These are, of course, only suppositions; but it might well be that Philip had found him while still busy with such thoughts. Possibly their outcome, and that quite in accordance with Jewish belief at the time, may have been, that all that was needed to bring that happy age to come' was, that Jacob should become Israel in truth. In such case he would himself have been ripening for the Kingdom' that was at hand. It must have seemed a startling answer to his thoughts, this announcement, made wth the freshness of new and joyous conviction: We have found Him of Whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, did write.' But this addition about the Man of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph, [1706] would appear a terrible anti-climax. It was so different from anything that he had associated either with the great hope of Israel, or with the Nazareth of his own neighbourhood, that his exclamation, without implying any special imputation on the little town which he knew so well, seems not only natural, but, psychologically, deeply true. There was but one answer to this - that which Philip made, which Jesus had made to Andrew and John, and which has ever since been the best answer to all Christian inquiry: Come and see.' And, despite the disappointment, there must have been such moving power in the answer which Philip's sudden announcement had given to his unspoken thoughts, that he went with him. And now, as ever, when in such spirit we come, evidences irrefragable multiplied at every step. As he neared Jesus, he heard Him speak to the disciples words concerning him, which recalled, truly and actually, what had passed in his soul. But could it really be so, that Jesus knew it all? The question, intended to elicit it, brought such proof that he could not but burst into the immediate and full acknowledgment: Thou art the Son of God,' Who hast read my inmost being; Thou art the King of Israel,' Who dost meet its longing and hope. And is it not ever so, that the faith of the heart springs to the lips, as did the water from the riven rock at the touch of the God-gifted rod? It needs not long course of argumentation, nor intricate chain of evidences, welded link to link, when the secret thoughts of the heart are laid bare, and its inmost longings met. Then, as in a moment, it is day, and joyous voice of song greets its birth.
And yet that painful path of slower learning to enduring conviction must still be trodden, whether in the sufferings of the heart, or the struggle of the mind. This it is which seems implied in the half-sad question of the Master, [1707] yet with full view of the final triumph (thou shalt see greater things than these'), and of the true realisation in it of that glorious symbol of Jacob's vision. [1708]
And so Nathanael, the God-given' - or, as we know him in after-history, Bartholomew, the son of Telamyon' [1709] - was added to the disciples. Such was on that first Sunday the small beginning of the great Church Catholic; these the tiny springs that swelled into the mighty river which, in its course, has enriched and fertilised the barrenness of the far-off lands of the Gentiles. __________________________________________________________________
[1646] St. John i. 33.
[1647] This is insisted upon by Keim, in his beautiful sketch of the Baptist. Would that he had known the Master in the glory of His Divinity, as he understood the Forerunner in the beauty of his humanity! To show how the whole teaching of the Baptist was, so to speak, saturated with Isaiah-language and thoughts, comp. not only Is. xl. 3, as the burden of his mission, but as to his imagery (after Keim): Generation of vipers, Is. lix. 5; planting of the Lord, Is. v. 7; trees, vi. 13; x. 15, 18, 33; xl. 24; fire, i. 31; ix. 18; x. 17; v. 24; xlvii. 14; floor and fan, xxi. 10; xxvii. 27 &c.; xxx. 24; xl. 24; xli. 15 &c.; bread and coat to the poor, lviii. 7; the garner, xxi. 10. Besides these, the Isaiah reference in his Baptism (Is. lii. 15; i. 16), and that to the Lamb of God - indeed many others of a more indirect character, will readily occur to the reader. Similarly, when our Lord would afterwards instruct him in his hour of darkness (St. Matt. xi. 2), He points for the solution of his doubts to the well-remembered prophecies of Isaiah (Is. xxxv. 5, 6; lxi. 1; viii. 14, 15).