There is not one of all the many heresies that have arisen regarding the Person and natures of Jesus Christ that may not be refuted from the Gospel of St. John. We intend, however, to speak here only of those errors which had already arisen in the time of the Evangelist, and against which, therefore, his Gospel was immediately directed. What these were we learn from SS. IrenÆus and Jerome. The former distinctly says that our Gospel was directed against the errors of Cerinthus, and of “those who are called Nicolaites” (see above, III. 2, note); while the latter says that it was directed against Cerinthus, and other heretics, especially the Ebionites.13 It is important for us, then, in approaching the study of this Gospel to understand what was the nature of these errors against which it was directed.
Cerinthus, though professing belief in a Supreme Being, held that the world was not made by Him, but by an inferior power (virtus) distinct from Him, and ignorant of Him. (2) That Jesus was not born of a Virgin, but the child of Joseph and Mary, born according to the ordinary course of nature. (3) That Christ (the Word) was quite distinct from Jesus; that, however, He had descended upon Jesus immediately after the latter's baptism, and remained with Him filling His soul till shortly before the Passion; that then Christ departed from Jesus, who suffered and died a mere man, [pg 011] while Christ suffered nothing, being indeed entirely spiritual and impassible.14
The Ebionites, unlike the Cerinthians, admitted that the world was created by God, but, like them, denied that Christ was anything but a mere man. They scrupulously observed the Mosaic Law, which they held to be obligatory, by the observance of which Jesus had merited to be called Christ, and through which every man was able to become a Christ.15
About the doctrine of the Nicolaites, which they claimed to have derived from Nicolas the Deacon (Acts vi. 5), we know nothing definite; but it is generally held that it was akin to that of the Cerinthians and Ebionites.
Among the “other heretics” alluded to by St. Jerome in the passage cited above were, doubtless, the Simonians (followers of Simon Magus, Acts viii. 9, and foll.), and the Docetae.
The Simonians agreed with the Cerinthians in denying that the world was made by God, and that Jesus was God, and St. IrenÆus speaks of them as the originators of the Gnostic heresy. “Simoniani a quibus falsi nominis scientia accepit initia.” (Adv. Haer., i. xxxiii. 4.)
The Docetae (d??e?? = to seem) held that Christ had only the appearance of a human body; and hence, that His sufferings and death were not real, but apparent.
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1-18.The prologue16declares the Word's eternity, distinct personality, and essential unity with God; His relations with creation generally, and with man in particular; His incarnation, and the fulness of grace, and perfection of revelation attained through Him.
19-34.Some of the Baptist's testimonies to Christ.
35-51.Circumstances in which Christ's first disciples were called.
1. In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum.
1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1. In the beginning. These words most probably mean here, as in Gen. i. 1, at the beginning of all created things; in other words, when time began. Their meaning must always be determined from the context. Thus we know from the context in Acts xi. 15, that St. Peter there uses them in reference to the beginning of the Gospel. Similarly, the context here determines the reference to be to the beginning of creation; for He who is here said to have been in the beginning, is declared in verse 3 to be the creator of all things, and must therefore have already been in existence at their beginning.
Others, however, have interpreted the words differently. Many of the fathers understood them to mean: in the Father, and took this first clause of [pg 014] v. 1, as a declaration that the Word was in the Father. But, though it is quite true to say that the Word was and is in the Father (x. 38), both being consubstantial, still such does not seem to be the sense of the phrase before us. Had St. John meant to state this, surely he would have written: In God, or, in the Father, was the Word. He names God in the next two clauses: And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Why then should he at the risk of being misunderstood, refer to Him in this first clause under another name? Besides, if this first clause stated the Word's consubstantiality with the Father, the third clause: And the Word was God, would then be tautological.
Many of the commentators also urge against this view, that if the first clause meant, in God (or, in the Father) was the Word, the second clause would be merely a repetition. But we cannot assent to this, since, as we shall see, the second clause would add the important statement of the Word's distinct personality. However, the view seems to us improbable for the other reasons already stated.
Others take “beginning” here to mean eternity, so that we should have in this first clause a direct statement of the Word's eternity. But against this is the fact that ???? (beginning) nowhere else bears this meaning, and can be satisfactorily explained in a different sense here. Hence, as already explained, “in the beginning” means: when time began.
Was (??), i.e., was already in existence. Had St. John meant to declare that at the dawn of creation the Word began to exist, he would have used ????et? as he does in verse 3 regarding the beginning of the world, and again in verse 6 regarding the coming of the Baptist. This cannot fail to be clear to anyone who contrasts verses 1, 2, 4, and 9 of this chapter with verses 3, 6, and 14. In the former ?? is used throughout in reference to the eternal existence of the Word;17 in the latter ????et?, when there is question of the beginning of created things (3), or of the coming of the Baptist (6), or of the assumption by the Word of human nature at the incarnation (14). At the beginning of creation, then, the Word was already in existence; and hence it follows that He must be uncreated, and therefore eternal. St. John's statement here that the Word was already in existence in the beginning, is, accordingly, equivalent to our Lord's claim [pg 015] to have existed before the world was (xvii. 5), and in both instances the Word's eternity, though not directly stated, follows immediately. Hence we find that the Council of Nice and the fathers generally inferred, against the Arians, the eternity of the Son of God from this first clause of verse 1. “If He was in the beginning,” says St. Basil (De Div., Hom. xvi. 82), “when was He not?”
The Word (? ?????). St. John here, as well as in his First Epistle (i. 1), and in the Apocalypse (xix. 13), designates by this term the Second Divine Person. That he speaks of no mere abstraction, or attribute of God, but of a Being who is a distinct Divine Person, is clear. For this “Word was with God, was God, was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us,” and in the person of Jesus Christ was witnessed to by the Baptist (i. 1, 14, 15, 29, 30). Outside the writings of St. John there is no clear18 instance in either Old or New Testament of this use of the term ?????. Throughout the rest of the Scriptures its usual meaning is speech or word.
What, then, we may ask, led our Evangelist, in the beginning of his Gospel, to apply this term rather than Son, or Son of God, to the Second Divine Person? Why did he not say: In the beginning was the Son?
Apart from inspiration, which, of course, may have extended to the suggestion of an important word like the present, apart also from the appropriateness of the term, of which we shall speak in a moment, it seems very probable that St. John was impelled to use the term ????? because it had been already used by the heretics of the time in the expression of their errors.19 Endowed, too, as St. John was, like the other Apostles, with a special power of understanding the Sacred Scriptures (Luke xxiv. 46), and privileged as he had been on many an occasion to listen to the commentaries of Christ Himself on the Old Testament, he may have been able, where we are not, to see clearly in the Old Testament instances in which ????? refers to the Son of God; e.g., “Verbo (t? ????) Domini coeli firmati sunt” (Psalm xxxii. 6).
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One thing, at all events, is quite plain, that, whatever may be said regarding his reason for the application of this term to the Son of God, St. John did not borrow his doctrine regarding the ????? from Plato or Philo or the Alexandrian School. For though the term (?????) is frequently met with in the writings of both Plato and Philo, yet Plato never speaks of it as a person, but only as an attribute of God; and Philo, though in our opinion, he held the distinct personality of the Word, yet denied that he was God, or the creator of matter, which latter Philo held to be eternal. As to the Alexandrian School, to which Philo belonged, and of whose doctrines he is the earliest witness, there is not a shadow of foundation for saying that any of its doctors held the same doctrine as St. John regarding the Divine Word.
From the teaching of Christ, then, or by inspiration, or in both ways, our Evangelist received the sublime doctrine regarding the ????? with which his Gospel opens.
Having now inquired into the origin of the term ????? as applied to the Son of God, and having learned the source whence St. John derived his doctrine regarding this Divine Word, let us try to understand how it is that the Son of God could be appropriately referred to as the Word (? ?????). Many answers have been given, but we will confine ourselves to the one that seems to us most satisfactory.
We believe, and profess in the Athanasian Creed (Filius a Patre solo est non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus), that the Son is begotten by the Father; and it is the common teaching that He is begotten through the Divine intellect. Now, this mysterious procession of the Son from the Father through the intellect, is implied here in His being called the Word. For, as our word follows, without passion or carnal feeling, from our thought, as it is the reflex of our thought, from which it detracts nothing, and which it faithfully represents; so, only in an infinitely more perfect way, the Son of God proceeded, without passion or any carnal imperfection, through the intellect of the Father, detracting nothing from Him who begot Him, being the image of the Father, “the figure of His substance.” (Heb. i. 3.) “Verbum proprie dictum,” says St. Thomas, “in Divinis personaliter accipitur, et est proprium nomen personae filii, significat enim quamdam emanationem intellectus. Persona autem quae procedit in Divinis secundum emanationem intellectus, dicitur filius, et hujusmodi processio dicitur generatio” (St. Thom., 1 Qu. 34, a. 2 c.)
And the Word was with God (p??? t?? Te??). ???? here [pg 017] signifies not motion towards, but a living union with, God.20 God refers not to the Divine Nature, but to the Divine Person of the Father (see 1 John i. 2); otherwise the Verbum would be unnecessarily and absurdly said here to be with Himself, since He is the Divine Nature terminated in the Second Person. Many commentators are of opinion that the use of p??? (with), and not ?? (in), proves that the Verbum is not a mere attribute of the Father, but a distinct Person. So Chrys., Cyril, Theophy., A Lap., Patrizzi, M'Evilly.
And the Word was God. As our English version indicates, Word is the subject of this clause, God the predicate, for in the Greek ????? has the article, Te?? wants it; and besides, as appears from the whole context, St. John is declaring what the Word is, not what God is. A desire to begin this clause with the last word of the clause preceding—a favourite construction with St. John (see verses 4 and 5)—may have led to the inversion in the original. Or the inversion may have been intended to throw the Divinity of the Word into greater prominence by placing the predicate before the verb.
Some, like Corluy, refer God, in this third clause, to the Divine Nature, which is common to the three Divine Persons; others, as Patrizzi, to the Divine Nature as terminated in the Second Divine Person. We prefer the latter view, but in either interpretation we have in this clause a declaration of the Divinity of the Word, a proof that cannot be gainsaid of His essential unity with the Father. Nor does the absence of the Greek article before “God” in this third clause, when taken in conjunction with its presence in the second, imply, as the Arians held, that the Word is inferior to the Father. For our Evangelist certainly refers sometimes to the supreme Deity without using the article (i. 6, 12, 18); and the absence of the article is sufficiently accounted for in the present case by the fact that Te?? is a predicate standing before the copula.21
2. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum.
2. The same was in the beginning with God.
2. The same was in the beginning with God. To [pg 018] emphasize the three great truths contained in verse 1: namely, the Word's eternity, His distinct personality, and essential unity with the Father, they are repeated in verse 2. The same, that is, this Word who is God, was in the beginning, and was with God.
Various attempts have been made by the Unitarians to escape the invincible argument for a Second Divine Person which these opening verses of our Gospel contain. Thus, they put a full stop after the last “erat” of verse 1; and, taking the words in the order in which they occur in the Greek and Latin, make the sense of the third clause: And God was. Then they join “verbum,” the last word of verse 1, with verse 2: This Word was in the beginning with God. But even if we granted to the Unitarians this punctuation of the verses, the sense of the third clause would still be that the Word was God, and not that God existed. For “Deus” (Te?? without the article), in the beginning of the third clause ought still to be regarded as the predicate, with “verbum” of the preceding clauses as the subject. This follows not merely from the absence of the Greek article already alluded to, but also from the absurdity of the Unitarian view, which supposes that St. John thought it necessary, after telling us that the Word was with God, to tell us that God existed!
Others have tried to explain away the text thus: At the beginning of the Christian dispensation the Word existed, and the Word was most intimately united to God by love. But, primum, they have still to explain how this Word is declared Creator in verses 3 and 10; secundum, the statement in verse 14: “And the Word was made flesh,” implies transition of the Word to a state different from that in which He existed “in the beginning;” but the time of the transition is just the commencement of the Christian dispensation, which cannot, therefore, be the time referred to in verse 1 as “the beginning.”
3. Omnia per ipsum facta sunt: et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est,
3. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.
4. in ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum:
4. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
3. St. John passes on to the relations of the Word with creatures. All things (p??ta = t? p??ta, 1 Cor. viii. 6, Col. i. 16). The passages indicated, as well as verse 10 of this chapter: the world was made by Him, make it clear that the Son of God created all things. Nor could this doctrine be more plainly stated than in the words before us: All things were made by Him, &c. How absurd, then, is the Socinian view, according to which St. John merely tells us here that all Christian virtues were introduced, and the whole moral world established by Christ!
Were made ????et?, i.e., got their whole being from [pg 019] Him, and not merely were fashioned by Him from pre-existing matter. The Cerinthian theory, that the world was made by an inferior being, is here rejected. By Him (d?? a?t??). We are not to suppose that the Word was an instrument in the hands of the Father, or inferior to the Father, as the Arians held. The preposition d?? (per) is often used in reference to a principal efficient cause. Thus, St. Paul says of the Father: God is faithful, by whom (d?? ??) you are called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord (1 Cor. i. 9. See also 1 Cor. i. 1, 2 Cor. i. 1, Gal. iv. 27, Heb. ii. 10.) And since our Evangelist has just declared in verse 1 the Word's divinity, and knew Him to be one with the Father (x. 30), it cannot be implied here that the Word is inferior to the Father. Some commentators hold that there is no special significance in the use here of the preposition d??, while others see in it an allusion to the fact that the Son proceeds from the Father, and derives from Him His creative power. According to these, creation is from the Father, but through the Son, because the Son has received His creative power, together with His essence, from the Father and is not, therefore, like the Father, “principium sine principio.”
Others think that since all things were created according to the Divine idea, i.e., according to the Divine and eternal wisdom, and since the Word is that wisdom, therefore all things are rightly said to have been created through the Word. So St. Thomas on this verse:—“Sic ergo Deus nihil facit nisi per conceptum sui intellectus, qui est sapientia ab aeterno concepta, scilicet Dei Verbum, et Dei Filius; et ideo impossibile est quod aliquid faciat nisi per Filium.” In this view, which seems to us the most probable, though like all the Divine works that are “ad extra,”i.e. do not terminate in God Himself, creation is common to the Three Divine Persons, yet, for the reason indicated, it is rightly said to be through the Son.
And without him was made nothing (??d? ?? = not anything, emphatic for ??d?? nothing) that was made (Gr.: hath been made). By a Hebrew parallelism the same truth is repeated negatively: all things were made by Him, and nothing was made without Him. To this negative statement, however, there is added, according to the method of pointing the passage common at present, an additional clause which gives us the meaning: nothing was made without Him, of all the things that have been made. This restrictive clause may then [pg 020] be understood to imply that, together with the Word, there was something else uncreated, that is to say (besides the Father, whose uncreated existence would be admitted by all) the Holy Ghost also.
In this way after the Macedonian heresy arose in the middle of the fourth century, and blasphemously held that the Word had made the Holy Ghost, because without Him was made nothing, many of the Fathers replied: Nothing was made without the Word, of the things that were made; but the Holy Ghost was not made at all, and is therefore not included among the things made by the Word. However, this restriction is not necessary to defend the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. Even though we understand it to be stated absolutely that nothing was made without the Son, no difficulty can follow; for the Holy Ghost was not made (????et?), but was (??) from all eternity, as is clearly implied elsewhere. John xvi. 13, 14.
On dogmatic grounds, therefore, there is no necessity for connecting: Quod factum est, in the end of verse 3, with the preceding. And, as a matter of fact, all the writers of the first three centuries seem to have connected these words with verse 4,22 and it appears to us very likely, that it was because of the Macedonian heresy they began to be connected with verse 3. St. Chrysostom certainly is very strong in connecting them with verse 3, but the reason is because the heretics of the time were abusing the other connection to support their errors. “For neither will we,” he says, “put a full stop after that ‘nothing,’ as the heretics do” (Chrysostom on John, Hom. v). We must not, however, conclude, from this remark of St. Chrysostom that it was the heretics alone who did so; for, as we have said already, such was the ordinary way of connecting the clauses during the first three centuries; and it is supported not only by the Fathers, but by the oldest Latin MSS., and by some of the oldest Greek MSS. And even after the Macedonian heretics had abused this passage to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, the old pointing, or to speak more correctly the old method of connecting the clauses, remained the more common.23 Not only did Cyril of Alexandria, and Augustine, and Venerable Bede, and St. Thomas, and a host of others read in this way, but Maldonatus, who himself prefers the connection in our English version: “Without Him was made nothing that was made,” admits that the usage of his time was [pg 021] against him, and that it was then the practice to put a full stop after “nothing”: “Without Him was made nothing.” Nor can the Sixtine or Clementine edition of the Vulgate be appealed to in favour of our present pointing. As a matter of fact, the Sixtine edition rejected it, printing thus: “Et sine ipso factum est nihil: quod factum est in ipso vita erat;” while the Clementine Bible left the matter undecided by printing thus: “Et sine ipso factum est nihil, quod factum est, in ipso vita erat,” &c. We cannot, therefore, understand to what Roman Bibles A Lapide refers when he says that the Bibles corrected at Rome connect thus: “And without Him was made nothing that was made.”
We think it extremely probable, then, that the words: Quod factum est (that was made, or, as we shall render in our interpretation; what was made), standing at present in the end of verse 3, are to be connected with verse 4. Some may be inclined to blame us for departing from what is at present the received connection of the words in such a well-known passage as this. Let us, therefore, sum up briefly the evidence that has forced us, we may say reluctantly, to connect the words with verse 4.
1. Though Maldonatus tries to throw doubt upon the fact, this is the connection adopted by practically all, if not all, the Fathers and other writers of the first three centuries, and by the majority of writers afterwards down to the sixteenth century.
2. It is supported by the oldest MSS. of the Vulgate, and, what is more remarkable, by some of the oldest Greek MSS., notwithstanding the fact that St. Chrysostom was against it.
3. The parallelism in the verse is better brought out: All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing.
4. If Quod factum est were intended to be connected with the preceding, the clause would be certainly unnecessary, and apparently useless, because it is plain without it that the Evangelist is speaking of what was made, and not including any uncreated Being, like the Father or the Holy Ghost.
We prefer, then, to connect: Quod factum est, with what follows. But it still remains for us to inquire in what way precisely the connection is to be made, for various views have been held upon the subject.
A. Some connect thus: What was made in (i.e. by) Him, was life, and the life was the light of men. B. Others thus: What was made was life in Him, and the life was the light of men. C. Others again, [pg 022] adopting the same punctuation as in the preceding, but understanding differently: What was made in it was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men.
The last seems to us the correct view. For A is improbable, inasmuch as it either declares all things to have life, or implies that though what was made by the Word had life, yet there were other things wanting life, which proceeded, as the Manichaeans held, from the evil principle.
Nor can we accept B, even as explained by St. Augustine in the sense that all created things are in the mind of God, as the house before building is in the mind of the architect; and that being in the mind of God they are God Himself, and “life in Him.” For though this is in a certain sense true, yet it seems to us unnatural to suppose that St. John here, in this sublime exordium, thinks it necessary or useful to tell us that the archetypes of created things lived in the Divine Mind. C then appears to us to be the more probable view regarding the passage: “What was made, in it was the Life;” or, more plainly: “In that which was made was the Life;” for here, as elsewhere, St. John begins with the relative (see i. 45, 1 John i. 1); so that, in this view, the Evangelist after telling us the relations of the Word to all things at their beginning: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing,” now goes on to point out His relations to them after their creation: first, His relations with things generally: “In that which was made was the Life,” then his relations with man in the supernatural order: “And the Life was the Light of men.”
5. Adopting this view as to the connection between verses 3 and 4, St. Cyril of Alexandria thus explains: “The Life (? ???), that is to say, the Only-begotten Son of God, was in all things that were made. For He, being by nature life itself, imparts being, and life, and motion to the things that are ... In all things that were made was the Life, that is, the Word which was in the beginning. The Word, being essential life, was mingling Himself by participation with all existing things.”
If it be objected to this interpretation that the first ??? of verse 4, not having the article, cannot mean the Eternal Life, i.e. the Divine Word, we reply that St. Cyril, one of the greatest of the Greek Fathers, thought differently; and moreover, that very many of the commentators who are against us in the interpretation of this passage, are yet with us in referring ??? here to the uncreated life of the Divine Word.
But if we follow what is at present the common punctuation, and read: “In Him was [pg 023] life,” this is commonly interpreted to mean that the Word is the source of supernatural life to man. S. Amb., S. Ath., Tol., Mald., A Lap., Patr., Beel.
But this view is not without difficulty. For, first, if it be merely meant that life comes to man through the Word, we might rather expect that the preposition d?? of the preceding verse would have been retained.
Secondly, if there be question here of the Word as the life of man, how is it that it is only in the next clause that man is first mentioned? Surely, if the opinion we are considering were correct, we should rather expect St. John to have written: “In Him was the life of man, and the life was the light.” For these reasons, and because of what we have stated already in favour of connecting “Quod factum est” with what follows, we prefer to understand this passage, with St. Cyril, as a statement that the Word, the Essential Life, was present in all things, conserving them in existence.
And the Life was the Light of men. In our view the meaning is that the Word, the Life, who conserved all things in existence, was, moreover, in the case of men, their Light—the source and author of their faith. Hence, we suppose St. John, after referring to the creation of all things, in verse 3, and the conservation of all things, in the beginning of verse 4, to pass on now in the end of verse 4 to speak of that new creation that is effected in man by means of a spiritual illumination: “All things were made by (or through) Him, and without Him was made nothing. In that which was made was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men.”
Those who interpret the beginning of the verse to mean that the spiritual life of man comes through the Word, take the present clause as explaining how that was so, how the Word was the Life; namely, inasmuch as He was the Light. He was the source of our life of grace here and glory hereafter, inasmuch as He was the source of our light, that is to say, our faith. And some of them, as Patrizzi, hold that the order of the terms in this clause is inverted, and that we should read: “the light of men was the life,”“light of men” being the subject.
Maldonatus tells us that almost all writers before his time understood “light of men” in reference to the light of reason. However, this view is now generally abandoned, and rightly, for that man owed his reason to the Word has been already implied in verse 3: “All things were made by Him.” Besides, the “light” of this fourth verse is doubtless the same as that of verse 5, which men did not receive, and of verse 7, to [pg 024] which the Baptist was to bear witness. But in neither of the latter verses can there be question of the light of reason; hence, neither is there in verse 4. The meaning, then, is that He who was the preserver of all things was moreover the source of the spiritual light of men.
5. Et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.
5. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
6. Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Johannes.
6. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
5. And the light shineth. The meaning is, that the Word, as the source and author of faith, was always, as far as in Him lay, enlightening men. Shineth—the present tense is used, though the latter part of the verse shows that the past also is meant: “The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Probably the Evangelist avoids using the past tense, lest it might be inferred that the Word had ceased to shine. Besides, the present is more appropriate, seeing that, in the sense explained, the Word shines throughout all time. From the beginning the Word shone, as far as in Him lay. If men generally were not enlightened, it was their own fault. But all who were saved from the beginning, were saved through faith, and no one ever received the gift of faith except in view of the merits of the Word Incarnate. “Nulli unquam contigit vita nisi per lucem fidei, nulli lux fidei nisi intuitu Christi” (St. August.)
The darkness is man shrouded in unbelief. See Luke i. 79, Eph. v. 8.
And the darkness did not comprehend it.24 As we have just said, the meaning is, that unbelieving men refused to be enlightened. Ordinarily, indeed, light cannot shine in darkness without dispelling it; but in this case the darkness was man, a free agent, capable of rejecting the light of faith through which the Eternal Word was shining. In telling us that men refused to be enlightened, the Evangelist is stating what was the general rule, to which at all times there were noble exceptions.
6. The correct rendering of the Greek text is: There came (????et?) a man, sent by God, whose name was John. This reference to the Baptist in the middle of this sublime exordium is [pg 025] surprising, and has been variously accounted for. Some think that our Evangelist, after having treated of the Divinity of the Word, merely wishes, before going on to speak of the incarnation, to refer to the precursor. But it seems most probable that the Evangelist wished to remove at once the error of those who, impressed by the austerity and sanctity of the Baptist's life, had looked upon him as the Messias. If any of them still remained at the time when St. John wrote, or should arise afterwards, they are here told that the Baptist, though having his mission from Heaven, was only a man intended to bear witness to Christ. Thus the superior excellence of Christ is thrown into relief from the fact that a great saint like the Baptist was specially sent by Heaven to be His herald. The reference in this verse is to the Baptist's coming into the world, at his conception, rather than to the beginning of his preaching, for at the moment of his conception, he came, sent by God to be the herald of Christ. See Luke i. 13-17.
John is the same name as Jochanan (????), which is itself a shortened form of Jehochanan = Jehovah hath had mercy. This name was appointed for the Baptist, before his conception, by the Archangel Gabriel, Luke i. 13.
7. Hic venit in testimonium, ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine, ut omnes crederent per illum:
7. This man came for a witness, to give testimony of the light, that all men might believe through him.
8. Non erat ille lux, sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine.
8. He was not the light, but was to give testimony of the light.
9. Erat lux vera, quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum
9. That was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world.
7. This man came for witness, namely, in order that he might bear witness of the light, that is to say, the Incarnate Word, to the end that through him all might believe in the Word.
8. He was not the light (t? f??), that is, he was not the great uncreated light which enlighteneth all men; though, in his own way, the Baptist too was a light, nay, as Christ Himself testified “the lamp that burneth and shineth.” (v. 35). ??a depends on ???e? (he came), which is to be understood from the preceding verse.
9. That was the true light (or, there was the true light), [pg 026]which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. The Greek of this verse may be construed and translated in three different ways:—1. By connecting ?? with ????e???: The true light, which enlighteneth every man, was coming into this world. 2. By taking ????e??? as a nominative agreeing with f??: There was the true light which at its coming into the world, enlighteneth every man (iii. 19.) 3. By connecting ????e??? with ?????p??, as in the Vulgate and our English version. This is far the most probable view. In favour of it we have all the Latin Fathers, all the Greek Fathers except one, and all the ancient versions. Besides, ????e??? is thus connected with the nearest substantive with which it agrees in form. Add to this that the second opinion, the more probable of the other two, would seem to signify that the Word was not a light to all men before His coming, but only at His coming; and this, as we have explained above on verse 5, is false. The meaning, then, is that the Word was the true, i.e. the perfect light, and as far as in Him lies enlighteneth at all times every man that cometh into this world, be he Jew or Gentile. That cometh into this world, is in our view a Hebrew form of expression equivalent to: that is born. It is used only here in the New Testament, but “to be born” was commonly expressed by Jewish Rabbins by ??? ????? (to come into the world).
10. In mundo erat et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non cognovit.
10. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
10. He was in the world. The Word, not the light, is the subject here, as is proved by the masculine pronoun a?t?? towards the end of the verse. It is disputed to what presence of the Word in the world there is reference here. Almost all the Fathers understood the reference to be to the presence of the Word in the world before the incarnation. According to this view, which is held also by A Lapide, the Word was in the world, in the universe, conserving what He had created, “sustaining all things by the word of His power” (Heb. i. 3). God is everywhere present by His essence, by His knowledge, and by His power; but it is of the latter presence, which could be known, that the view we are considering understands this clause.
Maldonatus, though he admits that the Fathers are against him, holds that the reference is to the mortal life of the Word Incarnate. He argues from the fact that the world is blamed, in the next clause, for not having known the Word; but knowledge of the Word was impossible [pg 027] before the incarnation. It was possible indeed to know there was a God, but impossible to know the Second Divine Person, the Word. Whatever may be thought of the probability of this second view, the arguments ordinarily adduced against it, from the use of the imperfect “erat” (??) and from the alleged fact that all the preceding verses refer to the Word before His incarnation, have no weight. For the imperfect may be used not in reference to Christ's existence before His incarnation, but to show that He not merely appeared among men, but continued to dwell for a time among them; and the statement that everything before this verse refers to the Word before His incarnation, cannot be sustained. For the “Light” to which the Baptist came to bear witness (v. 7) was not the Word before His incarnation, but the Word Incarnate, as is evident. According to this second opinion, verse 11: He came unto His own, and His own received Him not, merely emphasizes the ingratitude of the world towards the incarnate Word by showing that He was rejected even by His own chosen people.
And the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. Those who interpret the first clause of this verse of the existence of the Word in the world before the incarnation, understand the world to be blamed, in the remainder of the verse, for its ignorance of its Creator. The world is not blamed, they say, for not knowing the Word as the Second Divine Person, for such knowledge it could not have gathered from the works of creation, but for not knowing God (Rom. i. 20), who is one in nature with the Word.
Those who interpret the first part of the verse of the presence of Christ on earth during His mortal life, hold that in the remainder the world is blamed for not recognising the Word Incarnate as the Son of God, and Second Divine Person. The meaning of the whole verse then, in this view, is: that though the Son of God, who created the world, deigned to live among men, yet they refused to recognise Him as God.
11. In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt.
11. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
11. He came unto his own. It is clear from what we have said on the preceding verse, that some take this to be the first reference to the presence on earth of the Word Incarnate; while others regard it as merely repeating the idea of the preceding verse, with the additional circumstance that even His own refused to recognise Christ. Some few have held that the reference [pg 028] here is to the transient coming of the Word in the apparitions of the Old Testament. But all the Fathers understood the verse of the coming of the Word as man, and the verses that follow prove their view to be correct. His own is understood by many of His own world, which He had created; but we prefer to take it as referring to His own chosen people, the Jews. “Verbum inter JudÆos veniens, natumque ex gente JudÆorum, quos sibi Deus elegerat in populum peculiarem (Deut. xiv. 2) percommode dicitur venisse e?? t? ?d?a atque ipsi Judaei Verbo ?d??? esse dicuntur,” Patriz.
And his own received him not. That is to say, believed not in Him, but rejected Him. This was the general rule, to which, of course, there were exceptions, as the following verse shows. These words together with the two following verses, we take to be a parenthetic reflexion on the reception Christ met with, and the happy consequences to some.
12. Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in nomine eius.
12. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name.
13. Qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt.
13. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
12. There were some, however, who believed in Him, or, according to the Hebraism, in His name, and to these, whether Jews or Gentiles, He gave power to become adopted children of God. That is to say, after they had co-operated with His grace and believed, He mercifully gave them further grace whereby they could be justified, and thus be God's adopted children. The last words of this verse: To them that believe in His name, explain what is meant in the beginning of the verse by receiving Him.
