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disciples are differently given by different Evangelists, or rather they have each given a different portion, each one enough to indicate the spirit in which all was spoken. In St. Matthew they are related most at length. That moment, indeed, of uttermost confusion seems to have been no fitting one for a discourse so long as that which he records, not to speak of further words recorded by the others; nor is it at first easy to see how he could have found opportunity for them. But if we suppose that he gave this monition to his disciples, while the healing of Malchus was going forward, and while all were attentive to and wondering at that, the difficulty will disappear; not to say that his captors, who may have feared resistance or attempts at rescue on the part of his servants, now that they found his words to be words prohibiting aught of the kind, may have been most willing to suffer him to speak unhindered.

Our Lord, when he joins together the taking the sword and perishing with the sword, refers, no doubt, to the primal law, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," (Gen. ix. 6,) as again there is probable allusion to these words, of his, Rev. xiii. 10. But the application of the words, "All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword," has been sometimes erroneously made, as though Christ, to quiet Peter, were saying, "There is no need for thee to assume the task of the punishing these violent men: they have taken the sword, and by the just judgment of God they will perish by the sword."* But the warning against taking the sword connects itself so closely with the command, "Put up again thy sword into his place," and the meaning of the verse following (Matt. xxvi. 53) is so plainly, "Thinkest thou that I need help so poor as thine, when, instead of you, twelve weak trem

violentorum impetus fervore sanctæ caritatis exarserat, in servum principis sacerdotum usus est gladio, et aurem viri ferociùs instantis abscidit. Another finds in the words of the Lord, "Put up thy sword into the sheath," a sanction for the wielding of the civil sword by the Church; for, as he bids us note, Christ does not say, "Put away thy sword;" but "Put up thy sword into the sheath,”—that is, "Keep it in readiness to draw forth again, when the right occasion shall arrive.”—Tertullian, in an opposite extreme, finds in these words a declaration of the unlawfulness of the military service under every circumstance for the Christian (De Idolol., c. 19): Omnem militem Dominus in Petro exarmando discinxit.

* Grotius: Noli, Petre consideratione ejus quæ mihi infertur injuriæ concitatior, Deo præripere ultionem. Levia enim suut vulnera quæ à te pati possunt. Stat enim rata sententia, crudeles istos et sanguinarios, etiam te quiescente, gravissimas Deo daturas pœnas suo sanguine. This interpretation is a good deal older than Grotius. It is, I think, Chrysostom's, and Euthymius sees in these words a πpoonтeía ràc διαφθορᾶς τῶν ἐπελθόντων αὐτῷ Ἰουδαίων.

bling men, inexpert in war, I might even now* pray to my Father, and he would give me on the moment twelve legions of mighty angels on my behalf?"-that all the ingenuity which Grotius and others use, and it is much, to recommend the other meaning, cannot persuade to a receiving it.

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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 show 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,

**AρT. "Even now at the latest moment, when things are gone so far, when I am already in the hands of mine enemies."-Kaì ñapaoτńoɛi μoi et servitio meo sistet. (Rom. vi. 19; xii. 1.)

The phrase is remarkable, when connected with the expression 2700s σrpariās oúpavíov, Luke ii. 13, and some other similar language. Without falling in with the dreams of the Areopagite, we may see here intimations of a hierarchy in heaven. Bengel Angeli in suos numeros et ordines divisi sunt.

Jerome: Non indigeo duodecim apostolorum auxilio, qui possum habere duodecim legiones angelici exercitus. Maldonatus: Mihil quidem verosimile videtur Christum angelos non militibus, sed discipulis opponere, qui duodecim erant, ac propterea duodecim non plures nec pauciores legiones 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.

23; xxvi. 39, where the cup is the cup of holy suffering, there is often, especially in the Old 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, favoring their escape.

* A comma should find place after ¿āte.

XXXIII.

THE SECOND MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.

JOHN xxi. 1-23.

It 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. Every thing 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 Tiẞepias, θάλασσα τῆς Τιβεριάδος (vi. 1, 23), for the lake of Galilee; or παιδία, as a word of address from the teacher to the taught (cf. ver. 5 with 1 John ii. 13, 18); miášeiv, 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 favorite with him,

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 showed," 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 show themselves.† Those to whom this manifestation was vouchsafed 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

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, éλkúw (ver. 6, 11) is one of his words (vi. 44; xii. 32; xviii. 20), being found else but once. The double duv at the beginning of a sentence (ver. 18), is exclusively St. John's, occurring twenty-five times in his Gospel, but never elsewhere. The appellation of Thomas, Owμãç & Heyoμévos Aídvμoç (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 ouoiws (ver. 13), with the parallel use at vi. 11. 'Ovápiov, too, and πúhiv dɛúтɛpov (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 favorite 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., 1. 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 rû eineiv ἐφανέρωσεν ἑαυτὸν, τοῦτο δηλοῖ, ὅτι εἰ μὴ ἤθελε, καὶ αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν διὰ συγκατάβασιν ἐφανέρωσεν, οὐχ ὡρῶτο, τοῦ σώματος ὄντος ἀφθάρτου,

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