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that all the ingenuity which Grotius and others use, and it is much, to recommend the other meaning, cannot persuade to a receiving it.

The passage supplies a fine parallel to 2 Kin. vi. 17; a greater than Elisha is here, and by this word would open the spiritual eye of his troubled disciple, and shew him the mount of God, full of chariots and horses of fire, armies of heaven which are encamping round him, and whom a beck from him would bring forth, to the utter discomfiture of his enemies. Possibly our blessed Lord, even as he thus spake, was conscious of the temptation to claim this help from God,—the same temptation as constituted the essence of the Temptation; but it is one no sooner offered him, than he rejects it at once: for how then should that eternal purpose, that will of God, of which Scripture was the outward expression, "that thus it must be," how should this be fulfilled? (Cf. Zech. xiii. 7.)

In St. John the same entire subordination of his will to the will of the Father, which must hinder him from claiming this unseasonable help, finds its utterance under another image; that of a cup which he needs must drink: "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it? The image is frequent in Scripture, resting on the thought of some potion which, however bitter, must yet be drained, since such is the will of him who has put it into the hands. Besides Matt. xx. 22, 23; xxvi. 39, where the cup is the cup of holy suffering, there is often, especially in the Old

nominâsse, ut indicaret posse se pro duodecim hominibus duodecim legiones habere. The fact that the number of apostles who were even tempted to draw sword in Christ's behalf was, by the apostasy of Judas, not now twelve, but eleven, need not perplex us, or remove us from this interpretation. The Lord contemplates them in their ideal completeness: for it was no accident, but rested on a deep fitness that they were twelve, and neither fewer nor more. He does the same, saying in another place, "Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," (Matt. xix. 28,)— when, in like manner, it was not Judas, but his successor that should sit upon a throne.

Testament, mention of the cup of God's anger, (Isai. Li. 17, 22; Ps. xi. 6; LXXV. 8; Jer. xxv. 15, 17; xlix. 12; Lam. iv. 21; Rev. xiv. 10; xvi. 19;) in every case the cup having this in common, that it is one from which flesh and blood shrinks back, which a man would fain put away from his lips if he might, though a moral necessity in the first place, and a physical in the second, will not suffer him to do so.

And the words that follow, "Suffer ye thus far," are to be accepted as addressed still to the disciples: "Hold now*; thus far ye have gone in resistance, but let it be no further; no more of this." The other explanation, which makes them to have been spoken by the Lord to those into whose hands he had come, that they should bear with him till he had accomplished the cure, has nothing to recommend it. Having thus checked the too forward zeal of his disciples, and now carrying out into act his own precept, "Love your enemies,

...do good to them that hate you," he touched the ear of the wounded man, "and healed him." Peter and the rest meanwhile, after this brief flash of a carnal courage, forsook their divine Master, and, leaving him in the hands of his enemies, fled, the wonder of the crowd at that gracious work of the Lord, or the tumult with the darkness of the night, or these both together, favouring their escape.

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33. THE SECOND MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT

OF FISHES.

JOHN xxi. 1-23.

Ir almost seemed as though St. John's Gospel had found its solemn completion in the words (ver. 30, 31,) with which the preceding chapter ended; so that this chapter appears, and probably is, in the exactest sense of the word, a postscript, something which the beloved apostle, after he had made an end, thought it important not to leave untold; which he may have added, perhaps, at the request of his disciples, who had often heard delightedly the narrative from his own lips, and desired that before his departure he should set it down, that the Church might be enriched with it for ever*.

* The question concerning the authenticity of this chapter was first stirred by Grotius; not that he esteemed it altogether spurious, but added, probably after St. John's death, by the Ephesian elders, who had often heard the history from his lips. Very unlike the other suspicious passage in St. John's Gospel, (viii. 1—11) there is no outward evidence of any kind against it. Every MS. possesses it, and there was never a doubt expressed about it in antiquity. He, therefore, and those who have followed him in the same line, Clericus, Semler, Lücke, Schott, (Comm. de indole cap. ult. Ev. Joh., Jen., 1825) can have none but internal evidences, drawn from alleged differences in style, in language, in manner of expression, from St. John's confessed writings, on which to build an argument,-evidences frequently deceptive and always inconclusive, but here even weaker than usual. Everything marks the hand of the beloved disciple. Not merely do we feel the tone of the narration to be his; for that might be explained by supposing others to be telling what he had often told them; but single phrases and turns of language, unobserved by us at first, and till we have such motives for observing them, bear witness for him. It is he alone who uses Tißepiás, Váλaσoa Tns Tißepiádos, (vi. 1, 23) for the lake of Galilee; or maidía, as a word of address from the teacher to the taught (cf. ver. 5 with 1 John ii. 13, 18); πia【ew, which occurs twice in this chapter, (ver. 3, 10) is met with only three times, save in St. John's writings, in the whole New Testament; but is so much a favourite with him, that besides these, there are six instances of its use in his Gospel alone, (vii. 30, 32, 44; viii. 20; x. 39; xi. 57,) to which may be added Rev. xix. 20. Again, èλków (ver. 6, 11) is one of his G G