13. Some commentators have found great difficulty in this verse, because they supposed that those who in the preceding verse are said to have got the power to become children of God are here said to have been already born of God. But the difficulty vanishes, it seems to us, if verse 13 be taken as explaining not what those who believed were before they became sons of God, but the nature of the filiation, to which those who believed got power to raise themselves. It is not faith that makes them sons of God, but through faith (not as a meritorious cause, but as a condition) they attained to charity, which made them [pg 029] children of God. This too is all that is meant in 1 Jn. v. 1. It is not meant that by believing they are eo ipso, through faith alone, sons of God. Faith, as the Council of Trent lays down, is the root of justification, but it is not the formal nor even the meritorious cause of justification; it is a condition “sine qua non.” And just as St. Paul attributes justification to faith without meaning that it is of itself sufficient, so St. John (1 John v. 1) attributes to faith Divine sonship without meaning that it comes from faith alone. See Decrees of the Council of Trent, Sess. vi. Chap. vi. and viii. The meaning of the two verses, according to this view, is, that as many as received Christ by believing in Him, got power to become children of God, children who were born (??e?????sa?) not of bloods,25 nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Thus verse 13 explains that these sons of God were born not in a carnal but in a spiritual manner. “Tria hic de generatione humana sic exponit St. Thomas: ex sanguinibus, ut ex causa materiali; ex voluntate carnis,26 ut ex causa efficiente quantum ad concupiscentiam (in qua est voluntas sensitiva); ex voluntate viri, ut ex causa efficiente intellectuali (libere actum conjugalem perficiente).” Corl.
To be born of God, implies that we are transferred into a new life wherein we become in some sense partakers of the Divine nature (2 Pet. i. 4). Through the seed of Divine grace we are begotten anew and raised to this higher life.
14. Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: et vidimus gloriam eius, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre, plenum gratiae et veritatis.
14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only-begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.
14. After the reflexion in verses 12 and 13 on the way Christ was received by men, the Evangelist now states the manner in which He came; namely, by taking human nature. According to some, the first “and” is equivalent to “for.”“After He had said that those who received Him are born of God and sons of God, He adds the cause of this unspeakable honour, namely, that the Word was made flesh.” (St. Chrys.). Others, however, think that “and” has merely its ordinary conjunctive force. Note that ? ?????, not mentioned since verse 1, is again named, for emphasis, and to put it beyond doubt or cavil that it is the same Eternal God of verse 1 who is declared to have become man in verse 14. Flesh is a Hebraism for [pg 030] man. See also Gen. vi. 12; Isai. xl. 5; Ps. lv. 5; John xvii. 2. Probably it is used here specially against the Docetae, heretics who denied that Christ had really taken flesh, which they contended was essentially polluted and corrupt.
“Docetae discernebant in homine tria principia t?? s???a, t?? ?????, et t?? ???? vel t? p?e?a. Duo priora habebant ut essentialiter polluta, cum quibus ideo Verbum hypostatice uniri non posset. St. Joannes haec tria Verbi hypostasi fuisse unita docet, t?? s???a hoc loco; t?? ?????, John xii. 27; t? p?e?a, xi. 33; xiii. 21; xix. 30,” Corluy, p. 40, note.
And dwelt. Many think, with St. Chrysostom and St. Cyril, that the Greek verb used is employed specially to indicate that the Word did not cease to be God when He became man, but dwelt in His humanity as in a tent among men.
And we saw. The Greek verb signifies to behold with attention. We beheld not merely His human nature present among us, but we beheld His glory as in the transfiguration, Matt. xvii. 1, and ascension, Acts i. 9, 11. For glory, the Greek word is d??a, the solemn Scriptural term for the glorious majesty of God.
The glory as it were (quasi, Gr. ??) of the only-begotten; i.e., glory such as was becoming the only-begotten, &c. Beware of taking the meaning to be: a glory like that of the Son of God, but not His. As St. Chrys. points out, the ?? here expresses not similitude, but the most real identity27: “As if he said: We have seen His glory such as it was becoming and right that the only begotten and true Son of God should have.” S. Chrys. on John, Hom. xii. Of the Father should be from the Father, and may be joined either with “glory,” or with “only-begotten.”28
Full of grace and truth. (p?????, in the nominative, is the correct reading). This is to be connected closely with the beginning of the verse: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth,” and the other clause, And we saw His glory, &c., is parenthetic, thrown in to prove the preceding statement.
[pg 031]
Christ is said to have been full of grace and truth, not merely in Himself, but also, as the following verses prove, in reference to men with whom He freely shared them. Kuinoel, followed by Patrizzi, understands by “grace and truth” true grace or true benefits. But it is more natural to take grace and truth as two distinct things, seeing that they are again mentioned separately (? ????? ?a? ? ????e?a) in verse 17. Grace may be understood in its widest sense; for not only had Christ the “gratia unionis,” as it is called, whereby His humanity was hypostatically united to the Divinity; but, moreover, His human soul was replenished to its utmost capacity with created grace, which not only sanctified Him, but was also through Him a source of sanctification to us. See St. Thomas, p. 2, sec. 7, 8. Christ is said to be “full of truth,” not only because “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him” (Col. ii. 3), but also because, as verse 17 states, He gave us the knowledge of the true faith and true way of salvation.
15. Ioannes testimonium perhibet de ipso, et clamat, dicens: Hic erat quem dixi: Qui post me venturus est, ante me factus est: quia prior me erat.
15. John beareth witness of him, and crieth out, saying: This was he of whom I spoke: He that shall come after me, is preferred before me: because he was before me.
15. John. The Baptist (for it is he who is meant: comp. with John i. 27; Mark i. 4, 7; Luke iii. 2, 16) is now referred to parenthetically, as confirming what our Evangelist has said, namely, that the eternal Word dwelt among men.
Crieth out. (Gr. perf. with pres. signif., Beel., Gr. Gram., § 41, 4 (B) note); viz., gives solemn, public testimony.
This was he of whom I spoke (rather, said). Some, like Patrizzi, think that the testimony of the Baptist here referred to is a distinct testimony not mentioned elsewhere. Others, and with more probability, hold that the Evangelist mentions here by anticipation the same testimony whose circumstances he describes in verses 29 and 30.
He that shall come after me, in His public ministry, is preferred before me, because he was before me. Some commentators, as Kuinoel and Patrizzi, understand “before” in both cases of time: is before Me, because He is eternal; others, as St. Chrys. and Toletus, in both cases of dignity: is preferred before Me, because really preferable; and others, as our English version, with St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Beelen, Alford, in the former case of dignity in the latter of time: is preferred before Me, [pg 032] because He is eternal. The last seems the correct interpretation, and in it the past tense “is preferred” (ante me factus est) is used prophetically for the future, or may be explained as a past: has been preferred in the designs of God.29
16. Et de plenitudine eius nos omnes accepimus, et gratiam pro gratia.
16. And of his fulness we all have received, and grace for grace.
17. Quia lex per Moysen data est, gratia et veritas per Iesum Christum facta est.
17. For the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
16. After the parenthetic clause contained in verse 15, the Evangelist, not the Baptist, continues regarding the Word: And of his fulness (see verse 14) we have all received, and grace for grace. The second “and” is explanatory. Grace for grace; i.e.—(1) the grace of eternal life following on the grace of justification here; or (2) abundant grace, according as the grace given to Christ was abundant: gratia nobis pro gratia Christi (Rom. v. 15); or (3) the more perfect grace of the New Law, instead of that given under the Old Law (Chrysostom, Cyril, Patrizzi); or (4), and best, by a Hebraism, abundant grace. “a?t'i dicitur de successione, gratiam unam post aliam (gratiam cumulatam).” (Beel., Gr. Gram., § 51 A.) So also Kuin.
17. The Evangelist confirms what is stated in verse 16, and at the same time takes occasion to prefer Christ to Moses, as he has already preferred Him to the Baptist. Moses was but the medium of communicating to the Jews the Mosaic Law, which only pointed out man's duty, without enabling him to fulfil it—Rom. vii. 7, 8; but Christ was the source and author of grace and truth to us; of all the graces whereby we are to merit heaven, and of the perfect knowledge of the true faith. This is, doubtless, directed against some of the Judaizers, who held that sanctification through the Mosaic Law was at all times possible, even after the Christian religion was established.
18. Deum nemo vidit unquam: unigenitus Filius, qui est in sinu Patris, ipse enarravit.
18. No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
18. There is considerable difference of opinion as to the drift or bearing of this verse. Some think that a reason is given why only Christ could give the truth, because only He saw God in His essence. Others, that a reason is given why the gifts of Christ mentioned in the preceding verse, are superior to the Law given [pg 033] by Moses, namely, because Moses never saw God in His essence. Others, that the evangelist explains how he and his fellow-Apostles received of Christ's fulness, not only through what Christ did (17), but through what He taught (18); and the necessity for such a Divine teacher is shown by the fact that no one but He ever saw God. So St. Thomas.
Others, as Maldonatus and Patrizzi, hold that the Evangelist is here adding to his own testimony, and that of the Baptist, the testimony of our Lord Himself, in favour of all that he has said regarding our Lord in this sublime prologue; the meaning being: What I have said regarding the eternity, personality, and Divinity of the Word, regarding His power as creator and regenerator, and regarding His incarnation, I have neither seen with my own eyes, nor learned from anyone who saw, for “no man hath seen God at any time,” but Jesus Christ Himself explained these things to me.
No man hath seen God at any time. If understood of the vision of comprehension this is universally true of every creature, man or angel; if of seeing God in His essence without comprehending Him, it is true of all while they are here below. The latter is the sense here, for the Evangelist wishes to signify that he could not have learned from any mere mortal the foregoing doctrine. The saints in heaven see God in His essence, for as our Evangelist tells us in his First Epistle: “We shall see Him as He is” (1 John iii. 2. See also John xvii. 3).
The only-begotten Son. Instead of: “The only-begotten Son,” the reading: “God only-begotten” is found in very many ancient authorities, and is almost equally probable. Were it certain, it would be an additional proof of Christ's Divinity. Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, because while He is the natural Son of God, all others are but adopted sons.
Who is in the bosom of the Father (e?? t?? ???p?? t?? pat???). This means that the Son is consubstantial with the Father: “In illo ergo sinu, id est in occultissimo paternae naturae et essentiae, quae excedit omnem virtutem creaturae, est unigenitus Filius, et ideo consubstantialis est Patri.” St. Thomas on this verse.
He hath declared him.“Him” is not represented in the original; and if our view of the verse is the correct one, the object of the verb “hath [pg 034] declared” is not so much the Word, as the doctrine contained in this prologue concerning Him.30
19. Et hoc est testimonium Ioannis, quando miserunt Iudaei ab Ierosolymis sacerdotes et Levitas ad eum, ut interrogarent eum: Tu quis es?
19. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: Who art thou?
19. The Evangelist now records, with its various circumstances, one of the most solemn testimonies borne by the Baptist to Christ. The “Jews” are probably the Sanhedrim, whose duty it was to inquire into the credentials of preachers. The deputation was, therefore, a most solemn one, sent by the Sanhedrim, from the Jewish capital, composed of Priests and Levites, to make inquiries regarding a momentous question.
20. Et confessus est, et non negavit: et confessus est: Quia non sum ego Christus.
20. And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ.
20. The Baptist first confesses what he is not, and what many at the time believed him to be, namely, the Christ (Luke iii. 15).
21. Et interrogaverunt eum: Quid ergo? Elias es tu? Et dixit: Non sum. Propheta es tu? Et respondit: Non.
21. And they asked him: What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered: No.
22. Dixerunt ergo ei: Quis es, ut responsum demus his qui miserunt nos? quid dicis de teipso?
22. They said therefore unto him: Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?
21. Art thou Elias? This question arose from a misunderstanding of Mal. iv. 5. Art thou the prophet? (? p??f?t??), as foretold by Moses (Deut. xviii. 15). These interrogators evidently regarded “the prophet” as different from the Messias, though in reality they were the same. See Acts iii. 22-24.
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23. Ait: Ego vox clamantis in deserto: Dirigite viam Domini, sicut dixit Isaias propheta.
23. He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias.
23. The Baptist with striking humility replies that he is merely a voice, a passing sign—yet that voice spoken of by Isaias, which was to call upon men to prepare their hearts to receive Christ. The Hebrew of Isaias may be rendered: “The voice of one that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord (Jehovah), make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Or, as is more probable from the Hebrew parallelism: “The voice of one that crieth: Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” The Baptist, in applying to himself this prophetic passage, which is also applied to him by the three Synoptic Evangelists (Matt. iii. 3; Mark i. 3; Luke iii. 4), gives merely the substance of the original. It is disputed whether Isaias refers in the literal sense to preparing the roads by which the people should return from the Babylonian Captivity, and only in the mystical sense to the preparation for the Messias, or directly and literally to the preparation for the Messias. The latter seems the more probable view. At any rate, the words as applied here mean that the Baptist is the voice to which Isaias referred (in some sense literal or mystical), and that the burden of his cry in the desert of Judea is, that men who heard him in the desert should prepare their hearts for Christ.
The language is metaphorical, and alludes to the custom prevalent in those days of sending forward couriers to get the roads ready for advancing princes.
24. Et qui missi fuerant, erant ex Pharisaeis.
24. And they that were sent were of the Pharisees.
24. The Pharisees were a sect among the Jews, so called according to some from their founder, Pharos, or more probably, perhaps, from the Hebrew verb “pharash” (????) to separate, as though they were separated from and above ordinary men, owing to their strict observance of the Law. They held many erroneous tenets: thus—(1) They relied for God's favour upon their carnal descent from Abraham. (2) They taught that no oath was binding in which the name of God or the gold of the temple was not expressly invoked. (3) That internal sins were not forbidden; and (4) some of their schools admitted the right of [pg 036] arbitrary divorce. See Matt. v. 33-36; xix. 3; xxiii.
25. Et interrogaverunt eum, et dixerunt ei: Quid ergo baptizas, si tu non es Christus, neque Elias, neque propheta?
25. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet?
26. Respondit eis Ioannes, dicens: Ego baptizo in aqua: medius autem vestrum stetit, quem vos nescitis.
26. John answered them, saying: I baptize with water; but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not.
25. Being Pharisees, and therefore versed in the Law, they knew from Ezech. xxxvi. 25, and Zach. xiii. 1, that in the time of the Messias there was to be a baptism unto the remission of sins. They concluded, then, that only the Messias, or some of those that were to accompany Him, could confer this baptism; and, not understanding the import of the Baptist's answer, verse 23, in which he really declared himself the herald of Christ's coming, they ask why he presumes to baptize.
26. The Baptist answers that his is not the baptism foretold by the Prophets, which was to cleanse the sinner, but as he had declared at the beginning of his preaching, a baptism unto penance (Matt. iii. 21). John's baptism consisted in an ablution of the body, accompanied by the profession of a penitential spirit, preparatory to the coming of Him who was to baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire (Matt. iii. 11). It could in no sense be said to remit sin; while the baptism of Christ really remits sin (Acts ii. 38). Hence the Council of Trent defined:—“Si quis dixerit baptismum Joannis habuisse eamdem vim cum baptismo Christi anathema sit.” (Sess. vii., Can. i.) De Bapt.
There hath stood (?st??e?); rather there standeth, the perfect of this verb having a present signification. Many authorities indeed read the later present st??e?. The meaning is not that our Lord was then actually present in the crowd, else St. John would probably have pointed him out, as he did on the following day (v. 29); but that He was already present among the Jewish people, was already living among them.
27. Ipse est qui post me venturus est, qui ante me factus est: cuius ego non sum dignus ut solvam eius corrigiam calceamenti.
27. The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.
27. Many authorities omit the words: “The same is,” and also: “who is preferred before me,” and then connect with the preceding thus: “But there hath stood One in the midst of you whom you know not, even He that shall come (rather, that cometh) after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am [pg 037] not worthy to loose.” So Tisch., Treg., Westcott, and Hort, and the Rev. Vers. It is not easy to explain why the words are wanting in so many MSS., if they were written by St. John; certainly it is easier to believe that they were inserted by some scribe to bring the verse into closer resemblance to 15 and 30.
In the latter part of the verse, the Baptist declares himself unworthy to perform the lowest menial service for Christ. To loose the sandals of their masters was the business of slaves; yet for even such service to Christ the great Prophet confesses himself unfit.
28. Haec in Bethania facta sunt trans Iordanem, ubi erat Ioannes baptizans.
28. These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
28. Bethania, here mentioned, was situated in Peraea, east of the Jordan, and must be carefully distinguished from the town of the same name, in which Lazarus lived, about two miles east of Jerusalem, but west of the Jordan. Many ancient authorities read Bethabara, instead of Bethania. Origen, though admitting that nearly all the MSS. of his time read Bethania, changed it, on topographical grounds, for Bethabara, in his edition of our Gospel. Bethania, according to some, means the house of a ship (??? ????), while Bethabara means the house of a ferry-boat (??? ????); so that, perhaps, they may have been different names for the same place on the Jordan.
29. Altera die vidit Ioannes Iesum venientem ad se, et ait: Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi.
29. The next day John saw Jesus coming to him, and he saith: Behold the lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world.
29. On the day after that on which the Baptist bore the preceding testimony, he saw Jesus coming towards him. This is the first time that the mention of the Holy Name occurs in our Gospel. Jesus (Gr. ??s???) is the same as the Hebrew ?????, which is itself a contraction for ???????, meaning God the Saviour. That our Lord was so called, to show that He was to be the Saviour of men, is clear from the words of the angel to St. Joseph: “And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt. i. 21). We cannot be certain whence Jesus was now coming; but it seems very probable that He was coming from the desert after His forty days' fast. We know from [pg 038] St. Mark (i. 12) that as soon as He was baptized, “immediately the spirit drove Him out into the desert, and He was in the desert forty days and forty nights.” Since, then, the present occasion was subsequent to His baptism, as we learn from a comparison of verse 33 with St. Matthew iii. 16 (for the Baptist alludes, on the present occasion, to what took place at the baptism), it follows that it must have been at least forty days subsequent. Christ seems too to have been absent when, on the day before this, the Baptist bore witness to Him, else the Baptist would have probably pointed Him out as present, just as he does on this occasion. All things considered, then, it is likely Jesus is now returning, and that the Baptist here takes the first opportunity of again commending Him to the people.
Behold the lamb (? ????) of God. The Baptist, in these words, points out Jesus as the Messias, for there is evident allusion to Isaias liii. 7-12, where the Messias is compared to a lamb before his shearers, bearing the sins of many. In referring to Jesus as a lamb, the Baptist recalled this prophecy, insinuated Christ's innocence, and perhaps suggested that he was to be sacrificed. Lamb of God, because offered by God for the sins of men, as we speak of the sacrifice of Abraham, meaning the sacrifice offered by him; or it may mean simply the Divine Lamb. But the first opinion seems more probable.
Who taketh away the sin of the world. Every word is emphatic. Christ not merely covers up, or abstains from imputing sin, but He takes it away altogether, as far as in Him lies. And it is not merely legal impurities that the sacrifice of this Divine Lamb will remove, but sin; and not merely the sin of one race, like the Jewish, but the sin of the whole world. “Sin,” in the singular number, designates as one collective whole every sin of every kind.
30. Hic est de quo dixi: Post me venit vir qui ante me factus est, quia prior me erat:
30. This is he of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me.
30. The Baptist goes on to say that Jesus is that very Person of whom he had said [pg 039] on a previous occasion: After me, &c. Some take the reference here to be to the testimony of the preceding day, when the Baptist bore witnesses in verse 27; others think the reference is to the occasion spoken of in verse 15, and regard that testimony as distinct from the one recorded in verse 27. We prefer the latter view, and distinguish in all six testimonies of the Baptist recorded in the Gospels. The first, before Christ's Baptism, as in Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 7; Luke iii. 16; the second, as in John i. 15; the third, as in John i. 19-27; the fourth, as in John i. 29-34; the fifth, as in John i. 35-36; and the sixth and last, as in John iii. 27-36.
31. Et ego nesciebam eum, sed ut manifestetur in Israel, propterea veni ego in aqua baptizans.
31. And I knew him not, but that he may be made manifest in Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
31. And I knew him not; i.e., officially, so as to be able to bear witness to Him publicly; or, better: I knew Him not personally; I was unacquainted with Him, so that my testimony in His favour then and now cannot be the result of prejudice or partiality towards Him. The Baptist was indeed a relative of our Lord (Luke i. 36), and must known what his father, Zachary, had declared, “Praeibis enim ante faciem Domini parare vias ejus” (Luke i. 76), that he himself was to herald the public coming of Jesus. Yet, as Jesus dwelt at Nazareth in Galilee during His private life; and John, reared in the hill country of Juda (Luke i. 39), spent the years before his public mission—perhaps from his very childhood (as Origen, Mald.) in the deserts (Luke i. 80), it is conceivable how he might not have known Christ's appearance. “What wonder,” says St. Chrys., “if he who from his childhood spent his life in the desert, away from his father's home, did not know Christ?” But as he had, while still in his mother's womb, been divinely moved to recognise Christ (Luke i. 41, 44); so, immediately before the baptism of the latter, he was enabled to recognise Him (Matt. iii. 14).
32. Et testimonium perhibuit Ioannes, dicens: Quia vidi Spiritum descendentem quasi columbam de coelo, et mansit super eum.
32. And John gave testimony, saying: I saw the Spirit coming down as a dove from heaven, and he remained upon him.
33. Et ego nesciebam eum: sed qui misit me baptizare in aqua, ille mihi dixit: Super quem videris Spiritum descendentem, et manentem super eum, hic est qui baptizat in Spiritu Sancto.
33. And I knew him not: but he, who sent me to baptize with water, said to me: He upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
34. Et ego vidi: et testimonium perhibui quia hic est Filius Dei.
34. And I saw; and I gave testimony, that this is the Son of God.
32-34. Some, as Patrizzi, take this as a new testimony; others, with more probability, take it as a continuation of the preceding, and say that our Evangelist inserts the words, and John gave testimony, [pg 040] in the middle of the Baptist's words, in order to arrest the reader's attention. The Baptist here declares what he had beheld after the baptism of Christ (Matt. iii. 16), and how that sign had been revealed to him beforehand as one that was to mark out the Messias, and confirm his own faith: and how he had accordingly on that occasion borne witness that Jesus is the Son of God.
That baptizeth with the Holy Ghost; i.e., who will wash you, not with water, but in the graces of the Holy Ghost. There may be special reference to the graces conferred in Christian baptism.
35. Altera die iterum stabat Ioannes, et ex discipulis eius duo.
35. The next day again John stood, and two of his disciples.
36. Et respiciens Iesum ambulantem, dicit: Ecce Agnus Dei.
36. And beholding Jesus walking, he saith: Behold the Lamb of God.
37. Et audierunt eum duo discipuli loquentem, et secuti sunt Iesum.
37. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
38. Conversus autem Iesus, et videns eos sequentes se, dicit eis: Quid quaeritis? Qui dixerunt ei: Rabbi (quod dicitur interpretatum, magister), ubi habitas?
38. And Jesus turning, and seeing them following him, said to them: What seek you? Who said to him: Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwellest thou?
35-38. Circumstances in which the first disciples attached themselves to Jesus. The Evangelist interprets the Syro-Chaldaic word Rabbi (38), because he is writing for the Christians of Asia Minor.
39. Dicit eis: Venite, et videte. Venerunt, et viderunt ubi maneret, et apud eum manserunt die illo: hora autem erat quasi decima.
39. He saith to them: Come and see. They came, and saw where he abode, and they staid with him that day: now it was about the tenth hour.
39. About the tenth hour. According to those who hold that St. John numbers the [pg 041] hours of the day after the Jewish method, the time here indicated would be about two hours before sunset. For the Jews divided the natural day or time of light into twelve equal parts, each part being one-twelfth of the whole, so that the length of their hour varied according to the season of the year. If we suppose St. John to number as we do now, and as the Greeks did then, the time here indicated would be about 10 a.m.
40. Erat autem Andreas frater Simonis Petri unus ex duobus qui audierant a Ioanne, et secuti fuerant eum.
40. And Andrew the brother of Simon Peter was one of the two who had heard of John, and followed him.
40. It is extremely probable that the other who followed, and whose name is not given, was our Evangelist himself. See Introd. I. B. 2.
41. Invenit hic primum fratrem suum Simonem, et dicit ei: Invenimus Messiam (quod est interpretatum Christus).
41. He findeth first his brother Simon, and saith to him: We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.
41. First; i.e., before the other (our Evangelist) findeth his brother, James. Messias (from the Hebrew root MashÀch (????), to anoint) = ???st?? = anointed. It was the custom to anoint Hebrew kings, priests, and prophets; and Christ, as combining the three dignities in Himself, was the anointed by excellence.
42. Et adduxit eum ad Iesum. Intuitus autem eum Iesus, dixit: Tu es Simon filius Iona: tu vocaberis Cephas, quod interpretatur Petrus.
42. And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looking upon him said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter.
42. Christ's omniscience is left to be inferred from His knowing Simon31 here at first sight. Cephas, Syro-Chaldaic, [pg 042]KÉpha (???); Hebrew Keph (??) = p?t?a (rock), from which we have p?t??? with the feminine termination changed into the masculine. The change of Simon's name was now predicted, but was probably not made till afterwards. See Mark iii. 16.
43. In crastinum voluit exire in Galilaeam, et invenit Philippum. Et dicit ei Iesus: Sequere me.
43. On the following day he would go forth into Galilee, and he findeth Philip. And Jesus saith to him: Follow me.
43. On the following day he would go forth. The sense is: when He was about to set out; “cum in eo esset, ut e Judaea abiret” (Kuin.). Jesus had come from Nazareth, the home of His private life in Galilee, to be baptized by John, (Matt. iii. 13; Mark i. 9). He had then spent forty days in the desert, and been tempted there, (Matt. iii. 16-iv. 3); had returned from the desert to the Jordan, and been witnessed to again by the Baptist (see above John i. 15, 19-36), and was now on the point of returning to Galilee.
Follow me. Philip to whom these words were addressed was afterwards the Apostle of that name. The call to follow our Lord on this occasion was not the formal call to the Apostleship, but rather an invitation to him to become a disciple. The same is to be said regarding the others referred to in this chapter, Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Nathanael. Four of these—Peter, Andrew, James, and John, who had in the meantime returned to Galilee, and were pursuing their calling of fishermen, were again called, Matt. iv. 18-22, Luke v. 1-11; and on this second occasion “leaving all things they followed Him,” and became inseparably attached to Him as disciples. Finally, the solemn formal call of the twelve to the Apostleship is narrated, Matt. x. 2; Luke vi. 13.
44. Erat autem Philippus a Bethsaida, civitate Andreae et Petri.
44. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
44. Bethsaida. In our view there were two towns of this name: the one mentioned here, on the western shore of the sea of Galilee, about four miles south of Capharnaum; the other Bethsaida Julias, situated to the north east of the same sea. The latter was enlarged and greatly improved by Philip the Tetrarch, son of Herod the Great, who gave it the name Julias, in honour of Julia the [pg 043] daughter of the Roman Emperor Augustus.
45. Invenit Philippus NathanaËl, et dicit ei: Quem scripsit Moyses in lege, et prophetae, invenimus Iesum filium Ioseph a Nazareth.
45. Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith to him: We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets did write, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth.
46. Et dixit ei NathanaËl: A Nazareth potest aliquid boni esse? Dicit ei Philippus: Veni, et vide.
46. And Nathanael said to him: Can anything of good come from Nazareth? Philip saith to him: Come and see.
45. Philip not only obeys the call to become a disciple himself, but brings another disciple with him to Jesus. Nathanael (= Deus dedit) was a native of Cana in Galilee (John xxi. 2), and is most probably identical with Bartholomew (= son of Tolmai) the Apostle, “For Nathanael and Philip are coupled in John i. 45, as Bartholomew and Philip are here (Matt. x. 3); Nathanael is named in the very midst of Apostles, John xxi. 2. ‘There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas, who is called Didymus, and Nathanael who was of Cana of Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee.’ Would anyone but an Apostle be so named? Finally, Matthew, Luke, and Mark do not allude to Nathanael, nor does John to Bartholomew” (M'Carthy on Matt. x. 3).
The son of Joseph. Doubtless, he means a son conceived and born in the ordinary way. So it was generally thought, and so thought Philip, ignorant of the miraculous conception of Christ, and of His birth at Bethlehem. It is absurd to charge our Evangelist, as De Wette has done, with ignorance of Christ's miraculous birth of a virgin, because he records the ignorance of Philip.
Nazareth, for ever famous as the scene of the incarnation, was a little town in Lower Galilee, in the tribal territory of Zabulon. It was the dwelling-place of our Lord during His private life. Nazareth, indeed all Galilee, was held in contempt (see John vii. 52), and hence Nathanael's doubt, (verse 46), though he was himself a Galilean (John xxi. 2).
47. Vidit Iesus NathanaËl venientem ad se, et dicit de eo; Ecce vere Israelita, in quo dolus non est.
47. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and he saith of him: Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.
48. Dicit ei NathanaËl: Unde me nosti? Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Priusquam te Philippus vocaret, cum esses sub ficu, vidi te.
48. Nathanael saith to him: Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered, and said to him: Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee.
49. Respondit ei NathanaËl, et ait: Rabbi, tu es Filius Dei, tu es rex Israel.
49. Nathanael answered him, and said: Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel.
47-49. When Nathanael had approached near enough to be able to hear what was said, but before he had spoken anything from which our Lord might have been thought to guess at his character, our Lord said: Behold an Israelite[pg 044]indeed, in whom there is no guile; that is to say, one who, not merely by descent, but by the simplicity and honesty of his character, is a true son of Jacob. See Gen. xxv. 27; Rom. ix. 6. Jacob's name was changed into Israel, after he wrestled with the angel, Gen. xxxii. 28.
47-49. Nathanael must have felt convinced that he had been hidden from Christ's natural view, otherwise he could not draw the inference which, aided by divine grace, he draws. Whether Nathanael yet recognised Jesus to be true God, and professed his belief in Him as such, in the words of verse 49, is disputed. If we are to judge from his words (? ????), the affirmative opinion seems much more probable. The words are an echo of the Baptist's testimony (v. 34), but Nathanael confesses not alone Christ's Divine origin, but also His human sovereignty: Thou art the Son of God, Thou art the King of Israel.
50. Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Quia dixi tibi: Vidi te sub ficu, credis: maius his videbis.
50. Jesus answered and said to him: Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig-tree, thou believest: greater things than these shalt thou see.
