§ 805a 18–16:4 Hatred on the part of the World—The external response of the world to this apparition of divine charity in its midst will, strange to say, be hatred. Persecution is really a mark of the true Church. A Christian will never be surprised at it; rather will he expect it. Christ has forewarned us.
18. He tells us: ‘It (fixedly) hated me before you’ (μεμίσηκεν). 19. The reason of the hostility is found in the fact that the aspirations of disciples of Christ are clearly and categorically opposed to the aspirations of the world. A dissimilarity which is a perpetual reproof must be disliked and hated. ‘Not of the world’, rather ‘chosen out of the world’, are the qualifications that make the disciples of Christ a sign of contradiction. 20. Servants cannot look for better treatment than their Master received. Persecution from many, submissive love from some will be their lot, as it was his. 21. The name of Christ is the real sign of contradiction, and hatred is heavily charged and intermixed with culpable ignorance: ‘they know not him that sent me’. Jesus is speaking of the Jewish world. 22. The advent of Jesus, their Christ, and his message to them has deprived them of all excuse for their unbelief. 23. Hatred of Jesus is simply hatred of God the Father. § b 24. His works—unique works such as no one ever did—leave them without any plea to excuse them from sin. They have seen him and they have (fixedly) hated him and his Father, whose words the words of Jesus were, and whose works were his works. 25. So it was predicted in their law (i.e. their Scriptures), for a Psalmist said in a Messianic Psalm, 68 (69):5: ‘They hated me without cause’; cf. Ps 34(35):19. The connexion between 25 and 26 seems to be that the inexcusability of the unbelieving Jewish world will continue, for testimony to Jesus will also continue through the Holy Spirit and the Apostles who were with him from the beginning. Thus Jesus seems to refer chiefly, if not exclusively, to the years of active Jewish persecution and to the time which had its horizon in the fall of Jerusalem. 26. In a sentence, from which a little compendium of the theology of the Holy Spirit might be extracted, the Master now points to the Paraclete as a witness of himself. The Paraclete’s relation of origin or procession from the Son is implicit in the fact that the Son sends him. He shall equally come from the Father (in this temporal mission), but the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father is commonly held to be explicity stated by the use of the present tense, ‘who proceeds from the Father’. That the Spirit is a person appears clearly, for although the ‘Spirit of truth’ is neuter in Gk, this name is immediately followed by the masculine personal pronoun ‘he’ (ἐκεῖνος). The Apostles are witnesses of Christ, as having been with him from the beginning (cf. Ac 1:21 f.: 10:37 ff.): their testimony is distinguished from, but also united to, the testimony of the Holy Ghost (cf. Ac 5:32; 15:28). 16:1–4. These premonitions are a shield against such terrible shocks as might well make them stagger—excommunication from the synagogue, persecution to death which is actually considered by the persecutors (such as Saul was) as an act of homage to God. Culpable ignorance shall be behind it all, but for the persecuted to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
§ c 16:5–15 The Work of the Holy Spirit—5. In this precise way Jesus had not yet told of the future stubbornness, fury and fanaticism of Jewish persecution. He does so now because he is going, and they know where he is going, since they have ceased to question him. 6. From their own (not really disinterested) point of view they see only the sorrowful aspect of his departure. 7. He therefore tells them of its utility to them. It is the necessary condition of the sending and advent of the Spirit. The benefits of this advent may be summed up as three, (a) the evidences of the divinity of the Holy Ghost, (b) the abundance of his outpourings of grace, (c) the spiritualization of the Apostles’ love of Jesus. 8–11. The Spirit will impeach the world and put it in the wrong on three points: sin, justice, judgement. The world thought Jesus to be guilty and itself guiltless; the world thought that justice was on its side; the world thought that it had no condemnation to incur. The Spirit will show all these suppositions to be false. In the first place, the Spirit will give clear evidence that Jesus was the Messias, and in doing so will lay their sin at the door of the Jews as being a sin of unbelief, a sin against the light. Three thousand in Jerusalem made that admission on Pentecost Sunday, Ac 2:37–41, and every conversion of an enemy of Christ will involve the same confession. Secondly, the Spirit will attest that it is not a culprit who ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God. As the Apostles preach, as charismata abound, as the Church grows, it will be clear that justice and sanctity belonged to Jesus and not to the Jews who killed him as a malefactor. Thirdly, it will appear that in the battle between Christ and the Prince of this world, it is not the Christ who has succumbed to adverse judgement. Satan has been struck with a sentence of condemnation (κέκριται) and has been cast out of his dominion; cf. 12:31. The destruction of idolatry and the expulsion of demons from the possessed were to be amongst the proofs of this, Ac 8:7; 16:18; 19:12.
