[5782] This meaning of the word is not only most important but well marked. Canon Westcott calls attention to its use also in the following passages: v. 19; vii. 18; xi. 51; xv. 4.
[5783] St. John xvi. 8-15.
[5784] ver. 16.
[5785] The words, because I go to the Father,' are spurious in ver. 16.
[5786] vv. 5-7.
[5787] St. John xvi. 23 comp. ver 19.
[5788] According to the better reading of ver. 23: He will give it you in My Name.'
[5789] The same word (paesa) is used of Christ's plainly' declaring the Father (ver. 25), and of our liberty in prayer in Heb. iv. 16; comp. also x. 19. For the Johannine use of the word, comp. St. John vii. 4, 13, 26; x. 24; xi. 14, 54; xvi. 25, 29; xviii. 20; 1 John ii. 28; iii. 21; iv. 17; v. 14.
[5790] According to the better reading: k to patrs. Surely, if words have any meaning, these teach the unity of Essence of the Son and the Father.
[5791] St. John xvi. 30.
[5792] Very significantly, however, they use neither par, nor k, but p.
[5793] St. John xvi. 32.
[5794] xiv.1.
[5795] xvi. 33.
[5796] St. John xvii.
[5797] That in St. Matt. xi. 25-27 is a brief thanksgiving.
[5798] vv. 1-5; 6-19; 20-26.
[5799] Comp. each chapter with the corresponding section of verses in ch. xvii.
[5800] I cannot agree with Canon Westcott that these last Discourses and this Prayer were spoken in the Temple. It is, indeed, true, that on that night the Temple was thrown open at midnight, and speedily thronged. But if our Lord had come before that time, He would have found its gates closed; if after that time, He could not have found a place of retirement and quiet, where it is conceivable that could have been said and prayed which is recorded in St. John xiv., xv., xvi., xvii.
[5801] vv. 1-5.
[5802] The word also' should be struck out.
[5803] We mark this Hebraism in the Fourth Gospel.
[5804] in St. John xvii. 3.
[5805] vv. 4, 5.
[5806] Phil. ii. 8, 11.
[5807] St. John xvii. 6-10.
[5808] St. John xvii. 9-12.
[5809] Comp. here St. John xv.11.
[5810] ver. 13.
[5811] This meaning is ruled by a reference to 1 John v. 18, 19, and, if so, it seems in turn to rule the meaning of the petition: Deliver us from the Evil One.'
[5812] St. John xvii. 12.
[5813] Not, by Thy truth.'
[5814] vv. 12-17.
[5815] Not, as in the A.V. (ver. 19), through the truth' (n lethea).
[5816] It need scarcely be said that by the term unity' we refer not to unity of Person, but of Nature, Character, and Work.
[5817] vv. 24-26. __________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER XII. GETHSEMANE
(St. Matt. xxvi. 30-56; St. Mark xiv. 26-52; St. Luke xxii. 31-53; St. John xviii. 1-11.)
We turn once more to follow the steps of Christ, now among the last He trod upon earth. The hymn,' with which the Paschal Supper ended, had been sung. Probably we are to understand this of the second portion of the Hallel, [5818] sung some time after the third Cup, or else of Psalm cxxxvi., which, in the present Ritual, stands near the end of the service. The last Discourses had been spoken, the last Prayer, that of Consecration, had been offered, and Jesus prepared to go forth out of the City, to the Mount of Olives. The streets could scarcely be said to be deserted, for, from many a house shone the festive lamp, and many a company may still have been gathered; and everywhere was the bustle of preparation for going up to the Temple, the gates of which were thrown open at midnight.
Passing out by the gate north of the Temple, we descend into a lonely part of the valley of black Kidron, at that season swelled into a winter torrent. Crossing it, we turn somewhat to the left, where the road leads towards Olivet. Not many steps farther (beyond, and on the other side of the present Church of the Sepulchre of the Virgin) we turn aside from the road to the right, and reach what tradition has since earliest times - and probably correctly - pointed out as Gethsemane,' the Oil-press.' It was a small property enclosed (choron), a garden' in the Eastern sense, where probably, amidst a variety of fruit trees and flowering shrubs, was a lowly, quiet summer-retreat, connected with, or near by, the Olive-press.' The present Gethsemane is only some seventy steps square, and though its old gnarled olives cannot be those (if such there were) of the time of Jesus, since all trees in that valley - those also which stretched their shadows over Jesus - were hewn down in the Roman siege, they may have sprung from the old roots, or from the odd kernels. But we love to think of this Garden' as the place where Jesus often' - not merely on this occassion, but perhaps on previous visits to Jerusalem - gathered with His disciples. It was a quiet resting-place, for retirement, prayer, perhaps sleep, and a trysting-place also where not only the Twelve, but others also, may have been wont to meet the Master. And as such it was known to Judas, and thither he led the armed band, when they found the Upper Chamber no longer occupied by Jesus and His disciples. Whether it had been intended that He should spend part of the night there, before returning to the Temple, and whose that enclosed garden was - the other Eden, in which the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, bore the penalty of the first, and in obeying gained life - we know not, and perhaps ought not to inquire. It may have belonged to Mark's father. But if otherwise, Jesus had loving disciples even in Jerusalem, and, we rejoice to think, not only a home at Bethany, and an Upper Chamber furnished in the City, but a quiet retreat and trysting-place for His own under the bosom of Olivet, in the shadow of the garden of the Oil-press.'