proportions of wine and water, and could also impose fines for failures to guess riddles, etc. As the success of the feast de- pended largely upon him, his selection was a matter of some delicacy. Plato says, ‘“ Must we not appoint a sober man and a wise to be our master of the revels? For if the ruler of drinkers be himself young and drunken, and not over-wise, only by some special good fortune will he be saved from doing some great evil” (“ Laws,” 640). The word occurs only here and ver. 9. Wye. simply transcribes: architriclyn.
10. Have well drunk (pe9vc9Gor). Wyc., be filled. Tynd., be drunk. The A. V.and Tynd. are better than the Rev., when men have drunk freely. The ruler of the feast means that when the palates of the guests have become less sensitive through indulgence, an inferior quality of wine is offered. In every instance of its use in the New Testament the word means intoxication. The attempt of the advocates of the unfer- mented-wine theory to deny or weaken this sense by citing ¢he well-watered garden (Isa. lvili. 11; Jer. xxxi. 12) scarcely re- quires comment. One might answer by quoting Plato, who uses Bamrifertat, to be baptized, for being drunk (“ Sympo- sium,” 176). In the Septuagint the verb repeatedly occurs for watering (Ps. lxv. 9, 10), but always with the sense of drench- ing or soaking; of being drunken or surfeited with water. In Jer. xlviii. (Sept. xxxi.) 26, it is found in the literal sense, to be drunken. The metaphorical use of the word has passed into common slang, as when a drunken man is said to be wetted or soaked (so Plato, above). The figurative use of the word in the Septuagint has a parallel in the use of zrorif%, to give to drink, to express the watering of ground. So Gen. ii. 6, a mist watered the face of the earth, or gave it drink. Compare Gen. xiii. 10; Deut. xi. 10. A curious use of the word occurs in Homer, where he is describing the stretching of a bull’s hide, which, in order to make it more elastic, is soaked (ue9vovcav) with fat (“ Tliad,” xvii., 390).
Worse (éAdcow). Lit., smaller. Implying both worse and weaker. Small appears in the same sense in English, as small-beer.
GOSPEL OF JOHN. 83 Hast kept (rer7pnxas). See on 1 Pet. i. 4. 11. This beginning. Or, more strictly, this as a beginning.
Of miracles (cnuelwv). Rev., correctly, stgns. See on Matt. xi. 20; xxiv. 24. This act was not merely a prodigy (répas), nor a wonderful thing (Javudovov), nor a power (Svvapus), but distinctively a segn, a mark of the doer’s power and grace, and divine character. Hence it falls in perfectly with the words manifested His glory.
Believed on Him (émlorevoay eis adtov). See on i. 12. Lit., believed into. Canon Westcott most aptly says that it conveys the idea of ‘the absolute transference of trust from one’s self to another.”
12. He went down («aré8n). Capernaum being on the lake shore, and Nazareth and Cana on the higher ground.
13. The Jews’ passover. On John’s use of the term Jews, see on i. 19. So it is used here with an under-reference to the national religion as consisting in mere ceremonies. The same hint underlies the words in ver. 6, “after the Jews’ manner of purifying.” Only John mentions this earliest passover of Christ’s ministry. The Synoptists relate no incident of his ministry in Judeea, and but for the narrative of John, it could not be positively asserted that Jesus went up to Jerusalem dur- ing His public life until the time of His arrest and crucifixion.
14. The temple (‘ep@). The temple inclosure: not the sanctuary (vaos). See on Matt. ix. 5; Mark xi. 16.
Those that sold (rovs 7wdodvras). The article defines them as a well-known class.