§ d 12–15. Whereas towards the world the Spirit is an accuser from whom there is no escape, towards the Apostles he is Christ’s great substitute to guide them into all religious truth. 12. To render his teaching explicit and clear in detail, Jesus still needed to speak many words, too many for his hearers to take in that evening. He will, therefore, complete their instruction through that other Paraclete. For the fourth time the advent of the Spirit is promised to them, and for the third time he is called ‘the Spirit of truth’ (14:17; 15:26; 16:13; ‘Holy Spirit’ in 14:26. cf. 20:22). 13. ‘But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come he shall lead you into all truth’. This may mean the revelation of new truths left unrevealed by the Christ, but the view that the Spirit is an internal illuminator rather than a revealer seems more in keeping with the context of this discourse, 14:26, and of the whole Fourth Gospel (1:16–18; cf. 1 Jn 2:20–27). In the person of Jesus and his manifestation of himself up to the day of his ascension, Ac 1:3, and sometimes to individual Apostles after the ascension, Ac 9:4; Apoc 1:1, we would seem to have the full final revelation, in the explicit understanding of which the Church shall ever grow through the illuminating action of the Paraclete. Thus the Spirit of God (substantial love) would be the fecundating principle to secure the Church’s living penetration of the deposit given by the ‘Image of the invisible God’, Col 1:15, in implicit fullness. In Jesus ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden’, Col 2:3. The Spirit is not an independent speaker. ‘Whatsoever he shall hear (BWD V7619g against ‘hears’ of S7620L) he shall speak’. By particular prophecies and still more by full confidence in the Christian economy (as voiced, for instance, in Apoc) ‘the things which are to come he shall show you’. 14 f. As Jesus glorified the Father, the Paraclete shall glorify Jesus, receiving and showing what is common to the Father and the Son. This statement implies the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son as from a co-principle.
§ e 16–24 Jesus’ Departure and Return—Jesus puzzled the Apostles by telling them that in ‘a little while they should not see him’ and again in ‘a little while they should see him’. The addition ‘because I go to the Father’ is not authentic in 16, but is added by the Apostles in 17, from what they had already heard, 16:10. Thus they make the subject of their inquiry, ‘the little while’ and ‘the little while’, even more enigmatic. The enigma has received many explanations. Aug7621. terminates the first ‘little while’ at the ascension, and extends the second to the judgement and the final bliss of heaven. In this explanation the second ‘little while’ is by no means little, but it is urged that the ages of time, however many, are short, a thousand years being like a day in comparison with eternity. Another interpretation, approved by Aug7622. and followed by Aquinas, has the favour of the majority of modern commentators (Maldonatus, however, being a very notable exception). The first modicum extends to the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, the second terminates with his resurrection. Thus the ‘little whiles’ are respectively less than 20 and 40 hours in round numbers. After his resurrection they saw him and rejoiced with a joy which no one could ever again take from them. 20 ff. The two states of sorrow and joy are illustrated by the Saviour’s parable of a woman in childbirth. § f 23 f. It is objected that whereas he says that in that day they will ask no further questions, after the resurrection the Apostles still asked some questions, Jn 21:21; Ac 1:6. But Christ evidently means that his resurrection will put his disciples in a permanent condition of certitude about the meaning of what he has said to them. That certitude brought by the resurrection is crowned at Pentecost. Jn himself notes more than once that, when Jesus was glorified, they understood many things that had for formerly been impervious to them, 2:22; 12:16. Then they shall also understand the impetratory power given them in the Saviour’s mediation—a thing they had not thought of while he was with them in his mortality. ‘If you ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it you’. Aug7623. emphasizes the last word, and argues that only prayer for one’s own needs is certainly infallible. It seems difficult to say that Christ intended to affirm this. The order of words in Gk would rather put the emphasis on ‘in my name’.
§ g 25–32 Conclusion—Even with the tragic note of human weakness sounding so clearly in them, no words could be more comforting than these few verses. 25–27. ‘These things I have spoken to you in allegories’. What Jesus had said in the language of symbol and allegory was obscure, but the hour of full light is coming, when ‘I will show you plainly of the Father’; cf. 14:26. That hour shall begin with the resurrection and the mission of the Holy Spirit. Then petition shall be made in the name of Christ—the Apostles and the Church after them shall pray per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum—and although the living intercession of the Saviour on behalf of his own shall go on perpetually, 1 Jn 2:1–3; Heb 7:25, the very fidelity of the Apostles’ love for Jesus will draw the benevolence of the Father upon them, for they have believed that he came forth from God. 28–30. With a clearness which, at that moment, seemed new to the eleven he said: ‘I came forth from the Father and am come into the world: again I leave the world and I go to the Father’. No one can miss perceiving not only the clarity but the majestic grandeur of this word—a veritable compendium of the Fourth Gospel. The Apostles felt that it answered all the questions they wanted to ask about that enigmatic ‘little while’. Not only do they recognize plain speaking (‘thou speakest no allegory’), but they feel that Jesus has been reading the secrets of their hearts. ‘By this’, they say, ‘we believe that thou camest forth from God’. § h 31 f. He does not doubt the sincerity of their faith, but he speaks a prophecy of human tragedy and divine grandeur. The faith of the Apostles is not solid enough to stand the storm of crisis that is to break that very night. The picture is: His intimates dispersed, Jesus alone—but not alone, for the Father is with him. 33. To comment on the final word of eternal encouragement would be to spoil it: ‘These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress, but have confidence, I have overcome the world (νενίκηκα)’. It is equivalent to saying: My victory over the powers of evil will be yours. St John remembered it when he wrote to the Churches of Asia: ‘This is the victory which vanquished the world, your faith’, 1 Jn 5:4. Jesus has not conquered without conquering in his body which is the Church. Aug7624. writes: ‘They had confidence and they conquered. In whom but in him? For he would not have conquered the world if the world conquered his members. Hence the Apostle says: “Thanks be to God who gives us victory”, 1 Cor 15:57, and he added immediately, “through our Lord Jesus Christ” ’.
