}i:hing without metaphor, they boldly went counter to
the Greek (and our modern) philosophical terminology,
and purposely went out of their way to clothe the subtlest
abstract propositions in the most sensuous concrete meta-
phor. There is much to be said for their method, w^hich

214 JOHN VIII. 43-45

has been adopted by adepts of every age. Indeed it may
be said to be the true philosophical mode of expressing
philosophical or theological thought. Our Lord uses
ever the same simple anthropological terms, e.g. " heard,"
"saw," "speak," "came out from," etc., to express abstract
conceptions of the essential relationship of the First and
Second Persons of the Trinity, which are no more in-
adequate than are " Father" and " Son": but, then, what
terms are adequate ? When we venture to '' explain "
our Lord's expressions, we do no more than change the
metaphor.

(43) Seeing in them signs of impatience. He adds that
they did not understand His talk : did they know wh} ?
It was because they had no affinity with His word, i.e.
with Him as He revealed Himself to them.

The zvord of a man— like the Word of God — is ideally
the self -revelation of that man : just as the name of a man —
like the Name of God — is ideally the connotation of that
man.

(44) It was the old saying, " Like begets like." They,
though they were physically the sons of Abraham and
ought therefore to be like him, had made themselves sons
of the devil, and willed to do his promptings : he was
the original murderer, for he deliberately compassed the
ruin and death of the first Adam ; and they, they were
compassing the death of Him, the Second Adam. And the
devil, before compassing Adam's fall, had had his own fall :
he had not had stability in the Truth, for he had lacked
affinity to it : and what affinity to it had they ? The Lie,
the negation of Truth, had become natural to him. When
he talks the lie, he talks out of his own nature (k- t&v ]olu>v),
because he is a liar and the father of it {i.e. of the Lie)."
All who opposed the Truth were, in so far, his offspring,
and all who were his offspring opposed the Truth.

(45) And because He who was very Truth told them
Truth in seeking to make them know His relationship to
The Father, they did not believe Him : "Ye do not believe

Me (OV TTKTTaveTi /LtOf)."

The clear soul that seeks Truth leaps to the Truth as to

JOHN VIII. 45-48 215

a magnet, the instant it hears it stated. Only the soul
that has the Lie in it fails to respond.

It is evident that those " Jews who had believed Him "
(see at verse 31) have definitely fallen away during this
discourse which so offended their Pharisaical self-com-
placency at once national and ritual. For our Lord's
words to them now are plain, " Ye do not believe Me."

(46) Was there anything in His actions or in His
teaching that ran counter to the Law and the spirit of the
Law ? Was He not the very embodiment of the Law and
the only One who had ever lived up to it. Why did they
distrust Him ? He had not come breaking with their
past. " If I say Truth (as I do, a . . . Xiyto), why is it
that ye do not believe Me ? " To say the Truth is, ideally,
to live the Truth : for action, speech, thought are ideally
one and the same, and the same as life.

He does not expect an answer to His question : He
answers it Himself : —

(47) " He that is of (k) God hears the things of God
(ra piifxara tov Osov).'^ 'Piifxara (like the Hebrew debdrim)
means equally things said and things spoken about. He
was telling them things of God : whoso was born of God,
and so had affinity to God, would recognize them and leap
to them. " Ye are not of God, this is why ye hear not,"
i.e. show no response to Truth.

The whole of the discourse from ver<^e 31 to end of the
chapter is carried on between our Lord and " those Jews
who had believed Him " {rovg TreTriaTSUKorag avno 'lov^aiovg
of verse 31) ; and it shows how worthless had been
their belief. His disciples hardly came from among the
Jews proper (Judah) : they came rather from Benjamin
and Levi, and those descendants, few in number, of the
Ten Tribes as were to be found in Palestine. These afore-
said " Jews who had beheved Him " have been gradually
becoming more and more hostile (the change can be
followed throughout the discourse) so that now (verse 48)
they are called simply " the Jews " without qualification.

(48) " The Jews answered and said to Him " : ' Are
we not right in saying, we Jews, that you are a Samaritan

216 JOHN VIII. 48

and have a demon ? We do not deny that strange signs
have been done by you : what of that ? they are done
not by your own power, but by the power of a demon who
dwells in you. Look across the border to Samaria.'

They, of course, knew His parentage quite well, in so
far as He passed as the Son of Joseph and Mary : they
knew He was a Jew by birth and they never pretended He
was by birth a Samaritan. In calling Him, then, a
Samaritan working by means of a demon, what exactly is
their meaning ?

They are likening Him to the contemporary Simon
Magus the Samaritan, that arch-heretic and arch-deceiver
who has ever been regarded as the type of Antichrist. This
man was at this very time practising what is known as
'- black magic " in the city of Samaria, amazing the city
and country of Samaria by what seemed to be super-
natural control over matter and the laws of physics :
deception of the senses, worked (as will be the " lying-
wonders " and " signs " of Antichrist, 2 Thess. ii. 9) by
the aid of demons. That Simon was already at this date
at work in Samaria appears from Acts viii. 9, 11 (the date of
which is only two years later), where it is said that he " had
been already beforetime practising magic in that city "
{TrpovTTi]p\iv iv r/} ttoXu nayevwv), and that he had " for
a long time {iKavio xpovio) " amazed the country of Samaria
by his sorceries : so that " all gave heed to him from the
least to the greatest." This man (as will Antichrist)
" gave himself out to be some great One " (Acts viii. 9)— -
not a prophet, but, as Irenseus (2nd century) has handed
down, claimed to be at once Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
in his own person : those who believed him called him
" The Power of God," says Origen {contra Cels. V.) : see
Acts viii. 10.

This is the man to whom the Jews are likening Jesus,
accusing Him of working by demoniac agency in the same
way as they knew the Samaritan Simon Magus was working
in Samaria. All traffic with demons or familiar spirits
{e.g. by means of mediums) was rigorously forbidden by the
Mosaic Law (Lev. xix. 31 : xx. 6 : Deut. xviii. 10).

JOHN VIII. 49-51 217

(49) " 1 " (emphatic tyw) — as though He had Simon
Magus and his antitype in mind — " / have not a demon.
But I honour My Father " (viz. God), which no demon
would do : " and tjou''' because you have no affinity with
Him or Me, " dishonour Me " and Him.

(50) But their dishonour of Him was, from one point
of view, of no importance to Him. " As for Me (the Man
before you) / seek not the glory due to Me " : it made no
difference to Him whether men gave it or no : it made
a difference to them, and so to Him as lo\ing them. But
though He sought it not for Himself, there was One that
required it of them for Him, One who passed sentence
accordingly : viz. The Father, who willed that all men
should honour The Son as they do The Father.

(51) Then recurring to the note on which He had begun
this discourse (viz. at verse 31, " If ye abide in My word,"
etc.), He repeats it, but now for general application and no
longer addressed specially to them, seeing that they had
fallen away from Him. " Verily, verily, I say to you,
If a man keep My word," i.e. bear in mind His teaching,
'' he shall never see Death."

His " word,'''' or teaching, is not merely a system of
ethics, of conduct between man and man, such as His
parables in Galilee and Peraea mainly dealt with. His
" word " also comprises that vast body of theology and of
doctrine concerning His own Personality which John has
preserved for us as being addressed to the doctors and
theologians of the Law, and to His own inner circle of
Twelve which was to replace them. There is no obligation
on the individual to understand all doctrine : no religious
system has been so senseless as to require that : but there
is an obligation on him to implicitly accept all doctrine
handed down as being genuine by the successors of the
Twelve.

(51) " If a man keep My word, he shall never see Death."
The word " Death," from its position in the Greek, is em-
phatic : it means Death in its essence, that Death Avhich
is the negation of Life in its essence. As man's essential
Life is the union of his soul with God, so man's essential

218 JOHN VIII. 51-53

Death is the isolation of his soul from God. This Death
His true disciples should never see : for this Death was not
the death they died in leaving this world of sense.

(52) ' What about Abraham and the ProjDhets ? ' say
they, ' have not they seen death ? now we know you are
an impostor, like him across the border, and owe your
extraordinary miracles to demoniac agency.'

They said it : they never thought it : but they had long
decided to reject Him ; and, as is the way of disingenuous
opponents, any quibble served their turn. They knew quite
well His meaning when He spoke of " never seeing Death " :
they are not talking bond fide.

(53) " What, art thou greater than our father Abra-
ham ? for he is dead." They are not arguing that He
cannot be genuine because He claims to be greater than
Abraham and the prophets : for if He was Messiah, He
must ipso facto be greater than Abraham : that they knew.
And, moreover, if He was Messiah, His claim to be God was
inevitable, for it was known that Messiah would somehow
be God. Eve knew that much about the promised Seed,
as is seen from Gen. iv. 1, "I have gotten a Man even the
Lord," as is the natural rendering of the Hebrew, and see
the Targum of pseudo Jonathan : she thought at first that
her first-born, Cain, was the promised Seed of Gen. iii. 15.

The point of their argument lies in the venom of the
emphatic thou (av) of verse 53 : that this man should say he
was then- Messiah ; that this man should be He who would,
of course, when He came, be greater than x\braham ; this
man be that King of glory whom they had so long expected.

The questions of verse 53 are not put to be answered :
there was no doubt what His answer would be. His
opponents knew long ago that He claimed to be greater
than Abraham or the prophets : they knew long ago that
He claimed to be God. He had said it, and they had
understood it, at the Feast of Pentecost (v. 18), and before
that at the Feast of Passover (iii. 16. and throughout
that discourse), and again at ii. 16, at the same Festival.
He had been saying it ever since they knew Him. It had
been said of Him by John Baptist : it had been said of

JOHN VIII. 53-54 219

Him in His infancy by Anna, Simeon, Zacharias, all speak
ing in the Holy Spirit as tradition had truly handed down,
and as many of them could well remember : on the very
night of His birth it had been said of Him by angels to
the Temple shepherds : and before He was born it was
said of Him by Gabriel in the Temple, as they had learnt
from Zacharias.

If He were Messiah, He must be God : they knew that
followed. Verse 53 is equivalent to saying ' we will not
accept such a disappointing Messiah as you, to be the end
of all our glorious hopes : the Messiah-God we have in
view is not this.'

(54) Let them remember what He had all along asserted :
how He had all along claimed to be God Incarnate, " The
Son " of " The Father," using a simple anthropological
metaphor to express the Godhead as manifested to Itself.
He asserted it here again. ' But if I (tyw) stood alone
making My claims they would be worthless.' In that case
He would not be " The Son," for The Son cannot stand
apart from " The Father." Though they all shouted assent
to Him, that would not make His claim any sounder.
There was One corroborating Witness whose witness was,
in His cause, alone adequate : even He of whom He was
the eternal Son, " It is My Father w^ho glorifies Me, He
whom you call your God," not knowdng the nature of His
unity.

The line of thought is much the same as in verses
16-19 of His discourse of this morning. Again He is
talking to them of the nature of God, how that He is not
simplex, but is " Father " and " Son " (to use the simplest
metaphors). How near the Jewish doctors had come to
grasping the relation of God to the " Word " of God may
be seen in Philo's doctrine of the Aoyoc, which is his term
for the Hebrew Dabar, " Word." The time was ripe for
a further revelation. It was part of Christ's mission to
reveal the whole nature of God, and that the A070C or
" Word " of God is God— the Godhead under another mode
as it were. To this height of vision, not Philo nor any of
them had reached before Christ taught it. John in the

220 JOHN VIII. 55-56

prologue of his gospel has stated it clearly for those who
could understand. So long as the Jews thought there was
but One Person in the Godhead, it was impossible for them
to believe aright in our Lord : hence His insistence to their
theologians that He has a Father ; that He is not The
Father, but is The Son ; that The Son, though He is not
The Father, is for all that God : that The Father glorifies
The Son and wills that all men should honour The Son
as they do The Father : that the Two are therefore co-
equal : that He The Son was sent : that He hears from
The Father : that He sees The Father doing, etc., etc.,
all simple anthropological metaphors ; that there are Two
who bear witness, Himself and Another. Theology pure
and simple is at the bottom of all these discourses. That
they should believe in His Godhead was essential : implicit
belief in It is as far as most of us get : but to the trained
intellect (and He was speaking to trained intellects) He
wanted to give more explicit knowledge and insight.
There were certainly some (be it but one or two)
among them, who were ready to absorb His dogmatic
teaching.

(55) And as to this God, " ye have not come to know
{lyvMKaTt) Him : but / know {ol^a) Him." It was
part of His mission to reveal Him : and if He failed to
insist on the relationship between God (as they understand
God) and Himself, reluctant to assert Himself out of false
modesty or anxiety not to offend them. He would be
failing in the Truth : He would be sinking to their level,
instead of lifting them to His. " But I know Him, and
His word I keep " — teaching His teaching and acting
harmoniously with His will.

(56) Unworthy sons were they of their great ancestor :
Abraham had exulted at the vision of the Christ his pro-
mised Seed : he had seen the vision and rejoiced. Exulted
at seeing : such is the meaning of the Hellenistic i]ya\\iaaaTo
"iva yS»^?, where the 'Ivu l^y is an Aramaism representing a
Hebrew h ^vith infinitive (lir'oth) " to sec " or "at seeing."

The Jewish tradition is that in the supernatural darkness
of Gen. XV. Abraham saw in a trance the whole future of

JOHN VTII. 56-59 221

his descendants, and so " rejoiced with the joy of the
Law," as they put it :— The day we are at in this chapter
(the eighth day since the Feast of Tabernacles began) is
known in the calendar of the Jews as the '"'' Simhai Torah "
= " Rejoicing of the Law," because on it was read the last
lesson from the LaAv, and they would begin it afresh on the
next sabbath. Our Lord seems to accept this tradition
as true and to imply that Abraham, as he watched the
vision of the Christ, delighted in Him ; although he saw
his descendants rejecting and crucifying Him.

(57) The Jews must have known that our Lord was
referring to this tradition of Abraham's visio i : but they
have lost patience with Him, and do not want to under-
stand Him. Again, as in verse 52, they seize on a quibble.
Dissimulating, they simulate an equivocation that if
Abraham had seen Him, He no doubt had seen Abraham,
which was obviously imjDossible, as He was " not fifty years
old "—a common way of saying that He was still in the
vigour of life : from 30-50 was the only age during which
Levites were originally allowed to serve in the Tabernacle
(Num. iv. 3, 23, 30, 35, 39, 43, 47).

(58) He accepts the equivocation : in order to insist
on His eternal self-existence. " Verily, verily, I say to
you, Before Abraham was born, / am " : — without begin-
ning, without end, God self-existent.

(59) Nor did they misunderstand Him and His claim
to the Godhead of Jehovah. It was nothing new, they
had often heard it before from Him : but no more to-day
than before would they listen. To-day, as four months ago
(John V. 18), they took up stones to cast at Him. But
Jesus " was hidden " {iKpv^n), perhaps by His friends
crowding round Him in order to conceal Him, or, as some
think, was made invisible by His divine power. For
the matter of that, He was perpetually hiding Himself :
for His body was essentially dazzling in brilliancy owing
to its union with His Divinity in His Personality : the one
occasion that He let His body be seen as it really always
was, was in the Transfiguration.

The stones they picked up they would have found in

222 JOHN VIIT. 59

the Court of the Gentiles : for the Temple (viz. its courts)
was still building : it was now (Oct. a.d. 28) forty-seven
years since Herod had begun it in Oct. of 20 B.C., but
Josephus tells us it was not finished till a.d. 64.

"■ And He went out of the Temple " {hpov), i.e. out of
the Temple courts.

§ XIV

JOHN IX. 1-41

The healing of the man born blind

The day is still Wednesdaj^ Oct. (3, Tisri 22, the same
as that of chapter viii. : the " eighth da}^ " a.D. 28.
of Lev. xxiii. 36, 39 (p. 198) : the day after Oct. 6^^^^
" the great day of the Feast," vii. 37. ^ Tisri 22^

The time is afternoon, after the evening sacrifice of
3 p.m. He has recently left the Temple courts by the north
gate in the west Avail — the regular gate of exit : nor will
He again enter the Temple till two months later at x. 22.

(1) " And as He passed along on His way He saw,"
etc. It is hardly likely that the following incident occurred
at the exit gate of the Temple : the excitement that woidd
be caused in the Temple exit by the attempt to stone
Him is against our supposing that the scene which follows
was anywhere near the Temple, for it is evidently remote
from any crowd : so the probability is that the blind man
was sitting outside one of the city gates — always the
favourite place for beggars in the East — perhaps at the
north-east gate of the city known as the Sheepgate.

As the day was a Sabbath (verse 14), the man could
not be asking for alms, but he would be able to receive
them. Again, here in Jerusalem, he would probably not
have made any request to be healed, for that was for-
bidden by Rabbinical rule on Sabbaths, nor is there any
reason to suppose he did so. In Galilee the people were
not so amenable to the minute rulings of the scribes as
in the city.

(2) "Master (Vaftftet), who sinned, this man or his
parents, that he was born blind ? "

(3) The blindness was not the consequence of any sin

223

224 JOHN IX. 3-5

on the part of the parents, nor yet the consequence of any
sins of his own foreseen and foreknown by God before his
birth. Beyond the answer to their precise question our
Lord does not go : He does not give an answer as to the
origin of suffering : but He does as to the ultimate issue *
of it, viz. the manifestation of the works of God, i.e. His
glory. In this case the blindness and the cure were to
be means by which spiritual light was to come to this
man, and no doubt in a measure to others who beheld the
cure. An inference may be drawn touching the mystery
of suffering, that all suffering will in the long run be found
to have helped the human race (and, may be, the rebel
host of spirit-intelligences, malignant agents) toward the
knowledge of God. And we must suppose that every
sufferer will in the long run be made aware of his share in
promoting that advance ; though to-day he suffer blindly,
little conscious of his privilege.

(4) " We must work," etc. The emphatic We ('H^Sc)
with which this sentence begins ia the correct readino-
is exactly the We of iii. 11 : it is not our Lord in union
with the disciples, but our Lord in union with The
Father — He who sent working through Him whom He
sent : cf. viii. 16-18, spoken on this same day, where He
had insisted on the plurality of Persons in the Godhead,
of whom He Himself was One. Had the word " we "
been here less emphatic, the statement might have been
understood proverbially.

(4) " We must work the works of Him who sent Me,
whilst it is day : night cometh when no one can work."
Whilst He was on earth, the Godhead worked through His
human body as It will never work through any other after
He had left. As was evident from the attempt, not an hour
ago, to stone Him, He would soon withdraw from this
world of men : and when He withdrew, the Light of the
World would withdraw. (5) When He manifests His
presence in the world, whether at His first Coming — that

* lua (jjayfpudi} ra tpya rod ©eoS eV auT(i>. Here, as is common in Helle-
nistic Greek, the ^fo. and subjunctive does not signify subjective intention so
much aa objective result (p. 137). The construction is an Aramaism.

JOHN IX. 5-7 225

transient appearance — or })re-enTinently at His second
Coming when He will set up the visible Kingdom, it is
as Light that He comes, eilightening darkness, quickening
growth. Already this morning (viii. 12) He had called
Himself the Light of the World : and in the miracle He is
about to do. He will give His disciples an illustration.

(6) The blind man has made no explicit request to be
healed : indeed the Rabbinical rules forbade a doctor to
practise his healing art on a Sabbath, except in a matter
of life and death, where immediate action was imperative :
but our Lord, reading all hearts, knew this ground was
kindly to His sowing.

" He spat on the ground and made clay," etc. In the
mode by which He chose to work this miracle, the making
of " clay " and kneading it and applying it, He seems to
be pointing to the creative work on Adam ; and to be again
asserting as at the Feast of Pentecost (v. 17) that He
claims that same right to work on a Sabbath that The
Father exercises — the work of maintaining, restoring,
readjusting the creation : for The Father and He can neither
of Them work independently Each of Other.

(7) " Go, wash in the pool of the Siloam " : i.e. the pool
formed by the Siloam. " The Siloam " (it always has the
article both in Hebrew and Greek) is the stream that flows
in a rock-cut subterranean channel, 1706 feet long, from
the Virgin's Fountain ('en Rogel) to issue in this pool.
Traces of a covered arcade, thought to be of Herod's time,
have been found all round the pool ; and in the 5th
century there was a church built, to commemorate this
miracle, over the spot where the Siloam issued from the
rock-tunnel into the pool. The verb rendered in this
verse " wash " (vtxljai) and " washed " (evixParo) confines
the washing to the eyes.

This silent subterranean stream known as the Siloam
is mentioned but once in the O.T. (Is. viii. 6, " the waters
of the Siloah which go softly "), where it is used as a type
of David's line, from which was to come the Messiah who
" shall not strive nor cry " : in opposition to the roaring
river Euphrates used as a type of the Assyrian monarchy.

226 JOHN TX. 7-14

In the very name Siloam (meaning, as John is careful to

point out, av^aTaXiiiivoQ = " Sent forth ") there must be

to John's mind an allusion to Him that was " sent forth "

(the same word) by The Father. In John's gospel this

verb is used fifteen times by our Lord of Himself as having

been " sent forth " by The Father into the world. It

was from the Siloam stream that was drawn the water

which was poured over the great altar at the Feast of

Tabernacles just past, which pouring out was regarded

by the Rabbis (and is still) as typical of the pouring out

of The Spirit in the " latter days," which are yet to come :

thus the ceremony seems to connect the Siloam stream

with the Messiah of David's line who pours forth His Spirit.

Is. viii. 6 connects the Siloam with the Messiah. And

John, by translating the word "Siloam," does the same.

(8-12) Time, the same day. Scene, between the

healed man and his neighbours when they see he is no

longer blind. His neighbours, and thev who
Oct. 6, Wed. ° . 4.- u- f 1 u • "

used to notice him formerly as being one

who begged alms, ask him, " How were thine eyes

opened ? " He tells them exactly what passed between

himself and his healer.

(11) " The man that is called Jesus " : the healed
man knows Him by report, but has never yet seen Him :
it is but an hour or so since his cure ; nor does he know
where to find Him. It rather looks as though our Lord
had left the city after sending him to the pool.

(13-34) Time, the next day. Scene, between the
healed man and the Pharisees in their Court
^P '. 2g|-Thurs. of Justice. The Court could not have sat
yesterday^ — the daj^ of the cure — for yester-
day was a Feast day.

(14) The peculiar form of the original, " It was," or
" There was, a Sabbath on the day that Jesus," etc.
{r)v Of aappoTOi' h' /} i^fiipa rov tti/Aoi' fTro/jjo-tv 6 ^h](rovg}
strongly makes for the view that the day of the cure had
not been a weekly Sabbath (Saturday), but a day of
obligatory rest (Sabbath), as being a great festival or day
of obligation. The day in question was the eighth day

JOHN IX. ]4-17 227

from the beginning of the Feast of Tabernaelcs : it is the
" Sabbath " (Hebrew sobbaiun) of Lev. xxiii. 39-end : this
year a Wednesday. A similar remark appHes to v. 9.
where the same peciiharity is seen in the Greek original :
there, as has been seen, the " Sabbath " was the day of
the Feast of Pentecost (this year a Tuesday), a day of
obligation, just as the word " Sabbath " (Hebrew sabbat) is
used in Lev. xxiii. S2b for the Day of Atonement, which
might fall on any day of the week.

(15) We are not to suppose that the man in his short
reply is attempting to shield our Lord from a charge of
Sabbath-breaking. For the making of clay and the
application of clay or spittle on the eyes, which he admits,
as part of a curative process distinctly fell under the
Rabbinical definition of Sabbath-breaking. The man
speaks simply and straightforwardly, just as did he of
V. 11, tersely stating the facts.

(16) " Of the Pharisees," sitting in court as we suppose,
" some " argued of Jesus, " This man is not from God
{ovK tariv . . . TTctpu GeoC)," i.e. has not God's sanction or
commission, " because he does not observe the Sabbath."
Their objection is not to His healing on the Sabbath as it
might be by a word, but to His making clay with spittle
on a Sabbath and applying it to the eyes — an obviously
unnecessary bit of work, a deliberate breach of the
Sabbath: cf. v. 16, 17. "Others of them" argued He
must be from God, for " ' how can a man be a sinner and
yet do so great signs ? ' And there was a cleavage among
them." So turning again to the blind man —

(17) They say, "What dost thou say of him, as to
{oTi) his having opened thine eyes?" Could he give any
explanation that might make it not so miraculous as it
seemed ? He has little interest in their discussion : he
remembers the voice, the touch, the magnetic power of
that sanctity, and replies without hesitation, " He is a
prophet."

The man does not say He is the Christ : he may not
have been as yet convinced of that : or again, although
convinced, he may not have felt any obligation to say

228 JOHN IX. 17-22

all he believed unless they put the question to him point
blank, ' did he believe him to be the Christ ? ' The
Pharisees probably purposely did not put the question
point blank : the man was not of sufficient importance,
nor was the moment sufficiently critical.

(18) It occurs to " the Jews," the extreme party, to
say, ' What if the man had never been really blind, but a
lifelong impostor living on alms ? or perhaps only partially
blind ? or at least not born blind ? ' They would summon
the parents, perhaps overawe them into some admission.

(19) ' Is this your son ? and do you his parents assert
he was horn blind ? Did you never see any smallest sign
of sight in him that might one day develop into fuller
sight ? '

(20, 21) ' We know he is our son, and we know he was
born blind. How it is he now sees, or who it was opened
his eyes, we do not know. Why not ask him ? ' They
are favourably disposed to Jesus, but either timid or
cautious (i^o/iouiTo).

(22) " The Jews had already agreed together with a
view to (tva) the excommunication of any one who should
confess Jesus to be the Messiah " : i.e. the extreme party
had agreed to secure the excommunication of such a one.
Excommunication was doubtless a lengthy process : and
was far too serious a sentence to be lightly passed : in
any case it would only be pronounced against prominent
personages. As a matter of fact it does not appear that
excommunication was ever pronounced upon Christian
Hebrews in Jerusalem : it is certain that down to the
close of the history contained in the Acts, the Christian
Hebrews attended all the services of the Temple, and were
not considered by the Sanhedrin or any other religious
authority to have split off from the mother Church of
Judaism : nor did that Christian party imagine themselves
to be severed from the community of Jews in Jerusalem
so long as the Temple was standing. Only during Saul's
persecution, lasting a year, was there a persecution of
Christian Hebrews inside and outside Jerusalem ; but they
were not excommunicated either individuallv or in block.

JOHN IX. 24-29 229

(24) As nothing could ])c got out of the parents, they
would have another try with the man.

" Give glory to God " is the formula of solemn adjura-
tion to declare the whole truth (Joshua vii. 19). ' It cannot
have been exactly as you say : be careful : you are bring-
ing into contempt the established conception of religion
and of God's dealings with men : He does not make use
of sinners to be His intermediary with men : this Jesus
is a sinner : he breaks the Sabbath by imnccessary work
and bidding men carry unnecessary burdens on it. We
(jj/x£ic) the religious authorities and guides of the nation
know him to be such : you may therefore be sure of that
point. Look about then, and see is there no loophole of
escape ? Perhaps you were not so totally blind always as
you professed to be ? we all know there is a good deal
of make-believe among those who live on alms. Perhaps
even now your sight is not very perfect ? '

(25) He replies, ' You are sure he is a sinner ? — of
that I know nothing, I am no doctor of Law : but what
I do know is that I was genuinely blind and that I now
genuinely see. There is no escape possible for you there.'

(26) They : ' Well, but what exactly did he to thine
eyes ? Possibly we have here but a dexterous bit of
surgery, which may not require our belief in a super
normal interference of God through this man Jesus.'

(27) He : ' Why waste time ? You have heard w'hat
he did. I have told you already. But — perhaps you are
willing, you too, to be his disciples ? ' Is it sarcasm ?
efficient weapon to offend, futile instrunjent to win.

It seems that he has a momentary hope of them.
It does not seem to be a fit moment for sarcasm : sarcasm
never helped any one yet. Also their answer (28) where
" they reviled him and said, ' Thou art his disciple : we
are Moses' disciples,' " is perhaps more suitable on the
supposition that the man had for an instant thought they
might be catching the light that was flooding him.

(29) " We (t>m"c) know that to Moses God has spoken :
but as for this man, we know not whence he is " : ' we do
not recognize any divine mission as being his. It is true

230 JOHN IX. 30-34

there were strange tales current about him at his birth
and since : but we have disposed of all that.'

(30-33) He : ' What is that ? . . . you " know not
whence he is." And have we not all heard that that is
a maik of the Messiah ? (" When the Messiah comes,
no one discerns whence He is " ; vii. 27) : is it not a
maxim of the Schools ? And here are you making that
very admission about this man : and look you, he has
done such a work on me as never in the history of the
world was heard — sight to a man that was born blind.
Look to yourselves : is He a sinner at all ? we know that
God does not hear sinners. Is it not then, the rather,
certain that this Man " whom ye know not whence He is "
must have a commission from God ? '

It is at this point, perhaps, that conviction came to
the man that Jesus was the Messiah and not merely " a
Prophet " (17).

(34) They : ' And are we doctors to be taught by such
as you ? you who for your parents' sins, if not for your
own, were born with the curse of blindness.' He must
have been talking with a hope of persuasion, and with no
tinge of bitterness.

" And they cast him out {lE,if5a\ov avrbv t^w)." The
phrase does not mean that they excommunicated him in
any way : but rather that they cast him out of their
Court-house, and out of their presence, with anger and
contempt. It is not the same as the " be made unsyna-
gogued " of verse 22, where indeed we are only told that
" the Jews " had agreed to work towards a certain end ;
which they never actually compassed in Jerusalem. There
is nothing to show that any Christian Hebrew was ever ex-
communicated in Jerusalem for being a Christian. Rather
it seems that there was all along some powerful influence
at work in the Sanhedrin that prevented the violent party
from having their way. This, it has been supposed, was
Gamaliel himself, the President. The story is that he
was a Christian (see Baronius, Annals, 34, 275, 298), but
never let it be known to the Jews nor yet to the Christians
except to the heads of Christendom : being convinced

JOHN IX. 35 231

he could best serve the cause by reiuainiug unavowed
(see Sozomen, Hist. EccL, ix. 17, a remarkable account).

(35) " Jesus heard they had cast him out " with
contempt from their presence for having spoken in His
favour : and at once went to find him : for He knew the
man's heart, and that he was aheady convinced of the
claims of Jesus who had healed him, but whom he had
never seen.

There is little clue to fix the scene that follows. But
after his interview with the Jews, the man's chief aim
would be to see Jesus, who, we have supposed (verse 11),
had withdrawn from the city ; perhaps he stationed
himself at his old post, say by the Sheep-gate, knowing
that this was the gate habitually used by Jesus as He came
to and from Bethany or Mount of Olives or Gethsemane.
Perhaps it was there our Lord " found " him.

At any rate, having found him, He asks what He
already knew. Our liOrd never asked for information as
one not knowing : He constantly asks, but it is always
to bring His listener to a certain mental position. We
constantly do the same with children and others.

(35) " Thou, thou believest into (2i» Trtartvac tk' : see
at viii. 30) The Son of Man ? " i.e. thou believest into the
man Jesus, as being the Messiah ; the Jesus who calls
Himself The Son of Man ? (or The Son of God). The
MSS. are in favour here of "The Son of Man" : it is
immaterial which they read : the two terms always mean
the same Person, and were interchangeable as being
titles of the Messiah and of Him alone. The title " The
Son of God " was the declaration formally made by the
Baptist as he tells us (John i. 34) after he had seen the
official sign of the dove at the Baptism : it had certainly
been reported to the Sanhedrin and had become wide-
spread in connection with Him : Nathanael adopts it
(i. 49), quoting, of course, from the Baptist's official pro
nouncement : and it became an acknowledged title ol
His for those who recognized Him as the Messiah (see
Matt. xiv. 33 (God's Son) : John xi. 27 : Mark xv. 39
(God's Son) : Acts viii. 37 : cf. Mark iii. 11 : v. 7), though

232 JOHN IX. 35-37

they who used it had no clear conception of its full meaning.
Peter was the first of the Apostles to catch a fleeting
vision of the Truth (Matt. xvi. 16), a vision which became
permanent with him after Pentecost. As for the title
" The Son of Man," it was the title coined by Jesus for
Himself, the strange title by which every one knew He
called Himself, the strange title which every one asso-
ciated only with Him (see at i. 51).

(35) " Thou, thou believest into The Son of Man ? "
Of course He knew that the man did : he had already
borne witness to Him before the Jews, and had been in
consequence cast out with contempt : but he had never
yet set eyes on Jesus, to know Him.

The question is hardly a question. Our Lord has put
it rather by way of introducing the subject of Himself, for
He is about to make Himself (" The Son of Man ") known
by sight to this man. The man's position was this : — he
knew he had been healed by One who was called Jesus
(verse 11), One whom he had since come to believe to be
the Messiah and to be " The Son of God " (whatever that
might mean) as He had been officially declared to the
nation to be by the greatest of the Prophets, John the
Baptist : One who habitually called Himself by the title
" The Son of Man." But he had never seen Him, did not
know by sight who He was : and that is what he is wanting
now.

" Thou believest into The Son of Man ? " The man
answered —

(36) " And who is He, Sir ? So that I may believe

into Him {koI rig Iotlv, Kvpa ; 'Iva irtcTTtvaio elg aiiTov).
The And is remarkable : it is as if he had made a sign
of assent. ' Yes, I do : and ever since, I want to know who
and where that Jesus is whom I believe to be " The Son
of Man," " The Son of God," " The Messiah," in order
that I may know by sight the Man whom I believe into,
and may worship Him : that I may have the concrete
individual to believe into. I want to see Him with my eyes.'

(37) " Thou hast seen Him " : and then, to be more
definite, " and He that is talking with thee is He."

JOHN IX. 38-41 233

(38) ' And art Thou He ! ' "1 believe, Lord," in
Thee : " And he worshipped Him." The rest is veiled.
But our Lord has to comment : —

(39) " For judgment I came into this world, in order
that (iva) they who see not may sec, and they w^ho see
may become blind." The necessary outcome of His
Coming into this world at this His first Coming in
obscurity was a discerning between man and man : it
w^as the touchstone by which " the thoughts of many
hearts were brought to light " (Luke ii. 35) : it was
the test of the bedrock of men's natures. Some would
see Him as He was and would leap to Him : others
would see nothing in Him to suit their needs and would
ignore or scorn Him. Those who, acknowledging no
spiritual need, thought they saw, would be hardened in
their blindness : . those who knew their needs and their
own blindness would, like this man here, receive sight.
Here again the Hellenistic 'Iva represents not so much the
subjective aim as the objective consequence.

(40) Some difference in the look, or in the tone of voice,
or in the bearing, as He turned from the worship given
Him by the healed man to the Pharisees who were with
Him, made them aware that He was talking at them.
These Pharisees were some who were favourably disposed
to our Lord, perhaps those mentioned in the second half
of verse 16, who during that inquiry had demurred on His
behalf. On the strength of that they seem to be inclined
to patronize Him. The type in all ages is common.
Pharisees at heart, with no idea of adjusting theii- estimate
to His. •

(40) ' But,' say they, ' you would not say that zve,
who have shown ourselves favourable to you, are blind,
whatever you may say of the rest of our party ? '

(41) Yes, they too were blind : blind in their patronizing
self-esteem : but if they would admit they were blind,
they would not have sin : for in Him they would then
seek and find a remedy : but, as it was, they were not
aware of any need of spiritual light, blind to the Holiest.
So long as it was so, there was no remedy : "your sin

234 JOHN IX. 41

remains " : i.e. they remain in their state or habit of
aversion from God.

As the impotent man of chapter v., cured after his
thirty-eight years of sickness, may be viewed as a type
of the Jews who are yet to be healed : so may this man of
chapter ix., bhnd from his birth, be viewed as a type of
the Gentiles whose healing was about to begin and who
were about to believe into Jesus as Him who was " the
Sent " from God.

§ XV

JOHN X. 1-21

The Sheepfuld : the Shepherd. He wlthdrcavs to Percea

(1) The discourse is continued, with a parable of a sheep-
fold.

This parable appears to belong to the Christian Hebrew
alone : only by analogical application does it belong to
the Gentile Christian. The Gentile Christian a.D. 28.
does not enter into it till verse 16. It is Oct. 7)„,

:i^

spoken to those "Pharisees who were withTisri23j
Him " (ix. 40), who were half -friendly to Him : but had
no doubt that He would have to come to their view.

(1) "He that enters not by the door into the sheep-
fold, but climbs up from some other point, he is thief and
robber." The " sheepfold " is the Mosaic polity, the
Mosaic fold walled round by the precepts and ceremonials
of the Mosaic Law.

The door had never been opened till Christ came :
and the sheep had remained shut up under the Law, in
their fold, expectant.

Many had tried to steal the sheep away (by deceit
or by violence) and so make them abandon " Judaism " :
again and again these deceivers or persecutors had raided
the fold : — deceivers, mostly from among their own kings
and priests inducing the nation to become idolators in
pre-Captivity days : and robbers mostly from outside,
compelling by violence the nation to abandon " Judaism "
as did the Macedonians in the days of the Maccabees.

(2) " But He who enters by the door is Shepherd of
the sheep. To Him the Porter opens " : the Porter being
the Guardian of the fold (God The Father) who kept the

235

236 JOHN X. 3-8

door so that until the Shepherd of the sheep came none
might enter or lead the sheep out and in.

(3) All the sheep hear His voice when He comes, and
ought to recognize Him when they hear His voice, for the
sheep are His people of the Old Covenant : but when He
comes, the mass of them do not recognize Him. He,
however, knowing which of them are willing to listen to
Him, calls those particular ones {e.g. the healed man of
last chapter) individually, and leads them out to pastures,
out from the confinement of the typical into the free and
open country of the real.

(4) " And when He has put forth all His own," i.e. all
who recognize Him, " He goes in. front of them," lest they
should stray in their new-found liberty, and they follow
at His call.

(5) And if, out in the oi)en, where they are now Christian
Hebrews, false shepherds come to call them and lead them
away, they, knowing the One Shepherd's voice, are not
seduced, but run from them.

(6) " This parable spake Jesus to them : but they
understood not what it was He was talking to them."
The them to whom He sj)oke the parable are, as has been
said, the half -friendly " Pharisees who were with Him "
(ix. 40).

(7) " Again, therefore, spake Jesus "—not merely ex-
plaining but re-modelling the parable. Not only is He
Shepherd (verse 2), but " I am the Door of the sheep,"
i.e. the Door for the sheep to go out and in by. He the
God-Man, the true Janus of two faces or natures is the
Door. Directly the Door was opened {i.e. when He came
into the world) emergence from the fold of the Mosaic
Law became for the first time possible. Also through
Him alone has any shepherd access to the sheep.

(8) " All [so-called shepherds] that came before Me,"
i.e. before He the Door was opened, before He came into
the world, " are thieves and robbers." For till the Door
of the fold was opened, the sheep were shut up in the fold,
expectant : no shepherd passed in and out with the flock :
many self-stj-led shepherds had indeed entered the fold.

JOHN X. 8-10 237

but to do so had had to climb over the fold as robbers, and
had come only to steal sheep away. All the Prophets had
been born in the Mosaic fold : none of them had sought
to burst a way out for the sheep, i.e. sought to make the
nation abandon the Mosaic Law, but they had all pointed to
a future coming of the Shepherd-King, who should be the
living Spirit of the Law, without whom the Law and its
ceremonial was but a dead form. There had been many
thieves and robbers in their history who with much success
had sought by deceit or violence to make the chosen
People abandon their religion (the Mosaic f6ld), on the
plea that it was played out, antiquated, narrow. Thus
their own apostate kings and priests had often done, and
also their conquerors — notably Antiochus Epiphanes (see
1 and 2 Maccabees).

(9) If a shepherd enters through Him the Door, he is
a genuine shepherd, for entering through Him he has
authority to act as His under-shepherd, and with him the
sheep shall be secure, and shall pass in at evenings, and
shall pass out at mornings and find pasture where that
shepherd leads. The subject of aojOfiatTai, daeXeixTSTm,
£^£/\fu(T£ra<, vofi. evpi'icTEi seems to be to. Trpo/iara of the pre-
ceding verse : just as in vv. 3, 4, ra irpofiaTa, taken
collectively, are the subject of the singular aicoiu-/, and
aKoXovdn.

(10) The thief (the self-styled shepherd), not entering
through Him the Door, breaks in only to steal sheep by
deceiving them, or to sacrifice them (by martyrdom),
or to make havoc among them : but " / am come that
they (the sheep) may have Life {Kon)v) and in abundance,"
both in the fold, and by being led out of the fold into
fresh pasturage. He had no intention of destroying the
fold, or of inducing the sheep to abandon the fold, of the
Law : these sheep of His arc under the Mosaic Law, and
are meant to remain so : He was not come to destroy
that Law but to quicken it by showing the Living Anti-
type of all its types : this is " the coming out and finding
pasturage " of verse 9, as against the former state of being
shut up in the fold expectant until the Door was opened.

238 JOHN X. 11-10

There is no abandoning of the fold, for the sheep pass not
only out, but " in " and " out."

(11) " I am the Good Shepherd." Not only is He the
Door of the fold of verse 1, but He is also the Shepherd
of verse 2. And this Shepherd is the Good Shepherd who
so loves the sheep (the sheep of the Mosaic Covenant)
that He will gladly die on their behalf. (12) It is only a
hireling that values his own interests above those of the
sheep : as had been so often the ease with the shepherds
or kings whom He had set over the Nation, who had proved
to be the ruin of His people, by their political alliances,
and by those religious rites they kept borrowing from the
Gentile nations : careless for the people entrusted to
them, because at heart apostate from the hope of Israel.

(14, 15) " / am the Good Shepherd, and I know My
sheep, and Mine know Me, even as The Father knows
Me and I know The Father. And I lay down My life
{\pvxm>) for the sheep." The intimacy between The
Father and the God-Man is no closer than that between
the God-Man and those of the human race who from
Age to Age become His : they are generated by Him
sacramentally, and in their ultimate perfection and col-
lectivity will reflect Him. They are His not merely as
a possession, but as being one with Him living with His
Life. The sheep do not choose Him : He chooses them.
The life {-ipvxv) that He lays down on their behalf does not
remain a sacrifice external to them, but becomes Life
(^w))) moving within them and quickening them by reason
of their sacramental imion with Him by faith and baptism.

(16) " And other sheep I have which are not of this
fold (« oi)K i(TTiv Elv- rj)f- oi/Ajjc rourijc)-" These " other
sheep " are the Gentile Christians, " who do not belong
to this fold," viz. to the Mosaic fold : they never did
belong, and were never meant to belong, to it. " Them
also I must lead " as their Shepherd, — not '' bring " to
the fold of the Mosaic Law : " and they shall hear My
voice," and follow where He leads. " And they shall
become one flock {-n-otfivi}), i.e. along with the Christian
Hebrews, under " One Shepherd " : but they (the Gentile-

JOHN X. IG 239

Christians) shall not belong to fhefold {avXi)) of tlic parable,
which is the Mosaic Law, and which is reserved for the
Christians of Israelite descent (Jews and Ten Tribes).

It would seem that together with the rebuilt Temple
(Ezek. xl.-xlvi.) and the reoccupation of Holy Land by
Israel- Judah (Ezek. xlvii. 13-xlviii.), i.e. by Representatives
of each of the tribes,* the Mosaic Law and ritual will on
the conversion of the Jews be re-established in Holy Land
for the Jews and Ten Tribes, or rather for their Repre-
sentatives, and only in Holy Land. The Mosaic Law, as
interpreted in Matt, v., is the Nation's charter. But along
with the Mosaic ritual and the Temple, Ark, Tabernacle,
altar of incense, the Glory of the Lord, and the Cloud
(2 Mac. ii. 1-8) there will also be the ritual of the Mass
interpreting Melchisedek's sacrifice of bread and wane :
Christ Himself being from time to time visibly present
there and in the City of Ezek. xlviii. 15-19, 30-35, the
world's capital, in the millennial Age. There His deputy,
the nation's king (the " prince," nasi\ of Ezek. xliv. 3 :
xlv. 7-xlvi. 18: xlviii. 21), will reside permanently. Out-
side of Holy Land the Mosaic Law and ritual will not be
in force not even for Israelites or Jews, for it was never
meant for Gentiles or foreign countries. It is all im-
portant to remember that so long as the Temple was
standing the Christian Hebrew of Holy Land was in every
whit bound by the Mosaic Law and ritual just as much as
was the non-Christian Jew. Also, before the rejection of
the Jews and the consequent destruction of nation and
Temple in a.d. 70, there is not the slightest sign that the

* The English versions (A.V. and R.V.) have made nonsense of Ezekiel'a
allotment of the Land, by inserting the word reeds in xlviii. 8, instead of the
word cubits, which should be supplied to all the measurements of this chapter.
The distance from the altar of Ezekiel's Temple to the centre of Ezekiel's
"City" (xlv., xlviii.) is 17,500 cubits=5 English miles (less 50 yards): there-
fore whilst his Temple is at Jerusalem his " City " is at Bethlehem (accurately,
at Migdal 'eder. Tower of the Flock). Had Micah too (iv. 8) a vision of this
national capital seated here when he cried, " And thou, 3Iigdal 'eder, stronghold
of the Daughter of Sion, unto thee shall it come : yea, shall come the chief
dominion, the kingdom of the Daughter of Jerusalem"? The "chief" or
" first " (in dignity) dominion = the suzerainty of the world. Micah might still
be using Migdal 'eder as a name for the Messiah, as a rabbinical tradition says.

240 JOHN X. 16

Temple and its ritual was meant to be superseded at once.
That Law and ritual belongs to the Land and to the Race
whenever as a Nation they are settled in that their own
land as owners and occupiers. The above may be a strange
idea to modern ears dulled with the " spiritual " exegesis
of the Prophets, but it seems to be plainly stated by the
Prophets for those to whom language has any meaning.
The present Church is purely Gentile, and its visible head,
Christ's Vicar, is Gentile : and his seat is appropriately in
Rome the capital of Daniel's fourth kingdom. But the
Church of the millennial Age, when the Twelve Tribes are
again in possession of Holy Land as the re-united Cove-
nant People converted to Christ, will have its centre at
.Jerusalem, and its visible head no longer a Gentile vicar.
The Temple and Temple precincts of Ezekiel's vision
(xl.-xlviii.) is the Jerusalem and Sion and Holy Mountain
of the millennial Age.

During this present Age, " the times of the Gentiles "
(Luke xxi. 24), there is the Gentile Church, formed by the
election of individuals out of the Gentiles, with a Gentile
Vicar.

Next, in the millennial Age it seems that there will be
a Church embracing, at least nominally, all individuals of
all nations, under the protection of Israel's empire and
Israel's king acting as viceroy for Christ : its focus in
Holy Land, its centre in a rebuilt Temple and City. By
that kingdom we may suppose the world's peace will be
kept, and security given to every nation to develop un-
hindered by its neighbours, each nation benefiting from the
aid of its own saints who will have risen at the "First
resurrection " of Rev. xx. 5. Is not here the meaning of
the parable of the Pounds and Cities {Luke xix. 12-27)
and of that of the Talents (Matt. xxv. 14-30) ? and of the
promise to the Apostles in Luke xxii. 29, 30, and Matt.
xix. 28, by which they are to sit as Israel's Court of
Appeal ? Is it asked where are the Ten Tribes of Israel ?
Look around.

Next, in the post-millennial Age, will be the universal
Church in a much purer state, under our Lord's personal

JOHN X. 16-18 241

visible Monarchy, when not i ven in any individual is there
any opposition to His will : its focus is the New Jerusalem,
the Holy City of Rev. xxi. — the outer " nations " being
still in process of " healing " (Rev. xxii. 2). This New
Jerusalem has a superficies of 12,000 stades (Rev. xxi. 1(3)
and is foursquare : so each side is 109 '5 stades in length
= 12 or 13 English miles, according as the stade is the
Attic or the Olympic. '• Its length and breadth and height
are even {'Icra),''^ i.e. the four sides run straight without
sinuosities, and the skyline is level owing to absence of
hills or valleys such as exist in Jerusalem to-day. The
height is then given, naturally in terms of the city's wall,
as 114 cubits — 216 feet. There is nothing in John's
account of it that needs "spiritualising" away.

^ven that post-millennial Age is but a stage in the
history of the race, for it seems to be followed by the yet
more perfect state w^hen our Lord " shall transfer the
kingdom to God even the Father " (1 Cor. xv. 24-28),
and the desire " Thy Kingdom come " shall at last be
realized. But be these things as they may.

(17) It is for the whole flock {irolfxvi]), and not only
for those of the Mosaic fold {avXi'i), that the Shepherd lays
down His life.

" This is the proof that {dia tovto) The Father loves
Me, viz. that I {lyw, of My freewdll) am laying down My
life " {xpvxnv, not Z,<x>->]v), " to receive it again (tVa TraAti'
Xo/3w ai/r/jv)." The "iva (" to ") in this last clause repre-
sents, as frequently in Hellenistic Greek, not so much
purpose as consequence, it is the Hebrew b with infinitive,
or Ima'an with infin. or fut.

If I w-ere not acting in harmony with The Father's
will in surrendering My life, I should not receive My life
again : but I shall receive it. The crowning proof of
My union with The Father will be My resurrection.

(18) "No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of
Myself." Let none think when men shall have slain
Him that they prevailed against Him : it is that He has
assented to their power, for He became Incarnate in order
to be the willing Sacrifice for the whole world, Himself

242 JOHN X. 18-21

being High-Priest and Victim. Did any call this suicide ?
It was not : for " I have authority to lav it down and I
have authority to take it again." He is not recklessly
throwing life away. He is laying it down with the result
that He will receive it again : and in so doing, He is acting
in agreement with The Father's command : " This is the
commandment that I received from ]\Iy Father." What
The Father orders, The Son also orders : what one Person
of the Godhead does ad extra, the whole Godhead does.

(19) "A cleavage again was made among the Jews
because of these words (Aoyou^)," viz. the whole discourse
of verses 1-18. The " again " refers to the previous
" cleavage " named in verse 16 of last chapter. This
second division arose among "the Jews" — the hitherto
violent and extreme party — when the discourse was re-
ported to them by those half-friendly Pharisees to whom
it had been spoken. (20) The majority of them, on
hearing, summed up, ' he has a demon and is not in his
right mind ' : meaning that yesterday's cure of the blind man
was done by Jesus acting as a medium for demonic agency.
(21) A minority among them argued, " these things
{piifxara = sayings, and events described) do not belong
to one under the influence of a demon {caifxoviZ,ofxivov) :
a demon cannot open blind men's eyes, can it ? "

As suggested at p. 231, the scene of the parable might
be at the north-east gate of the city, the Sheep -gate :
where could be seen (either just outside the gate, or else
on the west slope of the Mount of Olives opposite) the
sheepfold for those sheep which were driven up from
time to time to Jerusalem for the sacrifices, from the
pasture grounds near Bethlehem.

It was during this stay at Jerusalem (Oct. 2-7) that our
Lord appointed the " seventy others " (Luke x. 1-16), corre-
sponding to tlie seventy elders appointed by Moses (Num.
xi. 16) : just as the Twelve Apostles corresponded to the
twelve princes or sheikhs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
These seventy were not for work in Galilee, which He has
abandoned, nor yet for work in Tyre and Sidon or the
Decapolis where He has recently been (Matt. xv. 21 : Mark

Interval between verses 21 and 22 of John x. 243

vii. 24, 31), but to precede Him into a new mission field,
viz. Peraea, whither He will follow them (Luke x. 1), and
where they subsequently rejoined Him (Luke x. 17-24).
His charge to them is very similar to His previous charge
to the Twelve (Matt. x. : Mark vi.) in May last, which was
not given by Luke, just as this charge to the seventy is not
given by Matthew or Mark. The " harvest " of Luke x.
is the harvest of autumn fruits and the vintage and the
beginning of olive gathering.

Here, between verses 21 and 22 of John x., comes an
interval of two months (Oct. 8 to Dec. 6). John will
resume the story on the occasion of the next visit to
Jerusalem, viz. at the Feast of Dedication (verse 22) in
December.

These two months seem to have been spent in Peraea
(east of Jordan), for after the Feast of Dedication John
tells us (x. 40) that He went away again to beyond Jordan,
i.e. to Peraea. The province of Peraea, together with that
of Galilee, formed the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas.

Of this two months' interval (Oct. 8 to Dec. 6) no
details are given by Matthew or Mark or John : but to it
belongs Luke x. 17-24. Then follows chronologically
Luke x. 25-37, which seems to have been spoken on the
way from Jericho to Jerusalem, as He went up to the
Feast of Dedication, say on Monday, Dec. 6 (KisleAv 24) :
and Luke x. 38-end describes His visit to Martha and Mary
at Bethany on the same occasion, say on Monday, Dec. 6, the
eve of the Feast. Bethany was on the high-road from
Jericho to Jerusalem, and was about one and a half miles
from Jerusalem.

Luke xi. 1-13 should also perhaps be placed to this
visit to Jerusalem (Feast of the Dedication), for according
to local tradition the Lord's Prayer as recorded in Luke
xi. 1-4 w^as taught on the west slope of the Mount of Olives,
above the Garden of Gethsemane and near the hill path
leading from Jerusalem to Bethany. The site was marked
by a church which was already in ruins before the arrival
of the Crusaders, so that it probably dated from before
the Arab conquest of 636 a.d.

§ XVI

JOHN X. 22-42

Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. He returns to Percea.

(x. 22) " And there took place {lyivtTo cl) the Feast

of the Dedication, in Jerusalem." This was one of the

A D 28 ' minor festivals — not ordained by Moses,

rDec 7 ! ^^"^^ instituted by Judas Maccabaeus B.C. 165

^"^^"\Kislew25\(see 1 Mace. iv. 56-59: 2 Mace. x. 6-8).

to / Attendance at the Temple was not obligatory

Tues.-I ^^^' ^^ either at this Feast or at that of Purim : but

Tebeth 2 throughout the land the people assembled

in their synagogues to keep it. Hence, the notice " in

Jerusalem " : by which John means that our Lord was at

Jerusalem on the date of this festival, although most people

were keeping it in their nearest towns. It lasted eight

days, viz. from Kislew 25 to Tebeth 2, inclusive ; the

Julian equivalent this year being Tuesday, Dec. 7, to

Tuesday, Dec. 14. Temple and town were illuminated

every evening, and every house.

" And it was winter " : rather, " It was stoimy weather "
{XiifiMv y]x')- There was no occasion for John to tell his
readers that it was winter, for every one knew that the
Feast of Dedication fell always in winter. Therefore his
meaning must be, "it was stormy weather," or "there was
a storm blowing " (see Acts xxvii. 20, yjtif.iG)v6c: -t oik-
bXiyov iTTiKHfuvov, " no small storm lay on us "). In
consequence, Jesus was in the shelter (23) of " Solomon's
portico " in the Temple area : this portico was on the
extreme east side (Josephus, Ant., XX. viii. 6) overhanging
the Kedron ravine, and would be of especial protection
against a storm from the east. The day may be the first
day of the Feast, Tuesday, Kislew 25 = Dec. 7.

244

JOHN X. 24-25 245

(24) " Therefore," i.e. now that after two months'
absence He is in the Temple again, and, because hemmed
in by the portico, as they think in their power, " the Jews
surrounded Him," as meanini^ He should not escape them :
" and they said to Him, ' How long dost thou hold us m
suspense ? If thou art the Cnrist, tell us plainly.' "
This does not imply that He had ever left them any ground
for doubt, or that He had ever dissimulated His claims
to be Messiah. Rather, their question betrays the im-
patience of men who will not or cannot bring themselves
to believe what they do not want to believe. There is at
the back of their question the old demand for some ex-
ternal " sign " which may satisfy them.

(25) His answer : " I told you and ye believe not.
The works that I do in My Father's name these bear
witness concerning Me." Ever since He had been among
them they had known His claim : from His birth up, they
had never been allowed to lose sight of it : but they would
not have it. If they would not accept His spoken word,
let them accept the witness of His works. He does not
appeal to the events of His Infancy or to the witness of
John, or to that of Simeon, Anna, Zacharias, the angels,
or Gabriel : these, with which they were well acquainted,
could only have value for those whose minds were already
attuned : they could be of no avail for those who had all
along known of them and had rejected Him.

Miracles have their evidential value, but only in virtue
of their ethical quality — some ethical quality which sets
forth the nature of Him in whose name they are done, e.g.
as seen in the healing of sick and maimed and blind, the
feeding of the hungry, the raising from death, the minister-
ing to the spiritual needs of those who wait on God (" the
poor ") — in short, those works of His which He ordered
to be reported to John in prison (Matt. xi. 5), because of
their evidential value. Mere thaumaturgy has no eviden-
tial value : it lacks the ethical quality of God : such is the
thaumaturgy of the East : to thaumaturgy Antichrist
will appeal " in all power and signs and wonders of
Falsehood " (2 Thess. ii. 9). Also, Antichrist will come

246 JOHN X. 26-30

in his own name : and not as the representative of God,
not as The Son asserting the existence of The Father.

