ἐκεῖνος οὗ τὸ ὄνομα µέγα καὶ περιβόητον παρὰ πᾶσι τοῖς ᾿Ἰουδαίοις. ‘ John witnesses and cries, saying οὗτος ἦν ὃν εἶπον. This was He of whom I said 6 ὀπίσω µου épxdpevos,” etc. This testi- mony was given to Andrew and John, ver. 30 ; but when the previous “ saying ”’ occurred we do not know, unless it be referred to the answer to the authorities, νετ. 27. The meaning of the testimony will be considered in the next section oi the Gospel, which is entitled ‘‘ The Testimony of John”.—Ver. 16. ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος . . . χάριτος, ‘because out of His fulness have we all received’”’. The ὅτι does not continue the Baptist’s testimony, but refers to πλήρης in ver
14. In Col. ii. ο Paul says that in Christ dwelleth all the πλήρωμα of the Godhead, meaning to repudiate the
πάντες ἐλάβομεν καὶ χάριν 7 ἀντὶ χάριτος’ 17. ὅτι ὁ vdpos Buby Ga, tn
Μωσέως ἐδόθη, ἡ " χάρις καὶ ἡ " ἀλήθεια διὰ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐγένετο. 2 Rom. iii
18. ’ Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακε πώποτε" ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς,ὶ ὁ dy εἰς Tova viii, 30; b Exod. xzziii, 20. Ecolus. viii χε.
1 Instead of the reading of the T.R., 9 µονογενης νιος, several modern editors read µονογενης θεος, For the T.R. the authorities are AC®X and some other uncials ; of versions the old Latin and the Vulgate, Curetonian Syriac, Armenian and Ethiopic; almost all the cursives and the great body of the Fathers—all the Latin Fathers after the fourth century. For povoyevys θεος the uncials ΜΒ, and cursive 33; the Peshito and Harklean Syriac in margin, and the Memphitic; and of the Greek Fathers Clement of Alexandria, Valentinus in Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Basil, etc. These authorities and the text they witness to have been discussed by the late Dr. Hort in his Two Dissertations, and by Ezra Abbot in his Critical Essays, pp. 241-285. The MS. authority favours the reading θεος; while the versions and the Fathers weigh rather in the opposite scale. Internal evidence is on the whole in favour of the T.R. The reading θεος is rejected by Scrivener, Wordsworth, McLellan, Tischendorf, Meyer, Godet, Liicke, Holtzmann, and Weizsacker. It should be noted, as brought out by Ezra Abbot, that the Arians were quite willing to call the Son o povoyevns Geos, because in their view this appellation happily distinguished Him from the Father who αἶοπε was God in the highest sense, unbegotten, un.
caused, and without beginning.
“Gnostic idea that this pleroma was dis- tributed among many subordinate beings or zons. But what John has here in view is that the fulness of grace in Christ was communicable to men. By ἡμεῖς πάντες he indicates himself and all other Christians. He had himself ex- perienced the reality of that grace with which Christ was filled and its inex- haustible character. For he adds καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος, “ grace upon grace”’. Beza suggests the rendering: (‘ut quidam vir eruditus explicat,” he says): “Gratiam supra gratiam; pro quo eleganter dixeris, gratiam gratia cumu- latam,”’ but he does not himself adopt it. It is, however, adopted by almost all modern interpreters: so that ever and anon fresh grace appears over and above that already received. This rendering, as Meyer points out, is linguistically justified by Theognis, Sent., 344, ἀντ᾽ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας, Sorrows upon sorrows; and it receives remarkable illustration from the passage quoted by Wetstein from Philo, De Poster. Cain., where, speaking of grace, he says that God does not allow men to be sated with one grace, but gives ἑτέρας ἀντ᾽ ἐκείνων (the first) Kal τρίτας ἄντι τῶν δευτέρων καὶ del νέας ἀντὶ παλαιοτέρων. Harnack (Hist. of Dogma, i., 76, E. Tr.) asks: ‘‘ Where in the history of mankind can we find anything resembling this, that men who had eaten and drunk with their Master should glorify Him, not only as the Revealer of God, but as the Prince of Life, as the Redeemer and Judge of the