50. Jesus promises Nathanael stronger arguments in proof of His Divinity. In the words: Greater things than these shalt thou see, the plural these seems to point to the class and not merely the special incident.
51. Et dicit ei: Amen, amen. dico vobis, videbitis coelum apertum, et Angelos Dei ascendentes, et descendentes supra Filium hominis.
51. And he saith to him: Amen, amen, I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.
51. Amen, amen, is peculiar to John. The other Evangelists use “Amen” only once in such asseverations. “Amen means verily (at the end of a prayer, so be it); and when doubled, strengthens the asseveration, and points to the [pg 045] solemnity of the declaration about to follow” (M'Ev.).
Son of man. This term, probably derived in its Messianic sense from Dan. vii. 13, 14, was very rarely applied to Christ, except by Himself, and we find Him using it very frequently (though not exclusively; see, e.g., Matt. ix. 6; xxiii. 30; Acts vii. 56) in connection with His privations, sufferings, and death (Matt. viii. 20; xii.40; xvii. 12; xxvi. 21-25; John iii. 14, &c.). It indicates that Christ was not only man like Adam; but that, unlike him, He was descended of man, and therefore our brother in the truest sense.
You shall see. Though Nathanael is addressed (and He saith to him), yet the plural (videbitis) shows that the wondrous sign here promised was to be seen not by him alone, but at least by Philip also, and probably by others. The meaning of the prediction is obscure. Evidently some great sign is promised; but what it is, interpreters are far from agreed. Some take the words metaphorically, others literally.
Of those who understand them metaphorically, some take the sense to be: You shall see numerous miracles, such as are usually attributed to angels (or, in the performance of which angels shall minister to Me) wrought by Me, the Son of Man, during My public life. So Beelen, Maier, &c. We cannot accept this view, for it seems highly improbable that our Lord would speak in language so obscure to the guileless Nathanael and his companions on an occasion like the present, when Nathanael had only just believed.
Others understand of the spiritual glories of the whole period from the commencement of Christ's public mission till the end of the world. Alford, explaining this view (which, by the way, he calmly claims to have been “the interpretation of all commentators of any depth in all times”!) says: “It is not the outward visible opening of the material heavens nor ascent or descent of angels in the sight of men, which the Lord here announces, but the series of glories which was about to be unfolded in His Person and work, from that time forward.” Our difficulty in regard to this view is the same as in regard to the preceding.
St. Augustine is generally supposed to have understood this text in reference to the preachers of the New Testament, “ascending” when they preach the more sublime, “descending,” when they preach the more elementary doctrines of religion. If St. Augustine meant this as a literal interpretation of the passage, as he [pg 046] certainly seems to do in Tract vii. on this Gospel, we cannot accept it. Surely, something stranger and more striking is promised here, after the opening of the heavens, than the sight of preachers!
Others hold that we must interpret this passage entirely in the light of Jacob's dream, Gen. xxviii. 12. Jacob saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. That vision meant in his regard that God would make him the object of His special protection (see Gen. xxviii. 13-15). And now Nathanael, who is an Israelite indeed, a true son of Jacob (v. 47), is told that he and others shall see that Divine favour and protection which Jacob's vision signified, extended in such an extraordinary manner to Christ, during His life, that it will be most manifest He is the Son of God.
This view we regard as probable. The Fathers tell us that Nathanael was particularly well versed in the Scriptures, and our Lord's words might readily recall to his mind Jacob's dream, with all its significance of Divine favour and protection.
Of the opinions that attempt to explain the words literally, some may be dismissed at once. Thus there cannot be reference to the angels who appeared at Christ's birth, or after His temptations (Matt. iv. 11), for Christ speaks of an event still to come, whereas His birth and temptations were already past. Nor can there be reference to the transfiguration, even if we suppose angels to have been present; nor to the agony in the garden; nor to the resurrection; for on none of these occasions did Philip and Nathanael see the angels. Less improbable, perhaps, is the view that there is reference to the ascension, and the two angels that appeared then (Acts i. 10). But this opinion too we reject without hesitation. In the passage of the Acts referred to, St. Luke tells us: “And while they were beholding Him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments.” Now, it is clear that angels who stood by the apostles and disciples, cannot possibly be those referred to here as “ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
A Lapide refers the prediction to some miraculous vision seen by the disciples during our Lord's life, and not recorded in the Gospels. But it seems improbable that the fulfilment of such a prediction would be passed over in silence by all the Evangelists.
Finally, there is the opinion, which is held by Maldonatus, that there is reference to the last judgment, when the heavens shall be opened, and Christ shall come riding on [pg 047] the clouds of heaven, accompanied by angels, and all men shall be forced to confess Him God. This seems to us the most probable interpretation. For, first, it is likely that our Lord refers to the clearest and most incontrovertible proof that shall be given of His Divinity; and such will be His coming in majesty to judge the world. Secondly, we know that on another occasion, when he was challenged by the Jewish High Priest to say if he was the Son of God, He appealed to this same proof of His Divinity: “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith to him: Thou hast said it. Nevertheless, I say to you: Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven” (Matt. xxvi. 63-64). Probably the expression: ascending and descending is to be understood metaphorically, even in this opinion, and means merely that the angels shall be attendant upon the great Judge, ready to execute His will. The order is remarkable: they are said first to ascend, and then to descend, as was the case also in Jacob's vision.
1-11.Christ at the marriage feast in Cana changes water into wine.
12.He goes down to Capharnaum.
13-17.At the approach of the Pasch He goes up to Jerusalem, and there drives the buyers and sellers out of the Temple.
18-22.Challenged by the Jews for a sign of His authority, He predicts His own Resurrection, as the disciples called to mind after He had risen.
23-25.On the occasion of this first Pasch of His public life many believe in Him because of His miracles.
1. Et die tertia nuptiae factae sunt in Cana Galilaeae, et erat mater Iesu ibi.
1. And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the mother of Jesus was there.
2. Vocatus est autem et Iesus, et discipuli eius, ad nuptias.
2. And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the marriage.
1. The Evangelist having narrated how our Lord was witnessed to by the Baptist, and joined by His first disciples, now proceeds to tell how He bore testimony of Himself by His miracles.
The third day. Naturally the third from the point of time last referred to, in verse 43.
The marriage feast was celebrated for a week among the Jews, and this custom had come down from very ancient times, as we learn from the book of Judges, xiv. 12.
Cana of Galilee was situated most probably in the tribe of Zabulon near Capharnaum. There was another Cana in the tribe of Aser, near Sidon (see Jos. xix. 28).
2. And Jesus also was invited; that is to say, He also, as well as the Blessed Virgin, was invited. Mald. holds that ?a? (et) is explanatory: on that account, that is to say, because she was there as a friend of the family, Jesus was invited.
[pg 049]
3. Et deficiente vino, dicit mater Iesu ad eum: Vinum non habent.
3. And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: They have no wine.
3. And the wine failing (Gr. having failed). Either all the wine was already drunk, or, at least, there was no more to be drawn; the last was on the table. When we take into account what Mary says to the servants (v. 5), it is plain that her object in telling Jesus that the wine had run short, was not that He and His disciples might retire (Bengel), nor that He might exhort the company to patience (Calvin), nor that He might buy wine (Kuin.), but that He might work a miracle. “The Mother of the Lord having heard of the testimony of the Baptist, and seeing the disciples gathered round her Son, the circumstances of whose miraculous birth she treasured in her heart (Luke ii. 19, 51) must have looked now at length for the manifestation of His power, and thought that an occasion only was wanting. Yet even so she leaves all to His will” (Westc., in Speaker's Comm.).
4. Et dicit ei Iesus: Quid mihi et tibi est mulier: Nondum venit hora mea.
4. And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is it to me and to thee? My hour is not yet come.
4. Woman, what is it to me and to thee? The Vulgate has. “Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier?” But the verb is not in the Greek text (t? ??? ?a? s?? ???a??), which would therefore be better translated: “What to Me and to thee, woman?” The Revised Version of the Church of England renders: “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”
Most Protestant writers have held that these words of our Lord contain a reproof of His mother. Among Catholics many have held that the words contain the semblance of reproof; to teach us, not Mary, that we are not to be influenced by motives of flesh and blood in the service of God. Others have held (and this is the general opinion of modern Catholic commentators) that the words do not contain even the appearance of reproof.
(1) It is now generally acknowledged even by Protestant commentators that the term ???a? is not reproachful or disrespectful. According to Alford there is no reproach in the term, but rather respect; and Trench says: “So far from any harshness, the compellation has something solemn in it” (Miracles, p. 100). Liddell and Scott's Lexicon, says: “It is often used as a term of respect or affection, mistress, lady.” Yet Calvin impiously asserts that our Lord does not deign to call Mary His Mother: “Deinde cur simplici repulsa non contentus eam in vulgarem [pg 050] mulierum ordinem cogit, nec jam matris nomine dignatur?”“Why doubt of the heavenly origin of a reformation wrought by such reasoning as this?” (McCarthy).
Father Coleridge thinks that Mary is addressed here by the title ???a? because that is “what we may call her official and theological title ... for she is the ‘woman’ of whom our Lord was born; she is the ‘woman’ of whom God spake to our first parents when He made them the promise of a Redeemer after the fall; she is the ‘woman’ to whom the whole range of types look forward, who was to conceive and compass a man (Jer. xxxi. 22); she is the ‘woman,’ the second Eve, as our Lord is the Man, and the Son of Man, the second Adam.”32 But whatever may be thought of this view, enough has been said to show that the term ???a? does not imply reproof or disrespect.
(2) Neither does the phrase “What to Me and to thee?” (t? ??? ?a? s???). We find exactly the same phrase in Judg. xi. 12; 3 Kings xvii. 18; 4 Kings iii. 13; 2 Paral. xxxv. 21; Mark v. 7; Luke viii. 28.33
(A). After a candid examination of these texts, it must, we think, appear that the meaning of the phrase is not: What does this concern you and Me? for in some, if not all, of the passages cited the phrase cannot have that meaning. Besides, is it likely Jesus would say that the wants of the poor, who were His hosts, and perhaps His relatives, and their shame consequent upon those wants, did not concern Him?
(B). Neither is the meaning: What have I to do with you, or, what have I in common with you? (as author of a miracle such as you suggest); it must proceed from My Divine nature, while only My human nature has been derived from you (so Augus., Tolet., Patriz.). For—
(a) This is not the meaning of the phrase in the parallel passages.
(b) Christ gives a different reason: My hour is not yet come.
(c) His person hypostatically united to His human nature, had that nature in common with her, and it is of His person (mihi), not of His Divine nature merely that He speaks.
(C). What the precise meaning of the phrase is, it is difficult to determine with certainty. In all the passages where it occurs, it seems to indicate some divergence between the thoughts or wishes of the persons so brought together. Most probably it is here a remonstrance; [pg 051] because the suggestion that Christ should work a miracle is inconvenient or inopportune, inasmuch as it brings moral pressure to bear upon Him to make Him begin His miracles before the time at which, prescinding from this suggestion, His public miracles were to begin. Something similar are the words of God to Moses: “Let Me alone, that My wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them” (Exod. xxxii. 10). On that occasion God, after remonstrating, granted the prayer of Moses, just as on this occasion, after remonstrating, He yielded to the suggestion of His Mother. So St. Cyril of Alex., St. Amb., Corl, &c.
Whether the above be the correct meaning of the phrase or not, one thing is clear, against Calvin, Alf., Trench, &c., that the words cannot contain a rebuke—not a real rebuke; because there was no fault on Mary's part, not even venial (Council of Trent, sess. vi., can. 23). St. Aug., whose authority Protestants must respect, whatever they may think of that of the Council of Trent, says: “De Sancta Maria Virgine, propter honorem Christi, nullam prorsus quando de peccato agitur volo habere quaestionem” (De Natura et Gratia, ch. xxxvi.). Moreover, if the Blessed Virgin were guilty of any fault, it would be either because of the thing suggested, or of some circumstance of time, place, motive, &c. Now, our Lord granted what she suggested; the object was therefore, good. The circumstances were the very same when the miracle was wrought as when it was suggested. As to her motive, it may have been good—charity for the poor. Why, then, ascribe a bad motive, such as vanity, without convincing proof? That the suggestion was acceded to, goes to show that it was made in circumstances in which it was not displeasing to God.34
Neither is there in the words a feigned rebuke, that is, feigned for our instruction, to show us that we are not to regard flesh and blood in doing the work of God (Mald., Tolet., &c.); for Christ actually did what was suggested; and, besides, it is Catholic teaching that Christ in heaven grants many requests to His Mother, because she is His Mother.
In vain, then, have Protestants tried to find, in these words of our Lord, anything derogatory to the dignity of His Blessed Mother. To every interpretation which would give such a sense to His words, we may answer, with St. Justin, Martyr: “Non verbo matrem objurgavit qui facto honoravit.”“He reproved not His [pg 052] mother by what He said who honoured her by what He did.”
My hour is not yet come. In our interpretation it is easy to explain these words. His hour is not the hour of His death, nor the time when the want of wine would be fully felt, but the time at which, according to the ordinary providence of God, and prescinding from His Mother's suggestion, His public miracles were to begin.
5. Dicit mater eius ministris: Quodcumque dixerit vobis, facite.
5. His mother saith to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye.
5. Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye. These are not the words of one whose suggestion had been reproved and rejected.
6. Erant autem ibi lapideae hydriae sex positae secundum purificationem Iudaeorum, capientes singulae metretas binas vel ternas.
6. Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three measures a-piece.
6. For the custom of the Jews in the matter of ablutions, see Matt. xv. 2; Mark vii. 2-5. The et??t?? was a Greek liquid measure, containing about nine gallons, or, to be accurate, eight gallons 7.4 pints. There were six jars, or water-pots, each containing two or three measures. If each jar contained two measures, the whole quantity of wine miraculously provided would be = 6 × 2 × 9 = 108 gallons. If each contained three measures, the whole would be = 6 × 3 × 9 = 162 gallons. The quantity of wine miraculously produced was therefore very great, being at least about 108 gallons. It is absurd, however, to seek in this miracle of our Divine Lord any excuse for intemperance. As well might God be accused of conniving at intemperance, because He fills the grape each year with the moisture of earth and heaven, and then transmutes this into the nobler juices which He knows man will convert into wine. He gives in every case, that we may use, not that we may abuse. If the quantity of wine miraculously provided on this occasion was large, we ought to remember that the marriage feast lasted for a week; that there were probably many guests present, whose number was considerably increased by the invitation, at the last moment, of Christ and His disciples on their arrival from Judea; that others would probably be attracted now by the fame of this miracle, and the desire to see Him who had wrought it; and, finally, that the quantity of the wine made the miracle more striking.
7. Dicit eis Iesus. Implete hydrias aqua. Et impleverunt eas usque ad summum.
7. Jesus saith to them: Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim.
7. To the brim. So that there was no room left to mix [pg 053] wine or anything else with the water; this shows, too, the quantity of wine that was miraculously supplied.
8. Et dicit eis Iesus: Haurite nunc, et ferte architriclino. Et tulerunt.
8. And Jesus saith to them: Draw out now, and carry to the chief steward of the feast. And they carried it.
8. Chief steward (Gr. ?????, chief, or ruler, and t????????, a dining-room, with three couches, and more generally, a dining-room). The president of the feast, according to some, was one of the guests selected by the host, or by the unanimous consent of the guests; according to others, he was not a guest, but the chief servant. In the first view he corresponds with the s?p?s?????? of the Greeks, and the “magister convivii,” or “arbiter bibendi,” of the Romans; and this we take to be correct, for his familiarity with the bridegroom (v. 10) bespeaks the friend rather than the servant.
9. Ut autem gustavit architriclinus aquam vinum factam, et non sciebat unde esset, ministri autem sciebant qui hauserant aquam, vocat sponsum architriclinus.
9. And when the chief steward had tasted the water made wine, and knew not whence it was, but the waiters knew who had drawn the water; the chief steward calleth the bridegroom.
9. St. John mentions that the president of the feast knew not whence the wine was, nor how it had been produced, in order to show that his testimony in its favour was not the result of previous collusion with Jesus. Who had drawn the water. ??t????te? is the form for the pluperfect, as well as for the perfect participle, and is rightly rendered “had drawn.” We consider it more likely that the reference is to their drawing the water from the well in order to fill the water-pots. But if the reference be to drawing the wine from the pots (in v. 8 the same Greek verb is used in reference to that action), then the wine is called water because it had been water so recently, just as the serpent is called a rod in Exod. vii. 12. because it had been a rod immediately before. It is most likely that the conversion took place in the water-pots, and not on the way from them to the table.
10. Et dicit ei: Omnis homo primum bonum vinum ponit: et cum inebriati fuerint, tunc id, quod deterius est: Tu autem servasti bonum vinum usque adhuc.
10. And saith to him: Every man at first setteth forth good wine, and when men have well drank, then that which is worse. But thou hast kept the good wine until now.
10. Most probably the Greek word (e??s??s??) rendered in the Vulgate “inebriati fuerint” does not here imply [pg 054] drunkenness, but only drinking freely. “In classical use it generally, but not always, implies intoxication. In the Hellenistic writers, however, as Josephus, Philo, and the LXX., it very often denotes drinking freely, and the hilarity consequent, which is probably the sense here” (Bloomf.). In any case, whatever meaning we give the word here, the president of the feast merely speaks of what was the common practice, without saying that the guests at this particular feast had indulged to the same extent.
11. Hoc fecit initium signorum Iesus in Cana Galilaeae: et manifestavit gloriam suam, et crediderunt in eum discipuli eius.
11. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee: and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
11. This was Christ's first miracle, or better perhaps, it was His first public miracle, the first sign, or proof given in public of His Divine power. It is worthy of note that our Lord honoured marriage on this occasion not only by His presence, but also by His first public miracle. The effect of the miracle is carefully noted by our Evangelist whose main object, as we saw, is to prove Christ's Divinity. And He manifested His glory, d??a (see i. 14); and the faith of the disciples was confirmed. The fact that they were disciples, shows that they had some faith already.
12. Post hoc descendit Capharnaum, ipse, et mater eius, et fratres eius; et discipuli eius: et ibi manserunt non multis diebus.
12. After this he went down to Capharnaum, he and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they remained there not many days.
12. Capharnaum, the largest town of Galilee, was situated, on the western shore of the sea of Galilee (Matt. iv. 13, John vi. 24), and the journey to it from Cana is rightly described as a descent. During His public life our Lord seems to have dwelt chiefly in this town, which is therefore sometimes spoken of as His own city (see Matt. ix. 1, and compare with Mark ii. 1). It was long thought to be impossible to identify the site of Capharnaum, but it seems now to be practically certain that the site is that of [pg 055] the modern Tell HÛm, about two and a half miles south-west of the point where the Jordan enters the sea of Galilee. Capharnaum means the village (???) of Nahum. Tell is the Arabic for a hillock covered with ruins, and it is reasonably conjectured that HÛm is a contraction for Nahum, the first syllable, as sometimes happens in such cases, being dropped. Thus Tell HÛm would mean the ruin-clad hillock of Nahum. A summary of the various reasons for identifying the two places is given by PÉre Didon, in his able work: Jesus Christ, vol. ii., Appendix F. The brethren of the Lord here referred to were His cousins, but according to the Scriptural usage any near relations are called brethren. Thus Abraham and Lot are “brethren” (Gen. xiii. 8), though Abraham was in reality Lot's uncle (Gen. xi. 27). See also remarks on vii. 3.
13. Et prope erat pascha Iudaeorum, et ascendit Iesus Ierosoloymam:
13. And the pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
13. And (= for) the Pasch, &c. This was the first Pasch of our Lord's public life. The Evangelist calls it the Pasch of the Jews, because he is writing for the inhabitants of Asia Minor, most of whom were Greeks. The Pasch (Heb. pesach, ???), beginning at evening on the 14th, and ending at evening on the 21st of Nisan,35 was the greatest festival of the Jews. The word “pasch” means the passing over (from pasach, ???, to pass or leap over), and the name was given to this festival as commemorating the passing over of the houses of the Israelites when the destroying angel slew the first-born in the land of Egypt (see Exod xii. 11, 12).
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. At the three principal feasts: Pasch, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all the male adults were bound to go up to the temple at Jerusalem.
14. Et invenit in templo vendentes boves, et oves, et columbas, et numularios sedentes.
14. And he found in the temple them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting.
14. The animals here mentioned were sold to be sacrificed. The money-changers were there to change foreign money into Jewish. It was probably in the Court of the Gentiles that Christ found them. In the temple (?? ?e??, i.e., in sacro loco). The ?e??? must be carefully distinguished from the ?a?? (v. 20). The [pg 056] former included the temple proper, and also its courts, porches, and porticoes; in a word, all its sacred precincts; the latter was the temple proper, the house of God, the place where He dwelt (?a?? = to dwell). We know that around the temple as rebuilt by Herod the Great, there were three courts: the outer, or that of the Gentiles; the inner, or that of the Israelites; and between them, on the eastern side, the Court of the women. In the inner court, or that of the Israelites, there was a portion next the temple proper set apart for the priests.
15. Et cum fecisset quasi flagellum de funiculis, omnes eiecit de templo, oves quoque, et boves, et numulariorum effudit aes, et mensas subvertit.
15. And when he had made as it were a scourge of little cords, he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew.
15. He drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen. These words of our version mean that He drove out not only the animals, but also the sellers, and this is distinctly stated by S. Aug., and several other Fathers. The sense of the Greek is ambiguous: He drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen.
16. Et his qui columbas vendebant, dixit: Auferte ista hinc, et nolite facere domum Patris mei, domum negotiationis.
16. And to them that sold doves he said: Take these things hence, and make not the house of my father a house of traffic.
16. Christ deals more leniently with those who sold the doves, perhaps because these were the offerings of the poor.
A house of traffic. Our Lord does not on this occasion say the traffic was unjust, but implies that it was sacrilegious, as being carried on in a holy place. On another occasion, three years afterwards, Christ again drove traders from the temple, who He says had made it “a den of thieves,” adding the sin of injustice to that of sacrilege (Matt. xxi. 13). Note how He calls God His Father. See v. 18.
17. Recordati sunt vero discipuli eius, quia scriptum est: Zelus domus tuae comedit me.
17. And his disciples remembered that it was written: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.
17. Our Evangelist, mindful of his scope in writing this Gospel, draws attention to the fulfilment of this prophecy of [pg 057] the Psalmist, inasmuch as this tends to prove that Jesus was the Messias and the true God. ?ataf??eta? (will eat me up) is the true reading here, though the Psalm has the prophetic past.
18. Responderunt ergo Iudaei, et dixerunt ei: Quod signum ostendis nobis, quia haec facis?
18. The Jews therefore answered, and said to him: What sign dost thou show unto us, seeing thou dost these things?
18. The Jews challenge (answered, meaning here, as frequently, went on to speak) Christ for a proof of that authority which He appeared to claim for Himself in driving them from the temple, and also in calling God His Father (see v. 17-18). The incident itself, with so many men tamely submitting to His action, was, as Origen points out, one of the most wonderful signs He could have shown them. But they hoped, as St. Chryst. remarks, to put Him in a dilemma by obliging Him either to work a miracle on the spot, or else cease to interfere with them.
19. Respondit Iesus, et dixit eis: Solvite templum hoc, et in tribus diebus excitabo illud.
19. Jesus answered, and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
19. Instead of working a miracle He merely refers darkly to a future sign that was still some years off, as He does on a similar occasion, when dealing with other unbelievers, Matt. xii. 38-40. “He, however,” says St. Chrys., “who even anticipated men's wishes, and gave signs when He was not asked, would not have rejected here a positive request, had He not seen a crafty design in it.”
Standing as He was beside Herod's temple, probably in the Court of the Gentiles or immediately outside it, His words, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up, were understood by the Jews (v. 20), and apparently by His disciples (v. 22), in reference to Herod's temple. Various views have been put forward to show that His words were not necessarily misleading.
(1) It is said that He may have pointed with His finger to His body while He said: Destroy this temple. But the fact that He was actually misunderstood by all seems to exclude this hypothesis.
(2) It is held by many that He spoke both of Herod's temple and of His body. So, apparently, Origen; and Cardinal Wiseman says explicitly: “Finally did our Lord speak altogether of His resurrection so as to exclude all allusion to rebuilding the temple which stood before Him? I must confess that ... I cannot read the passage without being convinced that He spoke of both” (Lect. on the Euch., [pg 058] p. 135, No. 4). We, however, cannot bring ourselves to adopt this view against what seems to be the clear sense according to the interpretation of the inspired Evangelist, who tells us, (v. 21), But He spoke of the temple of His body.
(3) There is the common answer, that He spoke ambiguously and allowed them to be deceived, because they were unworthy of plainer speech. They were not, however, necessarily deceived, for ?a?? (a temple) was used frequently in reference to the human body (see, e.g., 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16), and our Lord's language might have given them some reason for suspecting that it was of His body He spoke. For the two verbs, which he used ??sate and ??e?? though they could be understood in reference to the temple of stone, applied more appropriately to His body; the former signifying the breaking up or loosing of the union between His soul and body; the latter, the raising of the body to life, as so often in St. Paul. See, e.g., 1 Cor. xv. 4, 12, 14, &c.
Destroy this temple, is not, of course, a command to put Him to death, but a permission like what He said to Judas: That which thou dost, do quickly (John xiii. 27). It was usual with the Prophets to announce their predictions in the form of a command; as, for instance, Isaias (xlvii. 1): “Come down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon.”
20. Dixerunt ergo Iudaei: Quadraginta et sex annis aedificatum est templum hoc, et tu in tribus diebus excitabis illud?
20. The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days?
20. The rebuilding of the temple by Herod the Great is said by Josephus, in Antiq. xv. 11, 1, to have been begun in the eighteenth year of his reign; in B. Jud. i. 21, 1, in the fifteenth; the difference arising from the fact that in one case Josephus counts from the death of Antigonus, in the other from Herod's appointment by the Romans. (See Antiq. xvii. 8, 1.) Reckoning from the latter, we have twenty years till the birth of Christ, and thirty years since that event, making fifty, from which, however, four must be subtracted, because our era is four years too late. This gives forty-six years. The mere building of the temple took only nine years and a half, but during the remainder of the time it was decorated. These decorations were still going on, and were not completed till 64 a.d., so that the Greek verb ought to get its proper sense: has been in building.
21. Ille autem dicebat de templo corporis sui.
21. But he spoke of the temple of his body.
21. The inspired Evangelist here tells us that it was of His body Christ spoke. He adds the explanation to show, perhaps, how utterly devoid of all foundation in fact was the [pg 059] distorted testimony of the false witnesses, who on the night before His death charged our Lord with having threatened to destroy the temple made with hands (Matt. xxvi. 61; Mark xiv. 58).
22. Cum ergo resurrexisset a mortuis, recordati sunt discipuli eius, quia hoc dicebat, et crediderunt scripturae, et sermoni quem dixit Iesus.
22. When therefore he was risen again from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had said.
22. When Christ had risen His disciples understood the Scriptures, or rather they believed that they (see, e.g., Psalms iii. 6; xv. 10), and Christ's present words, referred to His resurrection.
23. Cum autem esset Ierosolymis in pascha in die festo, multi crediderunt in nomine eius, videntes signa eius, quae faciebat.
23. Now when he was at Jerusalem at the pasch, upon the festival day, many believed in his name, seeing his signs which he did.
23. Upon the festival day. Rather during the festal time, which, at the Pasch, lasted a week, many believed in His name, that is to say, in Him, seeing the miracles which he wrought, and which were proofs of His divine power.
24. Ipse autem Iesus non credebat semetipsum eis, eo quod ipse nosset omnes.
24. But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men.
24. Unto them; i.e., all the Jews, or perhaps those very persons who believed in Him; because, as searcher of hearts (verse 25), He foresaw that they would not remain faithful followers.
25. Et quia opus ei non erat ut quis testimonium perhiberet de homine: ipse enim sciebat quid esset in homine.
25. And because he needed not that any should give testimony of man: for he knew what was in man.
25. He knew this, not by any external indications, but because He is the searcher of hearts. This is noted as another proof of Christ's Divinity, because this knowledge of the secrets of the hearts of all men belongs to God alone. See 3 Kings viii. 39; 1 Paral. xxviii. 9; Job xlii. 2; Ps. vii. 10; Acts xv. 8. Some of the saints in special cases were able to read the hearts of certain individuals, but no one save God knows the hearts of all.
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Chapter III.
1-21.Nicodemus comes to Christ; their discourse.
22-36.Christ begins to baptize; complaints of the Baptist's disciples, and testimony of the Baptist to Christ's divine origin, and to the necessity of faith in Him.
1. Erat autem homo ex pharisaeis, Nicodemus nomine, princeps Iudaeorum.
1. And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
1. This chapter is closely connected with the end of the preceding. Among the many who believed (ii. 23) was a man of the Pharisees (see i. 24). The sect, name, and dignity of the man are mentioned, because of his importance, and because of the importance of the discourse about to be narrated.
A ruler of the Jews; that is to say, as we gather from vii. 45, 50, he was a member of the Sanhedrim.
2. Hic venit ad Iesum nocte, et dixit ei: Rabbi, scimus quia a Deo venisti magister: nemo enim potest haec signa facere quae tu facis, nisi fuerit Deus cum eo.
2. This man came to Jesus by night, and said to him: Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God: for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him.
2. Because he believed in Jesus, he came; but because he feared the Jews, he came by night.
We know. Nicodemus may have come in the name of several, to learn more about Jesus, or he may be merely alluding to the fact that some others were of the same belief. He professed his faith in Jesus as a heaven-sent teacher, stating the nature of his belief. “Nicodemus estimates accurately, we may almost say with theological precision, the force of the evidence of the miracles of our Lord, if they were to be taken apart from other considerations which belonged to the same subject-matter. The miracles in themselves proved exactly that God was with [pg 061] Him; but if they were taken in conjunction with the witness of St. John the Baptist, with our Lord's manner of working them, that is, as one who was using His own power, and with His way of speaking of Himself, and of God as His Father, they might have been enough to form the ground of a still higher faith concerning our Blessed Lord” (Coleridge, Life of our Lord, vol. i., page 256).
3. Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Amen, amen, dico tibi, nisi quis renatus fuerit denuo, non potest videre regnum Dei.