(26) " But ye believe not, because ye are not of M}''
sheep." The fault lay not in any want of evidence, but
in their incapacity to appreciate Truth. To them neither
words nor works of His had any evidential value, because
their ears were not sensitized to Truth : in other words,
" because ye are not of My sheep " which " listen to
My voice " — as He had said to them when last here,
two months ago.

(27) " My sheep hear My voice, and / recognize them
(k:o7^^ yivdjoKh) avTtt) " : the Jews thought they belonged
to the Kingdom because they were Jews : but He knows
whom He calls and who hear Him : between His sheep
and Him the Shepherd there exists a mutual recognition :
these follow Him where He leads.

(28) "And / give them Life eternal." He does not
promise them immunity from death ; for again, as two
months ago, the sheep driven up for the Festal sacrifices
give Him His parable. Many of His own sheep too will
be sacrificed, but He gives them Life eternal, and living or
dying " they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch
them out of My hand." They are beyond reach of Death.
The transit from this world of sense called death is not
Death : the only Death is the being snatched " out of My
hand," and that they shall never be.

(29) "That which My Father hath given to Me is
greater than all." " That which (o) " = the Divine nature
of The Son eternally generated by The Father. So
Augustine, " Quid dedit Filio Pater ma jus omnibus ?
Ut ipse illi esset unigenitus Filius." " And no one is able
to snatch out of My Father's hand."

(30) "I and The Father are One " : who then is able
to snatch " out of My hand ? "

(30) In the sentence, " I and The Father are One,"
the word " One " {tv) is neuter, and means one Essence :
it is not masculine, which would have been one Person.
He, who was talking to them, is One in Essence with
The Father : He is God Incarnate : He is the eternal

JOHN X. 31-33 247

Son of The eternal Father — co-eternal, co-eq\ial : two
Persons, one Godhead, one Essence.

(31) Again (as two months ago at the Feast of Taber-
nacles, viii. 59) " the Jews carried stones to stone Him."
Before that, also, they had sought to kill Him. On the
first occasion, at the Feast of Pentecost (v. 18), because
" He kept saying (imp.) God was His own Father, making
Himself equal with God." On the second occasion, at
the Feast of Tabernacles (viii. 54-58), because He again
had plainly said that God was His Father and that He
Himself was the self-existent God " I am." On the third
occasion, now at the Feast of Dedication (x. 33), because
" thou, being a man, makest thyself God." There is no
development in His claim : He begins as He ends, claim-
ing to be God : His claim dates from His very birth, though
no one at that time understood in what sense He was
God. The first to whom He began to teach His relation-
ship with The Father were His mother Mary and Josepii
(Luke ii. 40), and even His mother understood but gradu-
ally the mysteries of her Son. John the Baptist, the
Forerunner, was the next to understand (see under i. 18 :
pp. 18, 19). And ever since our Lord's public ministry
began, it had been His aim to explain to the doctors of
theology exactly how He stands to The Father, what is
the nature of the Godhead, how The Father and The Son
are One in Essence and yet Two Persons. One purpose
of His incarnation was to teach the nature of God, and
that the unity of God is not the final word of revelation.

(32) ' And why did they purpose to stone Him ?
Had He done any action worthy of death ? Were not all
His works good and worthy of The Father, whose indeed
they were ? '

(33) They reply, Be his actions as they may : " it
is not concerning any good action that we stone thee, but
concerning "blasphemy, and because thou being a man
makest thyself God." Even if He were the Christ (it is their
last desperate argument) how could He, being a man. be
God ? how claim God's right to act at will athwart the
Sabbath laAv, and to be equal with God (v. 18) ? and to

248 JOHN X. 33-36

have been God ages before He came into the world, God
the self-existent " I am " (viii. 58) ? and to be One God-
head with The Father, though not The Father (x. 30) ?

But though a mere man could not be God, God could
become Man, whilst still remaining God. Did not the
Scriptures plainly hint at it in words with whose meaning
they, doctors of the Law, were familiar ?

(34) For instance, " Is it not written in your Law,* ' I
said, Gods are ye ' ? " The quotation is from Ps. Ixxxii. 6.
The " I," both in the Hebrew and the Greek, is
emphatic. This psalm from verse 2 to 7 contains the
sentence of God upon the corruption and incompetence
of the judges or rulers who held His delegated authorit}^
He says in verse 6 how He had clothed them with His own
authority, saying they should sit for Him, even Himself
calling them gods and sons of the Most High : alluding
to the pouring out of The Spirit upon the seventy elders
chosen by lot by Moses (Num. xi. 16, 24-30) — ^the original
of the Sanhedrin : and in verse 8 He sends forth the
Messiah to be King, " Arise, O God, judge the earth," etc.
Our Lord argues : —

(35) If God Himself gives the title of " gods " to their
judges unto whom the word of God came marking them
out as delegates of His own authority.

(36) It was only because they were vicars, so to say,
of the Messiah, the eternal Son, whom the eternal Father
was to consecrate as Man and send as Man into the world ;
sending Him with the words, "Arise, O God, judge the
earth, for Thou shalt inherit all the nations." That
Messiah was Himself God come as Man among men. And
yet " Say ye {vjuhc; Xiyere) of Him whom The Father conse-
crated and sent into the world, 'Thou blasphemest ' ? " etc.

" He, a Man, making Himself God." Was not this
very thing (viz. an Incarnate God) foreshadowed in their
Law ? The mere visitation of the word of God to their

* The Hebrew word for the Law, Torah, means properly instruction. Tn
its narrowest sense, i.e. when contrasted with the "Prophets" and the
" Scripture," it was confined to the Pentateuch — the five books of Moses,
Gen. to Deut. : when not so contrasted, the word inchided the whole of God'a
rev'elation to them, as 13 clear from Rabbinical authorities.

JOHN X. 3G-38 249

seventy judges warranted to them the title of gods in
God's own mouth, as being His vicegerents : was not that
title a prophecy that one day the Judge or King long
promised should be One in whose Person the Godhead
should unite Itself to Manhood ? " Arise, O God, judge the
earth ; for Thou shalt inherit all nations " as universal King.
He is talking to adepts in O.T. exegesis, who follow Him.

Seeing then that a God-Man was some day to come,
it was not of necessity blasphemy for a Man to call Himself
God : for some day that Man will come who has the right
to do so. Before they accuse Him of blasphemy let them
see whether He is not that very Man who has the right to
call Himself God.

His argument is not directed so much toward denying
blasphemy on His part, as toward cautioning " the Jews "
{i.e. the Sanhedrists) for their reckless charge against The
Father's Representative. The line taken is not ' since I
am God, therefore I am not using blasphemy,' but rather,
' Since I am God, beware how you venture to charge Me.'
It has been superficially inferred that He here, for argu-
ment, laid aside His claim to the Godhead and placed
Himself on a par with those who held a delegated authority :
This view seems to miss the point.

(37) They knew He had always claimed to be that
Man-God, and from His very birth He had been pointed
out to them as that Man by angels and prophets (Luke i.
and ii.). If they had found His actions not to correspond
with the nature of God, they were right not to believe His
claim. He Himself would forbid them to recognize Him.

(38) But if His works did so correspond, then even
though they did not straightaway believe His statements
(for He knew their ears were dull else they had leapt to
Him), at least let them examine His works, His whole life,
in every aspect. They would not then ascribe those works
to the agency of demons, but would be led on to the
knowledge, and constantly increasing knowledge (Vyo yvwre
/cat -y/i/wak-jjrf), of the complete harmony and union that
exist between Himself the doer of these works and Him
whom they called their God.

250 JOHN X. 39-41

These are His last warning words to them. He will
not appear again in Jerusalem till the week of His Passion
some three months later.

(39) They here sought to close in and seize Him : they
had already formed a circle round Him (24) to prevent
escape.

And He went forth out of that closing circle — ^the
power that emanated from Him preventing their laying
hands on Him : it was the same power that He allowed
to issue from Him on the night of His arrest (xviii. 6).

(40) " And He went away again beyond Jordan, to the
place where John was at the first baptizing." " Again,"
i.e. because He had already been in Peraea for the last
two months, the two months before the Feast of Dedica-
tion. The " at the first " refers to the time when John
hegan baptizing (the time recorded in Matt. iii. 5-17 : Mark
i. 5-11 : Luke iii. 3-18 : John i. 19-28) in the lower Jordan
opposite to Jericho, and on east of Jordan ; as against
the time of his baptizing mentioned in John iii. 23, Avhen
he was much higher up the river and on the west of Jordan,
on the borders of Galilee and Samaria, at Aenon.

Dec. 9, A.D. 28, (40) "And there He abode," i.e. in
to early Mch., Peraea : until His visit to Bethany of chap-
A.D. 29. ter xi., some twelve weeks later.

(41) " And many came to Him " : cf. the " crowd " of
Luke xi. 14, 27 : Luke xii. 1, 13, 54 : Luke xiii. 14, 17.
The whole block of Luke xi. 14 to xiii. 21 belongs to
these twelve weeks.

" And they kept saying (imp.), ' John (strongly emphatic
in the Greek) did no sign,' " implying that Jesus did many
here. And they amplify their implication into " all
the things that John spoke of this One {tovtov) were
true," e.g. when in i. 27 the Baptist spoke in this neighbour-
hood (lower Jordan) of Jesus as being far greater than
himself ; so much greater that he, John, whom the whole
nation were revering as their greatest Prophet, was not
worthy to wait upon Him as a slave : and in i. 33, where
he announced Him as " baptizing with the Holy Spirit,"
and as being " The Son of God " : and in i, 36 as being

JOHN X. 42 TILL XL 1 251

" rpi

The Lamb of God " : and in iii. 26-28, where the Baptist
recalls how he had witnessed that he himself was but
the Forerunner of the " Messiah," who was Jesus. They
believed now with John's belief : they believing only
implicitly what John had explicitly seen.

(42) " And many believed into Him there " and were
perhaps also baptized into Him : for that Christian baptism
had already begun we have seen at iv. 2.

This stay in Persea seems to have covered twelve
weeks, viz. from about Dec. 9 of a.d. 28, till besinnino; of
March a.d. 29. No details of this period are given by
any of the evangelists except Luke. In this period falls
Luke xi. 1 or 14 to Luke xiii. 21.

The whole block bears an air of sadness as though it
marked the close of a ministry in Perasa as unsuccessful
as had been that in Galilee. The section Luke xi. 14 to
end of chap. xii. seems to belong to one and the same
day, the part beginning xi. 29 being the answer to verse 16.
Possibly we may find a clue in xi. 37 as to the actual
day of the year. This invitation to the midday meal
given by the Pharisee may mark the Feast of Purim
(Adar 14 and 15, which fell this year of a.d. 29 on Wed-
nesday and Thursday, Feb. 23, 24) always a festival of
social gaiety. The mention of " the sepulchres which
appear not " (ro /umifxeia ra aSi^Aa, vcrse 44) also points
to the Feast of Purim, for Adar 15 was the day on which
all sepulchres and tomb-stones had to be rewhitened
every year in order to make them conspicuous, so that
passers-by might not unwittingly come in contact with
them and thus incur ceremonial defilement. In a similar
passage in Matt, xxiii. 27 the words are " ye are as whitened
tombs " : the difference is notable : Matthew's record
was spoken in Passover week, when all tombs shone white,
having been white- washed but last month. Perhaps
also the simile of the marriage-feast in Luke xii. 36
may have been suggested by one actually taking place
at this the favourite time for weddings, the Feast ol'
Purim.

The section Luke xiii. 1-21 seems to follow closely on

252

JOHN X. 42 TILL XI. 1

the preceding, when news came down from Jerusalem of
Ihe recent treatment of Galileans by Pilate in the Temple
courts — not improbably at this very Feast of Purim. This
treatment of Herod's Galilean subjects by Pilate may have
been the cause of that " enmity " between the two, of
which Luke tells us in xxiii. 12 (a month later) : which
was ended by the amends Pilate made him over Another
of his Galileans (xxiii. 7).

There is a close resemblance again and again in our
Lord's sayings here in Peraea to His sayings recorded by
Matthew as spoken either in Galilee or during the final
week in Jerusalem : it is not that the records are at hap-
hazard and show no design : rather, the audience was in
the main different in the three localities, also words re-
iterated make a more lasting impression : reiteration has
always been a note of the oral teaching of the East.

With Luke xiii. 22 we come in touch with John's
gospel (see following pp. 252-255), and are in early March
of A.D. 29.

A.D. 29.
Early March-

Luke xiii. 31.

NOTE

This note shows how John's account (chap, xi.) dovetails
into Luke's (xiii. 22-xvi. 31).

John in chapter xi. resumes the history at about the
beginning of March A.D. 29, when falls the journey from
Persea to Bethany for the raising of Lazarus. It is the same
journey that begias at Luke xiii. 22 and ends at Luke xvi. 3L

The follo-rting remarks may show the connection here
between Luke and John :—

The journey will occupy three days (Luke xiii. 32) : it
begins at verse 22 after the " two days' wait " of John xi. 6 ;
and evidently on a Friday, for of the three days the second
is clearly a Saturday (Luke xiv. 1). The position in Persea
was (as we deduce from Luke xiii. 31-33) as follows :—

Herod Antipas wishes to get rid of our Lord out of his
territory of Persea, but does not venture to do violence to
Him. The people had been already indignant at his murder
of John the Baptist last May at Machserus, the southernmost
point of Persea. Herod therefore tries to frighten Hmi out
by the artifice of sending Pharisees to pretend they have
wind of a secret plot of Herod's to put Him to death.

w John xi. dovetails with Luke xiii. l^-xvi. 31 253

A.D. 29.
Luke xiii. 32.

Luke xill. 35.

March 4, Frj.
March 5, Sat.
March 6, Sun.

Our Lord sees through the trick, for to Hun all minds
were open (John ii. 24, 25) : and He sends word to Herod
that His plans are fixed and unalterable, not subject to
compulsion from any one or to any fear from outside (of.
John xi. 9, which was spoken on this same day) : that His
time, however, is nearly at an end ; that in three days His
active work will be finished (rcXctov/Aat) — He mean.s with
the raising of Lazarus, which will bring about the Sanhedrin's
final decision for His death (cf. John xi. 47-53). For after
that. He retired to Ephraim {ih. 54) on the edge of Samaria,
and there waited in seclusion dming the last few days until
His final journey of sis days to Jerusalem (Luke xviL 11) to
meet His death.

But He adds that those three days will not be passed
in Peraea ; for, independently of Herod's wishes, ' I must
leave Peraea at once m order to go to^v■ard Jerusalem. The
Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, and not Herod of Galilee and Peraea,
must have their accustomed privilege of slaying the Prophets.'
The journey He has in view (viz. to Bethany, only IJ miles
from Jerusalem) will occupy three days : viz. " to-day "
(=Friday), Avhich will take Him to Jericho ; "to-morrow"
(Saturday), which He will spend at Jericho ; and " the next
day " (Sunday), when He will arrive at Bethany and end His
active work by His crowning miracle, the raising of Lazarus —
His final effort to convince the Jews (cf. Luke xvi. 30, 31).
The raising of Lazarus will be on Sunday, March 6, a.d. 29.

THE JOURNEY FROM PER^A TO BETHANY (]\L4RCH 4-6 OF
A.D. 29) FOR THE RAISING OF LAZARUS

(John xi 7-16 : Luke xiii 22-xvi. 31)

The " cities and villages " of Luke xiii 22 are in Perae;i.
He had returned to South Peraea in December of a.d. 28
(John X. 40) : and has been in Peraea presumably ever since.
According to Josephus ( War, 3, iii. 3) Peraea taken politically,
as Herod's province, reached from Machserus (where the
Baptist was beheaded) iti the south, to Pella in the north,
i.e. sixty miles north and south by twenty-five east and west.
Taken geographicall}^ it would be much larger, for it would
probably include DecapoUs (see Josephus, War, 4, vii. 3,
where he reckons Gadara to be in Peraea) and all from Jordan
to the eastern desert.

The three days of Luke xiii. 32, 33, are the same as the
three days He took to get to Lazarus.
A.D. 29. j£g hears of the illness on (say) ThiU'sday morning,

Adar22^''^''""- (March 3). He stays " two days in the place where He was "

254 How John xi. dovetails with Luke xiii. 22-xvi. 31

A.D. 29.
Mch. 3) ^.

Mch. 4 J Pi
Adar 23 i "'•

Mch. 3, Thurs.
Mch. 4, Fri.

Mch. 5;
Adar 24^

Sat.

Mch. bi
Adar 25^

Sun.

(John xi. 6) — clearly some place in Peraea (John x. 40).
The " two days " means till the second day, i.e. till the
morrow, both terms being counted (cf. iv. 40). Does, then,
to "stay two days" mean merely that He left on the
morrow ? No : it means that, though He left on the morrow,
there was a deliberate stay first : thus here He stayed the
daylight hours of Thursday, as at iv. 43 He stayed the day-
light hom-s of Monday. He stays until Lazarus is dead
and buried. So Lazarus died on Thursday, Marcli 3rd, and
is bvu-ied on the same day (cf. verse 17 with 39).

On Friday morning (March 4) our Lord starts to go to
Lazarus (John xi. 7), and it will take Him three days (Luke
xiii. 32, 33) to get there and do the crowning miracle.

These three days of Luke are checked and verified by
John xi. 11, 14 : from which we gather that He started the
morning after Lazarus was dead-and-buried, and reached
Bethany on the fourth day since the death-and-burial.
The " fom- days " of verses 17, 39, of course, include the day
of death-and-burial : and are Thursdaj^ Friday, Saturday,
Sunday (March 3-6). So, of John's " four days " —

On the first day, Thursday, March 3, Lazarus died and
was bm-ied.

On the second daj', Friday, ]\Iarch 4, our Lord starts to go
to him (John xi. 7, 1 1 : and Luke xiii. 22). The events of this
day are given in John xi. 7-16 : and Luke xiii. 22-35. The
day's journey would naturally be one of about twenty mUes —
the regular day's journey whether of ancient Rome, or of the
East of then and of to-day. The end of the day finds Him
at Jericho, which is seven miles west of the bridge over the
Jordan, and on the road from Peraea to Jerusalem. So one
may suppose Him to have started this (Friday) morning from
some point in Persea not more than twelve miles or so east
of the bridge. This day is the " to-day " of Luke xiii. 32, 33.

On the third day, Saturday, March 5, it being a Sabbath,
He, of course, does not travel, but stays at Jericho. The
events of this day are given in Luke xiv. 1-24 : all of which
occur in the dining-hall of the Pharisee's house. We may
suppose it was the midday meal of Saturday. This day is
the " to-morrow " of Luke xiii. 32, 33.

On the fom-th day, Sunday, March 6, He leaves Jericho for
Bethanj'. " Great crowds " were travelling with Him as He
was setting out (Luke xiv. 25). The place being Jericho
accounts for the gi-eat numbers of " publicans and suuiers "
here (Luke xv. 1) : for Jericho was the southern depot for the
collection of customs on exports and imports passing across
Jordan ; Capernaum in Galilee being the northern.

An for the " sinners " (Luke xv. 1), Jericho was always

How John xi. dovetails with Luke xiii. 22-xvi. 31 255

I notorious for its luxury, for Avhich the enervating heat of
its climate was greatly responsible : it is eight hundred feet
below the sea. This day is the " third day " of Luke xiii. 32,
and equals " the day following " of Luke xiii. 33.

The discoui-ses of to-day (Sunday) are given in Luke
siv. 25 to xvi. 31. Perhaps some of them were spoken in
the morning before He began the day's walk. Luke xv. 2
looks as if He had supped on the Saturday evening with some
of the " publicans," and they arc this (Sunday) morning
genial and friendly with Him.

The evening finds Him at Bethany, where John at xi.
17 continues the story.

The distance from Jericho to Bethany is thirteen miles,
or by the ancient road fourteen miles.

§ XVII

JOHN XI. 1-57

The raising of Lazarus. The retirement at Ephraim.

The events of this chapter, as has already been said,
The date is seem to belong to the first week of March
early March, (as will appear later) : and our Lord was
A.D. 29. crucified some three weeks later, on the

25th of the same month.

(1) " And a certain man was ill, namely, Lazarus of
Bethany." " Lazarus of Bethany " : the preposition
(«7r6) here rendered " of " signifies his place of residence :
and John names it as being Bethany.

" Of the village of Mary," etc. The preposition (k)
here rendered " of " signifies his place of birth, which is
not named : John merely says it was the same as the
village where Lazarus's sisters Mary and Martha were
born. This Mary is, according to all tradition of East and
West, the same as Mary Magdalene whom, again, the con
sensus of tradition asserts to be the same as " the woman
who was in the city, a sinner " of Luke vii. 37. Thus the
birthplace of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary was apparently
a village in the township of Magdala of Galilee.

This distinction between the prepositions otto and Ik
has been entirely missed by both A.V. and R.V., which
seem to make the " village " refer to Bethany. The A.V.
has a similar oversight in i. 44 (nor is the R.V. there clear),
where the Greek is exactly the same as here in xi. 1 :
the Greek has, " Philip was from {a-rrh, i.e. resident of)
Bethsaida, out of (k-, i.e. native of) the city of Andrew
and Peter," which every one knew was Cai)ernaum. See
also at vii. 41.

256

JOHN XI. 2-G 2.57

(2) " It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with
ointment and wijied His feet with her hair, wliosc brother
Lazarus was sick."

Til is is obviously a reference to the incident recorded
in Luke vii. 37, where alone in the Synoptics is there any
mention of " wiping His feet with her hair "—a story
well known, of course, to all the Churches at the time that
John wrote his gospel. John cannot be alluding to his
own account in chapter xii. : for why should he in xi. 2
tell us that Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus was the
Mary who in the next chapter anoints our Lord's feet,
when we have only to wait for his account of that incident
to see that she was ? Clearly in xi. 2, John is referiing
hack to that crisis in her life in this very house some nine
months ago, when she came first to love our Lord, and, as
Luke had said, " wiped His feet with her hair." See
note at end, pp. 441-4- i5.

(3) " Therefore his sisters sent to Him, a.D. 29.
saying, ' Lord, lo, he Avhom thou lovest is Mch. 2) Wed.
ill.'" Adar2i/evg.

(4) " And Jesus, when He heard it, said, ' This illness
is not imto death, but,' etc."

" This illness," etc. This is the message of comfort
sent back by our Lord to the sisters ; as is clear from
verse 40, " said I not to thee . . . the glory of God."
John has probably condensed it. The sisters, on receiving
it, no doubt took it to mean that their brother should not
die, which was not quite our Lord's meaning : for by
" not unto death " He meant that the end for which this
sickness was sent was not death, but the glory of God :
true he will die of it, but onlv momentarilv, for his
death will be merely incidental to that end : his death
is not meant to be the close of his mortal life, for his
mortal life will be shortly resumed. In other words,
our Lord meant all along to recall him from the grave.
He knew exactly what He was going to do : the
sisters did not ; they understood that our Lord would
not let him die, but would heal him by some startliiig
miracle.

258 JOHN XI. 6-8

(6) " When therefore He heard ' he is ill,' He then
(rort fiiv, at that time) stayed for two days in the place
Mch. 3, Thurs,, where He was." He stays "two days" in
till Mch. 4, Fri. order that Lazarus may die, and that so He
morning. may raise him not merely from the grave,
but after actual decomposition had set in, which Avould be
a yet more significant sign to the sisters, to the disciples,
and to the Jews.

" The place where He was," viz. some place in Peraea,
see X. 40. Say, He heard of the illness on Thursday
morning, March 3, the two days would be the daylight
hours of Thursday and the beginning of the morning of
Friday (see note at iv. 40). They are March 3rd and 4th
of A.D. 29. On the Thursday, Lazarus dies and is buried
in a rock tomb (buried the day of his death : cf. verse 17
with 39).

(7) " Afterwards, after this (eTrtfro, fUTo. tovto). He
saith, ' Let us go to Judaea again.' " The Greek phrase,

fVcTa rou-o, " after this," docs not express
Ad *2'^1'^'^** ^^^^ sequence in time. It always further

implies an ethical connection between the
two events, and so differs from the very similar /.taro Tavra.
Here the subtle connection is that the event (viz. the death
and burial of Lazarus) for which He had waited had
now occurred. On Friday morning, therefore (March 4),
our Lord proposes to start. This, as has been already
said, is the journey of Luke xiii. 22. He will take three
days to reach Bethany : they are the three days of Luke
xiii. 32, 33, and the incidents of this journey are given in
Luke xiii. 22 to xvi. 31. The middle day was a Saturday
(Luke xiv. 1), and therefore He could not travel that
day, but spent it at Jericho. " The place where He
was " (verse 6) was not more than a half -day east of the
Jericho ford.

(8) His disciples, not knowing what was in His mind,
why He had waited, or why He now proposed to go again
to Judaea (Bethany was in Judaea), recall to Him the recent
attempt of " the Jews " to stone Him.

" Of late," viz. at the Feast of the Dedication, Dec. 7

JOHN XI. 9-16 259

(John X. 31, 39), some eleven or twelve weeks ago, when
He was last in Jerusalem.

(9, 10) He replied that there was no cause for fear :
that they themselves in full da^'light walk securely without
fear of tripping, for they can then sec : and that they
walk insecurely only in the dark, for then only they can
see nothing. By which He implied that He walks securely
always, for He always sees His way : that to Him there
is no darkness, no uncertainty of the future ; for He knows
every detail of things to come before they come. In Him
is no darkness, to Him all is light. (11) He a.D. 29.
added {fxira tovto), as an instance of how all Mch. 41 „ .
things are to Him in light, "Lazarus, our Adar23'
friend, sleeps : but I am on My way to wake him." (1*2)
They reply, ' Lord, what need ? If he is asleep the crisis
is over, he will recover.' (14) He explains that by •' sleep "
He had meant " death."

(15) To their look of astonishment at hearing Lazarus
was dead (for they had understood the message of verse 4
in the same sense, as did the sisters when it reached them),
He adds, " For your sakes, that ye may believe, am I glad
that I was not there." As though, had He been there.
He would have held Himself obliged to respond to the
appeal of love and distress : not to do so would have had
a harsh and ungracious appearance, hard for bystanders
to understand, foreign to that tenderness and sympathetic
gentleness which He wished all men ever to associate with
His human presence. By absenting Himself till the
crisis was over. He had made it easier for people not to
misunderstand Him : and His delay was only in order
to grant a greater boon in His own way.

The raising of Lazarus from the corruption that had
already set in (39) was to be the greatest and crowning
miracle of His Ministry. It is the rcXeioviuai (I am per-
fected, I complete My work) of Luke xiii. 32.

(16) " Thomas, who is called Didymus." See under
XX. 24. The Hebrew name Thomas means a Twin : the
Greek for " twin " is Alcv/iog (Didymus). There is a very
ancient tradition given in the apocryphal gospels that

260 JOHN XI. lG-19

Thomas's name was Judas— the nickname Thomas, or
Twin, distinguishing him from the many other Judases.
There seems to be no record as to who was his twin.

Here comes chronologically Luke xiii. 22-xvi. 31. Not,
of course, that in the story of Dives and Lazarus the
Lazarus is the same as Lazarus of Bethany, but the con-
nection of the raising of Lazarus with that story, and
especially with its two closing verses, is obvious. John
has no account of the journey up (details of which Luke
has given at some length), but he resumes his story with
the arrival at Bethany.

(17) " So Jesus, when He came (to Bethany), found
that he was [already] four days in the sepulchre." It is

Sunday evening, March 6, a.d. 29. It seems
.? *2c}sun. then that the journey to Bethany had taken

three days (cf. Luke xiii. 22, 32, 33) : for He
evidently started the morning after Lazarus's death
(John xi. 6, 7) : but the middle day was a Saturday (Luke
xiv. 1) and therefore passed in rest. Lazarus dying on
Thursday, March 3, and being buried the same day, our
Lord started on Friday from Pcrasa, via Jericho, and
arrived at Bethany on Sunday evening, March 6 : the two
terms Thursday and Sunday are, of course, both counted
in the " four days " of verses 17 and 39.

(18) " Bethany was near to Jerusalem, about fifteen
furlongs oft " : " fifteen furlongs": rather "fifteen stadia'"*
— about If English miles.

(19) " Many from among the Jews had come to Martha
and Mary to comfort them about their brother." This
and the frequent references to " the Jews " in the scene
that follows shows the importance that John attaches to

* A stadiavi (rendered '• furlong ") was accurabel}' 600 Greek feet — about
200 yards, accurately, 582 English feet, or 630 English feet, according as the
Greek foot is taken to bo the Attic or the Olympic. The former is the more
probable. A "sabbath-day's journey" was 20U0 cubits according to the
Rabbinical rules : this was equal to 3000 Greek feet, or 5 stadia, — roughly
1000 yards. This notice, coupled with the next verse, shows that the day is
at any rate not Saturday : for the distance of 15 stadia puts the village far
beyond a sabbath-day's journey from Jerusalem. The T^phs Bridaviav of
Luke xxiv. 50 does not mean "to Bethany" (A.V.), but " over against B."
(R.V.), and thus Acts i. 12 presents no difficulty.

JOHN XI. 10-21 261

their presence : for, as we shall see, this crowning miracle
was the final act that decided the Sanhcdi-in to put Jesus
to death.

The wording Trpbg t>)v MapOav k-a) Mapiafi implies that
the house was Martha's rather than Mary's ; as indeed we
learn definitely was the case from Luke x. 38, where the
occasion was the journey from Persea to Jerusalem (pass-
ing through Bethany) for the Feast of Dedication three
months ago, in December of a.d. 28,

(20) " Martha, therefore, when she heard ' Jesus is
coming.' " The message " Jesus is coming " was given to
Martha as the elder sister and the owner of the house. It
was no doubt sent by oui' liOrd Himself — He wished her
to come to Him : He would not break in upon the sorrow
in the house with the crowd of strangers who had come up
with Him from Jericho : see the " great crowds " of Luke
xiv. 25 : XV. 1 : and the " crowed " named in John xii. 17
as having been present on this occasion,

" Went and met Him." The traditional place w^here
Martha (and Mary, 32) met Him is half a mile north-w^est
of el Azariyeh (the modern representative of Bethany) : the
modern village has grown up aroundLazarus's tomb, revered
alike by Christian and Moslem : the original Bethany was
close by it. The ancient road from Jericho passed to the
north of the present one, and north of Bethany.

(21) When the sisters received on Thursday noon
(March 3) the message of verse 4 (Lazarus being still
alive), they had supposed it to mean that Lazarus would
not die, but would at the last moment be startlingly healed
by our Lord's arrival. When He failed to come and
Lazarus died, and He still failed to come and Lazarus was
buried, the sisters supposed He had meant to come but
had been unavoidably detained, and hence the death.
' But even so,' they would say, ' there is the message He
sent us : it may have had a meaning we missed : could
it mean that even now He means to bring him back to
us ? ' They knew He had at least twice already recalled
the dead to life, though not after actual burial. This
is the hope they had scarce dared to name to each other.

262 JOHN XI. 22-26

and which Martha now but half ventures to formulate in
the followmg words : —

(22) " Even now (k-ai vCw), I know whatsoever thou
shalt ask of God, God will give it thee." Even now at this
late hour, if He chose, He might bring her brother back to
her : that so, in the words of His message of verse 4, the
glory of God would be manifested and He Himself as " The
Son of God " be glorified thereby before all present.

(23) " Thy brother shall rise again." He breathes
upon that tiny spark of hope within her to kindle it : He
means to bring her brother back to life. He does not say
" now " though He means it : He purposely leaves His
words vague, vague as were her own : He will gently blow
till He has kindled a flame.

(24) She thinks to herself, ' Can He indeed mean now ?

I dare not hope it : and yet ' : so she fences with Him

as though He must be referring to the resurrection of the
just that will precede that setting up of the Kingdom on
earth which all the Prophets had foretold : "I know he
shall rise-again at the resurrection in the last day."

(25) " It is I that am the Resurrection and the liife :
he that believeth into Me, even if he be dead he shall
Live," i.e. ' but that resurrection of the just is only possible
to them because of their union with Me by virtue of their
faith in Me ' — a faith implicit rather than explicit. He,
He that is speaking with her, is that new Life they will
enjoy : it is by their faith in Him, which makes them one
with Him, that they will Live again. He can as easily
call back her brother to life now as He will call the just
to Life hereafter : the fact of their being dead, like Lazarus,
is of no importance.

(26) " And every one who liveth and believeth into
Me, he shall never Die," i.e. And in the case of those who
like herself are yet alive, whoever of them believes into
Him shall never Die. He speaks not of death — the transit
from this world of sense, but of Death — the severance from
Him who is Life. " Believest thou this," that dead and
living alike Live in Him ? If so, let her think how easy
it is for Him to recall her brother to life now.

JOHN XI. 27-32 2G3

(27) "Yea, Lord: I have believed and I do believe
that Thou art the Messiah, The Son ol' God, lie that cometh
into the world " — the title of Him whom man had ever
been expecting since the promise made in Eden. ' I believe
Thou art He whom these terms denote and art all that
these terms connote, though I understand theili but dimly.'

To understand is not necessary : implicit Faith carries
with it the explicit. No one of them was aware of His
eternal Divinity : Peter had had an instant's clear vision
in September last, but it stayed not with him : none but
the Mother plumbed deep and understood. John the
Baptist, who also had understood, was dead.

His aim is won : Martha's faith is now ripe for the
amazing work He is about to do, which previously would
have been for her but a profitless display of thaumaturgy.
Here our Lord bids her call her sister Mary.

(28) " Secretly saying " : i.e. secretly as was fitting,
in that house of sorrow : and so that the news of His
presence should not create an unseemly disturbance.

(29) " And she [Mary], when she heard, rose up quickly,
and was on the way to Him."

(30) He was still outside the village district of Bethany ;
and at the spot where (if tradition be accepted) the districts
of Bethany and Bethphage touched, the spot where Martha
had met Him.

(31) " The Jews which," etc. These particular Jews
were friendly to the house of Martha and Mary (19, 33).
There is some reason (though not stated by tradition) to
suppose that Martha was the wife of Simon the Pharisee
of Luke vii. 37, the same as Simon the (one time) leper
of Matt. xxvi. 6 and Mark xiv. 3, the same as the leper of
Matt. viii. 2 : Mark i. 40 : Luke v. 12 : and the family
was of importance. The term " the Jews " in John's
gospel always denotes Jews of position, theologians,
doctors learned in the Law, and generally even Sanhedrists.
These friendly Jews followed Mary, and thus were eye-
witnesses of all that follows.

(32) "So Mary, when she came where Jesus was,
on seeing Him, fell at His feet, saying," etc. Mary's

264 JOHN XI. 32-33

repetition of Martha's words (21) shows the keynote of
the sisters' talk with each other during the last few days :
and, vS appears from verse 15, they were right in thinking
that had He been there their brother would not have died.

(33) " Jesus, therefore, when He saw her weeping and
the Jews weeping who had come with her, groaned in the
spirit," indignant at the sight of the triumph of the evil
one, who by bringing sin into the world had brought death
among men, and all its attendant sorrow. It was the sight
of the grief of the niourners that caused His indignation,
at the way man's adversary had blinded them. And what
is death ? a removal to another sphere of conscious con-
tinuity. He is about to show how small a thing is death,
how completely in His hands are those whom we call dead :
for by a word He will recall the voyager to resume the old
activities he had left.

" He groaned in the spirit (a't/Spt^Z/o-aro -w 7n'£iV«'"0'"
i.e. in His human spirit. The phrase is on all fours with
avacTTSvu^ag ro> irviVfiaTi avrov (Mark viii. 12), " He sighed
deeply in His spirit " : and with t-apdxOi] to) irvtvuuTi
(John xiii. 21), " He was troubled in spirit." The
TO) TTvtvfia-i seems to indicate the spiritual or intellectual
sphere — the sphere of intellectual emotions, where no
disturbance was in His case possible except as He at will
summoned and at will dismissed : how should He who
lived in untroubled harmony with God know any disturb-
ance except with His deliberate assent ? This sphere
would be distinguished from the psychic sphere — the sphere
of psychic emotions {TrcpiXvirog Igtlv i) xf^vxv MOv, Matt.
xxvi. 38 : Mark xiv. 34 : and vvv i] '4'^xv nov rir-apaKTai,
John xii. 27) — where again no disturbance was in His case
possible except as He at will allowed. In both these
spheres (as well as in the physical) took place our Lord's
Agony, when His human soul and human spirit were
almost submerged by all the sinful souls and spirits of the
human race that was grafted into Him.

" And troubled Himself." The phrase is remarkable
{koi hapa^ev tavTov) : deliberately summoned up in Him-
self the feelings of indignation at the havoc wrought by

JOHN XL 33-34 20;')

the evil one, and of tenderness for the mourners. As
Augustme and John of Damascus, and the Fathers generally,
insist, He had no involuntary passions — jiot even of
anger, indignation, sorrow, or wonder : for all were under
absolute control. " Thou art troubled," says Augustine,
" against thy will : Christ was troubled because He willed."
Again, when He is said elsewhere to " marvel at their
unbelief," the meaning is not that He unwillingly mar-
velled as do we, for how could He who knew all men marvel
at anything in them : but rathei- that He called up and
expressed in word and gesture such surprise as the occasion
warranted human nature in showing. Similarly a philoso-
pher who has mastered all impulse to anger will often
deliberately call up within himself the feeling of anger in
order to make effect upon some one present, w-ithout being
in the least perturbed. Even the physical sensations
of hunger, thirst, weariness, were entirely under the
control of His will, so that He was aware of them only
in so far as He deliberately willed to be. Does any one
object that this is denying to Him a real humanity ?
But this mastery of the will over the body has been attained
by many ascetics of Christendom and of Hinduism. In
our Lord's case, His perfect human nature needed no
effort of asceticism in order to attain, for His hiuiian will
had already and always absolute control. To condemn
asceticism because our Lord did not practise it is to ignore
the difference between our debasement and His perfection.

(34) " Where have ye laid him ? " He does not ask
as not knowing : for He knew all things. He asks in
order that they may show Him and so assist at the work
in hand : as grown-up people constantly act with children.
The whole human race were as children to Him the perfect
Man : He was constantly putting Himself on their lower
level, else they could never get in touch with Him — so
high above us is perfect man even apart from the fact
that to that particular Manhood the Godhead was united.

This adaptation of Himself to the intelligence He is
dealing with is obviously a law that He follows in His
handling of all of us always, severally.

266 JOHN XI. 35-37

(35) " Jesus wept " : not involuntarily, as one over-
come, but deliberately wept. What at ? Certainly not,
as the Jews thought, in sorrow at Lazarus's death : for
what was death to Him ? He wept, not at the cause of
the sisters' distress, but at the fact of it : thus showing
His tender sympathy for human sorrow. Still, could they
but see, there was nothing to weep about : He was Lord
of death.

(36) In this scene where all are met together at the
spot outside the village where Jesus had halted, as also
in the scene at the sepulchre (38) that follows, there are
two bodies of Jews to be carefully distinguished.

A. The Jews of verses 19, 31, 33, 45, who are always
qualified as friends of the house, and, as such, are
not ill-disposed to our Lord who was known to be
a friend of the house :

B. A hostile body who (vv. 36, 37) are not qualified
as friendly, or (verse 46) are distinguished from the
friendly ones. This hostile body do not belong
to the Jews who came to comfort the sisters : but
they form part of the crowds who came up with
Him from Jericho.

" Therefore, said the Jews, ' See, how He loved him.' "
These are the hostile body, called simply "the Jews."
They misinterpreted our Lord's tears, as though He were
weeping at having lost a friend, w^hich, of course, was not
the cause. What was death to Him ?

(37) " But some of them," i.e. some of " the Jews "
generically,not some of those Jews who had come to comfort
the sisters. These are still hostile Jews (B) who are among
the crowd that had come up with Him from Jericho and
Persea. They are the Pharisees and Scribes of Luke
XV. 2 : xvi. 14, 15. And are the same as the " some of
them " of verse 46 of this chapter of John.

These in their bitterness taunt Him with having been
unable to prevent His friend's death, though five months
ago He pretended to have given sight to a man that was
born blind. " This one (oSroc) who opened the eyes of
the blind was not able to cause that even this one (although

JOHN XI. 37-40 267

so dear a friend) should not die." Similar taunts will bo
shouted at Him on the Cross three weeks hence, " He saved
others, He cannot save Himself."

The Greek of verse 37 leaves it quite uncertain whether
these words are an ironical statement or a question. The
former is perhaps the more probable : for the taunt seems
to refer to the message of verse 4, which was known to
them : all the crowd that came up w^ith Him knew of it,
and had understood Him to mean that Lazarus shovdd not
die : and yet here he w^as dead.

(38) " Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself," etc.
" Therefore," i.e. the taunts of these hostile Jews are a
fresh cause for His sorrow and indignation : indignation
not at them, but at the blindness wdth which the author
of all ill had sealed their eyes.

" Cometh to the sepulchre " (rather than " grave ").
The Greek word is the same as is always rendered " sepul-
chre " in chapters xix. xx. " There was a cave, and a stone
la}^ against it," or " lay over it " {eTTiKsiro i-tt' avTo>).

This sepulchre (if we may judge from the present
remains) appears to have been formed of an open vestibule,
and an inner mortuary chamber on a lower level : the whole
being cut in the calcareous rock. It is impossible to say
whether the mortuary chamber was closed by a vertical
stone, as in the case of our Lord's sepulchre and others
extant, or by a horizontal slab (over a pit) : the Greek
text admits of either. In any case the stone of 38, 39, is
the stone closing the mortuary chamber and not the
vestibule, for the vestibules were always open.

(39) " Jesus saith, ' Take-away (apart) the stone.' "
Although Martha is fully aware that He means to restore
her brother to life and that they are all come to the
sepulchre for no other purpose, still, as " the sister of the
dead man," she naturally shrinks from the unpleasant
effects of removing- the stone that sealed the bodv on this
the fourth day since the burial.

(40) Our Lord does not deny that decomposition has
set in : His very purpose in waiting so long was to ensure
it : and here were numbers to be witnesses of the fact.

268 JOHN XI. 40-43

so that there should be no possibiHty of doubt about this
death. In the otlier two recorded cases men might have
said, and no doubt did say, that Jairus's daughter and
the widow of Nain's son were only in a cataleptic trance.
This was to be His crowning sign of power. The especial
manifestation of the " glory of God " in this miracle was
to be the restoration to life after decomposition had already
begun. They believed in the final resurrection of the
body : here they should see that the author of Life and
Resurrection-from-corruption was He Himself. Will not
all agree with Augustine and the Fathers that He " re-
awficitSLVxt fcetentem " ?

" Said I not to thee " is obviously a reference to the
message of verse 4. Our Lord is encouraging her, bidding
her not shrink from the ordeal. All w^ill be well.

(41) Martha must have here signified her consent,
without which He would not have interfered with the
tomb. " Therefore they removed the stone " : and
doubtless all present echoed Martha's words of verse 39.

In figuring the scene one must remember that a crowd
was present (see xii. 17, where the Greek has " the crowd,"
not " the people " of A.V.).

(41, 42) "Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest
Me." These words were, as we are told, used for the sake
of the crowd present who heard them. He would not
take any glory to Himself apart from The Father : His
object is that the crowd may believe that His mission is
from The Father. More than that He does not expect
from the crowd at present.

" That Thou heardest Me," i.e. and that The Father
is about to perform the raising of Lazarus through Him.
He talks of The Father " hearing " Him : it is only a
metaphor suitable to the crowed.

" But I knew that Thou ' hearest ' Me always " :
here is a statement of the truth that there is no possi-
bility of divergence between The Father and the God-
Man.

(43) " He cried with a loud voice." The word kyiai/yafrfv,
rendered " cried," like its noun Kpavyi'i, means wath John

JOHN XI. 43-4G '_>()'.)

the loud decisive tone of authority. " Lazarus, come
forth " {XaKap^, ^tvpo it<o).

(44) "He came-forth, he that had died, bound feet
and hands with bandages." In obedience to a higher
voUtion than his own, Lazarus, now living but bound
helpless as a mununy, came-forth : not moving his limbs,
for John is careful to say he was " bound, feet and hands,
with bandages," as was the custom. The napkin, with
which his face was bound around, was not bound over his
face hiding it, but served to tie up the lower jaw. Pre-
cisely similar bandages and napkin appear again in the
case of our Lord's own resurrection.

" Loose him " : here again appears the helplessness of
the position in Avhich Lazarus found himself, imable to
move a hand with which to unwind his own bandages.

*' And let him go, i.e. walk {koa a(j)iTi uvtov virayta) " :
not till he was unwound could he walk. Therefore he
had not come forth walking.

(45) It is important to have the translation of this
verse correct : ttoXAoI ovv Ik tG)v ^{ovcnitav, o'l iXHovritj rrphr
Ttiv Mupiafi Kol 9. = " Many therefore from among the
Jews, viz. they who came to Mary and beheld that which
Jesus did {i.e. the raising of Lazarus), believed into
Him." Thus it would seem that all those friendly Jews
who had come to comfort Mary and Martha believed
into Him after this miracle : for they were not previously
blinded by hostility to Him.

(46) " But some of them {nvlr St t^ aiVwr) " : some,
that is, of the Jews generically, and not of those who
had come to comfort the sisters. It is the same distinction
as in verse 37, and the words refer to exactly the same
body, viz. the hostile Jews who formed part of the crowd
that had come up with Him from Jericho (see under 37).
These hostile ones went off to the Pharisees at Jerusalem
to urge them to take steps against Him, for that there was
no gainsaying the extraordinary things He did and the
people were sure to follow Him. They would, of course,
report also on the cures named in Luke xiii. 32, of which
they would have been witnesses.

270 JOHN XL 47-49

Epiphanius (380 a.d.) says ' among the traditions, we
find that Lazarus was thirty years old when he was raised
from the dead, and that he lived another thirty years
afterwards.' Did he bring back with him any memory
of the spirit- world ? rather, was not his mind, as regards
that experience, a blank ?

(47) " So the chief-priests and the Pharisees gathered
a Council." " Gathered a Council " : The Greek {awir/ayov

. . . (Tvvi^piov) shows it was a meeting of the
M h 7 m' Sanhedrin. John's authority for the account
* of what passed here would be Joseph of
Arimathaea or Nicodemus or some other member of the
Sanhedrin who later on became a Christian. " And they
said, ' What are we doing, that this man is doing many
signs ? ' " They must stir themselves, they could not
afford to let things slide any longer.

(48) " ' If we thus let him be, all will believe into him :
and the Romans will come and take away ' " etc., i.e.
' The Romans will not tolerate a Messiah : we have no
intention of accepting this one : but if the crowd accept
him, the Romans will destroy both Temple and city, and
destroy the nation from being any longer an organic entity.'
Exactly what did happen, after all, 41 1 years later, although
the Sanhedrin succeeded in setting the nation agamst Him.

(49) " But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being
Highpriest that year." " That year," i.e. that momentous
year, the critical year of the human race, the year of the
Passion and Resurrection of the God-Man. The fact that
marked a priest as the Highpriest of any year was the
officiating as Highpriest in the ritual of the great Day
of Expiation or Atonement, Tisri 10th (Sept. or Oct.).
At this time the office of Highpriest was not hereditary,
nor for life.

The reason why John tells us that the speaker was
Highpriest of that year is to show him as the ex officio
spokesman for the nation in matters of religion. Caiaphas
speaks : —

" Ye know nothing " : the " Ye " is emphatic (vfitig),
viz. you chief -priests and Pharisees (verse 47) : ' why all

JOHN XI. 49-52 271

this doubt and anxiety ? the thing we must do is quite
simple'

(50) " Nor do ye take into account that it is to youi-
advantage that one man die on behalf of the People (Xaov),
and not that the whole nation perish." He is m'ging
them to put Jesus to death : but the form of words he
uses is unconsciously prophetic, as John goes on to
remark.

(51) " And this he spake not from himself, but as
being Highpriest that year he prophesied that Jesus
was to die on behalf of the nation." The verb ■!rpo(piiTtvM
(" prophesied ") means, not to predict, but to speak as
God's spokesman, to speak under the influence of His
Spirit : the word is used analogously by pagan writers
of the spokesman for pagan gods.

(52) " And not on behalf of the nation only " : not
only to save from destruction that political entity known
as the Jewish nation (Avhich ceased temporarily to be an
organism in a.d. 70, and has never so far been reborn as
a nation) : " but in order that He should gather into
one the children of God also who had been scattered abroad
{to. 8t£(TKOj07ri(T/x£va)." It is difficult to believe that this
clause refers to the Gentile Church which consists of
individuals chosen out of the Gentile nations. Could
these individuals be called " the children of God which
had been scattered abroad " ? When were they scattered ?
The natural allusion seems to be to the Ten Tribes— the
old Northern kingdom, the " Israel " of the days of the
kings and of the Prophets before " Israel " was lost among
the nations. " The children of God who had been scattered
abroad " should refer to the Ten Tribes who, as all the
Prophets had foretold, should be " scattered " by God
to the corners of the earth, but should in the latter days
be ' gathered together into one People again with Judah ' :
a union not, however, to come about till the Kingdom
should be ready to be set up on earth : but a union which
will usher in the millennial Age.

The mystery of Israel the Covenant People of God (not
to be confounded with the Jews who are only a part of

272 JOHN XI. 53-54

them) is vastly deeper, and their destiny vastly greater,
than is dreamt of by the present Gentile Church, or by the
Jews, or by those lost Tribes themselves living to-day as
Gentiles unconscious of their origin or destiny.

(53) " From that day, therefore, they formed their
A.D. 29. resolution to kill Him." This was im-

Mch. 7)„ mediately after the raising of Lazarus : so,
Adar 26^ as we may suppose, they met on Monday,

March 7. (The year being 29 a.d.)

(54) It was probably on this same day (jNIonday,
March 7) that Jesus left Bethany : and, to avoid the Jews,
"went away into the country near to the \\'ilderness,to a city
called Ephraim." This city Ephraim is the Ephrain of
2 Chron. xiii. 19 = the Ophrah of Joshua xviii. 23 : it had
repeatedly changed hands, between Benjamin and Ephraim,
in the old wars. At the time of our Lord it belonged to
Judaea, not to Samaria : for it Avas south of, but close to,
the boundary of Samaria as given by Josephus {War,
4, ix. 9). It is the modern et Taiyibeh, fourteen miles north
of Bethany and thirteen miles north-north east of Jeru-
salem. We need not suppose that He stayed in the actual
city where He scarcely could have remained hidden, but
rather in the district belonging to the city, for every city
had its own rural district.

The " wilderness " of verse 54 is the barren mountain
land along the west of the Jordan valley (Josephus, War,
4, viii. 2).

Here our Lord took refuge with His disciples, remain-
ing in seclusion from Monday evening, March 7, when
He (hypothetically) arrived, until Saturday evening,
March 12. He would be secure even if the Sanhedrin heard
of His whereabouts : for, being on the border of Samaria,
He could at any moment cross the frontier and His enemies
would hesitate to follow. But in view of the order sent out
by the Sanhedrists to the public that they should help
them in finding His whereabouts (57), we cannot date the
raising of Lazarus and subsequent events to a later week
than that beginning with Sunday, March 6.

John's account here leaves our Lord at Ephraim,

Behvecn John wi. 54 and 55 273

and when next it brings Him on the scene He is at Bethany
again (xii. 1). What of the interval ?

At this point wc must turn from John for a moment
to follow our Lord's movements on His last journey, froui
Ephraim to Bethany and Jerusalem. The particulars
of this journey will be found in Luke's account : viz.
Luke xvii. 11 to xix. 28 : Matthew dovetails into it at
Matt. xix. 3 ; and Mark at Mark x. 2.

He seems to have left Ephraim city on Sunday naorning,
March 13, to go up to Jerusalem for the last time — not,
however, by the direct route : for all the a.D. 29.
Synoptists bring Him to Jerusalem, on this Mch. ISU
His last visit, hy way of Jericho. Luke seems Nisan 3'
further to imply (xvii. 11) that (on leaving Ephraim)
He went north first, and then turned east " between
Samaria and Galilee," i.e. along their common frontier.
He would thus cross Jordan into Peraea by the ferry
south of Scythopolis : then pass down Peraea (east of
Jordan) to the bridge opposite Jericho : and thence
ascend to the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, arriving at
" Bethany six days before the Passover " (John xii. 1),
viz. on Saturday, March 19. Thus, in consequence of the
hostility of the Jews in Judaea, and of Herod (Luke xiii. 31)
in Galilee and Peraea, during this the close of His ministry,
He kept constantly changing the jurisdiction He was
under.

This last journey from Ephraim to the neighbourhood
of Bethany seems to have covered six days : thus —

Sunday, March 13.^ — Ephraim to, say, Nablus (Shechem)
in Samaria : on the western pilgrim a ^ oq
road. This begins the journey named
in Luke xvii. 11.*

Monday, March 14. — Nablus to Jenin (on the border of
Samaria and Galilee : and on the western pilgrim
road. It was at Jenin (according to local tradition)
that He healed the ten lepers. This is Luke xvii. 12-19.

Tuesday, March 15. — Jenin to, say, Bella in Perasa, on

* Luke xvii. 1-10 I suggest belongs to the five days spent at Ephraim (et
Taiyibeh) whence there is an open view of the Dead Sea (verse 6).

274 Between John xi. 54 and 55.

the eastern pilgrim road. Crossing the Jordan near
Scythopolis, He passed into Herod's jurisdiction.
To this day may belong Luke xvii. 20-xviii. 8.
Wednesday, March 16. — Pella to, say, Succoth (still
in Peraea, Herod's jurisdiction). He is following
the eastern pilgrim road. To this day may belong
Luke xviii. 9-17 : Matt. xix. 3-15| : Mark x. 2-16.
Thursday, March 17. — Succoth to Jericho (by the bridge
into Judaea). To this day belong Luke xviii. 18-
xix. 7 : Matt. xix. 15|-xx. 28 : Mark x. 17-46|.
Luke's blind man was healed whilst Jesus was drawing
near to Jericho this evening.
Friday,March 18. — Jericho to (perhaps) Bethphage (close
to Bethany). To this day belong Luke xix. 8-28 :
Matt. XX. 29-34 : Mark x. 46|-52. Mark's blind man
Bartimaeus was healed as Jesus was journeying-out
from Jericho this morning. Matthew has perhaps
lumped the two eases together, not specifying entry or
exit, but merely stating of both cases " hearing that
Jesus is passing by."
On this Friday evening, March 18, He must have
arrived at some point close to Bethany : for He did not
enter Bethany till Saturday, March 19, " six days before
the Passover " (John xii. 1), and the following day was
Palm Sunday. But, as He entered Bethany on the
Saturday, He must have halted on Friday evening at some
point within a Sabbath day's journey of Bethany, i.e. under
five GTudui = 3000 Greek feet = 2000 cubits, or about
1000 yards. His halting-place for the Friday night was
thus not improbably Bethphage, which was half a mile
from Bethany and on the old road from Jericho. Beth-
phage, according to local tradition, was the spot He had
halted at outside of Bethany, chapter xi. 30, when He
came to raise Lazarus.

Also at Bethphage lived some disciple of His (Matt.
xxi. 3 : Mark xi. 2-6 : Luke xix. 30-34), at whose house
He may have wished to lodge this Friday, and wdth whom
He seems to have made arrangements about the ass's colt,
which He would need on the Sunday following.

JOHN XI. 55-57 275

(55) After this digression from p. 273, we here return
to John's account (xi. 55) of what was happening at Jeru-
salem. The day will be Thursday, March 17, a.D. 29.
Nisan 7. " The Passover of the Jews * was Mch. IVUu
nigh, and there went up to Jerusalem out of Nisan 1)
the country many before the Passover, to purify them-
selves " : e.g. all who when under a Nazirite vow had been
Levitically defiled by a corpse would have to be at Jeru-
salem seven days before a festival so as to be able to take
part in it : as in Acts xxi. 23, 27, where we have an instance
of the working of Num. vi. 9, 10.

