The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 42

minntim of the Jewish le.w of circumcision (var. 23), and the current notion concerning the 3,arr..-opa -rwv 'EMl,vwv, Moreover, the result of the solemn deba.te is tbat "many believed on him" (vers. 81, 41, 46). The seventh e.nd eighth chapters reveal the nuthor's intimate acquaintance with the ceremonial of the lights and the poming of water in the Feaat of 'l'abernncles. In eh. viii. 31 he speaks expressly of "the Jews which believecl on him;" and it is not at all incompatible with their position that they should have ignored right through their history that they had been really in bondaae to any man, ns Abrahnm's seed. In eh. x. 19-21 a division among them is expressly noticed (cf. eh. x. 42; xi. 4, 48-xii. 11). Tho Pharisees are the mouthpieces of the purely Jewish feeling of bigoted attach- ment to the Law, which they had monopolized, and which the evangelist and our Lord spoke of as "their Law," "your Law," but which Pharisees had misunderstood and per- verted. The priests and Sadducees were his opponents as organs of sacerdotal power and political influence ; and both these tendencies, sometimes in opposition, occasion- ally in unhallowed agreement, are represented with a delicacy and accuracy of treatment such as no one but a genuine Palestinian Jew could have effected. Moreover, by the term "the Jews,n the writer evidently connotes the ruling party, the chief authorities in Jerusalem, as contrasted with the Galilrean multitudes. One reference of a precisely similar usage is found in the peculiarly Jewish Gospel of Matthew (xxviii. 15), showing that this mode of speaking of "the Jews" was not con- fined to the Fourth Gospel (see also Luke xxiii. 51, and numerous expressions in the Pauline Epistles: 2 Cor. xi. 24; Gal. ii. 14; 1 These. ii. 14 and also Rev. ii. 9 and iii. 9; Gal. i. 13, 14; Titus i. 14). Numerons treatises have discussed this use of the word "the Jews" (A. Airy, • Jesus et les J uifs dans le 4• Evang.,' Str., 1866; cf. Reuss, • Hist. of the Sacred Scriptures,' p. 221, Eng. trans. ). Another supposed indication of the fact of the writer's ignorance of Jewish customs is that .Annas is spoken of as dpx1<pe6s (" high priest"), while Caiaphas, his son-in-law, is also repeatedly called such at the same time (eh. xi. 49; xviii. 13, 19, 22, 24). It is said that the evangelist thought of Annas and Caiaphas as performing the functions alternately every year, seeing that "that same year" is an explanatory addition to the name of Caiaphas. This cannot be the solution of the supposed difficulty; becanse, the "same year" in which Caiaphas prophesied involuntarily the expiatory death of Christ, he represents Annas as the bigb priest. The fourth evangelist is not the only writer who suggests the same supposed inaccuracy. In Lnke iii. 2 the two are spoken of together as high priests, and in Acts iv. 6 Annas is again spoken of as high priest. Dr. Davidson says it will not do to suppose that he retained the official title after he had been deposed, because Ishmael, Eleazar, and Simon, his relatives, who held the office between Annas and Caiaphas, would also have retained the same title. But we cannot prove that they did not. They are never referred to by the evangelist John or Luke. Moreover, a vast difference is obvious between the old man who was the legal high priest, and whose influence was great, thongh not officially recognized by the Roman government. Caiaphas was the man from whom alone Pilate would have received the official charge; and therefore, as John says, Annas sent JesUB bound to Caia.phas. The synoptists narrate more at length what took place in the court of Caia.phas. Our evan- gelist, as being known to Annas (eh. xviii. 15, 16), was likely, as an eye-witness, to have given a more definite account, and one supplementary to the general statement of the synoptists. The expression, " tbat same year," is best understood of the solemnity with which John regarded the practical duties of the high priest defacto on the occasion when the incarnate Word was rejected by his own i,eople. Not only the Fourth Gospel, but the other three, repeatedly use the expression, ol a.p;,c ..pe.s, of the most distinguished priests, incluJiug the heads of the courses, the president of the Sanhedrin, etc., in days when the old official title was held in fee from the Roman power. The rigiility of the rule that there should be only one high priest was not observed even in the reign of David, when Zadok and Abiathar both held the office at the same time. (4) Dr. Davidson considers that a similar argument may be drawn from the fact that in the Fourth Gospol the Galilreans are classed among" the Jews" who were hostile to Jesus, whereas he says that "in the synoptists, the Galilreans are the warm adherents and friends of Jesus of Nazareth." Surely be cotlld uot sufficiPntly have bor.lle iu m,iud xlvi INTRODUCTION '1'0 --------------------- ----------- tile repeated 11tt.empts npon Christ's life at Nazareth and at Oap2rnanm; tho fact thl\t Jesllll had not where to lay his head, !