3. Jesus answered and said to him: Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
3. Jesus answered. This might merely mean that He went on to speak, the verb to answer being again and again found in this sense in the New Testament. Here, however, it may be used in its strict sense of replying to a question, for it seems to us extremely probable that a portion of the discourse leading up to the statement made in verse 3 is omitted by the Evangelist. It is highly improbable that the whole discourse between Christ and Nicodemus is here recorded, as it seems very unlikely that Nicodemus, after the trouble of coming specially to Christ by night, left Him, or would be allowed to leave, after the two or three minutes in which the discourse here reported was spoken.
Born again. The Greek word ????e?a, which is rendered “again,” may mean—(a) from above, or (b) again. The latter meaning, however, is more probable here, for so Nicodemus understood our Lord's words (see verse 4): so, also S. Chrysostom, and nearly all the Latin fathers. Compare, too, Tit. iii. 5; 1 Pet. i. 23. The truth expressed in this verse is universal; whoever is born needs to be reborn in order to see (= “to enter into,” verse 5) the kingdom of God in Christ's Church here, and in heaven hereafter.
4. Dicit ad eum Nicodemus: Quomodo potest homo nasci, cum sit senex? numquid potest in ventrem matris suae iterato introire, et renasci?
4. Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born again?
4. Nicodemus either understood our Lord to speak of a second carnal birth; or perhaps, not understanding the words at all, he may have pretended to misunderstand, in order to get Christ to explain. His motive, at all events, was good—to obtain light and instruction.
5. Respondit Iesus: Amen, amen dico tibi, nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu sancto, non potest intriore in regnum Dei.
5. Jesus answered: Amen amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
5. Hence Christ goes on to give a more precise statement [pg 062] of the truth contained in verse 3, with an additional explanation regarding the means of regeneration under the new dispensation.
Amen, Amen. This formula indicates the importance of the pronouncement. It has been defined by the Council of Trent—(a) that there is question in this fifth verse of natural water, and (b) of that natural water as necessary for Baptism. “Si quis dixerit aquam veram et naturalem non esse de necessitate baptismi, atque ideo verba illa D. N. J. C.: ‘Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua, et Spiritu Sancto,’ ad metaphoram aliquam detorserit, anathema sit” (Sess. vii. Can. 2. De bapt.).
This solemn declaration of the infallible Church settles, for Catholics, the question as to whether there is reference here to Christian Baptism. But even against heretics, for whom the Council of Trent speaks in vain, it is not difficult to show that there must be reference here to Christian Baptism. For (1) it cannot be denied that Christ inaugurated some external rite of baptism (John iii. 25, 26; iv. 11). (2) Christ and His disciples are represented (verse 22) as beginning to baptize after this discourse with Nicodemus. (3) Every circumstance of this second birth spoken of to Nicodemus is found in Christian Baptism. (a) Here we are said to be born again; so, too, are we in Baptism:—“According to His mercy He saved us by the laver of regeneration and renovation of the Holy Ghost” (Tit. iii. 5). (b) This second birth is necessary that we may be saved and enter the kingdom of God; so is Christian Baptism (Mark xvi. 16; Acts iii. 37, 38), (c) This second birth is through water and the Holy Ghost; so is Baptism. See Acts viii. 36-47; Tit. iii. 5.
Seeing that there is reference in the text to Christian Baptism, the word “water” in the text, as the Council of Trent defined, is to be understood, not metaphorically, but literally. Moreover, since this new birth is attributed to the water as to the Holy Ghost “(ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto”), water is not merely an empty symbol in the sacrament, but an efficient cause of grace like the Holy Ghost; He being the principal, the water the instrumental, efficient cause.
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This new birth in Baptism implies—(1) that we die to the old man of sin, “for we are buried together with Him by Baptism into death” (Rom. vi. 4). It implies (2) that we are born through the divine gift of God's grace to a new and spiritual life, in which we are His adopted children. “So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. vi. 11).
We may remark, before passing from this text—(1) against the Pelagians and Anabaptists, that Baptism is here declared necessary for all who have been born, and therefore for infants before the use of reason; (2) against the Calvinists and Socinians, who hold that children of Christian parents need not be baptized, that no exception is here made in favour of the children of Christians; (3) against Protestants, that water in Baptism is not a mere symbol of regeneration, but is as truly its efficient cause as the Holy Ghost Himself; with this difference, however, that whereas the water is the instrumental, the Holy Ghost is the principal, cause.
6. Quod natum est ex carne, caro est: et quod natum est ex spiritu, spiritus est.
6. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh: and that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit.
6. Christ explains why the agent of the regeneration of which He speaks must be the Holy Ghost. What is born of man (flesh here is taken for human nature without grace), is merely human; what is born of the Holy Ghost, is spiritual, and partakes of the Divine (2 Pet. i. 4). Since, then, the new life to which a man must be born again is spiritual, a spiritual and supernatural principle is required.
7. Non mireris quia dixi tibi: Oportet vos nasci denuo.
7. Wonder not, that I said to thee, you must be born again.
7. Wonder not, therefore, that I said to you: ye must be born again, for if that which is born of the flesh is flesh, certainly you need a new birth to be born to a life which is so far above the flesh.
8. Spiritus ubi vult spirat: et vocen eius audis, sed nescis unde veniat, aut quo vadat: sic est omnis qui natus est ex spiritu.
8. The Spirit breatheth where he will: and thou hearest his voice, but thou knowest not whence he cometh, and whither he goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
8. Christ goes on to show how a difficulty in knowing the way in which the regeneration takes place is no proof of its impossibility, nor a reason for incredulity regarding its possibility. The sense of this verse depends upon the meaning given to the first “spirit,” t? p?e?a. Some understand this of the Holy Ghost. The Holy [pg 064] Ghost acts in men according to His own good pleasure; “you hear His voice that cannot be mistaken—its power, its sweetness, the peace which it breathes, the light which it pours on you; but you cannot tell that He is approaching, or when He will come, or how He will work on your soul; in such manner is it that everyone is born of the Spirit who is so born” (Coleridge, Public Life of our Lord, vol. i., page 262). Others understand the first spirit here of the wind; and this is the more common opinion among commentators. In this view, by means of a simple and obvious illustration from nature, Christ shows Nicodemus that he must believe in the possibility of this second birth, even though he know not the manner in which it takes place. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and you know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is it in regeneration; you are regenerated, though you cannot comprehend the process. That p?e?a sometimes means wind in Biblical Greek, is undeniable (see, e.g., Gen. vii. 1; Ps. civ. 4; Matt. xxiv. 31; Heb. i. 7), and the use of the word here in different senses is plain from the comparison (so is it, &c.), according to the patrons of this second opinion. Nor does the fact that it is preceded by the article here oblige us, according to these, to refer it to the Holy Ghost; for, just as in verse 5, without the article, it refers to the Holy Ghost, so here, with the article, it may not refer to Him.
9. Respondit Nicodemus, et dixit ei: Quomodo possunt haec fieri?
9. Nicodemus answered, and said to him: How can these things be done?
10. Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Tu es magister in Israel, et haec ignoras?
10. Jesus answered, and said to him: Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?
9, 10. Nicodemus again asks how these things can come to pass, and Jesus gently upbraids him for his ignorance. As one of the chief teachers of Israel ? d?d?s?a???36 (see also vii. 45-50), one of the seventy-one members of the Sanhedrim, or supreme Council of the Jews, he should be familiar with the Sacred Scriptures, and ought to have read in them the promise of a spiritual regeneration. See Ezech. xxxvi. 25; Zach. xiii. 1.
11. Amen, amen, dico tibi, quia quod scimus loquimur, et quod vidimus testamur, et testimonium nostrum non accipitis.
11. Amen, amen I say to thee, that we speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony.
11. Christ continues using the solemn form of asseveration. [pg 065]What we know. The plural is used not of Himself and the Holy Spirit, nor of Himself and the Prophets, nor of all born of the Spirit, nor of the Three Persons of the Trinity, but simply as a plural of majesty. What we have seen. Sight, says St. Chrys. on this verse, we consider the most certain of all the senses, so that when we say we saw such a thing with our eyes, we seem to compel men to believe us. In like manner, Christ, speaking after the manner of men, does not indeed mean that He has seen actually with the bodily eye the mysteries He reveals, but it is manifest that He means He has the most certain and absolute (and we may add, immediate: see above on i. 18) knowledge of them. In these words, then, Christ insists upon His authority to teach, and His claim to be believed.
12. Si terrena dixi vobis, et non creditis: quomodo, si dixero vobis coelestia, credetis?
12. If I have spoken to you earthly things, and you believe not: how will you believe if I shall speak to you heavenly things?
12. If you will not believe Me when I teach you the comparatively elementary doctrine of Baptism, which regards the regeneration of man here on earth, how shall you believe if I go on to speak of truths more sublime, more removed from the realms of sense and human comprehension? The spiritual vision of Nicodemus was hardly able to bear the first ray of truth; how then was it to bear the full flood of the light of higher revelation?
13. Et nemo ascendit in coelum, nisi qui descendit de coelo, Filius hominis, qui est in coelo.
13. And no man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the son of man who is in heaven.
13. The meaning is: No one was in heaven except Him who has descended from heaven, and now speaks to you; namely, the Son of Man, who still remains in heaven. In this view, which is that of St. Thomas, Toletus, and Beelen, Christ speaks of Himself as having ascended into heaven only to accommodate His language to human ideas, which conceive of ascent to heaven as necessary, in order to our being there. The Son of Man, as Son of God, had, of course, been there from all eternity [pg 066] and needed not to ascend. Some think that Christ here begins to explain the “heavenly things” referred to in the preceding verse; but a more probable connection is the following:—He had said: how shall you believe heavenly things from Me since you question even the elementary truths which I tell you? And yet from Me alone you must learn such things, for no one else has been in heaven, so as to know and be able to teach you the mysteries of God.
14. Et sicut Moyses exaltavit serpentem in deserto, ita exaltarioportet Filium hominis:
14. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the son of man be lifted up:
15. Ut omnis, qui credit in ipsum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam.
15. That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.
14, 15. Christ now goes on to speak of some of the more sublime doctrines. As Moses raised up the serpent, upon which whosoever looked was healed (Numbers xxi. 4-9), so must Christ be lifted up on the cross (see John viii. 28; xii. 32-34), to save those who believe in Him. The best supported Greek reading of verse 15 would be rendered:—That everyone who believes may, through him, have eternal life; ? ?p???ta? a??? (may not perish, but) not being genuine, and ?? a?t? standing instead of e?? a?t??. Though faith is the only condition to salvation which is mentioned in verse 15, others are supposed, as is evident from verse 5:—“Unless a man be born again.” &c. Faith, however, is often specially referred to, because as the Council of Trent (Sess. vi., c. 8) says:—“Fides est humanae salutis initium, fundamentum, et radix omnis justificationis.”
16. Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret: ut omnis, qui credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam.
16. For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.
16. Some commentators, following Erasmus, hold that what follows to the end of verse 21, is not the language of Christ, but a comment of the Evangelist; but more probably Christ still continues. The boundless love of God for the world, and not merely for the elect, is declared to be the cause of the incarnation, and the world's salvation its object. It was this love that made God give His only-begotten Son to suffer for men and save them.
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17. Non enim misit Deus Filium suum in mundum, ut iudicet mundum, sed ut salvetur mundus per ipsum.
17. For God sent not his Son, into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.
17. For it was to save, not to judge the world, that the Son of God came at His first coming. Hereafter in His second coming He will come to judge and to condemn (the context proves there is question of the judgment of condemnation).
18. Qui credit in eum, non iudicatur: qui autem non credit, iam iudicatus est, quia non credit in nomine unigeniti Filii Dei.
18. He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
18. He who believeth in Christ escapes the judgment of condemnation; but he who believeth not is already condemned, because, inasmuch as he has not believed, “the wrath of God,”i.e., original sin (Eph. ii. 3) and its effects in actual sin, remain upon him (verse 36); and he has rejected the only means whereby he could be delivered from them. It is as it a physician were sent to the sick, says St. Augustine, they who come to him are cured; they who come not, perish; not through him, however, but because of their disease.
19. Hoc est autem iudicium: quia lux venit in mundum, et dilexerunt homines magis tenebras quam lucem: erant enim eorum mala opera.
19. And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil.
19. This is the reason of the condemnation, namely, that men do not come to the light, but rather shrink from it, through the fear of being forced by an awakened conscience to abandon sin.
20. Omnis enim qui male agit, odit lucem, et non venit ad lucem, ut non arguantur opera eius:
20. For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved:
20. For every one that doth evil, and, as St. Chrys. explains determines to remain in his wickedness, hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.
21. Qui autem facit veritatem, venit ad lucem, ut manifestentur opera eius, quia in Deo sunt facta.
21. But he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God.
21. But he that doth the[pg 068]truth; that is to say, what truth directs, or rather the practical truth of good works, for right action is the realization of true thought, cometh to the light, by accepting the faith of Christ, by believing (v. 18). That his works may be made manifest. Just as he who does evil, and intends to persist in it, shuns the light, in order that his works may not be reproved (v. 20), so he who does good, and means to persevere in it, comes to the light and believes, in order that his works may be approved. The antithesis between this and the preceding verse, shows that the manifestation of which there is question here is equivalent to approval; and indeed, from the nature of the case, the manifestation of such works in the light of Christian truth would be necessarily followed by their approval, not only by God, but also by the enlightened judgment of him who wrought them.
Because (?t?) they are done (Gr. have been done) in God. These words may be differently connected. They may give the reason why he who does good, readily comes to the light, namely, because his works have been good, and he is not afraid to have them tested. Or, they might be understood to give the reason why such a one's works are approved, namely because they are done in God. Or again, ?t? may be taken to mean not, “because,” but “that;” and then the sense will be, that he who does good comes to the light and believes, that his works may be made manifest as having been (that they have been) done in God. The last is perhaps the simplest and most natural interpretation, but the first also is probable.
But in any of these interpretations, the question arises—how can the works of a man who has not yet believed, be said to have been “done in God.” Various answers have been given. We cannot agree with those commentators who reply that there is question of future works to be performed after the reception of faith; for the whole context, and the Greek text (have been done), show that there is question of past works done before their author has come to the light. Nor do we think that there is question merely of natural works done in the past with the aid of medicinal grace, for such works would scarcely be said to have been “done in God.” We hold, then, that there is reference to the “initium fidei,” that is to say, to all those works that sprang from supernatural grace, were salutary in themselves, and led up to faith. These are the [pg 069] only works of one who has not yet believed, that can be properly said to have been done in God, done according to His will and pleasure. That there are such works antecedent to faith, cannot be denied; for the proposition: “Faith is the first grace,” put forward in the schismatical Council of Pistoia, was condemned by Pius VI., in the Bull Auctorem Fidei. Besides, it is de fide, against the Semipelagians, that supernatural grace is necessary for the “initium fidei,” from which it follows that the works included in the “initium fidei,” are salutary, and “done in God.”
22. Post haec venit Iesus, et discipuli eius, in terram Iudaeam: et illic demorabatur cum eis, et baptizabat.
22. After these things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea; and there he abode with them and baptized.
22. After these things; that is to say, after this discourse with Nicodemus. How long our Lord remained in Jerusalem on the occasion of this first Pasch, we know not. By the land of Judea, is meant the country parts of that province, as distinguished from the city of Jerusalem, where the discourse with Nicodemus had taken place. In these country parts, then, Jesus baptized through His disciples (iv. 2), the baptism most probably being sacramental.
23. Erat autem et Ioannes baptizans in Aennon, iuxta Salim: quia aquae multae erant illic, et veniebant, et baptizabantur.
23. And John also was baptizing in Ennon near Salim; because there was much water there, and they came, and were baptized.
23. Ennon, near Salim. The site of Aennon (Gr. ?????, from a Chaldaic word meaning springs) is difficult to determine. If we compare verse 26 of this chapter with John i. 28, it would seem that Aennon was west of the Jordan. Eusebius and Jerome place it eight miles south of Scythopolis, “juxta Salim et Jordanem;” and the latter states that the ruins of Melchizedek's palace existed in his day at Salim. These statements are so positive that they cannot lightly be set aside. In the Jordan valley, about seven and a-half miles from Beisan (Scythopolis), there is a remarkable group of seven springs, all lying within a radius of a quarter of a mile, which answers well to the description “many waters.”37 According to this view, Aennon was [pg 070] situated in the north-east corner of Samaria. Others, however, think, from the connection between this verse and verse 22, in which Jesus is said to baptize in Judea, that Aennon also was in Judea, and refer to Josue xv. 32, where the cities of Selim and Aen are mentioned as in the tribe of Juda.
24. Nondum enim missus fuerat Ioannes in carcerem.
24. For John was not yet cast into prison.
24. The Evangelist notes that the Baptist had not yet been imprisoned, probably lest it should be thought, from Matt. iv. 11, 12, that the imprisonment of the Baptist followed at once upon the return of Christ from the forty days' fast in the desert. This verse, therefore, affords a strong proof that our Evangelist was acquainted with the Gospel of St. Matthew.
25. Facta est autem quaestio ex discipulis Ioannis cum Iudaeis de purificatione.
25. And there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews concerning purification:
26. Et venerunt ad Ioannem, et dixerunt ei: Rabbi, qui erat tecum trans Iordanem, cui tu testimonium perhibuisti, ecce hic baptizat, et omnes veniunt ad eum.
26. And they came to John, and said to him: Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou gavest testimony, behold he baptizeth, and all men come to him.
25, 26. A question arose between (?? t?? a??t?? ??????? eta ???da???, i.e., “cujus auctores extitere discipuli Joannis,” Beel, Gr. Gram., § 51, B. 2, 8) John's disciples and the Jews, i.e., some leading Jews, perhaps members of the Sanhedrim, concerning the relative merits of John's baptism and Christ's; and John's disciples come to their master, jealous that his fame is being eclipsed by that of Him whom he had been the means of bringing before the public notice. The best supported reading is a Jew, not the Jews.
27. Respondit Ioannes, et dixit: Non potest homo accipere quidquam, nisi fuerit ei datum de coelo.
27. John answered and said: A man cannot receive anything, unless it be given him from heaven.
28. Ipsi vos mihi testimonium perhibetis, quod dixerim: Non sum ego Christus, sed quia missus sum ante illum.
28. You yourselves do bear me witness, that I said, I am not Christ, but that I am sent before him.
27, 28. John's answer to his disciples is his last recorded testimony to Christ. It is to the effect that a man may not arrogate to himself power or [pg 071] office unless he have authority from God, and that his own office is merely that of precursor to the Messias.
29. Qui habet sponsam, sponsus est: amicus autem sponsi, qui stat, et audit eum, gaudio gaudet propter vocem sponsi. Hoc ergo gaudium meum impletum est.
29. He that hath the bride, is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom's voice. This my joy therefore is fulfilled.
29. By a familiar example the Baptist illustrates the difference between himself and Christ. On the occasion of a Jewish marriage it was usual for the bridegroom to have a friend (“amicus sponsi,” corresponding to the pa????f?? of the Greeks), whose duty it was to arrange the preliminaries to the marriage, and at the marriage feast to minister to the bridegroom. The sense of the Baptist's words then is, that though many are present to a wedding, only one, he who hath the bride, is the bridegroom. His friend, who has helped to bring about the marriage, is satisfied to stand and minister to him, rejoicing exceedingly to hear the bridegroom speaking with his bride, nor jealous of the happy relations which subsist between them. This, my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. In these words the Baptist points the application of the comparison to Christ and himself. The Baptist is the “amicus sponsi,” who prepared the disciples for Christ; Christ is the bridegroom, and the disciples flocking to Christ (verse 26) were to constitute the Church, which is His spouse. See 2 Cor. xi. 2; Eph. v. 25, 27.
30. Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui.
30. He must increase, but I must decrease.
30. John had fulfilled his mission; thenceforward, therefore, whereas Christ, in virtue of His nature, and His office of Messias, should increase, the Baptist himself should decrease, in influence and fame.
31. Qui desursum venit, super omnes est. Qui est de terra, de terra est, et de terra loquitur. Qui de coelo venit, super omnes est.
31. He that cometh from above, is above all. He that is of the earth, of the earth he is, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from heaven, is above all.
31. He that hath a divine origin is above all men, and so above me; but He that is of the earth by origin, of the earth he is in nature, and of the earth He speaks (compare verse 6). This is true of all men, in comparison with Christ: their thoughts are earthly, [pg 072] weak, and limited; His divine and inexhaustible; but it is also true absolutely, if we consider them apart from faith and grace. “Hoc autem in Joanne verum est primo, si ejus nudam naturam spectes, et seclusa Dei gratia, vocatione, et revelatione: sic enim Joannes non nisi terreus et terrenus erat, nec nisi terrena sapiebat; quia ‘si quid divinum audisti a Joanne illuminantis est, non recipientis,’ ait St. Augustinus, quasi dicat, id accepit a Deo, non habet a se” (A Lap.).
32. Et quod vidit, et audivit, hoc testatur: et testimonium, eius nemo accipit.
32. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth: and no man receiveth his testimony.
32. What Christ knoweth of His own immediate divine knowledge, as being “in the bosom of the Father” (i. 18), this He testifieth; and yet hardly anyone (“no man” being an hyperbole) receiveth His testimony. Christ is metaphorically spoken of here as seeing and hearing, to indicate His direct and immediate knowledge of things divine. Compare v. 19; vi. 46; viii. 38; xv. 15; xvi. 13.
According to Patrizzi and others, this and the following verses are the words of the Evangelist; but more probably the Baptist continues to the end of the chapter, developing the reason why Christ must increase.
33. Qui accepit eius testimonium, signavit quia Deus verax est.
33. He that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true.
33. He who has believed in Christ has thereby testified solemnly (as though he set his seal to the testimony) that God is truthful. God here refers to the Father; and the meaning is, that by believing what Christ teaches, we believe Him to be truthful, and therefore believe the Father also, from whom He has received His divine nature and knowledge, and His mission as Messias, to be truthful. This is better than to refer God here to the Son (Christ), as Maldonatus does; for in the next verse, which proves this, God plainly refers to the Father.
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34. Quem enim misit Deus, verba Dei loquitur: non enim ad mensuram dat Deus spiritum.
34. For he whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God: for God doth not give the spirit by measure.
34. For he whom God (the Father) hath sent (as His Son, verse 35), as the Messias, speaketh the words of God, for God doth not give the spirit by measure. The contrast is between the abundant gift of the Spirit to Christ, as man, and the stinted participation of the same Spirit by those who are merely of the earth (Rom. xii. 3; 1 Cor. xii. 14). The sense, then, is, that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were poured out in abundance on Christ as man; that “He unceasingly possessed them all at once to the greatest extent of which human nature is capable” (M'Ev.); and this plenitude of the gifts of the Holy Ghost within Him is the reason why He speaks the words of God.
35. Pater diligit Filium: et omnia dedit in manu eius.
35. The Father loveth the Son: and he hath given all things into his hand.
35. This plenitude of the Spirit in Christ, this fulness of grace and truth (i. 16, 17), in Christ as man, is the effect of the love of the Father for His Incarnate Son, which love has also caused the Father to grant to Christ, as man, the bestowal (He hath given all things into His hand) of all the gifts of the Spirit required for the salvation of men.
36. Qui credit in Filium habet vitam aeternam: qui autem incredulus est Filio, non videbit vitam, sed ira Dei manet super eum.
36. He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting: but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
36. Since, then, Jesus Christ has been constituted our help unto salvation, he that believes in Him as Son of God (and acts accordingly) hath eternal life begun in him by justification; he that believeth not, &c. See verse 18.
This splendid testimony of the Baptist in favour of Christ was intended to detach his disciples from himself, and win them to Christ, of whom, as we learn from verse 26, they had shown themselves jealous.
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1-4.Jesus sets out from Judea to Galilee.
5-26.Arrival in Sichar, and discourse with the Samaritan woman.
27-38.Discourse with the disciples.
39-42.Stay with the people of Sichar.
43-54. Continuation of the journey into Galilee, and healing of the ruler's son.
1. Ut ergo cognovit Iesus quia audierunt pharisaei quod Iesus plures discipulos facit, et baptizat, quam Ioannes,
1. When Jesus therefore understood that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus maketh more disciples, and baptizeth more than John,
1. When Jesus therefore understood, &c. Christ is spoken of as if on this occasion He gained knowledge of which He had been ignorant, because though, as God, He knew all things, every inmost thought of the Pharisees, yet, as man, like other men, He gathered knowledge from His fellow-men. See Mald.
That Jesus. Not that He Himself; because the report which the Pharisees had heard is given verbatim, “that” (?t?) merely introducing it.
2. (Quamquam Iesus non baptizaret sed discipuli eius,)
2. (Though Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples,)
2. Jesus Himself did not usually baptize; probably because, like St. Paul (1 Cor. i. 14-16), His mission was to preach and teach. It by no means follows from this verse that He never baptized anyone; and many writers are of opinion that He baptized some Himself.
3. Reliquit Iudaeam, et abiit iterum in Galilaeam;
3. He left Judea, and went again into Galilee.
3. Because His time to suffer had not yet come, and much of the work of His public mission still remained to be accomplished, He left Judea, the headquarters of the Pharisees, [pg 075] whose jealousy He knew would be aroused by the report mentioned in verse 1, and went again (see John i. 43) into Galilee.
4. Oportebat autem eum transire per Samariam.
4. And he was of necessity to pass through Samaria.
5. Venit ergo in civitatem Samariae, quae dicitur Sichar: iuxta praedium quod dedit Iacob Ioseph filio suo.
5. He cometh therefore to a city of Samaria which is called Sichar; near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
4, 5. Not choosing to cross to the east of the Jordan, and go up through Peraea, as some of the stricter Jews did, who wished to avoid all possible contact with the Samaritans, He was obliged to pass through Samaria. Of the three provinces of Palestine west of the Jordan, Samaria was in the centre, with Judea to the south, and Galilee to the north. “St. John is thus careful to note that this was no mission to the Samaritans which the Lord undertook. On the contrary, the law which He imposed on His disciples: ‘And into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not’ (Matt. x. 5), this, during the days of His flesh, He imposed also on Himself. He was not sent ‘but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt. xv. 24; Acts xiii. 46); and if any grace reached Samaritan or heathen, it was, so to speak, but by accident, a crumb falling from the children's table.”38 Samaria had been the portion of the tribe of Ephraim and of half the tribe of Manasses. The province derived its name from its chief city, Samaria, which, in turn, got its name from Mount Somer (or Semer), on which it was built (3 Kings xvi. 24). See A Lap. The city called Sichar39 (the modern Nabulus) by St. John is the ancient Sichem, where Abram built an altar to the Lord (Gen. xii. 7), under the turpentine tree behind which Jacob buried the idols of his household (Gen. xxxv. 4), and where the bones of the twelve patriarchs were laid to rest (Acts vii. 16).
Near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. See Gen. xxxviii. 18, 19; Josue xxiv. 32.
6. Erat autem ibi fons Iacob, Iesus ergo fatigatus ex itinere, sedebat sic supra fontem. Hora erat quasi sexta.
6. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour.
6. Jacob's well, which he had dug or bought, was there; and Jesus, weary because of His [pg 076] journey, sat thus (sic., “hoc est, fatigatus ut erat,” Beel.) by the well.
7. Venit mulier de Samaria haurire aquam. Dicit ei Iesus: Da mihi bibere.
7. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith to her: Give me to drink.
7. There cometh a woman of Samaria, not of the city of Samaria, for that was six miles distant, but of the country of Samaria, a Samaritan woman, to draw water.40
8. (Discipuli enim eius abierant in civitatem ut cibos emerent.)
8. For his disciples were gone into the city to buy meats.
8. Because He had no one else to give Him to drink, He asks her to do so, and thus leads up naturally to the following discourse.
9. Dicit ergo ei mulier illa Samaritana: Quomodo tu Iudaeus cum sis, bibere a me poscis, quae sum mulier Samaritana? non enim coutuntur Iudaei Samaritanis.
9. Then that Samaritan woman saith to him: How dost thou, being a Jew, ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans.
9. The Samaritans, with whom, as here stated, the Jews avoided all intercourse, were either pure Assyrians or a mixture of Jews and Assyrians, at best a mongrel race. Very probably some Jews were left behind in Samaria at the time of the Assyrian captivity, under Salmanassar, 721 b.c.; and from these intermarrying with the imported Easterns sprang the Samaritans. The Jews regarded the Samaritans with special aversion for many reasons. They were the descendants of the Assyrian conquerors; they held what was the rightful inheritance of the Jews; they corrupted Jewish worship; they endeavoured to prevent the rebuilding of the Temple under Zorobabel (1 Esd. iv. 2, 7, 8), and were always prepared to harbour the false friends or open enemies of the Jews. Hence this woman, recognising in Christ's dress and accent His Jewish origin, wonders that He would speak [pg 077] to, much less drink from, a Samaritan. The last clause: For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans, is added by the Evangelist as an explanation of the woman's question for Gentile readers.
10. Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Si scires donum Dei, et quis est qui dicit tibi, Da mihi bibere; tu forsitan petisses ab eo, et dedisset tibi aquam vivam.
10. Jesus answered and said to her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
10. The gift of God is not the Holy Ghost, nor Christ Himself, nor the opportunity now offered her, but most probably the gift of grace, the “living water” spoken of in the end of the verse. Hence Christ's words mean: If you knew that there is a spiritual water which slakes the thirst of man in the desert of this world, and that He who can bestow it speaks to you, thou perhaps wouldst have asked, &c. Perhaps (forsitan) is not represented in the Greek, in which we have an ordinary conditional sentence; and certainly Christ knew without doubt what would have been the result. The Vulgate translator, probably added “forsitan” to indicate that she would still be free to reject the grace offered.
Living water. There is the same diversity of opinion here as in regard to the “gift of God,” with the addition that some have held the reference here to be to the waters of baptism. We take it that the reference again is to grace. Living water properly signifies running water, in opposition to the stagnant water of pools or cisterns. Here, however the words seem to be used in their highest sense, of waters which come from God and bestow life upon all who drink of them.
11. Dicit ei mulier: Domine, neque in quo haurias habes, et puteus altus est: unde ergo habes aquam vivam?
11. The woman saith to him: Sir, thou hast nothing wherein to draw, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou living water?