Among those who came up on this occasion to purify
themselves would be a remarkable group, consisting of
the ten lepers of Luke xvii. 12-19, who had been healed
at Jenin. We have supposed that cure to have been
effected on Monday evening, March 14 : these lepers,
following His order to show themselves to the priests at
Jerusalem, would reach Jerusalem on Thursday, March 17,
at noon, according to the common stages of the road from
Jenin to Jerusalem. Presenting themselves to the priests |
on duty in the Temple on this Thursday, they would report
how they had been healed by Jesus and that they had
met Him at Jenin on Monday evening coming away (see His
route, p. 273) from the direction of Jerusalem : hence the
anxiety expressed (John xi. 46) in the Temple that perhaps
He was not meaning to come up on the occasion of the
Passover. There must have been received some positive
account (such as the lepers would have given of the direc-
tion they found Him travelling in) to induce the suspicion
that He was purposing to change His life-long habit,
and to omit coming up to Jerusalem " for the festival-
day " (etc TJJV lOjOTT/v).

(57) " And the chief-priests and the Phai'isees had
given commands that ' if any one know where He is ' he
should tell, so that they may take Him." No doubt these

* This phrase has been already explained at p. 64.

t Luke xvii. 14. Their formal cleansing by the priest (Lev. xiv. 1-11)
would require eight days, i.e. until Thursday, March 24 inclusive. They
would therefore be in time to eat the Passover this year.

276 JOHN XI. 57

orders had been issued (see the pluperfect ^ecioKuaav) by
the chief -priests and the Pharisees immediately after the
Council of verses 47-53 held some ten days ago. Jesus
and His disciples would have left Bethany (54) before that
Council had ended.

§ XVIII

JOHN XII. 1-19

The supper at Bethany. Palm Sunday.

(1) "Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover*
came to Bethany." " The Passover " is not " the Jews'
passover " of xi. 55, but the Passover eaten a.D. 29.
by our Lord and the Twelve. Such, too, is Mch. 19)g
the view which the Synoptists take of this Nisan 9/
Passover. The Paschal lamb eaten by our Lord and the
Twelve was killed (by Peter and John) on Thursday after-
noon, March 24, which this year was (on the Jewish
ecclesiastical calendar) Nisan 14 — the day commanded
by the Law (Exod. xii. 6) : it was eaten by them that
same night after sunset (as Exod. xii. 8) : and the morrow,
viz. Nisan 15, would for them have been the Legal
" festival-day " (/j Lopn)), but for the archetypal Passover
(the Sacrifice of our Lord Himself) that took place that
day, Good Friday.

The Jews, however, this year postponed the " festival-
day " to the Saturday, and the Passover supper to the
Friday evening. Thus, in this year a.d. 29, whereas our
Lord and the Twelve killed and ate the Passover on the
correct Legal day, the afternoon and evening of Thursday,
Nisan 14 (March 24) ; the nation had postponed the killing
and eating of their Paschal Iambs to the afternoon and
evening of Friday, Nisan 15 (March 25), so that the

* It may incidentally be mentioned here that John habitually uses the term
Th Tlaffxa to cover the whole octave of the Azyms or Unleavened Bread, viz.
from Nisan 14 to Nisan 21 inclusive, beginning with the day on which the
Paschal lambs were killed. This was the common usage of the term. See
p. 380.

277

278 JOHN XII. 1-2

" festival-day " fell for them on the Sabbath (Saturday,
March 26, Nisan 16). See at xiii. 1, pp. 298-302.

" Six days before the Passover " is Saturday, March 19
(a.d. 29), seeing that the Passover was Thursday, March 24 ;
A.D. 29. foi* the ancients, whether Greeks, Romans,
Mch. 19ie„* or Jews, counted both terms. The phrasing
JNisan y^ used here by John, " vpo ti; i)fiepiov tov

nao-xa," is the equivalent of the Roman form, "ante diem
VI.," e.g. Id. or Kal.

" Came to Bethany." Therefore, it being Saturday,
He must have passed Friday night somewhere within
a Sabbath-day's journey (2000 cubits or 1000 yards) of
Bethany. We have supposed the halting-place to be
Bethphage (see at xi. 54).

(2) " Where Lazarus was . . . whom He raised from
the dead. Therefore there they made," etc. The " there-
fore " (which A.V. omits) points to the gratitude for
Lazarus's restoration, which that household now showed
by entertaining Him at supper. The supper was given on
the Saturday evening. ' It was the custom to provide
a more liberal supper at the going out of the Sabbath than
at any other time,' as J. Lightfoot shows from Maimonides.

The supper was given (Matt. xxvi. 6-13 : Mark xiv. 3-9)
in the house of " Simon the leper," i.e. the one time leper,
who had been cured by Jesus : but he continued to be
thus nicknamed as against all other Simons : he was,
not improbably, the leper of Matt. viii. 2 : Mark i. 40 :
Luke V. 12. He seems to be the same as Simon the Phari-
see of Luke vii. 37-50 : and is conjectured to have been
the husband of Martha, and to have died before the time
of this supper of John xii. (see note on Mary Magdalene
at end of book, pp. 441-445),

Martha serves, as being the hostess : she had also
been hostess in this same house in Luke x. 38-42, three
months ago. Lazarus, of course, ate with the guests :
the house was not his, but his sister Martha's, though
still known as " the house of Simon the leper " (her late
husband). Her sister Mary Magdalene is now living with
her and was with her last December (Luke x. 38-42).

JOHN XII. 3-6 279

(3) " Mary, therefore, took a pound of ointment," etc.
This Mary is Mary Magdalene, sister of Martha and of
Lazarus. This is the second time she anoints our Lord
in this house : the first time having been nine months
ago (Luke vii. 37), when she was not hving here with her
sister, but had the right of entry to the house (pp. 441, 442).

The anointing which John here relates is the same as
that related by Matt. xxvi. 6-13 : ^Mark xiv. 4-9. John
here, as always, observes chronological accuracy : Matthew
and Mark have displaced the supper chronologically,
because they only relate it as being the critical occasion
which determined Judas Iscariot to the sale of his Master ;
a sale of which the details were finally settled by the
chief priests, during their meeting at the Highpriest's house
on Wednesday, March 23, That Wednesday is the " two
days " before " the Passover " of Matt. xxvi. 2-5 and of
Mark xiv. 1-2, and see Luke xxii. 1-6: — "two days
before" being one of their ways of expressing our "the
day before."

" A pound.'' The Greek word Xirpa, taken at its
strict Greek value, was equal to eight ounces avdp., but
if taken according to its then common usage to represent
a Roman libra, was equal to twelve ounces avdp.

(4) " One of His disciples." From Matt. xxvi. 8 it
appears that others of His disciples agreed with Judas :
from Mark xiv. 4 one rather gathers that these other
objectors were not of the Twelve.

(5) " Three hundred pence,"' or rather denarii. The
sum is equal to about £10 if the denarius be valued, as
is commonly done, at about eightpence, according to the
old ratio of gold to silver, which was 1 to 16. But if
we have regard to the fact that one denarius was the wage
of a labourer's full day's work (Matt. xx. 2), which to-day
must be put at 35. [pre-War rate] at lowest, the value of
three hundred denarii may be estimated at £45 of our
money.

(6) " Bare what was put therein " : and so could
pilfer from it unknown. The verb " bare " is in the
imperfect tense, showing that he habitually carried it.

280 JOHN XII. 7-10

(7) The correct reading of this verse seems to be,
" suffer her to keep it {'iva rnp^ay, i.e. to have kept it)
unto the day of My preparation-for-burial." ' Look upon
her, reckon her, as having kept this ointment against the
day of My preparation-for-burial, and then you will not
think it waste. She has been so keeping it, and has only
forestalled the day of My preparation-for-burial by a few
days. She has anointed Me with it to-day as knowing
she soon must lose Me, for that My end draws near.' The
Magdalene knew He was near the end, and in her grief
anointed Him as one virtually dead. This is the plain
meaning of Matthew's " for in that she poured this
ointment on My body, she did it with a view to preparing
Me for burial." So, too, of Mark's " she is come before-
hand to anoint (lit. she has anticipated the anointing of)
My body unto My preparation-for-burial." The word
ivra^iaZ^u) or lvTa<pia(T/ji6c, rendered " burial " or " bury-
ing " in A.V. of Matthew, Mark and John, is more
accurately " preparation-for-burying," as Westcott on
verse 7 of John xii., and as R.V. in Matthew xxvi. 12 :
although in Mark xiv. 8 and John xii. 7 the R.V. reverts
to " burying."

(9) " The common people (6 oyAoc ttoXvq) from among
(bk) the Jews," as against their hierarchy of verse 10,
" learnt that He was there," i.e. in Bethany. " And they
came, not only because of Jesus, but that also they may
see Lazarus whom He raised from the dead."

'• They came " : Those of them that came from Jerusalem
must have come after sunset : for, the day being Saturday,
none might travel more than a Sabbath-day's journey
before sunset, viz. half a mile : whereas Bethany was over
ll miles from Jerusalem (John xi. 18). Of course, imme-
diately the sun set, they were free, like the Moslems to-day
at sunset of each day in Ramadan.

(10) " But the chief -priests took counsel to put Lazarus
also [as well as Jesus] to death, seeing that because of him
many of the Jews were withdrawing and believing into
Jesus."

From these notices (9, 10) about Lazarus, it appears

JOHN XTT. 12-13 281

that Lazarus had been absent ever since he was raised from
the dead thirteen days ago — no doubt in seehision with
our Lord and others of His disciples at Ephraini, and after-
wards with Him on the six days' circuit toward Jerusalem.

(12) " On the next day," viz. Sunday, March 20, Nisan
10. John reckons Days from midnight to midnight,
hke the Romans, and days as the twelve a.D. 29.
daylight hours like every one then or now. Mch. 20 u

" The common people (6 oxAoc ttoAwc) that Nisan W
were come for the festival-day," i.e. who had come from
the provinces of Galilee and Peraea : for as John says
(xi. 55), " many came up from the country beforehand."
This ox^og TToAuc from the provinces (always friendly to
Him) is to be distinguished from the o\/\oc ttoXuc of
" Jews " of verse 9.

The great mass of the people from the provinces would
not normally have arrived at the city yet, for it is only
Sunday, and the nation will not be eating the Passover
till the latter part of the week : but no doubt numbers
had gathered to accom.pany Him whilst He was following
the eastern pilgrim-route through Peraea.

This oxAoc TToXvg from the provinces, hearing on the
Sunday morning that " Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem,"
determined to give Him a triumphal entry. He had not
kept His intention secret : He had meant all along to ride
in as King on Sunday, but to ride in in His own way.

(13) " Took the branches of the palm-trees and went-
out [of Jerusalem] to meet Him. And they kept crying,
' Hosanna, blessed is He that cometh in ^^^ ^^
the Lord's name, even the King of Israel.' " ^.^^^^ iqP""-
" Hosanna," meaning save (the affix na ex-
pressing entreaty), is exactly our " God save (the king)."

This entry into the city was that of a King whose
kingship lay in His moral and spiritual excellence, and was
not dependent on the acclamations or assent of His sub-
jects : King by Divine right. The entry was not suggested
to Him by the enthusiasm of His disciples or by that of
the crowd. It was an act of His own initiative : and
before to day (Sunday) He had already made His

282 JOHN XII. 13

preparations about the ass's colt with its owner — probably
on Friday evening or yesterday (Saturday) before leaving
Bethphage. He, of course, knew what the crowd would
do, and how they were going to acclaim Him King. Nor
would He stop them to-day : but by riding on an ass,
He would teach them that His Kingship did not lie in
pomp, and that He had no mind to claim as yet a visible
Kingdom. He set out accompanied by His disciples :
and He is met by a crowd from the city (the crowd of John
xii. 12, 18) who join in.

This entry into Jerusalem to the acclamation of the
enthusiastic mob has been often strangely regarded as the
triumphal entry to which Psalmists and Prophets had
looked forward. True the crowd which escorted Him
thought they were making of it a triumphal procession
and entry : and thought this was the Messianic occasion
to which the triumphal Psalm cxviii. must refer ; and
thought He was about to set up His visible Kingdom.

It was no more the triumphal entry referred to in Psalm
cxviii. than was His first advent in humility and obscurity
and in the cattle stable the advent in triumph and glory
that we still await.

As a foil to the enthusiasm of the crowd, our Lord had
mounted on an ass's colt : showing He is not entering as
the nation's King to-day to take the Kingdom of the
world, for the nation has not yet accepted Him. The
Sanhedrin, who were at this time the Representatives of
the Covenant People, have rejected Him, and they will
on Friday carry the nation with them.

The Prophets had foretold His first Coming in humility,
ending in His rejection and Crucifixion, though that fii'st
Coming looms so small in proportion to the glorious second
Coming, that the Scribes, dwelling only on tlic latter, had
neglected to notice the details of the former. And simi-
larly, though there are many prophecies of His yet future
manifestation of Himself in power against His enemies,
e.g. Isa. Ixii. 11, as the nation's King, there was one un-
noticed prophecy in Zech. ix. 9, of how He would make
His entry into His city at His first Coming — an entry in

JOHN XII. 14-15 283

lowliness and humility, for these are the qualities His
People must first learn from their King before they are fit
for the millennial empire.

(14) " And Jesus." Better " But Jesus." There is
a contrast between the crude exultation with which the
crowd viewed the entry, and the corrective in our Lord's
action.

(15) It is our Lord Himself (Matt. xxi. 4, 5 *) interpret-
ing Zechariah (ix. 9) who, by laying stress on His meekness
and lowliness in riding on a young ass, makes plain the
significance of this His entry to Jerusalem. The horse and
mule (1 Kings i. 38) were noble : the ass was despised.

As for the Synoptists' account of this entry : Mark
(xi.) and Luke (xix.) are as plain as John that He sat onl^^
on the ass's colt, and make no mention of the she ass its
mother. Matthew (xxi.) is equally plain when correctly
translated : for his verse 7 is, " brought the ass (fem.)
and the colt (masc.) and put on them their garments,
and He sat on them," i.e. on the garments, and apparently
on those only which were on the colt, not on the garments
which were on the she ass. Perhaps the disciples did not
know which He was going to ride, and so put their garmei-ts
on both.

As for Matthew's verse 5, which has caused needless
difficulty, the Hebrew of Zechariah ix. 9 is, " riding upon an
ass (masc), even upon a young ass, a son of she asses" :
the Greek of Zechariah ix. 9 has " riding upon a beast-
of-burden, even a young colt." The Greek of Matthew
has " riding upon an ass (the word is indifferently masc.
or fem.) even upon a colt, the son of a beast-of burden."
It will be seen that the obscurity is due to rendering by and
instead of by even. The i of Hebrew and the icoi of

* Matt. xxi. 4. The perfect tense (tovto 5e yeyovev), " this has come to
pass," shows that the words are our Lord's comment and not a comment by
Matthew. Similarly in Matt. i. 22, tovto Se oKov yijoviv, " all this has corao
to pass," the perfect yeyovev, shows the words to be Gabriel's and not a comment
by Matthew. Again in Matt. xxvi. 56, toZto Se o\ov yiyovev, " all this has
come to pass," the words are obviously our Lord's comment and not Matthew's.
Had these comments been Matthew's the second aorist, eyeVsro, would have
been used and not yiyovs, as in John xix. 30, iytv^To yap raDra 'lua i; ypaf^
TrXTipwdrj,

284 JOHN XII. 15-16

Greek mean either and or even (explanatory) equally
well.

It is not known by what gate He entered the city on
this occasion : certainly not by the Golden Gate which was
in the middle of the east wall ; for it was not open to the
public ; and He certainly did not ride into the Temple
courts, on to which the Golden Gate opened : He clearly
entered the cit}^ first and afterwards the Temple (Matt.
xxi. 10-12). So He entered either by the Sheep Gate in
the north-east, or by the Fountain Gate in the south-east :
of these the latter is much the more probable ; for by it
He would ascend into the original Sion. the old city of
David ; and thence tin-ning eastward would pass along the
causeway which crossed the Central Valley and so into the
Temple courts by the main west gate of the Temple area.

The shouts of the multitude are given by Matthew as
" Hosanna to the Son of David : Blessed is He that
cometh in the name of the Lord : Hosanna in the highest
(heaven)," from Ps. cxviii.

Mark has " Hosanna : Blessed is He that cometh in
the name of the Lord : Blessed is the coming Kingdom of
our father David : Hosanna in the highest (heaven)."

Luke has " Blessed is the King that cometh in the name
of the Lord : peace in Heaven, and glory in the highest
(heaven) " : cf. Luke ii. 14.

John has " Hosanna : Blessed is He that cometh in
the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel."

Mark thus most plainly brings out the expectation that
the visible Kingdom of Messiah was about to be set up.

(16) It was not till after our Lord's Ascension and that
out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, which was the sign of His
invisible Triumph (see on vii. 39), that the disciples under-
stood the symbolical meaning of this riding on the ass's
colt, or understood how Zechariah's prophecy was to be
read : although He had at the time called their attention
to this prophecy (see Matt. xxi. 4, yiyovi). A very
similar position is seen at Luke xviii. 31-34, where, though
He quoted to them the Prophets, they failed to grasp the
application. Later, they perceived that in acclaiming

JOHN XII. 17-19 285

Him as King they had been themselves accomplishing a
prophecy without thinking of it.

(17) " Therefore " as impelled by the general enth\i-
siasm "the crowd kept bearing witness" to Him. This
is the third crowd named, viz. the crowd who had been
present at the raising of Lazarus a fortnight ago, and were
mainly from Peraea ; they were to-day recounting that
miracle to the other crowd (verse 12) in Jerusalem, who
had come up from the provinces, e.g. of Galilee, Perasa,
Trachonitis, Syria, etc.

(18) And the hearing this miracle related to them was
an additional reason why the crowd of verse 12 went out
to meet Him. The place of meeting seems to have been on
the crest of the Mount of Olives, where the west descent
begins toward the Kedron and Jerusalem (Luke xix. 37).

(19) " The Pharisees therefore spake to themselves,
' Behold, how ye avail nothing : lo, the world is gone off
after him.' " In other words : ' There must be no delav
in carrying out our decision of a fortnight ago (xi. 47-53)
to put him to death as soon as we can safely lay hands on
him.' And to-day, Sunday, they make their bargain with
Judas Iscariot as told in Matt. xxvi. 14 : Mark xiv. 10.

§ XIX

JOHN XII. 20-50

A deputation of Greeks. His last words in the Temple.

Between verses 19 and 20 is an interval of two clear
days, of which the incidents are given by the Synoptists.

During these four days, Sunday, March 20, to
Wednesday, March 23, our Lord acts with absolute and
supreme authority in the Temple, meeting with no open
opposition. On Sunday He cleansed the Temple and had
to repeat the operation on Monday. He silenced (1) the
chief -priests and elders : (2) the Herodians : (3) the
Sadducees : (4) the Pharisees : and taught the people
Himself as the supreme Teacher, denouncing the Scribes
and Pharisees. On Wednesday, March 23, He left the
Temple, as appears from the S3''noptists.

This section of John (xii. 20-50) seems to belong to His
last appearance in the Temple (see verse 36) : and that
departure, being His final departure, should therefore be
that of Matt. xxiv. 1 : Mark xiii. 1 : Luke xxi. 5 : after
which He confined Himself to His disciples, and on the
Mount of Olives delivered the prophecy on the doom of
the city and on the end of this Age now present (Matt.
xxiv. 3-xxv. 46 : Mark xiii. 3-37 : Luke xxi. 7-36).

(20-33) The deputation of Greeks. Their interview
with Him.

(20) " Certain Greeks." These are neither Jews nor
pagans : but belong to that class of foreigner known by
A.D. 29. the technical term " devout " or " who feared
Mch. 23|^ , God " (constantly in the Acts, etc.) : they had
Nisan 13/ ' come " to worship on the festival-day " {Iv r/i
iopT?}, die festo), i.e. the natural day following the paschal
supper. This class worshipped in Temple and synagogue,

286

JOHN XII. 20-22 287

and observed certain of tlie Mosaic precepts, witlioiit,
however, submitting to the initiatory rite of Jiidaisni.
They could not, of course, eat the Passover.

(20) These " Greeks " have certainly not come to see
Jesus merely to satisfy a curiosity : for that, they would
not have applied to Philiji : also they might have seen
our Lord freely in the Court of the Gentiles. Rather they
seem to be a formal deputation, hence their ceremonious
introduction of themselves (21), " Sir, we wish to sec
Jesus." Philip, again, applies with ceremony to one of
the four who form the inner circle round our Lord. The
four are Peter, James, John, Andrew — the first foui- to
be called : they appear again as an inner circle later on
this same day (Mark xiii. 3), as He delivers His eschato-
logical prophecy. (22) The formality with which the
introduction is made is marked also in the language,
" Philip Cometh and telleth Andrew : Andrew cometh,
and Philip, and they tell Jesus."

As to who exactly these " Greeks " were, probably
they are right who regard them as the embassy sent to
Jesus by Abgarus, king of Edessa. Edessa (the modern
Urfa) is the traditional " Ur of the Casdim " (Gen. xi. 31)
in Mesopotamia. Eusebius {Hist. Eccl. i. 13) gives at great
length the history of the conversion of Abgarus, the king
of Edessa : he also gives the translation (A) of a Syriac
letter which was sent by that king to Christ in which he
offers Him a refuge in his city of Edessa from the malice
of the Jews ; and (B) of the letter which Christ sent him
in return, which letters Eusebius says, he himself took from
the archives of Edessa and had them translated out of the
Syriac in which they were written. ' And not only,' he
says, ' were the letters preserved in the archives ; but also
in the public registers at Edessa which embrace the times
of Abgarus these details respecting him are preserved down
to this day ' {i.e. 325 a.d.). ' After Christ's Ascension '
(he continues). ' Thaddeus (one of the seventy, not Thad-
deus of the Twelve) was sent by Thomas to Edessa to
King Abgarus, as Christ had promised by letter to Abgarus :
and the king and the city of Edessa were thus converted ' :

288 JOHN XII. 22-24

" And this " (he adds) " was in the 340th year," * i.e. of the
Seleucid era : viz. the year from Oct. 1, a.d. 28 to Sept. 30,

A.D. 29.

The term " Greeks " ('EXXyjvig) does not require them to
be true Greeks by birth : for the word is frequently used
in N.T. as synonymous with Gentiles, i.e. non-Jews : e.g.
Rom. i. 16 : ii. 9 : x. 12 : 1 Cor. xii. 13 : Gal. iii. 28.

It is not without significance that Philip and Andrew
are the only two of the Twelve who have Greek names.
Were these two at first the recognized channels for com-
munication with the foreigner as here ?

However the above may be, our Lord was probably in the
Treasury (by the Court of the Women) when the news of the
deputation was brought to Him — the last incident perhaps
having been that of the widow's mite (Luke xxi. 1-4).

The Greeks could not enter beyond the Court of the
Gentiles : we may, therefore, suppose that on receiving
their application our Lord went out into the Court of the
Gentiles, and there had them presented to Him by Andrew
and Philip.

(23-33) This section gives His interview with the
Greeks — but greatly abridged by John. As our Lord, of
course, spoke to be understood by them, it is evident from
His language that these Greeks are not strangers to the
Jewish hope of the Messiah : and that they know the
Messiah, as all Jews for the past year knew him, by the title
of The Son of Man : nor yet are they strangers to our
Lord's claim to be that Messiah. And they know Him to
be the Messiah Our Lord's words to them suit well with
the assumption of some such offer by these Greeks of a
refuge and escape as that contained in Abgarus's letter.

(23-26) He speaks to the deputation and explains to
them that He of whom they had heard so great things was
near His hour of glory. But what glory ? The pomp of
earthly courts ? No : a glory the road to which lay through
death — the glory of Resurrection, Ascension, and an
invisible kingdom in a visible Church (for the present).
(24) As, on nature's plane, the grain of wheat must be

* For this the correct reading see Pagi on Baronius, Annal. xli. 18.

JOHN XII. 24-27 289

buried and die (undergo seed change) if it is to bring forth
fruit : so is it with all who follow Him who is the Seed of
the new Creation. Death is the door to Life. (25) There
is a love of life {>pvx)), the lower, sensuous, psychic life),
which operates at the cost of all that makes life wortli
having : and there is a generous surrender of this same
psychic life, which surrender is the condition on which
depends the preservation of the germ of true and lasting
Life {K<o)i). With this thought all philosophy is familiar.

(26) This is a law of Life : and " If any one serve
Me (emphatic), it is for him to follow Me," i.e. in this law
of Life at the cost of life : " and where I am " (for even
then He Lived eternally in a superhuman state), " there
shall also My servant be " — his, too, shall Life be : " if any
one serve Me, him will The Father honour " (see x. 17, 18).

To these Greeks the term " The Father " would mean
God, the universal Father of all. To our Lord's mind and
to any who might have insight, the term means not only
that but also the full mystery of the Trinity — the eternal
Father of the eternal Son who is speaking. We must
never imagine that the Synoptists give us a representation
of the theology of the early Church : that was not the
aim. the editors of those gospels had in view. Of that
theology and dogmatic development we shall find glimpses,
incidentally preserved, in the epistles : some of which at
any rate antedate those gospels. But nowhere is the
implicit Faith of the early Church made so explicit as in
the gospel of John the Theologian and contemjjlative.

(27) "Now is My soul troubled." To say that the
" trouble " of His soul here, or the Agony in Gethsemane,
was caused by the vivid picture of the personal sufferings
and shame to be inflicted upon Him by human hands in
the near future is nonsense, and is as insulting to our Lord
as is the patronizing sympathy with which so man\'"
have reviewed Him. The contemplation of those sufferings
would have been nothing to Him the perfect Man, indeed
would have been waste of time and vitality to any philo-
sophic mind. Many a mere man would be beyond the touch
of " trouble " from such external agencies : philosophers

"to"

290 JOHN XII. 27-28

and martyrs by the thousand have risen superior
to pain and insult as they wrapped themselves in the
contemplation of God, or of any other ideal for which
they gloried to suffer torture and death. What could
the uttermost of physical and psychical suffering have been
to Him in comparison with the sight and knowledge of
sin around Him ?

The " trouble " here, and the Agony in Gethsemane,
and the dereliction on the Cross, are the same at bottom
in varying intensit^^ None of those who heard Him here
or who watched Him had the slightest true conception
of what He meant. We must always except the sinless
Mother. His agony is a mystery, as the Catholic Church
knows ; a mystery into which none but some rare con-
templative spirits have had the privilege to enter. It
had nothing to do with any sufferings that met the eye.
It lay in the consciousness of all the sins of all the world,
and of the consequent abandonment by God, which in a
sacramental reality were laid upon Him the Man as upon
our scapegoat.

(27) " And what am I to say ? Father, save Me from
this hour ? " {i.e. of suffering which has begun and is soon
to culminate), " But for this object I came to this hour,"
i.e. No. For the very object of His Incarnation, the reason
of this His Coming into the world and of His continuance
to this hour was to meet this Suffering.

The words do not imply that He was in any hesitation
Himself ; but they are spoken for the sake of the Greeks,
to explain to them how He views His coming death, that
He faces it voluntarily and that it was one of the purposes
of His Incarnation.

(28) " Father, glorify Thy Name." This is the perfect
prayer : it embraces the height of the passive virtues — self-
renunciation, and the height of the active virtues — craving
for His glory with every energy. But it has its theological
meaning as well, which must have been present to our
Lord's mind : ' Glorify Thy Name, glorify Thy Name as
Father by manifesting Me as the eternal Son, that those
here may believe in Me and so in Thee.'

JOHN XII. 28-30 201

" There came, therefore, a Voice out of heaven.*' " A
Voice out of heaven " : not a mere thunderclap, altliough
to most present it sounded as that and no more : to
others it sounded as though articulate, but not intelligible.
To those, however, for whom it was meant (here, the
" Greeks "), the thunder-voice was articulate and intel-
ligible, but to them alone.

So the Rabbinical tradition of the Voice of God speak-
ing to Moses and others : its physical reverbci-ation might
be heard by many, but the Voice itself, i.e. its meaning,
was known to those only for whom it was meant, e.g.
Moses, the Prophets, etc.

So in Acts ix. 7, xxii. 9, Saul's companions heard the
physical reverberation, but not so as to understand the
Voice, for it was not meant for them.

" I glorified It before," viz. when at His Baptism the
Voice pronounced His Sonship, so that John the Baptist
might announce Jesus to the nation as the Messiah and
The Son of God (cf. Matt. iii. 17 with John i. 31-31) : and
again when at the Transfiguration the Voice announced
His Sonship, so that Peter, James, and John might know
that compared with Him Moses and Elijah were but
servants.

" And I will again glorify It," i.e. now. For the Voice
came now for the sake of the Greeks, as being the repre-
sentatives of the non- Jewish nations ; and the Voice was
distinctly heard by them and articulately, and the words
understood by them.

(29) But by "the crowd " (o o\Aoc) of Jewish nationality
it was heard as mere sound, a portentous thunder roll,
" they said ' it has thundered ' " : by others there it was
felt to be articulate though they caught no sense, and by
these it was ascribed to an angel talking with Him, " they
said ' an angel has talked to him.' "

(30) " Jesus answered and said " : answered, that is,
to the expressions of wonder of the Greeks at the Voice.
Verse 29 (the effect on the Jews) is parenthetical.

Jesus is still talking to the Greeks : ' This Voice you
have heard (and understood) was not sent for My sake as

292 JOHN XII. 30-34

though I needed encouragement or enhghtenment : it was
sent wholly for your sakes, to help you Greeks toward
Me.' And for that reason it was only the Greeks who were
meant to understand it : it was not meant for the Jews,
and therefore to them was unintelligible.

(31) " Now there is judgment on this world." The
hour was approaching when judgment was to be passed
upon this world, the world (6 Koa/jLog) viewed in its acme,
man the microcosm ; but man as alienated by sin from
God and under subjection to the devil.

" Now shall the ruler of this world be cast out." Man
had not developed on the lines that his Creator had laid
out : his ideals had been warped aside : moral disease
was making for ruin : his Creator was coms to head back
the ruin that awaited His world and give it a fresh start :
and He began by reversing men's ideals.

(32) " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to
Myself." Men would crucify Him their Creator, but from
the Cross He w^ould win the whole human race, non-Jews
as well as Jews. The Cross and its attendant disgrace
marks, by its " lifting up," * a severance from all worldly
ideals and release from all earthly allurements.

Here ends His talk with the Greeks. They withdraw
here, having received His gracious promise with regard to
non-Jew as well as Jew.

(34-36) The effect on the Jewish crowd.

(34) But "the crowd" {i.e. of Jewish nationality)
on hearing Him talk of being " lifted up from out the
earth " were amazed. He had meant He was to be crucified .
Though " the crowd " misunderstood Him, the Sanhedrists

* The verb {v\f/ovv) here used for to " lift up," whether in its active or
passive mood, is used only five times in John's writings, and every time in the
sense of lift up on a cross : viz. —

iii. 14, " As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness."
iii. 14, " So must The Son of Man be lifted up."
viii. 28, " When ye have lifted up The Son of Man."
xii. 32, " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to Myself."
xii. 34, '■ Thou sayest, 'The Son of Man must be lifted up'' " : which i.i an

exact repetition of His words to Nicodemus in iii. 14.
It is also remarkable that nowhere outside John's gospel does the word bear
this meaning.

JOHN XII. 34-36 293

and Scribes Avho had determined on His death coidd not
fail to catch His meaning — no more than they had failed
at ii. 19. ' Lifted up from the earth ? ' say the crowd,
' but we have heard out of the sacred Books that the
Messiah, when once He comes, abides with us for ever on
earth, a glorious King. If you are the Messiah, why do you
say that " The Son of Man must be lifted up " from the
earth ? Who is this Messiah ? \ATio is this " The Son of
Man " ? This is not the Messiah we thought we were
acclaiming when we went but last Sunday to bring you in
in triumph.' They are using His own phrase, " The Son
of Man," quite simply as being synonymous with " the
Messiah." Thej^ are in difficulty, not about the title, but
about the prospect of Messiah leaving the earth.

That " The Son of Man " had become, though recently,
a recognized title of Messiah, see under i. 51 (pp. 46, 47).

The crowd are full of disappointment, and disillusioned.
They probably objected also to the promise which seemed to
put the Gentiles on a par with the Jews (cf. Acts xxii. 21,
22). The chief -priests and scribes have been busy among
them during these last four days : and now the climax is
reached. The crowd has turned against Him, as is clear
from the rest of this chapter, and have sided with the
chief-priests and His enemies.

(35) " Therefore " (such being the revulsion of their
feelings) " Jesus said to them, ' For yet a little while is
the Light with you,' " etc. It was for them to learn and
Him to teach : He was the Light, and for but a little while
was He still among them. When once the Sun should be
set, what Light would there be ? blind would be leading
blind. As they had (36) still the Light among them, let
them believe in the Light and trust Him for guidance :
and so become sons of Light having Light in themselves.

But He spoke to dull ears. He departed from the
Temple : their Sun was set. Thenceforth " He was hid
from them," not again appearing to them.

This is the departure from the Temple ^^^^
of Matt. xxvi. 1 : Mark xiii. 1 : Luke xxi. 5 : j^j^^^ 13/Wed.
and the day is Wednesday, March 23.

294 JOHN XII. 37-42

(37-41) Here follows John's comment on the national
rejection of Him : —

(37) ' That when the crisis came to the nation, they
were found wanting : that in spite of the many signs He
had done among them they did not believe into Him —

(38) ' And so was fulfilled {'iva TrXiifuoOri, see p. 308)
Isaiah's j^rophecy (liii. 1), •• Lord, who has believed our
report," i.e. the report we brought them ? Isaiah
identifying himself and all the Prophets with our Lord.
'' To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed ? "
i.e. who has discerned Him in the mighty works He did
among them ?

' They did not believe because they could not : the
failure was the result of long neglect to respond to their
opportunities, a neglect spread over centuries, bewailed
by every Prophet that had been sent to them, as he saw
the canker at work around him and foresaw what the end
inevitably must be.

(39) ' And the reason why they could not believe was
because, as Isaiah (vi. 9, 10) had foretold, (40) " He has
blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts." Divine
warnings persistently and wilfully ignored could not pass
by as though they had never been.'

(41) " These things said Isaiah because " (not " when ")
" he saw His glory " in vision (Isa. vi. 1-4), and heard
the " Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts," and saw
(verse 5) how little were the nation in the mood or on the
way to meet that seai-ching sanctity.

" And he " (Isaiah) " talked of Him," i.e. the Lord of
Hosts of that vision was no other than Jesus.

(42-end)

The timid believers among the Sanhedrin : and His last
words to them, and to the nation.

(42) " Nevertheless " {i.e. in spite of the general
unbelief just commented on), " even among the rulers many
believed into Him {Itt tar evaav ehj cwtov), but because of," etc.

There is no stronger phrase used anywhere to express

JOHN XII. 42-49 295

genuine belief in Christ than Tnaraveiv elr, the phrase
used here : so we must suppose their beUef was genuine
and of the kind that later on would grow to fruition : it
only lacked at present (notice the imp. tense, w/joXoyouv,
" were not as yet confessing Him "), the robustness to face
persecution.

(43) " For they loved men's glory rather than God's
glory," i.e. loved man's purblind estimate of what con-
stitutes glory rather than God's estimate. The com-
mentators are hard on these timid ones. Are all Christians
heroic ? is there no smoking flax ?

(44) " And Jesus (as He was leaving the Temple courts
as told in verse 36) cried aloud." Here as elsewhere in
John the word rendered " cried aloud " marks the decisive
tone of authority which exacts attention.

These parting words are meant for the ears of the timid
believers of verse 42, and also for the unbelieving nation —
to awaken them to the gravity of the situation. Let them
(44) remember, belief or non-belief into Him involves
belief or non-belief into God who sent Him : for (45) whoso
sees Him aright sees God who sent Him. (46) His Incarna-
tion was the coming of Light among men : on the belief
into Him depends the issue whether a man lives henceforth
in Light or remains in the darkness He came to dispel.

(47) " And if any one hear My message and observe it
not " (like those timid ones assenting to it, but not con-
forming with it) " I do not judge him " {i.e. at this His first
Coming), " for I came not to judge the world but to save
the world." He became Incarnate not as a judge, but
He came as a helpless Child, that none might be afraid.

(48) " He who rejects Me and accepts not My teach-
ing " (ja p{]fxaTa jnov = teaching by Me or about Me)
" has one that judges him : the word that I spoke, that
will judge him in the last day." The judgment is auto-
matic. How far was he responsible for that teaching
having met with no response in him ? It should have
found a response in every heart.

(49) " For I spoke not from Myself " {It, ifxavrov,
apart from The Father) ; " but The Father who sent Me,

296 JOHN XII. 49-50

Himself has given Me commandment what to say and what
to speak " : i.e. the message which was embodied in His
words and in His life is from The Father : both its subject
matter {ti e'/ttw) and the form in which He delivered it
{ri XaX{](Tw) have The Father's authority behind — and if
The Father's, then the whole Godhead's.

(50) " And I know that His commandment is Life
eternal " : i.e. both the subject matter of the message and
the form in w^hich it was delivered is Life eternal to all
who accept it. And what w^as it ? A message concerning
the Godhead, The Son's Incarnation, the sacramental
system, faith, and ethics. " Therefore what things I
speak, I speak them even as The Father has said them to
Me." Let them therefore know that His message to them
is as though The Father Himself were speaking to them.

They are His last words : and here closes His public
active Ministry. He passes out from the Temple enclosure.

Here follows Matt. xxiv. 1 : Mark xiii. 1 : Luke xxi. 5 :
and then His long discourse on the Mount of Olives this
evening (Matt. xxiv. 3-end of xxxv. : Mark xiii. 3-37 :
Luke xxi. 7-36).

§ XX
JOHN XIII. 1-30

Our Lord's last Passover. The Eucharist instituted.

(1) " And before the festival-day of the Passover "
{irpo St T^c ^opTTJg Tov Ylatrxn), or, as it should be rendered,
" on the eve of,''' or " on the day before a.D. 29.
the festival-day of the Passover," i.e. on Mch. 24^_.
Thursday, Nisan 14 (as explained in the Nisan 14/
note to ii. 23).

This was the eve of, or the day before, the correct
festival-day, Nisan 15. The words tt/jo St ttjc toprric
here do not mean simply and vaguely " before the festival-
day " of the Passover, but " on the day before,'" etc. It is
the Latin " pridie " : and is otherwise expressed by irpb
fucig rqc f 0(OTrjc = " one day before the festival-day."
Neither Greek nor Latin ever uses "two days before" for
yesterday, though they use "after two days" for to-morrow.
For the phrase -n-po tjk; toprrig as meaning the eve of, or
day before (a festival), cf. Philo, ii. 481, Trpotopnog, and
the common ecclesiastical term, to irpoaopTiov. Cf. also
7r,ooao/3/3arov, the day before Sabbath, as a name for Friday.
See pp. 379, 380.

In A.D. 29 (the year of the Crucifixion), 77 lopri), "the
festival-day " would have been (Friday) Nisan 15, for our
Lord and the Twelve, for they had eaten the Paschal supper
on Thursday, Nisan 14, as the Mosaic Law enjoined (Exod.
xii. 8), i.e. on the eve of the 15th : and thus i) topTi) means
Nisan 15 in xiii. 1 (above), and 29, " what we have need
of for the festival-day " (cfc Ti]v topriiv, viz. the morrow).
But the event that happened on Good Friday changed the
character of that day from a festival to the saddest day in
man's history. For it became the day of the archetypal
Passover, the Sacrifice of the true Paschal Lamb, the

297

298 JOHN XIII. 1

God-Man ; and from its day of the 'omer Pentecost was
this year reckoned.

But m this same year, a.d. 29, the festival-day for
the nation and for every one except om- Lord and the
Twelve was Saturday, Nisan 16, for in this year the
nation had postponed the celebration of the Passover by
one day. Thus this year the nation killed and ate the
Passover on the afternoon and night of Friday, Nisan 15,
instead of on the afternoon and night of Thursday,
Nisan 14 : and the festival-day thus fell for them on
Saturday, Nisan 16.

This postponement of the Passover seems to have been
made by the Sanhcdrin suddenly on Wednesday evening,
March 23 (Nisan 13), at the meeting mentioned by Matthew
(xxvi. 1-5) and Mark (xiv. 1, 2), when they decided that
for fear of " an uproar among the people " our Lord's death
" must not occur on the festival-day (/xtj Iv ry iopTij) "
(Friday, Nisan 15), the day fixed by Pilate for the public
execution of Barabbas and the two brigands. Those words
(^u) iv r(5 iopr!^}) give the very substance and sum of the
decision' of that conference. They argued thus :— He must
be put to death along with Pilate's malefactors— that is,
the day after to-morrow : but that wall be the festival-
day, and the people (Xaoc)— the mass of pilgrims who arrived
to-day — may prove dangerous, for they are madly in his
favour : we will postpone the whole Feast one day, and use
the interval in an energetic counter propaganda among them.
John, like the Synoptists, recognizes the Paschal supper
eaten by our Lord and the Twelve on Thursday after sunset
as the genuine Paschal supper : and Friday as its proper
festival-day. The Synoptists take no notice of the Paschal
supper eaten this year by the nation on Friday, Nisan 15,
after sunset, and it is not until John xviii. 28 that we
learn definitely that the nation had not eaten their Paschal
supper on the same night as did our Lord. Once we
have learnt this fact from John, we see how to read the
Synoptists : e.g. Matt. xxvi. 2, " ye know {olSara) that
after two days {i.e. to-morrow) is the Passover and The Son
of Man is delivered over to be crucified " : this " ye know "

JOHN XIII. 1 200

shows that at the time He was speaking, viz. Wednesday
afternoon, March 23, it was assumed by every one that
the Passover was to be killed and eaten by every one on
the following day, viz. Thursday, Mareh 24, Nisan 14 : and
it is Matthew's three next verses which tell us how and
when it was (viz. that very Wednesday) that the San-
hedrin determined to postpone the Passover : for the
word rore (verse 3) synchronizes this meeting of the
Sanhedrin with our Lord's words in verse 2. He, and He
alone, foreknew that they were about to postpone the
Feast, and He knew their reason for doing so, viz. to push
through His death first. But He had no intention of
recognizing the postponement.

Again, Matt. xxvi. 17, " Where wilt Thou that we
prepare for Thee to eat the Passover ? " The question
spoken on the Thmsday will imply that they saw a
difficulty in preparing and eating the Passover on a day
when no one else was doing so, for in the interval between
verse 5 (Wednesday) and verse 17 (Thursday) the
Sanhedrin had proclaimed the postponement.

Again, Matt. xxvi. 18, " The Master (6 h'^aaKaXotj) saith,
' My time is nigh : at thy house I keep the Passover with
My disciples ' " : the message will imply that the circum-
stances had required some special arrangements to have been
already made by our Lord privately with one of His influen-
tial disciples in the city — perhaps Joseph of Arimathaea.

Agam, Mark xiv. 12, " On the first day of the Azyms
when they-used-to-sacrifice (fSuov, imp.) the Passover."
The Wvov will refer to the Jews' normal custom of killmg
the Passover on the 14th of Nisan : it will not state that
the Jews did so on this occasion. Mark, writing for Gentile
Christians of Rome, saw no necessity to go into the details
that made this year exceptional : for the only Paschal
supper he means to notice is the one eaten by our Lord
and the Twelve on the correct night, viz. after the sunset
of Thursday, Nisan 14.

Again, Luke xxii. 7, " The day of the Azyms on which
the Passover was-due (tSeO to be sacrificed " : the ttu
will refer to the jMosaic ordinance which named the

300 JOHN XIII. 1

afternoon of the 14th as the day for killing the Passover
(Exod, xii. 6 : Lev. xxiii. 5 : Num. ix. 3) : it will not refer to
what the Jews actually did that year : it seems rather to
emphasize the fact that the day Peter and John prepared
this Passover was the strict legal day — the 14th.

Again, Luke xxii. 15, "I have greatly desired to eat
this Passover with you before I suffer." The with you
will acquire a new force, as though in antithesis to with
the rest of the nation. Unless He kept the Passover on
the 14th He would not have opportunity to institute the
Eucharist as a supplement to (or, in the case of Gentiles,
a substitute for) the Paschal supper.

If the nation had this year eaten the Passover on the
same night as did our Lord and the Twelve (viz. Thursday,
Nisan 14, after sunset), we should have to believe that on
the night of the arrest in Gethsemane the whole city was
joyfully eating the Passover in every house and every open
space of the city, and that all the details of the trial and
the Crucifixion took place on the great national Holy
Day of obligation- — a day kept more religiously than even
our own Easter Sunday. It would also follow that the
Sanhedrin failed to carry out their decision (Matt. xxvi. 5 :
Mark xiv. 2) not to put Him to death on the festival-day
(juj) Iv ry toprt)), for had they eaten the Passover on
Thursday night their festival-day would have been
Friday : whereas it seems clear that the reason why they
hurried the arrest and trial and death with such unseemly
haste and postponed the Passover was to secure His
death with the malefactors, and to get the whole thing
over and done with before their Paschal celebration
this evening (Friday) and their festival-day to-morrow
(Saturday).

Although John does not name the Festival of the
Azyms, i.e. the Unleavened, it is so closely associated to
this Passover by the three Synoptists that it requires
some explanation. The Azyms [ra uZ,vfxa = the Un-
leavened), or the Festival of the Azyms {{j lof)Tt] twv (iKv/kov),
was strictly the seven days Nisan 15-21 inclusive (Lev.
xxiii. 5, 6 : Num. xxviii. 17-25), beginning at sunset of

JOHN XIII. 1 301

Nisan 14 and ending at sunset of Nisan 21. But as the
Passover lambs had to be killed on the afternoon of the
14th, and not only eaten without leaven but also killed
without there being any leaven in the houses (l^^xod.
xxiii. 18), all leaven was removed from the houses on Nisan
14, viz. on the morning of the 14th. Thus the 14th eame
to be included in the Festival of the Azyms; which was thus
extended to cover the eight days, Nisan 14-21 inclusive :
beginning at morning of the 14th and ending at sunset of
the 21st.

And these eight days came to be known as The Azyms
{to. aZ^vfxa), or the Festival of the Azyms (i) t-o/jrj) rwy aL,vfiMv),
or again as Tlao-Yo = Passover (Luke xxii. 1) : but not as
/) lapri) Tov Waaxa, which meant the one day, Nisan 15.

That at the time of our Lord the 14th of Nisan had come
to be habitually reckoned as part of the Festival of the
Azyms is clear from Mark xiv. 1, " After two days was the
Passover and the Azyms " (?lv St to Udnxa koi tu aZ,vfia
IxtTo. 8wo iiixtpag), where the Azyms begin on the same
day that the Passover is killed on, viz. Nisan 14. Again,
verse 12, " On the first day of the Azyms when they used

to kill the Passover " (ry Trpiortj V/utixi rwv dZ,vf.Hi}v ore ru

Udaxa Wvov). Again, Luke xxii. 1, " The Festival of the
Azyms which (festival) is called Passover " (i) fopn) Thiv
dt^v/uov )j Xeyofxivi} Udaxn)- Again, vcrse 7, " The day of
the Azyms on which the Passover was due to be sacri-
ficed " (rj rj/uipa tG)v d^vfiiov tv >) fStt OincrOai ro Ud(T\u). Also
Josephus {War, V. iii. 1), " The day of the Azyms being
come, on the 14th of the month Nisan " (ttjc nov a^v/'""'

Where toprr) is used of Pentecost, as in John v. 1 (topr?)
Tiov 'lou^atiov, "a Festival of the Jews "), it means the one
day, normally Sivan 6, the fiftieth day after the day of
the 'omer (Lev. xxiii. 15, 16), both terms included. But
where, as in a.d. 29, the nation had postponed the Passover
one day, Pentecost also had to be postponed one day, and
thus fell on Sivan 7, which was Sunday, May 15, in a.d. 29.

Where 17 toprn is used of the Festival of Tabernacles,
as in John vii. 2, 8, 10. 11. 14, 37. it means the whole

302 JOHN XIII. 1

seven days, from Tisri 15 to 21 inclusive — much as it
means the whole eight days of the Azyms.

In this double celebration of the Paschal supper, viz.
by our Lord and the Twelve on Thursday, Nisan 14, and
by the rest of the nation on Friday, Nisan 15, lies the ex-
planation of the otherwise difficult anomaly that, whereas
from time immemorial western Christendom uses for the
Eucharist unleavened bread, eastern Christendom has from
time immemorial insisted on the bread being leavened.
The East asserts, and rightly, that the Last Supper was
eaten on the night before the nation ate the Passover, and
infers that it was, therefore, eaten with ordinary leavened
bread. The West asserts, and rightly, that the Passover
eaten by our Lord and the Twelve was a genuine Passover,
as He Himself calls it (Luke xxii. 15) and as all the Synop-
tists agree in calling it, and infers that it was, therefore,
eaten with the full Mosaic ritual and therefore with un-
leavened bread, and eaten on the strict legal day the 14th
of Nisan after sunset. Thus, what to many seems discord
between John's gospel and the Synoptics finds an echo
in the immemorial rituals of West and East : and what
explains the gospels explains the rituals.

(xiii. 1) " Jesus, knowing that His hour was come to
depart out of this world " (icocr^ou) . . . whilst leaving
His own ones behind still in the world ..." loved them
to the end " (f(c teXoc) : (A) to the uttermost measure, by
dying for them (cf. " greater love hath no one than this ") :
and by rising again for them. (B) unto the end of time, by
making provision for them in the Eucharistic sacrament.
With the institution of the Eucharist and with its meaning
John's readers were, of course, familiar, for he writes as late
as 101 A.D. : he proposes only to add certain details of that
last Paschal supper which shall help to bring out the
love which characterized every action of our Lord in those
His last hours.

As to the scene of the following " supper," " the Pass-
over " of Matthew (xxvi. 17-19), of Mark (xiv. 12-16), and
of Luke (xxii. 7-13), it is described (see Mark and Luke)
as a " large vipper-room {avd-^/aLov intya).''^ The local

JOHN XIII. 1-2 303

tradition of all the denominations of Christendom is agreed
that the building known to-day as the Cenacolo (" Supper-
room ") occupies the site of the avdycuov of the gospels.
It is on the traditional ancient Mount Sion and well within
the old city walls, though five hundred feet south-south-west
of the present Sion Gate. This original Cenacolo became
the seat of the first Christian Church, the Church of Mount
Sion, the mother Church of all Churches : from here the
risen Lord led forth the Apostles on Ascension Day, here
Matthias was chosen in place of Iscariot (Acts i.), here
the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost (Acts ii.), and
here was held the first oecumenical Council (Acts xv.).
The house escaped destruction at the siege of Titus, a.d.
70, and had become a church before the time of Hadrian.
The building that to-day occupies the site is part of the
church built by the Crusaders in the 12th century, and is
in the hands of Moslems.

Tradition is singularly silent as to the owner of the
original Cenacolo, but according to the most probable
opinion it belonged to Joseph of Arimathaea.

(2) " During supper " {^^i-rrvov yivofiivou (Thurs.

seems to be the correct reading), i.e. during . * ^J^^ after
the ritual of the Paschal supper. I sunset.

The following remarks * on the Paschal ritual will be here to the point.
The ritual required that all should eat reclining upon couches about a low
table, each resting on his left arm so as to have the right hand free. It was
the same attitude in which Greeks and Romans ate habitually at table.
The original Passover had been eaten standing : the later ritual required
the Passover to be eaten reclining as symbolical of the security into which
the people had been brought by God into the Promised Land.

The supper begins (and cf. Luke xxii. 15, 16) by the head of the com-
pany taking the first cup and speakmg over it the blessing, " Blessed art
Thou, Jehovah our God, who hast created the fruit of the vine." . . . This
is immediately followed by the thanksgiving over "the daj^," that they had
been " preserved alive, sustained, and brought to this season." This
first cup is the " cup " of Luke xxii. 17, 18. Our Lord drank of it and said
He would " not (again) drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of
God shall come " : all the company drink of it.

The next part of the ritual is that the head of the company should

* Repeated from my book, The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ
(Murray).

304 JOHN XIII. 2-3

rise alone and wash his hands. This washing of hands by him alone is,
according to the rubric, followed by the dishes being placed on the table :
he then dips some of the bitter herbs into the salt water and vinegar, speaks
a blessing, eats of them, and hands them to each of the company.

Next, he breaks one of the unleavened loaves, and puts half of it aside
for after supper : this latter half is called the Aphigomon,* or " after
dish " : and this was probably the bread of the Holy Eucharist — of which
see below. Then the half-loaf (not the Aphigomon) is elevated, and the
words spoken, " This is the bread of misery which our Fathers ate in the
land of Egypt : all that are hungry, come and eat : all that are needy,
come, keep the Passover."

Next, the second cup is filled, and the youngest in the company is told
to make formal inquiry as to the meaning of all the observances of the
night (Exod. xii. 24-27). The youngest at the Last Supper would be
John, and no doubt all this was done. The cup is then elevated, and the
service proceeds lengthily : the cup is again elevated, certain prayers
are recited, and Psalms cxiii., cxiv. (cxii., cxiiia) are repeated : the cup
is elevated the third time, and a prayer is recited, and then the cup is drunk
by all. This ends the first part of the service.

Then foUows a general washing of hands : and then the Paschal lamb
was eaten. After eating the lamb the third r.up was filled.

At this point in the Paschal ritual they had arrived when occurred the
incident which John begins to relate at verse 2 of this chapter.

(2) " During supper." Although aware that Satan
through Judas was scheming His betrayal, and that all
would soon forsake Him, He still washed the feet of
all and ministered as a servant to all in the scene that
follows.

The strife as to " which of them is accounted greatest "
(Luke xxii. 24) had already begun, probably started by
Judas Iscariot who might base his claim upon the considera-
tions that the couch of honour at this supper had been
assigned to him and not to Peter, that he alone of the
Twelve belonged to the royal tribe of Judah, and that to
him had been entrusted the finances of the Community
(xii. 6 : xiii. 29). To end it, our Lord will show them
that the greatest among them should be the humblest :
and with this aim He made Himself their servant.

(3) Although aware that He, qua Man, had been made
Lord of all things, and although aware that He was God
Incarnate, or, as John puts it, " that He came foith from

* Perhaps represents a Greek acpU/xtvov = put aside, as ^iptrov, consecrated.

JOHN XIIJ. 3-8 305

God and was withdrawing again to God " ; yet He made
Himself a servant.

(4) "He riseth from the supper," i.e. from the Paschal
supper. The Eucharist has not yet been instituted. The
precise point in the ritual of the Paschal supper at which
our Lord rose seems to be immediately after the Paschal
lamb had been eaten and the third cup had been filled.
The ordinary ritual of the Passover continued thus : After
filling the third cup, the blessing or grace after meat was
said, then the third cup was drunk — hence its proper name,
"the cup of the Blessing"; and then followed the final
washing of hands. See Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. But on the
night in question, after the filling of the third cup, our
Lord seems to have modified this ritual : the "race after
meat was suspended, and the final washing of hands He
changed to a preparatory washing of feet — preparatory,
that is, to the new rite and the new Sacrifice He was about
to institute.

(4) " He riseth from the supper." John's account
reads like that of an eye-witness who had watched with
wonder and suspense — short staccato sentences : " He
rises from the supper : and He lays aside His garments :
and taking a towel He girds Himself : then He puts water
into the bason : and He began to wash the feet of the
disciples, and to wipe them with the towel with which
He was girded."

(6) " Therefore (oSi') He cometh unto Simon Peter."
He began with Peter as occupying the lowest place near the
door : and because occupying the lowest place, therefore
deserving to be first served : and Peter, as spokesman for
the Twelve, slirinks from being waited on by the Lord.

At first Peter's mind seized only on the humility and
self-abasement in this action.

(7) Jesus answered him, " What / am doing thou
knowest not at this moment, but thou shalt understand
hereafter." The emphatic pronouns imply the different
planes of thought on which the two were moving : for
Peter does not discern as yet the meaning of the washing.

(Sa) Peter still seeing in the action only an act of

306 JOHN XIII. 8-9

self-abasement on our Lord's part, still protests that he
can never allow Him to so demean Himself for him, Peter.
{8b) Jesus replied by calling Peter's understanding to
quite another meaning in His action. It must be noticed
that our Lord's action was symbolic and had a twofold
meaning. There was —

A. The washing their feet as a servant — to teach them
humility : and unless He carried the lesson into
explicit action they would never lay it to heart and
learn so to act. And this is the meaning He mainly
dwells on in the subsequent comment in verses 13-17.
But there was also, and primarily —

B. The washing : which had its meaning also.

Every rite of cleansing by water under the Law was
a type of the true cleansing, which is only to be found in
that sacramental system which has its fount and flow in
Jesus Christ. And that our Lord had this symbolism in
His mind is evident from verses Sb, 11. John's habit,
however, of abridging his accounts makes it difficult to
follow him : he presumes in his readers a certain familiarity
with doctrine and ritual : his gospel will not be understood
by any chance reader who takes it up ignorant of, and
impatient of, the mind of the Church.

