The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 2 — Section 497

Jiis gospel of the love of God, hie memorice word in the :New Teelflment) is possibly of "lb<' Wor,1 maile flesh," of "the Light accounted for l.ly the recolh,-ction which somo 0f the world," l1ie doctrini, of the" etern&l of those who had often he!U'd U10 beloved Jife wbicb WBB with the Father, and hAB apostle speak may have had of his wo.y of 1.,,,.n mRnifoeted unto us." And wrote theBe describing the superlative richness of tho thin@"ll-compe.re "thcee things write we life of our Lord, end tho.t lho brief appendix unto you, tbe.t your joy may be full" {l by those who boro this testimony to the ,Tohn i. 4)-and we know (es a matter of vcrncity and nuthcnticity aud o.postolio foct, oT/iaµ,v) that bia testimony ia true origin of the whole narrntivo is of priceless (a.~1191\s), "veracious." We know him; we value. Undoubtedly it asserts with perfect hcJ;cvc in Lis rcpreeent&tion; we know with- cloamcBB thut John the son of Zobedee nut any shado'l"f of doubt upon our mind was the author of the Gospel. If, noverthc- that what he bill! snid answers to the fact. loss, the work he that ofa forger, who secured It dnes not need that any of the elders an accomplice in his deed of imposition, he should have seen tbe Lord to justify t.he is a moral anomaly; for, while acting so use of 0T1i11.µ,v. Meyer supposes tha,t these unworthily, ho wo.s nevertheless glorifying words, notwithsto.nding their plural form, the doctrine that God is true, nnd that simply show that John identifies himself every lie is of the devil (ob. viii. 44), and with bis renders, and, from the peculiar has produced o. work which turns from end delicney of his mind, hides himself and bis to end on a realization of the troth. The individuality among them or behind them. words on which so many speoulations have Alford compares it with eh. i. 14, "We have been raised arc- seen his glory," and I John iv. 14, 16; v. V er. 25.-There are also many other thing• 18. Chrysostom and Theopbylact read, in which .Jesus did, the whioh, if they should place of oToaµo, oTlia µ<v, " I indeed know be written one by one ( or, each by itself); that bis testimony u; true." This ingenions I euppose even the world itself would not method is rejected by modem scholars, on oontain the books whioh would (then) be the principle that the writer would not thus written. Some have suggested the idea have p!IBll8d from third person to first. This that X"'P~tr ..v, or X"'Piltra,, means "morally does not seem to be insuper3.ble: Paulus contain," "bear with," "endure." This is adopted this solution. The chief difficulty of unsatisfactory. The writer, by the use of admitting that these words are a note by the the no.me "Jesus," is not going back to Ephesian presbyters, and of ignoring Chry- the pre-existing, premundane activity of the sostom's suggestion, is that ver. 25 contains Logos, but is simply conveying his enthusi- an unquestionable reintroduction of the first astic sense of the inexhaustible fulness of the person in the oIµaa. This difficulty is, how- human life of the blessed Lord. The whole ever, snrmounte,I by Meyer, on the supposi- redeeming life, word, and work of the Word tion that the Jest verse is not J ohannine. made flesh bad a quality of infinity about Meyer and Tischcndorf (who excludes it it. The entire evangelic narrative has only from his text) suppose it to have been a gloss touched the fringe of this vast manifestation, by later bands, one which departs from the a few hours or days of the incomparable life. gravity and dignity of an aposUe by its Every moment of it was in.finitely rich in lltroog hyperbole. Still no codex but the its contents, in its suggestions, in its in- SiDai.ticus omits it, and the omission may fluence. Every act was a revelation of the be due to the loss of the last folio, on which Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, it may have been written; while every other giving vistas into the eternities, and open- codex contains it. Godet thinks the writer ings into the heart and bosom of Deity. Let was one of the elders wLo had joined in the all that thus was done ta.ke thought-shape previous authentication, and refers to "the in hume.n minds, and word-shape in human strange notice which Tiachendorf records speech, and book-shape or embodiment in from e manuscript in the Vatican, that Papiea human literature, and there are no conceiv- was the secretary to whom John dictated the able limits to its extent. We use such ex- entire Gospel," and imagines that the hyper- pressions continually, without feeling that bolic style of some of the extant fragments we are adopting any unnatural or unhealthy of Papias might account for the extravagance hyperbole. The infinite abundance of the of the sta.lement it cootaills. Lange and teaching and significance of the blessed life Alford regard the whole verse, together with of the t:!on of God is ample justification of ver. 24, as Jobannine, and suppose that tho apostolic enthusiasm. 1 John here speaks in propriti peraona when 1 The " .A.men " is no part of the original the fume.as of his memory baffled all ex- pression. Some treat the o1µ.a.,, etc., &8 a text, says Westcott; i.e. it is not found in possible Bllying of Jol.n', which was added II(, B, C, D, and several important versions by tl,e authors of Loth verses. We think and c urei vcs. A very large number do, how, lbnt tl,c l)Te&f,nce of the o1}'-aJ (a very unusual ever, contain it. OD, xxr. 1-2/i.] THE oospgr, ACCORDING TO S'l'. ,JOHN.