\lone mentioned by th<l synoptists; thl\t Herod Antipas or Galilee sought to kill him; that the long conflict with the Pharis<les took pll\ce in Galilc<l, l\nd one which culminated in the endeavour to take him by force nncl oonfine him as a ml\dman (Mark ii., iii.). True, the multitudes were deeply impressed, but their fickleness and unspiritnality are quite iu harmony with the languncre 0 about the Galilreans attributed by the Fourth Gospel to our Lord. This negative argument or reply to objections is independent of the foot that throughout the Gospel there are abundant traces of that thorough1 and intimate acquaintance with Old Testament Scriptures and Hebrew ideas, which only n Jew would be likely to possess. The entire references of the prologue are bnscd on Old Testament ideas. His reference to "the Prophet" (eh. i. 21; iv. 25); the zeal for t,he_ sanctity ?f t~e ~empl~ (~h. ii. ~3-20), involving chronological details about the period occupied m its building; his knowledge of Old Testament history, as in the reforence to the image of the serpent (eh. iii. 14); the subtle ascription to Jesus by the Baptist or the title of Bridegroom of the true Israel-an idea which pervades prophetic Scripture (Jer. ii. 2; Ezek. x.vi. 8; Hos. iL 19, 20); the allusion to the various frasts, e.g. the Passovers (eh. ii., vi., xii., x.viii.), the unnamed feast (eh. v.), the Feast or Tabernacles (eh. vii.), the Feast of the Dedication (eh. x. 22); the references to Moses ( eh. v. 45 ; vii. 22), and to Abraham ( eh. viii. 33, 37, 56-58) ; confirm. the hypothesis. His declaration that" the Scriptures cannot be broken" (eh. x. 35); that what is written in the prophets and in the Law is of commanding authority; that the, Scripture must be fulfilled (eh. x.iiL 18; :r:vii. 12; x.v. 25); but pre-eminently and chiefly the repeated quotations from the Old Testament, where .the evangelist or our Lord shows that these quotations, as thus reported, are not dependent upon the LXX. Westcott has analyzed them ca.refully ( see also Turpie, ' Old 'festmen t in the New '). There .are fourteen in all-1!even made by the evangelist, five by Jesus, two by others; and, among these, four almost verbally &,,17fce with the accurate translation of the Hebrew by the LXX.; three agree with the Hebrew against the LXX.: eh. xix. 37 (cf. Rev. i 7). This quotation from Zechariah, which agrees with a translation found in Theodotion and Symmachus; the quotation in eh. vi. 45 of Isa. liv. 13 and in eh. xiii, 18 of I's. xli 9 (xliL 10); lastly, one celebrated passage (eh. xii. 40) differs from both the Hebrew and LXX. where they do in the main agree and are accurately quoted.in Matthew and Acts; others differ from the Hebrew and LXX. where these do wt agree; but there is no case where the Fourth Gospel agrees with the LXX. against the Hebrew. 2. The a7Lthorm'U8t have. been a PALEsTINXAN rather than an Alexandrine Jew. The above remarks go far to prove that the author of the Fourth Gospel was a Hebrew, and a Pale;tinian Jew. But there is another argument, which has been made much of, in disproof of this position, and which must be ex.amined. with some detail. It has often been said that the author was an .Alezandrine Jew, if a Jew at all, familiar with the exegetic and philosophical arguments of Philo-.Judmus and h!s ~ompeers, and .that we owe this marvellous document to the culture and Hellenic mfluences of early Neoplatonism rather than to the teaching of the Old Testament and the veritable tradition of the discourse of Jesus of Nazareth. 'l'his kind of remark is taken up and endorsed by men like J. Stuart Mill.1 The more or less active dependence of the evangelist upon the Alexandrine school is asserted with more or less of confidence even by Liicke, Bleek, Baur, and others. Keim (' Life of Jesus of Nazara,' Eng. trans., voL i. pp. 152, 167) admits the great originality of the author, who adopted and modified in many ways the Philonian Logos ; and Dr. Davidson says that the " Incarnation is .. lirn to the Philonian conceptions," and that an" important link between Philonism 1 'Three Essays,' p. 254: "What could be added or iutorpofated (into the teaching of Jesus) by 11. disciple we may see in the mystical parts of the Gospel of St. John-mutter imported from Philo and the Alez:andrian Platonists, and put into tile mouth of the Saviour, in long speeches about himself, such as the other Gospels contain not the slightest vestige of, though pret.ended to have been delivered on occasions of the deepest interest, when his principal followers were all present; most prominently at the Lust Hupper. 'fhe East w11s full of men who could have stolen any quantity of this poor stuff, us the multitudinous Oriental sects of G-nostics did." The passage is a melo.ncholy instance of the utter careless• neEs of Mr. Mill  1'HE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO f\T. ,JOHN. xlvii