Again, John's mind is one that works by intuition, not
by syllogism : his contemplation is so intense and his
vision so quick, that it is often hard to track his line of
thought : but that is the man : that is his style, which
makes him at once the most arresting of the N.T. writers
and the most entrancing.

In the section 86, 11, " If I wash thee not," etc., the
main idea is fastened not to the humility shown in our
Lord's action (that will be brought out later on, in verses
13-17), but to the washing as washing. Without the
washing, Peter can have no part with Him. What wash-
ing ? The washing from sin, which all ritual cleansing
symbolized.

(9) Now suddenly Peter understands. ' Washing from
sin ? ah, then, Lord, cleanse me wholly : it is more than
feet : for I am whollj/ sinful.'

JOHN XIII. 10-16 307

(10) ' Nay : thou hast been aheady wholly loathed in
the waters of baptism : and they that have been once
baptized need only to have from time to time removed
those defilements which will inevitably attach to all in
their passage through life.'

In this verse, the rendering should be, "he that has been
bathed " (AfXoK^c'voc, one of the common words used thence-
forth by the Church for the " baptized ") " needeth not
save to zvash his feet " (this word vtVrftv, " wash," is never
used of bathing, nor yet of Christian baptism, but only of
partial washing, e.g. of feet or hands or face or eyes) " but
is (thus) wholly clean," i.e. being once bathed wholly (sc.
baptized),* a man to keep thereafter wholly clean has but
to have removed the dirt of the road from his feet (sc. sub-
sequent sins incidental to the frailty of mankind).

And this washing of their feet, preparatory to the
communion of His Body and Blood in the Eucharist which
is about to follow, symbolized that washing (preparatory
to the same mystery), which all receive who come worthily
to it.

(10&) " And ye are clean " {KciOapot, another common
ecclesiastical term thenceforth for the baptized) : " but not
all of you " — though they had all of them been baptized.
This was said for Judas Iscariot's ears, to let him know
that our Lord was not deceived about him, but knew what
he was scheming.

(12) Having washed their feet, He resumed His gar-
ments, took His place again at the table, and continued
His discourse.

(12-17) Now our Lord dwells on another aspect of His
action, not now on the symbolism of the washing ; but
on the symbolism of His acting for them as their servant,
although their Lord.

* As to the baptism of the Apostles : according to Baronius (Arm., xxxi. 40),
Evodius (1st century, and made bishop of Antioch by Peter himself) saj^s in his
treatise rh <pw , " that Christ baptized only Peter : that Peter then baptized
Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee : and that these baptized the rest of the
Apostles. But the seventy were baptized by Peter and John." So, too, says
Clement Alex, (not about the seventy). Tertullian and Augufctine lay great
stress on the fact that the Apostles were baptized.

308 JOHN Xlll. 17-20

(17) ' If they have now learnt this lesson of humility,
blessed are they if they carry it into practic<j : but only so.'

(18) " Not concerning all of you am I speaking : I
know whom (plural) I chose out " to the apostolate that day
upon the mountain. All were selected in full knowledge
by Him of their characters, and among them was one
selected to be a type of future traitors in His Church,
and in its high places. As was long ago foretold in type
concerning him and his like —

(18) This phrase {'Iva 7rXrj^>w0i)), " that it may be ful-
filled " — commonly used in the gospels where a fulfilment
of prophecy is noticed— means " and so is fulfilled " : it
represents, not purpose, but consequence, and is the
Hellenistic rendering of the Hebrew conjunction hna'an
with infinitive or future, expressing that which answers
to, responds to, an impulse ; hence (subjectively) end aimed
at, or (objectively) result come at. Other instances in this
gospel are xii. 38 : xv. 25 : xvii. 12 : xviii. 9, 32 : xix. 24,
36 : in all of which the meaning is objective result, and
consequence.

The Psalm xli. here quoted is one of David's, written
just after the outbreak of Absalom's rebellion, when
David fled from Jerusalem weak and ill. The treachery
of Ahitophel, his friend, to king David is here used as
an acted parable of the treachery of Judas, a familiar
comrade, to that Son of David and King of whom David
was a type.

" To lift up the heel against " indicates the malice of
the blow.

(19) "Now," better "From now" {air' apn): an emphatic
term marking the crisis (viz. this Supper) dating from which
He no longer will keep secret the name of the traitor.
He had long ago (vi. 70) told them what was the nature
of one among them, but never till this Supper had He even
hinted which was that one. And Iscariot is listening.

(20) Verses 18 and 19 are almost parenthetical. He now
(20) returns to His line of thought at verse 17, " Blessed
are ye if ye do them." And lest they should be tempted
at any time to be slack in doing, He bids them remember

JOHN XIIT. 20-21

.309

whose ambassadors they are : they represent Him the
Lord, and He represents The Father who sent Him. The
very honour of God is placed in the hands of these His
ambassadors. And Iscariot was one of them.

(21) At the contemplation of the treachery of Judas —
treachery to the cause of God due to self-seeking, " He was
troubled in spirit." His " trouble " is due to a conscious-
ness of all the future treachery in His Church ; treachery
of which the guilt and horror was piled upon Him to bear
in that mystery of Expiation which none can fathom.

(21) As for the position of our Lord and His guests
at the table this evening. At a Roman or Greek dinner

Fia. A.

(and similarly with the Jews), where the number at table
rarely exceeded nine, the arrangement of the table and the
couches was commonly as in the figure A. The host usually
occupied the corner divan marked 7 on plan : the place of
honour {viraTiKog, consularis) was that marked 6 at the
same corner : and the lowest place was that here marked 1 .
It has been suggested that the system was extended on
this occasion, so that the thirteen divans were arranged as
in figure B. The host (our Lord) occupying the divan in
the proper corner : the place of honour being at the same

Jesus

John

James

■y^^-^y/A

'a^mM^^:^^^Mh

yy.

Philip

Andrew

Peter

no. B.

corner and occupied by Judas Iscariot : John occupying
the divan below {infra) the host, i.e. on his right, for the

310 JOHN XIII. 21-22

person reclining on the right of another was technically
" below " him, and " infra aliquem cuhare " was the same
as " in sinii alicujus cubare,'"' " to recline in the bosom of "
that person : Peter occupying the humblest couch of all.
To Peter as chief of the Twelve, our Lord not improbably
assigned on this occasion the lowest place, having in view
the lesson of humility that He meant to teach them on
this the last night.

These positions explain how it was that Jesus whispered
to John how to recognize the traitor, without the others
hearing Him: and how, when Judas asked, "Is it I ? "
he received his answer unheard by the others : and how
Jesus, in giving Judas the sop as to the one occupying the
place of honour, would excite no surprise in the others :
and how Peter was able to beckon across the table to John :
and how at the washing of the feet our Lord came naturally
first to Peter, who was reclining in the lowest place and
nearest the door.

These four couches being thus accurately assigned, it
is easy to assign the remainder with approximate security,
bearing in mind the order and coupling observed in the
lists of the Twelve in Matt. x. 2-4 and Luke vi. 14-16,
checked with Mark iii. 16-19 : Simon Peter and Andrew,
James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and
Thomas, James of Alphaeus and Judas Thaddseus, Simon
the Zealot and Judas Iscariot,

(21) He tells them that one of them should betray Him.*
The warning was perhaps meant specially for Judas, to
make him think again befoi-e he joins in the approaching
Sacrament of Unity. The disciples began to look one at
another, at a (22) loss as to whom He could mean : each
one asking (so say Matthew and Mark), " It is, surely, not
I, Lord?" {^ajTi tyu) zijjLL, Kvpie;). He replies, "It is one
of the Twelve, that dippeth his hand with Me in the
dish." He specifies none as yet, beyond that the treachery

* Matthew's notice xxvi. 21, " whilst they were eating " [f(rdi6vTwv avTuv),
and Mark's xiv. 18, " whilst they were reclining and eating " {avaKnixivasv
avTuiv Kal iffdiuvToov) merely mean that the ritual of the Paschal supper was as
yet unfinished.

JOHN XIII. 22-2G 311

is from one of them, one of His intimate associates, alludinsf
to Psalm xli. 9 (xi. ]0), to which John had already referred
in verse 18. But to Judas who put the similar question,
" It is surely not I, Rabbi ? " the answer is given, " Thou
hast said," a Hebrew idiom for " It is thou " : an answer
meant for him alone and heard by him alone.

(23) The disciple is, of course, John himself.

(24) Peter beckons across to John (because John was
next to Jesus and " reclining in His bosom " — a technical
phrase), to the effect that John should find out who it
was. " Say {i.e. to Him), ' Who is it ? ' of whom He
speaks " {hits rig sgtiv Tnpi ov Xiysi).

(25) John " leant back with-this-purpose (ourwc) upon
the breast of Jesus " (in order to ask Him privately, and
privately to get the answer), " and says to Him, ' Lord,
who is it ? '"

{26a) And the answer is given him privately, in a low
voice : " It is he for whom I shall dip the sop (to xP(,>f.it<»')
and give it to him."

The sop wall, of course, not be dipped and given yet —
not till the end of the ritual.

Here,* at 26a, followed the institution of the Eucharist,
w^hich John does not relate, as being already familiar to
Christendom.

Matthew (xxvi. 26) and Mark (xiv. 22) record the institution of the
Eucharist as being " whilst they were eating " (ecrOLovTwv auToJv), i.e.
because the Paschal ritual was not finished till after the fourth cup, to which
we have not yet come. Luke (xxii. 20) and Paul (1 Cor. xi. 25) say " after
supper " (fxcTo. to SctTrvrjcrat), i.e. after the lamb and the bread and bitter
herbs had been eaten.

Matthew xxvi. 26-28 : Mark xiv. 22-24 : Luke xxii. 19, 20 : 1 Cor.
xi. 23. For the Eucharistic bread our Lord seems to have taken the
hah-loaf or Aphigomon which had been put aside (see p. 304) : He " blessed "
(Matthew, Mark), and " gave thanks " (Luke), and broke it into as many
parts as there were people to receive it, and handed one to each.

He then took the cup, i.e. the thkd cup of the ritual (see p. 305), which
had been filled before the washing of the feet. This is " the cup " of

* In the ancient MSS. there are no divisions into chapters or verses or
sentences or even words : and the divisions when made, some centuries after
our era, were often unfortunate and misleading.

312 JOHN XIII. 26-27

Matthew xxvi. 27, Mark xiv. 23 : it is " the cup " " after supper " of Luke
xxii. 20 and of 1 Cor. xi. 25 : it is " the cup of the blessing " (to Trorypiov
Trj's cuXoyias) of 1 Cor. x. 16: "and when He had given thanks He gave
it to them " (Luke).

Mark (xiv. 23) says " they all drank of it," which seems to include
Judas, for he has given no hint of Judas's departure : nor does any of
the four gospels make it clear as to when (with reference to the Eucharist)
he went out. It is the general opinion of the Fathers {e.g. Augustine,
Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem) that Judas received the Holy Communion.

The third cup (" the cup of the blessing ") being finished, the Paschal
ritual requires the rest of the Hallel to be sung, viz. Psalm cxv.-cxviii.
(cxiii.i-cxvii.) : this is the " hymn" of Matt. xxvi. 30 and Mark xiv. 26.
The two first Psalms of the Hallel, viz. cxiii., cxiv. (cxii.-cxiii.a), had been
sung before the second cup (p. 304).

Lastly the ritual requues the fourth cup to be drunk : this cup is
probably the wine He speaks of in Matthew's (xxvi. 29) and Mark's (xiv. 25)
accounts, using virtually the same words as He had used at the first cup
(Luke xxii. 18) : after so long and momentous an interval He perhaps
repeated the words He had used of the ordinary wine on the table to draw
attention to the promise they conveyed for a yet future Age.

The ritual of the Paschal supper is now completed. Into it, at the
third cup, has been inserted the ceremony of the Eucharist.

(26&) As a sign that all is over, Jesus " dipped the sop
and taketh and giveth it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot."
By this act John (but no one el.se) knew at last for certain
who was to be the traitor. The giving of the sop was a
mark of honour shown by the host to the chief guest of
the evening. And Judas consented to receive this last
mark of favour though meditating his treachery. It is the
climax. Hitherto his fate had hung, as it Avere, in the
balance. The special favours shown him by our Lord
to-night have served not to mollify but to intensify his
self-esteem. Henceforth he is given over. " After the
sop, then Satan entered into him."

(27) " Entered into him." How did John know ?
unless from our Lord Himself after His resurrection. The
Eleven must in those forty days have discussed that act
of Judas, and learnt then how Satan had really been the
moving spirit in it. After this entering in of Satan, who
shall say how far Judas was thenceforth responsible ?

" Jesus therefore saith to him, ' What thou doest, do
quickly ' " : as though signifying to Judas that He knew

JOHN XIII. 28-no 313

his purpose : also as bidding him leave thciii. These words
were spoken aloud to Judas and heard by all.

(28) " But no one at the table knew with wliat purpose
He said this to him " : no one, not even John ; for John
would not conneet this public exit with the treachery.

(29) Some at the table thought that as Judas was the
treasurer Jesus was bidding him either " Buy what we have
need of for the festival-day" (ei? rrfv topn'iv), viz. to-morrow,
Nisan 15,* which for the Twelve (so they thought)
would be the festival -day, but not for the nation, seeing
that the nation would not eat the Paschal supper until
to-morrow (Friday) evening, and so would have their
festival-day on Saturday : or, " that " on behalf of them
all " he (Judas) should give something to the poor," i.e. to
enable the very poor to buy Passover lambs for to-morrow,
when the nation would eat the Passover. This helping
of the poor to rejoice in the Law was a well-recognized and
common act of charity.

(30) " Having therefore taken the sop, he straightway
went out. And it was night." The moon was nearing
her last quarter, and would not be rising till after mid-
night : for the evening is Thursday, March 24, a.d. 29.
Judas probably went straight to Annas or Caiaphas.

* Whether we reckon by the civil day of twenty-four hours beginning at
midnight, or by the natural day of twelve hours beginning at sunrise six hours
later. In the former case there were but a few hours before Nisan 15 would
begin ; and, as it would be for the Twelve a day of solemn-rest, all buying and
selling would be prohibited for them once it began.

§ XXI

JOHN XIII. 31-XIV. 31

The traitor being gone, our Lord continues His last talk with

the Eleven.

(31) " Now was The Son of Man glorified." The now is

emphatic in the Greek. Now, i.e. an instant ago, at the

moment He had told Judas to do his work

u \ o'oft *' quickly : for by that self -surrender to Judas's
about 8.30 p.m. , ^-t i i

treacherj^ He had, so to say, put the seal to

His acceptance of the final act of Redemption : and in

that glad acceptance which carried with it the world's

expiation, The Son of Man, the Messiah, He that was to

come as the world's hope, the one true Representative of

humanity, received glor}^ and approbation from God ; and

God received glory and adoration from Him, the second

Adam, the Father of the new race.

And we must not forget that this Man is Himself eternal

God and all the while fully conscious that He is so.

(32) Seeing that God was glorified in The Son of IMan
by the action of the latter. The Son of Man shall also be
glorified in God by God's action, viz. by the Resurrection
and Ascension. And the manifestation of that glory is
close at hand. They should see it begun on Sunday next.

(33) " But a little while yet am I with you " : for this
was His last evening with them. " And whither I with-
draw {inrayio) you cannot come." They should search
for Him : but just as He had told " the Jews " repeatedly,
e.g. six months ago (vii. 34 : xiii. 21), that they were
not able to reach His plane of being, so He says to His
Apostles that they also are not able at present {apri) : for
they are but " little children."

314

JOHN XIII. 34-38 315

(34) And how should they fit themselves to follow
where He goes ? By adherence to this new commandment
•' to love one another even as He loved them." Wherein,
it may be asked, was this commandment new ? is it not
already recognized in the Law, '" Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all they heart, etc., and thy neighbour as
thyself"?

But the pith of the new commandment lies in the " even
as I loved you," which is added as the definition of the new
sort of love (oyaTr?'/). Henceforth they should love each
other with the same love that He had for them, viz. as
being brethren of the eternal Son of God and co-members
of His Body : and no longer as being merely brethren of
each other because sons of Adam, or even because the
chosen people, adopted sons of the Covenant of Sinai.
So, virtually, says Augustine.

But His hearers do not, of course, as yet understand all
He means.

(36) Peter, struck by the announcement that He was
leaving them, and understanding He was to be crucified,
and none the less that somehow He was yet to end in
triumph, asks, ' Whither goest Thou ? to death, I presume :

but even so ? ' Jesus answers in effect : ' To the

Cross, yes, and beyond: and thou, Peter, are not yet
fitted to follow Me there : but later on thou shalt follow
Me ' — alluding to Peter's martyrdom by crucifixion on the
Janiculum of Rome.

(37) Peter asks : ' Later on ? but why not now, now ?
My very life I will lay down for Thee.'

(38) Jesus replies : " Thy very life thou wilt lay down
for Me ? " " Cock shall not crow till thou hast denied Me
thrice." Cock shall not crow is, of course, a reference to
the third watch of the night, that from midnight to about
3 a.m. : this watch was known as Cock-crow from the habit
ascribed to cocks of crowing during this part of the night
and more particularly at about three hours before sunrise.
See Mark xiii. 35, where the four night watches are
severally named, viz. 1. 6i//t (evening) = from sunset to
9 p.m. : 2. inaovvKTiov (midnight) — from 9 p.m to

816 JOHN XIV. 1-3

midnight : 3. (iXeKToporptovla (cock-crow) = from midnight
to 3 a.m. : 4. -npun (morning) = from 3 a.m. to sunrise.

Is this warning to Peter the same as that mentioned
in Luke xxii. 31-34 ? or is that of Luke's distinct from it
— making three warnings to Peter ? for certainly that given
by Matt. xxvi. 34 (and Mark xiv. 30) was given after
leaving the house ; see Matt., verse 30, and Mark, verse 26.
Many have thought that as Peter denied thrice, and was
thrice reinstated (John xxi.), so he had been warned thrice.

(XIV.) (1) Again recurs the note of His departure
from them. Let not their heart be troubled at it, nor
dismayed. They believe into God as ever present, let
them believe similarly into Him.

(2) " In My Father's house are many mansions (/movai),
and if there were not, I would have said to you that * I
go to make ready a place for you " : so dear were they to
Him and to The Father.

The word luovri (Lat. mansio) was the technical term
for the nights' halting-places, or stages, along the imperial
highways : and there may be here implied the idea of
gradual advance toward the ultimate goal.

(3) " Even if I did go and make ready (lav vopeiiOco koX
IroLiJLaaix}) a place for you, still I am coming again and I
will take you to Myself." We must not miss the hypo-
thetical aor. subj. lixv TroptvOuf Km iToipacTM, nor render as if
it were a iropevopai iroipuaai = if I go to make ready, as I
am about to do. His meaning rather is that He is not
going away to make ready a place for them, for there is
already large accommodation for them in His Father's
house. It is they who have to be made ready for mansions
in that house : and that is why He is going, (to send the
Holy Spirit). And even if He were going away to make
ready a place, in any case " I am coming again and will
take you to Myself, that where I am you also may be " —

* (Irrov h.v T)ijuii on ... It is strange that the A.V. and the R.V. render
" I would have told you : for," etc., instead of the obvious " I would have told
you that," etc. There is not a single instance in the N.T. where, after the
verbs of speaking, the word on means anything else than "that": nor are
Mark i. 34, Luke iv. 41, exceptions, although there again both A.V. and R.V.
oddly render "because" or "for."

JOHN XIV. 3-7 317

alluding to the Coming which ushers in the millennial
age, when the dead in Christ shall rise, and the living
" saints " are caught up to Him (1 Thess. iv. 14-17).

(4) "And where I am gomg, you know the Way."
The words are difficult for them to understand, and arc
purposely such, in order to make them ask for further
explanation : which Thomas does.

(5) ' Lord, as we know not where Thou goest, how do
we know the way ? '

(6) " I (fyw) am the Way and the Truth and the Life."
The Wa}- He spoke of (in verse 4) is no other than He
Himself. It is the Person of our Lord that is the Way,
the Truth, the Life. By union with Him, Christians
advance to the goal which is God : and the normal mode
of union with Him is a Sacramental one, such as the
Sacrament just instituted : but no one will say He has
bound Himself to win no souls except by the Sacramental
system.

In union with Him lies union with Truth, and with
Life, in every aspect : for He is the Microcosm of evolution,
or of creation-with-a-purpose, whether on the physical,
psychical, or intellectual planes.

" Except by means of Me no one comes to the Father,"
i.e. (A) except through His humanity no one has access to
the Godhead : and (B) except through His divinity— Him
qua Second Person of the Trinity — there is no access to
the First Person of the Trinity. It is the Second Person of
the Trinity, The Son, who has relinked the human race
to the First, The Father, by the link of the human nature
which He assumed. He is the supreme Pontifex or bridge-
maker between the Creator and the created. Thus
Christendom rejects " theosophy," "Christian science,"
and all other forms assumed by that old deception
" pantheism."

(7) " If you knew {h/moKHn, had learnt) Me," the Man-
God, under His two natures, " you would have known My
Father also. Henceforth you recognize Him and you have
seen Him." Again, as in verse 4, these last words are
difficult for them to understand, and are purposely such ;

318 JOHN XIV. 7-12

in order to make them ask for further explanation : which
Phihp does.

(8) ' Seen the Father ? When ? Lord show us The
Father and we ask no more, for then our faith were un-
shakable.' Perhaps Philip has in mind a theophany such
as the elders of Israel experienced on Sinai (Exod. xxiv. 10,
11) : or again as Moses (Exod. xxxiv. 5-8).

(9) " So long a time have I been with you, and thou
hast not learnt Me, Philip ? He that hath seen Me hath
seen The Father : how is it thou sayest, ' Shew us The
Father ' ? " The true Theophany is our Lord Himself,
for He is the Godhead manifested in the flesh : a manifesta-
tion, not indeed of the splendour or power of God, but of
His holiness and love, under the only form in which man
could adequately apprehend. Our Lord's words here
imply that He had often taught the Twelve the truths
of His own Personality and of the Trinity, just as
we have often seen Him teaching them to the Jewish
doctors.

(10) " Dost thou not believe that I am in The Father,
and The Father is in Me ? " Philip was forgetting that
in all the words and actions of Jesus, in everything whereby
Philip was learning to know Him, he Avas learning to know
The Father also : for The Father and He are one and the
same Godhead. When the Man-God speaks or acts, The
Father also speaks and acts.

(11) Then turning from Philip to all of them, for all
were in like case : ' Believe Me (Trto-rtiitTt ^oj, plur.) when
I say that I am in The Father and that The Father is in Me :
or at least let My life and my works make you believe the
Godhead to be inherent in Me.' The signs or miracles of
our Lord have their evidential value (see under x. 25), for
they are true to type.

(12) " He that believeth into Me the works that 1
do he too shall do, and greater ones than these shall he do,
because I go to the Father." How far is this promise
general ? In other words, how far does it depend on the
quality of faith ? how far on times and seasons ? how
far on the general health of the Christian community ?

JOHN XIV. 12-16 319

can it be expected to be fulfilled whilst Christendom is
torn by schisms, and ugly for want of mutual charity ?

That the Church did even " greater works," in a way,
than our Lord did when present in this w^orld of sense, seems
sure : for whereas He, when on earth, did not feel Himself
at liberty to make the Faith widely spread, directly the
Spirit was poured out at Pentecost " men of Israel " flocked
into the Church b}^ thousands : and a few years later w^ere
followed by a host of Gentiles : and this was only possible
because He had " gone to the Father " and sent the Holy
Spirit to witness in men's spirits to Him.

Yet, for all that, the w^ords, " greater than these shall
he do," seem to point to a time yet future, when Christen-
dom shall more nearly resemble that ideal He has in
view.

(13, 14) " And whatever you ask in My name I will
do it, so that The Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask a thing in My name, I will do it." The
asking " in His name " seems to be the one necessary
condition : but to ask " in His name " or do anything
" in His name " argues a unity of mind with His, a unity
of aim and of motive, that can hardly be reached as yet.
To ask or act " in His name " must be done objectively
so : no merely subjective intention can be sufficient.
Prayer is not the persuading of God to adopt our views.
Meanwhile the Church's prayer works at low pressure.

(15) Love (o707r()) is the great requisite : love to Him
which should involve love to each other. " If you have
love for Me you will keep My commandments," of which
the most recent was to " love each other even as I love
you." (16) And He, on His part, will see that the Holy
Spirit is sent to them to enable them to attain. We
hardly realize that we of this Age are but the infancy of
Christendom compared to the maturer Christendom of the
millennial and post-millennial Ages of mankind on earth.

(16) " And I (lyo)) will request The Father, and another
Comforter will He give you, to be with you for ever."
That our Lord here calls the Holy Spirit " another Com-
forter {aWov 7ra/3aKX))TO!')" impHes that He Himself claimed

320 JOHN XIV. IG

to be also a irapuKX^To^, as John in his first epistle (ii. 1)
calls Him .

This word TrapdKXijTog occurs in the N.T. in the writings
of John alone. In his gospel he has it lour times (xiv. 16,
26 : XV. 26 : xvi. 7), always as spoken by our Lord and
always as signifying the Holy Spirit. In his epistles he
has it once (1, ii. 1), and uses it not of the Holy Spirit, but
of Jesus Christ.

As to the actual word used by our Lord (speaking, of
course, in Aramaic) in the gospel where John's Greek word
is TrapaKXnTocj, the probability is that He used this Greek
word, for in all the versions, even in the Syriac (itself an
Aramaic dialect), Old Latin, Vulgate, Arabic, Memphitic,
Thebaic, Ethiopic, the Greek word Paraclitus has been
retained. Also in the Targums and the Talmud the word
appears in the form, Nc'ppiSj as though the Greek word
was well recognized in the Aramaic dialects, where it is
used in two senses, viz. sometimes in that of a helper
(generally), and sometimes in that of an advocate (speci-
fically). Philo also, contemporary with our Lord, uses
the word TTapa.KXr]Toc in the sense sometimes of a helper
(general) and sometimes of an advocate (specific).

The meaning of Tra/jaV-Xj/roc- is quite simple, it is one
who is called up to one's side to help : hence a helper, a
strengthener or comforter, using " comforter " in its proper
sense of strengthener {con, intensive, and fortis, strong) :
the legal meaning of an advocate (one called in to aid in a
court of law) is but one form of helping or strengthen-
ing, and is too specialized to serve as a universal
rendering.

The least unsatisfactory rendering of irapaKX^i-oc, if we
must translate it, is Helper, or Comforter in its proper sense
of Strengthener : the mode in which the help or strength is
given being determined according to the circumstances ;
e.g. as an advocate or as a champion, or as infusing strength.
As applied to The Spirit (as our Lord applied it) the idea
is naturally of a Comforter, i.e. Strengthener, as infusing
strength and counsel — being summoned to our aid not
so much by us as by The Father. As applied to Christ

JOHN XIV. 17-21 321

(as John in his first epistle uses it) the idea is ntiturally
of a Champion or Advocate.

(17) " The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot
receive."

The Holy Spirit was not " sent " into the world, but
to the Church.

The Son was " sent " into the world.

The Holy Spirit ^vorks powerfully in those only who
are members of Christ, and but weakly in those who are
not members of Christ. If the world cannot receive the
Holy Spirit, shall Ave wonder that we in our collective
worldliness see and show collectively so little of His power ?

The Holy Spirit was to be given to them, His Church,
at Pentecost, and would always be witnessing to the
presence of Christ. And thus —

(18) " I will not leave you reft of My presence
(opcpnvovg) : I come to you," i.e. ever present to their
spirits, by virtue of the Holy Spirit.

(19) " Yet a little while, and the world beholds Me no
longer, but ye behold Me." After His death, now close
at hand, He passes out of the mind of the world : it will
give no further heed to Him : it will think He is dead and
done with. Not so with them, for after His resurrection
they shall behold Him : and yet again after Pentecost,
after that effusion of The Spirit just promised, shall they
behold Him with the eyes of faith.

(196) " Because I Live, you too shall Live " : viz. at
the resurrection.

(20) " In that day." It is the regular formula of
prophecy to denote a later and better Age. Here the Day
or x4ge meant seems to be that of the milleimium, which
will be preceded by "the first resurrection" (Rev. xx. 5).
" In that Day you shall know {yvcoatcrde as against the
present stage of faith) that I am in the Father, and you
in Me, and I in vou " : shall know, that is, that I am the
link between The Father and you.

(21) And this promise of knowledge is made not only
to His Church collectively, but to the individual also,
for " he Avho has and observes My commandments," which

322 JOHN XIV. 21-26

are summed in that new commandment to love one another
in the same way as I loVe you, " he is the man Avho loves
Me " (o ayaTT&v, the spiritual love, not o (piX&v, the
psychic love) : he has already the Holy Spirit in him, his
obedience is the proof of it. " And he who loves Me shall
be loved by My Father : I too will love him and will
manifest Myself to him " : not merely as loving him, but
will make clear to him My personality, making gradually
explicit what before was implicit in his faith in Me.

(22) Judas (Lebbaius, also called Thaddaeus) asked,
" Lord, what is come to pass that to lis Thou wilt mani-
fest Thyself and not to the world ? " Hoav to us only ?
, (23) The answer to Judas's question is, in effect, ' You
eleven, and those in the Church who resemble you, love
Me and observe obedience to Me : therefore My Father and
I will come to you and such as you, and will make our
abode with vou— thus manifesting to you the Godhead.'

(24) ' But the world, and those in the Church who
resemble it, do not love Me nor observe obedience to
Me : and thereby they shut themselves against The Father
and Me ; for in neglecting My words, they neglect The
Father's.'

(25) " These things I have talked to you whilst (yet)
abiding with you " here on earth : and you understand
but little of what they mean.

(26) " But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom The
Father shall send in My name" : Just as (v. 43) our Lord
said, " I am come in My Father's name," i.e. as the repre-
sentation and the revelation of My Father to make Him
known to men, so will the Hol\' Spirit come as the
representation and the revelation of Christ, to make Him
known to men's spirits.

"He shall teach you all things," etc. The revelation
made by Christ was absolute and complete. Thence-
forth, all dogmatic development is the making explicit
what at the first lay implicit. The Holy Spirit brings
to the full light what before lay latent : brings to the
general consciousness out of subconsciousness : brings
into focus what was seen hazily : puts in clear formula

JOHN XIV. 26-27 323

what was indelinite. No dogma can contradict another :
but a later dogma will sharply define what an earlier one
left vague, and will thus show an opinion to be erroneous
which formerly was held by many as true — and held
blamelessly so, because the teaching had on that point lain
indeterminate. As a good instance, Catholics are still
waiting for a dogmatic definition of the exact meaning
of the " Inspiration of the Bible " : we all hold the belief,
but there are various theories at present current about
it among us.

(27) " Peace I leave to you : My peace I give to you."
This is His solemn farewell to them. Peace : that inward
tranquillity, peace with neighbour, peace with self, peace
with God, which has ever been held by philosophers to
be the highest good. My peace, that tranquillity which
I the Man-God enjoy and which nothing can disturb.

When He talks of His soul being "troubled " (xii. 27 ;
cf. xi. 33, etc.) He never means His soul qua Jesus Christ
the perfect Man, but His soul qua the expiatory Scape-
goat of the race. The soul of Jesus Christ the perfect
Man is not subject to perturbation or temptation : but
only in so far as He was the sum of the fallen race of man
that is grafted into Him. See note on The Agony of our
Lord at end of book, p. 446.

(27) " Not as the world gives." The world would
give " peace " and wish " peace " when there is no peace
possible : for the only true peace is the consciousness of
union with God which became possible by the Incarna-
tion. Therefore it was at His birth that the Heavenly
Host shouted, " Peace on earth to the race which is hence-
forth reconciled to God " (Luke ii. 13, 14).

" Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be
afraid (oftXtaVw) " ; i.e. at His going away. The fear here
named is the craven, abject fear that paralyzes or makes
servile : it has nothing in common with the " fear "
{<t>6^oc) of God.

(28) " If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced at
My going to The Father " ; for in proportion as thc}^
loved Him they would have understood what that going

324 JOHN XIV. 28

to The Father meant. " For The Father is greater than
I," i.e. in so far as He the eternal Son became Incarnate,
Hnked to Himself a created though perfect human nature,
in that far He made Himself lower than The Father. But
He stooped far lower than that : for He gave that immacu-
late human nature of His (spirit, soul, body) to have grafted
into it, by faith and by the sacraments which He instituted,
the whole of sinful humanity. In His holy organism as in
an alembic all the sinful race is gradually sublimated and
glorified into His own perfection. By His Passion, Resur-
rection, and Ascension the purgation and re-formation
of the human race was consummated, done with and
" finished " on the timeless plane. It is still in process of
elaboration on the time plane, according as each individual
becomes taken in hand. The Sacraments are not empty
symbols : they are mighty forces operating on the spiritual
plane. He returned to The Father, His work done, bearing
the human race living and dead one with Himself, a holy
offering to The Father.

(28) For this reason His " going to The Father " should
be to them a subject of joy : for in that, His Ascension,
they all were sharers — sacramentally and substantially
now, though the physical limitations of to-day obscured
the truth. The " going to " The Father, or again the
'' Ascension," are but metaphors of language. Place cannot
be predicated of the spiritual body until it materialises
itself to our senses. Our Lord's risen human body is
" everywhere," but becomes manifested to us necessarily
in place. Heaven is not a place, but a mode of being.
The farthest star of the zenith and the farthest star of the
nadir are no nearer, in place, to the "Throne" of God
than is the room where we sit. Bi^t some day that
"throne "and "the New Jerusalem" will materialise on
earth.

(28) In the " For The Father is greater than I," He
is, of course, speaking of Himself qua Incarnate, qua
linked to the creature. Only qua Incarnate does He
" come from " and "go to " The Father : for qua eternal
Son He never left The Father : to conceive of such a

JOHN XIV. 30-31 325

thing would be to conceive of the Trinity as dead. The
Son quel eternal Son is es'eryway equal to The Father :
for if it be said that without The Father no Son were
possible, it must also be said that without The Son no
Father were possible : time is, of course, eliminated :
neither mode of the Godhead is conceivable without the
other. Our difficulties lie in that we being finite can form
no conception of That-which-has-no-beginning. The Son
has not a beginning any more than has The Father : neither
language nor thought rises to it : we have to use sign-
posts on either hand with warnings of trespass.

The Ascension of our Lord, the " going to The Father,"
is the first step in the eventual " handing over of the King-
dom to God The Father " (1 Cor. xv. 24)— the deliver}-
of all creation over unto God The Father in its redeemed
or glorified state : and who shall say w'hat Age upon Age
shall be requisite for that to come about ? The Apocalypse
of John brings us into the post-millennial Age, and still
the Race is left in process of being " healed " (Rev.
xxii. 2).

(30) " No longer will I talk much with you " : for the
end is near : " for the prince of the world is coming " :
i.e. the hour of Satan's seeming triumph but real defeat
is near.

" And in Me he has nothing." Satan has no power
over Him, there is nothing in Him on which Satan can lay
a hold, or by which he can come in contact with our Lord.
But, voluntarily, (31a) will Jesus yield Himself to his
mahce, in order that the very world of which Satan is
now the prince may hereafter come to recognize that He,
Jesus Christ, loves The Father even unto death, and that
He submitted Himself to death because and only because
it was The Father's command that He should so submit.
Always The Son's action manifests on the time-plane The
Father's thought. Without His death— and in Him die
all those who thereafter will be united to Him— how shall
the old Adam be transformed and glorified ? for in His
glory (Resurrection and Ascension) are glorified all who
shall thereafter be united to Him. He is the germ of the

326 JOHN XIV. 31

new creation : He is the new Man, the second Adam,
the Father of the Age to come.

(Sib) " Rise, let us go hence." At this point He and
the Eleven rise from the table to leave the room and house.
He did not wish His capture to be effected here. He
knew exactly how the enemy's plot was meanwhile
advancing : also He had determined the exact place and
hour of His arrest.

Perhaps it was as they rose that He foretold the danger
threatening, in the words Luke (xxii. 35-38) has preserved.

It must occur to all who read these discourses preserved
by John how simple the text looks, and yet how trans-
cendant is the thought when it is even dimly understood.
John is sailing sky-high : are we ? It is the strongest
food in the Bible.

The key to all these discourses preserved by John is
the prologue of his gospel. In so far as those opening four-
teen verses are understood and assimilated, John's gospel
becomes intelligible. His object is to explain the Person
of our Lord : that He is very God of very God, the eternal
Son of the eternal Father, the eternal Word of the eternal
Mind : and that He became Flesh — took to Himself in
time what before He had not, viz. human nature, but a
human nature perfect as was Adam's before the Fall.
Never for an instant did He cease to be conscious that
He is also God : for He has but one Person.

And only through John's gospel does the story of His
infancy as given by Matthew and Luke become recon-
cilable with His public ministry as given by the Synoptists.

(316) On leaving the house it is probable He led the
way to the nearest eastern gate, which would have been
the Fountain Gate near to the Pool of the Siloam at the
south-east corner of the city. The distance from the
Cenacolo (Supper-room) to the Pool is six hundred yards,
and it would be another hundred to the gate.

JOHN XIII. 1— XIV. 31

327

A Synoptical Table of the Events in the "Upper-room," i.e. the

SUPPEB-ROOM or CeNACOLO.

Matt. xxvi. Mark xiv. i Luke xxii. John xiii.

Passover Supper

Dispute " who is greater "...
Washing of feet

Explanation of the act ....

They are His and God's repre-
sentatives

" As they did eat," i.e. tlie Pass-
over ritual being still unfinished
He foretells His betrayal. Their
dismay

The answer given secretlj' to Judas^
Iscariot j

Peter beckons to John to ask .

'■ It is he for whom I shall dip the]
sop" f

'' As they did eat," i.e. the Pass-
over ritual being still unfinished,
the Eucharist instituted .

" I will not drink," etc. . . .

The " hymn " is simg. It is thel
end of the ritual j

He dips the sop : gives it to Judas"!
Iscariot, who at once goes out . /

Discourse to the Eleven

Warning to Peter

Further discourse

" When I sent you," etc. (spokenl
perhaps as they leave the room) /

Thev leave the room and house

21-24

26-28

29
30«

306

18-21

266

, 14-18

—

_ I

1-1 1

25-27 ;

12-17

28-30

_ I

21-23

31-34

35-38
39a

21-22

—

23-25

—

2Ga

22-24

19-20

—

26a

—

266-30

31-35
i 36-38
xiv. 1-3 1 a

316

In the above table, the time-sequence seems to be not observed by
Luke : that is only because in the matter of sayings related by him (verses
21-38) Luke has lumped them together at the end. They represent certain
salient points of the discourse that took place this evening in the " Upper-
room."

Of the sayings thus lumped together by Luke —

Verses 21-23 (corresponding with Matt. 21-24 and Mark 18-21) were
spoken during the Paschal Supper and before the Eucharist.

25-27 (corresponding with John xiii. 12-17) were also spoken before
the Eucharist.

28-30 (corresponding with John xiii. 20) were also spoken before the
Eucharist.

31-34 (corresponding with John xiii. 36-38) were spoken after the
Eucharist.

35-38 spoken as they leave the room at John xiv. 316.

328 JOHN XIII. 1— XIV. 31

In harmonizing the four gospels, it will be found that without ex-
ception John throughout oUserves accurately the chronological sequence.
The same cannot be said of any of the ISynoptists : for they, while keepuig
the main stream of time-sequence, constantly turn aside into lateral
channels in order to follow out and finish with subordinate currents of
thought.

§ XXII

JOHN XV. 1-XVI. 33

His last talk with the eleven before leaving the city.

Some have supposed the following discourse (xv. 1-
xvi. 33) and the prayer (xvii. 1-26) to have been spoken
in the Temple area. This, however, is hardly possible,
for the gates of the Temple area were not open to the
public at night. It would, therefore, seem that the figure
of the vine with which the discourse opens (xv. 1) was
suggested, not by the great gold vine sculptured over the
entrance to the vaog, but by the vines growing in the
neighbourhood of the Pool of the Siloam. March is
the month for the spring pruning of vines throughout
the countries of the Mediterranean : and at this corner
of the city near the " king's Garden " (Jer. lii. 7 : " the
king's wine-vats," Zeeh. xiv. 10) the newly lopped vine
branches were perhaps lying gathered into heaps for biuning
(XV. 6).

The long discourse and the prayer can hardly have
been spoken whilst our Lord and the Eleven were actually
walking : hence it seems probable that they paused
somewhere in this neighbourhood within the city walls.
It was not till the end of the prayer that He " went forth "
(xviii. 1), i.e. from the city — as we suppose by the Fountain
Gate, at the south-east corner close to the Pool of the
Siloam.

Verses 1-11

(XV. 1) Under the ancient Covenant (O.T.) God had
planted Israel to be His vine (Isa. v. 1-6) Mch. 24, Thurs.
whose husbandmen had been the Levitical evening, about
hierarchy and the national kings. The failure 9-^5 p.m.
of these husbandmen to give Him returns from this vine

329

330 JOHN XV. 1-3

had been on Tuesday last (Matt. xxi. 33-44) denounced
in the parable of the Vineyard.

Now our Lord announces that He Himself is the ideal
Vine : and that the Husbandman of tliis Vine is no other
than God. True, that ancient vine (Israel) had been
united to Him as type to antitype, for by faith in Him the
saints of the old Covenant had lived (Heb. xi. 8-40) :
but henceforth the Antitype was here, and they, the
eleven Christian Israelites, to whom He is speaking, are
the branches of that Vine which is Himself : from them,
as the main branches, shall ramify the vast growth which
shall spread over the earth : but the principle of Life lies
in the Vine Stock whence the sap flows to the furthest
grape.

(2) " Every branch in Me not bearing fruit " the
Husbandman takes away ; as He recently cut away
Judas Iscariot from among them (xiii. 27-30).

(2) " And every branch that bears fruit He cleanses it
{Kaddipu) that it may," etc. Instead of " cleanses " we
perhaps should have expected " prunes," having in mind
the very heavy pruning to which all vines are subjected :
but a vine is pnmed for fear of the stock being exhausted
by the great growth, and so the notion of pruning is alien
to the inexhaustible vitality of the Vine in question. But
it is of great moment to cleanse the branches, to keep them
clean of outside pests which harbour in the bark and eat
into the wood so that the branch decays : hence the
whitewash with which vines (trunk and branches) are
covered in spring.

(3) ' Already you (emphatic, vf-idq), you eleven, are
clean {KuQupoX) for the reason {^lu t6v \6yov) I have
given you ' — referring to the cleansing He had spoken
of when talking of the symbolism of the washing of their
feet — that removal of the outside dirt which alone was
necessary (but was necessary) for those who had been
once baptized (see on xiii. 86-10). And in speaking to
the Eleven He speaks to all who through them and their
successors should ever believe.

" Abide in Me " : continue in union with Him by such

JOHN XV. 4-9 331

from-timc-to-time washings : for, as He said, " if I wash
thee not thou hast no part in Me." ' Abide in Me, and so
I abide in you and the sap flows freely in you.'

(4) " Unless the branch abides in the Vine " stock,
etc. It is only by union with Him that any branch can
bear fruit : once that union is broken, the sap no longer
flows ; and fruit in that branch is no longer possible,
though the remains of the sap that lay in it may be
enough to bear leaves and so for a time give semblance
of life.

(5) " It is he who abides in Me " (and it needs will
and effort on his part) " and I in him, that bears fruit
in plenty : for severed from Me you are not able to do
anything," i.e. to bear any fruit.

(6) The simile of the severed branch ready for burning
is taken from the newly lopped prunings of the vines which
grew in the gardens here at the Fountain Gate of the city.

(7) " If you abide in Me and My sayings abide in you,
ask whatso you will and it shall come to pass to you."
Asking in this condition of constant union with Him, what
is it but the asking " in My name " of xiv. 13, 14, to which
a similar promise was attached ? And again, if they abide
in Him and He in them, what are the things that they will
wish to ask for ?

(8) He seems to answer : " That you may bring forth
much fruit and become My disciples." Why ? Because
" in that lies The Father's glory," as at xiv. 13. Branches
and clusters have no self-seeking, no aim outside the Vine
and the Husbandman's glory : all other aims are cast out
as unworthy.

(9) " Even as the Father loved Me, so I loved you : abide
in My love." The love [ayaTrri) which binds Him the God-
Man to The Father is the same as that with which the
God-Man binds them to Himself. He is always the link.
By His humanity He lays hold of man to lift him into His
own Divinity and on into The Father.

"Abide in My love." This is the one condition in
which He is able to pour His life-giving blood (like vine-
sap) through them. Sanctification is not done sudden

332 JOHN XV. 10-15

in a minute ; it is a long process : only begvin here, has
it ever an end ?

(10) And how shall they abide in His love, so that His
union with them may do its perfect work ? By keeping
His commandments. " Even as I," etc. — not that they
can ever keep them as He the perfect Man has kept The
Father's : but in so far as they do keep them, in that far
they abide in Him. And they know what He said about
the washing, how that the travel-stains must be con-
stantly removed.

(11) And the result will be that the joy that is His,
and which springs from a perfect conformity to The
Father's will, will be in them and will grow on to perfect
fulness. Down the long vista of the Ages that end is
seen.

This verse, and its ravTu \i\dXiiKa, belongs to the
section preceding, beginning at verse 1, and closes it.

Verses 12-17

(12) And what again is the supreme commandment
that they are to keep, in order to abide in His love ? It
is, as He said before at the table (xiii. 34), that " you love
{ay (tTT&Tt) one another even as I loved you " : and to this
love there is no limit.

(13) " Greater love (aymn)}') has no one than this love,
that he lay down his life for his friends " ; sc. for those
whom he loves (verse 12), for none ever loved Him but
had been first loved and drawn by Him. The 'iva . . . Ofj
means a love making for (whether subjective aim or objec-
tive result) his laying down, etc.

(14) " You are My friends " (sc. those whom I love),
" if you do what I command you " : viz. (above all)
love each other even as He loved them (verse 12) — with
a divine love that has no limit and no self-seeking, and
has its source in God.

(15) " No longer I call you servants, for a servant
knows not what his master is doing," i.e. has not his
intimate confidence, is not informed of his intentions
immediate or remote. " But you I have called friends,

JOHN XV. 15-17 S'3'S

because all things that I heard from My Father, I made
known to you." The deposit of Faith left by our Lord
with His Apostles was a complete whole, as is a seed. But
the early Church was not conscious explicitly of all that
that deposit implicitly contained : nor, we may assert,
is the Church of to-day conscious explicitly of all its im-
plications : for we need time and circumstance to unfold
to us all that that deposit means. A seeing eye might,
and the Apostles might (we do not know that they did),
from the beginning have seen the whole as not even yet
does the Church see it, for Truth is not in itself dependent
upon time for an unfolding : it is our vision that is so dim
and slow that we need time to purge it before we can see
Truth. There is obviously a plane, could we but reach it,
where there is no past, no future, no There, but all is
Now and Here.

(16) With regard to this term, " My friends " (14) :
He calls them so, " not because you chose Me " to love,
" but because I chose out you " : the initiative was on
His side, therefore they shall fear no fickleness : it was
He who sought them out and chose them out and appointed
them to the Apostolate ' to go and bring forth fruit and
a fruit that should endure.' The sap is His, and from
Him flows into them : the only love that is worthy and
lasting starts from Him and circulates back to Him, doing
its work on the way : it is the Holy Spirit, which circulates
throughout His mystical Body, the Vine. In so far as
this circulates in them and " informs " their requests,
their requests shall be granted.

(17) Again He insists, " This is My commandment to
you, to love one another {hm ayaTr&re aXXiiXovtj) " (reiterat-
ing xiii. 34 : xv. 12). Jerome tells how John in his old age
used to be carried into church and, being too old to speak
to the people at any length, used to repeat to them, " Little
children, love one another. . . . For that," he said, " is
the Lord's commandment : and if that be done, it is of
itself enough (et, si solum fiat, sufficit)."

This verse, and its Tuvra kvrtXXofmi, belongs to the
section preceding, beginning at verse 12, and closes it.

334 JOHN X\. 18-22

Verses 18-xvi. 1

(18) " The world " (o Koanor) in the proper sense of
the Greek word, means the created earth in all its ordered
beaut}', and viewed in its sum or acme, man the
microcosm. But, owing to the Fall of man, the world, thus
intimately bound up in man, is regarded as alienated
for the moment from God, and as having to be won back
to God through the return of man to His allegiance : so
that the whole shall be again brought back to the line
of harmonious evolution. Thus the " world " (/coa/ioc)
becomes a term for mankind qua alienated from God,
off the track of development, and on the road to dissolution.

(18) " If the world hates you," as it will, " know,"
etc. The world will hate them because they are not of
the world's mind : but let them reflect that " it has hated
Me before it hated you, and that I am the first it ever
hated." *

(19) And they are not of the world because He (tyw)
chose them out of it and made them dissatisfied Avith,
and averse to, the world's spirit. He and the world arc
antagonistic. The Morld is glad to forget God : He came
to bring men back to God.

(20) " Remember the word I said to you," viz. when
they were appointed to the Apostolate (Matt. x. 24, 25),
and which He had recently repeated to them at table
(xiii, 16), " ' a servant is not greater than his Lord ' : if
they persecuted Me," as they had, " they will persecute
you too : if they kept My word," which they did not,
" they will keep yours too " : but they will not.

(21) " But all this they will do to you because of My
name," i.e. because they represent Him : and He repre-
sents The Father, and of that Father the world has no
knowledge, little though it thinks so.

(22) " If I had not come and talked to them, they
would not have had sin." ' If I had not become Incarnate,
and come amongst them, and talked with them, their
sin (sc. their state of radical alienation from God) would

* Such is the meaning of the superlative irpaorov joined with tho genitive
(c/'e itpoiTov ufj.wi/) : it is not eynonyuiouB with irpSjipov. See also at i. 15, 30.

JOHN XV. 22-26 335

not have been proved against them : but, as I did come
among them, they have no cloak to hang up and cover
their sin and pretend it is not there.' They might else
have said, " Had He but come among us, we should sure
have recognized Him " : just as they did actually say,
" Had we lived in the days of our fathers, we would not
have been partakers with them in the blood of the Pro-
phets " (Matt, xxiii. 30).

(23) "He that hateth Me hateth My Father also."
' In this their hate of Me they have shown their essential
state of hostility to My Father,' whom they call their
God of Simii. For Jesus is the one and only revelation
of The Father. Men may prefer to evolve an idea of the
universal Father, but that idea of theirs will take their
own colour and the colour of their Age. The only true
idea of Him is to be got from The Son.

(24) " If I had not done among them the works which
none other did," i.e. if He had not lived the perfect life
Avhich they had watched from His infancy and in which
they could find no sin (viii. 46) (for they never lost sight
of Him, only His ideal did not jump with theirs) ; if He
had not done superhuman miracles which revealed the
power and the ethical quality of the Godhead ; " they
would not have had sin " : their state of sin — of aversion
from God — would not have been proved against them :
' But, as things are, they have seen Me in the Flesh, and
seen My Father revealed in Me, and they have hated Us
both. (25) It is but what was written * in their Law
(see under x. 34), " they hated Me without a cause," or
" gratuitousl3^" ' The words are taken from Ps. Ixix. 4,
written by David in the time of Absalom's rebellion,
Avhere David is a type of our Lord : and his favourite
son Absalom is a type of the Jews.

(26) " When the Comforter (6 TrapdKXr]roi:) is come,"
He who will side with the disciples and take their part,
pleading with their better selves, strengthening them (which
is the root meaning of comforting); He "whom I (^yw)

* For tho Hellenistic phrasing 'W TrXTjpoiflj? at the beginning of this verso,
see at p. 308.

336 JOHN XV. 26-XVI. 2

will send to you from The Father's presence (ttojoo tov
Tlarpog), the Spirit of Truth who comes forth from The
Father's presence ; He will bear witness concerning Me,"
both in their hearts and in the hearts of those who will
hear them. And because He is the Spirit of Truth, He
can witness only to Truth. Though the " world," i.e. man
qua alienated from his Creator, has swerved from the
axis of true development, the Spirit of Truth secures
that His Church shall not — in spite of many set-backs
due to human frailty.

(27.) " And," along with the Holy Spirit, " you too,"
you Eleven, " are to bear witness {/naf^TvpeiTe, imperative)
concerning Me : for you have been with Me from the
beginning," i.e. of His public ministry. The Holy Spirit
shall witness in men's hearts, in conjunction wdth the
Apostolic message to their ears. They, the Eleven, as
first-hand witnesses, supply the material facts, the body
of Faith : the Holy Spirit concurrently supplies the quick-
ening intelligence in their hearers, by which the facts
live and are apprehended.

(XVI. 1) "These things I have talked to you that
you may not be offended " {(TKavcoXiaOfirE = be made to
stumble). This verse belongs to the section preceding
beginning at verse 18 of chapter xv., and should form the
closing sentence of chapter xv. It refers to the hatred
that the " world " will show to His Apostles and to His
Church in proportion as they are not conformed to the
" world." That hatred was not to make them swerve
or think they must be wrong.

Verses 2-5a

(2) " They will put you out of the synagogues."
Formal excommunication from the Temple worship in
Jerusalem was never passed on the Christian Hebrews :
but in the provinces and in foreign countries Christian
Hebrews were no doubt gradually cut off from worship
in the synagogues, according as the animosity of the Jews
increased against the new movement.

" Yea, an hour is coming that ever}' one that killeth

JOHN XVI. 2-4 337

you will thinK he offercth service to God." Allusion is to
their treatment by Jews, e.g. by the Sanhedrin (as in Acts
iv. ,3 : vi. 12) : by Saul as prime mover (Acts viii. 3 :
ix. 1, 2) : by Herod Agrippa (Acts xii. 1-3) : by provincial
Jews (Acts xiv. 19, etc.) ; by Ananus (Annas) the High-
priest (Josephus, Ant., XX. ix. 1) : and their persecution
by Roman and other Gentile secular powers. Our Lord
tells them that their persecutors will be acting con-
scientiously as thinking they are pernicious to the cause
of God : therefore let His hearers bear with them.

(3) " These things they will do because they had not
come to know {ovk iyvwaav) The Father nor Me," Those
persecutors would be acting in ignorance, for they knew
not the nature of the God whom they thought they served :
the Jews knew not that in that Godhead there are Father
and Son, and, therefore, they could not believe that He
the Man is God incarnate: the Gentiles knew God still
less.

(4a) " But these things I have told you so that when
their hour comes, you may remember," etc. He had
said (verse 1) that His reason for talking to them of the
world's hatred of them was that they might not find it
a stumbling-block. But (aAAa) His reason for talking to
them of the conscientious motives (verse 2) of their per-
secutors is that when the persecutions come, " you may
remember these things, how that I told you," i.e. may
remember what He had told^hem of those motives, and
how it was He who had told them, He who knoM^s all
hearts. Therefore they should bear with those persecutors.
The emphatic uWa calls special attention to this important
statement of motive, which they might otherwise have
found hard to believe.

(46) ' Of these future troubles I did not tell you at the
beginning of My ministry.' When He commissioned them
to the Apostolate (Matt. x. 1-42) He had indeed foretold
persecution for them ultimately (Matt. x. 16-39) : but
with regard to that their first mission, where Gentiles and
Samaritans were excluded (verse 5) and only the ruined
house of "Israel " (not Judah) favoured. He had evidently

338 JOHN XVI. 5-8

given them to understand that all would be smooth and
easy for them : and so it had been (Luke xxii. 35).

" Because I was still with you " : and therefore would
not spoil their joy (Matt. ix. 15).

(5) But now that the Bridegroom is shortly to be taken
from them, the time is come to prepare them for evil days,
for persecution is now imminent.

Verses 56-15

(56) " And no one of you asks Me, ' Whither goest
Thou ? ' "

(6) " But because I have told you these things sorrow
has filled your heart." Though He is leaving them, let
them not therefore assume that His absence is all loss to
them, let them remember whither it is that He withdraws :
remember what He told them at the table (xiv. 28), viz.
that He is going to The Father, returning triumphant, the
economy of servitude being ended. Under the circum-
stances of His rejection by the nation and the consequent
delay in the coming of the visible kingdom, (7) it is to
their advantage that He goes away.