§ 806a 17:1–26 Christ’s Sacerdotal Prayer for Unity—The sacerdotal or pontifical character of this majestic prayer of the Saviour is noted more than once by Cyr. Alex7625. in the course of the ten long chapters which he dedicates to its exposition. It is, of course, v 19 that sounds the specifically sacerdotal note. But the pontifical tone of the whole and the fact that the prayer is a sort of preface to the Passion justifies the title of ‘sacerdotal prayer’. However, the theme of it is the unity of the Church through the glorification of the Saviour. The exordium of that great sacrificial prayer, the canon of the Roman Mass, shows some affinities, of which an emphatic supplication for unity is not the least. Christ, as we saw, had probably left the supper-room, 14:31. That he was in the open air (possibly on the flat roof of the house) is suggested but not postulated by the gesture of raising his eyes to heaven. Certainly such a gesture, carefully noted by Jn, would have had more external solemnity, if made under the stars and in the light of the Paschal moon. The prayer is patently tripartite, for Jesus first prays for himself, 1–5, secondly for his Apostles, 6–19, thirdly for the whole Church to be won by the preaching of the Apostles, 20–23. The final epilogue of petition is addressed in two parts to the Father for the reunion of all in glory with Jesus, 24, and for the Church militant as set apart from the world in union with Jesus, who is the revealer of the Father and the total object of the Father’s love, for he is the beloved Son gathering the Church through the grace of adoption into intimate unity with himself, 25 f.
§ b 1–5 Jesus prays for Himself—The vocative address ‘Father’ opens the prayer and also opens the special petition of each part, 5, 11, 21, and furthermore opens the two parts of the epilogue, 24, 25. Let it be remembered that the prayer follows on a series of words which had begun with the announcement: ‘Now the Son of Man is glorified …’, 13:31, and ended with the encouragement: ‘Have confidence, I have conquered the world’. For the third time, 6:5; 11:41, Jn contemplates Jesus lifting his eyes to heaven. ‘The hour has come’ means that the Passion is about to begin. It is that Passion which will win for Jesus the glory which as man he now asks at the right hand of his Father. 2. ‘Even as thou hast given him power over all flesh, in order that …’ The lordship of Christ over all flesh, i.e. over the whole human race, is realized by this glorification, given in view of a further glorification of the Father by the Son. The whole function of him who is ‘Lord and Christ’ is to give eternal life to those who will receive it by living and abiding faith. § c 3. Therefore the Saviour defines in what eternal life consists. It is faith here and vision hereafter, neither of which is arid knowledge but knowledge glowing with charity. The object of such knowledge is the one true God, as distinct from polytheistic idols, and of God’s Envoy Jesus Christ. This is perfect Monotheism in the Trinitarian Messianism of the Incarnation. A difficulty has been raised regarding the use of the appellation ‘Jesus Christ’. Nowhere else does the Saviour call himself thus. It may be a redactional addition of the Evangelist (Lagrange, Huby, Braun). As usual in our Lord’s words (cf. 5:24) eternal life possessed by the knowledge of faith here is in the forefront, the knowledge of vision being implicit or in the full perspective. 4 f. The ‘work’, by the fulfilment of which Jesus has glorified the Father, is the Passion already regarded as consummated. It is to the Passion that the glorification of the Redeemer is constantly referred (cf. Phil 2:9 ff.). In praying for the glory which was his with the Father, before the world was, Jesus asks that the full glory of the Word should show itself in the Word Incarnate—that he might be set in enjoyment of the glory of which he emptied himself in taking the form of a servant (Cyr.).
