ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN THE GREEK TEXT WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY THE LATE BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT, D.D., D.C.L. BISHOP OF DURHAM SOMETIME REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1908 PREFATORY NOTE BISHOP WESTCOTT had, as is generally known, in cooperation with his lifelong friends Bishop Lightfoot and Professor Hort, formed in early days a plan for a "tripartite" Commentary on the New Testament, in which the Pauline writings were assigned to Bishop Lightfoot, the historico-Judaic to Professor Hort, and the Johannine to himself. This plan was discussed in the years 1859 and 1860, when Bishop Westcott was already at work on St. John. In a letter written to Dr. Hort in the Easter holidays of the year 1859 he says: "I have been enjoying extremely some work on St. John. How, indeed, is it possible not to enjoy such work? Yet how hard it is to study the Gospel widely enough and yet minutely! Just now it strikes me as a great Hebrew epic. The Hebrew poetic character— in the highest sense of the word-is very remarkable, and I do not think that I was ever sufficiently conscious of it before." From that time forward the Gospel Commentary was amid many interruptions continually in progress. From time to time other more urgent work thrust it temporarily into the background. For example, the preparation of The Bible in the Church led Dr. Lightfoot, in 1863, to express a hope that St. John had not been forgotten; and the publication of The Gospel of the Resurrection, in 1865, called forth from Mr. Macmillan a declaration of his joy that the way was now clear for the Commentary on St. John's Gospel. But Mr. Macmillan and others were doomed to disappointment, for in 1869 Bishop Westcott, after some heart |