The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 23

birth. He also calls attention to the Clementine 'Homilies,' xi. 2G, where eome of the same deviRtions from the Fourth Gospel may be seen, with sundry ndditlons. Baur (' K~non. Evang.,' 352) snpposed the Clementine author drew it from tho • Gospel to the Hebre'1'8.' So al~o Zeller. The author of 'Supernatural Religion' supposes tho author of the Fourth Gospel to have made up bis con\tersation with Nicodemus, partly from this citation of Christ's words. Now, as l\fongold observes, it is moro probable that the author of the Clemcntines took his deviations from Justin, and that Justin hnd the Gospel before him. Let the deviations be considered. In John's Gospel the question of Nicodemus is not introduced seriously, and receives thE s0lcrnn rebuke of our Lord. In Justin the remark is clumsily and uselessly intro- <luced, as though it were an important argument of his own, and shows tho partial remembrance, the shadow of the inquiry of Nicodemus imperfectly understood nnJ. carelessly used. The difference between Els .-i\s µ.~.-pa.r .-&Iv .-£1<ov'1'&lv and .~ .-~v Kolll.lllv, etc., is thus easily explained. Again, we are told that when Justin introduces a passage with d Xp,=os ,11r•v, ho meant to be verbally accurate. It is perfectly true that the Christiau Fathers aod Christian writers of 1Jote, even down to our day, introduce the substance of our Lord;s words rather than the ipsissima verba, with similar formulre of quotation. • But the divergences themselves are noteworthy. Instead of liiv µ.~ .-,s -r•v1'716ff lwro8ev, Justin has transformed the statement into· lv µ.:,, a1,,...,,,,,,,718ij.-e, i.e. the second person plural in direct address, in place of the pronoun with the third person singular; ,but in e:s:planation it must be remembered that in ver. 7 our Lord has himself used the second person plural; and seeing that Matt. xviii. 3 was also, as Scholten observed_, probably in: his memory, the alteration or mixing of the two passages is explained. In confirmation of ~vhich, Clemens Alex., 'Strom.,' iii 13, does the very same thing; and not only early Christian writers, but Jeremy Taylor, and doubtless scores of modern writers and preachers, have done the same. • The change from ,1,,.,9,,, to lr.v"i'•""'llr.i.-, is objected to, but without reason. SuflfoienJ authority can be brought to show that 4,..,9,,, is used for "again" or "anew," as weU: as "from above," and that the idea of new birth was associated with baptism. The word is ambiguous even in the opinion of those Fathers who give it the sense of'•• from nbove," and even Nicodemus, by his 5..trr,pov, suggests the same interpretation. But that Justin need not be thought to have had any other!authority than the Fourth Gospel for this passage is evident from the fact that the following wtiters are'li.J.own thus to have translated the words which they certninly quoted from it:· Irenmus (' Frag.,' 35), Atbanasius (' De Incarn.;' 14), Basil, Ephrem Syrus, Chrysostom (on 1 Cor. xv. 29), Cyril .A.leL (on John iii. 5), and several tminuscripts cif the·Vulgate. • ·.' The variation of" cannot see" into "by no means enter" is partly an echo or repre- sentation of the ver. 5 oil o6vl%.-tU ••"EAB,,v. Dr. Ezra Abbott has examined quo.tations made of this verse by forty-two authors, and found no fewer than sixty-nine e:s:amples of similar deviations from strict accuracy. Interchanges of "kingdom of God" and "kincrdom of heaven" are found in all periods of Christian literature. All the devia- 0 tions of Justin are frequently repeated in later authors, at periods when the Fourth Gospel was undeniably accepted as Holy Scripture. It is well-nigh beyond belief, in spite of the variations, that J u.stin had not before him eh. iii. (2) Even Hilgeofeld and Keim think that Justin must be qnoting (' Dial.,' 88) from eh. i. 20, 23 (cf. eh. iii 28), where the Baptist is said to have described himself as "not the Christ, but t/)roP¾} ~owvros.'' . '.!'he synoptists guot~ •Isaiah's prophecy as fulfilled in John. Justin learned from the Fourth Gospel that the source of this reference _was the consciousness of the Baptist. (3) In ' .A poL,' L 63, Justin says that the Jews are}' upbraided by Christ himself, as knowing neither the Father nor the Son." It is scarcely credible that he had not before him eh. viii. 19 and xvi. 3. (4) 'Dial.,' c. 49, and' .ApoL,' i. 22: Justin says that Christ healed those who were J,. -y,11,.-;js T1/po6s, which has its most natural explanation in a reference to eh. ix. A similar vassage or phrase (7r71p&s, not -rvt/)>..&s) is found in 1 .A.post. Cm:ist.,' v. 7, § 17, where there is certain reference t-0 eh. be.. (5) '.Apol.,' i. 13 : Christ was ,ls -rou-ro 1•1111116lna., with the el, -rou.-o 'YPrlvv71µ.a.1 of eh. xvili. 37. •  'l'llJ,; GOSPEL ACGOHDING TO ST. ,JOI-IN. xxvii