12. Numquid tu maior es patre nostro Iacob, qui dedit nobis puteum, et ipse ex eo bibit, et filii eius, et pecora eius?
12. Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
11, 12. She understands Him to speak of natural water, which He seemed to think superior to that of Jacob's well; and, concluding that He must refer to the water of some other [pg 078] well, since indeed He had no bucket, no means of drawing from the deep well at which she stood, she asks Him: Art Thou greater than our father Jacob, so as to be able to provide a better water than he provided for us in this well? That its waters were good enough for him and his sons, is a proof of their excellence; that they sufficed for all his household and cattle, is evidence of their abundance. There is a tinge of resentment in the words of verse 12, for the Samaritans claimed descent from Jacob (our father, Jacob), through Joseph and Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasses, whose tribal territory they possessed, and this Jewish Stranger seemed to the woman to set Himself above the great Patriarch of her race.
13. Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Omnis qui bibit ex aqua hac, sitiet iterum: qui autem biberit ex aqua quam ego dabo ei, non sitiet in aeternum:
13. Jesus answered, and said to her: Whosoever drinketh of this water, shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever.
13. Without replying explicitly that He was indeed greater than Jacob, Christ implies this by declaring that the water which He will give is superior to that of Jacob's well. For while the latter only satisfies present wants, that which He will give will quench present and prevent future thirst. What is said in Eccl. xxiv. 29: “They that drink Me shall yet thirst,” is not opposed to our Lord's words here; for in Ecclesiasticus there is question of desire springing from love, here of a craving arising from want. These words of our Lord show, then, that sanctifying grace is of its own nature perennial in the soul. Time does not wear it away; use does not consume it; unless it be expelled, it never departs: “He that drinks ... shall not thirst for ever.”
14. Sed aqua, quam ego dabo ei, fiet in eo fons aquae salientis in vitam aeternam.
14. But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into life everlasting.
14. But so far from thirsting, he shall have that within him, that is, the Holy Ghost and His graces, which will conduct him to eternal life. In this beautiful metaphor, the spiritual water of grace is represented as finding its own level; coming from heaven, it will return thither in those [pg 079] whom it has saved. The mention of eternal life ought to have made it clear that Christ spoke of supernatural and spiritual water.
15. Dicit ad eum mulier: Domine, da mihi hanc aquam, ut non sitiam, neque veniam huc haurire.
15. The woman saith to him: Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw.
15. Yet she probably still understands of Him merely natural water, “Adhuc carnalis est mulier” (Mald.): and anticipates only relief from having come to Jacob's well in future.
16. Dicit ei Iesus: Vade, voca virum tuum, et veni huc.
16. Jesus saith to her: Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
16. Christ, of course, knew she had no husband; but He knew also what answer she would give, and He wished to get a natural opportunity of disclosing to her the secrets of her wicked life, that He might manifest His supernatural knowledge.
17. Respondit mulier, et dixit: Non habeo virum. Dicit ei Iesus: Bene dixisti, quia non habeo virum:
17. The woman answered, and said: I have no husband. Jesus said to her: Thou hast said well, I have no husband:
18. Quinque enim viros habuisti: et nunc quem habes, non est tuus vir: hoc vere dixisti.
18. For thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband. This thou hast said truly.
17, 18. Thou hast well said, I have no husband, or rather, husband I have not, with an emphasis on husband, which is marked in the Greek by its position in the sentence, as reproduced by Christ.
Thou hast had five husbands. Though St. Chrys. and Mald. think that there is question, not of husbands, but of paramours, the common opinion, and certainly the obvious one, is that husbands are spoken of. It is not necessary to suppose that the husbands made room for one another by death, for she may have been divorced by several of them. See Deut. xxiv. 1, 2; Matt. xix. 3.
19. Dicit ei mulier: Domine, video quia propheta es tu.
19. The woman saith to him: Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
19. A prophet; i.e., here, as elsewhere frequently, one [pg 080] who has supernatural knowledge, who knows things which are naturally hidden from him. In these words the poor woman confesses her own guilt and the exalted character of Christ, whom, however, she does not yet recognise as “The Prophet,” the Messias, but only as a prophet.
20. Patres nostri in monte hoc adoraverunt, et vos dicitis, quia Ierosolymis est locus ubi adorare oportet.
20. Our fathers adored on this mountain, and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore.
20. Not so much for the purpose of turning the conversation from the unpleasant subject of her own character,41 as in order to have the opinion of a prophet upon an important question, she adds: Our fathers, &c.
She says that her Samaritan ancestors had worshipped on that mountain. She evidently refers to public worship, public ceremonies appointed by God, especially the worship of sacrifice; for the Jews never held that private worship, as of prayer, should be restricted to Jerusalem. The mountain to which she refers, and beneath the shadow of which Christ and she were standing, is Mount Garizim, which overhangs the town of Sichar. In the time of Alexander the Great, Manasses, a Jewish priest, was excluded from the exercise of his ministry for marrying the daughter of the king of Sichem. The king accordingly built for Manasses a temple on Mount Garizim, where he offered sacrifice to the true God. This temple was built about 330 b.c., and stood for two hundred years. After it was destroyed, about 130 b.c., the Samaritans erected an altar upon Garizim, and continued to offer sacrifice there; so that from the time of Manasses the true God was worshipped, though imperfectly, among them. There still remain a few families of Samaritans, under the shadow of Mount Garizim, in the modern city of Nabulus, or Naplouse.
21. Dicit ei Iesus: Mulier crede mihi, quia venit hora quando neque in monte hoc, neque Ierosolymis adorabitis Patrem.
21. Jesus saith to her: Woman, believe me, that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem adore the Father.
21. Christ declares with all solemnity that the time is at hand—nay, already come (see [pg 081] verse 23), when true worship shall be restricted neither to Jerusalem nor to Garizim; and hence her question is practically unimportant.
22. Vos adoratis quod nescitis: nos adoramus quod scimus, quia salus ex Iudaeis est.
22. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know; for salvation is of the Jews.
22. You adore that which (?) you know not. As the woman's inquiry regarded not the object, but the place of worship, some have understood these words of our Lord in reference to the place, as if He said: You adore in a place for worshipping in which you have no Divine sanction, we in a place pointed out by the finger of God. But it is difficult to reconcile this view with our Lord's words: “You adore that which you know not.” Hence it is more probable, that in replying to her inquiry, He takes occasion to refer to the imperfect knowledge of God, possessed by Samaritans. The neuter (?) seems to be used in the first instance, to show the want of personality and definiteness in the Samaritan idea of God,42 and in the second instance merely for the sake of correspondence between the two members of the sentence. We adore. That Christ numbers Himself among those who adore, merely proves that He had a human nature.
23. Sed venit hora, et nunc est, quando veri adoratores adorabunt Patrem in spiritu et veritate. Nam et Pater tales quaerit, qui adorent eum.
23. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him.
23. Still, though this is so, not even to Jerusalem, shall worship be restricted in the future; but the hour cometh, &c.
What is the adoration in spirit and in truth, here foretold? Evidently the worship of the new dispensation, as contrasted with that of the old; this is plain from the whole context. What, then, is meant by saying that the worship of the new dispensation is to be in spirit and in truth? Various interpretations [pg 082] of the words have been given.
(1) “In spirit” is opposed to the worship of the Jews; “in truth” to that of the Samaritans. Hence the worship of the new dispensation is to be, not merely external, as was the Jewish (unless it was accompanied by faith in the Redeemer to come, in which case it was not merely Jewish, but Christian), nor false, as was the Samaritan. (Toletus.)
(2) “In spirit” is opposed to all merely external and local worship, whether of Jews or Samaritans; “in truth” to the typical and imperfect worship of the Jews. For the Jewish sacrifices and ceremonies were only shadows and types of the realities in the New Law. “For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image (reality) of the things: by the selfsame sacrifices which they offer continually every year, can never make the comers thereunto perfect” (Heb. x. 1), Mald., who favours next opinion also.
(3) “In spirit” and “in truth” are synonymous, and signify true supernatural worship, springing from faith and grace, and hence opposed to all imperfect or false worship. This opinion, considered equally probable with the preceding by Maldonatus, and held by Beelen and Corluy, we prefer; for in verse 24, the fact that God is a Spirit (it is not stated that He is also Truth) is given as the reason why He should be worshipped in both spirit and truth.
The distinguishing features of true Christian worship, indicated in verses 21, 23, are that it is to be universal, not restricted, like the Jewish or Samaritan, to Jerusalem or Garizim; and spiritual, offered with hearts animated by faith and grace, and not consisting merely in external rites.
24. Spiritus est Deus: et eos, qui adorant eum, in spiritu et veritate oportet adorare.
24. God is a Spirit, and they that adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.
24. In the end of verse 23 and in this verse Christ goes on to give the reasons why this worship, which is primarily spiritual, is to exist in the new and more perfect dispensation—(1). It is the Father's will. (2) It is meet that such should be the worship paid to Him who is Himself a Spirit. It is hardly necessary to point out that Calvin's interpretation of adoration by faith alone cannot be admitted. Were that sufficient, the devils themselves would be true adorers, for “the devils also believe and tremble” (James ii. 19). Neither does Christ here imply that all external worship, external rites and ceremonies, were to cease, but only that they were to cease to be merely external; else (1) His acts would contradict His words, Luke xxii. 41; xxiv. 50; (2) His Apostles would distinctly [pg 083] disobey Him: see Acts xvi. 25; ix. 40: Eph. iii. 14; (3) His Church in every age has misunderstood Him.
25. Dicit ei mulier: Scio quia Messias venit (qui dicitur Christus): cum ergo venerit ille, nobis annuntiabit omnia.
25. The woman saith to him: I know that the Messias cometh (who is called Christ), therefore when he is come, he will tell us all things.
25. The poor woman, apparently bewildered by what Christ had just said, is satisfied to wait in confidence till Messias (here without the article, used as a proper name) shall come, who, she believes, will make known all that it is necessary to know regarding the place and character of the worship of the true God. As the Samaritans admitted only the Pentateuch, where the term Messias is not used (though His coming is foretold, Deut. xviii. 18); as, moreover, she could not have gathered from the Pentateuch the time of His coming, she must have learned by rumour that the Jews were at this time expecting the Messias; her words, “He will tell us all things,” showed that she hoped for His coming in her own day.
It is difficult to say whether the words explanatory of Messias, who is called Christ, are the woman's or our Evangelist's. That the Evangelist explained the term before (i. 41), is not a proof that he does not do so again, for see John xi. 16; xx. 24; xxi. 2.
26. Dicit ei Iesus: Ego sum, qui loquor tecum.
26. Jesus saith to her: I am he who am speaking with thee.
27. Et continuo venerunt discipuli eius: et mirabantur, quia cum muliere loquebatur. Nemo tamen dixit: Quid quaeris, aut quid loqueris cum ea?
27. And immediately his disciples came: and they wondered that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said: What seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her?
26, 27. At length Christ reveals Himself; and now that He has excited her interest and awakened her faith, the disciples return from Sichar, and are astonished to find Him speaking publicly with a woman—a thing not usually done by Jewish doctors.
28. Reliquit ergo hydriam suam mulier, et abiit in civitatem, et dicit illis hominibus:
28. The woman therefore left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men there:
29. Venite, et videte hominem qui dixit mihi omnia quaecumque feci: numquid ipse est Christus?
29. Come, and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not he the Christ?
30. Exierunt ergo de civitate, et veniebant ad eum.
30. They went therefore out of the city, and came unto him.
28-30. The discourse being interrupted by the arrival of the disciples, the woman, forgetful or indifferent regarding the errand [pg 084] which had brought her to the well, went her way into the city, and soon returned with a number of her fellow-citizens.
31. Interea rogabant eum discipuli, dicentes: Rabbi, manduca.
31. In the meantime the disciples prayed him, saying: Rabbi, eat.
32. Ille autem dicit eis: Ego cibum habeo manducare, quem vos nescitis.
32. But he said to them: I have meat to eat which you know not.
33. Dicebant ergo discipuli ad invicem: Numquid aliquis attulit ei manducare?
33. The disciples therefore said one to another: Hath any man brought him to eat?
34. Dicit eis Iesus: Meus cibus est ut faciam voluntatem eius qui misit me, ut perficiam opus eius.
34. Jesus saith to them: My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work.
31-34. Meanwhile the disciples invite Jesus to eat, to whom He replies that He has meat to eat which they know not, that meat being, as He explains in verse 34, to do the will of Him that sent Him. It was no time for attending to the wants of His human nature; He had more serious work in hand in the conversion of the Samaritans.
35. Nonne vos dicitis quod adhuc quatuor menses sunt, et messis venit? Ecce dico vobis: Levate oculos vestros, et videte regiones, quia albae sunt iam ad messem.
35. Do not you say, there are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh? Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the countries, for they are white already to harvest.
35. There are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh. Maldonatus, followed by Father Coleridge, takes this to be a proverb43 meaning that there is no need of hurry—that the matter in question is still far off. As, however, there is [pg 085] no evidence that such a proverb was current among the Jews, it is much better to understand the verse thus: You say what is true, that it is still four months till the harvest of nature; but lift up your eyes, and behold the harvest of grace in the men of Sichar who are approaching.
As the barley harvest in Palestine came in about the middle of April, this time, four months earlier, was the middle of December, the end of the first year of our Lord's public life.44
36. Et qui metit, mercedem accipit, et congregat fructum in vitam aeternam: ut, et qui seminat, simul gaudeat, et qui metit.
36. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting: that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together.
36. He encourages His disciples to the work; in saving others they save themselves.
37. In hoc enim est verbum verum: quia alius est qui seminat, et alius est qui metit.
37. For in this is the saying true: that it is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth.
38. Ego misi vos metere quod vos non laborastis: alii laboraverunt, et vos in labores: eorum introistis.
38. I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labour: others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours.
37-38. The Prophets and Doctors of the old Law had prepared the way for the Apostles and disciples of Christ; had ploughed and sown where they were now to reap. I have sent you. Mald., who holds that this is not the same journey with that referred to in Matt. iv. 12, Mark i. 14, and that the Apostles were already formally called by Christ, understands “I have sent” of an action already completed by Christ. As, however, it is more probable that the Apostles were not yet formally called (see Matt. iv. 12, 18; x. 1), it is better to understand this, with A Lap., of the Divine decree to send the Apostles on their mission afterwards.
39. Ex civitate autem illa multi crediderunt in eum Samaritanorum, propter verbum mulieris testimonium perhibentis: Quia dixit mihi omnia quaecumque feci.
39. Now of that city many of the Samaritans believed in him, for the word of the woman giving testimony: He told me all things whatsoever I have done.
40. Cum venissent ergo ad illum Samaritani, rogaverunt eum ut ibi maneret. Et mansit ibi duos dies.
40. So when the Samaritans were come to him, they desired him that he would tarry there. And he abode there two days.
41. Et multo plures crediderunt in eum propter sermonem eius.
41. And many more believed in him because of his own word.
39-41. Many believed in Him [pg 086] on account of what the woman told them, and, after He had remained two days in Sichar, many more on account of His discourses.
42. Et mulieri dicebant: Quia iam non propter tuam loquelam credimus: ipsi enim audivimus, et scimus, quia hic est vere Salvator mundi.
42. And they said to the woman: we now believe, not for thy saying: for we ourselves have heard him, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.
42. This is the Hebrew way of expressing that it was not so much on account of the woman's saying, as because they had heard Him themselves.
43. Post duos autem dies exiit inde: et abiit in Galilaeam.
43. Now after two days he departed thence: and went into Galilee.
44. Ipse enim Iesus testimonium perhibuit, quia propheta in sua patria honorem non habet.
44. For Jesus himself gave testimony that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.
43-44. The connection between these two verses is obscure. (1) Verse 44 gives the reason why He had left Galilee, to which He now returns; or (2) the reason why He passes Nazareth, and goes on to Capharnaum (Matt. iv. 13), Tolet, A Lap., Corl.; or (3) the reason why He proceeded on His way from Judea, His birthplace, into Galilee, Mald., Patriz.
45. Cum ergo venisset in Galilaeam, exceperunt eum Galilaei, cum omnia vidissent quae fecerat Ierosolymis in die festo: et ipsi enim venerant ad diem festum.
45. And when he was come into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things he had done at Jerusalem on the festival day: for they also went to the festival day.
45. He is well received by the Galileans, because the remembrance of His exercise of authority and of His miracles, on the occasion of the previous Pasch (ii. 15, 23), is still fresh in their memories.
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46. Venit ergo iterum in Cana Galilaeae ubi fecit aquam vinum. Et erat quidam regulus, cuius filius infirmabatur Capharnaum.
46. He came again therefore into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain ruler whose son was sick at Capharnaum.
47. Hic cum audisset quia Iesus adveniret a Iudaea in Galilaeam, abiit ad eum, et rogabat eum ut descenderet, et sanaret filium eius: incipiebat enim mori.
47. He having heard that Jesus was come from Judea into Galilee, went to him, and prayed him to come down and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.
46. A certain ruler whose son was sick at Capharnaum, on hearing that Jesus was in Cana, came and asked Him to come down and heal his son, who was on the point of death. Origen thinks this ruler may have belonged to the household of CÆsar, and been on duty in Palestine at this time. But Josephus uses the word (as??????) to designate the courtiers or officers of the Herods (see B. J. vii. 5, 2; Antt. xv. 8, 4); so that this ruler of Capharnaum may have been an officer of Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee. Doubtless the ruler had heard of the miracle at the marriage feast in Cana (ii. 7, 11); and perhaps he had witnessed the evidence of Christ's miraculous power at the feast of the Pasch (ii. 23).
48. Dixit ergo Iesus ad eum: Nisi signa et prodigia videritis, non creditis.
48. Jesus therefore said to him: Unless you see signs and wonders, you believe not.
49. Dicit ad eum regulus: Domine, descende prius quam moriatur filius meus.
49. The ruler saith to him: Lord, come down before that my son die.
48. Christ upbraids the ruler for his imperfect faith. The ruler is blamed either because he was waiting to see a miracle before he would believe, or because he foolishly considered that it was necessary for Christ to go down to Capharnaum in order to heal his son.
[pg 088]
50. Dicit ei Iesus: Vade, filius tuus vivit. Credidit homo sermoni quem dixit ei Iesus, et ibat.
50. Jesus saith to him: Go thy way, thy son liveth. The man believed the word which Jesus said to him, and went his way.
51. Iam autem eo descendente, servi occurrerunt ei, et nuntiaverunt dicentes, quia filius eius viveret.
51. And as he was going down, his servants met him: and they brought word, saying that his son lived.
50. Jesus said to him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. It is plain, from all the circumstances, that this miracle is quite distinct from that recorded in Matt. viii. 5 and foll.; Luke vii. 2 and foll., though some of the Rationalists have sought to identify the two. There it is the centurion's servant, here the ruler's son, who is ill; there the illness is paralysis, here fever; there, though asked not to go, Christ goes to the sick person; here, though asked to go, he goes not.
52. Interrogabat ergo horam ab eis in qua melius habuerit. Et dixerunt ei: Quia heri hora septima reliquit eum febris.
52. He asked therefore of them the hour, wherein he grew better. And they said to him: Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.
52. The seventh hour;i.e., about an hour after noon, 1 p.m., or 7 p.m. See i. 39.
53. Cognovit ergo pater, quia illa hora erat, in qua dixit ei Iesus: Filius tuus vivit: et credidit ipse, et domus eius tota.
53. The father therefore knew that it was at the same hour, that Jesus said to him, Thy son liveth; and himself believed and his whole house.
54. Hoc iterum secundum signum fecit Iesus, cum venisset a Iudaea in Galilaeam.
54. This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee.
54. It is not said that this was the second miracle He performed, but that it was the second He performed on coming out of Judea into Galilee. For the first, see ii. 6, 11, and compare i. 43.
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1-9.Jesus goes up to Jerusalem on the occasion of a festival, and there cures a man on the Sabbath day.
10-16.The Jews first challenge him who was healed, and then persecute Christ for violating the Sabbath.
17.Christ's answer and defence.
18.They are still more exasperated, and seek to kill Him.
19-39.Christ's discourse, in which He proves, by various arguments, that He is justified in calling God HIS Father, and in making Himself equal to God.
40-47.He upbraids their incredulity, and points out its cause.
1. Post haec erat dies festus Iudaeorum, et ascendit Iesus Ierosolymam.
1. After these things was a festival day of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
1. The interval to be admitted between the events now about to be narrated and the preceding, depends upon the answer to be given to the question: what festival is here referred to? On this question a great diversity of opinion has always existed among commentators. The more common opinion is that it is the festival of the Pasch; others, however, hold that it is the festival of Pentecost, or of Tabernacles, or of the Purification of the Temple, or of Lots.
The Pasch was celebrated from the evening of the 14th till that of the 21st of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish sacred year. Pentecost was the fiftieth day from the second day of the Pasch. The feast of Tabernacles was celebrated from the evening of the 14th till that of the 22nd of Tisri, the seventh month of the sacred year. The feast of Purification lasted eight days, beginning with the 25th Casleu, the ninth month of the sacred year. The feast of Lots lasted two days, the 14th and 15th of Adar, the twelfth month of the sacred year.
The three feasts of Pasch, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were the great Jewish feasts, on which, and on which alone, all adult males were bound to [pg 090] go up to Jerusalem to worship. See Exod. xxiii. 14-17; xxxiv. 18, 22, 23. Many have held that the approach of the feast is mentioned (verse 1), as giving the reason why Christ went up, like the other adult Jewish men, to Jerusalem (ii. 13). Others, however, hold that the text merely states a fact, that Christ went up on the occasion of a festival, without implying at all that the festival was such as ought to be celebrated at Jerusalem.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to definitely decide which feast is meant; but it seems to us extremely probable that it is either Pasch or Lots. In favour of the Pasch it is argued—(1) (???t?) even without the article45may designate the Pasch (Matt. xxvii. 15; Mark xv. 6); and it is to be believed that it does in the present instance, because ten verses before (iv. 45) the same word is used to designate the Pasch (compare John ii. 13, 23). (2) From iv. 35 we learn that Jesus was on His way, through Samaria, to Galilee, in December; that is, about the close of the first year of His public life. Hence it cannot be to any of the three great feasts of that first year that our text refers. Naturally, then, it is to the Pasch of the second year, which was the first great feast to occur in the course of the year, and for which, if Christ had not gone to Jerusalem, St. John would probably have explained His absence, as He does (vii. 1) in reference to the Pasch mentioned vi. 4. (3) Were it any other feast than that of the Pasch, which was by excellence the feast of the Jews, St. John, according to his custom (vii. 2; x. 22), would have named it. (4) This is the opinion of St. IrenÆus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, himself a disciple of our Evangelist.
In favour of the feast of Lots—(1) The absence of the article in the more probable reading points to one of the minor feasts of the Jews. (2) From John iv. 35, and vi. 4, it would seem to be clear that this feast fell between December and the Pasch; but only the feast of Lots occurred at that time. (3) If this be the second Pasch of our Lord's public life, and that in vi. 4 the third, then the events of a whole year are passed over by our Evangelist, who proceeds, [pg 091] in vi. 1: “After these things Jesus went,” &c., affording no hint that he has passed over the events of a year. (4). Were this the Pasch, St. John would have named it, as he does on the other three occasions (ii. 13; vi. 4; xi. 55). But as it was only a minor feast of the Jews, and probably unheard-of by the Christians of Asia Minor, the Evangelist thinks it unnecessary to name it, and contents himself with referring to it as a feast of the Jews.
It is perhaps impossible, as we have said already, to decide with certainty which feast is meant, but we shall follow the more common opinion and hold that there is question of the Pasch. Thus, we hold that St. John mentions four Paschs as having occurred during our Lord's public life: the first in ii. 13; the second here; the third in vi. 4; and the fourth and last in xii. 1 and xiii. 1, when our Lord was put to death. He passes over the events that occurred between the second and third Pasch, because they were already narrated by the Synoptic Evangelists.
2. Est autem Ierosolymis probatica piscina, quae cognominatur hebraice Bethsaida, quinque porticus habens.
2. Now there is at Jerusalem a pond, called Probatica, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches.
2. The best supported Greek reading would be rendered, “Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep-gate (p??? being understood) a pond which is called in Hebrew Bethesda,” &c.
Bethesda, in Syro-Chaldaic, which was the language of Palestine at this time, means the house (place) of mercy; and the name was given in the present instance on account of the merciful cures wrought there. For the building of this sheep-gate by the priests, see 2 Esd. iii. 1. The site of either gate or pond cannot be determined with certainty; but the pond seems to have been close to the Temple, near the gate through which the sheep to be sacrificed entered within the outer enclosure of the temple. The porches, which served to shelter the sick from sun and rain, were open on the sides, but covered with a roof supported on pillars.
The Vulgate reading, a sheep-pond, has been variously explained. Some say the pond might be so called because the sheep were washed there before they were sacrificed; others, because their entrails were brought there to be washed. Bethsaida, read by the Vulgate, means the house (place) for fishing.
3. In his iacebat multitudo magna languentium, caecorum, claudorum, aridorum, expectantium aquae motum.
3. In these lay a great multitude of sick, of blind, of lame, of withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
4. Angelus autem Domini descendebat secundum tempus in piscinam: et movebatur aqua. Et qui prior descendisset in piscinam post motionem aquae, sanus fiebat a quacumque detinebatur infirmitate.
4. And an Angel of the Lord descended at certain times into the pond; and the water was moved. And he that went down first into the pond after the motion of the water, was made whole of whatsoever infirmity he lay under.
3, 4. The genuineness of the passage, beginning with waiting for the moving of the water, and comprising [pg 092] the whole of verse 4, is disputed. The Council of Trent, indeed, defined “libros singulos cum omnibus suis partibus ... prout in vulgata Latina Editione habentur ... pro sacris et canonicis esse suscipiendos:” but it is not thereby defined that every tittle (particula) or every verse, is canonical Scripture. It would seem, therefore, that Catholics are free to reject this passage, and it is a question for criticism to decide whether we are to receive or reject it.
After an examination of the evidence for and against, we believe that the passage is more probably genuine. It stands in codex A (Alexandrinus), and in at least ten other uncial and very many cursive MSS. It is read in the “Vetus Itala” and in the Vulgate; in the plain and figured Syriac versions, and in the Persian, Coptic, and Arabian versions. It is read by Cyril of Alexandria, Chrys., Theophy., Euthy., Tertull., Ambr., and August. Finally, the context, especially the reply of the sick man (verse 7), supposes it. Why it came to be wanting in so many MSS. it is difficult to explain.46
That the wonderful efficacy here attributed to the water of this pond was miraculous, and not merely, as the Rationalists would have us believe, the effect of salubrious natural properties in the water, seems clear. For—(1) there is the intervention of an angel which disturbed (?t??asse) the water; (2) only the first person entering the pond was cured; (3) he was cured not gradually, but at once, and completely: “he was immediately made whole;” (4) he was cured no matter what his disease. When the Rationalists find for us an intermittent spring whose waters possess the properties here attributed to Bethesda, [pg 093] we shall be prepared to listen to them.
The waters of Bethesda, in their wonderful efficacy to cure every disease, were a striking though imperfect type of the waters of Penance, which heal every spiritual malady of everyone, be he first or last who bathes in them.
5. Erat autem quidam homo ibi triginta et octo annos habens in infirmitate sua.
5. And there was a certain man there, that had been eight and thirty years under his infirmity.
6. Hunc cum vidisset Iesus iacentem, et cognovisset quia iam multum tempus haberet, dicit ei: Vis sanus fieri?
6. Him when Jesus had seen lying, and knew that he had been now a long time, he saith to him: Wilt thou be made whole?
7. Respondit ei languidus: Domini, hominem non habeo, ut, cum turbata fuerit aqua, mittat me in piscinam: dum venio enim ego, alius ante me descendit.
7. The infirm man answered him: Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pond. For whilst I am coming, another goeth down before me.
8. Dicit ei Iesus: Surge, tolle grabatum tuum, et ambula.
8. Jesus saith to him: Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.
9. Et statim sanus factus est homo ille: et sustulit grabatum suum, et ambulabat. Erat autem sabbatum in die illo.
9. And immediately the man was made whole: and he took up his bed and walked. And it was the sabbath that day.
5-9. Christ speaks with and heals a man who had been thirty-eight years ill (of paralysis or some similar disease, as would appear from verses 7-8); and, to show how complete the cure was, perhaps also to give an occasion for the discourse which follows, He orders the man who has been cured to take up his bed and walk. It would be a rather severe trial of recovered strength to have to carry some of the beds of modern times; but that on which the poor paralytic had been resting was not cumbrous. It was probably only a carpet or mattress, or at most there was but a very light framework. In Acts v. 15, we find the term used in our text distinguished from ?????, which was rather the bed of the rich, more expensive and cumbrous.
[pg 094]
10. Dicebant ergo Iudaei illi qui sanatus fuerat: Sabbatum est, non licet tibi tollere grabatum tuum.
10. The Jews therefore said to him that was healed: It is the sabbath, it is not lawful for thee to take up thy bed.
10. It is not lawful. See Exod. xx. 8; Jer. xvii. 21, 22.
11. Respondit eis: Qui me sanum fecit, ille mihi dixit: Tolle grabatum tuum, et ambula.
11. He answered them: He that made me whole, he said to me: Take up my bed, and walk.
11. The man appeals to the authority of Him who had cured him, who surely must be from God, and able to dispense in the Sabbath law.
12. Interrogaverunt ergo eum: Quis est ille homo qui dixit tibi, Tolle grabatum tuum, et ambula?
12. They asked him, therefore: Who is that man who said to thee: Take up thy bed and walk?
13. Is autem qui sanus fuerat effectus, nesciebat quis esset. Iesus enim declinavit a turba constituta in loco.
13. But he who was healed, knew not who it was. For Jesus went aside from the multitude standing in the place.
13. Christ had gone aside to escape the envy of the evil-minded as well as the admiration of the well-disposed. See vi. 15. A more correct rendering of the Greek would be: For Jesus had gone aside, there being a crowd in the place.
14. Postea invenit eum Iesus in templo, et dixit illi: Ecce sanus factus es: iam noli peccare, ne deterius tibi aliquid contingat.
14. Afterwards Jesus findeth him in the temple, and saith to him: Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing happen to thee.
15. Abiit ille homo, et nuntiavit Iudaeis quia Iesus esset, quia fecit eum sanum.
15. And the man went his way, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him whole.
14. Christ's words, Sin no more, insinuate that the man's previous illness had been the result of sin; and he is warned that if he provoke God further, something worse may happen to him; worse, perhaps, even on this side, and infinitely worse beyond, the grave. “Some say, indeed,” says St. Chrys., “because we have corrupted ourselves for a short time, shall we be tormented eternally? But see how long this man was tormented for his sins. Sin is [pg 095] not to be measured by length of time, but by the nature of sin itself.”