(7) " If I go not away," ascending to The Father,
bearing with Me human nature glorified, " there will not
come to you the Paraclete," i.e. the Comforter, the
Strengthener. Can we say why a further access of the
Creative Spirit pleading with men's hearts and strengthen-
ing them into a new creation was only possible when the
new Germ, the new Man, withdrew from our plane of
matter ? As the Fall of Adam was the Fall of all his
descendants, the Ascension of our Lord was the ascension
of all the sons of God who were, or shall be, grafted into
Him. It would seem that so far as concerns mankind
it is only throughout our Lord's risen and " ascended "
body, into which Christians are sacramentally grafted,
that the Holy Spirit has perfect freedom of action.

(8) " And He, when He is come " at Pentecost, taking
up His perpetual presence in them the members of the
mystical Body, " He will convict the world " — not indeed in
its own eyes, but in the eyes of those whose vision is purged.

JOHN XVI. 9-11 .339

(9) " He will convict " it (A) " in the matter of sin " :
convict it, that is, of being in a state of alienation from
God, in that it refuses to believe into Jesus, viz. into God
who had come incarnate among them. Had it not been
for its acquiescence in " sin," the world must have leapt
to the God-Man for release.

(10) " He will convict " it (B) " in the matter of
righteousness in that I go to The Father and ye-behold
Me no more." Convict it, that is, of holding false views
of what Righteousness is : for the One righteous Man has
come among them and left His record, and withdrawn
to The Father because they woidd have nothing to do
with Him. And mankind are so gone away from Truth
that. He being withdrawn to The Father, they cannot
behold Him as being yet alive, but rather think of Him as
dead.

The verb OeMpeiTe used here = to behold with the
mind's eye. Even the disciples had, until He re-
appeared to them after His death, ceased to consider Him
{OeuypHv) as living. In the word ^twpart, "ye-behold," the
disciples are included with the world, in that, until
the Holy Spirit came to them collectively after His resur-
rection and comes to the individual down the centuries,
all alike were and are unable to behold Him with the eye
of faith as being living and present. The Greek original
shows, by the absence of the pronoun v/uHg before this
verb OsiopHve, that there is no distinction drawn here
between the disciples and the world, such as there was in
xiv. 19.

(11) "He will convict" it (C) "in the matter of
judgment " : convict it, not in its own eyes, but in the
eyes of those whose vision is purged : convict it of
holding false standards of success and failure. ' For My
cross and passion, the measure of the world's opinion of
Me, is the measure of the judgment and sentence passed
by the All-seeing on the world : and not only on the
world and its body of opinion, but also on its prince,
Satan, who has led it astray after false ideals (see under
xii. 31).

340 JOHN XVI. 12-15

(12) " I have yet many tilings to tell you." Not that
He had anything materially new to tell them, for (xv. 15)
He had told them all : but as to what He had told them
whether by hint or parable, by plain statement or obscure,
He had much to interpret and make clear to them, much
to carry out to logical issues which at present they did not,
nor were able to, understand.

(13) " But when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He
will guide you to all the Truth," i.e. it was the office
of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, to be their guide
into all the ramifications of that body of Truth once for
all delivered by Christ Himself and into which they were
baptized, but which as yet they could not appreciate or
estimate. The Holy Spirit, during His economy between
Pentecost and the second Coming of our Lord, would add
no new truth, ' for He only speaks from Me, and I have
told all ' ; but He would constantly show them fresh values,
the full meanings, and the logical issues inherent in the
premises. Here is the statement of the development of
Catholic doctrine.

" And the things that are coming He will announce to
5'ou," i.e. ' He will declare to you the future, the eschato-
logical events (Luke xxi. 26, " the things that are coming
on the earth ") before they are upon you.' Not that the
Gentile Church has ever yet understood the full meaning
of the Hebrew prophets or of the Hebrew Apocalypse, nor
has she pretended to officially : but the Church will under-
stand them when the time draws near, when the things
" are coming " and before they are upon her : but probably
not till the Jews are converted, for the Books are the
national Books of Israel and Judah.

(14) " He will glorify Mc, because He will take of Mine
[Ik tov ii.iov A?j/u<//frfu) and will annoimce to you." ' The
Holy Spirit's work will be to glorify Me in your under-
standings : for He issues from Me, takes of Mine, and
will unfold to you a clear perception of Me : and that you
have not yet.'

(15) In saying, "He will take of Mine and will announce
to you," our Lord declares that the Holy Spirit issues not

JOHN XVJ. lU-2() 'Ml

only from The Father but also from Him The Son, for The
Father has nothing that The Son has not : " for all things
that The Father hath are Mine."

Verses 16-e7id

(16) ' Yet a little while elapses {i.e. till His death
to-morrow), and then no longer ye-behold Me (OthifnlTt /it),'
i.e. with the eyes of faith or mental contemplation. For
during the interval between His death and resurrection
the disciples lost their faith and spiritual vision, and no
more beheld Him than did the world.

' And again a little while shall elapse, and then ye-
shall-see Me {o^peaOi /.it), i.e. with bodily eyes.' When the
short interval between His death and resurrection had
elapsed, then they should see Him with their bodily eyes.

(17) His disciples, or rather some of them (k), repeating
His words of verse 16, ask each other what does He mean
by them and also by those other words (from verse 10),
" because I withdraw to The Father."

(18) And they sum up the matter {tXijov ovv) by
particular stress on the meaning of that phrase, " a little
while," as though to understand that might give them
the clue.

(19) Jesus, aware that they wished to question Him,
forestalls them. ' You are asking each other about My
words, " a little while and ye-behold Me not {ov UnopHTi /it),
and again a little while and ye-shall-see Me {^tadi /it)." '

(20) He gives no explanation of the phrase, " a little
while " : but as to the words, " ye-behold Me not," viz.
in that short interval between His death and resurrection,
during which their eyes of faith were dimmed so as to see
no better than the world, He explains that His absence,
or rather the inability to behold Him, would affect them
in one way and the world in another way : for they and
the world were already sundered from each other. " You
(emphatic vfiug) shall weep and lament" at having
lost Me : " but the world shall rejoice " at being, as it
will think, rid of Me. " You " (emphatic himc) who will
be sorrowful at Mv absence, "shall have your sorrow

342 JOHN XVI. 21-23

turned into joy " : for (as He explains in \ crse 22) " I will
see you (oxfyof-uti) again," i.e. see with bodily eyes, and, by
implication, they will again see Him with bodily eyes :
as happened after His resurrection.

(21) Their sorrow would be sharp, but again it would
be soon forgotten. As a woman has sorrow when her hour
comes, but forgets her travail pangs when her child is
born : so would His disciples have sorrow when their
hour came. But as soon as their agony was over and they
had given birth to Him and borne Him into the world,*
they would remember no more their anguish. It was
not till they saw Him after His resurrection that the
Apostles fully believed into Him.

(22) " Therefore," to apply the simile, " ^loiv you have
sorrow : but " I will come to the birth in j^ou, you shall
be delivered of a man-child even Me on the day I see you
again : for " I will see you again with bodil}^ eyes {6\poimi) "
and you shall see Me : " and your heart shall rejoice,
and your joy no one shall take from you."

Although the first application of the TrdXiv oxpoixai
(" again I will see " you with bodily eyes) is to His
appearance to the disciples after His resurrection, the
second and fuller application is probably to an Age yet
future.

(23a) " And ' in that day ' " {Iv kiivy ry n/xepa, the
regular formula of prophecy for a future Age, and so
used again by our Lord in verse 26 and in xiv. 20) " you
shall ask no question {ovk lpii)Ti](jtT^ ov^iv) of Me " (as
they had wished to do in verse 19), for before they asked
He would answer — so complete would their union then be.
For though the imion is already real during this the time
of His absence, this the time of the economy of The Spirit,
it is as yet very imperfect owing to the imperfections of
men's natures with which The Spirit is ever striving. But
" in that day " they shall not feel that He is outside of
them.

* For this simile of a woman bringing forth a child applied to the birth of
the Christian Faith in a community, see Rev. xii. 2, where the conversion of
the Jews to Christ at the end of this x\ge seems to be figured.

JOHN XVI. 23-27 348

(236) And, whether " in that day" or in the present time,
" Verily, verily, I say to you, if ye shall make any petition
(av Ti (uri'/o-ijrt) of The Father He will give it to you —
in My name." Although the union is as yet imperfect,
it has already begun : it is as true of this Age as of the
future one that whatever petition the Church makes of
The Father now or then He Avill give it : but it must be
made, as it will be given, " in My name." See at xiv. 13 :
XV. 7.

(24) " Hitherto you have asked nothing in My name " :
for as yet they could not fully ask " in My name," i.e.
with His singleness of desire for The Father's glory. "Ask,
and you shall receive " : the nearer they approached to
asking " in My name," the nearer they approached to
receiving "in My name," i.e. to receiving as fully and as
surely as The Father gives to Him. And when they have
attained to fully asking " in My name," as they will " in
that day," then " your joy will be filled." As at xv. 11.

(25) " These things I have talked to you in parables
(Trojoof/im^c)," or similes or metaphors, such as the parables
by which He taught, and such as the metaphors of His
" coming from " and " going to " The Father ; of The Spirit
"speaking not of Himself " but " speaking what He hears";
of The Spirit " taking of Mine " ; of The Father's " send-
ing " Him ; of Himself as " sending " The Spirit, etc. But
" an hour is coming " (viz. a yet future Age) " when I
shall no more talk to you in proverbs " or metaphors,
" but shall report to you plainly concerning The Father " :
through the medium, that is, not of our present imperfect
language which by its metaphor often obscures, but of
that perfect language by which the resurrection bodies
communicate.

(26) " In that day " (again as at verse 23 the regular
prophetic formula for a future Age : it is the bay y 6m hahu^
of the Prophets) " ye shall ask in My name " : ask as He
asks, and asking receive : " and I do not say to you that "
in that day " I will request (ijowrr/aw) The Father concern-
ing you " (ttcjoi vfiwv, in anything to do with you).

(27) " For The Father," of Himself, loves you." That

344 JOHN XVI. 27-30

He does so is seen " from the fact (A) that you have
loved Me " : for this they could never have done unless
God had first poured His love into them (1 John iv. 10),
so that it circulates back to Him from them like sap in a
vine, or as blood in a body : " and from the fact (B) that
you have believed that I came forth from The Father's
presence " ; and this Faith again, like Love, is the gift
of God.

(28) Here is the sum of the Christian Faith in four
fundamental propositions, which, with their several why and
how and result, form the whole body of Christian verity : —

1. " I came forth from out * The Father " : sc. Mv

eternal generation as God The Son.

2. " I am come into the world " : sc. My incarnation,

and My revelation of the Godhead to men.

3. " I am leaving the world " : sc. My rejection by

the world. My passion and death.

4. " I go to The Father" : sc. My resurrection from

the dead, and ascension to The Father in glory,
and My effusion of The Spirit.

(29) His disciples grasping the four propositions think
they understand the whole — knowing as yet little or
nothing of what any of the four propositions mean, or how
they stand related each to other, nor of the vast body of
Truth which lies implicit in those four.

' Now, now we understand Thee : there is no need to
talk of speaking plainly to us in some future Age.'

(30) ' Thou sayest that in that future Age (verse 23)
we shall have no need to ask questions of Thee : but now,
already, we know that Thou seest all hearts and hast no
need that any of us should formulate questions to Thee,

* fK 70V UarpSs, not ottJ) tov Tla-Tp6s, as the disciples misunderstood Him
to mean (see verse 30, airh toG ©eoS) : oittJ) would merely mean having a mission
from God. The misunderstanding was possible because the Aramaic language
(in which the conversation was carried on) has, like the Hebrew, only the one
word min to express two distinct ideas which Greek renders by (k and a.i:6.
John, translating the conversation into Greek, took advantage of the niceties
of the latter in order to show that the moaning which our Lord here attached
to mm had been misunderstood by the disciples. He meant in (essential
origin) : they understood airo (mission or accidental origin).

JOHN XVI. 30-33 345

inasmuch as Thou knowest our thoughts before we put them
in words.'

" Hereby {tv tovtio) we believe that Thou earnest forth
from (dfro) God " : they have in mind how easily and
correctly He had read their difficulties in verse 19, although
they had not put them in words in His hearing. This
knowledge of all hearts (Iv rourqj) seemed to them a
sign that He was no common man, but had a mission
from (aVo) God. The same effect had been produced on
Nathanael when he found that his thoughts were all known
to Jesus (i. 48, 49) ; and again the same effect is seen in
the case of the woman of Samaria on finding all her past
life was open to Him (iv. 16-19 and 29). The Eleven do
not as yet think habitually of Him as being very God,
but as being some great one worthy to be called, figuratively,
the Son of God though only human : as Nathanael (i. 49)
and others had called him. Peter had once, for a moment
last September, risen to the heights of clear vision of His
Godhead (Matt. xvi. 16) : but not until Pentecost did
the vision become permanent with him.

(31, 32) " Do ye now believe ? lo, the hour cometh,
yea, is come, for your being scattered each to his own home
and for your leaving Me alone." They thought that
already, at that moment, they had a faith full and firm :
little they knew themselves and the frailty of their con-
fidence.

(32) Of this verse 32 and the incident immediately
connected with it a fuller account is given in Matt. xxvi.
31-35, Mark xiv. 27-31. John saw no need to repeat the
prophecy of Peter's denial. " And I am not alone because
The Father is with Me " : i.e. so utter will be His desertion
by all of them, that except The Father none will stand
by Him. He is not alone, only because The Father is
with Him.

(33) " These things I have talked to you, that in Me
ye may have peace." " These things," i.e. all the discourse
since the close of the ritual and Judas's departure, i.e.
all from xiii. 31 to here. Only in unity with Him will they
find peace, and His peace : xiv. 27.

346 JOHN XVI. 33

" In the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of
uood cheer. I have overcome the Avorld " : and in His
victory, they, and all who through thein shall hereafter
become members of His mystical Body, are of necessity
victors. The victory is His : none else could conquer :
and by their sacramental union with Him, His victory
becomes theirs in the process by which He assimilates
them, body, soul, and spirit, into Himself — an assimilation
which confirms rather than obliterates each individuality.
The discourse of John xv., xvi. divides into —
XV. 1-11. The living union that exists throughout
His mystical Body : its element (like sap in a vine) is Love
{ayuTTri) which Starts from Him and courses through them,
bearing fruit with their co-operation — the co-operation of,
at least, their will. The process of transforming their
ahen human nature into complete harmony and union
with His perfect and glorified human nature is slow but
it is certain.

XV. 12-17. Repeats the '' new commandment " of
love (of xiii, 84), and describes the nature of that love.

18-XVI. 1. The world's treatment of them because
of their witness to Him : for it hates Him. The Holy
Spirit's witness to Him will concur with their own.

XVI. 2-5a. The world's treatment of them, due to its
false idea of God.

56-15. The promise of The Spirit, during our Lord's
absence (5&-7) : the work of The Spirit as affecting A,
the World (8-11) : B, the Church (12-15).

16-end. The immediate future for the latter is dark,
but will be succeeded by one of Joy : and there will be
a yet more perfect union with Him in a later Age and
later Ages.

Here follows the request of our Lord for His Church
(xvii. 1-end) : the communing of The Son-Incarnate with
The Father,

§ XXIII

JOHN XVII

The request of Jesus Christ for His Church.

(1) "And He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said,
' Father, the hour has come : glorify Thy Son ' " : i.e.
make plain to these there that the Man Jesus /March 24
is also the God-Man : make it plain by His INisan 14
resurrection and ascension. Thus, by their Thurs. evening,
having a true knowledge of The Son they may ^^^°"t ^^ P'™-
advance to a true knowledge of The Father : for to know
The Son is to know also The Father. Every religion that
acknowledges a God but ignores the Trinity, becomes,
when handled by its own philosophers, pantheistic. The
sum of created things takes the place of the Second Person,
and the act of creation becomes an act of generation : see
Gnosticism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and even Mahom-
medanism. Fortunately the masses do not and cannot
deal in abstract thought, and so can still w^orship God as
a Being apart from themselves.

(2) " That The Son may glorify Thee even as Thou
gavest Him authority over all flcbh : authority, as regards
the whole mass which Thou hast given Him {ir&v o StdioKag),
to give them individually (oi>roic) Life eternal." A similar
analysis of the neut. sing, o (th mass) into the masc. plur.
tKsivoi (the individuals) forming it occurs in verse 24. This
" authority to give " cannot be fully exercised by The Son
til] He be glorified, i.e. risen and ascended, for not til] then
is the power won : ynd the gift, viz. Life eternal, will be
the glorification of The Father by The Son.

(3) For " eternal Life is this, the recognising or

347

348 JOHN XVII. 3-6

learning-to-know {'Iva * jivwaKwai),'''' (A) " Thee," i.e. ' that
Thou art The Father ' : (B) " The only true God," i.e.
' that the only true God is triune, viz. Thou The Father,
I The Son, and the Holy Spirit ' : (C) " Him whom Thou
didst send — Jesus Christ," i.e. ' that I, Jesus Messiah,
sent by Thee, am God The Son and also Man. And this
full but gradual knowledge will only be given after the
resurreetion and ascension of The Son : for not till then
will The Spirit be given in abundance so as to have a
full flow in His mystical Body.

(4) Here our Lord changes from the indirect mode,
"The Son," "He," "Jesus Christ," to the direct, "I"
and " Me."

"I," the God-Man, "glorified Thee on the earth,"
i.e. during and by means of His life on earth He made The
Father known, revealing Him as eternal Father, revealing
also His love and His holiness : " having finished the work
which Thou hast given Me to do," i.e. the work for which
He became Incarnate.

He speaks from the standpoint of some seventeen hours
later, when His death shall have been consummated.
True, very few had accepted His revelation of the God-
head ; and they, very imperfectly until Pentecost ; but,
so far as His part was concerned. His work on earth was
done : the rest belongs to His work in Heaven and the
economy of the Holy Spirit on earth.

(5) " And now glorify Me Thou, Father, alongside
Thee with the glory which I had alongside Thee before the
world was," i.e. make it clear that I, the Man, am eternal
God, ascending to Thee, alongside of Thee, co-equal with
Thee, and co-eternal. And the object of this glorifying
of Him by The Father is not that anything may accrue to
Him Jesus, but that the disciples, by learning that He is
Divine, may pass on to know The Father (as in verse 1).

(Verses 6-8) The present state to which He has brought
the Church which He is leaving.

(6) " I manifested Thy Name," i.e. I revealed Thy

* A Hellenistic Hebraism: it is exactly the Hebrew ? with infin. const.,
meaning position of, or for, recognising.

JOHN XVII. 6-8 349

nature. For any adequate name of a person or thing is the
complete connotation of that person or thing. Thus the
eternal Son is called the " Name " of the eternal Father.

To set forth this relationship of Jesus Christ to The
Father is the main object of John's gospel. Whilst our
Lord was yet with the Eleven, they did not take the full
meaning of His talk concerning His own transcendental
nature : nor again was it a fitting subject to be handled
in the Synoptic gospels which were mainly for popular
use and for exoteric teaching. John's gospel gives our
Lord's esoteric teaching, such as He spoke to the theo-
logians of Jerusalem, or to the inner circle of His disciples —
arcana, reserved for such as should be able to understand.

(6) " To the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the
world," i.e. primarily the Eleven whom God had chosen
by preparing their inward dispositions, and had then
given to the Man-God to be taught by Him.

" Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them,"
i.e. ' Thou didst begin the work in them : I continued it
in them at Thy bidding ' : "and they have kept (rfri'/jOTj/cav)
Thy word " : i.e. they on their part have given atten-
tion to The Father's message as given by the God-Man,
and have laid it up in their hearts for further medita-
tion and fuller insight into its meaning later on. This
laying up in the heart of things not clearly apprehended,
in order for further meditation, is twice noticed in the case
of the Virgin Mother as her constant habit {Luke ii. 19, 51).

(7, 8) ' The result is that now ' (when He must leave
them) ' they have learnt that all that I say or do or am is
but a manifestation of Thee : for the things ' {pnixaru, the
several teachings) ' which I had from Thee I have passed
on to them. Thus they on their part have accepted as
truth and learnt as truth ' (though they are far, as yet, from
understanding them) ' the formal propositions that ' —

(A) " I came-forth from Thee " {Trapa <jov = from Thy
presence) : and (B) " Thou didst send Me." This was
what they thus far had learnt and believed : but they
would come later to see all that lies implicit in these bald
statements, they would see that A means that His coming

350 JOHN XVII. 9-11

*' from Thy presence " is the Incarnation of the eternal
Son : and that B means that the scheme of redemption
is the will of the whole Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit.
We shall remain on only the outskirts of knowledge unless
we endorse that axiom of theology that "the operations
of the Holy Trinity ad extra {i.e. with reference to that
which is created) are common to all the Three Persons
of the Trinity," Each in His several mode.

Verses 9-end. The request in behalf of His Church.

(9) " I {lyio, emphatic) make request (Ijowrw) con-
cerning them," i.e. the Eleven ; " not concerning the
world am I making request." His concern as yet is directly
with these Eleven. It is through them that He means to
work indirectly on the world.

Then follow three pleas in support of His request : —
(A) ' They are Thine : in that Thou didst predispose
them toward Me.'

(10) (B) ' They are Thine as being Mine and taught

by Me, just as being Thine they are drawn to
Me.' Thus intimate is the union between The
Father and The Son in His double nature.

(C) ' And I-have-been-and-am-glorified (SeSo^aa/ucu) in
them,' i.e. the work in them is well advanced ;
for by them He is acknowledged and confessed
to be what He is : although as yet with im-
perfect vision, still as far as their present capacity
admits.

(llo) Here follow three circumstances which induce the
request : —

(A) " No longer am I in the world," i.e. He is about

to leave this hostile world and to be locally
parted from them.

(B) " They are in the world," i.e. they remain alone

in the midst of a hostile world.

is not at hand to aid them : and this is in a
measure true, cf. verse 12 : although His absence
is really gain for them : for it means a closer

JOHN XVII. 11-13 351

union with Him in the Holy Spirit than that
which they have now.
(116-26) Here follows the request proper : —
{lib) " Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name which
Thou hast given to Me " {UaTep uyn, rnpnaov uvtovq iv
Tio ovoficiTL GOV, w Sf^wKu? fxoi). If this bc thc corrcct reading
(Westcott and Hort have no doubt of it), the " which "
must refer to " name " and not to " them." The meaning
will be ' keep them in Me who am Thy name, Thy con-
notation, revelation, manifestation : keep them in unity
with Me, and therefore in unity with and in knowledge of
Thee.' The words " Thy name which Thou hast given to
Me '' recall that other cryptic saying at x. 29, "that which
My Father has given to Me is greater than all," viz. the
Godhead, as Augustine there comments : " What is that
' greater than all ' that The Father has given The Son ?
That He should be His only-begotten Son."

" That they may be one {%v = unity) even as are We,"
i.e. ' that their unity with Us and among themselves may
be preserved and perfected.'

(12) " Whilst I was with them," i.e. the Eleven, " / kept
them in Thy Name," etc., i.e. in the knowledge of Thee,
and so in unity with Me : " and I guarded them " from
Satan's attack : " and none of them perished, but the son
of perdition," i.e. Judas. The phrase, " son of perdition,"
is a Hebraism for the lost one, cf. " son of strength " =
strong one : " son of wickedness " = wicked one : " son of
possession " = heir : " son of pledging " = hostage.

" That the scripture may be fulfilled " {'Iva TrXi]pwBri,
see p. 308) = and so the scripture is fulfilled. Our Lord
is perhaps referring to Ps. cix. (cviii.) 8, as does Peter in
Acts i. 16-20.

(13) " But now I am " leaving them and " coming to
Thee : and these things I speak in the world," etc., i.e.
whilst as yet with them. In saying that He is coming to
The Father, He means that He is not lost to them, so that
they may not be sad, but may rejoice, as He does, at His
going : seeing that it means a stage further for them
toward the goal.

352 JOHN XVII. 14-21

(14) " I " {h<-', The Son) " have given to them Thy
word," i.e. not merely the oral teaching, but the whole
revelation of The Father as manifested in the words and
acts and personality of Jesus Christ : and they have em-
braced it : " and," in consequence, " the world hated
them, because they do not belong to the world, even as
I do not belong to the world."

(15) " I am not making request that Thou shouldst
remove them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst
keep them out of the power of evil " (ek tov irovripov.
Better, " out of the power of the evil one ").

(17) Not only keep them out of the power of the evil
one, but " Hallow them (ayicKrov avrovg) in the Truth,"
i.e. by keeping them apart in the Truth. " Thy word,"
i.e. Thy doctrine as revealed to them by Me, " is Truth."
If they are kept apart, i.e. from error, and kept in the
Truth, they will become closer knit to God. For Truth
absolute (and not what men are pleased to-day or to-
morrow to call truth) has a transforming power.

The word ayid^w (rendered " sanctify," " hallow,"
" consecrate ") means to set-apart-and-devote-to-God :
whether it be things, or sacrificial animals, or men for His
service : the more thoroughly men are set apart to God
in the sphere of Truth, both intellectual and moral, the
more closely are they knit to the Deity, and made holy.

(18) " As I was sent by Thee," as Thy representative,
" into the world, so send I them " as Our representatives
" into the world."

(19) And in His complete and unceasing consecration
of Himself lies the power that they also become wholly
consecrate : for He transfuses His own sanctity into them
by virtue of His sacramental union with them.

(20) " And I make request not about these only,"
i.e. the Eleven, " but also about those who shall believe
in Me by means of their word," i.e. their teaching, both
of dogmatic truth and of historical truth, concerning the
facts of His Godhead and of His life on earth.

(21) "' That all of them may be a unity — even as Thou,
Father, art in Me and I am in Thee, that they also may be

JOHN XVII. 21-23 353

in Us : so that the world may believe that My mission was
from Thee " {av jjh^ diriaTH\ag). The faith of this Age of
the Gentile Vicariate affects but a handful in comparison
with the harvest of the world in the millennial and
post-millennial Ages.

' Not only did I deliver to them Thy word (14) and
sent them as Our representatives into the world (18), not
only do I consecrate Myself for their sakes that they too
may be wholly consecrate (19) ' —

(22) " Also I have given to them " mystically in the
recent Holy Communion, and to be theirs ultimately, " the
glory which Thou hast given Me " {e.g. that glory which
for want of better words or metaphors we call His
" ascension to Heaven," and " sitting on the right hand
of God the Father " ; all of which belongs to those who
form His mystical Body) : "so that they may be Unity,
even as We are Unity : I being in them and Thou in
Me." Our Lord, by His two natures, is the Ladder
(Gen. xxviii. 12 : John i. 51) of which one end — His
Divine nature — is in Heaven, and the other end — His
human nature — is on earth.

(23) "That they may be perfected into Unity": it
is a matter of gradual realization, this Unity : " and the
residt will be that the world will know that My mission
was from Thee, and that Thou didst love them with the
same love with which Thou lovedst Me " — so close will
their imion with Him be seen to be. We may suppose that
in the millennial Age, those who shall have been found
worthy of the first resurrection (Rev. xx. 5), and those
who while yet living were assumed to Christ (1 Thess. iv. 17),
will be in mature immortality and will be visible to those
who shall be still on earth : these last, not having yet died,
will not have reached the stage of resurrection and im-
mortality. Besides all these, there will be those dead who
shall not have been found worthy of the first resurrec-
tion, but who will be awaiting the Judgment Day beyond
the Millennium (Rev. xx. 12), many for Life and many for
a second period of death, until after another Age, or other
Ages, all shall be gathered in.

2 A

354 JOHN XVII. 24-26

(24) " Father, with regard to that whieh Thou hast
given Me " (o St'Sw/a/^- /.mi), i.e. the final sum of His
Church, " I will that where I am they also {KUKdvoi) may
be with Me," viz, " sitting on the right hand of God the
Father," as we call it. Nothing short of His own fulness
— the Godhead — has Jesus decreed to give to men when
they shall have advanced through the successive stages
(juoi'fli) that await them in His Father's house, xiv. 2. The
collective mass (o) given by The Father to The Son is
analyzed into the individuals (£»cai'0{) forming it, as at
verse 2.

" In order that they may behold My glory which Thou
hast given Me." " Behold My glory," a Hebraism for
" share My glory," as in the phrases, " to see Death,"
viii. 51 : Luke ii. 26 : Heb. xi. 5 : to " see Life," iii. 36 :
to " see the Kingdom of God," Luke ix. 27 : John iii. 3 :
to " see corruption," x^Vcts ii. 27, 31 : xiii. 35-37 : to " see
grief," Rev. xviii. 7 : to " see good days," 1 Pet. iii. 10.

" My glory " ; sc. My glorified Humanity and also
My Godhead as the eternal Son : " because Thy love to
Me " as eternal Father to eternal Son " is from before
the world's foundation," i.e. is from before time and had
no beginning.

(25) " O righteous Father, and the world knew Thee
not " : for man had become alienated from God's Father-
hood and God's righteousness by the Fall : " but /," The
Son who became Incarnate, " knew Thee : and " the
result is that " these knew that My mission is from Thee "
— a mission to bring back the human race to Him.
(26) " And I made known to them Thy name," i.e. His
nature to which man had become blind, "and I will make
it known," i.e. yet more, according as He makes their
capacity greater : ' so that ultimately the Love wherewith
Thou lovedst Me may have free course in them, as it has
between Thee and Me, I being always in them.'

This request of our Lord thus given in John's seven-
teenth chapter is clearly no prayer of an inferior to a
superior : constantly there is seen in it the co-equality
of the Speaker ^itli The Father. They Two have but one

JOHN XVII. 26 355

mind. Neither can have a desire apart from the Other.
Also as God Incarnate, the harmony between our Lord's
Human nature and His Godhead (His Divine nature)
was utter.

Where The Son speaks He is not seeking to bend The
Father to Him : rather is He voicing the purpose of the
Godhead. This soHloquy or intercessory communion of
The Son, the God-Man, with The Father was uttered
aloud for the sake of the Eleven who were with Him :
perhaps more especially in order that John the mystic
who had lain on His breast might afterwards, plumbing
the deeps of memory, recall . its salient sentences and
record it for the Church. The object being not so much
to let us know what He said on a special occasion, as to
show the constant attitude of His mind, the informing
idea of His unceasing " intercession " for us during the
time of His absence.

The " mediation " or " intercession " of our High-
priest, the God-Man, is not a modifying of the Father's
position as regards us : that idea is due to our anthropo-
morphic images which at once aid and hinder thought :
rather is it a modifying of our position as regards The
Father, in the Living Laboratory Jesus Christ.

The " mediation " of our Lord is not a thing external
to us : it is, as it were, a chemical change that is ever
going on in His mystical Body, precipitating and purging
out our dross, vivifying and sublimating Avhat remains.

His " mediation " or " intercession " for us is not
words : it is a process by which all that is alien to the
Godhead's sanctity is gradually eliminated from those who
form our Lord's mystical Body : it is ever going on in
Heaven (as we call it) before The Father, by the alchemy
of the Holy Spirit who is the Godhead flowing through
It as sap in the Vine : so close is that mystical Body
knit to our Lord's risen Body.

But there : is the metaphor of a chemical process any
better than that of intercessory words ? Indeed it is not
as good, for it seems to lack the interest of the Personality
of the medium.

;J5G JOHN XVII. 2G

This and the other long discourses of our Lord's pre-
served by John, are they to be considered as given to us in
the verj' words of our Lord rendered into Greek ? The
form in which these discourses arc presented to us shows
that we have but fragments of a larger whole : but John,
sounding in his memory, could recollect much of our Lord's
very wording, phrase by phrase, and how one thought led
on to another. The procession of thought was doubtless
marked more explicitly as the discourses flowed from His
lips : John has not attempted to do more than present
the salient thoughts in their consecutive order, recalling
the actual Aramaic words in which they were uttered :
he must leave much of the connecting links to be supplied
by such of his readers as should be able to follow him.
These discourses, preserved by John, spoken to Jewish
theologians or to the inner circle of the Twelve can never
have been meant for popular reading : we seem to require
the mystic's vision, or intellects trained in dogmatic
theology, to expound them to us. And this not so much
because dogmatic theology has its roots in the written
records of John, as because the mind of the Church moves
of necessity in harmony with the written records.

When our Lord spoke to the people and to the untrained
intelligence, He spoke as the Synoptic gospels represent
Him. When He spoke of the deep mysteries or to trained
theologians, He spoke as John has recorded. John has
not recast in his own style our Lord's discourses ; but
rather those discourses, by long meditation upon them,
have become John's habitual language as the only language
adequate to express the transcendental vision. The same
thing has happened with John the Baptist : he sees as
John the Evangelist sees, and as our Lord's own language
had taught them both to see. The Baptist's language
(John i. 15-18 : iii. 27-36) is that of our Lord's discourses
as preserved in the fourth Gospel, and is that of our
Lord's uttered communion with The Father as preserved
by Matthew (xi. 25-27) and by Luke (x. 21, 22).

§ XXIV

JOHN XVIII. 1-27

I'lie arrest in Gethsemaiie. Tlie inquiry in Caiaphas's house.

(1) " Having spoken these things Jesus went forth with
His disciples," etc., i.e. with the Eleven. " Went forth,"
i.e. from the city, and probably by the March 24,
Fountain Gate at the south-east corner of the Thurs. night,
walls, near the Pool of the Siloam. Then about 10.30 p.m.
turning northward they would ascend the Kedron ravine
for 1000 yards or so to the lower bridge that stood
by the " Tomb of Absalom " : here crossing the torrent
to the east side and following up the valley for another
400 yards they would come to Gethsemane.*

" A garden," viz. that of Gethsemane. It lay at the
foot of the Mcstern slope of the Mount of Olives and on
the left bank of the Kedron torrent.

John makes no mention of the Agony in the garden :
that had already been related in the three synoptic gospels :
but he will add a few details of that night.

(2) Judas not only " knew the place," but knew that
our Lord and the Eleven would be passing the night there
as was His habit. Though Saturday and Sunday nights
were spent at Bethany, those of Monday, Tuesday, Wednes-
day, and to-night He passed on the Mount of Olives (Luke
xxi. 37, " during the nights, going out (of the city), He
used to lodge in the mount which is called the Mount of

Olives " {Ta£ §£ VVKTUg it,ip\6fXiV0Q l]v\iZ,i:TO £1^ TO OpOCJ TO

KaXovfievov 'EXcu&v)). Another notice of His passing a night

* From this point onwards fuller notes will be found in my The Crucifixion
and Resurrection of Jesus Christ; but advantage of this opportunity' has been
taken to make some corrections and additions.

357

358 JOHN XVIII. 2-4

here is in John viii. 1. Tradition shows still the large
natural grotto here used by Him.

(3) " Judas therefore having received (A) the band of
soldiers (n)y (nrupav) and (B) officers from the chief
priests and the Pharisees." This is the first notice we have
in the four gospels of any Roman infantry having taken
part in the arrest. The article in ttjv crwupav points to
the battalion which garrisoned the Antonia fortress in
Jerusalem. The " officers " {v-Tn^pirag) are members of the
Temple police, a body of men drawn from the tribe of
Levi.

" With cressets and torches " (jutra (j)uvCt)v Kdl XafxTrd^wv) :
an incidental touch that shows it was not the time of
full moon. The details given by the Mishna and other
Rabbinical books about the fixino- of the Paschal month bv
observance of the moon's phases belong either to an ideal
system of Rabbinical fancy, or, more probably, to a change
of system adopted by the Jews in the latter half of the
first century of our era when they abandoned their 84-
year cycle as being unsatisfactory, and began a long
series of experiments to obtain a calendar which should
keep months and moons concurrent — experiments which
resulted in their present luni-solar calendar at the time
(early 4th century) that the Council of Nicaea gave
Christendom an amended Paschal canon.

The moon had been full last Friday at 9.16 p.m.
Jerusalem time, and would hardly be up as yet — say
12.30 a.m.

(4) " Jesus therefore, knowing all the things that
Mch. 251 . were coming upon Him, went forth." John
Nisan 15^ ^'' is careful to mark the divine omniscience of
12.30 a.m. our Lord. "Went forth," not from the garden,
about. ly^^^ from the grotto, where He and the Eleven
had had a brief rest after His agony.

Here comes the kiss of Judas (Matt. xxvi. 47-50a :
Mark xiv. 43-45 : Luke xxii. 47, 48) at the entrance of
the grotto : and Judas drops back into line with his party
who had now come up.

" And He saith to them." i.e. to those in command of

JOHN XVIII. 5-11 lioi)

the soldiers, " Whom seek ye ? " knowing it was Himself
they sought.

(5, 6) The}' answer, "Jesus theNazora;an"(o Na^wpoiocOj*
and they know He stands before them, for Judas has already
given the sign agreed on and is standing with them. He
replies, " I am He " : and in order that His disciples, as
well as His captors and Judas, might know that He Mais
not forcibly taken but deliberately surrendered Himself, a
sudden jiower went forth from Him before which His
enemies retreated and fell to the ground.

(7) He repeats the question to make them recollect
that they had no warrant to arrest the Eleven which perhaps
they were inclined to do. As they admitted they had only
orders to arrest Him, He puts it to them,

(8) " 'If therefore it is Me ye seek, let these go.' (9)
Thus was fulfilled {'Iva TrX^ipioBTi, the ha of result) the word
which He had said (xvii. 12), 'Of those whom Thou
has given Me I lost not one.' "

(10) "Peter therefore," i.e. touched by this loving
care of our Lord for them all, and remembering how
vehemently he had protested a few hours ago that he would
die with Him, " having a-long-knife (fxaxaipa) drew it,"
etc. This long-knife was one of the two long-knives
(/iaxajjOftc) or " short-swords " which had been produced
by the Apostles in the " Upper Chamber " (Luke xxii.
38). They are probably the two long double-edged knives
which Peter (the Levite) and John (the priest) had used in
the slaying and preparing of the Paschal lamb in the
afternoon (Luke xxii. 8). The word fidxcupa is used by
the LXX for the sacrificial knife of Abraham (Gen. xxii.
6, 10) and for that of the Levite in Judges xix. 29 — the
Hebrew in all three instances being hamma'akeleth, " the
knife."

(11) To Peter's vehemence Jesus answered by bidding

* " The Nazoraean," o NaCaipaios. This is the form that Matthew (twice)
and John (three times) invariably use : so too Luke in the Acts invariably
(eight times), but in his gospel only once as against Nazarene (Na^apijvby) twice.
Mark uses Nazarene (^aCaprjvos) invariably (four times). The Syriac Version
does not vary : throughout the four gospels and Acts its No§royo' favours the
form l^a^wpatos.

360 JOHN XVlll. 11-12

him bhcathc his knife, " The cup which The Father hath
♦riven Me, shall I not drink it ? " He intended to accept to
the fidl what The Father (and He Himsell' qua The Son) had
put on Him. From this moment the disciples would
understand that He forbad them to interfere in any way on
His behalf. Thus John during the scene in Caiaphas's
house to-night will not make any protest : he will watch, and
seek to understand.

(12) The Roman soldiers " therefore " * and the Jews'
police " officers " {vvi^perai) arrested Jesus and bound Him :
whilst He pointed out (Luke xxii. 52) to certain of the
Sanhcdrin and magistrates of the Temple {(Trparriyovg tov
hpov) who were present the uselessness of this armed force :
' Did they not know that He could not be taken unless
He assented ? Had they not discovered that, during their
many futile attempts to arrest Him in the Temple ? '
Cf. John vii. 32, 44 : viii. 20 : x. 39. ' But now their
hour was come ' — the hour that He and The Father had
fore-ordained for the seeming triumph of evil.

The three Synoptists record our Lord's remark to these
His enemies, " As against a robber are ye come out with
swords and staves to take Me." In the words, " As
against a robber " (wc etti \y(TTi)v). He seems to be
alluding to the recent capture of the notable robber (Ajiarijc)
Barabbas and his band who had made an insurrection in
the city accompanied with murder (see Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and the contrast Peter draws (Acts iii. 14, 15)
between Barabbas the " murderer " and Jesus " the
Prince of Life "). We may conjecture that the capture of
Barabbas had very recently been made. Some such political
crisis seems required to account for the readiness with which
Pilate had furnished the soldiers for this raid upon Jesus ;
and would also explain why so strong a force as rj airupa had
been put at the disposal of Caiaphas : for it needs an
explanation. The governor, determined to show a strong
hand in dealing with Barabbas's insurrection, had purposely

* Tlie "tliercfore" implies that, with those last words to Peter, our Lord
withdiew tliab power by which He had (verse G) prevented the advance of His
captors.

JOHN XVIIl. 12-13 361

fixed the public execution of that ringleader and of his
two accomplices to Friday, Nisan 15, knowing that that was
the festival -day. It was only at the last moment, viz.
on Wednesday afternoon (p. 298), that the Sanhedrin,
determining that Jesus should be executed along with those
malefactors, postponed the Paschal celebration by twenty-
four hours : for they feared a riot unless they could secure
time to divert the current of popular enthusiasm that had
set so strongly in His favour these last four days : and it is
surprising to find how successful they proved to be. Such
postponement woidd further, incidentally, serve them as
a counterblast to the governor's challenge.

Thus, that our Lord was cmcified on Friday, Nisan 15,
was due to Pilate's having fixed Barabbas's crucifixion to
that the proper festival-day : whereas that He, the
Paschal Lamb, was crucified at the very hour that the
nation were sacrificing the Paschal lambs was due to
the Sanhedrin's action under Caiaphas in postponing the
Passover by one day.

The whole narrative of the occurrences of to-night and
to-morrow argues an agitation throughout all classes —
Pilate and the garrison, the Sanhedrin, the crowds — that
is hardly accounted for by the mere arrest of One who had
spent the last four days openly and peacefully in the city
and Temple. Fanatical outbreaks such as that of Barabbas
habitually coincided with the great annual festivals.

(13) " And they brought Him before Annas first." *
Not to Annas's house, but before Annas as magistrate
sitting in Caiaphas's house : for Luke (xxii. 54) says,
" they brought Him into the house of the Highpriest,"
{tlaijjayov dg r?)v oJkiciv tov dp\iepUog), viz. of Caiaphas :

and the three denials of Peter are, according to the
Synoptists, clearly in one and the same house, viz.
Caiaphas's. Here Annas was waiting, perhaps having
come over from his own house (180 yards to the north) as
soon as he knew that the detachment from the Antonia
garrison had started to make the arrest.

* aTT-nyayov TTpos "Kuvav, cf. the Attic law term, the an-ayajyi; uphs tovs
eVSf Ko :;^ the carrying off a prisoner before the magistrates.

362 JOHN XVITI. 13-18

With the safe transfer of Jesus to Annas at the High-
priest's house the work of the Roman soldiers
Fn., about ^.^^^^^ ^^^ ^j^^ ^^-^j^^ rpj^^ ^-^^^^ ^^^ j^^ ^^1^^^^^

1 a.m. Jb riday.
" Caiaphas, who was Highpriest that year." The
force of " that year " seems to be " that, the most
momentous year in the history of the human race," as at
xi. 49.

(14) " Caiaphas was he who had counselled the Jews,
'It is expedient that one man die in behalf of the People.'"
John here repeats what he had already told us at xi. 50.
This repetition shows John's desire to make it clear that
it was Caiaphas, the People's representative before God,
who was mainly responsible for the death of Jesus. Also,
it was Caiaphas's house that was the scene of what follows.

(15) Though all His disciples had fled at the time of
our Lord's arrest, there followed Him at a distance Simon
Peter and " another disciple " who no doubt was John
himself. On arrival at the house of Caiaphas, John, being
an acquaintance, or more probably a relative (6 jvwarog),
of Caiaphas, had passed in with Jesus and the Temple
police into the hall * {avXi)) of the house.

(16) But Peter, as being unknown, was stopped at the
outermost door {i.e. the door leading from the street into
the courtyard in front of the house), till John went out and
by a word to the woman who kept that door procured his
admittance.

(17, 18) Peter'' s first denial. The servants of Caiaphas,
and the Temple police [v-mipirai), had made a fire of char-
coal in the centre of the hall (Luke xxii. 25) on one of the
portable braziers commonly used for charcoal, and were
sitting round it warming themselves, and Peter was sitting
with them warming himself. Luke is quite definite that
they and Peter were sitting : so too Matthew as to Peter.
John Seems to speak of them and Peter as standing
[ilcTTi'jKziacnf, and riv toTwc): but these words used by John
are so frequently idiomatic to mean merely "to be

* The avKr), or hall; of a large house was commonly surrounded by a roofed
colonnade which left the centre of the hall open to the sky.

JOHN XVIII. 18-24 363

stationary," " to continue," " to be there," " to be," exactly
like the Italian stare, that the standing cannot be pressed —
no more here than e.g. in the other nineteen places where
they occur in John's gospel.

Here, then, at the fireside Peter was questioned by the
maid-servant who had admitted him at the street door oi"
the courtyard and had brought him in : " Can it be that
thou too (juj) Ktn (7v) art of this man's disciples ? " Her
tone is one of contempt at such silliness. And Peter
made his first denial " before them all " (tfLnrpoaBtv irdvTMv,
Matt.). And he went out from the hall into the porch
(dg Tov TTvXm'a, Matt., ft? to irpoavXiov^ Mark), i.e. the
porch between the hall and the courtyard. And a cock
crew.

(19-23) Then followed a short preliminary examination
before Annas whilst the rest of the Sanhedrin are assembling
in the house. This examination is reported by John alone,
who may have been present.

That Annas is here (19) called by John "the High-
priest " (o cipxi^pdic;), and that Caiaphas is given the same
title (toi' dpxi^p^a) in verse 24, is not extraordinary, for
in Acts iv. 6 the title is again given to Annas, and the date
is only two months later. They both bore the title. The
nationalist and religious party probably refused to recognize
the deposition of Annas by the Roman power, and continued
to regard him as Highpriest de jure for life, although they
recognized Caiaphas as Highpriest de facto. Both are
recognized as together bearing the title in Luke iii. 2,
£7rt dpxiepeiog "Avva Koi Kaui(pa. Though the title 6 dpXi^p^VQ
(singular with the article) was confined to the Highpriest
acting or deposed, that of dpxi^pivg was extended to other
members of the great sacerdotal families and to heads of
the various departments connected with the Temple
service (seethe usage of the N.T. writers and of Josephus).

(24) " Annas, therefore,* sent Him before Caiaphas the
Highpriest bound." The word here rendered " before "

* Tlie correct reading, a^n-eo-reiAe^ ovv avrhv 6 "kwas, " Annans, therefore, seni
Him," etc., prevents this verse being regarded as a deferred parenthesis, such
as the A.V. (omitting ovv) assumes it to be.

^64 JOHN XVIII. 24-25

is Trpoc, the regular word for transactions bci'orc magistrates.
The scene is still in Caiaphas's house, to which the Sanhedrin
meanwhile had assembled. It is the dead of night : but,
for all that, thc}^ are all present (see" where the scribes and
the elders assembled." Matt. xxvi. 57 : " the chief priests
and all the Sanhedrin," do. 59 : " all the chief priests and
the elders and the scribes come together," Mark xiv. 53 :
"■ the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin," do. 55) : we may,
therefore, picture their agitation throughout that night.
Caiaphas as the de facto Highpriest was to act as president
of this informal meeting in his own house : he is the leading
spirit in the movement. He no doubt received from
Annas a summary of his preliminary interrogatory and
our Lord's demand that witnesses against Him should be
produced (John xviii. 21).

(25) Peter's second denial. It was during this inquiry
before Caiaphas that occurred Peter's second denial. We

saw (p. 363) how after his first denial he had
2 am gone out from the hall (dvXi)) into the porch.

There he was seen, by another maid (aXX?j,
Matt. xxvi. 71) : she is Mark's " the maid " (/) waiotfTKr],
xiv. 69), i.e. she who kept the yorch, not she of the street
door of the courtyard who had been concerned in the first
denial. This maid of the porch says " to the men there "
{ro^g Ikh, Matt., Tou: TvapzarGxTiv, Mark), viz. at the porch,
" This one was with Jesus the Nazoraean " (Matt.). Thus
it was that on his return to the fire in the hall, and whilst
he "was there warming himself" {r\v . . . iaTOjg kiCi
OtpfxaivoptvoQ, John xviii. 25), another person, a man
(fV£(Qoc', Luke), said to him, " Thou also art of them."
Peter said, " Man, I am not " : or as Matthew has it, " he
again denied, with an oath, ' I know not the Man ' " : or
as John has it, "he denied and said ' I am not.' " The
time may be about 2 a.m.

(24) For this examination before Caiaphas and all the
Sanhedrin this night we are dependent on Matthew (xxvi.
59-66) and Mark (xiv. 55-64), for neither John nor Luke
give any details of it. To what I have said in The
Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, pp. 43-47,

JOHN XVIII. 24-26 365

which deal with this examination before Caiaphas, I wish
here to add that Matthew (xxvi. 61) seems to be giving
the words of one of " the two false witnesses," and Mark
(xiv. 58) seems to be giving those of the other one. It
is the word dx^ipoiroinTov (" not-madc-with-hands ") used
by this latter witness that was fatal to their agreement :
for it showed that our Lord had not been talking of
rebuilding the stone temple, as indeed the chief priests
and theologians had all along known.

Having failed to establish any charge of innovation
on the Law, or of contempt for the Temple and its ritual,
the Highpriest adopted another course. ' We can dispose of
the Prisoner on the simple charge of blasphemy : for if
he claims to be the Messiah, he must also claim to be The
Son of God.' It was John the Baptist (as we saw at p. 27)
who had coined this title for the Messiah in the Person of
Jesus. The scribes or theologians had accepted it from
the Baptist as a title belonging to Messiah, but refused it
to Jesus as not being Messiah (see at p. 42, " Son of
God "). The " blasphemy " was not that He who claimed
to be Messiah claimed also to be " The Son of God," the
two titles went together : but that this man before them,
whom they denied to be the Messiah, should be claiming
Messiah's highest prerogative. Had He consented to be
the sort of Messiah they wanted, there would have been
nothing heard about blasphemy.

It was this Man's personality that they hated. There
was no room for them and Him : one or other must go :
nor was the position obscure to the Roman governor—
" he knew that it was owing to envy {Sia (pdovov) that
they delivered Him to him " on the morrow (Matt.
xxvii. 18).

The conditions under which the examination in Caia-
phas's house was conducted, viz. (A) after sunset, (B) in
a private house, make it impossible that any one present
supposed it to be a formal trial : it was rather an
unofficial inquiry held by Caiaphas to take the sense of
the Sanhedrin, and to decide on the definite line they
should take to-morrow in the Council Hall of the Sanhedrin.

36G JOHN XVIII. 2C-27

They showed a practical unanimity * and condemned Him
to be worthy of death {evo^ov elvai Oavdrov = to be Hable
to the penalty of death). Thereupon, no doubt, the
Sanhedrin dispersed to their several homes : after arrang-
ing to meet at daybreak in their Council Hall.

Then followed the ill-treatment of our Lord mentioned
by the three Synoptists (Matt. xxvi. 67, 68 : Mark xiv.
65 : Luke xxii. 63-65). Luke specifies the actors as
being " the men who held Jesus," where the words rendered
the men, ol av^psQ (not olavOpunroi), point to men of some
authority and probably are equivalent here to Mark's
o? vTn]fi£Tai, viz. the Temple police.

. (26) Peter^s third denial. It was about now, " about

an hour " (Luke, 59) after Peter's second denial, that he

was again accused by one of the Highpriest's

"'' , ' ■ servants — a kinsman of that Malchus whose

about. _, , ^ no /-r 1 ^ . t -r-^ • i X

ear Peter had cut off (John). Did not 1
myself (tyw) see thee in the garden with him (Jesus) ? "
(27) " Again Peter denied. And straightway a cock
crew." The time may perhaps be 3 a.m., Friday — the close
of the third watch, known as Cock-crow. See at xiii. 38.

All the eleven Apostles could have been easily identified
by the hostile party, had the latter cared to inquire ; but
they were looked upon as of no account and not worth
hunting down. In the Highpriest's hall Peter had been
in danger, not of violence, but rather of ridicule, as being
a weak-headed fellow led astray by an enthusiast.

For the short remainder of the night (two or three
hours) our Lord must certainly have been locked up by
the Temple police, in Caiaphas's house. Local tradition
shows the place of this His detention in the present
Armenian church which occupies the site of Caiaphas's
house.

* Mark's "all" {Tvavres), in verse 64, will mean all who were present. In
view of Luke xxiii. 51 it is probable that neither Joseph of Arimathsea nor
Nicodemus had received summons from Caiaphas to this meeting in his house,
they being known to be favourably disposed to Jesus. In that case, it is
probable that neither, again, were present at the Sanhedrin's meeting in their
Council Hall that followed at daybreak, for that meeting can only have been
arranged overnight.

§ XXV
JOHN XVIII. 28-XIX. 18

Jesus and Pilate

The last two or three hours of the night being over
(and before John resumes at xviii. 28), with the early
morning of Good Friday, March 25, a.d. 29, the narrative
is taken up by Luke (xxii. 66-71), who tells how our Lord
was led away from Caiaphas's house to the Council Hall
of the Sanhedrin, thus—

" At daybreak, the assembly of elders of the People,
chief priests, and scribes, was gathered together. And
they led Him away to their Council Hall "
(Luke xxii. 66, dg to awi^piov avr&v) : the word u «*' q
means, indifferently, " the Sanhedrin " or " the
Hall of the Sanhedrin." This official Hall was still, and
until the end of this year a.d. 29, the Hall of Polished
Stones : it stood at the south-west angle of the Court
of the Women. Luke alone (xxii. 66-71) gives any
details of this formal meeting of the Sanhedrin, though
both Matthew (xxvii. 1) and Mark (xv. 1) mention it.
John wholly ignores it.

The proceedings were short and summary, confined to
putting formally, at 6 a.m. (the earliest legal hour), in this
the official Council Hall, the question which
they had last night in Caiaphas's house
decided on as the one that best met the case, or at
least the one they could best make serve their turn.
It is drawn out syllogistically, " Art thou the Christ (the
Messiah) ? tell us." To our Lord's indirect reply in the
affirmative, in which He calls Himself "The Son of Man "
who was to " sit henceforth at the right hand of the
power of God," the Council themselves [-rravTeQ, all of them,

367

368 JOHN XVIII. 28

as by previous agreement) draw the certain inference, and
add, " Therefore (sc. being the Christ) thou art The Son
of God ? " in order to get home the charge of blasphemy.
They all knew that " The Son of Man " and " Messiah "
were used synonymously by our Lord. They also knew
that the Messiah must also be the " Son of God " in some
special way, though there was doubt as to the exact
connotation of this latter title. He answers, " Yourselves
say, I am " — a Hebrew idiom for " You are right : I am."
And they, " Why have we still need of witnesses ? Our-
selves have heard from His own mouth," i.e. have heard
to-day in the Court formally what they heard last night
informally in their inquiry in Caiaphas's house. But here
again no sentence of death was pronounced by the President
formally against Him. According to the Gemara, " Sen-
tence of death could not be pronounced till the day
after the trial " : and He had not yet been formally tried.

The object of this Council was not to pass a sentence
that they themselves would have to carrj^ out, but to make
a pronouncement that would justify them in procuring the
Prisoner's death at the hands of Pilate. The pith of their
scheme was to compass His death to-day and by crucifixion :
neither of which ends coidd they attain except through
Pilate.

That to-day cannot have been the national festival-
day of the Passover, i.e. the day (whether we reckon the
civil day of twenty-four hours beginning at midnight, or
the common day of twelve daylight hours beginning at
sunrise) following the Paschal supper of the nation, is
clear from the fact of this sitting of the Sanhedrin
to-day : for the Mishna (Beza) expressly declares that
on a festival-day no Court of Law may sit, no more
than on a Saturday.

(XVIII. 28) It is at this point, viz. aftei- the Fridaj''

morning's meeting of the Sanhedrin in their Council Hall,

that John resumes the narrative. " There-

f!" ^R°^ ,1 f^^^ they lead Jesus from Caiaphas to the

Praetorium.

John was aware that the meeting in the Sanhedrin 's

JOHN XVIII. 28 3G9

Council Hall intervened between the meeting in Caiaphas's
house overnight and the scene in the Prsetorium. The
force, therefore, of "from Caiaphas " in this passage seems
to be to emphasize again the fact that Caiaphas, in the
Council Hall no less than in his own house, was the
head and front of the hostility to Jesus (see at verse
14). The President of the Sanhedrin was rarely, if ever,
the Highpriest : at this date Gamaliel was President.

" The Prsetorium " {t6 Trpainopiov) is the official resi-
dence for the time being of the governor,* viz. on this
occasion the Castle of Antonia, which was also the Roman
barracks : it adjoined the north-west corner of the Temple
cloisters.

"And it was morning" (h' cl Trpon). The hour is
vague. It may be about 6.15 for the Sanhedrin had wasted
no time and the proceedings had been merely formal — a
ten minutes' affair.