§ d 6–19 Jesus prays for the Apostles—Petition for the Apostles begins at 9, the preceding words being an introductory preface in which Jesus enumerates the claims which they have to the benevolence of his Father. 6 ff. Given to him out of the world as out of a mass of corruption, he has made known the Father’s name to them. This election is the first fact which entitles them to special consideration. Secondly, they belonged to the Father by the goodness of their dispositions under the guidance of his loving providence. Thirdly, he gave them to Jesus by that interior attractive force of faith which drew them to him (cf. 6:37, 39, 44, 66). Fourthly, they had surrendered mind and will to the teaching they had received from Jesus, recognizing that all he had was from the Father, accepting his words, acknowledging his divine origin, and believing in his heavenly mission. 9. Jesus who prayed for his crucifiers does not absolutely exclude the world from his prayer; he is interested in the conversion of the world, 23; but here he is specially praying for the Apostles. In any case, he could not pray for the world as the world—except for its conversion—because the unspiritual world is hostile to God (cf. 8:43; Jas 4:4). His prayer for the Apostles is founded on three reasons, which have reference to the present moment. § e 9b–11a. They belong to the Father as being his Son’s very own. Indeed, the Father and the Son have all in common—‘all my things are thine and thine are mine’ (cf. Lk 15:31 for half the phrase spoken by a father to a son). Moreover, Jesus has been and is glorified in them, for they have persevered in their faith, even when others fell away, 6:68 f. Besides, at his departure, they are now about to be left alone in the world. 11b. It is here that the direct petition for them begins. It is a petition for holiness—for apostolic consecration to the service of God and of truth in the midst of a corrupt world which serves ‘the father of lies’. Hence Jesus places the epithet ‘holy’ before ‘Father’. One recalls the great vision of Is 6 in which the Prophet learned the great distance between God and human corruption so vividly that he constantly calls God ‘the Holy One of Israel’. ‘Holy Father, keep them in thy name (that divine name) which thou hast given to me’. Which not whom is the reading of the best MSS (BSCLAW etc.). The ‘name’ is the divine essence manifesting itself in its attributes of power and wisdom—these together with the divine nature having been communicated from the Father to the Son. The petition is that the Apostles should be kept united in mind and will and heart, realizing a unity modelled on the ineffable pattern in which all is one in a distinction of persons. § f 12–14. Up to the present, Jesus has kept them, so that none of them fell into such temptation as brought permanent rejection (cf. 18:9), except ‘the son of perdition’—a Semitism of metaphorical relation denoting destiny, like ‘son of gehenna’, ‘son of death’. Judas was destined to perish, but by his own fault. The Scripture had foretold it, Ps 40(41):8. The treason of Judas, foreseen as the result of the traitor’s own malice, was an element in the plan of redemption. This prayer spoken by Jesus in the world is to secure for the Apostles a full participation in the serene joy which he himself had in the accomplishment of his Father’s will. The professors of heavenly doctrine will surely be hated by that world which holds to an earthly philosophy. 15. Jesus does not ask that they should be taken out of the dangerous environment—this would be the end of their apostolate—but that they be kept from contagion—‘evil’ here seems to be the sum of evil influences rather than the personal evil one, although Johannine usage in his first epistle favours the latter. 16. ‘They are not of the world, as I am not of the world’. To keep them from evil, however, is only the negative side of what Jesus desires for his faithful ones. § g 17 ff. The culmination of his prayer for them is: ‘Sanctify them in the truth, thy word is truth’. What is asked is that God should consecrate them for the priestly office of preaching the truth, for what St Paul calls the ‘hierurgy of the Gospel’, Rom 15:16. Their mission is the continuation of the mission of Jesus. 19. ‘And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth’. A word of the same generic signification will vary its sense according to the subject. Jesus consecrates himself. That consecration is not the hypostatic union, nor the ‘unction’ of his humanity by the Holy Spirit, but the priestly consecration of himself as a victim on the cross. The sacrifice of Christ gives the Apostles a sacrificial consecration for their work in a true sense (‘in truth’ without the article). It is obviously not an external consecration such as that operated by the sacrifices of the Old Law. It is a sanctification of a kind corresponding to the sacrifice that makes it, and is therefore an internal sanctification; cf. Heb 9:13.
§ h 20–23 Jesus prays for the Church—20. The prayer passes to the generations to come, to all believers whose faith is founded on the Apostolic teaching. 21. What Jesus asks for them is unity—a unity of souls, imitative of the Divine Trinity (and, no doubt, a social unity of bodies in which St Cyril sees the effect of the Holy Eucharist)—a unity which will be a proof to the world that God is here. 22. The glory which Jesus received and which he has given to his Church—to all faithful disciples of the Apostles—is not so much the glory of miracles and wondrous concord (Chrys7626.), or the glory of Christ’s humanity resplendent in the Church (Aug7627., Thom.), but rather the fundamental glory of divine filiation (Ambrose, cf. 1:18). Adoptive sonship includes everything else and especially that unity like to the union of the Father and Son, which is the central petition of this prayer. 23. ‘I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one: and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me’. Again we have a clear echo of the grace of the Eucharist, 6:57 f. SS Cyril and Hilary and many commentators after them were not wrong in thinking that it is through the Eucharist that this prayer of Jesus is realized. It is through the ‘concorporating’ sacrament that the Church is enabled to show the world that the Father loves the Church as he loves his own Son. It is really one love, for the Church is Christ.