T. M.

words

It was upon the sea of Galilee that this appearance of Christ to his disciples, with the miracle which accompanied it, took place. Doubtless there is a significance to be found in the words, "Jesus shewed," or manifested, "himself," as Chrysostom long ago observed,—no other than this, that his body after the resurrection was only visible by a distinct act of his will. From that time the disciples did not, as before, see Jesus, but Jesus appeared unto or was seen by them. It is not for nothing that the language is changed, or that in language of this kind all his appearances after the resurrection are related. (Luke xxiv. 34; Acts xiii. 31; 1 Cor. xv. 5, 6, 7, 8*.) It is the same with angels and all heavenly manifestations: men do not see them, as though it lay in their will to do so or not; such language would be inappropriate but they appear to men; (Judg. vi. 12; xiii. 3, 10, 21; Matt. xvii. 3; Luke i. 11; xxii. 43; Acts ii. 3; vii. 2; xvi. 9; xxvi. 16;) are only visible to those for whose sakes they are vouchsafed, and to whom they are willing to shew themselvest. Those to whom this manifestation was vouchsafed

words (vi. 44; xii. 32; xviii. 20,) being found else but once. The double dunu at the beginning of a sentence (ver. 18), is exclusively St. John's, occurring twenty-fives times in his Gospel, but never elsewhere. The appellation of Thomas, Owuâs ỏ Xeyoμévos Aídvμos, (ver. 21, cf. xi. 16; xx. 24) is also exclusively his. Compare, too, ver. 19 with xii. 23 and xviii. 32; the use also of ouoíws (ver. 13), with the parallel use at vi. 11. 'Oápiov, too, and Táλiv deúтeρov (ver. 16), belong only to him (iv. 54:) and the narrator interposing words of his own, as a comment on and explanation of the Lord's words (ver. 19,) is quite after the favourite manner of St. John. (ii. 21; vi. 6; vii. 39.) And of these peculiarities many more might be adduced.

* Εφανέρωσεν ἑαυτόν (see John ii. 11) is here = ὤφθη in the passages quoted above, which might easily be multiplied.

+ Thus Ambrose on the appearing of the angel to Zacharias (Exp. in Luc., l. 1, c. 24): Benè apparuisse dicitur ei, qui eum repente conspexit. Et hoc specialiter aut de Angelis aut de Deo Scriptura divina tenere consuevit; ut quod non potest prævideri, apparere dicatur. . . . Non enim similiter sensibilia videntur, et is in cujus voluntate situm est videri, et cujus naturæ est non videri, voluntatis videri. Nam si non vult, non videtur: si vult, videtur. These are Chrysostom's words: 'Ev tậ eiπeîv épavépwσev ἑαυτὸν, τοῦτο δηλοῖ, ὅτι εἰ μὴ ἤθελε, καὶ αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν διὰ συγκατάβασιν ἐφανέρωσεν, οὐχ ὡρᾶτο, τοῦ σώματος ὄντος ἀφθάρτου.

were Simon Peter and Thomas and Nathanael, James and John, and two other disciples that are not named. It makes something for the current opinion that the Nathanael of St. John, is the Bartholomew of the other Evangelists, thus to find him named not after, but in the midst of, some of the very chiefest apostles. Who were the two unnamed disciples cannot, of course, be known. They too were not improbably apostles, disciples in the most eminent sense of the word*; Lightfoot supposes that they were Andrew and Philip.

Peter's declaration that he will go to fish, is not, as has been strangely supposed, a declaration that he has lost his hope in Jesus as the Messiah, renounced his apostleship, and therefore returns to his old occupations, there being no nobler work for him in store. But it was quite in the wise manner of the Jewish teachers, to have a manual trade that they might fall back on in the time of need, and thus not be dependent on their scholars for support; what good service Paul's skill in making tents did him is well known; probably also they found it healthful to their own minds, to have some outward occupation for which to exchange at times their spiritual employments. The words themselves, "I go a-fishing," are not merely a declaration of his intention, but a summons to his friends to accompany him, if they are so minded; whereupon they declare their readiness; "We also go with thee." During all the night, though that is ever accounted the opportunest time for fishing, they caught nothing. When at early dawn the risen Lord stood upon the shore, they did not at first recognize him. Nor even when he addressed them as "Children," did they know that it was he,the mighty change which had past upon him at his resurrection had so left him at once the same and yet another. (Cf. John xx. 14, 15.) 14, 15.) When they acknowledged in reply to his

* St. John does not know the word dróσToλos as a term for the twelve. He uses it but once, (xiii. 16,) and then generally for one that is outsent.

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