" They themselves went not into the Prsetorium, in
order not to be defiled, but to eat the Passover." The
defilement here meant is probabl}^ that caused by entrance
into a Gentile house whence leaven had not been removed for
the Paschal festival. By the word avroi (" they them-
selves ") in this verse John draws distinction between the
Jews who had yet to eat the Paschal lamb and therefore
could not enter the Praetorium, and Jesus who as we know
had already eaten it. It has been argued that to " eat
the Passover " cannot here mean to eat the Paschal supper
seeing that the defilement caused by entering the Prsetorium
(a Gentile house from which leaven had not been removed)
would last only till sunset, and so woidd not prevent their
eating the Paschal supper to-night, which, anyway, would
not be eaten until after sunset.

But is it strange that the Sanhedrists should refuse to
wantonly incur any defilement on the day of the year when
every individual was specially bound to purify himself
before coming this evening to the Paschal celebration ?
Would not every one, Sanhedrists and all, be specially

* Ag is fully explained in The Crucifixion and Resurrection, p. 54.

2 B

370 JOHN XVIII. 28-30

careful to-day t(j incur no defilement that could postiibly
be avoided ? Translate literally the words 'Iva fiij fiiavd&mv
dXXa (pctyioaiv to riaor\;o, " with a view to not being defiled,
but to eating the Passover," and we shall see that the
English " but might eat " is misleading, for the Greek has
no suggestion that their eating the Passover would be
impossible if they incurred this particular defilement.

" But to eat the Passover " : for, as explained on pp.
297-302, the nation were going to kill their Paschal lambs
this afternoon, Friday, Nisan 15, and to eat their Paschal
su])per after sunset — our Lord and the TavcIvc having
killed their Paschal lamb yesterday, Nisan 14, and eaten
it last night. To " eat the Passover" ((payHv t6 llao-xo)
means invariably to eat the Paschal lamb : see Matthew
xxvi. 17 : Mark xiv. 12, 14 : Luke xxii. 11, 15. So too
in the O.T. (where, however, the phrase is rare), 2 Chron.
XXX. 18 (Exod. xii. 11 : Num. ix. 11). Nor has any
warrant been produced to make it mean anything else ;
much less any instance given where it does mean anything
else. Wieseler has done the best to make out a case, but
without success.

Verses 29-32

The Trial before Pilate. It was held " outside " the
Pr£etorium building, and in the open : it is described by
Luke (xxiii. 1-4), who also shows (verse 14) that it must
have been outside the Praetorium, for Pilate there refers
to this trial as having been held " before you " {ivannov
vixiHv)., viz. the Sanhedrists. The pith of it is given by Luke
(xxiii. 2, 3), Matthew (xxvii. 11-14), and Mark (xv. 2-5).

(30) The charge brought was that of inciting to rebellion
and claiming to be Himself King (see Luke). The Prisoner
admitted to Pilate that He claimed to be " the King of
the Jews " (Luke, Matt., Mark), and obviously Pilate must
have been satisfied (verse 4 of Luke) that there was in that
claim no taint of treason against the emperor.

To the accusations of the members of the Sanhedrin
the Prisoner gave no reply (Matt, verse 12) : He knew they
did not believe their charge that " He forbade to give

JOHN XVIII. 30 371

tribute to Caesar," for it was to their own envoys that He
had given the exactly opposite decision two days ago
(Luke XX. 19-26) : and as for their charge that " He calls
Himself Messiah and therefore King," if that were vahd
as a crime in His case, it would be valid as against any
Messiah, so that they were making themselves apostates
from the very hope of Israel.

When Pilate with some duplicity called His attention
to the mass of testimony brought against Him by His
accusers He made no defence to Pilate on even one single
point (Matt., Mark), for He knew that Pilate was aware of
the flimsiness of the charges. His silence was no discourtesy
to Pilate : it was rather, as Pilate knew, a protest against
the disingenuousness of the prosecution, and a reproof to
the conscience of Pilate the judge who was dissembling-
knowledge.

Pilate's decision is given us by Luke in verse 4, " I find
no fault in this man," and it is again referred to by Pilate
in verse 14 (Luke). Pilate had known all along that there
was nothing in the charge : he understood the position
perfectly (Matt, xxvii. 18, "he knew that for envy they
had delivered Him up "). As governor of the province
Pilate had long had his attention turned to this religious
reformer, had long ago decided that there was no danger
to the public peace from that quarter : Jesus must have
been frequently the subject of discussion in the governor's
house, and the governor's wife (Claudia Procula) seems to
have been strongly impressed in His favour. She, knowing
the weakness of her husband's character, had sent to him
the first thing in the morning, whilst he sat on the judgment-
seat (Matt, xxvii. 19), to caution him against interfering
with " that just man," telling of a painful dream-vision
she had had that morning connected with Him, and probably
warning Pilate not to let himself be over-ridden by what
he knew to be a base scheme against an innocent man.
The " judgment-seat " (/3r}/xa) was a portable seat, and
had of course been set up outside the Prsetorium when
Pilate went " outside " (John xviii. 29) to hold the trial ;
just as it was again set up outside each time Pilate went

372 JOHN XVIII. 30-32

outside later on to speak to the people, e.g. xix. 13, where
it is again mentioned as being " outside."

Pilate's decision (Luke xxiii. 4) that so far as Roman
law went he found no fault in the Prisoner was met by
vehement disapproval from the Sanhcdrist party. " If
he was not a malefactor it is not to thee that we would
have handed him over," i.e. it is just because he is guilty
of treason to Rome that we have transferred him to your
Court.

(31) Pilate : ' Take him and judge him yourselves
according to your own law : you have fidl powers there.'

The Jews : But " we have not th(; power to put any
one to death (niitv ovk e^eora' aTroKTUvai ov^iva) " : i.e. ' OUr
Court has no jurisdiction in cases under Roman law
involving capital punishment. We charge the prisoner
with treason against Rome. It is a matter for your
Court, not ours.' They expect Pilate will find himself
l)ound to pronounce the penalty of crucifixion against
Him. They do not mean that they had not the power to
put to death offenders against their own Mosaic law : for
all Rabbinists allow that the Sanhedrin had the power of
capital punishment until they abandoned their Council
Hall of Gazith, i.e. Hall of Pohshed Stones, " forty years
before the destruction of the temple," i.e. they had it until
A.D. 30. They mean they had no power to crucify ; and
crucifixion was what they Avere bent on securing as being
the most ignominious form of death — the very death Jesus
had often foretold as awaiting Him. (For the Hellenistic
'iva TrXjjjowOy = and so was fulfilled, see p. 308.)

They continued in their violent insistence on the
mischief that was out over the whole province (Luke), and
on how it had its origin in that hotbed of fanaticism,
Galilee : it was from Galilee that those frenzied zealots
had come whom Pilate had recently put to death in the
Temple courts (Luke xiii. 1), p. 252.

Hearing (Luke xxiii. 6) that the Prisoner was a Galilaean
and therefore belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, Pilate sent
Him to Herod for trial : Herod and his court being at the
time in Jerusalem, haAing come up probably for the festival.

JOHN XVIII. 33-30 373

Between verses 32 and 33 of John xviii. should be
placed the removal of the Prisoner to Herod's house, the
scene there, and the return to Pik.te (Luke xxiii. 5-12).

Verses 33-38a

(33) " Therefore Pilate entered the Praetorium again
and," etc. This is an interview between Pilate and the
Prisoner after the return of the latter from Herod : it was
held inside the Praetorium, and therefore no other Jew
was present at it.

Pilate recurring to the pith of the accusation, repeats,
"■ Thou art the king of the Jews ? " was it so ?

(34) " Of thyself art thou saying that or did others
speak to thee about Me ? " This reply asks what exactly
is the meaning that Pilate intends to attach to that term.
Does he purpose to treat the charge of treason at what
he personally knows it to be worth, and so dismiss it
with contempt ? or will he pretend to take it seriously
and treat it as the Jews hoped to compel him ?

(35) Pilate scouts the latter alternative : " Am / a
Jew ? " i.e. like these your despicable accusers, of whose
disingenuousness I am fully aware ? I am not accusing
you. " It is thine own nation and their chief-priests that
handed thee over to me. What didst thou ? " i.e. to
embitter them so against thee ?

(36) He replies that His offence is that " My Kingdom
is not of this world (k rod K6af.iov tovtov) " and therefore
not to their liking. Kotr^oc is here used as at xii. 31
(p. 292) — the created world viewed in its microcosm, man :
but man in his present state of alienation from God owing
to sin : for by sin he dragged creation back into its evil
rut whence it had for a moment been lifted, and been given
a fresh start along with himself, in Eden. His Kingdom
does not owe its origin to, nor is it based on, the maxims
and ideals that govern this world.

" If My Kingdom were of this world. My servants would
fight that I should not be handed over to the Jews "
— as saying that " the Jews," and their then conception of

374 JOHN XVIII. 36-39

Messiah's Kingdom, were the embodiment of all that on
earth was most alien to His Kingdom.

" But now {vvv hi) My Kingdom is not from here
{IvT^vdev) " : perhaps implying that in a later Age His
Kingdom woidd be from here, in that then the Jews will
be converted to Him, and this world will grow to be after
His own pattern, till He be the one Lord of all in the New
Jerusalem come down from Heaven and set up on earth
(Rev. xxi., xxii.).

(37) Pilate : " So then, a king thou art ? "

Jesus : " Thou sayest that I am a king " — ^Hebraism for
" thou art right in saying that I am a king." " / to this
end have been born and to this end have come into the
world, viz. to witness to Truth," i.e. to witness to true
ideals of thought ; to true values of desires, aims, conduct ;
to the tnie nature of God both in Himself and as regards
His creation. Such is the first work of this King. And —

" Every one who is of Truth (k -rje aXjjOtioc) hears
My voice " : i.e. His appeal is to the conscience of man,
and in so far as conscience (that mirror in man that reflects
God) is not wholly obscured His appeal finds response.
Our Lord who never wasted words would hardly have
spoken thus impressively to Pilate had He not detected in
him that which would one day respond.

(38) Pilate : " What is truth ? " i.e. there is no such
conception to which man can attune himself: is not all
in flux ? What is true to-day is not true to-morrow :
what is true for you is not true for me.

(386) And without waiting for an answer nor admitting
that there might be room for one, " he again " (for the
Luke xxiii previous exit see verse 29) " went out to
13-19 ; the Jews " (John), whom meanwhile " he

Matt, xxvii. had summoned together" (Luke): there he
15-21 ; Mark harangues them, saying (39) he himself could
XV. 6-11. ^^^ ^^ fault in the Prisoner in the matter of

an}^ of the charges brought against Him, nor yet had Herod
found Him guilty of any capital crime : he proposed, there-
fore, to scourge Him and then release Him in accordance
with the Passover custom of releasing one prisoner : the

JOHN XVIII. 39— XIX. 3 375

choice was to be left to the crowd : should it be Jesus who
was called "Messiah " (Christ), the " King of the Jews " ?
or that notable prisoner and rebel called Barabbas ? whose
name also was Jesus according to a very early tradition.

This is Pilate's first attempt to secure the release of
Jesus : it fails : for —

(40) The crowd, at the instigation of the chief-priests
and elders (Matt., Mark), " cried out, saying, ' Not this one,
but Barabbas.' " John says " they again cried out "
{iKpav'yaaav ovv iraAiv) : he has perhaps in mind the pre-
vious shoutings of " the chief-priests and the crow^ds "
wdiich had greeted Pilate's first announcement to them (as
we learn from Luke xxiii. 4, 5) before he sent the Prisoner
to Herod.

John's account, from beginning to end of his gospel,
always in the minutest details, preserves the strict chrono-
logical sequence of events : whereas the three S3^noptists
frequently prefer to follow a sequence not of time but of
idea.

(XIX. 1) So at this point our Lord was taken and
scourged at Pilate's order by the Roman soldiers. The
scourging was meant by Pilate to save the pri., March
Prisoner from death : it was meant to put 25, about
such an indignity upon Him that " the Jews " "^-^O a.m.
would be satisfied that the people would no longer want
Him for a king. No doubt too the mocking by the
Roman soldiers that immediately followed the scourging,
and which John alone (xix. 1-3) describes, was carried
out at Pilate's orders, and was part of Pilate's not ill-
meant attempt to make the Prisoner appear contemptible.
For that is the line Pilate is taking in his second attempt
to save Him.

(2) After the scourging " the soldiers plaited a crown out
of thorns and put it on His head, and put around Him a
purple cloak : (3) and they kept coming {iqpxovTo) before
Him and saying, ' Hail, king of the Jews ! ' " And after
this prolonged mock obeisance " they smote Him with their
hands."

" A crown of thorns " : it was made probably of the

376 JOHN XIX. 3-7

flexible twigs of the Zizyphits Spina-Chrisii, known locally
to-day as the nebq or sidr, as are the jilaited crowns of
thorns commonly sold to-day to pilgrims at Jerusalem.

" A purple cloak " {If^idnov ■jrofx^vpovv), i.e. a long cloak
of royal colour (see at p. 386).

(4) " And Pilate " (aware of the condition of the
Prisoner) " came out again " (it is his third exit), " and
he saj's to them, ' Sec, I bring him outside to you, that
you may know that I find no crime in him ' " : i.e.
otherwise he would not have brought Him out again.

(5) " Therefore Jesus came out outside, wearing the
thorn crown and the purple cloak." This crown He
continued to Avear to the end : both Origen and Tertullian,
two of the earliest Fathers of the Church of east and
west, assert that He was crucified with it on His head.

" And Pilate says to them, ' Behold, the man ! ' (t^ou,
6 avSpwrrog).''^ There is the man whom you, the Sanhedrin,
pretend to fear the people will insist on making their king.
Look at him : the poor torn bviffoon. After this public
exhibitionof him, you will admit he may safely be released.

It is Pilate's second attempt to secure His release :
it is Luke's (xxiii. 20) O^Xwv u-rroXvaai, " willing, or meaning,
to release " Him. Again he fails : for —

(6) " When the chief -priests and the officials " (o[
v7n]f>irui, viz. the Temple police) " saw Him, they shouted
' Crucify, crucify,' " thus anticipating any possible cry of
indignation or pity from the crowd, and showing them how
a righteous people must steel themselves in a righteous
cause. It is the first overt demand for crucifixion from the
Sanhedrists, but that was the mode of death they had been
working for from the beginning : it would be the ordinary
death for treason under Roman law.

Pilate answers ironically, " Take him, you, and crucify
him " ; knowing that they could not, however much they
wished it : "for / (tyw) do not find crime in him":
before Roman law he is not guilty : and there is the end
of it.

(7) The Jews replied that if innocent before Roman law,
He was guilty before their Law : that His life was forfeit

JOHN XIX. 7-12 377

in any case, even though Pilate would not let Him suffer
by crucifixion. That His guilt for them lay in blasphemy,
in that " He claimed to be God's Son."

(8) Pilate, on hearing this, " became the more afraid."
Impressed already by the Prisoner's personality and moral
aura, he was aware of a stronger fear and anxiety on hearing
of this strange claim.

(9) "And he entered again into the Praetorium,"
followed by Jesus, " and he says to Him, ' Whence art
thou ? ' " " And Jesus gave him not answer " : because
Pilate's question had no bearing on the case before Pilate.
The Prisoner stood before Pilate as a Son of Man, not as
The Son of God.

(10) Pilate asks, had He no reply for him the judge ?
" Knowest thou not I have authority to release thee and
I have authority to crucify thee ? "

(11) Jesus: " Thou wouldest have no authority against
Me had not a grant been made to thee from above " : i.e. it
is only as the representative of Supreme Authority that
Pilate has any : he is not there to act on caprice nor yet
as the convenience of the moment may suggest, "For
this reason he who handed Me over to thee hath a greater
sin " : i.e. the Highpriest who handed Him over to Pilate,
he too sits as the delegate of Supreme Authority : but
inasmuch as the Highpriest's jurisdiction lay on a higher
— the spiritual — plane, and inasmuch as the Highpriest
had or should have had a fuller knowledge of the Hope
of Israel as centred in a Messiah, the Highpriest was
more to blame than was Pilate.

(12a) " Upon this Pilate sought to release Him " : it
is his third attempt. The lKy,TH . . . diroXvcrai used here
by John is stronger than the OiXiov aVoAuo-of used by Luke
of Pilate's second attempt. A further detail of this third
attempt we have in Luke xxiii. 22, how Pilate again pro-
testing to the people that he found no cause of death in
the Prisoner, added that as he had chastised (scourged) Him
he would now let Him go. For this is the meaning of Luke's
second (xxiii. 22) -rraiSevaac ovv avrov diroXvaii), literally,
" having, therefore, chastised him I will release him."

378 JOHN XIX. 12-13

The A.V. and R.V. b\- rendering, " I will, therefore, chastise
him and release him," needlessly insert difficulties: for the
scourging has certainly already taken place (John xix. 1).
Where Luke first uses this phrase (verse 16), it would be
more proper to render again literally with " having, there-
fore, chastised him I will release him " — the meaning on
that occasion being that he proposed to chastise Him and
then to release Him. By a literal rendering on both
occasions, the English would preserve exactly the same
ambiguity as the Greek possesses, and a misleading gloss
would be avoided.

A very similar case occurs in Matt, xxvii. 26,
^pajtWwaac Trapi^wKE, and Mark XV. 15, TTOjOfSwKE Tov
'I)/o-ow (j)paytXXio(Tac, where the A.V. and R.V. render
" when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be,"
etc., as though the scourging only took place immediately
before the delivery to be crucified. But as the scourging
had taken place long before, it would be better to
render here again literally, " having scourged Him, he
delivered Him to be," etc., thus preserving in English
the same vagueness as exists in the Greek as to the length
of time between the scourging and the delivery to be
crucified.

(12&) To this third attempt by Pilate the Jews cried
out, " If thou release the accused, thou art no friend of
Caesar's," implying that for favouring the Prisoner they
would impeach him for high treason, and would have in
his conduct a justification for the sedition that wa? in-
evitable if he continued to thwart them. At this —

(13) Pilate (still not without hope) " led Jesus out and
sat down on the judgment-seat in a place called Lithos-
troton, but in Hebrew (Aramaic) Gabbatha." Not that
Gabbatha is the Aramaic (t/Sjoa'tcr-t) for a tessellated pave-
ment which in Greek is AiOoarpivTov, Lithostroton : but
this particular place bore two names, the Greeks calling-
it Ai06(TTpwTov, " the tessellated pavement " on which
the judgment-seat was placed, whilst the Jews called it
Gabbatha=" the jutting-rock (or brow) of the House,"
i.e. the projecting scarped rock upon which the keep of

JOHN XIX. 14 379

the Antonia Castle was built (and on which still stands the
Turkish barracks), overhanging the Temple courts.

(14a) " And it was Preparation-day of the Passover "
(fji/ §£ UapuaKevi) tov Vldaxd). There is no doubt but
that the more proper rendering of this clause would be,
" And it was Friday of the Passover." UufjucTKivii was the
common term for Friday among all Greek-speaking Jews,
and is to this day the Greek name for the sixth day of the
week wherever Greek is spoken — as universally as is
Saj3j3«Tov (Sabbath) the name for Saturday, and hivpiaKi)
(Lord's-day) for Sunday, The meaning of IlapatTKevri is
" Preparation (day)," but it always meant the Preparation-
day for the weekly Sabbath, the day (Friday) on which
provisions, etc., were prepared, so as not to break the
holy Sabbath ; and, more technically, the day (Friday)
on which the twelve loaves of Shewbread had to be baked
every week so as to be ready for exposition on the Saturday
In other words, it meant the week-day preceding Saturday;
and it is never used to mean the preparation-day (or day
preceding) any other festival than Saturdaj^s. Perhaps
the earliest instance found so far of the word in this sense
of Friday is preserved in Josephus, Ant., XVI. vi. 2, where
a decree of Augustus, inscribed in the Augusteum at Ancyra
in Galatia, is quoted, in which occur the words that the
Jews shall not be compelled to appear in court, ti>
2aj3j3ao-n' i) ry 7rp6 rourrjc Ilapa<TK£v^i otto tipag kvvaTt]^, " on
Saturday, or on the Preparation-day before this day after
the' ninth hour," i.e. they were exempt from 3 p.m. of
Fridays till sunset of Saturdays.

See again how Mark (xv. 42) explains the word, tVa
1)1' TlapcKJKivri, o lari TTpoGa\i^iaTov, " because it was
Preparation-day [i.e. Friday], which is the-day-before-
Sabbath " : Luke (xxiii. 54) similarly explains incidentally,
KOI r\fxipa r\v YlapcKTKevi), Kcii Sa/3/3oroi^ tTrl^wo-Kf, " and the
day was Preparation-day, and Sabbath was drawing
on." In the recently discovered Teaching of the XII.
Apostles (viii) (dating a.d. 80-100) YlapaaK^vr) is the regular
name for the weekly Friday. It appears then that, among
the Greek-speaking Jews, beside the more technical name,

.^SO JOHN XIX. 14

llaoacTKivn, another name for Friday was npomtliliurov,
"' the (lav-before-Sabbath " (phiral, TrpoaufijiuTu) : see
Judith viii. 6, " she fasted all the daj^s of her widowhood
except day s-befo re-Sabbaths, and Sabbaths, and days-
before-new-moons, and new -moons, and feast-days, and
rejoicinr]^-days, of the House of Israel," Iviiarevi ttoVoc ^''c

Kol Trf}uvovfir]ViG)v Kai vovfxr]viG)v k(u iopT&v Kui yjupfwavvhiv . . .
This weekly l^po(Td(i(5aTov, " day-before-Sabbath," is the
same as the weekly r?i irpo rov ^ajjftaTov of Josephus, Ant.,
III. X. 7, where he is dcseribino- the bakino- of the Shew-
bread every Friday. See also the title to Ps. xcii. (xciii.
Heb.) in the LXX version, whieh runs tic tvv ■>y-itp(tv rov
Ylpocraldl^aTov art Kar({>Ki(T-ai i) jrj, (c.r.A., " for the day of the
day-before-Sabbath," etc., clearly meaning Friday ; and
this Psalm was, according to the Talmud, Friday's psalm :
just as Ps. xci. (xcii. Heb.) has for its title, tic rriv ripipav
Tov Sn/3/3aroi;, " for the day of the Sabbath," viz. Saturday.
The meaning of ll«/joa/ctu») being thus settled as Friday,
there remains still the question. What does " Friday of
the Passover " {riapaaKtvi) tov ria'trx") mean ? The answer
is quite simple : John is using to Ylucrxa in the sense of
the Paschal octave, i.e. as the equivalent of ra ut,vfxa = r)
lopTii Toifv d^vpiov = the festival of Unleavened Bread : viz.
the eight days from Thursday, Nisan 14, to Thursday,
Nisan 21, inclusive, as explained at xiii. 1 (p. 301). In so
doing, John is using the term to naax" precisely as Luke
has explained it in xxii. 1, " the festival of Unleavened
Bread which (festival) is called Passover": and in
Acts xii. 3, 4, " intending after the Passover (pird to Vlctaxa)
to," etc. So, too, Josephus, War, II. i. 3, " the festival
of Unleavened Bread having come (it is called Passover
among the Jews)," Trig twv dZvp(»v ivardanq topTTJg {^^d<Txa
rrapd rote 'lovcuioig KaXnTui) : and in the parallel passage,
Ant, XVII. ix. 3. John's habitual use of the term to
1 luaxa covers the zvhole eight days of Unleaven (see especially
at ii. 23, " at the Passover, on the festival-day " (tv tu>
T]d(T\a, tv t?i lopTij) where the words ry lopTtj select Nisan
1.5 out of the whole eight days: for, as shoM^n at j), II.'j,

JOHN XIX. 14 3S]

1} topTt), in connection with nn(T\n, alwnys means the
morrow of the day on which the Paschal lambs were killed.
The sole exception to this extended use of to Ylaaxa by
John is in the phrase, "to eat the Passover" (^oyav ro
n«(Txo), which means with him as with every other writer,
" to eat the Paschal lamb " or Supper (see p. 370).

Thus, naf)a<TKivri tov FIoctx"' " Friday of the Passover "
(or Paschal octave), is analogous to Ignatius's ^fi/3/3oroi' rov
nacrxf'i^ " Saturday of the Paschal season."

It may be added that " to prepare the Passover " was
not TrapaaKs^va^HV to Ilocrxa, but iTotfia'Cuv to Y\(t(T\a, sec
Matt. xxvi. 17, 19 : Mark xiv. 12, IG : Luke xxii. 8, 9,
12, 13.

But we are not yet at the end of the difiiculties con-
nected with this verse 14. For the next clause, " It was
about the sixth hour" {ISipa i]v wc iKT>>), has been the
despair of commentators. If John's notation of hours
were the same as that of the Synoptists, x'vl. from sunrise
to simset — the night being marked by the four watches of
three hours each — " the sixth hour " must mean 12 o'clock
midday. But this is impossible in view of all that has yet
to take place before the great darkness which did not
begin till our Lord Avas on the cross and lasted " from the
sixth to the ninth hour " (Matthew, Mark, Luke), i.e. from
noon till 3 p.m.

It has been already shown (pp. 34, 98, 118) that John's
notation of hours is different from that of the Synoptists,
and that he reckons, as we do, from midnight to midday
and again from midday to midnight. " About the sixth
hour " will therefore be " about 6 a.m." We must re-
member that John reckons all days, except the Jews'
Sabbath, to begin with midnight (as did the Romans) and
not with sunset ; he has just told us the day was Friday,
and immediately adds that the hour was about the sixth "
— obviously meaning "about the sixth hour" of his
Friday, i.e. " about " 6 a.m.

But Luke (xxii. 66) has told us that at daybreak this
morning (wc vfif^oa lyivixo, i.e. at actual sunrise) the
Sanhedrin assembled and Jesus was brought to their

382 JOHN XIX. 14.

Council Hall. This was shortly before ihey-brought our
Lord to Pilate : and John himself hat. told us already
(xviii. 28) that it was " earl}' " {npwi) when they so brought
Him. How then can it be only "about the sixth hour"
(=shortly after 6 a.m.) at this late stage of the proceedings
reached in xix. 14 — after, that is, the tedious trial before
Pilate, the transfer to Herod, the examination by Herod,
the return to Pilate, the scourging and the first mocking
by Pilate's soldiers, the exhibition to the people, and
the further examination by Pilate ? The hour 6 a.m.
appears to be as impossible as 12 noon.

The only tolerable hypothesis seems to be that the
first half of this verse 14 (viz. the double notice as to
the day and the hour, " and it was Friday of Passover :
the hour was about the sixth ") was a late additional note
by John, or by his Ephesian amanuensis, written in the
margin between two columns of his scroll * : that it
really belongs to the very beginning of the trial before
Pilate, and that John meant it to be inserted after the
word " early " in xviii. 28, where it fits aptly and where
indeed John saw he had omitted to give this very impor-
tant notice of the day and hour — after his account of the
preceding night's events. But the copyists outside of the
small province of " Asia," not understanding John's nota-
tion of hours, and thinking that " the sixth hour " must
mean " noon," as was its common meaning with Jews,
Romans, and Greeks, inserted the note into the corre-
sponding line in the other adjacent column, arguing that
the notice of " noon " was less unreasonable at this point
than at xviii. 28, where indeed it Avas impossible. The
distance between xviii. 28 and xix. 14, will be the equiva-
lent of one column of John's autograph. Thus, too, is
explained the incongruity of this clause 14« with its
present context. f

* On papyrus scrolls the columns of text were always written at right angles
to the scroll-length : on either side of every column was a wide margin, purposely
left for corrections, or additions, or what we may call footnotes.

t Further remarks on this and on Mark's notice of " the third hour " will
be found on pp. 89-94 of The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

JOHN XIX. 14 383

The hour reached thus far by the trial is Httle more
than 8 a.m., for we learn from Mark (xv. 22-25), when
rightly understood, that the hour at which
our Lord arrived at Golgotha and was offered
the soporific was "the third hour," i.e. 9 a.m. That note
of time by Mark refers backwards to his verse 23, not
onwards to the words, " And they crucified Him " in
verse 25. Verse 24 is not in chronological order, and owes
its place to force of association with verse 23. Mark
knows by heart, or has before him, the account embodied
in Matthew's gospel : in verses 23, 24, he finishes the two
quotations from Ps. Ixix. 21 and Ps. xxii. 18, just as
Matthew had given them in xxvii. 34, 35 : Mark then
resumes his narrative by naming the hour at which the
events of verses 22, 23, had occurred, viz. " the third
hour," i.e. 9 a.m. Verse 24 is parenthetical and antici-
patory, as is clear from the aravpwcravTeg 8' avrov, " having
crucified Him," for in the direct course of the narrative
the fact of the crucifixion is not told till 25b, " And they
crucified Him " (koI Ifjravpioaav (WTov). There should be
placed a full stop after " and it was the third hour." And
a colon should be placed after verse 24. For " the third
hour " has nothing to do with the " And they crucified
Him."

(14&) Pilate has sat down (verse 13, p. 378) on
the judgment-seat {to /Sj^o) which had been again
brought outside the Praetorium. " And he saith to the
Jews, ' Lo, your king.' " Pilate is not speaking in con-
tempt of Jesus. From the beginning of the day his
sympathies have been with the Prisoner, whilst for the
Jews he has had only contempt tempered with a fear of
a renewal of the insurrection that was but recently sup-
pressed by the capture of Barabbas and his band.

It is probable that even before the arrest of Jesus
Pilate had been predisposed in His favour through Claudia
Procula his wife. This Proeula seems to have been, like
many Roman women, a proselyte to Judaism, and already
a believer in Christ : her dream-vision of last night (Matt.
xxvii. 19) will hardly be the first occasion on which she

384 JOHN XIX. 14-15

has heard of Him, rather that vision was due to her intense
prcocevipation -with the outeome of His arrest and of His
trial on the morrow before her husband. She is the S.
Procula of the Greek hagiology.

Pilate may well have learnt that this Man, whose
dignity and Personality had so strongly appealed to him,
was the king of the Jews by right of descent from David.
Any intelligent governor must have acquainted himself
with the causess of last Sunday's extraordinary enthusiasm
of the crowds for this Man whom they had hailed as " The
Son of David " and as " He who comes in the name of
the Lord " : Pilate knew, from what this Man had just
told him, that He was not claiming an earthly throne
to-day, that in no case would He consent to take His
throne by violence : he must have known from his agents
that herein lay the very root of the Sanhedrin's hate of
Him ; nor could he fail to draw the contrast between the
simple majesty of this Man as against the ugly religiosity
of the hierarchy and their hypocritical professions of
loyalty to Caesar.

Hence his taunt to " the Jews," i.e. the Sanhedrists,
" Lo, your king." ' See how you treat your king, a Man
of whom not one of you is worthy. Did ever nation prove
itself so blind.'

(15) " They {Ikhvol) therefore cried out, ' Away, Away
with him : crucify him.' " To their renewed frenzy
Pilate's renewed taunt. ' Your king, shall I crucify your
king ? The last of your royal line. I have heard what
he has done amongst you. Is this your recognition :
this the estimate you make of him ? a felon's death for
him, and pardon for the rebel murderer. Did ever a
nation so condemn themselves ? '

(156) " The chief-priests answered, ' We have no king
but Caesar.' " This answer has been called " the formal
abdication of the Messianic hope." It was rather an
abdication of any such hope then and there : a rejection
for that time of Jesus as the Messiah : but never have the
Jews abandoned the Messianic hope : and it is certain
that toward the close of this present Age they will turn

JOHN XIX. 15-16 385

and adore Him before His second Coming. For neither
Judah, nor yet Israel, were permanently divorced for all
their infidelities : there is no such a thing as divorce recog-
nized : long ago He chose the nation Israel (the Ten
Tribes and "Judah") to be His bride. He has never
divorced, nor ever can divorce her. Matthew (xxvii. 24)
tells how Pilate, finding his efforts vain and the tumult
increasing, made one last protest against the crime to
which he was being forced : calling for water, he washed
his hands before the crowd, by this symbolic act visible
to all of them, as well as by word of mouth, solemnly dis-
avowing all responsibility for the Prisoner's death, whose
innocence , • once more affirmed. Let those whose violence
had forced his hand accept the guilt : " See ye to it." To
which " all the People " assented saying, " His blood be
on us and on our children."

(16) " Then, therefore, he delivered Him over to them
to be crucified." Pilate's " determination to release

Him " (Acts iii. 13) yielded to his fear of a

8 15 ^ m
popular outbreak with bloodshed, such as *uq„/

he knew the chief-priests might easily, and

certainly would, at this crisis foment.* And releasing

Barabbas the rebel and murderer for whom they petitioned,

he handed Jesus over to their will.

(16) " Therefore they received Jesus " : i.e. it was
because Jesus had been handed over to them for crucifixion
that they received Him to themselves (ttojOeXo/Boi ) : on
no other terms would they take Him. The subject of
the verb is " the chief-priests " of verse 156, inasmuch as
they were the principals acting for the Jews.

Here followed the third scene of derision : viz. the
mocking by the soldiers of the Antonia garrison, on their
own initiative and without official supervision. The
Prisoner having been condemned to a felon's death, none
cared how He is handled now, provided He is not so

* Traditions as to Pilate's end vary. That he died a Christian is in agree-
ment with TertuUian (Apolog. 21), and Augustine {Serm. 3 de Epiphan.) ; also
with the Coptic and Abyssinian Churches, who commemorate him as even
saint and martyr.

2 c

386 JOHN XIX. 16

maltreated that He cannot live to be crucified three hours
or so hence. This scene is not mentioned by either John
or Luke, but is described by Matthew (xxvii. 27-31) and
Mark (xv. 16-20). These two Evangelists, as they mention
only this third scene, relate at this point the scourging :
they do not, however, say that the scourging took place
at this point. It had certainly occurred long before (John
xix. 1). Their words are (ppuyiWuxrag -n-apiBioKa (Matt.) :
7ra/)t^wK£ . . . (ppayeXXwcraQ (Mark) : " having {i.e. already)
scourged Him, he delivered Him to be crucified." Had
He not already been scourged. He would in accordance
with Roman custom have been scourged at this point —
on His condemnation to death : this is the reason why
Matthew and Mark mention at this point of the proceedings
the fact that He had been scourged. Barabbas and his
two associates had been doubtless scourged at the time of
their condemnation.

It should be remembered that there were three scenes
of derision, and in each case our Lord was differently
vested : nor perhaps is the fact without prophetic sig-
nificance : at this crisis in human history every detail
was pregnant with mystery. Thus He was vested —

Firstly, by Herod Antipas (recounted by Luke alone,
xxiii. 7-11), who put on Him a white robe {laOriTa Xapirpdv)
as though He were a candidate soliciting the kingship of
His nation. These words, XajuTrpa. iaBiig, are those used by
Polybius (X. v. 1) to render the Roman toga Candida
worn by candidates for office : it was specially whitened-
with-chalk (cretata) by the fullers. Its symbolism has been
interpreted of this present Age in which He still awaits
recognition by His nation as King.

Secondly, at Pilate's order, carried out by his soldiers
of the Antonia garrison (recounted by John alone, xix. 2, 3).
Pilate put on Him the long-cloak of royalty {tpdnov Troptpvpovv)
worn by national kings under the emperor, such as were
Herod the Great, or the king of Pontus, or the king of
Cappadocia, or Herod Agrippa, etc. Its symbolism has
been interpreted of the millennial Age in which He will
be visibly recognized as King of His united nation (Israel

JOHN XIX. 16 387

and Judah) : but reigning by deputy in Jerusalem. This
deputy (the nasi^ of Ezek. xhv.-xlviii.) is "My servant
David " of Ezek. xxxiv. 23 : xxxvii. 24 : Jer. xxx. 9 :
Hos. iii. 5. The imperial nation of that Age is United
Israel.

Thirdly, by the whole garrison of the Antonia (oXijv r?jv
(TTTHpav) at their own initiative (recounted only by Matthew
xxvii. 27-31 and Mark xv. 16-20), after His condemnation
to death. They stripped Him of His garments and clothed
Him with what Matthew calls " a scarlet mantle " {x^af^v^a
KOKKivrjv). The X'^aiWi'C is the short mantle worn by Roman
soldiers and generals, and especially by the Roman
emperors : it is the Latin sagum and paludamentum. In
the case of soldiers its colour was scarlet (as here), in the
case of the emperors it was purple (porphyry), to which
Mark here alludes in his iv^i^vaKovaiv avrov 7rop(l)vpav
(purple). This iropcpvpav is Mark's gloss " imperial purple "
to explain to us what the soldiers meant by the \Xuiivq.
The scarlet y\apvQ was the nearest approach they could
lay hands on to the imperial yXapvq. The point lies in
the x^^apvq, which no Greek writer could be using vaguely.
On this occasion our Lord is being derided not as the
candidate for a throne, nor yet as the national king, but as
the imperial monarch of the world. Its symbolism has
been interpreted of the post-millennial Age, the Age of
the two last chapters of the book of Revelation, after the
final suppression of Satan and of the last rebellion of man
under Gog's captaincy : that long Age when Jesus reigns
as visible Monarch of the whole earth, before He yields
all up to God having uplifted the whole human race into the
Godhead.

388

JOHN XVIII. 28— XIX. 16

The following is a synopsis of the four accounts of Good Friday

morning from 6 a.m. to about 8.45 a.m. : —

Approximate
hours.

1. The two brief questions put, and the

answers given, in the Sanhedrin's official
Hall in the Temple area. The Temple
area adjoined the Prsetorium.

2. The trial before Pilate, "outside" the

Prsetorium (J. 29) ; with which agrees
Luke (see L. 14, " before you"). Prisoner
not guilty (L. 4 and again 14).

3. Pilate sends Jesus to Herod Antipas : Herod

sends Him back as not guilty (L. 15),
Herod and his soldiers having made a
mock of Him.

4. First private interview between Pilate and

Jesus inside the Prsetorium.

5. Pilate goes out and talks to the People, and

makes his first attempt to save Jesus :
neither he nor Herod had found Him
guilty. " Will scourge Him and then
release Him." The Jews cry, " Not this
one, but Barabbas."
G. The scourging : the mocking by Pilate's
soldiers, done, of coiu-se, by order, and
under official supervision.

7. Pilate goes out to the People : " Behold,

the man " : makes his second attempt to
save Jesus. The Jews cry, " Crucify Him."

8. Second private interview between Pilate and

Jesus inside the Prsetorium.

9. Pilate's third attempt to save Jesus : the

Jews insist, " Crucify Him."

10. Pilate takes his seat "outside," upon Gab-

bath4 : makes yet a final appeal : washes
his bands of the crime.

11. Pilate hands Him over to be crucified.

12. The mocking by the whole garrison of the
Antonia, on the soldiers' own initiative,
and without supervision, now that the
Prisoner is condemned.

a-in.
6.0

G.li

().40

7.30

.45

8.0

8.10

8.25

Luke xxii. 66-71.
Matt, xxvii. 1.
Mark xv. 1.

John xviii. 28-32.
Luke xxiii. 1-4.
Matt.xxvii.il -14.
Mark xv. 2-5.
Luke, w. 5-12.

John, vv. 33-37.

John, vv. 38-40.
Luke, vv. 13-19.
Matt., vv. 15-21.
Mark, vv. 6-11.

John xix. 1-3.

John, vv. 4-7.
Luke,w. 20-21.
Matt., V. 22.
Mark, vv. 12-13.
John, vv. 8-11.

John, V. 12.
Luke, vv. 22, 23.
Matt., V. 23.
Mark, v. 14.
John, vv. 13-15.
Matt., vv. 24,25.

John, V. 16.
Luke, V. 24.
Matt., V. 26.
Mark, v. 15.
Matt., vv. 27-31.
Mark, vv. 16 -20.

§ XXVI

JOHN XIX. 17-42

The Crucifixion. The Burial.

Three cruGifixions had already been ordered for to-day
by Pilate, viz. those of Barabbas and two a.D. 29.
of his band. Barabbas being now released, Nisan 15) „ .
there remained but to transfer the cross that ^^r. 25)
had been meant for him to Jesus.

(17) " And bearing for Himself His cross He went
out (viz. out of the city) to the place called Skull's Place,
which in Hebrew is called Golgotha." *
The distance from the Prsetorium (the present
Turkish barracks north of the Temple) to
Golgotha (in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) is about
six hundred yards. Along the traditional route (the
"Via Dolorosa") excavations made at several points
have laid bare the Roman pavement of the road of our
Lord's time, at a depth of many feet below the present
surface.

The name Golgotha, or Skull, was not given to the
place because of any physical resemblance to a human
skull, for there was no detached hillock then as there is
now. There was, rather, the brow of a hill of calcareous
rock ; the hill dipped to the east : the brow ended abruptly
on the west like a terrace, with a vertical drop of some
fifteen feet. In this vertical rock-face was a small cave.
The present form of Golgotha is apparently due to the
Empress Helena (c. 325 a.d.), who seems to have cut away
the northern, southern, and eastern sides of the slope
in order to make the exact spot of the Crucifixion stand

* The meaning of Golgotha is "a skull" : in classic Hebrew the word is
Gulgoleth. I have dealt with the very remarkable tradition connecting this
place with Adam's burial in pp. 80-84, 177-183, of The CriLcifixion and Resur-
rection of Jesus Christ.

389

390 JOHN XIX. 166-17

out in bolder relief, whilst also giving room for the southern
colonnade of Constantine's vast basilica, the Martyrium :
the vertical western rock-face and its cave was left un-
touched. The ascent to the top of Golgotha is to-day by
two stairways. On the top, which is some fifteen feet
above the surrounding pavement of the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, the native rock crops out ; in it is seen
the " rent " made at the moment of our Lord's death :
three holes are also seen here cut in the rock which mark
the traditional sites where the three crosses were fixed.
Immediately underneath the " rent " and the middle
hole is the small cave above mentioned.

With this cave was connected the strange legend that
it was the spot where Adam had finally been laid. This
was a belief held in the Church from the earliest times :
not only so, it was a Hebrew tradition handed down to
the earliest Christians of Jerusalem.

So Origen (Migne's Patrol. Grceca, XIII. col. 1777) ;
Athanasius {ibid. XXVIII. col. 208) ; Basil Seleuc. {ibid.
LXXXV. col. 409) ; Ambrose (Migne's Patrol. Latino,
XV. col. 1832).

It was thus Adam's skull that gave the place its name :
and on the spot where in the First Adam was the death
of all, there in the Second Adam was the life of all. It is
remarkable that all four Evangelists have been so careful
to name the exact spot where our Lord was crucified —
a detail that were trivial if no special " mystery " were
attached to it, but a detail of vast significance if there is
truth in this local tradition.

The hour of arrival of the procession at Golgotha seems
to have been 9 a.m. (see p. 383) : and He was offered, but
did not accept, the customary soporific of wine
^'^' and opium, for opium is the " bitterness " or

" gall " of Matt, xxvii. 34. By xoXj) the LXX frequently
render the Hebrew ro'sh, " poppy -head " (the globular
capsule) and its bitter narcotic juice * (see Gesenius's
Heb. Did.).

* As e.g. in Ps. Ixix. 21a (Greek, Ixviii. 22) to which Matthew {I.e.) is no
doubt alluding, as also is Mark in his parallel (xv. 23). Opium was at this time

JOHN XIX. 18-20 301

Here was a long delay : the exact places for the three
crosses had to be chosen ; their footings had to be cut in
the rock ; the three crosses were then laid by

the three holes: Jesus and the two robbers Shortly before

midday,
were brought forward from the stocks, and

fastened to the crosses : His title was affixed : His cross
was hoisted up and shot into its socket. The time was
shortly before midday. (18) The other two crosses were
then raised and shot home. Our Lord's cross was the
first to be lifted up, if we may trust the relative position
of the present three holes ; for the middle one is dis-
tinctly in advance of the other two, and yet the three are
so close that the middle cross must have been raised first.

(19) The " title " was written by Pilate and affixed to
the cross by his orders : John says (verse 20) it was written
in Hebrew (Aramaic), in Roman (Latin)^ and in Greek.
John, writing for Greeks, has probably given it exactly
as it stood in the Greek, " Jesus, the Nazoraean, the king
of the Jews " : Matthew, writing for Palestinians, has
probably given it as it stood in the Aramaic, " Jesus, the
king of the Jews " : Mark, writing for Romans, probably
gives it as it stood in the Latin, " the king of the Jews "
(Rex Judseorum) : and Luke agrees with Mark, " the
king of the Jews." The words ovrog, or ovtoq eoriv,
" this is," were not part of the title. " Hebrew " {i.e.
Aramaic) was the national language ; Latin the official ;
Greek the international for the races of the East, from
Egypt to the Black Sea and from the Adriatic to Persia.
The city would be thronged by Jews come to the festival
from all parts of the Roman empire, so that —

(20) This title written in the three common languages
was read by many of the Jews, for " the place where He
was crucified was nigh to the city " : and, of course,

unlvnown to the Romans and western Greeks, though familiar to Asia. Hence
the difficulty the LXX translators of the O.T. had in rendering the Hebrew
ro\sh. Matthew's Greek translator ("wine mingled with gall") has simply-
followed the LXX's rendering (Ps. Ixix. 21a) of ro'sh by xoAr; : Mark (xv. 23)
has rendered by eff/j.vpfxia-fj.fi'oi' olvov, vinum myrrhatum, "embittered wine"
(wine mingled with myrrh or bitterness), thus, like the LXX, expressing the
bitterness of the mixed wine and opium.

392 JOHN XIX. 20-24

outside the walls. Golgotha is about ninety yards west of
the line of the old western wall known as " the seeond
wall " (Josephus, War, V. iv. 1) which is to-day marked
at this part by the street Khan ez Zeit : even nearer to
Golgotha and on the south, was a westward turn of this
same wall. The " second wall " was the west wall of the
northern half of the city until a.d. 43, when Herod
Agrippa I. built his new wall very much further west,
including the site of Golgotha.

Our Lord was crucified with His face to the west,
the city being at His back and on His left.

(21) "The chief-priests of the Jews," objecting to the
wording and publicity of the title, said to Pilate, " Write
not ' The king of the Jews,' but that ' he said, I am king
of the Jews ' " (aXX' otl Ikhvoq ilirev j^acnXivg rwv 'lovcaiiov
iljui). They were indignant that strangers coming to the
Passover should infer that the man whom the Romans had
hung up was one whom the nation had wanted to be their
king. ' It was not we who said he was our king, but he.'

(22) Pilate's answer, " What I have written I have
written " was an abrupt refusal to yield to any further
request from the Sanhedrists. They had caused him
mischief enough already : he was still smarting from having
been driven bv them.

(23) The four soldiers who had charge of the crucifixion
of Jesus, having raised up the cross into its socket, divided
His clothes, which were their perquisites, into four portions :

(24) But being unwilling to cut up what they would
consider the only valuable garment, viz. the long seamless
tunic, they made a fifth portion of it and then cast lots for
it. " That the Scripture might be fulfilled " is for most
readers a misleading English rendering of the Hellenistic
'iva TrXripojOij, which here, as commonly in the N.T., repre-
sents the Hebrew Imallo'th, lit. " toward the fulfilling
of," etc., or a Hebrew lma''an with infin. or fut., all of
which represent rather an objective result than a sub-
jective aim, and would be more idiomatically rendered
" and so was fulfilled."

Luke (xxiii. 36) adds that " The soldiers also mocked

JOHN XIX. 24-25 393

Him, drawing nigh, and setting before Him vinegar, and
saying, ' If thou art the king of the Jews, save thyself "
— their exact meaning being ' for thou art in evil case :
it is now or never : thou hast come to thy last draught —
the felon's vinegar.' On this vinegar see further, p. 398.
As is seen in Luke's Greek, the stress is on the word o^og
(vinegar), the regular accompaniment and " note " of a
crucifixion. This vinegar is quite distinct from the
soporific of wine and opium, mentioned by Matt, xxvii.
34 and Mark xv. 23, which had been offered three hours
before, on arrival at Golgotha.

Thus far the soldiers.

(25) This group of women standing " by the cross of
Jesus " (irapa no), i.e. as near as the soldiers would allow,
consisted of —

1. His mother Mary. 2. His mother's " sister " Salome.
3. Mary the wife of Clopas. 4. Mary the Magdalene. And
with them was John the Evangelist (son of Salome).

2. Salome is called His mother's " sister " as being
her nearest living blood-relation, her first cousin (their
mothers being sisters) : just so James the Little, Joses,
Simeon, Jude (sons of Clopas) are called our Lord's
" brethren," as being His nearest relations, for Joseph
and Clopas were half-brothers. John does not give the
name of this his mother Salome, but from Mark and
Matthew we know she was present. Salome was wife of
Zebedee and mother of James and John the Evangelist,
two of the three chief Apostles. John as being the son
of Salome was thus the natural, as well as the elected,
person to be entrusted with the care of the Blessed Virgin.

3. " Mary the (wife) of Clopas " is the same as " Mary
the mother of James the Little, and of Joses " (Mark
XV. 40 : and Matt, xxvii. 56). She is also called " the other
Mary " (// aXXn Mapla), i.e. " other " to the Blessed Virgin
and the Magdalene, in Matt, xxvii. 61 ; xxviii. 1. She is
also called " Mary the (mother) * of James " {MapUi i)
'Ia(cw/3ou) in Luke xxiv. 10, and " Mary the (mother) of

* The word mother is supplied here in the Sj'riac.

394 JOHN XIX. 25-2C

Joses " in Mark xv. 47. Her two younger sons were
Simeon and Jiide, the first and second successors to their
eldest brother in the bishopric of Jerusalem. These
four sons are called " the brethren " of our Lord : none
of them was of the Twelve Apostles. Their father Clopas
(KXwTrac) was the half-brother (on the father's side) to
Joseph our Lord's foster-father (see Hegesippus, who says
that Simeon the second bishop of Jerusalem was the son
of our Lord's uncle {Trarpwov)). This Clopas is almost
certainly the same person as Cleopas (KXtoTroc) of Luke
xxiv. 18. He is not the same person as Alphasus (Matt.
X. 3 : Mark iii. 18 : Luke vi. 16 : Acts i. 13) father of the
James who is ninth on the list of the Twelve Apostles ;
nor do any of the versions confound the two names KXiowag
and 'A\({)aiog> though many moderns pretend that they
both represent the Aramaic Halphai.*

4. Mary the Magdalene, native of a village in the
Magdala township, as were her sister Martha and her
brother Lazarus (see at xi. 1). She is the same as the
" woman who was in the city, a sinner " (Luke vii. 37),
and is the Mary of Luke x. 39.

(26) He gives the Mother He loved to the care of the
disciple He loved, and the disciple to the Mother, making
tender provision for the one as for the other, and showing
John how complete was His confidence in him.

* It is quite clear that A.\(paios (Alphseus) represents the Aramaic Halphay,
for wherever A\(paios occurs in the Greek, the Syriac version (itself an Aramaic)
has Halphay : and AKcpaios should probably be read with the soft breathing,
for the initial guttural H (heth) was habitually so rendered in Greek, and not
by the rough breathing : sometimes by X (chi) : never by K. For instance,
out of a total 135 proper names in O.T. beginning with H, the LXX, or the
Alexandrian grammarians, render 106 with the soft breathing, 21 with X,
5 with either of these indifferently, 2 with rough breathing, 1 with doubtful
X or r. As to KXaivas (Klopas) and KXeonas (Kleopas), the Syriac version
renders both forms by one, viz. QleyopJui'. The Semitic initial Q (Qoph) and
the Greek initial K are the regular equivalents in transliteration. Kleopas is
possibly a purely Greek name, a short form of Kleopatros (of. Antipas for
Antipatros). Klopas has nothing to do with the Aramaic Halphay, which
could not be transliterated with kAtt, but would require either A\cp(tt) or XA<^(77).
Nor is KAwnas (Klopas) or KAeoTra? (Kleopas) a Greek transliteration of any
Hebrew name ; for there is no proper name in Hebrew with the combination
Qlp or Kip, one or other of which is required by a Greek KAtt.

JOHN XIX. 27 395

(27) " From that hour the disciple received (tXo/^Ev)
her to his own home." Not that he then and there led
her away to his home : but from that hour John's home
was hers. Tradition is quite certain that the Blessed
Virgin stayed until the end, as did John.

Between verses 27 and 28 occurred the three hours'
darkness from midday till 3 p.m. mentioned in the
three synoptic gospels. The " darkness " was certainly
not caused by a normal eclipse of the sun, which can only
occur at the new moon : and the darkness of even a total
eclipse of the sun lasts but a few minutes. Nor was there
any normal eclipse of the sun with which this darkness
can possibly be identified (see Pingre's List of eclipses
since a.d. 1). The darkness was due to some derange-
ment of the earth's atmosphere, which caused the sun to
suffer eclipse, and was no doubt connected with the earth-
quake which followed on it (Matt, xxvii. 51).

At about 3 p.m. as the darkness within and without

lightened, our Lord spoke for the fourth time from the

cross, this time crying with a loud voice „

• • 3 D m

(apf/3o)j(7£i/ . . . (ph)vrj /ityaXyj, Matt. XXvil. 46).

" My God, My God,'why didst Thou forsake Me ? " quoting
the opening of Ps. xxii. (xxi.). The rendering " why
hast Thou forsaken Me" seems to be faulty, for the
dereliction is just ended : nor is the perfect tense a correct
rendering of the Greek aorist.

The Greek of both Matthew and Mark gives the words
not from the original Hebrew of Ps. xxii., which are 'Elt,
'Ell, Idmd 'azabtdni, but from the Aramaic, in which our
Lord uttered them. This is certain from the change of the
Hebrew 'azabtdni to the Aramaic sebaqtani. The Aramaic,
however, is much obscured in the Greek transliteration,
eXioi, kXioi, X^fxa aaftaxdavei. It is only in the Aramaic
that the cry " My God " ('Elahi) and the cry " Elias "
('Eliyahu) could be mistaken one for the other. In a loud
shout and heard from a distance the resemblance would
be great. There would be no resemblance between the
Hebrew 'Eli (My God) and the Hebrew 'Eliyah or 'Eliyahu
(Elias).

396 JOHN XIX. 28

" Some of them that stood there," Matthew tells us,
said " He is calling Elias " (HXlav (pwvn) : so too says
Mark. These bystanders are not deriding Him ; they
misunderstood Him. There was no derision left in any
now present after that mysterious three hours' darkness
and hush of nature. Nor again are the speakers Roman
soldiers, for what knew they of Elias ? Rather, the
speakers are in sympathy with Him, and are some who
had believed in Him and were still hoping against hope,
half expecting yet that at this the last moment Elias
would appear to save Him.

Among these bystanders the talk was still going round,
" He is calling Elias," when there came from the Cross the
one word 8<;//w, " I-thirst." * It is mentioned, signifi-
cantly, by John alone. The mystery of His suffering
has ended with the end of the darkness. The reconcilia-
tion of man with God is, potentially, finished. As pledge
of it He the God-Man wills to make for man one last
chance to serve Him. And some one, whose name has not
come down to us, snatched that opportunity and so sealed
the repentance of the race. Who was this man ? None
but John himself : who thus did the last service to the Man
he loved, — John the adopted brother (verse 27) of the
dying God who loved him.

The scene is rarely understood correctly : consider it
further : —

(28) The fi^ra roCro (" After this ") with which John
connects verses 27 and 28 is remarkable. The phrase
(unlike the very similar /mra ravra) always implies an
ethical connection, and not merely a sequence in time.
Observe that John has gone straight from the second
utterance, " Woman, behold thy son " : " Behold, thy
mother," to the fifth (" I thirst ") : he has omitted all
mention of the intervening three hours' darkness and of

* It is the verb of the noun used in Ps. Ixix. 21, " in My thirst they-gave-
me-to-drink vinegar " : for to this " scripture " John evidently refers in this
verse 28. It would seem, then, that in Ps. Ixix. 21, David is likening his own
misery to the plight of one crucified, who has already bt^'n offered the narcotic
of wine and opium, and is afterwards given vinegar to refresh him in his thirst
as he dies. A " blind " prophecy.

JOHN XIX. 28 397

that fourth cry which some of the bystanders had mis-
understood to be a call on Elijah and which immediately
preceded the "I thirst " : by the ^^Ta toCto he has
connected the request " I thirst " with that gracious
bequest " Behold thy son . . . Behold thy mother."