16. Propterea persequebantur Iudaei Iesum, quia haec faciebat in sabbato.
16. Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath.
16. Therefore the Jews, especially the Scribes and Pharisees, persecuted, or rather, perhaps, accused47 Jesus for healing a man on the Sabbath (comp. vii. 23; Luke vi. 7), and for authorizing him who was healed to violate the Sabbath.
17. Iesus autem respondit eis: Pater meus usque modo operatur, et ego operor.
17. But Jesus answered them: My Father worketh until now; and I work.
17. Christ's reply is, that as His (not our, for He was the natural Son of God, we are only adopted sons) Father worketh continually, and therefore even on the Sabbath, conserving and governing all things; so, too, He Himself, He being consubstantial with the Father. Thus He tells them that equally with the Father He is exempt from the law of the Sabbath.
18. Propterea ergo magis quaerebant eum Iudaei interficere, quia non solum solvebat sabbatum, sed et patrem suum dicebat Deum, aequalem se faciens Deo. Respondit itaque Iesus, et dixit eis:
18. Hereupon therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God.
18. They understand Him, so far at least as to see that He makes Himself equal to God; and as they now consider Him to be not merely a Sabbath-breaker, but also a blasphemer, they become more exasperated, and seek to kill Him. See Deut. xiii. 5.
19. Amen, amen dico vobis: non potest Filius a se facere quidquam, nisi quod viderit Patrem facientem: quaecumque enim ille fecerit, haec et Filius similter facit.
19. Then Jesus answered and said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: the Son cannot do anything of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doth, these the Son also doth in like manner.
19. The remainder of the chapter is taken up with Christ's discourse, in which He asserts His Divinity, and proves it by various arguments. (1) By His own testimony (19-30), which the Jews might be excused for rejecting, were it alone and unsupported (31); (2) by the testimony of the Baptist (32-35); (3) by the testimony of His miracles (36); (4) by the testimony of His Father which is contained in the Sacred Scriptures (37-39).
The Jews had understood [pg 096] Him to make Himself equal to God, and He goes on not to withdraw, but to reiterate and expand what He had said. He declares His operation as God to be identical with that of the Father; in a word, His works to be the works of God. He had received, in His eternal generation, His Divine nature and operation identical with the Father's, and as God He does nothing except what the Father does, and the Father does nothing except what He does. This inability to work of Himself, that is to say, alone, without the Father (a seipso), proceeds not from any defect of power, but from His inseparable union with the Father in nature and operation. The Son's “seeing,” and the Father's “showing” (v. 20), are both metaphorical expressions, and signify that the Son derives His divine nature and operation from the Father.48 The Arians appealed to this verse to prove the inferiority of the Son to the Father, because, they said, Christ here declares Himself merely an imitator of the works of the Father, just as a pupil or apprentice imitates his master. But Christ's words, “I and the Father are one” (x. 30), show that there can be no question here of inferiority; and, moreover, since all things were made by the Son (i. 3), it was impossible for Him to copy from anything made beforehand.
But what he seeth (??pe?) the Father doing. “But what,” that is, not by Himself, but together with the Father, “nisi” of the Vulgate being here equal to “sed.” See Matt. xii. 4; Gal. ii. 16.
For what things soever He doth, these the Son also doth in like manner. St. Thomas on this verse says:—“Excludit in his tria circa potestatem suam: scilicet particularitatem (quaecumque), diversitatem (haec), et imperfectionem (similiter).” And St. Augustine on this verse says beautifully: “He does not say whatsoever the Father doeth, the Son does other things like them, but the very same things. The Father made the world, the Son made the world, the Holy Ghost made the world. If the Father, Son [pg 097] and Holy Ghost, are one, it follows that one and the same world was made by the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost. Thus it is the very same thing that the Son doth. He adds likewise, to prevent another error arising. For the body seems to do the same things with the mind, but it does not do them in a like way, inasmuch as the body is subject, the soul governing; the body visible, the soul invisible. When a slave does a thing at the command of his master, the same thing is done by both; but is it in a like way? Now in the Father and Son there is not this difference; they do the same things, and in a like way. Father and Son act with the same power; so that the Son is equal to the Father.” Since then the works of the Son as God are the works of the Father, if they blamed the Son for violating the Sabbath, they thereby blamed the Father also. And it is of the Son as God there is question here; for as man, or as God-man He could do many things “of Himself,” such as eating, walking on the waters, &c., which, of course, the Father never did; and, moreover, it would not be true to say that the Son as man does all that the Father does.
20. Pater enim diligit Filium, et omnia demonstrat ei quae ipse facit: et maiora his demonstrabit ei opera, ut vos miremini.
20. For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things which himself doth: and greater works than these will he show him, that you may wonder.
20. Here is given the reason for the Son's identity of operation with the Father. For the Father loveth the Son, and from all eternity communicateth to Him the one Divine power and operation, whereby He Himself doth all things; and that Divine power shall yet be manifested by the Son in greater works than the healing of the paralytic, that you may wonder.
We are not to conclude from this verse that the love of the Father is the cause of the communication of the Divine nature to the Son, as if the Son proceeded from the Father through love, and therefore through the Will. The common teaching of theologians is that the Son proceeds not through the Divine will, but through the Divine intellect. See Perr. De. Trin., § 401. Hence the meaning is not, that the Father loves the Son, and therefore communicates His Divine nature to Him. Toletus, however, thinks that this form of expression is purposely used here by Christ to show men that the Father shares His nature and power with the Son, since among men, those who love share [pg 098] their goods with each other.49
As already indicated, the future, “will show,” is used in this verse in reference to the manifestation in time of that power which was given from eternity. That you may wonder. Some take “that” (??a) here as introducing a consequence; others, and rightly, in its usual sense as introducing a purpose. The purpose of God was that they might wonder and believe.
21. Sicut enim Pater suscitat mortuos, et vivificat: sic et Filius, quos vult, vivificat.
21. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life: so the Son also giveth life to whom he will.
21. The connection here shows that the raising of the dead is one of the “greater works” just referred to, as is also the judgment by Christ mentioned in the next verse. But who are the dead, and what is the resurrection of which there is question?
(a) Those who were corporally dead like Lazarus, and were raised by Christ, to the wonder of the Jews.50 For—(1) This view suits the context. Christ had cured a paralytic; He now promises greater miracles; hitherto he had only healed bodies that were sick; now He would raise to life bodies that were dead. (2) In verse 28 there is certainly question of a corporal resurrection; therefore also here. (3) This raising of the dead was to excite the wonder of the Jews; therefore there must be question of the raising of the body, since a spiritual resurrection could not be known, and hence could not be a matter of wonder.
(b) Those spiritually dead, who were to be raised through the preaching of Christ and His Apostles from the death of sin to the life of grace. For—(1) It is more probable that there is question of spiritual death and resurrection in verse 24; therefore also in verse 21. (2) The words “And now is” of verse 25 point to a resurrection then present, therefore to a spiritual. (3) This view suits the context. The spiritual resurrection brought about by Christ, though in itself invisible, produced in the world effects more wonderful than the curing of the paralytic, and it is as a proof that Christ can raise those spiritually dead, [pg 099] that He refers in verse 28 to the fact that He will raise those corporally dead.
We prefer the latter view; but whichever view we may hold, we must bear in mind that the sense is not that the Father raises some, and the Son others, from the dead. As God, Christ's will is identical with the Father's, and what one does the other does. Christ then is here said to raise “whom He will” in order to show us His absolute equality with the Father.
22. Neque enim Pater iudicat quemquam: sed omne iudicium dedit Filio.
22. For neither doth the Father judge any man: but hath given all judgment to the Son.
22. Another greater work than the curing of the paralytic is the judging of men. Some think it is the judgment of discussion, the trial which awaits all (Heb. ix. 27), that is referred to; others that (as in verses 24, 29, and iii. 19) it is the judgment of condemnation passed upon the reprobate, the Greek word which is used being generally (if not always) used by St. John of the judgment of condemnation. When it is said here that neither doth the Father judge any man, the meaning is that although the Father and the Holy Ghost pass the same identical judgment as the Son, yet they do not do this visibly, so as to be seen and heard like the God-man Jesus Christ. This is particularly true in regard to the judgment of the wicked; Christ alone, in His humanity, appears to them; for as St. Augustine says: “Si mali Deum in propria natura viderent jam essent beati.” The Father gave all power to judge to Christ as God in the eternal generation, to Christ as man at the incarnation; and it is as God and man that Christ judges: as God authoritatively, and as man visibly.51
23. Ut omnes honorificent Filium, sicut honorificant Patrem; qui non honorificat Filium, non honorificat Patrem qui misit illum.
23. That all men may honour the Son, as they honour the Father. He who honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father who hath sent him.
23. Here is declared the end that God had in view in conferring the supreme judiciary power upon the Son, namely, that men might honour Him equally with the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, [pg 100] honoureth not the Father who sent Him in the Incarnation equal in all things to Himself. In dishonouring Jesus Christ, the Jews were dishonouring that Divine nature and majesty which is one with the Father's, and they were, moreover, spurning the testimony which the Father had already given to the Divinity of His Son, as well after Christ's baptism (Matt. iii. 17), as in the miracles which He had given Christ to perform (verse 36).
24. Amen, amen dico vobis, quia qui verbum meum audit, et credit ei qui misit me, habet vitam aeternam, et in iudicium non venit, sed transiit a morte in vitam.
24. Amen, amen, I say unto you, that he who heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath life everlasting; and cometh not into judgment but is passed from death to life.
24. We believe the connection with the preceding to be this. In speaking of the end God had in view in conferring the supreme judiciary power upon the God-man, our Lord had noted parenthetically the effect of not honouring the Son (verse 23); here He adds what the effect of honouring Him is.
Amen, amen. The repeated asseveration indicates the solemn importance of the declaration about to be made, namely, that he who accepts the teaching of Christ, and thereby the testimony of the Father testifying to Christ as His Son, has eternal life. We take “death” and “life” of this verse of the death of sin and the life of grace, and understand “has passed” in reference to the justification of the sinner. See 1 John iii. 14, and what we have said on i. 13.
25. Amen, amen dico vobis, quia venit hora, et nunc est, quando mortui audient vocem Filii Dei: et qui audierint, vivent.
25. Amen, amen, I say unto you, that the hour cometh and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.
25. Having stated parenthetically the effect of dishonouring and honouring Himself, Christ returns to the proof of His divine power. There is the same difference of opinion here regarding the life and death meant, as in verse 21.
The words, And now is, favour the view that there is question of a spiritual resurrection that had already begun.
And they that hear, shall live. These words, too, suggest that there is question of a spiritual resurrection, a resurrection in which all those that hear and believe are to share.
26. Sicut enim Pater habet vitam in semetipso: sic dedit et Filio habere vitam in semetipso:
26. For as the Father hath life in himself; so he hath given to the Son also to have life in himself:
26. For the Son is essential [pg 101] Life like the Father, and being in Himself the source of life can therefore impart it to others.
27. Et potestatem dedit ei iudicium facere, quia Filius hominis est.
27. And he hath given him power to do judgment, because he is the son of man.
27. The meaning is, that as it was ordained from all eternity, that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity should become man, so it was ordained that He, as God-man should judge all men without exception in the general judgment, and all who die after the incarnation, in the particular judgment.
28. Nolite mirari hoc, quia venit hora in qua omnes qui in monumentis sunt, audient vocem Filii Dei:
28. Wonder not at this, for the hour cometh wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God.
28. This at which they are not to wonder, is His power of raising the dead, i.e., the few whom He raised corporally during His public life, or, as we prefer, the many whom He raised spiritually; and His power of judging.
For the hour cometh wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God. It is admitted by all that the reference in these words is to the general resurrection, and the Jews are told not to be surprised at the spiritual resurrection, inasmuch as the resurrection of all flesh shall come to pass at the word of the same Son of God. The words of this verse imply that the spiritual resurrection excites less wonder than the corporal; and this indeed is true, for though the spiritual resurrection is, in fact, the greater miracle, and in itself more wonderful, yet it is not sensible, and cannot excite our wonder so much as the raising of even one dead body to life.
29. Et procedent qui bona fecerunt, in resurrectionem vitae: qui vero mala egerunt, in resurrectionem iudicii.
29. And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.
29. This verse affords a clear proof that we are not justified by faith alone, but that according to our works we shall be rewarded or condemned.
30. Non possum ego a meipso facere quidquam. Sicut audio, iudico: et iudicium meum iustum est, quia non quaero voluntatem meam, sed voluntatem eius qui misit me.
30. I cannot of myself do anything. As I hear, so I judge: and my judgment is just: because I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
30. What Christ said in verse [pg 102] 19 of every operation of His, He now repeats and applies in particular to this judgment. Since He judges as God-man, the words “As I hear,” probably refer both to His Divine nature, which, like His judgment was identical with that of the Father, and to His human nature, in which, on account of the plenitude of grace within Him, He can think or will nothing contrary to the Father.52
31. Si ego testimonium perhibeo de meipso, testimonium meum non est verum.
31. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.
31. From verse 19 Christ has borne witness to Himself, to His Divine power and equality with the Father, and now He says that if He were alone in bearing such witness of Himself, His witness would not be such as men would be bound to receive. Of course, even though a man were alone and unsupported in testifying regarding himself, still it is plain his witness might be true; but it would not be trustworthy, such as ought to be received, because it might be false, and would be reasonably suspected. No doubt, Christ's testimony of Himself though unsupported would be more than enough to those who believed in His Divinity; but He is here addressing those who had no such belief. Comp. viii. 14-16.
32. Alius est qui testimonium perhibet de me: et scio quia verum est testimonium quod perhibet de me.
32. There is another that beareth witness of me: and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.
32. Christ's witness of Himself is supported by that of the Father (some think, by that of the Baptist), to which He can confidently appeal. But before mentioning how the Father's testimony is given, He turns aside for a moment to appeal to the Baptist's testimony.
33. Vos misistis ad Ioannem: et testimonium perhibuit veritati.
33. You sent to John; and he gave testimony to the truth.
34. Ego autem non ab homine testimonium accipio: sed haec dico ut vos salvi sitis.
34. But I receive not testimony from man: but I say these things that you may be saved.
34. He now tells them that He has invoked the testimony of the Baptist, not that He needs any testimony of [pg 103] men, but in the hope that they, who had regarded the Baptist as a prophet, might perchance accept his testimony to Christ.
35. Ille erat lucerna ardens, et lucens: Vos autem voluistis ad horam exultare in luce eius.
35. He was a burning and a shining light. And you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light.
35. The Greek is: He was the lamp that burneth and shineth. From the use of the word was here, it is fairly concluded that the Baptist had been already put to death by Herod Antipas (Mark vi. 17-28). The Baptist was a bright lamp ?????? of truth, but not the light (t? f?? i. 8, 9), which was Christ Himself.
36. Ego autem habeo testimonium maius Ioanne. Opera enim quae dedit mihi Pater ut perficiam ea, ipsa opera quae ego facio, testimonium perhibent de me, quia Pater misit me:
36. But I have a greater testimony than that of John. For the works which the Father hath given me to perfect: the works themselves, which I do, give testimony of me, that the Father hath sent me.
36. A third testimony is now invoked in the miracles which the Father gave Christ to perform. See x. 37, 38, and what was said above on iii. 2.
37. Et qui misit me Pater, ipse testimonium perhibuit de me: neque vocem eius unquam audistis, neque speciem eius vidistis:
37. And the Father himself who hath sent me, hath given testimony of me: neither have you heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.
38. Et verbum eius non habetis in vobis manens: quia quem misit ille, huic vos non creditis.
38. And you have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him you believe not.
37, 38. Besides the indirect testimony of the Father through Christ's miracles, another testimony of His is now appealed to. Some understand this of the testimony of the Father on the occasion of Christ's baptism, (Matt. iii. 17). So Chrys., A Lap., M'Ev. But if there were reference to that past and definite occasion, the Greek [pg 104] aorist, not the perfect, would be used. Others, as Mald., connect this verse closely with the preceding, and hold the reference is still to the Father's testimony given through Christ's miracles. But the form of words: “And the Father Himself, who hath sent Me, hath given testimony of Me,” seems to add another distinct testimony to those already mentioned. Others, therefore, hold that the reference is to the Father's testimony conveyed through the oracles of the prophets. So St. Cyril, Theoph., Euthy., Kuin., Corl.; and this opinion seems to be the correct one.
About the meaning and connection of the words which follow in this verse and the next, there is a great variety of view.
(1) Some thus: But you have never listened to His voice speaking to you through the Sacred Scriptures, nor recognised Him as speaking in them, nor do you believe in His inspired word; and the reason of this is, because you do not believe in Me whom He has sent. (Patriz.)
(2) Others thus: But though the Father has testified of Me, “neither have you heard His voice ... abiding in you;”i.e., you have been excluded from familiarity with Him, and from belief in His testimony, because you refuse to believe in Me. (Hengstenberg.)
(3) Others take the words to refer to the covenant entered into by God with the Jews (Deut. xviii. 15-19), that He should terrify them no more by His awful presence, as when He gave the law on Sinai (Exod. xx. 19-21), but should speak to them through a prophet. Hence Christ's words signify: The Father has borne testimony of Me, nor has He broken His word to you, that you should hear and see no more the terrifying sounds and sights of Sinai; and yet you refuse to keep your part of the compact (“you have not His word abiding in you”), inasmuch as you refuse to believe in Me, the Prophet whom He promised. (Tolet., Beel.)
(4) Others again thus: The Father has borne unquestionable testimony of Me, though not, I admit, in such a manner as that He could be seen, or His voice heard by you. But that testimony you accept not (you have not His word abiding in you), as is plain from the fact that you refuse to believe in Me. See the note to A Lap., in Migne's Ed., which agrees with Kuinoel.
Whatever view be adopted, [pg 105] we understand the testimony referred to in verse 37, to be that which is explicitly mentioned in verse 39; viz., the testimony of God given through the Scriptures in the writings of Moses and the prophets.53
39. Scrutamini scripturas, quia vos putatis in ipsis vitam aeternam habere: et illae sunt, quae testimonium perhibent de me:
39. Search the scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of me:
39. Here our Lord distinctly mentions the testimony to which He had already alluded (verse 37). Search the Scriptures, or rather, Ye search the Scriptures. In both the Greek and Latin texts the form of the verb leaves it doubtful whether it is to be understood as an indicative or an imperative. But the context, in which all the verbs are in the indicative, and the course of the argument, render it much more probable that the form is to be understood as an indicative. So, too, all the best modern commentators, even among the Protestants; e.g., Kuin., Alf., Bloomf., Westc., and the Revised Version, which renders: “Ye search the Scriptures.”
It is unnecessary then to delay long in refuting the argument which used to be drawn by Protestants from this text in favour of the indiscriminate reading of the Bible by all the faithful. A few words will suffice. (1) It is much more probable that the words do not contain a precept, but merely state a fact. (2) Even if they did contain a precept, they are addressed very probably only to the Jewish teachers (see verse 44). (3) Even if we admitted that the words contain a precept, and are addressed to all the Jews, still it would not follow that all the faithful now are bound to read the Bible, nor that the Church may not sometimes, for grave reasons restrict the liberty to read it. For we must bear in mind that our Lord is here referring to the Sacred Scriptures in connection with one particular point, namely, the fulfilment of prophecy in Himself. Even if the Jews were authorized or commanded to read the Sacred Scriptures in regard to a particular question, it by no means follows that Protestants are commanded or even authorized to read them in order to form by the aid of private judgment an opinion on [pg 106] all questions of faith and morals.
The Catholic Church freely admits, of course, and insists that the reading of the Bible is in itself good and useful; but since the Bible contains “certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest ... to their own destruction” (2 Pet. iii. 16), hence she knows it is possible that, like all God's best gifts, the Bible may in certain circumstances be abused.
40. Et non vultis venire ad me ut vitam habeatis.
40. And you will not come to me that you may have life.
40. And is equivalent to “and yet.”
41. Claritatem ab hominibus non accipio.
41. I receive not glory from men.
41. Not through a desire to gain glory from them has He borne the preceding testimony to Himself. This is said parenthetically, and the next verse is to be connected with verse 40.
42. Sed cognovi vos, quia dilectionem Dei non habetis in vobis.
42. But I know you, that you have not the love of God in you.
42. But I know you, that &c. Their unbelief in Christ was due to the fact that they did not love God. Had they loved God, they would have corresponded with grace, and recognised the Messias whom God had sent.
43. Ego veni in nomine Patris mei, et non accipitis me: si alius venerit in nomine suo, illum accipietis.
43. I am come in the name of my Father, and you receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive.
43. The sense is: I am come in the name, and with the power of My Father manifested in My works. If another come to you, and without giving any evidence that He is from God, say that he is the Messias, you will believe him, and believe in him. We know that this actually happened. Many false Christs arose before the destruction of Jerusalem (70 a.d.); and obtained a following among the people. A person named Barchochebas was the most successful of those impostors.
44. Quomodo vos potestis credere, qui gloriam ab invicem accipitis: et gloriam, quae a solo Deo est, non quaeritis?
44. How can you believe, who receive glory one from another: and the glory which is from God alone, you do not seek?
44. Another cause of their unbelief is their empty vanity [pg 107] which sought, and was satisfied with, the praise of men.
45. Nolite putare quia ego accusaturus sim vos apud Patrem: est qui accusat vos Moyses, in quo vos speratis.
45. Think not that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one that accuseth you, Moses, in whom you trust.
45. It will not be necessary for Christ to accuse them before God, because Moses, their own great prophet, will accuse them.
46. Si enim crederetis Moysi, crederetis forsitan et mihi: de me enim ille scripsit.
46. For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also. For he wrote of me.
47. Si autem illius litteris non creditis, quomodo verbis meis credetis?
47. But if you do not believe his writings: how will you believe my words?
47. This is said because Moses far surpassed Him in their estimation; and with the telling thought, that their own Scriptures, even Moses himself, pointed Him out as their Messias, this weighty discourse ends.
[pg 108]
1-13.Christ crosses with His disciples to the eastern shore of the sea of Galilee, where He miraculously feeds a multitude with five loaves and two fishes.
14-15.The multitude, moved by the miracle, wish to make Him King, but He withdraws.
16-21.On the night of that same day, as the disciples are crossing to the western side of the lake, a storm rises, and He comes to them, walking upon the waters.
22-25.The following day the multitude also cross to the western side of the lake, enter Capharnaum, and find Him there before them.
26-59.Christ's discourse to the multitude, in which He promises the Blessed Eucharist.
60.The place where the discourse was delivered.
61-67.Effect of the discourse—murmuring of many of the disciples; His explanation, and their departure from Him.
68-70.St. Peter's noble confession in reply to a question of Christ.
71-72.Christ refers to the wickedness of one of the Apostles, and the Evangelist states to whom He refers.
1. Post haec abiit Iesus trans mare Galilaeae, quod est Tiberiadis:
1. After these things, Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias:
1. The interval to be admitted between what is recorded in this chapter and in the preceding depends upon the view we adopt as to what feast is referred to in the first verse of the preceding. If that was the Feast of Pasch, almost a year has elapsed, for we are told here, in verse 4, that the pasch is again at hand. If that was the Feast of Lots, and this the Pasch following, then the interval to be admitted [pg 109] is much less, only a month. Those who, like us, admit the longer interval say that St. John here passes over the events of that year, because they were already related by the Synoptic Evangelists.
In the last chapter we left Jesus at Jerusalem in Judea, the southern province of Palestine, and now, soon after the death of the Baptist (Matt. xiv. 3, Mark vi. 17, Luke iii. 20) and the return of the Apostles from their first mission (Mark vi. 30; Luke ix. 10), we find Him in the northern province, by the shores of the Sea of Galilee. This sea or lake (the Jews called every large body of water a sea), which lay to the east of the province of Galilee, was called also the Sea of Tiberias, because of the town built by Herod Antipas, on its western shore, and named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius. It was also called sometimes the Lake of Gennesareth, from the fertile plain of that name on its N.W. shore. It is almost heart-shaped, with the narrow end towards the south, and its extent at present is 12-½ miles from north to south, by 8 miles at its widest part east to west. (Smith's B. D., 2nd Ed.)
2. Et sequebatur eum multitudo magna, quia videbant signa quae faciebat super his qui infirmabantur.
2. And a great multitude followed him, because they saw the miracles which he did on them that were diseased.
2. Jesus, accompanied by His disciples, having crossed the lake, a great multitude follows Him. Comparing the Synoptic Evangelists (Matt. xiv. 13, and foll.; Mark vi. 32, and foll.; Luke ix. 10, and foll.), we find that the desert near Bethsaida (Julias) on the north-eastern side of the lake was the place to which Jesus repaired (Luke); that the multitude followed by land (p??? = on foot, Matt., Mark); that they arrived before Him (Mark), and that He taught them for a considerable time.
3. Subiit ergo in montem Iesus: et ibi sedebat cum discipulis suis.
3. Jesus went therefore up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples.
3. Jesus therefore went up into a mountain (Gr., the mountain); i.e., the well-known mountain range on that side of the lake. See too in verse 15.
4. Erat autem proximum pascha, dies festus Iudaeorum.
4. Now the Pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand.
4. In the view we follow this was the third Pasch of our Lord's public life.
5. Cum sublevasset ergo oculos Iesus, et vidisset quia multitudo maxima venit ad eum, dixit ad Philippum: Unde ememus panes, ut manducent hi?
5. When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes, and seen that a very great multitude cometh to him, he said to Philip: Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?
5. In the Synoptic Evangelists the disciples are [pg 110] represented as asking our Lord to dismiss the multitude, that they may go and procure food. We may reconcile with St. John's account thus. They make a suggestion, as in the Synoptic Evangelists. He then turns to Philip, as in St. John.
6. Hoc autem dicebat tentans eum: ipse enim sciebat quid esset facturus.
6. And this he said to try him: for he himself knew what he would do.
6. To try him.“One kind of temptation leads to sin, with which God never tempts anyone; and there is another kind by which faith is tried. In this sense it is said that Christ proved His disciples. This is not meant to imply that He did not know what Philip would say, but is an accommodation to man's way of speaking. For as the expression: Who searcheth the hearts of men, does not mean the searching of ignorance, but of absolute knowledge; so here, when it is said that our Lord proved Philip, we must understand that He knew him perfectly, but that He tried him in order to confirm his faith. The Evangelist himself guards against the mistake which this imperfect mode of speaking might occasion, by adding For He Himself knew what He would do” (St. Aug.).
7. Respondit ei Philippus: Ducentorum denariorum panes non sufficiunt eis, ut unusquisque modicum quid accipiat.
7. Philip answered him: Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little.
7. The denarius was a Roman silver coin, whose value differed at different times. From the year 217 b.c. till the reign of Augustus (30 b.c. to 14 a.d.) it was worth 8-½d.; afterwards, and, therefore, in the time of Christ, it was worth about 7-½d. See Smith's Lat. Dict. Calendarium, Tables viii. and ix. Two hundred denarii, then would be equal to about £6 5s., and yet what bread this would [pg 111] purchase would not suffice to give even a little to each, so great was the multitude.
8. Dicit ei unus ex discipulis eius, Andreas frater Simonis Petri.
8. One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him:
9. Est puer unus hic, qui habet quinque panes hordeaceos, et duos pisces: sed haec quid sunt inter tantos?
9. There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves and two fishes: but what are these among so many?
10. Dixit ergo Iesus: Facite homines discumbere. Erat autem foenum multum in loco. Discubuerunt ergo viri, numero quasi quinque millia.
10. Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. The men therefore sat down in number about five thousand.
10. Christ tells the disciples to bid the multitude be seated “on the green grass” (Mark vi. 39); and about 5,000 men (“not reckoning women and children,” Matt. xiv. 21) sat down in companies “by hundreds and by fifties” (Mark vi. 40).
11. Accepit ergo Iesus panes: et cum gratias egisset, distribuit discumbentibus: similiter et ex piscibus quantum volebant.
11. And Jesus took the loaves: and when he had given thanks, he distributed to them that were set down. In like manner also of the fishes as much as they would.
11. Having returned thanks for all the benefits of God, and particularly for that which He was now about to bestow, Christ took and blessed the loaves and fishes, and through His disciples distributed them to the multitude (Matt., Mark, Luke). It is not said at what precise time the loaves were multiplied or enlarged, whether in the hands of Christ, or of the disciples. It may be, as Mald. supposes, that the increase began in our Lord's hands, and continued as far as necessary during the distribution by the disciples. That it at least began in our Lord's hands, we think extremely probable, for thus He was more clearly shown to be the author of the miracle.
12. Ut autem impleti sunt, dixit discipulis suis: Colligite quae superaverunt fragmenta, ne pereant.
12. And when they were filled, he said to his disciples: Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost.
12. The disciples are told to gather up the fragments—(1) to teach us not to neglect the gifts of God; (2) that the fragments might serve as a proof and a memorial of the miracle which had been wrought.
13. Collegerunt ergo, et impleverunt duodecim cophinos fragmentorum ex quinque panibus hordeaceis, quae superfuerunt his qui manducaverant.
13. They gathered up therefore, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten.
13. “Observe how the four Evangelists use the word ??f?????, baskets, in narrating this [pg 112] miracle, thus distinguishing it from a like one recorded elsewhere by Matthew and Mark, in which there were seven loaves, and 4,000 men, and seven panniers (sp???da?) of fragments. It is difficult perhaps to point out distinctly how sp???? differed from ??f????, but certain it is that they did differ, else they would never have been so nicely discriminated by the sacred writers in every instance” (M'Carthy: Gosp. of the Sundays, fourth Sunday of Lent).54
14. Illi ergo homines cum vidissent quod Iesus fecerat signum, dicebant: Quia hic est vere propheta, qui venturus est in mundum.
14. Now these men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said: This is of a truth the prophet that is to come into the world.
14. The prophet, the Messiah, for whom their fathers and they had yearned so long (Luke vii. 19).
15. Iesus ergo cum cognovisset, quia venturi essent ut raperent eum, et facerent eum regem, fugit iterum in montem ipse solus.
15. Jesus therefore when he knew that they would come to take him by force and make him king, fled again into the mountain himself alone.
15. Jesus, knowing their thoughts and intentions, withdrew to the mountain, where He had already been earlier in the day (verse 3). And He withdrew all alone, a circumstance which makes it extremely probable that He rendered Himself invisible, else some of the crowd would have followed.
