The time is short, and there is much to be done. The pre- parations for His capture will begin forthwith, and He has many* things to say to His Apostles which cannot be so well said at any other time. What lesson shall He take first ? Upon what doc-
28 THE NEW COMMANDMENT
trine shall He chiefly lay stress ? "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another ; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." Can we wonder that this new commandment should have afterwards so completely absorbed St. John's own mind, when we remember that he heard it enunciated under such circumstances as these ?
I.
The New Commandment.
1. The emphatic word of the text is the word translated " one another." And the moment we place the emphasis there the meaning is evident. "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." Jesus had only the eleven disciples with Him ; for the traitor had already gone out into the night. In the hearing of these eleven He had already announced the old commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," with an added emphasis and extended grasp. In particular, He had pointed out that their neighbour included their enemy, even such as the hated and despised Samaritan. Now He says, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love " — not your enemies, but — " one another." The old commandment is not taken away ; it lies upon these men with a great obligation, such as never was known by Jew or Gentile before. But another is added to it, another and a different commandment, that Peter love John, and John love Andrew, and Andrew love " Judas-not-Iscariot." " A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another."
^ In the seventeenth century the minister of Anwoth, on the shores of Galloway, was the famous Samuel Kutherford, the great religious oracle of the Covenanters.
It is one of the traditions cherished on the spot, that on a Saturday evening, at one of those family gatherings whence, in the language of a great Scottish poet,
Old Scotia's grandeur springs,
when Eutherford was catechizing his children and servants, a Btranger knocked at the door of the Manse, and (like the young English traveller in the celebrated romance which has given fresh life to those same hills in our own age), begged shelter for the
ST. JOHN XIII. 34 29
night. The minister kindly received him, and asked him to take his place amongst the family and assist at their religious exercises. It so happened that the question in the Catechism which came to the stranger's turn was that which asks, " How many command- ments are there ? " He answered, " Eleven." " Eleven ! " ex- claimed Eutherford ; " I am surprised that a person of your age and appearance should not know better. What do you mean ? " And he answered, " A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
The stranger proved to be the great divine and scholar, Archbishop Ussher, the Primate of the Church of Ireland.^
2. It is the love of one follower of Christ to another. And it was new, altogether new ; for till then there were no Christians to love or be loved. The disciples recognized it as new. Of this we have an immediate and conclusive proof. When a new thing comes into the world, one of the first needs is a new name to call it by. A new invention or discovery must have its new name — the "telephone," let us say. So the disciples, recognizing that a new thing had appeared in the world chose a word, — like " tele- phone," compound of two things, — a word not absolutely new, but rarely used before, to name it. Fhil-adelphia they called it, " love of brothers," " brotherly-love." And their use of this word shows us that they recognized this commandment as not only new, but different in kind from the old commandment of love. In the rope of Christian virtues, as it has been well called, which St. Peter weaves in the first chapter of his second letter, the last two strands are " brotherly -love " and " love," as the Eevised Version does well to inform us : " In your faith supply virtue . . . and in your godli- ness love-of-the-brethren, and in your love-of-the-brethren love." The two virtues are kept distinct, for they rest upon two separate and distinct commands, the one very old, and the other altogether new.
^ The Law had also already taught some points of this duty. Thus the Mosaic statute said, " Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy brother," — a mode of brother-love which, though negative in its form, was positive in its spirit. But in its expressiveness and
' E. E. Prothero, The Life and Correspondence of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, u. 272.
30 THE NEW COMMANDMENT