This word " I thirst " was not shouted loud as was the
cry immediately before, for John describes it simply as
\iyit, " He saith " : it was in fact addressed to John,
and was heard by none but John and the Blessed Virgin,
who were watching every motion of those lips and eyes.
These two, it seems, were now — after the three hours'
darkness— the only bystanders near the cross. When,
before the darkness, our Lord committed these two to each
other, the other three women (Mary the Magdalene, Mary
Clopas, and Salome) who had hitherto been with them
(verse 25) reverently withdrew, recognizing that those two
were now apart from all. That those three women did
so move away we infer from Matt, xxvii. 55, 56 : Mark
XV. 40 : Luke xxiii. 49, where we find them after the three
hours' darkness no longer " near the cross," but " beholding
from afar off."

The two synoptists (Matthew and Mark) who mention
the cry " My God, My God," etc., and the incident of the
sponge and vinegar, had not heard the word " I thirst " :
nor did they originally know of that appeal addressed to
John. They, and every one else, had only heard the loud
cry " My God," etc., and many had put a wrong meaning
upon it ; and seeing John run for the sponge and vinegar,
all thought that that was the cry that had started him.
They describe exactly as they or their informers saw. It
is only John who knew that the critical word which had
decided him to run for the vinegar was this " I thirst."

Matthew and Mark both say it was one, " a certain
one " (tiq), of those standing there, who ran and filled the
sponge, etc. : they have omitted the name of that man,
because, no doubt, he (John) so wished it ; but, in their
account, that one man has the credit, for the initiative was
his. But in John's account observe how he hides himself ;
he says nothing of this one man : he makes the action

398 JOHN XIX. 28-29

shared by those who ran in to help him when they saw what
he was doing, for he says, " They-surroiinded with hyssop
a sponge full of the vinegar and put it to His mouth "
{anoyyov ovv /jiearbv rod o^ovg vaawTrio •mpiuivnc Trpocn'ive-yicuv
avTOV TO) ar.).

It would seem that John at this moment shared the
hope of others that Elias would yet come at the last moment
and bring in a great deliverance : for Mark says that the
unnamed one, " having put a sponge of vinegar on a reed,
gave Him to drink, saying, ' Let be, let us see if Elias comes
to take Him down ' " ("A^trf, '/8w/utv al ipxtraL 'HAe/oc
kuQAhv avTov) : where the plural " Let be " is his
request to the soldiers for permission to do what they
themselves ought to have done and had not done.
Matthew's account is slightly different in that he describes
not the unnamed man but " the rest " {i.e. the bystanders)
as asking for the permission {ol St Xo<7rot uirav "A^tc,
"i^wfxtv, etc.) : where the singular " Let be " is their
request no doubt to the centurion in command.*

(29) But what is this vinegar ? The common opinion
in England seems to be that it is the rough wine of the
soldiers' food. But what is this sponge doing here, lying
so handily ? And what of the hyssop ? Just a handful
of weed that chanced to be growing around ?

There is no doubt Baronius {Annales, 34, § 120) has the
truth of it in saying, " The vinegar, sponge, hyssop, reed
were all regular accompaniments of a crucifixion." He
quotes Pliny {Nat. Hist., xxiii. 1) as saying that " vinegar
flavoured with a bundle of hyssop (fasciculo hyssopi
conditum) has the power of staunching blood, whether it
be put on a sponge and so applied, or whether it be drunk."
The vinegar and hyssop were there to be given by the
soldiers to the crucified ones by means of a sponge put
on the end of a reed. That the soliders had not as yet
carried out this duty was due to the three hours' dense
darkness, which had lasted ever since the three crosses

* The &^eTe and ^<f>es, " Let be," are certainly requests for permission to
give the drink. They do not govern the 'i^wjxev, " allow us to see if Elias,"
etc., for in that sense &(piTi always takes the infinitive.

JOHN XIX. 29-30 399

were set up. And that they had not as yet done so is
evident, for John and his helpers had themselves to
wrap the sponge round with the bundle of hyssop and
put it on the reed ; also the vessel was still " full "

{(TKtVOQ OVV eKHTO O^OVQ /UtCTTOl').

The " hyssop " (uo-o-wttoc) is the ''ezob of the O.T. Hebrew,
used in sacred purifications (Exod. xii. 22 : Lev. xiv. 4,
6, 49 : Ps. li. 7) which the LXX always render by vcTawiroQ ;
see also Heb. ix. 19. It was used like the Catholic asper-
gill, which is said to have been originally a fascicle of hyssop.
The plant seems to be the Origanum maru (Linn.), a low-
growing herbaceous marjoram which grows in crevices of
rocks and walls in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria. The bundle
lying with the vinegar and sponge was perhaps dried, of
last year.

The " reed " {KuXafiog) mentioned by Matthew and
Mark, but not by John, is no doubt the Arundo donax,
which is ubiquitous over the Mediterranean basin. The
same word is used again by Matthew xxvii. 29 for the
" reed " that was put " in His right hand " by way of a
sceptre. It grows from ten to eighteen feet high.

(30) This last service of vinegar and hyssop, from John

acting for the human race. He gladly received : and by

receiving it He showed He had forgiven us all

we had done to Him. Then followed the „ „ „,

o p.m.

sixth word, " It-is-finished : His work on
earth was for the moment done ; just as on the Friday
(" sixth day ") of the Mosaic cosmogony God's work is
represented as finished, preparatory to the " seventh " day
or Sabbath of rest. " And He bent His head and gave-
up {iraplBwKe, gave over as a deposit) His spirit " with the
seventh utterance from the cross, which Luke has pre-
served, " Father, into Thy hands I commend {wapaTiOafiai
=1 place as a deposit) My spirit " : that is, of course. His
human spirit such as all men have. No one took His life
from Him : His death was a voluntary surrender : a
surrender which He had authority to make, because the
authority to surrender His life was accompanied with an
authority to resume it (x. 18).

400 JOHN XIX. 31

(31) " The Jews, therefore, because it was Friday "
(tTra Trapa(jKhvr\ r]v). The true meaning of vupaaKivri has
been shown at p. 379. The word simply means the weekly
Preparation-day for the weekly Sabbath, hence is equi-
valent to our " Friday." *

" In order that the bodies should not remain upon the
cross on the Sabbath, for great was the day of that Sab-
bath " (^1/ yojf) ixivuXr] 17 rijuspa Iksivov tov tra/B/Sarou). It
was " great " as being a Saturday or Sabbath of more
than ordinary ceremony. It began, as did all Saturdays
of the Jews, at sunset of Friday : the nation were to eat
the Paschal supper at once after sunset, and the morrow,
reckoned from sunrise to sunset (twelve hours), would be
the nation's Passover festival-day, as has been explained
at p. 298.

If the nation had eaten the Passover on the Thursday
(when our Lord ate it), as many contend they did, their
festival-day would have been the Friday ; and the Satur-
day could hardly have been called particularly " great,"
for it would have coincided merely with the day of the
" wave-sheaf," which was not in itself one of the days of
obligation.

The Mosaic Law (Deut. xxi. 23) required the removal
beford sunset. Sabbath or no Sabbath, of any dead body
from the tree or cross on which it had hung. Now, ordinarily
death would not follow on a crucifixion until after very
many hours — even a whole day or more. The Jews were
anxious that this high Sabbath of theirs should not be
marred by the sight of living bodies hanging on the crosses.
Hence their request to Pilate to have the deaths hastened
by breaking the legs, so that they might be able to take

* See the AiSaxv '^'^v ifi aiTotn6\osv (viii. 1), a Church manual dating of
the late first century or early second century of our era. " Let not your fasts
coincide with the hypocrites " (unbelieving Jews) : " for they fast on the
second and fifth days of the week [SevTepa ffafi^aTcav koX 77 e'^77-Tj;)"=^ Mondays
and Thursdays, " but do you fast the fourth day and Preparation-day (rgrpaSa
Kai Uapa(TKevf)i>) " =z Wednesdays and Fridays. The days of the week bear
invariably the same names to this day in modern Greek. Thus Sunday is
KvpiaK^i = Lord's day, Monday is Atvrepa = Second day, Tuesday is Tpirr} =
Third day, Wednesday is TeTapT53= Fourth day, Thursday is nt/i7rT7?= Fifth
day, Friday is UapaaKtvi) ==: Preparation-day, Saturday is 'Zdfifiarov z= Sabbath.

JOHN XIX. 32-34 401

down the dead bodies and bury them before sundown this
evening as their Law commanded.

(32) It must not be supposed that the two robbers
were conscious at the time their legs were broken. They
had, of course, been given and had taken the strong narcotic
of wine and opium on their arrival at Golgotha. The
effect of a strong dose of opium is firstly insensibility to
pain, a sense of well-being, activity and clearness of the
brain. The two were therefore insensible to the pain of
being fastened to the cross, but their minds were abnormally
clear. The later effect of the opivim would be a state of
coma, passing to complete unconsciousness, accompanied
by slow stertorous breathing : this unconsciousness would
last until death ensued, due to paralysis of the brain.

The soldiers coming to them would see by their respira-
tion that they were still alive though unconscious. The
shock caused by the breaking of the shin-bones would
hasten death.

(33) But coming to Jesus, they saM^ He was already
dead, and so did not break His legs.

(34) This stab with the lance may have been to make
sure, officially, that He was dead. AnyM^ay, there was left
no possibility of maintaining that He did not actually die
but was buried in a cataleptic trance. According to all
tradition the lance entered on the right side, it traversed
into the heart. In a normal case of death there could not
have been any flow of blood or water, for " blood " will
not flow after death : and what of the " water " ?

The phenomenon was in no way natural : it was
something wholly beyond nature — as much beyond nature
as are the sacramental virtues attaching to the water of
Baptism and to the wine of the Eucharist. The " blood
and water " were visible symbols of the cleansing power
of the water of Baptism and the invigorating power of
the blood of the Eucharist. They flowed from His body
to show that it is from His body that the sacraments
originate and draw their virtue.

That body upon the cross was no lifeless corpse. Though
dead in the sense that His human spirit had temporarily

2 D

402 JOHN XIX. 34-38

left it, it was alive in that His Divinity was inseparably
united with it : so inseparably that that body was not
only impassible of corruption, but was the source of Life
for the new creation.

(35) " And it is he who has Seen that has borne witness "
(kcu 6 itvpaK^g fxe/LiapTvpijKev), i.e. he John the eye-witness
to the phenomenon, the man who Saw and Sees (perf.),
the man whose eyes were opened to the significance
of that phenomenon, it is he who has borne witness. See
the same words used by John the Baptist in i. 34.

" And his witness is true " [dXiiOivi]). The words seem
to be those of some one or more corroborating John's
testimony : as it might be Simeon and Jiide (see p. 439)
saying, " John's testimony is tnie {d\r]9nn]), as we can
attest who also were present (cf. Luke xxiii. 29) and saw
the wonder."

" And he " {ticaivoc, emphatic : viz. John as against
his attestors who had not his spiritual keenness of vision)
''knows that he says true things" [dXr^Oi]), i.e. that his
account is true not only verbally but in its essence ; i.e.
that he has grasped the meaning of what he saw, that he
sees it in true perspective and proportion, and is not
making more of it or other of it than it was meant to
conve}\ The " blood and water " had momentous signi-
ficance, as the oral teaching of the Church ever explained.

(36) " For these things came to pass " {tyevero, the
aorist as being the historian's comment, see p. 283, note)
" that the scripture should be fulfilled " (hm . . . irXripioOPi,
see at verse 24). This prohibition concerning the Paschal
lamb's bones (Exod. xii. 46) found its ultimate significance
in that Paschal Lamb, of whom all others were but types.

(37) " And again a second [Iripa) scripture saith,"
etc. This scripture (" They shall look on Him whom
t\\ej pierced," Zech. xii. 10) has not yet been fulfilled, nor
does John say it has. The ■piercing has been done, but the
" looking upon " with " mourning " and " supplication,"
such as Zechariah foretells, lies in the yet future.

(38) Joseph of Arir.iathaea was not a native of Ari-
mathsea (which would have been expressed by 1% 'A/o.),

JOHN XIX. 38-39 403

but a resident there (oVo), as all four Evangelists agree.
The town seems to be the same as the modern Ramleh,
whieh was built b}^ the Saracens on the site of the old town.
Arimathaea is the Ramathaim of 1 Mace. xi. 34, one of the
three towns taken from Samaria and added to " .Judaea "
by Demetrius Nicator about 146 B.C.

This Joseph was at the time " a disciple of Jesus " :
" ])ut he had been so secretly {KiKfn>fij.iivoQ St, plup.
part.) for fear," etc. John's purpose in these words is
to show the change that has come over Joseph. No
longer has he any fear of the Jews, but now boldly (cf.
Mark xv. 43) shows his love and reverence for the dead
Man : his boldness the more remarkable now that to all
appearance the dead Man's cause was lost.

" After these things," i.e. after the death of our Lord
and the piercing of His side, and after the breaking of the
legs of the two robbers, but before the actual death of
these two, Joseph of Arimathtea went to Pilate and asked
" that he might take the body of Jesus " — in order to save
it from a felon's burial. Pilate had already given permission
for the breaking of the legs in order to hasten death, but
was surprised (Mark xv. 44) at hearing from Joseph of
the so early death of Jesus, viz. that He was dead before
they came to break His legs. On requiring, and receiving,
from the centurion a verification that He had already
(or, if we take the reading TraXai, some time ago) died,
Pilate gave the permit to Joseph.

Joseph, and all the Evangelists, use the word (rMjua
for our Lord's " body." Only when expressing Pilate^s
subjectivity does Mark use the word tttw^o, "■ corpse,"
" made a present of the corpse to Joseph " {l^wpiiaciTo rh
TTTM/uia Ti?> ](t)arj({}, XV. 45).

So Joseph came and took (vpiv) the body, or. as
Mark and Luke say, " took it down " (KaBiXwi'), p -^ Bom
i.e. from the cross. We are, of course, to
understand that Joseph directed and assisted in the taking
down.

(39) When Joseph had got his permit from Pilate, he
probably at once arranged with Nicodemus to bring the

JOHN XIX. 39-40
^^* . . the body, whilst be

!:i a.e *eJ>of ^-- „e unto Him ^. ^g^-^
" Nicodeinus too, ne « , purpose in these

the first" (v-»c ;°;P?;;;'ie in the aciion of Nieodemus
words is to mark the *ange u^ ^ („, 2

„lso At the opening oi the m J thinking that

he had thought it wiser to -- f J^^i^.t have wider
by not openly a™^"^ ^'™. now that there is no
opportunities to help ^^l^^^'^g his mind, he opeiJy
longer good reason for coneealmg ^^^.^ He

LTows his love and --^--J^^itot myrrh and aloes
- comes openly brmging a vast qu

to enwrap the body. ^1,^,^ resinous gums

(40) We may safely ^^^"ffj^ ,,3 of Unen bandages,
brought by Nieodemus and *« '""^^f the dead. The
'Jre^earried by Pf --"^ fb dy =,nd binding in the
intrieate process of ^f*'""", a/done only by skilled
resins and spiees could ^^ Pl^P" > ^j,;, ,,^, no ease for
L„rls • and the time was short.

tangling hands, however loving ^^ from

(40) How >ntncate the proe ^^^,^ tbe

Egyptian mummies, ^^'^l* '°^ .g, ^ound round with
whole body, was to '>'= ^^^P^ "*fjohn xix. 40: Uike
„,rrow Unen bandages (of"-"' ^^^ ^^, f„,„d also

^xiv. 12) such as surgeons use, ^^^^ ^^^hed

swathing mummies. Ate ^^'J°J^^, bound the mass
and anointed, in among the J^and - corruption

of spices (V- f ,X * tt*ith ^-ounds . The eyes
setting m, for the body ^^, ^b a napkin. LastU

were closed: the jawwasbo^ ndj ^^^^^ ^^ ^„, bnen
the whole was wrapt m the w =

« "Tflal am 'unt will be 50 lbs. av. or about 3i ^^o - ;, ,^, R„„a„

o-CT the total aiu'-'"" +^ its roiunion usagt, i^" ^ r nr. iKa tv

JOHN XIX. 40-41 405

{(Tivcuva) which Joseph had bought for the purpose {Mark
XV. 46), That this was the customary mode of burial
among the Jews may also be seen from the account of
the raising of Lazarus (xi. 44) : see how he " had been
bound hands and feet with grave-clothes," and " his face
had been bound round with a napkin," and he had to be
"loosed" so as to be enabled to "go." The laying-out
of our Lord's body seems to have been done in the most
elaborate and costly mode, thanks to the wealth of both
Nicodemus and Joseph.

(41) " And there was in the place where He was crucified
a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre." The garden
belonged in all probability to Joseph of Arimathaea :
the sepulchre certainly did, as we learn from Matthew
(xxvii. 60) : he had hewn it out of the live rock, and it
had never yet been used. It was customary for rich Jews
to be buried in their own grounds and not in a common
cemetery.

The name of the place where He was ciTicified, viz.
Golgotha or Kpaviov To-rrog (verse 17), means " a skull "
(sing.) : it was not so called as being a place of skulls
(plur.), or place of execution, or place of common burial,
as many think. Perhaps they also think skulls were
lying there in the open as may be seen in the ossuaires
of Brittany. That was not the mode in which Jews
disposed of the bones of the dead. The place owed its
name to the one famous skull laid there, the skull of Adam
according to the ancient Hebrew tradition : we may com-
pare the Capitolium of Rome, so called from the one
famous skull found there when digging the foundations
for a temple. The semi-sanctity attaching to this resting-
place of Adam's skull seems to have been the reason why
this place had so long been left outside the city walls, which
here made a re-entrant angle. We can only conjecture
Pilate's motive in ordermg the Crucifixion to take place
at this exact spot (if it was his order) : there was no
recognized place for Roman executions (crucifixions) ; the
place for Jewish executions (stonings) was outside the
Damascus-gate, away on the north of the city.

406 JOHN XIX. 42

The presence of this private garden, where Joseph
the wealthy Sanhedrist had had his own sepulchre hewn,
is alone enough to show that Golgotha was not a place of
public execution.

(42a) " There, therefore, owing to the Jews' Friday,
because the sepulchre was near at hand they laid Jesus."
Friday, This sepulchre was not meant b}^ the mourners

shortly before to be His permanent tomb. They laid His
6 p.m. Body here temporarily, intending to remove

it on Sunday (after the festival-day) to its final resting-
place — probably in the Garden of Gethsemane, which many
think belonged to His mother, and there she herself was
buried twenty-two years later. They were pressed for
time on this Friday evening, anxious to have the sepulchre
closed before the Sabbath began at 6 p.m.

" Owing to the Jews' Friday " (Sm rriv BapaaKtvriv
Th)v 'lovBaicov). At the time John wrote his gospel (100
A.D.) the word napaaKem) had been adopted by Greek
Christendom, from Greek-speaking Jews, as the common
name for the weekly Friday. This, long suspected, has
been made certain by the recent discovery of a MS. of the
AfSax») raw t/"^ uTTooToXwy (see p. 400, note). A MS. of this
long-lost treatise was discovered in a Greek monastery in
Constantinople in 1875, and was first published to Europe
in 1883. The treatise is generally admitted to date from
the first century of our era : its great value is no less
generally recognized. In this treatise the word UapaaKivn
is seen to be the common word for the weekly Friday.
Hence the reason for John speaking here of the Friday
" of the Jews." Gentile Christians (for whom John
writes) might not understand why the ftict of the day being
a Friday should have hurried Joseph and Nicodemus to
get the burial over before sunset. Bv sayino- " Fridav
of the Jews " John directs his Gentile readers to the peculi-
arity of a Jewish Friday, viz. that all work must cease that
day at 6 p.m. John in his gospel reckons days as the
Romans reckoned the civil day, viz. from midnight to
midnight : hence his notice of the Jews' Friday, which
of course ended at sunset because their Sabbath began at

JOHN XIX. 42 407

sunset ; whereas John's Friday, as he reckons it ibr his
Gentile Ephesian readers, did not end till midnight.

" Because the sepulchre was near at hand." The
sepulchre lies west by north of Golgotha, and is forty-five
yards distant from it. Placing the swathed body in the
winding-sheet they carried it and laid it in the rock-hewn
loculus, or grave, in the inner or mortuary chamber of the
double cave. They did not place the stone slab or lid
over the loculus, because they meant to remove the body
on Sunday morning : but they closed the entrance to the
inner chamber by rolling-to the large flat circular stone
which ran in a socket like a sliding shutter widely over-
lapping the opening. This inner rock chamber opened out
of the outer rock chamber by a low entrance in the curtain
of rock : it was this entrance that was closed by the great
stone being rolled. Of this inner chamber the northern
half was occupied, as may still be seen, by the rock bench
which was hollowed out to form a loculus, so that the body
might be laid down in it as into a sarcophagus or coffin.

(426) It is important to notice the terminology used by
the four Evangelists in describing this sepulchre. All
four employ the term iivr]fxuov : and all four mean by it
specifically the inner chamber, which wps closed by the
stone and in which was the loculus. See especially Matthew
xxvii. 60, " rolled a great stone to the door (or entrance,
Ovpa) of the sepulchre (fivnindov) " : Mark xiv. 46, " rolled
a stone to the door of the sepulchre {/.ivr^fxuov) " : xv. 3,
" who will roll . . . from the door of the sepulchre
{f.ivi]}iuov) " : Luke xxiv. 2, " the stone lying rolled away
from the sepulchre {fxvnf.mov) " ; John xx. 1, " sees the
stone lifted out away from the sepulchre (nwfxtiov) " :
5, 6, John coming to the sepulchre {nvrjf^uov) did not
enter it but stooped and looked into it, and sees the
bandages ; but Peter entered into the sepulchre {fivr}fiHov),
and John afterwards entered it. It would be well to
retain " sepulchre " exclusively for this word nvnfxdov :
for the " Church of the Holy Sepulchre "has never con-
tained the original outer chamber, but only the original
inner one (see p. 409).

408 JOHN XIX. 42

John speaks only of the /.ivtjixhov throughout his account.
Not so the Synoptists, for INIatthew uses also another
word, Ta(j)0(j, in three places, viz. xxvii. 61, (women) " sitting
over against the burial-place {tck^ou) " : 66, " the Jews
made safe the burial-place (-u^ov) by sealing the stone
along with setting the guard " : xxviii. 1, " came to look
Sit the burial-place {Ta(l)Ov).''^ By this word ra^oc as against
fxvr\fiv.ov Matthew seems to mean the place of burial, i.e.
the whole tomb consisting of the outer chamber and of the
nvrjfiHov or inner chamber.

Mark, again, uses a second word in one place, xv. 46,
"' laid Him in a toinb {invn/^ari) " : and Luke in two places,
xxiii. 53, " laid Him in a tomb {fxvi]fxuTi) " : xxiv. 1, " came
to the tomb {fiv^na).^'' This word ixvrjfjia as against /uvnf^aiov
Mark and Luke seem to be using exactly as Matthew uses
TCKjiog — to express the whole two-chambered tomb. As
everywhere else in their accounts the three Synoptists
use fxvnfxilov, they must mean to distinguish the latter
from the /Lwrifia, or racpog : and the English version should
do the same.

We learn from Eusebius {Life of Const., iii. 25, etc.) and
Sozomen * {Eccl. Hist., ii. 1) and Socrates * (Eccl. Hist.,
i. 17) that in consequence of the devotion shown by the
earliest Christians to the Holy Sepulchre, the enemies of
Christianity covered the two sites, of the sepulchre and
Golgotha, with one great platform of earth enclosed by
a wall and paved with stone, and upon this vast podium
they built a temple to Venus. When Helena and Con-
stantine, some two centuries later, in 325 a.d., removed
this great mound of earth and the temple in order to bring
to light again these two sacred sites, they did not include
either of these sites (viz. the sepulchre and Golgotha)
under the roof of the great basilica they built, known as
the MapTvpiov (the Witness, i.e. the Cross) : for this basilica
was slightly to the east of the sepulchre and of Golgotha,
and was directly over the pit where the three crosses had
been found buried. The sepulchre and Golgotha were

* These two writers belong to the early part of the fifth century, Sozomen
being a native of Palestine.

JOHN XIX. 42 409

separately treated, as two distinct shrines : they stood
within the Tifuvog or porticoed enclosure that surrounded
the basilica. As for the sepulchre, Helena cut away the
whole of the outer chamber as well as the live rock from
around the inner chamber so as to leave this latter standing
out as a solitary cone of rock above the levelled ground
(see Cyril Jerus., Catech. xiv. 9) : this cone she then adorned
with marbles and columns.

It was the Cmsaders in the twelfth century who first
included the three sites (the sepulchre, Golgotha, and the
pit where the Cross had been found) in one and the same
building, viz. that vast church known ever since as the
" Church of the Hol}^ Sepulchre," so called from the most
important of the three sites it embraces.

Between chapters xix. and xx. is an interval of about
thirty-five hours, viz. from 6 p.m. of Friday to 5 a.m. of
Sunday, March 27.

During this interval, on the Saturday, March 26, but

after sunset, " the chief-priests and Pharisees," as we

learn from Matthew, got permission from „ , ,, ^ „„
T>i X ^ 1 4.1, 4-4- J U4- • J Sat., March 26,

Pilate to seal the great stone, and obtamed ^^^^^ 6 n m

from him a guard of soldiers to watch the

place of burial {Ta(pog) during the Saturday night. After

sunset, therefore, of Saturday they affixed their official

seal — of course first having rolled back the stone for a

moment to see that the body was still there — and then

left the guard there on duty.

Also after sunset of Saturday (Mark xvi. 1), Mary

Magdalene and Mary Clopas (who is the same as " the

other Mary "=" the Mary the mother of g . „

James the Little " = " Mary the mother of ^j^^J, g p^ '

Joses " = " Mary the mother of James ")

and Salome bought spices for the purpose of anointing the

Body on the Sunday morning : for it is evident that

Joseph and Nicodemus and others of His relatives and

friends had arranged to meet at the tomb on Sunday

morning to remove the Body to its permanent resting-place.

The " women " of Luke xxiii. 49, 55, 56 no doubt includes

Mary Magdalene, Mary Clopas, Salome, Joanna, Susanna,

410 JOHN XIX. 42

and many others : we need not assume from verse 56 that
they bought their spices immediately they returned, on
the Friday evening, for there would not have been time
before sunset : they bought them, as Mark tells us, on the
Saturday evening, after sunset (xvi. 1, lia-ytvofxivov tov

<Ta/3j3orou).

Meanwhile, though our Lord's Body lay in the
sepulchre dead in that His human soul was parted from it,
Fri. evening, t>ut alive in that not for an instant was it
March 25, to bereft of His Godhead, He in His human
Sun. morning, " spirit " had passed to among the dead and
March 27. " preached to the spirits who were in ward,
who aforetime were disobedient when the long-suffering
of God waited in the days of Noah whilst the ark was
a-preparing " (1 Pet. iii. 19, 20). Not that it was only
to these spirits that He preached, but these are specially
named by Peter as representing the most stubborn dis-
obedience and the greatest wickedness : as Bella rmine says,
'' these are named as seeming to be the most unlikely ones
to have had forgiveness held out to them." If these, then
all. And, as we may suppose, that ministry in the under-
world thus begun continues still. Hence the importance
of that article of the Creed, " He descended into Hades " :
it assures us that the resting-place of the dead is warm with
the memory of that presence of Christ, Does it not also
assure us that those who fail to know Him here are there
taken in hand by a secondary ministry — wiser and more
experienced from having lived and passed on from here ?

§ XXVII

JOHN XX. 1-31

The Resurrection

The date is Sunday morning, March 27 (Nisan 17),
A.D. 29.

Before chapter xx. opens our Lord had risen and the
events had taken place which Matthew relates in xxviii.
2-4. These Matthew introduces by Kal \lov,
" And lo ! " as describing the scene which met g ^^V^ ^^'
the eyes of Mar}- Clopas and her companions
when they arrived at the tomb.* The account given in
those three verses of what had already happened came, it
would seem, from one or more of the guard, for none
else had been present.

Local tradition asserts that the Blessed Virgin passed
the night in the house in the garden, not thirty yards
distant from the tomb. She, we imagine, knew the hour
when He would rise. To her He appeared first of all, and
at once, according to the tradition of the Church east and
west recorded by Ambrose. The ttjow-ov '' firstly " of Mark
xvi. 9 is only relative to the " afterwards " (//Era rauro) of

* Viz. the scene of the stone lying rolled away and an angel sitting on it.
All the aorists in these three verses (Matt, xxviii. 3, 4) have the force of pluper-
fects, eyevero, Karaffas, trpocnXOdiiv, atreKvAicTe, ideiadrjaav, eyevovro. But what
the women saw is given by the imperfects, ^KddrjTo, " was sitting," ^y, his
appearance " was "... and his raiment, etc. The Hebrew language has no
pluperfect tense, and the context alone decides whether the perfect tense is a
past or a present or a future perfect : nor does our Greek Matthew anywhere
use a pluperfect form. The Greek translator of the original Aramaic has pre-
ferred to render the Aramaic vague perfect tense by the Greek vague aorist rather
than gloss it by a pluperfect : perhaps it seemed to him that thus was better
preserved the Hebrew idiom whether of language or of thought. Other instances
in Matthew of a Greek aorist used as a plui^erfect are ii. 16, rjKpl0a.'a-e ; xiv. 3,
fSijdw; xxvi. 48, eScoKE (where Mark has SeSco/cei); xxvii. 18, napcSuKav ; 31,

411

412 JOHN XX. 1

verse 12 and to the " later yet " [vartpov) of verse 14. The
adverb irpuiTov has not the same meaning as the adjective
irpMTij would have had. It has been objected that any
Such appearance to His mother must have been recorded
in the gospels, had it occurred. It is from reverence
for the Virgin Mother that all four Evangelists have kept
her name out of this morning's scene, knowing they could
not associate her with the otherwise universal disbelief
of this Easter Day. Again, her certitude that He would
rise, as He had said, would be known to all the disciples :
so that His appearance to her might have carried little
weight with any one : it might have been regarded with
suspicion as a case of self-hypnotism. Except the Mother,
not one had the tiniest expectation of ever again seeing
alive the Man they had buried : this is a strong point in
the evidence for the Resurrection.

However that may be, before Mary Clopas (— " the
other Mary ") arrived at the tomb (with her companions)
as recorded by Matthew, the Magdalene had already been
there alone : also Peter and John had been there : also
our Lord had appeared to the Magdalene there — in short,
all the events had occurred which are contained in John
XX. 1-17, as we shall see.*

(1) Mary Magdalene was the first of any of the disciples
to arrive at the tomb. The other women who had bought
spices had no doubt arranged together over-night to meet
this morning at the sepulchre : they will naturally come in
different groups as they come from different parts of the
city : and, as naturally, the groups will not all arrive at
quite the same time. The Magdalene is first : she comes
alone : " she comes {spx^'^^^) early whilst it
was yet dark " {aKOTiag tVi ovain-, i.e. an hour
before sunrise) " to the sepulchre " (^i'>/^£tov).t Whilst

* A fuller treatment of this chapter and of the Synoptists' accounts of the
Resurrection will be found in the writer's Crucifixion and Resurrection oj Jesus
Christ, pp. 129-176.

•f- ipxerai . . . els rh nvrjfJ-e'iov — "is on her way to the sepulchre {i.e. inner
chamber).'" In Hellenistic Greek ds must not be pressed to mean into, unless
used with a verb compounded with fls or if, e.g. (l<rv\6iv els (vv. G, 8). See
p. 433 note.

JOHN XX. 1-3 413

entering the outer chamber, which was always open, she
sees the stone lying lifted out and away from the sepulchre
{f^vrijLiHov, inner chamber). The stone was lying there on
the floor of the outer chamber. She goes no further ; she
does not advance to the entrance of the inner chamber to
look in : she jumps to the natural conclusion that the Body
has been removed.

(2) Running she comes " to Peter " as the head of the

Twelve, " and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved " :

these two, Peter and John, were probablv

5 10 n in
together (and see verse 3). Local tradition

says they were in the cave of the " Gallicantus " two

hundred yards east of Caiaphas's house, and hardly half a

mile south of the sepulchre.

" The other disciple whom Jesus loved " {tov oXXor . . .
ov f^tXft 6 'Ir/aouc), i.e. John the writer, not hereby
distinguishing himself from Peter, but including Peter
with himself as being beloved by Jesus as His friends.
The word e(plXii represents a more tender personal love
than iijciTTo. Elsewhere John uses this latter word to
express the love our Lord bore to him himself : perhaps he
so uses it rather in disparagement of himself, as though
saying, ' it was not, as you all seem to think, that I was in
any way worthy of His tender personal love {(piXeiv), but
only that He showed to me especially that large general
love {dyciTTciv) which He has equally for all.'

The Magdalene's words to Peter are, " They-have-taken-
awa}^ " (rljoor, the subject of the verb being vague) " the
Lord, and we-know not where they-have-laid Him." In
this " we know not " she does not imply that any one else
had been with her; she had been alone: she is rather
including in one camp Peter, John, herself, and all who
loved Him, whilst opposing to them all others, viz. the
hostile or indifferent Jews, whom she suspects of having
removed the Body.

(3) The Greek original by using the singular iEijXOev
gives to Peter the initiative of the start for the sepidchre :
the two, Peter and John, were running together : the
Magdalene no doubt following.

414 JOHN XX. 4-8

(4) John as being the younger (he was 30 or 31 years
of age) ran ahead towards the end — it shows the impatient

eagerness of the tAvo — and " was the first to
come to the sepulchre " {juvniusiov, the inner
chamber). The words are rjXOsv Trpurroc Etc to fxvnjiHov,
from which it appears that the Magdalene had not gorie
as far as the inviifinov on her first visit : for irpwrog must
refer to more than two. If the comparison were only with
Peter, the Greek would be irpiWspog. John means to say
that he was the first of any one that day to reach the
juvfj/ucToi'.

(5) " And he stooped-dozvn-io-enter " (irapaKv^pag, more
commonly stooped -down-to-look), "" and he sees (/SXtTrft) the
linen-bandages {666via) lying : he did not, however, enter
in." The entrance in the rock-curtain to the inner chamber
was so low that it was impossible to enter that chamber
or to get a full view of it without stooping low down.*
John did not enter further as he had meant to do, because
on catching sight of the o8(n>ia he naturally thought
the Body was still within them, and reverence withheld
him.

(6) Bat Peter coming up " went-in into the sepulchre
(Hai^XOiv ng to /wyrj/xtrov)," i.e. into the inner chamber
through the low entrance,! " and he gazes at {d^topH) the
linen-bandages (oOovia) lying, (7) and at the napkin that
was on His head not lying with the linen-bandages but
apart rolled up in a place alone." Jolui had not seen
the napkin, because, not entering, he had not been able
to see far enough round to the right where the napkin lay
on the spot where the head had lain. This napkin had
been bound round the head so as to tie up the lower jaw.

(8) " Then, therefore " {ovv, i.e. as seeing Peter's start,
or hearing his cry of amazement), " went-in also the other
disciple, he who was the first to come to the sepulchre
{pvvi-itiov), and he saw and believed." What was it

* The entrance to the inner chamber is similar to-day, the original shape
Jjcing more or less preserved through the changes of centuries.

t See Luke xxiv. 12, where Peter ran to the fxvijfj.f'iov, and then 7rapaKv\l/ai,
i.e. stooped-dovvn-to-cntcr, and then sees, etc.

JOHN XX. 8 415

exactly that thej- saw to make such an impression on
Peter and to brina Faith to John ? Was it the sight of
bandages unwound and lying carefully folded as by angelic
hands — no trace of haste or of hurried removal, but every
sign of power, of calm, of order ? It was something far
more strange.

The bandages they saw were lying precisely as they had
lain when swathed roimd the Body and limbs. It must
be remembered that the bandages (rolls of long strips of
linen like surgeon's bandages) had been wound in a practi-
cally unbroken length roimd Body and limbs, beginning at
the toes and ending at the neck — just as mummies are
swathed. During the process the 3| stone of resinous gums
had been bound in, giving to the linen a firm and rather
sticky consistency. It was this stiff casing of bandages
that Peter and John noAv saw, lying empty like a cocoon
from which the chrysalis has escaped, preserving the
exact shape of the Body and limbs that had once lain
within. It was a physical impossibility that the Bod}'^
should have been drawn forth through the narrow opening
at the neck : yet the Body was gone : the bandages were
undisturbed : and the napkin that had been wound round
the head, tying up the jaw whilst leaving the face exposed,
lay just as it had lain slightly parted necessarily from the
Body bandages, but it too empty.*

The Body of our Lord had simply passed out of the
stiff casing of bandages, as from a matrix, without dis-
placing them, as easily as He passed through the rock walls
of the sepulchre.

There fell upon John the echo of words heard on many
occasions but never apprehended or assimilated : " The
Son of Man is delivered into the hands of men, and they
shall kill Him, and after that He is killed He shall rise the
third day " (Mark ix. 3) : " After that I am risen I will go
before you into Gahlee " (xiv. 28) : " Destroy this Temple,
and in three days I will raise It up " (John ii. 19). " There

* The winding-sheet {ffivSdiv) which had been folded over all (Matt., Mark,
Luke) must have been unfolded and laid back along either side so as to leave
the bandage -casing exposed.

416 JOHN XX. 8-12

shall no sign be given to it (this generation) but the sign
of the prophet Jonas : for as Jonas was three days and three
nights in the whale's belly, so shall The Son of Man be in
the heart of the earth three days and three nights " (Matt,
xii. 39, 40).

To John flashed the conviction that the Lord was
indeed risen (John xx. 8) as He had foretold. Peter was
as yet in amazement at the thing that had happened (Luke
xxiv. 12).

(9) " For as yet they knew not the Scripture that He
must rise from the dead." In this John is explaining how
it was that he could say, only now, that he " believed " :
so great was the extension of insight that he now received
into the vast scheme of the Christian Faith — the redemp-
tion of the race by the death of the God-Man and the
regeneration of the race in His risen life.

Never hitherto had he or any of them understood that
the Law and the Prophets and the Scriptures foretold that
Messiah must literallv die and literally from the dead rise.
John recollects his own expectations of Friday last, as
he ran for the vinegar and sponge, that Elijah would come
to deliver the crucified Messiah before He died.

(10) " They went away, therefore, again home — the
disciples." These two last words he has added at the end
to mark the cleavage between his and Peter's experience
on the one side, and that of the Magdalene's on the other
to which he at once passes.

(11) Having thus ended with Peter and himself, he
resumes Mary Magdalene's story. As they two went away

from the tomb, she came back : and she was

standing " near the sepulchre " but " outside "

of it, " weeping " {irpoq t(^ fxvnjxuo) t%M, KXalovaa), i.e. she

was standing in the outer chainber and near the inner

chamber.

"Therefore Vvhilst she wept she stooped-down-to-enter
the sepulchre," i.e. the inner chamber {irapiKD^tv uc to
ixvnfxtiov). But was arrested by what she saw within, viz.
two angels.

(12) " And she gazes-at {Bihtpil) two angels in white

JOHN XX. 12-lG 417

sitting one at the head and one at the feet where the body
of Jesus had been laid." The word rendered " had been
laid " is tKHTo, the imp. of Ki^rat. Just as the present
tense KsiTm, he " lies," serves also for he " has been laid,"
acting regularly as the perf. pass, of TtOi^fit, to " place,"
to " lay," so the imp. iKHTo, he " was lying," serves also
for he " had been laid," acting as the pluperf. pass. oirWnfxi.
From the matrix of bandages and the rolled napkin (not
folded flat, but stiff, as though the head were still within)
she could talk of " the feet " and " the head."

(13) It is the angels who break the intense silence (see
the emphatic Ikhvoi), for she is too absorbed in amazement
to speak. With gentle courtesy, they ask, " Woman, why
weepest thou ? " She says to them, " They-have-taken
away my Lord, and I know not where they-have-laid Him "
— the " they " in both cases being indefinite in the Greek,
exactly as in verse 2.

(14) " Having said this she turned backwards," as no
longer minded to enter the inner chamber: "and she gazes-at
(Oewpu) Jesus who is standing there : and she did not know
it is Jesus." Her failure to recognize was not due to any
want of da\dight, nor (in face of the word Oewpsi) to any
want of concentration of thought. The cause of it must
have been that Jesus was deliberately withholding Himself
from being known, until she was prepared to recognize Him
without the sudden shock affecting her mind injuriously.
She had been already partly prepared by the sight of the
two angels : directly she saw Jesus standing, it had occurred
to her, " Can that be He ? " hence her long gaze at Him :
but as He still withheld Himself and said kindly to her —

(15) " Woman, why weepest thou ? whom seekest
thou ? " she supposed He must be the gardener, and says,
" Sir, if (as seems now probable) it is thou that hast borne
Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and / will
take Him away " ; and as she speaks she naturally turns
to the sepulchre to make her meaning clear. The moment
for recognition has come.

(16) " Jesus says to her, ' Mariam,' " the He])rew name,
of which the Greek form is Maria.

2 E

418 JOHN XX. lC-18

At that word in His natural voice, " she turned and says
to Him in the Hebrew {i.e. Aramaic), ' Rabbuni,' that is
to say, Master." Here she evidently was about to cling
to Him ; her joy and affection outstripping her reverence :
for she is not aware, nor ever has been aware, of His
absolute Divinity.

(17) Tenderly He checks that unrestrained emotion
which is too psychical to be wholesome, and too familiar
for the new conditions: — "Touch Me not: for not yet
have I ascended to The Father " : as saying He is no
longer mingling as a man with men upon earth : but
henceforth resumes His place as God in Heaven. The
economy of servitude is over, the economy of triumph
begins. Though this may seem for the moment to be a
loss to the disciples, it is the beginning of a new order :
for to Heaven He p\irposes to lift them all, and on a higher
range of life they shall meet Him. Though the Magdalene
may not touch Him thus familiarly, let her take this His
assurance of innermost union with Him, " Go unto My
brethren and say to them, ' I ascend unto Him who is
My Father and your Father and My God and your God.' "

The message is to " My brethren," which will primarily
mean, not the eleven Apostles, but those habitually called
His " brethren," i.e. His nearest relatives — the children of
ClojDas and Mary Clopas, viz. James the Little, Joses,
Simeon, Jude, and their sisters : secondarily, no doubt
it means all His disciples including the Eleven.

(18) " Mary Magdalene cometh announcing to the
disciples " (not merely to the Eleven), '• ' I have seen the
Lord,' and that He spake these things to her."

The confusion that we find in the accounts of Easter
morning as given by the four Evangelists is due to the
concise brevity of the three Synoptists. Not one of them
imagined he was proving the resurrection for his readers,
any more than that he had proved the birth, or life, or
public ministry, or the humanity, or the divinity of our
Lord. Faith, in the readers, depended not so much on
the written word as on the oral teaching of the divinely
constituted society called the Church, complemented by

JOHN XX. 18 419

the co-operation of the Holy Spirit enhghtening the minrls
of the hearers.

With regard to the visits of the women to the sepulchre
on Easter morning, there are four distinct sources from
which the four Evangehsts have drawn. All four Evange-
lists have named Mary Magdalene as one of the women
who went to the sepulchre, for she was notably the first
there, and the first recorded appearance of the risen Lord
to any of the disciples was to her : but only John has
described her visit at any length : he does so because he
saw that the synoptic accounts were imperfect and easily
misleading.

Matthew (xxviii. 1-10) has evidently given us Mary
Clopas's (="the other Mary's") account of the* visit of
herself and her companions who are referred to in " the
women " of verse 5 (see Luke xxiv. 10 for the presence
of other women with the different leaders). None of her
companions is named. The Magdalene did not come
with her, but had been there before her. There may be
a hint of this in the singular ^A^tv Mapia i) MayS. . . . koi n
oAXrj Mapia instead of the plural ri\6ov.

Luke has given us (xxiv. 1-10) Joanna's account of
the visit of herself and her companions, none of whom is
named : but they are referred to in " the rest of the women
with them " (verse 10), i.e. in the different groups.

Mark (xvi. 1-8) has given us Salome's account of the
visit of herself and her companions,, none of whom is
named, for Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of
James, and Salome, named in verse 1, did not come
together.

The times at which the Magdalene and the three groups
arrive are all different : also the experiences of all the four
parties are quite different.

In the local tradition there is no confusion of our
Lord's appearance to the Magdalene (as told by John)
with His appearance to " the women," i.e. to Mary Clopas
and her group (as told by Matthew). For whereas in the
former instance the site is marked near the entrance to
the outer chamber of the tomb, in the second instance the

420 JOHN XX. 18

site is marked as four hundred yards to the south of the
sepulchre and close to the Enghsh church on Mount Sion
— the exact spot used to be marked by a chapel known as
that of The three Marys. Did this name commemorate
the fact that here He appeared to the third Mary ? for so
far He had appeared only to Marys, viz. Mary His Mother
(recorded by tradition though not in the Gospels), Mary
Magdalene (near the sepulchre, see John), and now to Mary
Clopas and her group (Matthew).

The events of Easter morning may be roughly timed
as follows :—

It was at the hour when life's tide is at the lowest
ebb, viz. at 3 a.m., " cockcrow," * of Sunday, March 27
(Nisan 17) of a.d. 29, that our Lord rose from the dead,
passing through the rock walls of the sepulchre, and
appeared to His mother. At the same instant " there was
a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended
out of heaven and came near and rolled away the stone
from the sepulchre," " and from fear of him the watchers
quaked and became as dead men."

5 a.m. Mary Magdalene comes whilst it is yet dark
{aKOTtaq tri ovarr^g) : sees only that the
stone has been rolled away from the inner
chamber : goes no further : sees no one :
jumps at an inference : runs to Peter and
John (John).
.5.10. Tells Peter and John (John).
5.20. Peter and John arrive at a run : enter the
inner chamber : see no one : gaze at the
bandage-matrix lying empty : leave, having
seen no one (John).
5.30. The Magdalene again at the tomb : sees " two
angels " in the inner chamber sitting at

* This is the tradition of the early Church : and cf. Pnidentius's hymn,
Ad gain cantum . —

"... Inde est quod omnes credimus
Illo quietis tempore
Quo gallus exultans canit
Christum redisse ab inferis."
Hence the cock, aa symbol of the resurrection, tops the steeples of our churches.

JOHN XX. 18 421

head and foot of the bandage-matrix. Jesus
appears to her, outside : she leaves with
a message to " My brethren " (John).
5.40. Mary Clopas and her group arrive at the tomb
" as it was gathering hght to the first day
of the week " (r/) lirKpuyaKovai] tie fuav
(Ta/3/3orwi'). They sec an " angel " sitting
on the stone which is lying on the ground
in the outer chamber : this angel shows
them the very spot in the inner chamber
where the Body had been laid, i.e. shows
them the bandage-matrix. They leave
quickly with a message to " His disciples."
On the way they are met by our Lord :
they lay hold of His feet wdthout rebuke
and worship Him : He specifies particularly
that the message is to " My brethren." His
first care is His nearest relatives, and to
their mother (Mary Clopas) He is talking
(Matthew).
5.50 Joanna and her group arrive " when the
I dawn Avas full " {opBpov ftadiioQ). They

found the stone lying rolled away : evidently
no angel sitting on it : they entered into the
inner chamber : evidently saw no one
there : in their perplexity at seeing the
matrix of bandages without the Body in
it, suddenly two " men " (avdpeg) stood
over them in dazzling raiment and spoke
to them. They leave, and report " to the
Eleven and to all the rest " (Luke).
6.5, Salome and her group arrive "very early,"

but " after the sun was risen " (At'av
TTjOwi . . . avuTeiXuvToi; tov iiXiov) : they see
with astonishment that the stone has been
rolled away : evidently no angel sitting on
it : they entered into the inner chamber and
saw " a young-man " (vcavt'tricov) sitting on the
right-hynd {i.e. on the north side where the

422 JOHN XX. 19

Body had been laid) clothed in a Avhite long-
robe. He shoAvs them '" the place where
they laid Him " (pointing to the matrix
of bandages) : he gives them a message to
His " disciples and to Peter." They fled
in terror and " told no one anything "
(Mark).
It is obvious that these different accounts represent so
many different visits and different experiences. As for the
various manifestations from the spirit-world, we know
nothing of the laws that govern them. But assuming the
fact of the resurrection and its doctrinal value, we should
expect on that day just what we find — an extraordinary
lifting of the veil that normally hides from our eyes
spiritual agents and their activities.

Besides these manifestations on Easter morning, there
occurred also to-day " the resurrection of the bodies of
many of the saints who slept ; and they (the risen saints)
came forth out of the sepulchres after His resurrection and
came into the holy city and were manifested to many "
(Matt, xxvii. 52, 53). Though Matthew has recorded this
in connection with the moment of our Lord's death, he
expressly says that they did not rise until after He had
risen : we may therefore suppose they appeared on this
Easter Day. They represented that Wave-sheaf of the
new harvest which was being offered in the temple on
this day — the day after the nation's festival-day of the
Passover : see Lev. xxiii. 10-14.

On this same day He appeared in the afternoon
5 p.m. to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus
(Luke xxiv. 13-33), made Himself known to
them about 6.30 p.m. : and appeared after-
wards about 6.30 p.m. to Peter {ih. 34 : 1 Cor. xv. 5)
as to the head of the Church.

(19) Later yet, on this same evening, " He came and
stood in the midst " of the " disciples " gathered together
within closed doors. This is the manifesta-
tion which is also described by Luke (xxiv.
33-43) and by Mark (xvi. 14). We learn from Luke

JOHN XX. 19 423

that the two disciples had returned ah-eady from
Emmaus, so that the hour can hardl}' be earHer than 8
p.m. Also Luke adds that there were others present
besides " the Eleven." It ap})ears from Mark (xvi. 14,
" as they sat at meat ") and incicicntally from Luke (xxiv.
41-43) that the owner of the house (as we suppose, Joseph
of Arimathaea) had provided a supper for all who assembled
on this occasion, the first of the suppers afterwards known
as agapce. It is at this point, during this supper, that
John resumes the story, at about 8 p.m.

(19) " It being, therefore, evening (oi/-7'ac-) on that
day, the first day (r/) fna) of the week," etc. The word
oTpia, " evening," occurs fourteen times in the N.T. It
has two distinct meanings : —

1. The evening that begins about 2.30 p.m. and lasts

till sunset : this according to the Rabbinists is
the " first " evening. In this sense the word occurs
in the N.T. three times only (Matt. xiv. 15 : xxvii.
57 : Mark xv. 42).

2. The evening that begins with sunset and lasts on

into dark : this is the "second " evening of the
Rabbinists. It is the common meaning and
occurs eleven times in the N.T. This is the
meaning in the passage in question : for it had
been the time of the evening meal (after sunset,
say 6.30 p.m.) when our Lord had made Himself
known to the two at Emmaus (Luke xxiv. 29, 30),
and the village of Emmaus is " 60 stades " (=6|-
miles) distant from Jerusalem where the two after-
wards found " the Eleven " and others gathered to-
gether {ib> 33-36). Luke never uses the word 6^ia.
For the No. 1 meaning he has i) hfxipa T/joS«ra
KXiveiv, " the day began to decline " (ix. 12) :*
and for No. 2 meaning he uses iawipa (xxiv. 29 :
Acts iv. 3 ; xxviii. 23), and k^kXik^v ijcn v hf^^pf^^
" the day has already decHned " or " set "
(xxiv. 29).
To these two distinct " evenings " is due the curious
phrase in the O.T. " between the two evenings," marking

424 JOHN XX. 19

the time for the killing of the Paschal lymbs and for the
offering of the evening sacrifice. The Rabbinists interpret
it as the time between the beginning of the " first " evening
(about 2.30 p.m.) and the beginning of the " second "
evening (sunset).

(19) As we have seen, it is long after 6 p.m. of Sunday,
March 27, and yet John distinctly says it was still the
Sunday. It is therefore clear that he reckons
days as the Romans did, and as we do, from
midnight to midnight (just as he does his hours) : and not
from sunset to sunset. Of course, when he is writing of
the Sabbath oj the Jews (xix. 31) he has to reckon that as
they did, viz. from sunset to sunset, but he is careful to
explain (xix. 42) that it was only " the Jews'' Friday "
that ended at sunset : the Friday of the Greeks, for whom
he is writing, ended at midnight (p. 406), as did all their
days. See at iv. 52 : p. 118.*

Not only John, but Mark also (who according to all
tradition writes for Romans) evidently reckons days from
midnight to midnight. This will be seen from a careful
examination of his iv. 35, where the oipia, " evening,"
will be found to be the evening beginning with sunset
(not the evening beginning at 2.30 p.m.), and yet he calls
it "on that day," i.e. the same day. Like John, he of
course recognizes that/or Jews a Sabbath begins with sunset.

(19) "It being therefore evening on that day, the
first day of the week, and the doors being shut where the
disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood
in the midst." The room in which the disciples were
assembled is identified unhesitatingly by all tradition with
that " Upper-room " where our Lord and the TavcIvc had
supped sevent3^-two hours before, commonly known as
the Cendcolo, " Supper-room," where the Eucharist was
instituted. See at p. 303.

* Throughout the Roman empire, since the introduction of the Julian
calendar in B.C. 45, the official civil day began at midnight. It seems that this
official notation of the civil day was observed by all the nationalities of the
empire including the Jews : but these latter made exception for Sabbaths
and other holidays of obligatory rest just as they do to-day, for these they
reckoned (and still reckon) as beginning at the preceding sunset.

JOHN XX. 19-22 425

And He says to them, " Peace to you " {tlpi'ivij vfTiv,
Hebrew shdlom Idkem). The greeting occurs four times in
the O.T. (Gen. xHii. 23 : Judges vi. 23, xix. 20 : Dan. x. 19).
In the O.T. it is never the equivalent of the modern Arabic
greeting, " The peace be with you " : but is always an
assurance of safety, an assurance that there is nothing to
fear. Even in Judges xix. 20 it is so, with the condition
added that ' you put yourselves under my charge and that
you do not pass the night in the street."

So, too, this greeting of our Lord in verses 19, 21,
" Peace to you," is an assurance that there is no cause to
fear, and that all is well : for they (Luke xxiv. 36) were
alarmed by His manifestation. But coming from Him
the phrase is also a sacramental bestowal of " peace."
The phrase preserves the same meaning in the Apostolic
salutation, " Grace to you and peace," which is not
a pious hope but an authoritative assurance : it is also
a blessing, which is not an empty form but a sub-sacra-
mental form conveying an objective grace if the receiver
is worthy.

(20) " He showed them His hands and His side. The
disciples therefore were glad," etc. See the fidler account
given by Luke (xxiv. 37-43), where we find that before
the disciples were convinced that He was not a spirit,
they saw Him eat part of a roast fish.

(21) " Even as The Father has sent Me, I too send
you." The commission of the Church has the same
warrant or authority as His own commission had. And
as authoritv alone Avould be insufficient. He next bestowed
on them an enabling Power : —

(22) " He breathed into them " {lvi(l>vcri]aiv), thus
informing them with the Holy Spirit that proceeds from
Him and is the Giver of Life. But The Spirit was not
with them as with Him : for whereas the whole Spirit, the
whole Godhead, was in Him autogenous and not com-
municated. He merely " breathed a breath into " them —
a single act {kvi(pvm](jiv). This Greek word is the same
as is used by the LXX in those two pregnant phrases of
the O.T., viz. Gen. ii. 7, "the Lord God breathed into man's

426 JOHN XX. 23

nostrils the ]>reath (or The Spirit) of Life"; and Ezek.
xxxvii. 9, " breathe into these slain and they shall live " (the
vision of the Dry Bones).

(23) "Receive ye the Holy Spirit: Avhosesoever sins
ye remit, they are remitted to them : whosesoever sins ye
retain, they are retained." This is the institution in the
Church of the Sacrament of Penance. This power of
remission and retention of sins of individuals is thus made
inherent in the whole Church collectively : for this in-
breathing of the Hoh' Spirit by our Lord and this bestowal
of enabling Power were not confined to the Eleven Apostles
(or rather Ten, for Thomas was absent), but extended to
all the disciples present. The Church collectively declares
the conditions on which sins are remitted, and with the
plenary powers of an ambassador pronounces their re-
mission or their retention.

It is certain that different sections of the Church have
from the first interpreted the external conditions of this
Sacrament differently. Some, for instance, in the early
centuries required individual, public, confession of special-
ized sins to the assembled Church : but this for obvious
reasons became disallowed.

Other Churches, again, have been satisfied with a
general confession, either individually to a priest, or col-
lectively in public assembly.

The Church of Rome, again, has gradually insisted on
individual confession of specialized sins to a priest as part
of the normal conditions. If the Church of Rome for
disciplinary reasons has seen fit to confine, in practice, this
absolving power to a certain body of officials, well and
good : it is but part of the discipline which binds together
the members of that the most vital of the Christian denomi-
nations. Or the philosophy of this phenomenon may be
that a power at first inherent in the general organism has,
by the inevitable law or formula of that organism's develop-
ment, become specialized into a function of a definite
part of that organism. Just so the power of infallibility
in doctrine, at first known to ])e inherent somehow in
the Church collectively, has by the law of development

JOHN XX. 24-27 427

become specialized into a function of the visible head of
the Church. All will agree that every living organism
must develop, and development is specialization of parts
and functions ; any difference of opinion that may arise
will be confined to whether certain specializations are
morbid or healthy.