§ i 24–26 Epilogue—The final petition is that all this magnificence may be fulfilled in the vision of heavenly glory. The glory of the Word shining in his humanity, which we now see through the dark medium of faith, is the final reward. Let us note the strong Volo with which Jesus prays for this: ‘I will that where I am, they may be with me, that they may see my glory’. This glory is the glory of the Godhead in the Word Incarnate. Such glory, communicated to the sacred humanity in accordance with a divine decree of predestination, manifests the eternal love with which the Father has loved his Son. We may also say—and it is well for us to feel and relish it interiorly—that this strong Volo of the Saviour shows magnificently how ‘he loved his own who were in the world and loved them unto the end’. He wants his apostolic Church with him in the glory of heaven. The petition ends here, for the remaining verses, 25 f., opening with the title: ‘Just Father’ separate the Church—as the Lady Electa (to use a Johannine phrase)—from the deliberately blind world. 25. The recognition in deed and in truth of the mission of Jesus is what saves men ‘from the perverse generation’, Ac 2:40, or world, which St Augustine calls by the fearful name of massa damnata. To the word ‘know’ (recognize) in 25 corresponds the word ‘make known’ in 26: ‘I have made known thy name to them’—to the Apostles as foundations of the Church—‘and will make it known’—after the resurrection myself, and after Pentecost by my Spirit—‘that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them’—as proved by the gifts of grace—‘and I in them’—by the immanence which gives them life in abundance. The profundity of these concluding words did not escape Aug7628.: ‘How’, he asks, ‘comes it that the love with which the Father loved his Son is in us also, except for the reason that we are his members, and in him we are loved when he, the whole Christ, is loved by the Father—that is, the head and the body?’ (Tract. 111).
§ 807a 18–19 The Passion—In recording the events of the night and the day that began in Gethsemane and ended at the rock tomb beside the place of crucifixion, Jn only narrates incidents omitted by the Synoptists or, if he rejoins them, otherwise supplements their narratives. The chief headings of the Passion according to Jn are: the arrest of Jesus, 18:1–12, his appearance before Annas and Caiphas synchronizing with the triple denial of St Peter, 13–27, the first interrogation before Pilate, 28–38a, the second interrogation—Ecce homo and condemnation to the cross, 19:1–16, the crucifixion, 17–22, the division of garments, 23 f., the last words and death of Jesus, 25–30, the piercing of the sacred side, 31–37, his burial, 38–42.
§ b 18:1–12 Arrest—1. The journey with which this chapter opens began at the house of the Cenacle (Supper Room) in the SW. quarter of Jerusalem and possibly followed an old Jewish or Maccabean road discovered in recent years by the Assumptionist Fathers. The Water Gate near the Pool of Siloe would be the most probable exit from the city. Turning to the left or north, Jesus and the eleven would have skirted the eastern slope of the old Jebusite site of the city of David and of the temple esplanade, outside the Porch of Solomon. The crossing of ‘the brook of Cedron’—literally meaning ‘the winter stream of turbid (water)’—is mentioned only by Jn, probably with some reminiscence of the pathetic crossing of the same torrent by David, as he fled from Absalom, 2 Kg 15:23. The garden to which Jesus went is named Gethsemane (Oil-press) by the Synoptists. The property evidently belonged to a friend. 2. Judas knew that place on Olivet, because it was a favourite retreat of Jesus; cf. Lk 21:37; 22:39. § c 3. The arresting party, to which Judas acted as guide, Ac 1:16, was composed of Roman soldiers and Jewish guards. The former, described as a cohort commanded by a tribune, 12, would in strict parlance number 600 men—or at least 200, this being the strength of a maniple often denoted by the same Gk word (σπεῖρα). Thus the whole party was an armed band of soldiers, Levitical police and lackeys of the chief priests, 10. The lanterns and torches on a night when the moon was full, would have been largely a matter of military routine. 4. Jn, who omits the kiss of Judas, is careful to note the full foreknowledge and sovereign freedom with which the Saviour gave himself into the hands of his enemies. The little dialogue, 4–8, with its accompanying circumstances is most awe-inspiring. 5. The band, with which Judas stood, answered the question: ‘Whom seek ye?’ by using the ordinary designation of the Master: ‘Jesus of Nazareth’; cf. Mk 10:47; Lk 18:37. The words, ‘I am he’, uttered by him who could say: ‘I am who am’, caused what Jn undoubtedly attributes to miraculous power, namely, a backward stampede, involving an impressive fall to the ground of many, at least, of the arresting party. § d 7–8. The same question having been asked again and answered, Jesus demanded free departure for his companions—not calling them disciples, in order to save them more surely from arrest. 9. A word of Jesus, 17:12, had guaranteed the eleven against their moral destruction (which could have happened if they had been arrested), and so Jn does not seem to extend the word unduly to preservation from physical destruction. 10. In describing the apostolic act of violence which ensued, Jn alone names Simon Peter as the one who struck the blow, joins Lk in specifying the right ear, but is the sole recorder of the name Malchus, said to be a Nabataean name (Heb. Melek) equivalent to our Rex or Roy—these being used in English both as baptismal and family names. Malchus was a servant of the high-priest, not one of the temple police. 11. In reprimanding Simon Peter, Jesus made a clear reference to the words of his agony in the garden, otherwise omitted by Jn: ‘Chalice’, of course, means the portion assigned to one (in a banquet), not what comes to him by the chance of a lottery cup. 12. In arresting Jesus they bound him, for the traitor had said: ‘Lay hold on him and lead him away carefully’, Mk 14:44.
