The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 179

geste no rcAomblance to tlmt of Matthew. put into Philip's lips docs not exhaust the (3) Hie well-known name is only thnt of a knowledge or the evan.,elist 0 on this subject patronymic, and suggosts the existence of ( of. eh. vii. 42). another o.ntl o. pereono.l name. 'l'his iclentifi- Vera. 46-49.-(c) The Son of God aml cation co.nnot be provocl, but there is no other Kinr, of Israel. that is more probable. Natho.nael (S~im), a.a Ver. 46.-And Nathanael ea.id to him, Can e. name in IIcbrow, is iclcntico.l with ·;rheo- a.nv good thing coma out of Nazareth 1 Tim dorus, "Goel is giver" (Numb. i. 8; 1 Chron. or<~inary i_n terpretations of the meaning of ii. 14; see o.lso 1 Esdre.s i. IJ; ix. 22). Thoma. th1~ q~rstion a_re not satisfe..ctury. (I) Tho (' Die Gencsi~ des J ohannes-Evangeli urns,' p. preJud1ce a.g::nnst Nazareth 11.s being a 409, etc.) enclea.vours to iclentify Natha.nael Galilean town cannot have weio-hed with with Matthew, and to institute e. series of Nathanael of Cana in Galilee (;b, xxi. ~). ingenious compa.risons between the synoptic even though he may have shared the i=orant "Mo.tthew and Ze.ochrous" a.nd this Israelite opinion that " out of Galilee ari;'etb no without guile, and to compare the marriage- prophet" (eh. vii. 52). He might have known feast a.t Na.tha.nael's "Ca.ne.." with the feast th~t Jonah, Hosea., Nahum, probably Elijah, in Mo.tthew's, or Levi's, house. The subtle Elisha, and Amos, were Gali leans. (2) That fo.ncy e..nd dramatic moral which he attributes ~azareth was a secludecl e.nd contemptible to every clause of the na.rro.ti ve render the village seems clisproved by the interesting authorship o. greater puzzle than ever. papers of Dr. Selah Merrill, on "Galilee in Philip sa.ith nnto him, We ha.ve found-we, the Time of our Lorcl," .Amer. Biol. Sacra., the group of friends already illumined with January ancl April, 1874. (3) That the the sublime hope-him of whom Moses in character of its people should have been the Law, e.nd the prophets, wrote. This jealous, turbulent, capricious, and led to our reveals the chare.oteristics of the conversa.tion Lord's subsequent preference for Capemaum, which had pa.ssed between the Lord a.nd dnes not explain the force of the inquiry. the favoured three. It c01·responds with The "good thing" may, however, be the what occurred on the way to Emma us. The contrast between the unimportance of the Lord rested upon the germinant idea.s, and place in the political or religious hi-,tory of prophetic hopes, suggestive types, and posi- the people, o.s compared with Jernsalem, tive predictions of the Old Testament, nnd Tiberias, Jericho, Bethlehem. It is never met, while be refined a.nd elevated, the current mentioned in the Old Testament or in expecta.tions of his time. There wa.s to be Josephus. Nathanael may have known its no break with the old covenant, except by mediocrity, and have been startled by the fulfilling it, establishing its reality and its possibility of a carpenter's son, in 11, spot vast plo.ce in the revelation of the supreme utterly undistinguished, being the l!Iessiah will of God. The question no.turally arises, of whom their sacrecl writers spoke. "De- "Well, but who is he? wbo.t is his name? spised N aze.reth" is a phrase rather due t-0 whither has be come? whence does he ho.ii?" the splendour of the flower that grew upon The continuation of the sentence is obviously its barren soil, and became contrasted after- not in opposition with the ~., l-ypal/,ev, but wards with the unlooked-for glory nncl the direct object of ,~pf,1<aµev. We have claims of the Nazarene. Philip saith unto found J'eeus the I Son of J'osoph of Nazareth. him, Come e.nd see. This was his strongest This is the simple utterance of a matter of o.rgument. To look upon him is to belic\·e. fa.et-a. current piece of intelligence now He had much more to learn in o.fter-J,ivs circulating in the group of the earliest (eh. xiv. 8, 9). At this moment he and disciples. The id011 of his being J oseph's Nathl\no.el stood on ground consecrated by Son was widely diffused; the foot that the ancient history, aod thrilling with the Lord spent the first thirty years of his thunder-pea.ls of the Baptist, mazccl and human life in Nnzareth, was a commonplace wistful from much longing, t11inking of the of the synoptio story. The argument of the union between heaven and earth which h"d Tiibingen and Straussian criticism, that the been revealed in the experieoce of ancient fourth evangelist wo.s ignorant of Christ's prophets, dwelling on the careers of Israel, birth from above, is contra.dieted by the Mose~, and Elij,ih iu their re.pt transports, prologue, with all the assertions of the Lord's musing under fig trees or the like, and pre-existence, e..nd especially by ver. H with longing for the gre"t King. He m,,y eh. iii. 6, and 13. Th1,t he we.s ignoro.nt of natnrRlly have reasoned on thi,; wise: "(l;m the birth in Bethlehem, with the numberless it be true that the Christ, the King· of proofs of hil! knowledge of Matthew•~ and Israel, the Lord of the tempi~, the Baptizer Luke's Gospels, ill absurd. '.rho ln.nguage with the Holy Ghost, is indi~tinguishable from the rest of mankind in this very crowd? 1 Alford prell(lrves the Ti>v with T.R.; Would that I too might see in him, as John Trcgolles braokets; other modern editors h,1s done, some vision of the opened hea,·en, exclude it. tlmt. I too might hel\l some unmist.alrnbl..:  THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN. [oil, I, 1--51,