(24) " But Thomas, one of the Twelve, he who is called
Didymus," etc. The meaning of the Hebrew Thomas
is Twin, which in Greek is Didymos. No less than three
times (xi. 16: xx. 24: xxi. 2) does John insist on this
Greek name Didymos. The reason here, as in similar
cases, was perhaps that the Greek name was the name
by which the Apostle Thomas was best known to the
readers for whom John is writing. See note to iv. 25.

It was after our Lord disappeared from March 27.
the room that Thomas entered it, and on the Sunday, say
same evening. ^-^^ P*™*

(25) The rest of the disciples, therefore, who were
present tell him that they have but just now seen the
Lord {kopcLKcifxiv, perfect), and no doubt also that He
had shoAvn them the marks in His hands and side (verse
20). Thomas protests that he will he unable to believe
(oi» jxrt TTKTTtixno) — not that he refuses to believe — unless
he not only sees the marks (as the others had seen), but
feels with his touch that the holes are real— as the others
had not felt, although they had probably felt His flesh
and bones (Luke xxiv. 39) to satisfy themselves that He
was not a phantasm.

(26) On that day week (for that is the exact equivalent
of the Greek "after eight days")— and the date is
Sunday, April 3 — " again His disciples were April 3.
within, and Thomas was with them." They Sunday, say
were no doubt assembled in the same room as ^ a.m.
before. Already it seems that Sunday is becoming the
day for Christian Hebrews to meet together to commemo-
rate the Resurrection, the central fact of Christianity.

(27) Jesus becomes present under the same conditions
as before and with the same greeting, " Peace to you."
Next (a-a) He offers Thomas the ver>^ test which Thomas

428 JOHN XX. 27-29

had said could alone convince him. " And be not faith
less but believing " (k«( fxi) ylvov a-nrKTTog aWa ttkttoc).
The yivov, " become," is not to be joined so much to u-maToq,
" faithless," which Thomas already was, as to ttio-toc,
" believing," which he now becomes.

(28) There is every reason to suppose that Thomas did
as he was invited to do (" Reach thy finger hither and see
My hands, and reach thy hand and place it in My side ") :
just as there is every reason to suppose that on Easter Day
the other ten Apostles and the disciples with them had
done as they had been invited to do, and handled Him
{ipi]Xa(p{i(TaTi fii, Luke xxiv. 39), verifying flesh and bones.
Their difficulty of belief, though in a measure reprehensible
in them, was salutary for those who were to believe through
their testimony : for no room for doubt was left — so far
as human testimony could be adequate.

" Thomas answered and said to Him, ' My Lord and
My God.' " Thomas's belief was not solely nor mainly
the result of his touch and vision : for the physical senses
alone can never be sufficient to produce faith — no more
than can miracles. But no doubt the physical senses
helped Thomas, just as the sight of our Lord's miracles
helped others before. The main factor, however, of his
faith, as of all faith, was the power emanating from the
Personality of the risen Lord, a power that leaves no
doubt as to that Personality.

(29) " Because thou hast seen Me thou hast believed,"
i.e. ' Could you not believe without seeing Me ? ' He
implies a certain hardness of heart in Thomas in that he
had needed the aid of the physical senses : for that aid
ought not to be necessary ; and is not necessary where
the heart is in touch with God's spiritiuil world that exists
behind the veil of God's material world.

" Blessed are the\^ Avho without seeing believed." The
primary application of this Beatitude will be to the Blessed
Virgin, and to John who alone of the Apostles or of the
disciples (as far as we know) believed on Easter Day with-
out seeing (see verse 8). But we ma}'- suppose that during
this last week, on the testimonv of those who had seen

JOHN XX. 29-31 429

Him last Sunday, many had believed and were present
to-day and heard this blessedness pronounced on them-
selves. This Beatitude abides for the Church of this Aijc,
which must be content with faith alone. In a yet future
Age (" after eight days ") faith and physical sight will
go hand in hand for the then Church upon earth.

(30, 31) " Therefore, whilst many and other (ttoXXo fxlv,
ovv, KoX aX\a) signs Jesus did in the presence of His
disciples which have not been written in this book, these
{ravra 8t) have been written that ye may believe that
Jesus is the Messiah, The Son of God, and that believing,
ye may have Life in His name." The force of the
" therefore " is ' Because of this blessing, just recorded,
upon those who believe without the aid of physical sight,
I John have selected and recorded what I have recorded,
in order that you, my readers, who cannot possibly "see"
Him with physical eyes may believe without seeing and
thereby may come under this Beatitude.'

John thereupon goes on to amplify the word " believe,"
by defining what our Lord meant by it in His Beatitude,
viz. the belief that " Jesus is the Messiah, The Son of
God," with all that is connoted by these terms, and all the
inferences that necessarily derive from them, — connota-
tion and inferences that the Church has ever been more
and more clearly visualizing and in her creeds and dogmas
has ever been more and more accurately defining.

Next, he goes on to amplify the word " blessed," also
by defining what our Lord meant by it here : viz. " the
having Life in His name." " In His name," i.e. in the
name just given, i.e. in Him qua " Jesus the Messiah
(Christ), The Son of God." Explicit understanding of
all that the Name connotes is not necessary : implicit
belief in what is meant by it is enough to begin with.

§ XXVIII
JOHN XXI. 1-END

The government of the Church is vested in Peter.

It has been held b}^ many, perhaps by most, commentators
since the sixteenth century, that this last chapter of
John's gospel is an appendix added as an afterthought
either by the author of the gospel (John) or by some later
hand. But this opinion is due solely to the assumption
that John in writing hisgosepl can have had no other object
in view than those named in the last verse of chapter xx.,
viz. " that ye may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, The
Son of God : and that, believing, ye may have Life in
His name."

There can be little doubt that with the end of chapter
XX. ends the main purpose and the main body of John's
gospel : he had, however, a second purpose in vie\v and
a last message before his death. It concerned the new
Society formed of these believers. Was it to be an
amorphous body without visible head, such as organisms
belonging to the lowest order of zoolog}^ ? Undoubtedly
to Peter had been given the keys of government for his
life : but after Peter's death, was there thenceforth to
be no visible head or guiding hand ? Had our Lord made
no provision for His Church down the ages, by which she
might voice herself, thus realizing to herself her own
unity, and to all outside of her her entity ?

John's purpose in this last chapter is plain. It is to

show what provision our Lord had made for carrying on

until His second coming, viz. that He had vested in Peter

acting through his successors the government of the

universal Church.

430

JOHN XXI. 1-3 431

(1) " After these thlno-s " (viz. the last recorded inci-
dent— that of April 3 — of verses 26-29 of chapter xx.)
" Jesus manifested Hinsclf again to the a.D. 29.
disciples on the Sea of Tiberias." The day is April 10,
probably Sunday, April 10 : all His previous Sunday,
manifestations had been on Sundays, viz. March 27 and
April 3.

Peter and others leaving Jerusalem on Monday,
April 4. would arrive at Capernaum on the evening of
Thursday, April 7. After the Sabbath was over, at
sundown of Saturday, April 9, he resumed his old occupa-
tion of fishing on the lake of Tiberias, whilst awaiting that
great manifestation of our Lord in Galilee to the assembled
Church, which had been promised to the Apostles on the
night before His Passion, " after I am risen I will go-
before you to Galilee " (Matt. xxvi. 32). The promise
had been repeated to the disciples, through Mary Clopas
and her group, by the angel on Easter morning, " He
goeth-before you to Galilee : there shall ye see Him "
(Matt, xxviii. 7) : and was sent a few minutes later by our
Lord Himself to His brethren, " Tell My brethren that
they go to Galilee, and there shall they see Me " {ib. verse
10)^*

(2, 3) With Peter in his ship are six others, viz. Thomas
called " the Twin," Nathanael who resided at (utto) Kana
of Galilee (he is generally allowed to be the same as
Bartholomew of the Synoptic gospels), James and John,
the sons of Zebedee, and " tAvo others of His disciples."
The five named belonged to the number of the Twelve
Apostles. The " two others " were not improbably
Simeon and Jude, two of the "brethren" of our Lord
(and not of the Twelve).

They are using the long seine net {^Urvov), which is
paid out by the ship's boat and afterwards drawn round

* That great official manifestation to the assembled Church was made on
Mount Tabor, " the mount " (rb opos) of Matt, xxviii. 16 : it is the occasion
named in I Cor. xv. 6, when "Ho was seen by above five hundred brethren at
once " : it occurred at a later date than that with which we are dealing in
John xxi. (see verse 14), and probably on the following Sunday, April 17 : and
was marked bv a formal act of adoration of Him by all the assembled Church.

5.30 a.m

432 JOHN XXI. 4-7

in a sweep by the boat back to the ship, where it is hauled
on board.

(4) After a fruitless night's work, early on Sunday
morning, April 10, " as the morning was now breaking "
{7rp(joiag rjSrj ■ytvo/zevrjc, as is probably the true
reading), (5) they hear a stranger hailing
them from the shore as one wishing to buy their catch,
" O my men, have ye no fish to sell me ? " {ircu^la, fxi) n
Trpo(T({>ayiov iX^Te) : and so Chrysostom understands it. He
addresses them not as a Father by the endearing reKvla,
" little children " (as in xiii. 33), but in the guise of a
stranger by irai^ia, a term marking inferiority in age, or,
as here, in rank : it is the Latin pueri, the English " my
men." They answered " No."

(6) He shouted back, " Cast the net on the right side
of the ship, and ye shall find " — as though He, standing
on higher ground, could see a shoal of fish there. This
would be in accord with a common habit among the
fishermen of the Levant to-day, who station one of their
number on a cliff and take his signals as to where the shoals
are.

They did as advised by the stranger, paying out the
net by the boat ; and as the boat brought round the far
end of the net, those in the ship were no longer able to
haul it on board, so great was the multitude of the fishes
(i Y^uwi').

(7) Meanwhile John, " that disciple whom Jesus loved
(^yoTra)," has recognized the Stranger, as the morning
light increases or perhaps by some gesture made to him
(John) and seen by him alone : and he says to Peter,
" It is the Lord." Peter had been superintending the
operations, too bus}" to think of much else, and like the
rest of them is lightly-clad (yvfivbg) at the work. But
on hearing " It is the Lord," he looks up, recognizes
Him, casts all other care aside, slips on his outer-garment
(tTTJvSurijv),* for no Oriental would appear in undress before

* evevSvrrjs. A garment put on over other garments. The word yv/xvbs,
rrndered "naked,'" commonly means merely lightly clad, e.g. in tunic only.
So also nudus in Latin, e.g. nudus am, sere midus, Virg. Georg. 2, 299,

JOHN XXI. 7-9 433

his superior, girds it to him, and casts liimself to tlie sea,*
so eager is his love for the Lord.

It is clear he does not mean to swim ashore in the
cumbersome cloak : it is clear he does not mean to wade
ashore, for he is " about 200 cubits " (100 yards) off, and
the shore nowhere shelves so gently. What then ? He
means to walk upon the water — he had made trial of
that once last year at our Lord's bidding, and had failed
only from -svant of faith (Matt. xiv. 28-31). To-day he
goes, not as a private individual, but in his official capacity
as head of Peter's Barque, head of the infant Church :
there is no flicker of doubt about Peter to-day : he knows
to-day the omnipotence of the risen Lord : he knows some-
thing of the destiny of the new Community : he knows
he had been appointed head of it, that to him had been
given the keys of it (Matt. xvi. 18, 19 : Luke xxii. 31, 32),
and that death (" the gates of Hades ") shoidd never
prevail against it.

Peter was no doubt the first to reach the land : but
his meeting with our Lord is passed over.

(8) The rest of the disciples (the other six) came on
slowly in the ship's boat (yrXoiapui)), dragging the net of
fishes (IxOvwv) : the ship being left in charge of the hands.

(9) As soon as these six reached the shore, they would
naturally at once leave the boat to go to our Lord to
worship Him, rather than wait to haul in the net : and on
the shore " they see charcoal laid " (but not kindled),
" and a fish laid upon it " or " by it " (ready for cooking)
" and a loaf of bread " {o\papiov tTriKeifxivov kq] apTOv).'\

* e^a\ev avrhv tls t7;v QiXacraav. The Hellenistic ejs need not be pressed
to mean " into " unless used with a verb compounded with tls, e.g. iiartXdiu
ds rhv oIkov, Matt. xii. 4, entered into the house. But f\0oi>y fls Tr}v olKiav,
Matt. ix. 23, came to the house, ave^-q els rh lipos, Matt. v. 1. went-up on the
mountain, Tropevdils ds tV QaKaaffav, Matt. xvii. 27, went to the sea, riyyicav
ds 'lepoff.. Matt. xxi. 1, drew-nigh to Jerusalem, KVpvffawv els ras awaywyds,
Mark i. 39, preaching in the synagogues, Kad-qnevov els to upos, Mark xiii. 3,
sitting on the mountain.

■\ eitLKdfievov, " lying by it." Cf. ot iviKei/ievai vrjffoi, Thuc. II. 14, " the
islands lying near the coast" : iffrddri tVi toC dv(na<Tri)piov, (an angel) "' stood at
the altar," Rev. viii. 3. The fish was not yet cooking, for a long time must
elapse yet before the midday meal (dpiaTrtaare, verse 12).

2 F

434 JOHN XXI. 10-12

(10) After an undetermined interval, but which may
have been of considerable length, Jesus says to them,
" Bring of the fishes (o^apiojv) which you just now caught."
He of course knew exactly Avhat was there : His object
was to call their attention to the quality and quantity
of the catch : He does not mean, " Bring of them that we
may eat of them," for the account that folloAvs leaves it
quite clear, in the Greek, that the food they ate later on
consisted of the one fish and the one loaf of His providing
which they had seen (verse 9) on the shore.

(11) At this command of our Lord, " Simon Peter
went-up " into the boat — followed of course by the rest,
for the order was given to all (eveyKan) — and with their
help " he hauled the net ashore fidl of great fishes (IxOvow),
a. hundred and fifty-three : and though they were so many,
the net rent not/' Many have been the attempts by the
Fathers to elucidate the mystery hidden in the number
153 : for that it contains a mystery has been felt by all.
If the explanation was given to the disciples it has not
come down to us : when time is ripe, no doubt the veil
will be lifted.*

(12) " Jesus saith to them, ' Come, dine ' " (Aivre,
apifTTucraTt). The apiarov is always the Latin prandium,

the midday meal : it is not the early breakfast
^ ^^' {aKpaTKjfia). Therefore many hours must have

passed since He was first seen by them in the dawn, as it
is now midday. The fire has been kindled, and the fish
(singular, d\pcipioi>) cooked. Our Lord's invitation to them
is to a meal of His own providing, and, of course. He Avill
eat with them.

" Not one of the disciples ventured to ask Him, ' Who

* Some have seen in the hauling of the net to shore the end of this Age
of the Church, the close of Peter's vicariate, the close of " the times of the
Gentiles," and of the purely Gentile Church. The 153 great fishes are interpreted
to be a cycle of 153 solar years. The Gentile number being 13 — Paul the 13th
apostle being the apostle of the Gentiles — 153 X 13 = 1989 years for the Gentile
Church. Reckoned from Jan. fi of B.C. 3 (the day and year of His epiphany to
the Gentiles), 1989 years run out in Jan., a.d. 1987. This is the same year that
the 70 " hebdomads "' of Dan. ix. 24 lun out, viz. with the 70th Jubilee year
which begins in October of 1987 a. p. But .

JOHN XXI. 12-16 435

art Thou ? ' for they knew it is the Lord." The phrase
is remarkable. Why should they have been expected to
ask ? Peter, James, John, Thomas, Nathanacl (assuming
him to be Bartholomew) can have had no doubt of Him :
these five had already seen Him at least once, and (except
Thomas) twice. It seems to point to some one or two
present who had not yet seen Him and had refused hitherto
to believe He was risen, saying, ■ It must have been an
hallucination or a phantom from the spirit-world that you
all saw on those two last Sundays in Jerusalem.' It
seems as though John's remark had reference solely to
the two unnamed disciples of verse 2, whom we have
reason (p. 439) to identify wdth Simeon and Jude, His
" brethren " ; thus we may infer that this was the first
time Simeon and Jude had seen Him since His resurrection :
now they also are convinced.

(13) " Jesus Cometh and takcth the loaf {ttov apTuv)
and giveth to them, and likewise the fish (rb oi//«|0<oi'),"
i.e. the single fish they had seen lying ready for cooking
when they came ashore and the single loaf : one loaf,
one fish, to signify Unity.

(14) " This was already the third time," i.e. the third
separate day, " that Jesus was manifested to the disciples
as risen from the dead " : the two other days being
Sunday, March 27, and Sunday, April 3.

(15) After they had dined, Jesus says to Simon Peter,
" Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me more than do
these ? " i.e. ' lovest thou Me {ayawag //t) with that
divine and supernatural love which ought to be the one
principle of the Pastorate which I am about to vest in
thee ? ' Peter says to Him, " Yea, Lord, Thou knowest
that I love Thee {(piXw ae)." Peter perhaps missed our
Lord's full meaning; he says nothing about the divine
love (oyoTTij), only with humility and self-distrust claims
to love Him with a himian and natural love {(piXw). Yet,
even so, to him is given the charge, " Feed My lambs
(j3oar(c£ ra iipv'ia fiov) " : provide food for the little ones
in Christ.

(16) "He saith to him again a second time, ' Simon,

4^6 JOHN XXI. 16-17

son of Jonas, lovest thou Mc {ayinrcif: fxt) ? ' " — again
insisting on the divine and supernatural love. Peter
answers in the same words as before, " Yea, Lord, Thou
knowest that I love Thee (0<Xw o-t) " — again missing our
Lord's full meaning, failing to see that He had in mind
the divine love (oyoTrrj) that was so necessary for the
universal Pastorate. Yet, even so, to him is given the
charge, " Shepherd My sheep {Trolfxaivt to 7rpo(iarid pLov) " :
lead them, provide for them, protect them, old as well
as young.

(17) " He saith to him the third time, ' Simon, son of
Jonas, lovest thou Me {(^tiXug /ut) ? "—no longer speaking
of the divine love (ayo7r»/), but adopting the meaning that
Peter kept to, viz. natural love {(pikur).

"■ Peter was grieved in that He said to him the third
time ' Lovest thou Me (^Aac ^ut).' " It was really the
first time that this question had been put; with the mean-
ing of (l>i\iig, though Peter thought it was the third
time, for he had failed to catch our Lord's full meaning
of oyaTTOf,-, as against ^tXete- The Aramaic, spoken by
our Lord and Peter, had but the one word {rehdm, as is
seen in the Syriac version of this chapter) for the two
Greek words ayairav and (piXnv, hence Peter's failure :
but John by his Greek rendering has shown what he him-
self knew to be our Lorrl's meaning in His thrice-used
Aramaic word.*

" Peter was grieved," etc., not as thinking that our
Lord was mistrusting him, but because the thrice-put
question recalled to him his own threefold denial in
Caiaphas's house : and Peter said to Him, " Lord, Thou
knowest all things {av iravTa oldar),'" Thou art asking,
not to satisfy Thyself, but to recall to me my Aveakness :
ask not mc Avho so belied my protestations : " Thou
recognizest (av jivi^cfkhc) that I love Thee {(ptXio oi) " —
again claiming for himself no more than natural human

* For other instances of Jolin's discrimination by using two Greek words
to express two different meanings where only one Hebrew (or Aramaic) word
was used, see at i. 45, 4') : vii. 4J, 42 : vii. 52 : xvi. 28. Compare also his
difficulty in adequately rendering into Greek the Aramaic name Cephas at i. 42.

JOHN XXI. 17-19 437

love for our Lord : but none the less to him is given the
universal charge, "Feed My sheep (/3octk£ to Trpofiuna
fiov).^^ The diminutive 7r/>oj3aru( is a sign of tenderness :
and the sheep are " Mine," not Peter's,

Thrice repeated is the appointment of Peter as Christ's
Vicar, lest any one, on account of Peter's thrice-repeated
denial, should say that ('hrist had changed His decree
of six months ago (Matt. xvi. 18) concerning him. So
says Cyril.

Our Lord calls him markedly, " Simon, son of Jonas "
(rather than by his official name Simon Cephas, or Simon
Peter), as though to mark that the universal Pastorate
was given to him with all his faults as natural man : it
was not to be supposed that he in his successors would
at all times or in all ways act worthy of his high office :
none the less, there lay the Vicariate.

The same is the meaning to be drawn from our Lord's
no longer insisting on the ideal word ciyairdv, but accepting
the lesser and human r/xXfTv.

(18) " Verily, verilj^ I say to thee, When thou wast
young thou didst gird thyself and didst walk whither thou
wouldest : but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch
forth thy hands " (in helpless protest) " and another
shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not."
Our Lord's words concern not only Peter but his line of
successors in the Papacy — as we suspect from the "■ Verily,
verily," which calls attention to a meaning to be sought
beside the obvious one. ' Though wayward and self-
willed in thy days of youth and pride, yet in thine old
age, as the end draws near, feeble and void of all earthly
splendour thou wilt glorify God by thy death on the cross.'

(19) " And this He spake signifying by what manner
of death he should glorifv God." Tradition tells that
Peter was put to death crucified head downwards on the
Janiculum at Rome in a.d. 65, June 29.

" And having spokeu this. He saith to him. ' Follow
Me ' " — evidently intending to make some further com-
munication to Peter apart from the others, which has
not been recorded.

438 JOHN XXI. 20-24

(20) Peter, as he follows, hears a foot behind him, and
" turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved
(Tj-yaTTo) following : who also had leaned-back on His
breast at the Supper, and had said, ' Lord, who is he that
betrayeth Thee ? '"

(21) " Peter, therefore, seeing this one " (and inferring
correctly that John too had been told to follow), " saith
to Jesus, ' Lord, and this one — what of him ? ' " Because
the Lord had promised Peter a glorious martyrdom, and
had committed the whole Church in all the world to him,
to him who had denied Him, Peter asks —

' But John here, whom Thou didst prefer at the Supper,
John whom Thou lovest more than me, and who is holier
than I, what hast Thou for him ? ' So Chrysostom.
Peter was half afraid that his friend had been forgotten,
and half exultant that to that friend some greater office
even than his own must have been reserved.

(22) Jesus says gently to him, " If I will that he tarry
whilst I come, what is it unto thee ? Do thou follow Me "
— ' his work for him whatever it may be, thy work for
thee is to feed and shepherd My sheep, and in so doing
to follow Me to the cross.'

(23) From these words, perhaps incorrectly reported
in the early Church, arose a widespread opinion that John
was not to die before our Lord's return. As late as the
fifth century there were many throughout Christendom
who believed that John had not died, but had been buried
whilst in a trance, and would wake again shortly before
the end of this Age, Here the words are correctly given
by John. John is seemingly on his deathbed as he writes.
The date is A. D, 101,

(24) " This is the disciple that beareth witness of these
things and wrote these things." What things ? This
last chapter, recording the appointment of Peter as uni-
versal Shepherd : that is the whole gist of the chapter,
to show where the Churches were to turn for guidance
now that John the last survivor of the Twelve was going
from them.

" And wc knoAv that his witness is true {i\\i](iric, true

JOHN XXI. 21. 4.39

as to fact)." What is this startling " we know " ? Who
is venturing to vouch for the accuracy of John's account ?
Assuredly none could pretend to do so who had not been
present at that scene of seventy -two years ago.

Who, then, are the " we " ? It would seem that they
must be the unnamed " two " of verse 2. They were not
of the Twelve, for John was the last survivor of the Twelve,
and he is on his deathbed. It has been suggested that
they were Simeon and Jude (the two youngest of our
Lord's " brethren "), who alone, so far as is known, of
the contemporaries of Christ outlived John. Simeon
succeeded his brother James " the Little " as Bishop of
Jerusalem, and died in a.d. 107, at the age of 120 ; he was
in his tvirn succeeded by his brother Jude, who died in
A.D. 110, leaving us, in his short epistle, the last of the
canonical writings. If, then, the " two " are i-ightly
identified, Simeon and Jude are here present at John's
deathbed and corroborate John's statement of Peter's
appointment.

If the universal Pastorate were given to Peter merely
for his life and not vested in the successors to his see,
would John have thought it important to add this chapter
on his deathbed, and have taken care to have his account
corroborated by the only two surviving witnesses ? Peter
had been dead for thirty-six years when John is writing.
Was it only during Peter's life, when the enemy had scarce
begun his attack, that a visible head and a living voice
were needed ? W^as it for Peter only during his natural
life that our Lord prayed " that thy faith shall not fail "
(Luke xxii. 31, 32) ? Was it only during Peter's natural
life that he was to " turn and stabhsh thy brethren "
{ib.) ? Or are the words still hving, spoken to Peter as
perpetual Vicar in his successors ?

This chapter is the last word left to us by the last of
the Apostles, So long as one Apostle Avas hving, the
Churches (especially of his region of the empire) would
naturally turn to him for guidance. But when he died,
what of the future ? Then more than ever was need :
for there were many Professors going about, each claiming

440 JOHN XXI. 25

to give the true and inner meaning of the Christian Faith.
Was all to pass into flux ? John answers, ' No : the
Lord made due provision for the future.' Though in all
things non-essential to the Faith His vicar remains with
the imperfections and limitations of the natural man, none
the less in him are vested the feeding of the universal
Church in the Faith and the shepherding of her on the way :
until " the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled " (Luke xxi.
24), and the centre of unity be transferred back, as we
suppose, from the city of Rome destroyed to Jerusalem
restored.

(25) " And there are many other things also which
Jesus did, the which if they (ever) be written {u\v ■ypa(pi]-ai)
every one, I suppose that not even the world itself will
contain (^fo/oiVaiO the books that would be written."
Here is told but a fraction of what Jesus, God and Man,
did. On through eternity, to the eye that looks behind
and before, will for ever be unfolding fresh vistas of the
meaning of the work of the Incarnate God. By means
of Him all things were made, into Him all things are
destined to merge.

NOTE A.— ON THE " WOMAN " OF LUKE VII. 37 AND THE
MARY OP JOHN XI. 2, AND MARY MAGDALENE

Marth^^, Mary, Lazarus

There were three feasts in the same house at Bethany, viz. —

1. Luke vii. 36-50 : and to this one John alludes in xi. 2 : the first

anointing.

2. Luke X. 38-42 : no anointing.

3. Matt. XX vi. 6-13: Mark xiv. 3-9: Jolm xii. 1-9: the second

anointing.

Mary Magdalene is present on all three occasions : she is the same as
the " woman who was in the city, a sinner " (Luke vii. 37) : and the same
as Marj' the sister of Martha.

Simon the Pharisee of Luke vii. is the same as " Simon the leper " of
Matt. xxvi. and Mark xiv. : he is probably the husband of Martha.

(1 ) The first feast in this house is that of Luke vii. 36-50. The occasion
seems to be our Lord's visit to Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost (John
V. 1), The house belongs to a Pharisee named Simon. The words " who
was in the city, a sinner " must mean Jerusalem (T17 TroXet) : therefore
the scene of the feast is near Jerusalem, and not in CJalilee. This woman
must have had the right of entry to the house : for ordinarj- public
" sinners " had no open access to a Pharisee's house such as the story
requires : Pharisees and " simiers " did not mix like that : so she evidently
belongs to the house : this would be natural if slie was the sister of Martha,
whom we suppose to be Simon's wife.

There is no reason to suppose that " the woman " was a public harlot :
nor yet a notorious " gay " lady : quite the reverse : she is obviously one
who had an illicit liaison known only to her immediate relatives, viz.
her sister Martha, her brother-in-law, Simon the host, and, no doubt, her
brother Lazarus : for no one at the table but Simon seems to know her
secret, inasmuch as Simon's silent thought (39) implies that whilst a
Prophet by his divine intuition would recognize her character, still it
would require a Prophet's intuition to do so : we gather therefore that
she was not known to the public to be living an irregular life.

This " woman " (Mary Magdalene) hears that Jesus " is eating in the
Pharisee's house," i.e. she learns beforehand that He has been asked to
dine and has accepted to dine to-night in the house of Simon — her brother-
in-law, as we suppose : her sister Martha may have told her : she knows
that this Guest is He who had recently (perhaps on this verj' day, when

441

442 On Mary Magdalene.

He was in Jerusalem at the Feast of Pentecost) cast out of her herself seven
ilemons, and had stirred in her a desire for a holier life : once free from
Iheir obsession she has made up her mind to make a clean break with her
past : it has been the crisis of her life : full of gratitude to Him she will
go and see Him again.

Simon, though he has asked Jesus to eat with him, has done Him no
honour when He came. Jesus has been given no water for His feet, no
kiss of welcome, nor yet the customary drops of fragrant oil on His head :
nor has He been given the seat of honour. He has been distinctly and
openly slighted and has probably been given the lowest seat — the right-
hand bottom corner of the triclinium, and nearest the door.

So good a right of entry to that house has " the woman " that she
arrives there before the guests, before our Lord Himself (see 45 : " but
slie from the time that I entered in," as is the true reading — not " from
the time she entered in "). And there she waits, as we suppose, with her
sister. She notices how He is received by Simon, marks the omission of
all the common acts of courtesy from the host to his Guest: doubtless
she is not surprised : she knows her Pharisee brother-in-law : but she
is hurt and distressed : and to the best of her ability, and so far as in
her humility she dares, she remedies the rudeness by her tears upon His
feet, her kiss upon His feet, her anointing of His feet.

It is clear that both Simon and " the woman " had had services ren-
dered to them by our Lord: this is required by the parable (41-47). It
seems probable that this Simon a Pharisee (being " Simon the leper " of
Matt. xxvi. and Mark xiv.) had been cured of leprosy by our Lord, and the
name hung to him in memory- of the marvellous cure : indeed he is the
leper of Matt. viii. 2-4 : Mark i. 40-45 : Luke v. 12-15. A certain grati-
tude had induced him to ask his Healer to his table, on returning to his
home at Bethany after his cure, on this the first opportimity he had of
showing a little return of kindness : but the pride of the Pharisee was too
strong in him to let him show honour.

The " woman," on the other hand (being Mary Magdalene), had had
seven demons cast out of her (Luke viii. 2) as \\q may suppose ver/
recently — even that very morning, and has had the grace of contrition
given to her. Her gratitude is contrasted with Simon's. He had been
cured of bodily leprosy and was only a little grateful, for his Pharisaism
hindered any spiritual life: rshe had been indeed in worse plight; but
of her soul's cure she was supremely conscious, and for her release from
spiritual leprosy she was supremely grateful.

It is clearly to the circumstances of this anointing by Mary that John
alludes in xi. 2, " it was Mary who anointed," etc., rjv 8f Mapta 7} aXutf/aa-a,
which might more accurately be rendered, " she who anointed, etc., was
Mary," givuig now for the first time, in writing, the name of the " sinner "
of Luke vii. : now that she was dead, and known to have died in sanctity,
her name might be made known far and wide. Why should John in xi. 2
tell us that Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus was the Maiy who in
the next chapter anoints our Lord's feet, when we have only to wait for

On Mary Magdalene 443

his account of that incident to see that she was ? C'learly he is, in xi. 2,
referring hack to that crisis in her life in this very house some nine months
ago, when she came first to love our Lord, and as Luke in his gospel had
said, " wiped His feet with her hair."

But John in xi. 1, 2, tells us much more than the English versions let
out : he there says that Lazarus the brother was " of (airo) Bethany,"
i.e. was resident there (as were Mary and Martha at the time ; and earlier,
in Luke x. 38-^2) : but he adds he was " native of (ck) the village, not
named, of Mary and of Martha," AVhat village ? Some village in the
township of Magdala of Galilee, which is why he names Maiy first whom
eveiy one knew as Mary Magdalene, Mary of Magdala the notoriously
beautiful woman : and he then goes on to identify this Mary of Magdala,
this Mary sister of Lazarus and Martha, with the unnamed " sinner,"
whom Luke, writing while she (or her brother or sister) was yet alive,
had purposely left mmamed.

The whole family, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, were natives of the township
of Magdala hi Galilee. We may suppose : A, that Martha on marrying
Simon settled at Bethany, close to Jerusalem ; B, that Mary was either
living in Jerusalem with her paramour when we first hear of her (Luke
vii. 37), or else had recently come up for the Feast of Pentecost, late May,
A.D. 28. But thereafter on reformmg her life she followed our Lord into
Galilee, ministering to Him of her wealth, Luke viii. 2, 3.

(2) The second time our Lord is recorded as eating in this house is
Luke X. 38-42 : which seems to be on the occasion of His coming up to
Jerusalem from Persea, at the time of the Feast of the Dedication, early
December, 28 a.d. Here, whilst the jirocession of pilgrims to the feast
goes on to Jerusalem (ev rw Trop^veaOai avrov;). He Himself (awos, i.e.
apart from the crowd, but accompanied by His immediate disciples),
" entered into a certain village " — doubtless Bethany, which was near the
road from Jericho to Jerusalem : here Martha received Him " into her
house." The house is in all probability the same house as that in John
xi. and xii., the house called in Matt. xxvi. and Mark xiv., " the house
of Simon the leper "—that same Simon the Pharisee whom we have already
suspected to be the husband of Martha. Her sister Mary (Magdalene) is
now living with her : Martha as hostess serves as is the Eastern custom,
i.e. prepares the food and the table : Simon, Martha's husband, is con-
jectured to be no longer living.

It is six months since the crisis (end of May, a.d. 28) in Mary Magdalene's
life in this same house. After that, as we saw, she had followed our Lord
into Galilee, "ministering to Him of her substance" (Luke viii. 1-3):
subsequently, when He finally left Galilee (end of September, a.d. 28),
she and the other women also left (Luke xxiii. 55, of. with xxiv. 10), i.e.
at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. Thereafter, when our Lord went
to Pereea, Marj' Magdalene seems to have stayed, living with her sister
at Bethany, where we have just found her at the Feast of the Dedication,
early December, a.d. 28.

(3) The third time He is recorded as eating in this house is on Saturday,

444 On Mary Magdalene

March 19, a.d. 29, "six days before the Passover," John xii. 1-8: the
occasion is the same as that of Matt. xxvi. and Mark xiv., and is not men-
tioned by Luke. The house is described by Matthew and Mark as " the
house of Simon the leper" (i.e. the Simon the Pharisee of Luke vii.) : it
is the same house as that of Luke x. where Martha receives Him " into
her house " — she being the wife (or possibly, at that time, widow) of Simon,
And it is the same house as that in which Martha and Mary were living when
Lazarus was raised to life as told in chapter xi. of John's gospel.

Again on this occasion Martha as hostess serves (John xii. 2). Lazarus
is named by John alone as being present : his reason for naming him is to
connect the supper with the recent raising of Lazarus, as though gratitude
for that act had been an additional reason for the supper : hence the
" therefore " which the correct reading has in verse 2, " There, therefore,
they made Him a supper."

It has been supposed by many that, as Simon plays no part at this
supper, he was no longer living ; though the house was still known by
his name : for a similar reason he is supposed to have died in the interval
between Luke vii, 36 and Luke x, 38, i.e. between the Feast of Pentecost
(May) of A,D. 28 and the Feast of Dedication (December) of the same year,
Matthew and Mark make no mention of Lazarus, he not being essential
to the purpose for which they record the feast.

In the accounts of Matt. xxvi. and Mark xiv. the woman appears with
just the same right of entry to the house as she had in Luke vii. : they do
not name her for the same reason that Luke did not — she was living when
Matthew and Mark and Luke wrote their gospels. Were it not for John's
accoxmt (xii.) no one would have guessed from Matthew's or Mark's (or
Luke's) accounts that the woman was Mary the sister of Martha.

According to Matthew and Mark she poured the ointment upon His
head — Mark adding that she first broke its alabaster vessel, and that it
was pure spikenard, very precious. According to John she took a pound
(kirpa, i.e. 8 or 12 oz. according as the word is understood strictly, or as
commonly used) of very precious pure spikenard, and anointed His feet
and wiped His feet with her hair, i.e. after anointing them. The two
accounts are obviously reconciled by supposing that she first anointed
His head with a few drops of it, and emptied the remaining, and much
the greater, part on His feet : she clearly could not emjjty the whole on
His head.

On this occasion, our Lord was, of course, the Guest of the evening, and
had been received with all ceremony : as such therefore, here His feet
would have been already washed, and needed no washing with tears and
wiping with her hair, such as they had received in Luke vii. 38, where He
was a guest without honour : therefore here she only wipes the ointment
from His feet with her hair. Again on the former occasion (Luke's) she
anointed only His feet (verse 46), as not daring to do more: here (Matt.,
Mark) she anoints His head and (John xii.) His feet. Here there was no
neglect to remedy, but she knows His death and burial are near, and she
will do Him what little honour she still can.

Oh Mary Magdalene

445

It may be asked how could she on this occasion have reached His head
it He were reclining at table. Take a typical triclinium. IL is at once

Fig. C.

evideuL she can reach the heads of onlj- six people, no matter how many
there may be at table, viz. Nos. 1, and those hero marked 3, 4, G, 7, 9 : of
these, No. 1 position was always the lowest — the place perhaps occupied
by our Lord at the feast of Luke vii. The place of the most honoured
guest of the evening was in the angle at the couch marked on plan as No. (>,
— the place occupied bj' our Lord probably at the feast of Matt, xxvi.,
Mark xiv., John xii.

If there were more than nine at table, the divan here marked 4, 5, 0,
would be prolonged to the right (that marked here 1, 2, 3, being, of course,
shifted toward the right accordingly), or more couches might be added below
the present Nos. 1 and 9.

At a very great feast there would be several triclinia.

The Fathers of the Church East and West are practically unanimous
in identifying Mary of Magdala with Marj- the sister of Martha, and with
the " sinner " of Luke — at least so far as I know them.

There is a tradition (of no great authority) that Mary Magdalene had
been divorced from her Jewish husband and had thereupon married or
lived with a Roman (Gentile) officer. This would probably entitle her to
the name d/i-aprwXos, '' sinner."

NOTE B.— ON OUR LORD'S AGONY

With men, prayer to God is the communion of an inferior with God :
that communion varies in form and intimacy for every individual : and in
its highest form it is contemplation or the intense effort, of the will to present
self and the A\hole world in harmony with the Divine will, passive in His
presence until He makes His music through the world.

The communion of The Son with The Father is not prayer but love,
for the Father and Son are equals.

Our Lord never prayed for Himself : the God-Man has no need to pray
for Himself even qm His human nature, for that is of necessity and always
in perfect harmony with His Godhead : nor was it possible for our Lord qua
Man to sin, or to .swerve a hair's breadth from absolute Perfection, for
He was God incarnate— one Person but having two natures, which two
natures, though never fused, were ever in communion and perfect harmony.
See the Fathers on the impeccability of our Lord in His Human nature.
And it must be so, for though we talk of sin being an act of the will, it
is, of course, an act of the Person or ultimate entity to whom the will
belongs. But our Lord is one only Person though in two natures : and
that Person or ultimate entity is not human but Divine. He is not a human
personality. He is a purely Divine Personality who took to Himself not
a human personality but human nature, and perfect human nature— not
fallen.

When, therefore. He prays in the Agony in Gethsemane, or when He
submits to being tempted of the devil, or " learns obedience from the things
that He suffered," it cannot be that the God-Man Jesus Christ qua His
own individuality —

A. Has any need to pray for support : or

B. Can be aware of any impulses to be conquered or resisted, for His

human nature had no alloy in it, no handle at which evil could
lay hold : or

C. Can have to learn obedience, for fulness of wisdom was always with

Him according as His human growth could absorb it, and there
was no alloy in Him to retard. He is said to " increase in wisdom
and stature and in grace," only in the sense that a babe or child
or boy is in the very nature of things embryotic. He was ever
tilling automatically according as the capacity of His human
organism grew — not coming into the world fully developed in
body and soul and spirit as was Adam, but starting from the
embryo and becoming fully developed man at the age of thirty.

446

Oti our Lord's Agony 447

Anselm {Cur D&m Imno), aware with all the Fathers that the words
yiuOev tt!^' wi' e-TTccOev ryp' vTraKorjv (Heb. v. 3) " learnt obedience," etc.,
cannot be predicated of the man Jesus as they might l)e of us, ex{>lains
them thus : " He learnt, i.e. perceived by experience, in His own body what
He knew always in His intelligence, viz. to what a pass His perfect obedi-
ence to the will of God must Ijring Him, viz. to the Cross. Perceived by
His senses (the common meaning of fxavOdvuv), i.e. learnt by experience
of the Cross, how a perfect obedience such as His must end : what it
involves, what if i.s to be obedient, what it is to live out His motto, ' 1 am
come to do Thy will, O Uod . . . not sacrifice or offering, but a (hujiian)
Body hast Thou fitted out for Me.' Learnt, not in the sense of acquiring
knowledge, but in that of perceiving by experience of the senses," His
obedience to The Father was also obedience to Himself qm The Son, tor
He never laid aside His Godhead. AVhen He is said to have "emptied
Himself " (Phil. ii. 7), the Fathers are unanimous that it does not mefin
He laid aside, i.e. had parted from His Godhead for a time, as some heretics
asserted ; for that would ha^e made an end of the Trinity, which is not
conceivable : but Paul is using the strongest word he could, to express
the greatness of the condescension of The .Son of God in deigning to assume
the nature of a created thing. In His incarnation He laid not down
anything He had before, but He took up and joined to Himself what He
had not before — a " servile," because a created, " form " : viz. human
nature.

Need for help by prayer, consciousness of temptation to evil, the
learning of obedience by suffering, and the like things that belong to
a peccable or to a fallen humanity, these were His only in that He was
the Living Laboratory who was working out the purification and restitu-
tion of fallen humanity : and this not metaphorically but in reality :
because the whole race has been grafted into Him, and every single sin
of deed or thought that every individual has ever done or will ever do was
made present to Him in Gethsemane — made present by His Godhead —
in all that horror which sin wears to God alone ; was piled upon Him ;
was repented of by Him ; was expiated by Him : so that He was our
substitute : not as though any one man could be accepted as a substitute
for another or for all, in the sense that a loose theology has often attached
to the doctrine of the Atonement, but He actually and consciously bore
in Him all the sin of all the race : for the race was not outside of Him,
but was grafted into Him (or, on the time-plane, was to be and is to be
grafted into Him) with all their imperfections, to be gradually purged in
Him, to draw vigour from Him, to be reformed in Him into a new man.
As the great words run : —

" Anima Christi sanctissima, sanctifica :
Corpus Christi sacratissimum, salva :
Sanguis Christi pretiosissime, inebria :
Aqua Christi latcris purissima, munda :
Sudor Christi virtuosissime, sana :
Passio Christi piissima, conforta."

448 On our LorcTti Agony

The words are not a )uetapIiorical rhapsody : they connote a real chejnical
transmutation of us sinful into Him holy, a gradual assimilation of us into
Him, which assimilation is the building up of His mystical Body — a
work ever going forward ; the work of making whole and strong and new
those who are sacramentally united to Him.

" If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." It is not the cry of
the Man confronting the torturing death that He knows awaits Him at the
hands of the Jews and Pilate (see back to notes on John xii. 27) : it is the
CTv of His human nature staggering under the load of all our wilful sins
and blind rebellions against the Divine love — every individual sin of exevy
individual presented to His consciousness in a moment of time, appraised
to the uttermost by Him who was God, one Person in two natures, viz.
His eternal Godhead which never left Him, and His created manhood.
Not ujetaphorically, as on the scapegoat of the day of Atonement, were
our sins laid on Him : but really in His manhood He bore them : He —

1. Repented of them for us, that we later, on the time-plane, might

repent of them with Him — else had they never been repented of.

2. Suffered their consequences, in that mysterious dereliction by God,

that we later might suffer with Him — else had the moral balance
never been adjusted.

3. Undid their effect upon us, that we later by drawing on His sanctity

and strength might co-operate with Him in the undoing — else
had there been no rehabilitation of the race. Undid their effect
on us, in that all who had hitherto been grafted or should here-
after be grafted into Him by faith and bapt ism He then and there
pm-ged and transmuted into His mystical Body — a work com-
pleted then and there so far as He was concerned, but to take
effect in us later, so far as we are concerned.
Let him, who can, contemplate what suffering in our Lord's conscious-
ness that repenting, that dereliction, that pm-ging, that transmutation,
must have required : and he may begin to apprehend something of the
Passion of Him upon whom were laid the chastisement which should win
our peace, the stripes which our healing entailed.

Had our Lord been Man aloof, a mere individual man (as all other men
are) no Agony had been present to His consciousness — His martyrs
have been enabled by Him to soar above pain, nor need we speak of other
idealists. But He, He had in Him the sum of all fallen humanity grafted
into Him, and their purging and reforming was being elaborated in His
body and soul and spirit ; hence His Agony. Slack and slovenly modes
of thought have often figured the Atonement as a sacrifice external to
us, which reason refuses to accept : accurate study of Catholic creeds
and formulae and terminology presents the Atonement as a living Sacrifice,
into which we are incorporated by faith and baptism, a Sacrifice which
assimilates us as does Living Bread (not we it), until we be ultimately
purged, and reformed into a nevf creation, into the ualure of tliat living
Sacrifice Jesus, who is also the Sacrificing Priest, whose is also the God-
head to whom the Sacrifice is made.

On our Lord's Agony 449

He was not merely Man oreatod in the original inuooonc© oi Adam and
retaining that innooenoo to the end. That liad no way helped ua : we could
not have been incorporated into that. But Ho is " the I/)rd from Heaven,"
God the Word, the eternal Son, who asaumod to Himself human nature
in its original Adamio innooeuoe, and, by milling it in Hia own Person
to Hia Godhead, made it much more : and only because Ho is Gtod the
Creator (from whom tlie creating Spirit ever proceeds), is it possible for
dead things like us t(^ be recreated by that Spirit in Him. For that Spirit
lays hold of us in baptism and faith and makes us one with our Lord'a
human nature. There, with long process which for most of ua is but barely
begmi in this life, are wo elaboiuted by the same Spirit into the perfection
of His mystical Body : and so may hope to share in His Godhead.

We shall now not be deceived as to that mysterious dereliction on the
Cross, that oUmax of the Agony begun in Gethsomane. Standing firm in
the knowledge that He was God — the Second Person of the Trmity —
incarnate, that He has but one Personality, and that that is God, we shall
not misunderstand the cry, " My God, My God, why didat Thou forsake
Mo ! " It was not qiid His Godhead that He uttered it, nor yet qud His
Manhood : for as He had but one Person in Hia two natures, and never
lost oonsolouMnosrt of Ilin Porsomdily, how shouUl Ho have Hup|)OEiod tliat
God had douortud God ? How bliould 'J'ho Son Hupiiouo thut Tlio I'athoc
and JIo wcro soparaLcd ? Tluit would huvo boon a diusoiution of the
Trinity and is mithiuliable. What then t It is tho cry of Juuuu Ohriut
qud the-fallen-race-grafted-into-Him ; the cry of Jesus Christ qud the
Living Laboratory, who was building up Hia mystical Body by —

1. Repentmg of the sina of the-rooe-united-to-Him, that thoy might

thereafter repent with Him :

2. Expiating theur sins by sutToring, that they might thereafter suffer

with Him. Of all suffermg the acme is the sense of separation
from God, a separation which sin alone can effect. That sense
is the essential penal quality of purgatory.

3. Undoing the effects of their sms, purging out their rebelUon, bring-

ing in an obedience to the uttermost, that they may ultimately
never more stray but live in Hia perfect unity with The Father.

INDEX

Abqarus, 287

Abrahttju, 212, 218, 221

Aeuon, 87

Alphteus, 394

Andrew, 31, 150, 288

Annas, 3G1, 3ti3

OTTO and e/c, 38, 44, 194, 195, 25G, 344

Ask in My name, 319, 343

Azyms, the, 361, 3C3

Bandaobs, 269, 404, 415

Baptism, 27, 60, 76-80, 84, 80, 88-93

Bambbas, 300, 376

Bartholomew, 30

Baskets, 152, 176

Believe Him, 210

Believe into Him, 61, 110, 210, 294

Believe into Hie name, 10, 72

Bethany on Jordan, 25

Bethany of Judaea, 256, 260, 274, 278

Bethsaida of Galilee, 38, 151

Bethsaida Julias, 147. 151, 177

Bethzetha, pool of, 129

BJreh, 85, 95

Bread, the Living, 162-167

Brethren, His, 63, 180, 181

C^SARE-i Phillippi, 177

Caiaphas, 362, 363, 369

Calendar, the, ix, 368

Cana, 39, 64

Capernaum, 38, 62, 63, 117, 146, 160,

178, 183
Cenacolo, the, 303, 424
Changers of money, 05, 00
Clopas, 394

Coolc-orow, 310, 363, 366, 420
•'Couiea, Ho who," 152, 263
Couifurtor, Tho, 320
Council Hall, 367, 372
Court of the QontiloH, 66

Days, notation of, 71, 110, 115, 424

Deoapolis, the, xx

Development of doctrine, 322, 333,

340, 426
Devil, tlie, 214, 310, 325
Disciples, His, 56, 85

EAxHiaFlobh, 107-171

Eiit tho Pusiovor, 370, 381

Kdossa, 287

(K and ano, 38, 44, 194, 193, 250,

344
Elijah, 22, 24, 396, 398
Evc»ing (oifta), 153,423
Evodius, 15, 29
Excommunication, 228, 336

Festival (t/ ioprv), 300, 301

Festival-day (do.), 71, 115, 297, 3J3

Fig troo, 42

Fish; 150

Fountain gate, 28t, 324, 327

Friday, 379, 380, 400, 400

Qabbatha, 378

Galilean ministry, 121-126

Galilee, Prophets of, 195

Gall, 390

Gamaliel, 230

Gothsemane, garden of, 367, 406

Godhead-Begotten, 16

Golgotha, 389, 392, 400

Hebraisms, 77, 137, 220, 308, 354,

368, 374, 392
Heptamorou, 6
Herod Antipas, 113, 372
Hours, notation of, 34, 98, 116, 118,

381
Hyssop, 397

Incarnation, 11, 12, 30, 4463449
Intercession, 355 r*

iBoadot, 173. 279, 280, 308, 310, 312,

308
Israel, King of, 44
Israelites, xix, 271

Jacob's well, 97

James, Apostle, son of Alphffius, 181,

309, 394
James tho Little, one of our Lord's

" brethren," xxx, 181
James, Apostle, son of Zebedee, xxii,

34, 309

461

452

INDEX

Jericho, 264, 274

Jesus : His Personality is one, 12,
209, 326, 44G; His baptism by
John, 17; His baptism by The
Spirit, 27-32 ; His teaching about
the GodJiead, 136. 166, 203-205,
219, 226, 246-249 ; His emotions,
265, 289, 323 ; His impeccability,
446 ; His omniscience, 43, 73, 137,
368

••.Tows, the." fts used by John, 04,
89. 129. 182,263,276

Junnntt, <1!J1

John thu Uuptlbt, 7 ; liiit ilmt witnoHs
to, and nomination of, Juhuh as
Messiah, 14-18, 20; was baptized
by Jesus, 16, 18, 29, 94 ; his second
witness, 21-23 ; his third witness,
26-29; at Aenon, 87-93; his
impriaonment, 88, 94, 114; his
last act, 141 ; his death, 141, 140;
bis burial, 106, note ; his humility,
94, note

John the Evangelist, 33, 310, 311,
362, 393, 396-8, 414; does not
recast our Lord's words, 74, 84, 91,
366 ; his notation of hours, 34, 98,
116, 118, 381 ; do. of days, 71, 110,
115. 424

Joseph of Arimathsea, 402, 423

"Joy of the Law," feast of, 198, 223

Jubilee, 20

Judas Isoariot {nee Isoariot)

Judas Lebbfflus, one of the Twelve, 322

Judas, or Jude, one of our Lord's
" brethren," 180, 431, 435, 439

Judgment-seat, 371

Kbphas, 36

Lamb of God, 26
Lazarus, 278, 281
Lepers, the ten, 273, 276
"Lift up," 292
Light, 6-9. 202

Living Laboratory, 78, 81, 164, 210,
324, 346, 350, 356, 447

Man's Son, 138

Mark's " third hour," 383

Martha, 278

Mary Clopae, 393, 421

Mary Magdalene, 279, 394, 412, 416,

420
Matter, 0, 12, 174
Matthew, 6ti, J 26
MouHiuh, 48-63
Metaphors, 4,93, 2 1 3, 220, 268, 343, 363

Miqdol 'eder, 239
Millennium, 200, 239, 240, 353
" Mother of Jesus, the," 57-59, 393,
411

Name, 4, 10, 71, 214, 348, 351
Nathanael, 39, 431
Nazareth, 116
Nazirite, 275
Nicanor. Day of, 55
NicodoniuM, 74, 195, 404

Ui'lUM, 390, 401

Panthkism, 6, 317, 347

" ParaclituB," 319

Paschal Supper, the last, 277, 297-302

Passover, the archetypal, 277, 297

Passover of the Jews, 04, 273

Passover, octave of, 71, 301, 380

Passover postponed, 298

Pennies, 160, 279

Pentecost, 128, 132, 145, 301 •

Persea, 253

Peter, is named Kephas, 35 : 155, 172,
177, 305, 310, 315, 359 ; his denial,
362-364, 413, 431 ; the govern-
ment of the Church is vested in him,
435-438

Philip, 38, 150, 288, 318

Pilate, 371-378, 383-385

Polo of the brazen serpent, 82, 164

Pound weight, 279

Prffitorium, 369 . .

Preparation-day, 379

Propliets of Galilee, 195

Prophet, The, 23, 193

rrpuTos with gen., 27, 334

Purim, feast of, 65, 251

Purple oloak, 386

Qabantal, grotto of the, 25, 33, 37

Request for " a sign," 6
Reed, 239 note, 399

Sabbath, 226

Sabbath-day's journey, 32, 260, 274

Sabbatic year, 61

Sacraments, 81, 168, 238, 324, 401

Sacrificial idea, 161^

Salem, 87

Salome, 303, 421'

Uuiiiai'iluiiti, JUa, 184, 210

iSoarlol lauatlu, 387

Soourging, 375, 378, 386

Socd-timo and harvest, 108

Second First Sabbath, the, xv, 121

INDEX

458

T- Sepulohro : tlio holy, 407-400 { I.azti-
' ' hin'm, 207 i whlUul DKpuliiliroM, ^01
HliiHJiildUl, i>iuiil)Ki of tlio, a:i5, 210
Hhoep (Jato, '284
Siloam, the, 225, 320, 329
Simeon and Jude, two of onr Lord's

" brethren," 181, 431, 435, 439
Simon tho lopor, 278, 441-444
Simon Petor (.see Peter)
- Simon tho Zealot, one gf the Twolvo,
300
Skull, 390. d05
Solomon's Porch, 244
Son of God, Tlie, 29, 13, 44, 231, 3G5,

308, 429
Sou of Man, Tho, 40-48, 231, 293
K Spirits in Hades, 11,410
r. Stade, 241, 200
Sychar, 90

?- Tabernacle, 12, 13
- ' Tabernuolos, foast of, 170-195, 301
v^. Tabor, Mount, 177, IbO

100,

j "TiiiohliiK of Iho Twolvo Apottlot,"
;i71». JIM), idO

Toiii|ili< »( IIIh IJiiUy, 00
' Tcmplo and (Jhriatiaa lIobrowM,

228, 230, 33(1
} Thomub, 259, 317, 427
I Tliorns, orowu of, 376, 370
j Titleon the Cross, 391
; Transfiguration, 177

Treasury, thti, 202, 200
j TrkUiUum, 309, 4 15
' Twelve, the, 50. 1 72
' " Two days," 110, 112, 254, 258, 279,
I 297

j Universausts, 139, 103

\ VlNEQAU, 393, 398

I Watches of night, 316

Word, Tho, 4, 6, 214, 219
; World (ko^mov), 9, 107, 181, 292, 373

TUB END

PBINXKD SX WaUAVI CtOWSS AND SONS, WUITED, LONDON AND KEC0I.B3, ENaLAND.

APR

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Full text of "A study of St. John's Gospel : to which are added 1. The Julian and Jewish Calendars for A.D. 27-29 ; 2. A diary of all events in our Lord's Ministry which are mentioned in the Gospels ; 3. Tables showing how the Fourth Gospel dovetails with the three synoptics"

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