§ e 13–27 Before Annas and Caiphas—This narrative raises a difficulty which must be treated briefly here. 24 suggests that Peter’s first denial, 15–18, and the first examination of Jesus, 19–23, took place in the house of Annas, who in this hypothesis, is called high-priest in 15, 16, 19, whereas in 13 and 24 the title is given (as elsewhere in Jn 11:49) to Caiphas. As the Synoptists place Peter’s denials in the house of Caiphas, one part of the difficulty has been met by supposing that Annas lived in the same pontifical palace as his son-in-law, the Pontiff of the year. Hence the courtyard of Caiphas was also the courtyard of Annas. As there is no trace of a topographical tradition marking a distinct palace of Annas before the 14th cent., this supposition is tenable; but what of the title ‘high-priest’ being given to Annas? Lk 3:2 and Ac 4:6 are appealed to, but the appeal does not clear the Johannine narrative of confusion. A transposition of 18:24 after 18:13 rectifies the situation. This transposition is not purely arbitrary, for it has the support of the Syro-Sinaitic MS, of Cyril of Alexandria, and (it is said) of a minuscule codex 226, which, however, puts 24 in the middle of 13. Certain reasons of internal criticism drawn from the omission or fluctuation of a particle (δέ or σὖν) at the beginning of 24 are also alleged. However, the transposition, though not devoid of probability, does not seem to stand before the united voice of the MSS and versions. § f The difficulty can be satisfactorily met (even without supposing one palace), by understanding ‘high-priest’ of Caiphas only and taking 24 as introductory to a resumption of the history of Peter’s denials. The whole passage is so evidently a series of reminiscences, that 24 (though seeming to be out of its logical place) is quite characteristic of the evangelist’s style. Jn alone mentions that Jesus was brought to Annas first. It was an act of courtesy, for the old man was a political power and notoriously shrewd in managing business affairs. Called Hananus (Hananya = the Lord is merciful) by Josephus, he had attained the high-priesthood through Quirinius in 6 b.c., was deposed by Valerius Gratus in a.d. 15, but still succeeded in having five of his sons (Eleazar, Jonathan, Theophilus, Matthias, Ananus the Younger) elevated to the high-priesthood. Lk 3:2 sets him before Caiphas (the actual high-priest) in marking the pontifical year, and in Ac 4:6 he is also named first. Jn gives as reason for this present act of deference to Annas that ‘he was the father-in-law of Caiphas, the high-priest of that year’. 14. Caiphas, whose personal name was Joseph, was altogether 17 years high-priest, 18–36, and was also, as Jn 11:50 reveals him, a politician rather than a priest. Jn here cites the Pontiff’s decision of some weeks earlier, to show that the case of Jesus was prejudged. 15 f. Two disciples, Simon Peter and another, followed Jesus. The studious anonymity as well as the association with Peter indicates the evangelist himself. Some have thought of the young man who had fled in Gethsemane, Mk 14:51 f. How the son of Zebedee came to be known to the high-priest has not been explained, but is not thereby made incredible. A word from him to the portress obtained admission for Peter. 17. Her question to the Apostle (expecting however a negative answer) shows that she knew his companion was a disciple. Peter denied discipleship. 18. April nights can be cold at Jerusalem. Hence the brazier in the courtyard, to which Peter drew near, as much to keep up appearances as to warm himself.
§ g 19–23. The palace of Caiphas in which this first interrogatory was held, as well as the two judicial sessions of the night, Mt 26:57–68, and of the morning, Mt 27:1, Lk 22:66–71, is traditionally located (since the pilgrim of Bordeaux 333, it seems) near the Cenacle, south of the Sion Gate, now called Neby Dâûd. The claims of the Armenian Monastery of Mount Sion are still upheld, but since 1927 the sanctuary brought to light by the Assumptionists and named Saint Peter in Gallicantu has found strong defenders (Marchet, Power). 19. The questions of Caiphas have reference to two points—disciples whereon a political charge might be grafted, and teaching, in view of religious consequences. 20. Jesus, taking full responsibility, says nothing about the former, and in regard to the latter refers the Pontiff to the public witnesses of his quite open teaching—given in synagogues and in the temple. 22. This just and dignified answer earned him a blow with the open palm from a guard, who pretended zeal for the honour of the Pontiff. 23. Jesus, whose teaching on turning the other cheek, Mt 5:39, is most often to be observed by a peaceful interior attitude of soul, calmly reminded the striker that one under accusation can demand proper justice and the proper forms of justice—testimony against him, if he speaks ill, respect for his person, when he speaks well.