It may seem strange at first sight, how differently Christ treats the Jews, on their recognising Him as the Messias, from the way He treated the Samaritans in similar circumstances (iv. 42, 43). And yet His action in the two cases is intelligible enough. The Jews looked for a Messias who would improve their external condition, free them from subjection to any foreign power, and set them up as a powerful nation. But the Samaritans [pg 113] could have, and had, no such hope from the advent of a Jewish Messias. With the Jews, as we see in the present instance, the intention was to declare the Messias their King, and thus to throw off their allegiance to Rome. The consequence, of course, would have been great political excitement and rebellion, ending, doubtless, in the triumph of the Roman arms. But no matter what the success of such a rebellion, it would have prejudiced the Roman world against the teachings of Christ, and rendered more difficult the recognition of the spiritual character of Christ's kingdom.
16. Ut autem sero factum est descenderunt discipuli eius ad mare.
16. And when evening was come, his disciples went down to the sea.
17. Et cum ascendissent navim, venerunt trans mare in Capharnaum: et tenebrae iam factae erant: et non venerat ad eos Iesus.
17. And when they had gone up into a ship, they went over the sea to Capharnaum: and it was now dark, and Jesus was not come unto them.
17. They went over the sea. Rather, they were going. From St. Matthew we learn that Christ had told the disciples immediately after the miracle, to go before Him across the lake, whilst He dismissed the crowd. St. Mark adds that they were told to cross to Bethsaida; i.e., to the town of this name, which was near Capharnaum. See above, i. 44. The direction of the wind or some other motive may have induced them to go towards Capharnaum, as St. John here tells us they did.
18. Mare autem, vento magno flante, exurgebat.
18. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.
19. Cum remigassent ergo quasi stadia viginti quinque aut triginta, vident Iesum ambulantem supra mare, et proximum navi fieri, et timuerunt.
19. When they had rowed therefore about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking upon the sea, and drawing nigh to the ship, and they were afraid.
19. The stadium, a Greek measure, was nearly equal to an English furlong, so that the distance here indicated was, at the least, almost three miles. The exact length of the stadium was 625 feet, that [pg 114] of the English furlong is 660 feet.
20. Ille autem dicit eis: Ego sum, nolite timere.
20. But he saith to them: It is I: be not afraid.
21. Voluerunt ergo accipere eum in navim: et statim navis fuit ad terram, in quam ibant.
21. They were willing therefore to take him into the ship: and presently the ship was at the land, to which they were going.
21. They were willing therefore to take him into the ship. ??e??? here is equivalent to an adverb (Kuin.), and the sense is: “They gladly took Him into the ship” (boat), as St. Mark indeed tells us they did (Mark vi. 51). Or, if, with Winer, Gr. Gram., p. 586, it be admitted that ???? never has an adverbial force, except in the participle, then we would explain that though at first afraid (verse 19), they were afterwards willing to take Him into the ship, and took Him in.
22. Altera die, turba quae stabat trans mare, vidit quia navicula alia non erat ibi nisi una, et quia non introisset cum discipulis suis Iesus in navim, sed soli discipuli eius abiissent:
22. The next day, the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea, saw that there was no other ship there but one, and that Jesus had not entered into the ship with his disciples, but that his disciples were gone away alone.
23. Aliae vero supervenerunt naves a Tiberiade, iuxta locum ubi manducaverant panem, gratias agente Domino.
23. But other ships came in from Tiberias, nigh unto the place where they had eaten the bread, the Lord giving thanks.
24. Cum ergo vidisset turba quia Iesus non esset ibi, neque discipuli eius, ascenderunt in naviculas, et venerunt Capharnaum quaerentes Iesum.
24. When therefore the multitude saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they took shipping, and came to Capharnaum seeking for Jesus.
22-24. On the following day, the crowd on the eastern shore seek for Jesus (verse 24), thinking Him to be still on that side of the lake, inasmuch as He had not left by the only boat that was there on the preceding evening (verse 22). Not finding Him, they take boats which had just arrived on the eastern shore, and cross to the western shore to seek Jesus in Capharnaum, where He usually abode at this time.
[pg 115]
25. Et cum invenissent eum trans mare, dixerunt ei: Rabbi, quando huc venisti?
25. And when they had found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him: Rabbi, when camest thou hither?
25. When they found Jesus, they asked Him when He had come to Capharnaum, being equally anxious, no doubt, to know how He had come.
26. Respondit eis Iesus, et dixit: Amen, amen dico vobis: quaeritis me, non quia vidistis signa, sed quia manducastis ex panibus, et saturati estis.
26. Jesus answered them and said: Amen, amen, I say to you, you seek me, not because you have seen miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves, and were filled.
26. Without answering their question, our Lord takes occasion from the miracle of the preceding day to raise their thoughts to a higher and more precious bread than that which He had miraculously given them. But first He tells them that they followed Him, not because they had realized the spiritual significance of His miracles, and believed Him to be God, but merely, He implies, because they hoped for a gross material satisfaction, such as they had experienced the preceding day. The Greek word, rendered: and were filled, means literally; were satisfied with food, as animals with fodder.
Having thus made known to them, that He knew their motive in following Him, He goes on to tell them to labour not, that is to say, not so much, for the food that perisheth as for that which endureth unto eternal life. This food enduring unto eternal life (verse 27) we understand to be the Blessed Eucharist.
But before giving our reasons for holding that reference to the Blessed Eucharist begins here, and not merely at verses 48, 51, or 52, it is desirable to indicate the Protestant interpretations of this discourse of our Lord, and prove that they are untenable.
Most Protestants deny that there is any reference to the Blessed Eucharist in this chapter; they hold that it refers merely to the reception of Christ through faith; and through faith especially in the atoning efficacy of His passion and death. It is of this faith in His passion that they interpret the words: “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you,” (verse 54). Indeed they are logically constrained either to deny that there is reference here to the sacrament of the Eucharist, or else to abandon their teaching regarding the nature and efficacy of the sacraments. On the one hand, if they admit reference to the Eucharist, they see the difficulty of denying the real and substantial presence of Christ in the sacrament; on the other hand, holding, as they do, that the few sacraments which [pg 116] they retain,55 are not causes of grace, as the Catholic Church teaches, but merely signs or pledges of grace, and external notes of the Church, they find themselves in direct conflict with our Lord, if His words are to be understood of the sacrament of the Eucharist. For again and again throughout this discourse He attributes salvation and grace to the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood, in such a way as to leave no room for doubt that whatever it is He speaks of, whether faith or the sacrament of the Eucharist, it is the cause of grace. See, e.g., 27, 52, 55, 57, 59.
But besides those who deny that there is any reference to the Blessed Eucharist in this chapter, there is a considerable number of Protestants who take up even a more indefensible position. These admit the reference, but contend that nothing more can be concluded from this or any other part of Scripture than that Christ is spiritually present in the Sacrament. They will not admit that Christ is really and substantially present, much less that the sacrament causes grace. Against the first class we shall show that Christ refers, in this discourse, to the Blessed Eucharist; and against the second, that His words prove that He is really and substantially received in the sacrament.
I. Christ refers in this Discourse to the Blessed Eucharist.56
We may premise that no more appropriate occasion could have been chosen by Christ for promising this heavenly bread than the day following that on which He had multiplied the bread in the desert; and we know that it was Christ's practice to explain His doctrines as they were suggested by circumstances. Thus, after curing the centurion's servant, He foretells the vocation of the Gentiles (Matt. viii. 6-13); after expelling the unclean spirit, He describes the power of Satan (Matt. xii. 22-45); after asking for water, He speaks of the water of life to the Samaritan woman (John iv. 10, and foll.); [pg 117] after healing the paralytic, He predicts the general resurrection (John v. 28); and after curing the man born blind, He denounces the blindness of the Pharisees (John ix. 41). It was quite in accordance with Christ's practice, then, to predict the Blessed Eucharist on the present occasion: and that He did so is proved by the following arguments:—
(1) If St. John did not mean to record here a reference to the Blessed Eucharist, then he does not mention that sacrament at all, for he does not allude, unless perhaps very obscurely (xiii. 1) to its institution. But it is very improbable that our Evangelist omits all mention of this sacrament in his Gospel. For if, as we shall prove, this sacrament contains the body and blood of Christ, there was a reason why St. John should mention it in order to confirm the faithful against the Docetae who denied the reality of Christ's human nature. Nor does it at all weaken this argument to say that the Docetae who denied the reality of the body in which Christ had walked and talked, would not be likely to be convinced by a reference to His body present in the Eucharist. For St. John wrote, not to convert heretics, but to confirm against heresy Christians who believed in the real presence.
(2) Christ's words (27, 52) can refer only to the Eucharist. For He speaks of a food which was still to be given in the future, whereas His doctrines, and His Person as the object of faith, had been given already.
(3) His words: “Amen, amen, I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you” (verse 54), could be understood only in a literal sense, and so understood, they must refer to the Blessed Eucharist. For, if Christ had spoken in a figurative sense, it should be in that figurative sense which was known and recognised among the Jews. Now, the recognised figurative sense of eating a man's flesh was to do him some serious injury, especially by calumny.57 Such a figurative sense, however, would be absurd here; and hence Christ must have been understood, and must have spoken, in the literal sense. See Wiseman's Lect. on the Euch., pp. 77-91.
(4) The disciples understood our Lord to speak of a real eating of His flesh and blood, such as takes place only in the Eucharist, and understood Him correctly. Their words (verse [pg 118] 61), and their departure for ever from Him (verse 67), show that they understood Him of a real eating; otherwise why should they be offended or desert Him? What had He said that was new, or hard to take in, if He merely spoke of the necessity of faith in Himself or His doctrines? Their action, then, shows in what sense the disciples understood Him; and His action in permitting them to depart, shows they understood Him correctly.
(5) The Jews understood Him of a real eating, which was quite different from belief in His doctrines or in Himself, and which has no meaning unless in reference to the Eucharist. “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” they said (verse 53); and His solemn asseveration, negatively (verse 54), and positively (verse 55), shows that He is inculcating the very truth which they had questioned, and which they were bound to accept on His testimony, even though they could not see how it was to come to pass.
II. Christ speaks of a real, oral reception of His body and blood, and not merely of a spiritual reception through faith excited by the Sacrament.
(1) The manna with which Christ compares the bread that He will give (verses 49, 50, 59) was really eaten; therefore, also the bread, which is His flesh (verse 52), is to be really received.
(2) After the Jews had murmured, Christ declared His flesh to be truly meat, and His blood to be truly drink (verse 56), and therefore it must be truly and really received.
(3) In any sense other than the literal, Christ's meaning would be obscure, and His words misleading; and our Evangelist, according to his ordinary practice (i. 41, 42; ii. 21; iv. 2; xii. 33), would explain. But he does not explain; therefore the language is not obscure, and therefore the literal sense was meant.
(4) See arguments (3), (4), and (5) for the preceding proposition.
And now, having satisfied ourselves that there is reference to the Blessed Eucharist in this chapter, and to a real, oral reception of Christ in the sacrament, let us try to decide where that reference begins. Some (as Wiseman, Lect. on Euch., p. 51, and foll.) say at verse 48; others, at 51; and others, at 52. But it seems much more probable that the reference begins before any of these points; and Wiseman is certainly mistaken when he states, on page 48: “That Protestants and Catholics are equally agreed that the discourse, as far as the 48th or 51st verse refers entirely to believing Christ. St. Cyril of Alex., Theophy., Toletus, Lucas of [pg 119] Bruges, had held, before Wiseman's time, that the reference to the Blessed Eucharist begins in verse 27”; and since his time, Beelen, Perrone, Corluy, Franzelin,58 and others have held the same.
The most probable view seems to be that from verse 27, wherever there is question of the bread (verses 27, 32, 33, 35, ... 59), the Blessed Eucharist is meant. Christ began in verse 27 to promise the Blessed Eucharist, but the Jews interrupted Him (verse 28), and their interruption raised the question of faith in Him, so that He digressed for a time from His main purpose to explain the necessity of faith, in order to ensure a fruitful reception of the Eucharist. But though we admit this digression, we hold that wherever Christ refers to the bread to be given, He means the Blessed Eucharist, and that the reference to it begins in verse 27. For—
(1) In verse 27 He speaks of a food that was still to be given in the future, just as in verse 52, where all Catholics admit there is question of the Eucharist.
(2) This food was to be given by the Son of Man, Christ Himself; and though in verse 32 the Father is said to give it, this is naturally explained by saying that the Father gives us in the Incarnation what Christ gives in a sacramental form in the Eucharist.
(3) The food in verse 27, is a food for which, as we shall see, faith is a preparation; therefore, not itself faith.
(4) In verses 32, 33, there is question of a bread that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world, and in verse 59, of a bread to which the very same properties are attributed; and in both cases this heaven-descended, life-giving bread is contrasted with the manna. Is it not natural, then, to conclude, remembering that both passages belong to the same discourse, that the same bread is meant in both instances?
And now we have seen—(1) that there is reference to the Blessed Eucharist in this discourse; (2) to a real reception of Christ in it; and (3) that the reference most probably begins in verse 27. Having got so far, it will not be very difficult to interpret the discourse, and to this we proceed at once.
27. Operamini non cibum qui perit, sed qui permanet in vitam aeternam, quem Filius hominis dabit vobis. Hunc enim Pater signavit Deus.
27. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the son of man will give you. For him hath God, the Father, sealed.
27. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that[pg 120]which endureth unto life everlasting. As our Version indicates, the meat is the object for the attainment of which they are exhorted to do their part. The meaning cannot be that they are to make the food by believing, as if the food were faith; for they had not made the bread in the desert the previous day, nor were they thinking of making it now, but they were trying, striving to obtain it. This sacramental food will endure in its effects unto eternal life. This food the Son of Man will give; i.e., Christ as man will give us His flesh; but since the food is to endure in its effects unto eternal life, mere man could not give such; and hence it is added that the Father who is God has sealed with the impress of Divinity (August., Tolet.) the Son of Man, who therefore, being God as well as man, can give a food that will endure unto eternal life.
28. Dixerunt ergo ad eum: Quid faciemus ut operemur opera Dei?
28. They said therefore unto him: What shall we do that we may work the works of God?
29. Respondit Iesus, et dixit eis: Hoc est opus Dei, ut credatis in eum quem misit ille.
29. Jesus answered, and said to them: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he hath sent.
28-29. Some of His hearers now interrupt Christ, not however to inquire what this food was, but to ask what they must do on their part in order to perform the works which they take it for granted God requires, before they may receive such food. Christ's answer is, that in order to obtain it, so that it may remain unto eternal life, they must believe in Himself. So too is it even now; the sinner may sacrilegiously receive the Lord into his breast, but it is only for Him who believes (and acts accordingly) that the Sacrament endureth unto eternal life.
30. Dixerunt ergo ei: Quod ergo tu facis signum ut videamus, et credamus tibi? quid operaris!
30. They said therefore to him: What sign therefore dost thou show that we may see, and may believe thee? what dost thou work?
31. Patres nostri manducaverunt manna in deserto, sicut scriptum est: Panem de coelo dedit eis manducare.
31. Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
30-31. Christ having declared the necessity of faith in Himself, they now ask for motives of credibility, and point to the great standing miracle wrought for their fathers in the desert. But whereas He had demanded [pg 121] faith in Himself: “That you believe in Him whom He hath sent” (verse 29), they seem to miss the point, and speak not of believing in Him, but merely of believing Him, believing what He may have to say to them. They did not mention Moses, nor was the manna given by Moses; but our Lord's reply shows that the comparison between Himself and Moses was in their minds. It is as if they said: You call upon us to believe you on the strength of the miracle wrought yesterday in the desert, whereas Moses fed our whole race for forty years with a bread from heaven. These people who speak thus, are probably different persons from those who on the preceding day recognised Christ as the Messias (verse 14).
32. Dixit ergo eis Iesus: Amen, amen dico vobis: Non Moyses dedit vobis panem de coelo, sed Pater meus dat vobis panem de coelo verum.
32. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you: Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33. Panis enim Dei est qui de coelo descendit, et dat vitam mundo.
33. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world.
32-33. They had asked for some great miracle (comp. Matt. xii. 38), but since they had already had sufficient evidence to enable them to believe, Christ does not gratify their desire, but proceeds to declare that it was not Moses who gave the manna, but God (see Ps. lxxvii. 21-24); so that their tacit comparison of Moses with Himself is baseless. He then goes on to declare that His Father giveth them the true [pg 122] bread from heaven. This means, as we have already explained, that the Father gave us in the Incarnation what Christ gives us in the Eucharist, namely, the Person of the God-man. That it is true or perfect bread, He proves from the fact that it comes, not like the manna from the clouds, but from heaven itself, and that it not merely sustains the life of one people, but gives life to the world.
34. Dixerunt ergo ad eum: Domine, semper da nobis panem hunc.
34. They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread.
35. Dixit autem eis Iesus: Ego sam panis vitae, qui venit ad me, non esuriet: et qui credit in me, non sitiet unquam.
35. And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger; he that believeth in me, shall never thirst.
34, 35. They at once ask that He would give them this bread always. They evidently think that He speaks of some excellent food like the manna, which would support their corporal existence, and they desire to be constantly supplied with it. But as they know not what they ask, nor how they should be disposed to receive it, He tells them—(1) What the bread is, namely, Himself; and (2) what is required for a proper and fruitful reception of it, namely, faith in Himself. The words: He that cometh to Me, mean the same thing as: He that believeth in Me. The believer shall never thirst; because, if he act upon his belief, he will receive Christ in the Eucharist, and be spiritually filled, never again to thirst, except through his own fault.
36. Sed dixi vobis, quia et vidistis me, et non creditis.
36. But I said unto you, that you also have seen me, and you believe not.
37. Omne quod dat mihi Pater, ad me veniet: et eum qui venit ad me, non ejiciam foras:
37. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out.
36, 37. Christ again, as in verse 26, reproves their want of faith, and declares that those who believe in Him, do so through the grace of the Father; and all such He receives and rejects not.
38. Quia descendi de coelo, non ut faciam voluntatem meam sed voluntatem eius qui misit me.
38. Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39. Hac est autem voluntas eius qui misit me, Patris: ut omne quod dedit mihi, non perdam ex eo, sed resuscitem illud in novissimo die.
39. Now this is the will of the Father who sent me; that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again in the last day.
40. Haec est autem voluntas Patris mei, qui misit me: ut omnis qui videt Filium, et credit in eum, habeat vitam aeternam, et ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die.
40. And this is the will of my Father that sent me; that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day.
38-40. He declares the reason why He does not reject such: [pg 123] because He came down on earth to do His father's will; and that will is that all who recognize in Him the Son of God and believe in Him as such (acting according to that belief), should be raised up to a glorious life on the last day.
41. Murmurabant ergo Iudaei de illo, quia dixisset: Ego sum panis vivus, qui de coelo descendi.
41. The Jews therefore murmured at him, because he had said, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
42. Et dicebant: Nonne hic est Iesus filius Ioseph, cuius nos novimus patrem et matrem? Quomodo ergo dicit hic: Quia de coelo descendi?
42. And they said: Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How than saith he, I came down from heaven?
43. Respondit ergo Iesus, et dixit eis: Nolite murmurare in invicem:
43. Jesus therefore answered and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves.
41-43. The Jews, by whom the Scribes and Pharisees perhaps are meant, now murmur because He claims celestial origin, whereas they fancy they know Him to be an ordinary man, born in the ordinary way of an earthly father and mother. He merely reproves their murmuring without replying to their difficulty, and proceeds to declare the necessity of grace.
44. Nemo potest venire ad me, nisi Pater qui misit me traxerit eum: et ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die.
44. No man can come to me, except the Father, who hath sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up in the last day.
44. No one can believe in Him, unless the Father draw him; i.e., by preventing and assisting grace. We have here [pg 124] a clear proof against the Pelagians, for the necessity of grace in order to faith. It must be borne in mind that, though we are drawn by God, we are drawn by impulses of grace which we are free to resist.59
45. Est scriptum in prophetis: Et erunt omnes docibiles Dei. Omnis qui audivit a Patre, et didicit, venit ad me.
45. It is written in the prophets: And they all shall be taught of God. Every one that hath heard of the Father and hath learned, cometh to me.
45. Christ declares how we are drawn by the Father, namely, by an illumination of the intellect and motion of the will, so that we hear (“audivit”) and obey (“didicit”). It is written in the Prophets: And they shall all be taught of God. The Jewish Scriptures were divided into the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographers, and the reference here is to the portion written by the Prophets. The phrase: They shall all be taught of God, which is found substantially in Isaias, liv. 13, implies direct Divine teaching through the influence of the Spirit upon the mind and heart, and indicates not merely one Divine communication, but an established relationship, for the faithful who allow themselves to be drawn, are life-long pupils in the school of God.
46. Non quia Patrem vidit quisquam, nisi is qui est a Deo, hic vidit Patrem.
46. Not that any man hath seen the Father, but he who is of God, he hath seen the Father.
46. Not that any man hath seen the Father. It is, says St. Augustine, “as if He said: Do not when I tell you: Every man that hath heard and learned of the Father, say to yourselves: We have never seen the Father, and how then can we have learned from Him? Hear Him then in Me, I know the Father, and am from Him.”
47. Amen, amen dico vobis: Qui credit in me, habet vitam aeternam.
47. Amen, amen, I say unto you: He that believeth in me hath everlasting life.
47. Having pointed out the necessity of faith (verse 29), its sufficiency (verse 35), and the necessary condition to it, namely, the grace of God and correspondence therewith (verses 44, 45), He now solemnly repeats what He had declared in verses [pg 125] 35 and 37, that he who believes in Him shall have eternal life. The present tense, hath everlasting life, need create no difficulty here: for he who believes will receive the Blessed Eucharist, the food “that endureth unto everlasting life,” (verse 57); and the present tense is so used to indicate the certainty with which the result will follow.
48. Ego sum panis vitae.
48. I am the bread of life.
49. Patres vestri manducaverunt manna in deserto, et mortui sunt.
49. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead.
50. Hic est panis de coelo descendens: ut si quis ex ipso manducaverit, non moriatur.
50. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
51. Ego sum panis vivus, qui de coelo descendi.
51. I am the living bread, which came down from heaven.
48-51. Before quitting this portion of His discourse, and going on to declare how He is the bread of life, Christ sums up what He has said, repeating again the proposition laid down in verse 35: “I am the bread of life;” again comparing and preferring the Blessed Eucharist to the manna (49, 50 compared with 32, 35); and combining in one the two propositions contained in verses 35 and 38, namely, that He is the bread, and that He came down from heaven. In verse 50 where it is declared that he who eats this bread shall not die, the meaning is, that the Blessed Eucharist, of its own nature, is calculated to save us from the death of the soul, and to secure even for our bodies a glorious resurrection. Sin, of course, may rob it of its glorious effects.
52. Si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane, vivet in aeternuum: et panis, quem ego dabo, caro mea est pro mundi vita.
52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world.
52. Having summed up the preceding portion of His discourse, Christ now proceeds to declare how He is the bread of life. Till now He had contented Himself with declaring that He is that bread, and with pointing out the chief disposition necessary to receive Him worthily; now He goes further, and points out how He will be the bread of life; namely, by giving His flesh, that is, His whole human nature (i. 14), to which the Divine nature is inseparably united, to be received in the Blessed Eucharist. Thus He [pg 126] gradually unfolds the mystery, reserving till the last supper the further knowledge, that this reception of His body and blood was to take place in a sacramental manner.
And the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. Many Greek MSS. read: “And the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” If the words “which I will give” be genuine, we would explain them not in reference to the sacrifice of the cross, but in reference to the sacrifice of the Eucharist, in which Christ is given for us and to us. Compare St. Luke: “This is My body, which is given for you” (Luke, xxii. 19), and especially Luke xxii. 20, where the Greek text shows that it is the blood as in the chalice (and not as on Calvary) that is said to be offered in sacrifice. But the words more probably are not genuine; they are omitted by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott, and Hort, and by the Revised Version, as well as by the Vulgate.
Though not merely Christ's flesh, that is, His humanity (i. 14), but also His Divinity, is received in the Blessed Eucharist, His human nature is specially mentioned, lest it should be thought that He is the living bread only as God, or merely spiritually. “Dixerat enim,” says St. Thomas on this verse. “Quod erat panis vivus; et ne intelligatur quod hoc ei esset in quantum est Verbum, vel secundum animam tantum, ideo ostendit quod etiam caro sua vivificativa est: est enim organum divinitatis suae: unde, cum instrumentum agat virtute agentis, sicut divinitas Christi vivificativa est, ita et caro virtute Verbi adjuncti vivificat; unde Christus tactu suo sanabat infirmos.” Besides, as St. Thomas adds, since this Sacrament is commemorative of our Lord's Passion (“For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord,” 1 Cor. xi. 26), His “flesh” is mentioned to remind us of the weakness of that human nature wherein it was [pg 127] possible for Him who was God to suffer.
53. Litigabant ergo Iudaei ad invicem, dicentes: Quomodo potest hic nobis carnem suam suam dare ad manducandum?
53. The Jews therefore strove among themselves saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?
54. Dixit ergo eis Iesus: Amen, amen dico vobis: Nisi manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis, et biberitis eius sanguinem, non habebitis vitam in vobis.
54. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you; Except you eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
55. Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, habet vitam aeternam: et ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die.
55. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
53-55. The Jews therefore (ergo, not enim), because of what He had now said, disputed among themselves, evidently taking different views of what He had said; but Jesus, far from retracting, solemnly insists upon what He had just said, and declares negatively (verse 54), and positively (verse 55), not only the possibility, but the necessity of receiving His body and blood. It does not follow from verse 54, as the Utraquists falsely contended, that Communion under both kinds is necessary; for Christ is received whole and entire under either species. Under the species of bread only the body is present in virtue of the words of consecration, and similarly under the species of wine only the blood; but since Christ's body is now a living body, it follows that in the Blessed Eucharist, where the body is, there also are the blood and the soul in virtue of the natural connection between the parts of a living body, and there, too, the Divinity, in virtue of the hypostatic union. See Decrees of the Council of Trent, sess. xiii., ch. 3. The precept is to receive both body and blood, but not necessarily under both species. For, as the Council of Trent (sess. xxi., cap. 1) points out, Christ attributes the same effects to eating in verses 55, 58, 59, as He does here to eating and drinking. See also 1 Cor. xi. 26, where he who eats or drinks unworthily, is said to be guilty of both body and blood. The precept of Christ, then, is obeyed whether one or both species be received, and it is a disciplinary matter entrusted to the care of the Church, whether the faithful are to receive under one or both species.
Seeing, then, that there is no obligation for the faithful to receive the Blessed Eucharist under both species, it may be asked why does Christ mention both species? We reply, that He does so to signify that in the Blessed Eucharist there is a perfect repast, which ordinarily supposes the presence of both meat and drink; and, perhaps, also to indicate that this sacrament is commemorative of His death, in which His body and blood were separated.
Nor do verses 54 and 55 afford any proof that the Blessed Eucharist is necessary, necessitate medii unto salvation, like Baptism (John iii. 5). For—(1) Baptism is declared to be absolutely necessary for [pg 128] all, “unless a man be born again;” here the Blessed Eucharist is declared necessary only for those who are capable of receiving a precept, “Unless you eat,” &c. (2) From the nature of the case, Baptism, being a new birth, is absolutely necessary for all who are to live the new spiritual life; and as many as are born, must be born again in order to live the higher life; but the Blessed Eucharist is not the introduction to a new life, but a means of nourishing the life already acquired. Hence for children who have already acquired that spiritual life in Baptism, and cannot lose it because incapable of sinning, the Blessed Eucharist cannot be necessary to salvation, nor even for adults can it be absolutely necessary as a means, if there be, as there are, other means of retaining the life already acquired.
56. Caro enim mea, vere est cibus: et sanguis meus, vere est potus.
56. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed;
57. Qui manducat meam carnem, et bibit meum sanguinem, in me manet, et ego in illo.
57. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.
57. In the Blessed Eucharist we are united to Christ, and His humanity remains in us until the sacred species become corrupted; His divinity, until mortal sin is committed, and He is expelled.
58. Sicut misit me vivens Pater, et ego vivo propter Patrem: et qui manducat me, et ipse vivet propter me.
58. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.
58. The sacred union between Christ and the communicant is compared to the ineffable union between Him and His heavenly Father.
The living Father. This is a unique instance of this title, but we frequently find: The Living God, Matt. xvi. 16; 2 Cor. vi. 16, &c. And I live by (d?? t?? pap??a) the Father. It is to be noted that d?? is followed by the accusative, not the genitive. If, then, we are to regard it as meaning here what it ordinarily means when followed by the accusative, and as the Vulgate seems to take it, the sense would rather be: As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live on account of the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live on account of Me. This would mean that as complete devotion to the Father is the object of the life of the Incarnate Son [pg 129] (the Son as sent), so complete devotion to the Son shall be the object of the life of him to whom Christ shall have united Himself in the Blessed Eucharist. Others, however, think that d?? is here equivalent to through, or by, as in our Rheims Version. The sense then is: as Christ lives through the eternal life communicated to Him in His eternal generation by the Father; so, in some way, the communicant shall live in virtue of the spiritual life communicated to him or sustained in him because of his union with Christ in the Blessed Eucharist.
59. Hic est panis qui de coelo descendit. Non sicut manducaverunt patres vestri manna, et mortui sunt. Qui manducat hunc panem, vivet in aeternum.
59. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.
59. This verse concludes and unites the principal points of the discourse. Compare verses 32, 41, 49, 50, 52, 55. Hence it confirms the view we have followed regarding the unity of subject throughout the discourse.
He that eateth this bread shall live for ever. With this encouraging and glorious promise, made not to any one people, nor to any class as such, not even to all believers, but to each one (note the change from the plural to the singular: your fathers ... He that eateth) who shall worthily receive, and duly profit by the Blessed Eucharist, the discourse ends.
60. Haec dixit in synagoga docens, in Capharnaum.
60. These things he said teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.
60. Because of the solemn importance of the discourse, the place where it was delivered is noted. At Tell HÛm (see above on ii. 12) the ruins of a large synagogue are still to be seen.
61. Multi ergo audientes ex discipulis eius, dixerunt: Durus est hic sermo, et quis potest eum audire?
61. Many therefore of his disciples hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it?
61. The effect of the discourse upon many of the disciples is recorded. Hard (s??????), i.e., harsh, hard to accept.
62. Sciens autem Iesus apud semetipsum quia murmurarent de hoc discipuli eius, dixit eis: Hoc vos scandalizat?
62. But Jesus knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you?
62. The Evangelist notes, according to his custom, that their thoughts were known to Christ.
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63. Si ergo videritis Filium hominis ascendentem ubi erat prius?
