[565] According to the correct interpretation of John 19:25, that four woman (not three) are meant there, as Wieseler, Ewald, Meyer., Lange, and other commentators now hold. The writer of the Fourth Gospel, from peculiar delicacy, never mentions his own name, nor the name of his mother, nor the name of the mother of our Lord; yet his mother was certainly at the cross, according to the Synoptists, and he would not omit her.
[566] Acts 4:13, anthropoi agrammatoi kai idiotai.
[567] John 1:35-40. The commentators are agreed that the unnamed of the two disciples is John. See my notes in Lange on the passage.
[568] The well-known distinction made by Grotius between philochristos and philiesous.
[569] John 20:4; 21:7.
[570] For an ingenious comparison between John and Salome, John and James, John and Andrew, John and Peter, John and Paul, see Lange's Com on John, pp. 4-10 (Am. ed.).
[571] Mark 3:17. Boanerges (as Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles read, in. of Gr. Boanerges), ie.,huioi brontes. The word is usually derived from shgr ynb (as pronounced in the broad Galilean dialect). shgr means a noisy crowd of men, but may have had the significance of thunder in Syriac. Robinson derives it from zgr which means tumult, alarm, and is used of the roaring noise of thunder, Job 37:2. The usual Hebrew word for thunder is r?m(Ps. 77:19; 81:8; Job 26:14). This name completely dispels the popular notion of John. "Nichts,"says Hilgenfeld (Einleit., p. 393), "stimmt zu den synoptischen Evangelien weniger als jenes mädchenhafte Johannesbild, welches unter uns gangbar geworden ist."Comp. Godet's remarks at the close of this section.
[572] "The Lord thundered with a great thunder;" "The Lord shall send thunder and rain." See Ex. 9:23; 1 Sam. 7:10; 12:17, 18; Job 26:14; Ps. 77:18; 81:7; 104:7; Isa. 29:6, etc.
[573] Luke 9:4-56. Some commentators think that this incident suggested the giving of the name Boanerges; but that would make it an epithet of censure, which the Lord would certainly not fasten upon his beloved disciple.
[574] Acts 8:14-17.
[575] Mark 9: 38-40; comp. Luke 9:49, 50.
[576] Matt. 20:20-24; comp. Mark 10:35-41.
[577] John 8:44; 1 John 1:6, 8, 10; 2:18 sqq.; 3:8, 15; 4:1 sqq.; 2 John 10 and 11.
[578] Jerome (Com. ad Matth., Proaem., Opera, ed. Migne, Tom. vii. 19): Quarta [facies]Joannem evangelistam [significat],qui assumptis pennis aquilae, et ad altiora festinans, de Verbo Dei disputat. An old epigram says of John: "More volans aquila, verbo petit astra Joannes."
[579] The author of Supernat. Relig., II.400, says: "Instead of the fierce and intolerant spirit of the Son of Thunder, we find [in the Fourth Gospel] a spirit breathing forth nothing but gentleness and love." How superficial this judgment is appears from our text.
[580] This is well shown in Gebhardt's Doctrine of the Apocalypse, and is substantially even acknowledged by those who deny the Johannean origin of either the Apocalypse (the Schleiermacher School), or of the Gospel (the Tübingen School)."Es ist nicht blos," says Baur (in his Church History, vol. I. p. 147), "eine äussere Anlehnnung an einen vielgefeierten Namen, es fehlt auch nicht an innern Berührungspunkten zwischen dem Evangelium und der Apokalypse, und man kann nur die tiefe Genialität und feine Kunst bewundern, mit welcher der Evangelist die Elemente, welche vom Standpunkt der Apokalypse auf den freiern und höhern des Evangeliums hinüberleiteten, in sich aufgenommen hat, um die Apokalypse zum Evangelium zu vergeistigen. Nur vom Standpunkt dei Evangeliums aus lässt sich das Verhältniss, in das sich der Verfasser desselben zu der Apokalypse setzte, richtig begreifen."Schwegler and Köstlin make similar concessions. See my Hist. of the Apost. Ch., p. 425.
[581] In this way the opposite views of two eminent Hebrew scholars and judges of style may be reconciled. While Renan, looking at the surface, says of the fourth Gospel: "John's style has nothing Hebrew, nothing Jewish, nothing Talmudic," Ewald, on the contrary, penetrating to the core, remarks: "In its true spirit and afflatus, no language can be more genuinely Hebrew than that of John." Godet agrees with Ewald when he says: "The dress only is Greek, the body is Hebrew."