§ h 24. The short sentence or note which says that Annas sent Jesus bound to Caiphas is inserted here as something which the Evangelist recalls for the purpose of continuing the account of Peter’s denials. 25–27. Nine denials of his Master by Peter can be counted in the Gospels, if variations of persons, circumstances, and verbal forms are taken into account. But all insist that the denials were three. Three distinct times, when called to answer by one or more persons at once, Peter denied our Lord. The first denial had no variety of circumstance; the second and third had. Hence they are variously reported according to the particular circumstance or set of circumstances apprehended by the witness. In sets these last two denials in relation to queries from bystanders at the brazier, and from a relative of Malchus. The (second) cockcrow, as we said, 13:38, may have been as close to daybreak as the beginning of the 4th watch, 3–6 a.m.
§ 808a 28–38a First Interrogation before Pilate—28. The praetorium to which Jesus was brought from Caiphas was the residence of the governor. The procurators of Judaea, who were subordinate to the imperial Legate of Syria, resided habitually at Caesaraea, but came to Jerusalem for the great festivals or whenever a concourse or other circumstances endangered public tranquility. About Pilate’s place of residence at Jerusalem there has been a difference of opinion. The Herodian palace near the present Jaffa Gate would seem to be naturally indicated as the Jerusalem residence of the supreme Roman magistrate, and we know from Josephus (BJ 2, 14, 8; 15, 5) that a quarter of a century later the governor Gessius Florus lodged there. Pilate also by the famous incident of the shields would have signified his intention of doing so. On the other hand, the arx Antonia or vast fortress-palace built by Herod at the NW. angle of the temple area was undoubtedly the most central and best post of vigilance. Especially, when the air was electric, it would be the proper place for the Governor to lodge. Since the 13th cent. the Via Dolorosa has begun from there, and excavations made between 1927 and 1932 in the property of the Sisters of Sion seem to have given reasonable grounds for connecting this place with the Lithostrotos of Jn 19:13. Probabilities in favour of the Antonia have therefore decidedly grown in recent years. The time was morning, probably as early as 6 a.m. by our clocks. The Sanhedrists did not enter the pagan residence to avoid legal defilement which would prevent them from taking part in the Paschal rites that evening. Meanwhile they were defiling their consciences with murder. Jesus, we may suppose, was conducted at once to a judgement hall within, entering, perhaps, by the northern long side of the great quadrangular fortress. § b 29. Pilate is now mentioned for the first time. Procurator of Judaea since a.d. 26 he is known to us not only from the Gospels but also from Philo and Josephus. His haughty and imprudent contempt of Jewish religious susceptibility is shown by two desecrations of the city, first with ensigns bearing the image of Caesar, and secondly with shields similarly adorned which he set up in the Herodian palace. He also offended Jewish feeling by the appropriation of temple monies for the building of an aqueduct. He was often cruel; cf. Lk 13:1. It was an act of cruelty against Samaritans that led finally in 36 to his deposition by the Syrian Legate Vitellius. The Gospels, however, show that he had something of a Roman sense of justice, was at once sceptical and superstitious, but above all weak as an upholder of right, when his position was thereby threatened. He feared above all things the frown of Tiberius Caesar. Jesus seems to have impressed him from the beginning. So, when he went out (on to a balcony?) to the Jews, he demanded very categorically the formulation of their charge. 30. Having come only for the ratification of a capital sentence, which they could not carry out themselves, they were taken aback. They retorted that they would not have delivered up a fellow Jew to Pilate, if he had not done wrong. 31. Before this vagueness, Pilate pretends to understand the matter as a minor (non-capital) charge, to be judged by themselves according to Jewish law. Thereupon they make it clear that they want the death penalty, admitting that they have not the ius gladii or power of execution. 32. Thus Jesus, as he had foretold, Mt 20:19; Jn 3:14; 8:28; 12:32, was to die by the Roman provincial penalty of crucifixion.