63. If then you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before?
63. If then you shall see the son of man ascend up where he was before? The sense according to some, is: If you shall see Me ascending into heaven, it will then be easier to believe My doctrine, seeing I am Divine; and you shall at the same time understand, that it is not in a bloody manner (as you suppose) that you are to eat My body. Thus He would correct their too carnal interpretation of His words, and point at the same time to a reason why the true sense, however difficult, was to be accepted. Others think that Christ's words increase the difficulty, the sense being, if you are scandalized now, because I say, while present with you, that I will give My body, how much more will you be scandalized when you see that body taken away into heaven, and are yet asked to believe that it is to be eaten on earth? It is argued in favour of this opinion, that the form of Christ's reply: “Does this scandalize you? If therefore,” &c., indicates that their difficulty would then be greater. So Mald., Tolet., Beel., Corl. We may remark, as against the Nestorians, that language could not signify more clearly than this verse signifies the unity of Person in Christ. The Son of Man will ascend to heaven where as Son of God He is from all eternity. “Filius Dei et hominis unus Christus ... Filius Dei in terra suscepta carne, Filius hominis in coelo in unitate personae.” St. Aug. on this verse.
64. Spiritus est, qui vivificat: caro non prodest quidquam: verba quae ego locutus sum vobis, spiritus et vita sunt.
64. It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life.
64. Many interpretations of this verse have been advanced. The following two are the most probable, intrinsically and extrinsically:—
(1) The spirit is the spirit of man elevated and ennobled by grace; the flesh, the corrupt dispositions and weak thoughts of human nature unaided by grace (see Rom. viii. 5, 6); and the meaning of the verse is; it is the mind illumined by grace that quickeneth to faith and to a proper understanding of My words; the mind or human nature by itself is of no avail in such matters; the words which I have spoken to you are to be understood by the mind quickened and illumined by grace. So St. Chrys., Teoph., Wisem., Perr., M'Ev. But there are serious difficulties against this view—(1) “caro” is then taken metaphorically in this verse, while throughout the [pg 131] context it has been taken literally of the flesh of Christ; (2) the explanation of the words “are spirit and life” is unnatural.
(2) Others take the Spirit of the Divinity of Christ, the flesh of His humanity considered apart from the Divinity; and the meaning of the verse then is: it is My Divinity that quickeneth, and maketh My flesh a meat enduring unto eternal life; the flesh if separated from the Divinity would profit nothing; the words which I have spoken to you regard My life-giving Divinity as united to My humanity. In this view, as Mald. explains it, “life,” by a Hebraism, is equivalent to an adjective signifying life-giving, as may be inferred from the beginning of the verse, where it is said that it is the Spirit that giveth life.60 Hence “Spirit and life” is equivalent to life-giving Spirit, and the latter part of the verse means that Christ's words have reference to His life-giving Divinity in union with His humanity. So, too, St. Cyril of Alex., Beel., Corl. We prefer this view, and hold that Christ here gives the key to the solution of the difficulty on account of which His disciples had murmured (verse 62). He had closed His discourse with words attributing eternal life to the eating of His flesh (verse 59); they murmured accordingly, thinking it absurd or incredible that such effect could follow from such a cause as the eating of a man's flesh; and in verse 64 He explains that His flesh is the flesh of the Man-God, which therefore through the quickening influence of the Divinity with which it is united, is capable of producing such marvellous effects.
There is not a shadow of probability in the interpretation put upon this verse by the Sacramentarians. They explained the verse to mean: that the figurative sense of what He had said regarding the necessity of eating His flesh and blood profits, but that the literal sense would profit nothing. Thus they professed to find in these words an assurance that Christ had not spoken of a real eating of His flesh in the Eucharist, but only of a spiritual reception of Himself through faith. In reply to this we say—(1) that throughout the rest of the Bible “spiritus” and “caro” are not even once used of a figurative and literal sense; (2) if [pg 132] Christ here gave the explanation which our adversaries suppose, how is it that, as we learn from verse 67, many of His disciples retired notwithstanding, and walked with Him no more? In such an explanation all their difficulty would be removed, and they would be taught that it was only of a figurative eating by faith that Christ had been speaking. How then account for their departure? But it was different in the explanation we have given above. In our view, Christ, still insisting on a real reception of His flesh, merely explains how it is that such real reception can lead to such glorious results.
65. Sed sunt quidam ex vobis, qui non credunt. Sciebat enim ab initio Iesus qui essent non credentes, et quis traditurus esset eum.
65. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe, and who he was that would betray him.
65. In the view we hold regarding verse 64, the connection of this verse with it is: the fact that I am God explains what you find difficult in My words (verse 64); but some of you do not believe Me to be God; and hence your difficulty (verse 65). To indicate Christ's Divine knowledge, the Evangelist adds that He knew from the beginning, &c.
66. Et dicebat: Propterea dixi vobis, quia nemo potest venire ad me, nisi fuerit ei datum a Patre meo.
66. And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.
66. Christ's words in this verse are to be connected closely with the beginning of the preceding, the intervening words of the Evangelist being parenthetical.
Therefore did I say to you. The allusion is to what was said above (verse 44), which is substantially the same as what is said here, since to be drawn to Christ by the Father is nothing else than to be given grace by the Father to come to Christ. It might seem at first sight that these words excuse the incredulity of those whom Christ addresses; but it is not so. For, the reason they had not been drawn by the Father was because they would not, because they had not followed the promptings of grace. See above on verse 45. “Peccabant tamen qui nolebant venire, id est credere in Christum, tum quia habebant gratiam sufficientem, qua possent credere si vellent, etsi non haberent efficacem, qua reipsa et actu crederent; tum quia humiliter non petebant a Deo gratiam [pg 133] efficacem, qua actu crederent: tum quia sua superbia aliisque peccatis illa gratia se fecerant indignos, imo pervicaces Dei gratiam et fidem repellebant et refutabant” (A Lap. on this verse).
67. Ex hoc multi discipulorum eius abierunt retro: et iam non cum illo ambulabant.
67. After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him.
67. Had Christ in the preceding discourse spoken only of faith, surely, all-merciful and loving as He is, He would have made His meaning clear, before allowing many of His disciples to depart from Him for ever. It was only, then, because they understood Him correctly, and refused to believe Him, that He allowed them to depart.
68. Dixit ergo Iesus ad duodecim: Numquid et vos vultis abire?
68. Then Jesus said to the twelve: will you also go away?
68. The twelve. These are spoken of as well known, though this is the first mention made of their number in this Gospel.
Will you also go away? While the question implies that such desertion was to be feared, its form implies a negative answer, and suggests that in the case of the chosen twelve such conduct ought to be impossible.
69. Respondit ergo ei Simon Petrus: Domine, ad quem ibimus? verba vitae aeternae habes:
69. And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
70. Et nos credidimus, et cognovimus quia tu es Christus Filius Dei.
70. And we have believed and have known that thou art the Christ the Son of God.
69-70. Peter replies for all the Apostles (not knowing the unbelief of Judas), and confesses the truth of Christ's doctrine, and, according to the Vulgate reading, the Divinity of Christ. It is very doubtful, however, whether the Vulgate reading here is correct. The oldest Greek MSS. read: “And we have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One (? ?????) of God.” Whether in the mind of St. Peter this latter form of the words meant a full confession of Christ's Divinity, or only that He was the Messias, it is difficult to say. It would seem indeed from the praise bestowed upon Peter by our Lord (Matt. xvi. 16) on an occasion subsequent to this, that then for the first time Peter fully confessed Christ's Divinity.
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71. Respondit eis Iesus: Nonne ego vos duodecim elegi, et ex vobis unus diabolus est?
71. Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil?
71. Peter had answered as he thought for all the Apostles, but Christ shows that He knows to the contrary. A devil, that is to say a sinner inspired by the devil (viii. 44), Judas was (est) even then.
72. Dicebat autem Iudam Simonis Iscariotem: hic enim erat traditurus eum, cum esset unus ex duodecim.
72. Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of the twelve.
72. The Evangelist explains who was meant. “The name Iscariot has received many interpretations, more or less conjectural, but it is now universally agreed that it is to be derived from Kerioth (Josh. xv. 25) a city in the tribe of Judah, the Hebrew ???? ????? 'ish Keriyoth passing into ?s?a???t??” (Smith's B. D., 2nd Ed.). In this view, Judas, unlike the other Apostles (Acts ii. 7), was from the Province of Judea.
[pg 135]
1.Christ remains in Galilee.
2-10.His brethren urge Him to go up to Jerusalem to the Feast of Tabernacles with them; this He declines to do, but goes afterwards privately.
11-13.The chief men among the Jews look out for Him at the Feast, and express different opinions regarding Him.
14-24.In the middle of the festival Christ goes up to the temple and teaches.
25-29.Comments of some of the people of Jerusalem; Christ's reply.
30, 31.Different opinions of the people regarding Him.
32-36.Jealously of the Sanhedrim, which sends officers to arrest Him.
37-39.Christ's words on the eighth day of the feast, and St. John's authentic interpretation.
40, 41.Different opinions among the people regarding Him.
44-49.Though some were anxious to arrest Him, no one durst, not even the officers who had been sent for that purpose; consequent indignation of the Priests and Pharisees.
50-52.Nicodemus interposes in Christ's favour; reply of the other members of the Sanhedrim.
1. Post haec autem ambulabat Iesus in Galilaeam, non enim volebat in Iudaeam ambulare, quia quaerebant eum Iudaei interficere.
1. After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
1. Instead of “Galilaeam,”“Judaeam,” read “Galilea,”“Judaea” (Abl.) in the Vulgate. The sense is that Christ continues to remain in Galilee.
2. Erat autem in proximo dies festus Iudaeorum scenopegia.
2. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand.
3. Dixerunt autem ad eum fratres eius: Transi hinc, et vade in Iudaeam, ut et discipuli tui videant opera tua, quae facis.
3. And his brethren said to him: Pass from hence and go into Judea: that thy disciples also may see thy works which thou dost.
3. His brethren said to him: Pass from hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see thy works which thou dost.
Who are these brethren of Jesus?
(1) Not the children of [pg 136] Joseph and Mary, born to them after the birth of our Lord, for this opinion of Helvidius was condemned as heretical in the Council of Lateran (649 a.d.), and is opposed to the universal and constant tradition of the Church.61
(2) Not the children of Joseph by a previous marriage; for this opinion too, though not heretical, and though held by some of the fathers, is opposed to the common opinion of Catholics, according to which St. Joseph lived and died a virgin.
(3) These brethren were cousins of our Lord. The term “fratres” (?de?f??) is used in the Sacred Scriptures of many who are not children of the same parents. Thus it is used of fellow-countrymen, Rom. ix. 3, 4; (2) of co-religionists, Rom. i. 13; (3) of relations who were not, however, members of the same family, Gen. xiii. 8, xiv. 4. In these verses of Genesis, Abraham and Lot are referred to as brethren, though the former was uncle to the latter (Gen. xii. 5).
In Matthew xiii. 55, Mark vi. 3, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, are named as brethren of our Lord; but whether they are the same cousins who are referred to here by St. John, is disputed. Of those mentioned by SS. Matthew and Mark, James, Jude, and probably Simon, were Apostles;62 and hence, on account of verse 5, some say it is not these, but other cousins of our Lord, who are here referred to by St. John. However, there need be no difficulty about admitting that the faith of the Apostles was still imperfect, especially if we adopt what seems the more probable [pg 137] reading in vi. 70. See Matthew xvii. 19, 20; Mark xvi. 15.
These brethren of the Lord say to Him, that He ought to go up to Jerusalem, where there would be a concourse of people to witness His miracles.
4. Nemo quippe in occulto quid facit, et quaerit ipse in palam esse: si haec facis, manifesta teipsum mundo.
4. For there is no man that doth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, manifest thyself to the world.
5. Neque enim fratres eius credebant in eum.
5. For neither did his brethren believe in him.
5. As already explained, if we regard the three Apostles as included among the brethren, we may understand here that their faith was still imperfect; if other cousins of our Lord are meant, they may have been wholly without faith.
6. Dicit ergo eis Iesus: Tempus meum nondum advenit: tempus autem vestrum semper est paratum.
6. Then Jesus said to them: My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready.
6. There are many opinions as to what is meant by His time, here referred to by Christ. Some say it is the time of His passion; others, the time for manifesting Himself to the world; and others, the time for going up to Jerusalem. The latter opinion seems to us the most natural and most probable.
7. Non potest mundus odisse vos: me autem odit, quia ego testimonium perhibeo de illo quod opera eius mala sunt.
7. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth: because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil.
7. His brethren might go up to Jerusalem at any time, for they, even if some of them were Apostles, had not yet incurred the odium of the wicked world (John xv. 18, 19).
8. Vos ascendite ad diem festum hunc: ego autem non ascendo ad diem festum istum, quia meum tempus nondum impletum est.
8. Go you up to this festival day, but I go not up to this festival day: because my time is not accomplished.
9. Haec cum dixisset, ipse mansit in Galilaea.
9. When he had said these things, he himself staid in Galilee.
10. Ut autem ascenderunt fratres eius, tunc et ipse ascendit ad diem festum non manifeste, sed quasi in occulto.
10. But after his brethren were gone up, then he also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.
8-10. Christ here seems to say that He will not go up to Jerusalem for the feast, and yet He went. Various answers to this difficulty have been given:—(1) Many ancient MSS. and versions, instead of “Non (???) ascendo” read “Nondum (??p?) ascendo;”i.e., I go not up yet. However, as this is the easier reading to explain, and as the [pg 138] other is equally well supported by ancient authority, we are inclined to believe that the more difficult (???) is the true reading. Hence (2) others say that our Lord used an ambiguous phrase: I go not up, meaning I go not up now (but shall go afterwards). (3) The correct explanation seems to be that insinuated by our Evangelist. Christ said: I go not up (as you desire, in your company, and publicly); then when He went up, it was not publicly, but, as it were, in secret.
11. Iudaei ergo quaerebant eum in die festo, et dicebant: Ubi est ille?
11. The Jews therefore sought him on the festival day and said: Where is he?
11. The leaders of the Jews seek Him at the feast, but, through contempt, do not name Him.
12. Et murmur multum erat in turba de eo. Quidam enim dicebant: Quia bonus est. Alii autem dicebant: Non, sed seducit turbas.
12. And there was much murmuring among the multitude concerning him. For some said: He is a good man. And others said: No, but he seduceth the people.
13. Nemo tamen palam loquebatur de illo, propter metum Iudaeorum.
13. Yet no man spoke openly of him, for fear of the Jews.
13. Openly (palam) does not fully express the force of the Greek word, which seems to mean here with open approval.
14. Iam autem die festo mediante, ascendit Iesus in templum, et docebat.
14. Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.
14. The festival lasted for eight days, so that this would be the fourth or fifth day.
15. Et mirabantur Iudaei, dicentes: Quomodo hic litteras scit, cum non didicerit?
15. And the Jews wondered, saying: How doth this man know letters, having never learned?
15. From this verse it is plain that Christ had never attended any of the Jewish schools, where the Scriptures (???ata) were explained.
[pg 139]
16. Respondit eis Iesus, et dixit: Mea doctrina non est mea, sed eius qui misit me.
16. Jesus answered them and said: My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.
16. The sense is: The doctrine I preach has not been excogitated by Me; I have received it from My Father. As man, Christ had received His knowledge through the beatific vision, and by infusion into His human soul, and as God, He had received it from the Father from all eternity.
17. Si quis voluerit voluntatem eius facere, cognoscet de doctrina utrum ex Deo sit, an ego a meipso loquar.
17. If any man will do the will of him: he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
18. Qui a semetipso loquitur, gloriam propriam quaerit: qui autem quaerit gloriam eius qui misit eum, hic verax est, et iniustitia in illo non est.
18. He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and there is no injustice in him.
17, 18. In proof that His doctrine is from God, He appeals to two arguments:—(1) If they will only follow the will of God, and believe, experience will teach them that His doctrine is divine. (2) The fact that He seeks not His own glory, but the glory of the Father, is a proof that His doctrine is the doctrine of the Father, and, therefore a proof that He is veracious, and does not deceive (injustitia in illo non est). This second argument, as Mald. points out, is based upon what does, not upon what should, happen among men. When men preach doctrines of their own invention, they generally seek their own glory.
19. Nonne Moyses dedit vobis legem: et nemo ex vobis facit legem?
19. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?
20. Quid me quaeritis interficere? Respondit turba, et dixit: Daemonium habes: quis te quaerit interficere?
20. Why seek you to kill me? The multitude answered and said: Thou hast a devil; who seeketh to kill thee?
19, 20. Most probably Christ begins here to defend Himself against the charge of violating the Sabbath, which the Jews had brought against Him on a former occasion (v. 16, 18), [pg 140] and which they still remembered against Him.
He uses an “argumentum ad hominem”: You do not keep the law yourselves, why then seek to kill Me, even for what you allege to be a violation of it? Some among the crowd were even then anxious to kill Jesus, as His words prove, and to these He directs His words; but there were many present who had no such intention, and some of these reply, Thou hast a devil. They may have meant that He was possessed, or simply that He was raving, out of His senses.
21. Respondit Iesus, et dixit eis: Unum opus feci, et omnes miramini.
21. Jesus answered and said to them: One work I have done; and you all wonder:
22. Propterea Moyses dedit vobis circumcisionem: (non quia ex Moyse est, sed ex patribus) et in sabbato circumciditis hominem.
22. Therefore Moses gave you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the sabbath-day you circumcise a man.
23. Si circumcisionem accipit homo in sabbato, ut non solvatur lex Moysi: mihi indignamini quia totum hominem sanum feci in sabbato?
23. If a man receive circumcision on the sabbath-day, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are you angry at me because I have healed the whole man on the sabbath-day?
21-23. He proceeds to show by sober reasoning, that they ought not to blame Him for having healed the man on the Sabbath.
The one work of verse 21 is the healing of the man on the Sabbath day (v. 9, 16). Some prefer to connect “propterea” with verse 21: “and you all wonder on account of it.” But it is better to connect it, as in the Vulgate, with what follows. The sense is: it was on this account Moses gave you circumcision; namely, because it had been handed down from the Patriarchs (Gen. xvii. 10), not because it was properly a part of the law. If then a man may receive circumcision on the Sabbath, and yet the law regarding the observance of the Sabbath is not violated thereby, are you angry with Me because, doing the will of God, I made a man whole, both body and soul, on the Sabbath? In this explanation, “ut” (??a) is ecbatic, denoting a consequence. See Gen. xxii. 14; John x. 17; Apoc. xiii. [pg 141] 13. Others, however, give the particle its ordinary telic force, and explain thus: If then a man may receive circumcision on the Sabbath, in order that the law commanding circumcision to be performed on the eighth day be not violated, are you angry, &c.? Both explanations are probable, and leave the argument unchanged.
24. Nolite iudicare secundum faciem, sed iustum iudicium iudicate.
24. Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment.
24. According to the appearance; i.e., take no account of persons, but judge according to the merits of the case.
25. Dicebant ergo quidam ex Ierosolymis: Nonne hic est quem quaerunt interficere?
25. Some therefore of Jerusalem said: Is not this he whom they seek to kill?
26. Et ecce palam loquitur, et nihil ei dicunt. Numquid vere cognoverunt principes quia hic est Christus?
26. And behold he speaketh openly, and they say nothing to him. Have the rulers known for a truth that this is the Christ?
25, 26. Some of the people of Jerusalem (the correct reading is ?e??s????t??) said: can it be that they have discovered that He is really Christ?
27. Sed hunc scimus unde sit: Christus autem cum venerit, nemo scit unde scit.
27. But we know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.
27. And yet this cannot be, for we know this man whence he is; but when the Christ cometh no man knoweth whence He is. This erroneous opinion of theirs may have arisen from Micheas, v. 2: “His going forth is from the beginning from the days of eternity;” and Mal. iii. 2: “And who shall be able to think of the day of His coming?”
28. Clamabat ergo Iesus in templo docens, et dicens: Et me scitis, et unde sim scitis: et a meipso non veni, sed est verus qui misit me, quem vos nescitis.
28. Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying: You both know me, and you know whence I am, and I am not come of myself; but he that sent me is true, whom you know not.
28. The meaning is: You [pg 142] know Me as man, and you know My parents, and yet I come not of My own authority, but sent by My Father, who therein shows Himself true to His promises.
29. Ego scio eum: quia ab ipso sum, et ipse me misit.
29. I know him, because I am from him, and he hath sent me.
29. He declares His Divine knowledge of the Father, His eternal generation, and mission in time.
30. Quaerebant ergo eum apprehendere: et nemo misit in illum manus, quia nondum venerat hora eius.
30. They sought therefore to apprehend him: and no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.
30. They rightly understand Him to claim to be Divine, and as a consequence seek to apprehend Him; but the time for His sufferings had not yet arrived, and so they were powerless.
31. De turba autem multi crediderunt in eum, et dicebant: Christus cum venerit, numquid plura signa faciet quam quae hic facit?
31. But of the people many believed in him, and said: When the Christ cometh, shall he do more miracles than these which this man doth?
31. Many of the multitude—in contrast with their leaders—believed in Him. When the Christ cometh, shall he, &c. The question, expecting, as it does, a negative answer (numquid), suggests that Jesus must be the Christ.
32. Audierunt pharisaei turbam murmurantem de illo haec: et miserunt principes et pharisaei ministros, ut apprehenderent eum.
32. The Pharisees heard the people murmuring these things concerning him: and the rulers and Pharisees sent ministers to apprehend him.
32. Rulers, rather chief priests (????e?e??). The ministers were officers attendant upon the Sanhedrim, or engaged about the temple. See verses 45, 46; xiii. 3, 18, 22; xix. 6; Acts v. 22, 26. As the Sanhedrim was made up of chief priests, Pharisees, and Scribes, probably it was the Sanhedrim that sent these ministers to apprehend Christ.
33. Dixit ergo eis Iesus: Adhuc modicum tempus vobiscum sum: et vado ad eum qui me misit.
33. Jesus therefore said to them: Yet a little while I am with you: and then I go to him that sent me.
33. Omit “eis” (to them). [pg 143] Christ's words were probably directed not merely to the ministers, but to all the people. Yet a little while I am with you, i.e., almost six months more after this feast of Tabernacles, and then He would go to the Father.
34. Quaeretis me, et non invenietis: et ubi ego sum vos non potestis venire.
34. You shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither you cannot come.
34. You shall seek me, and shall not find me. Some think these words were fulfilled at the siege of Jerusalem, when many of the Jews must have looked in vain for help from Him whom they had put to death.
Others, like Maldonatus, say the statement is conditional: even if you sought me, you should not find me, after a little while.
Since the same words: “You shall seek me,” were afterwards addressed to the Apostles (xiii. 33), it is not likely that the reference is to seeking Him at the destruction of Jerusalem, for the Apostles did not seek Him then. It would also seem from xiii. 33 that the view of Maldonatus just stated is not probable, for in xiii. 33 there is not a conditional statement, but simply a prediction that the Apostles would seek Him. Hence we take it that in the text before us also, there is a prediction that the Jews after His departure would, when in distress and tribulation, desire to see Him once more among them. Doubtless, many Jews afterwards had such a desire, but it was in vain, for He had gone to Him that sent Him.
And where I am (= shall be) thither you cannot come.
These words too were afterwards addressed to the Apostles (xiii. 33), and we believe in the same sense as here. The meaning is that until death at least the separation would be complete, for He would be no longer here, and where He would be they could not join Him. Some take the words: “You cannot come,” as meaning here that the Jews on account of their sins could never enter heaven. But since, as we have said, the same words were afterwards addressed to the Apostles, the view we have adopted seems more probable.
35. Dixerunt ergo Iudaei ad semetipsos: Quo hic iturus est, quia non inveniemus eum? numquid in dispersionem gentium iturus est, et docturus gentes?
35. The Jews therefore said, among themselves: Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the gentiles, and teach the gentiles?
35. The dispersed among the Gentiles, i.e., the Jews scattered among the Gentiles, or more probably the Gentiles [pg 144] themselves (???????, not ??????st??) scattered over the world. The concluding words of the verse: “and teach the Gentiles” render the latter view the more probable.
36. Quis est hic sermo, quem dixit: Quaeretis me, et non invenietis: et ubi sum ego, vos non potestis venire?
36. What is this saying that he hath said: You shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, you cannot come?
37. In novissimo autem die magno festivitatis, stabat Iesus, et clamabat, dicens: Si quis sitit, veniat ad me, et bibat.
37. And on the last and great day of the festivity, Jesus stood and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.
38. Qui credit in me, sicut dicit scriptura, flumina de ventre eius fluent aquae vivae.
38. He that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
37, 38. On the last day, the great day of the feast, that is, the eighth day, Jesus cried aloud to the people assembled at the temple. His words mean: If anyone thirst spiritually, let him come to Me by faith, and grace shall be abundantly poured into his soul. The words: Out of his belly, &c., are nowhere to be found in the Old Testament; but, as signifying the abundance of grace in the new dispensation, they convey the sense of many passages of the Old Testament. See Is. xli. 18, xliv. 3.; Ezech. xxxvi. 25; Joel ii. 28.
39. Hoc autem dixit de Spiritu, quem accepturi erant credentes in eum: nondum enim erat Spiritus datus, quia Iesus nondum erat glorificatus.
39. Now this he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him: for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
39. The Evangelist gives an authentic interpretation of our Lord's words: For as yet the Spirit was not given. These words explain why our Lord spoke of the abundant outpouring of the Spirit as still to come, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, inasmuch as Christ was not yet glorified (xvi. 7). When it is said that the Holy Ghost was not yet given, the meaning is, that He was not yet given so abundantly, so manifestly, or so universally, as He has been since the first Pentecost. It is not meant that the Holy Ghost had not been given to the just of the Old Testament. They, as well [pg 145] as we, had the grace of the Holy Ghost in their souls; moreover, according to the common teaching of the fathers and theologians, they, like the just now, had the Holy Ghost united to their souls, not merely by His grace, but also by a substantial union. This union is not, however, peculiar to the Holy Ghost, but is common to the Three Divine Persons, by reason of their unity of nature, and is only by appropriation attributed to the Holy Ghost. See Franz., De Trin., last Disp.; Corl., pp. 198, 199.
40. Ex illa ergo turba cum audissent hos sermones eius, dicebant: Hic est vere propheta.
40. Of that multitude therefore, when they had heard these words of his, some said: This is the prophet indeed.
41. Alii dicebant: Hic est Christus. Quidam autem dicebant: Numquid a Galilaea venit Christus?
41. Others said: This is the Christ. But some said: Doth the Christ come out of Galilee?
42. Nonne scriptura dicit: Quia ex semine David, et de Bethlehem castello, ubi erat David, venit Christus?
42. Doth not the scripture say: That Christ cometh out of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem the town where David was?
43. Dissensio itaqua facta est in turba propter eum.
43. So there arose a dissension among the people because of him.
44. Quidam autem ex ipsis volebant apprehendere eum: sed nemo misit super eum manus.
44. And some of them would have apprehended him: but no man laid hands upon him.
40-44. The Evangelist notes the difference of opinion among the crowd. Some believed Him to be the Prophet promised to Moses (Deut. xviii. 18); others (wrongly distinguishing between the Prophet and the Messias) held Him to be the Messias; others doubted (verse 41); others remained wholly incredulous (verse 44). In verse 42, three different passages of Sacred Scripture are combined: “of the seed of David” (Is. xi. 1); “from Bethlehem” (Mich. v. 2); “the town where David was” (1 Kings xvii. 12).
45. Venerunt ergo ministri ad pontifices et pharisaeos. Et dixerunt eis illi: Quare non adduxistis illum?
45. The ministers therefore came to the chief priests and the Pharisees. And they said to them: Why have you not brought him?
46. Responderunt ministri: Numquam sic locutus est homo, sicut hic homo.
46. The ministers answered: Never did man speak like this man.
47. Responderunt ergo eis pharisaei; numquid et vos seducti estis?
47. The Pharisees therefore answered them: Are you also seduced?
48. Numquid ex principibus aliquis credidit in eum, aut ex pharisaeis?
48. Hath any one of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees?
49. Sed turba haec, quae non novit legem maledicti sunt.
49. But this multitude that knoweth not the law, are accursed.
45-49. The officers, who had been sent a few days before to apprehend Christ (see above, 14, 32), or perhaps other officers, return and bear favourable testimony to Him, for which they are rebuked by the Pharisees.
[pg 146]
50. Dixit Nicodemus ad eos, ille qui venit ad eum nocte, qui unus erat ex ipsis.
50. Nicodemus said to them, he that came to him by night, who was one of them.
51. Numquid lex nostra iudicat hominem nisi prius audierit ab ipso, et cognoverit quid faciat?
51. Doth our law judge any man, unless it first hear him, and know what he doth?
52. Responderunt, et dixerunt ei: Numquid et tu Galilaeus es? Scrutare scripturas, et vide quia a Galilaea propheta non surgit.
52. They answered and said to him: Art thou also a Galilean? Search the scriptures, and see that out of Galilee a prophet riseth not.
50-52. Nicodemus (iii. 1, 2) interposes in Christ's favour; to whom the members of the Sanhedrim impatiently reply that no prophet had ever arisen in Galilee, thus disposing, as they thought, of Christ's claim to be a prophet. But they were wrong in their assumption that Christ had been born in Galilee (see Luke ii. 4-7), and equally wrong in the conclusion they drew that, being a Galilean, He could not be a prophet. For the Sacred Scriptures had nowhere said that a prophet could not arise in Galilee; nay, they prove that the prophet Jonas was a Galilean, 4 Kings, xiv. 25.
53. Et reversi sunt unusquisque in domum suam.
53. And every man returned to his own house.
53. See next chapter.
[pg 147]
1-2.Christ having spent the night on the Mount of Olives, returns in the morning to the temple and teaches.
3-11.The story of the woman taken in adultery.
12-20.Discourse of Christ with the Pharisees in the treasury.
21-29.He upbraids them for their incredulity, and foretells His own crucifixion.
30-50.Many believed in Him, but others remained incredulous (33), and to these He says that they are not the children of Abraham, but of the devil.
51-59.Challenged by the Jews, He declares Himself greater than Abraham; and when they were about to stone Him for this declaration, He hides Himself.