§ c 33. Pilate proceeds to an interrogation in the hall within. Of the three charges given by Lk 23:2, namely sedition, anti-fiscal agitation, pretending to royal sovereignty, the governor takes only the last which was laesa maiestas or treason in a very definite sense. ‘(So) thou art the king of the Jews’, is, as the context shows, an assertion uttered with something of an interrogatory tone. Pilate would have expected a negative answer. 34. Jesus distinguished: Did that statement come from Pilate (a Roman) or from others (namely Jews)? If king meant a rival of Tiberius, No; if it meant the Israelite Messias, Yes. This was what was implied in the question of Jesus to Pilate. 35. The latter, having signified that the affair against Jesus was all a Jewish matter, asked definitely: ‘What hast thou done?’ 36. Jesus does not answer this question, except by clearly defining what his kingship is. It is not of terrestrial origin. If it were, his guards—the military force which in that hypothesis he would have had—would have striven against his arrest. Consequently his kingship is not ‘from hence’—terrestrial—and therefore he is no Palestinian rival of the majesty of Roman Tiberius. 37. Pilate, surprised at an avowal of kingship of any kind, asked: ‘Art thou a king then?’ The answer given by Jesus is Yes. He is a Teacher-King, born and present in the world to proclaim the royal authority of truth. ‘Every one who is of the truth (joined to it by the filial sympathy of true goodness, cf. 3:21) heareth my voice’, i.e. obeys me. 38a. Pilate showed the scepticism of his soul by the question: ‘What is truth?’ but went no further. It is at this point that Pilate sent Jesus off to Herod; cf. Lk 23:6–12.
§ d 38b. When Jesus was brought back from Herod’s court, Pilate, convinced that he had only to deal with a philosopher or a dreamer, went out and again informed the Jews: ‘I find no cause in him’. Up to this Pilate has done his duty as a Roman magistrate, but he did not follow out the course of justice by immediately releasing the prisoner. The sending of Jesus to Herod, Lk 23:6–12, was the beginning of compromise; the proposal of the minor penalty of flogging, Lk 23:16, was a further step on the way of weakness. 39 f. Jn only mentions as a first subterfuge the proposed preference of Jesus to Barabbas (Son of Abba—rather ‘Masterson’ than ‘Fatherson’ in our English style of names). This suggestion of amnesty likewise violated the innocence of Jesus. Jn tells briefly that the preference was given by the Jews to Barabbas, and ends with one of those characteristically tragic sentences: ‘Now Barabbas was a robber’.
§ 809a 19:1–7 Scourging and Ecce Homo—1. Pilate ordered the scourging. Generally a preliminary of crucifixion, it was administered with the horribile flagellum made of thongs or the still more horrible flagrum armed with bone or metal. The mode of executing the penalty is described elsewhere, § 721h. 2 f. The soldiers themselves took the initiative in the mockery of the crown of thorns. Jn mentions the crown, the purple garment, the mock-imperial salute (imitation of Ave Caesar imperator), the blows with the open hand; he omits the reed, the genuflexions, the spittings. 4. Pilate seizes on what he considers a new opportunity of saving Jesus. Disfigured by the wounds and blood caused by scourges and thorns, and wearing a crown and a robe that made him look much more pathetic than any tinselled pretender to royalty could possibly be, Jesus was led out. ‘Behold the man’ was intended to excite pity or (in the more brutal) such a kind of laughter as would wish to push tragedy no further. § b 6. In the chief priests (here mentioned for the first time as a group directing hostilities before the praetorium) and in the Levitical guards it only excited more emphatic hatred. The cry ‘Crucify, crucify’, recorded for the first time by Jn and with the stark brevity of verb without object (attested by the best Gk and Lat. MSS) represents a frenzy of hatred. Pilate stiffens before it. There is both sarcasm and strong contempt in the words: ‘Take him you and crucify him: for I find no cause in him’. For the third time in Jn (4th in the harmonized narrative) Pilate says, ‘I find no cause’. 7. The Sanhedrists being stung by the scoff at their dependence on Rome to carry out a capital sentence, their fury turns back, in spite of their plans, to the religious charge. For a capital crime against Roman law they substitute a crime against Jewish law—blasphemy, punishable by the Jewish code with stoning or (failing the power to stone) by execution in the Roman way, i.e. by substituting the Roman penalty of crucifixion. The words: ‘He made himself the Son of God’ can have nothing but their full sense. Otherwise the blasphemy statute of Lev 24:16 could not be invoked.
§ c 8–16 Last Interrogation and Sentence—8. Pilate must have already felt, at least vaguely, that no man ever faced jealous hatred like this man. Hence his scepticism could not prevent him, on hearing of Jesus’ claim to be ‘Son of God’, from suspecting that the prisoner might be more than human. 9. It was, however, superstitious fear and curiosity rather than love of truth that prompted his question: ‘Whence art thou?’ Jesus did not answer. 10. Pilate’s remark in the face of this silence shows that he conceived himself as supreme arbiter of the prisoner’s liberty and life. 11. The answer of Jesus refers to the present situation—to the power of the death-sentence towards which Pilate was drifting. ‘The power given from above’ does not refer to Pilate’s civil jurisdiction. Pilate has the power to crucify by a permissive decree of God not authorizing the crime but permitting the event in view of the redemption of the world. ‘Therefore he that hath delivered me to thee, hath greater sin’. The one who has greater sin is Caiphas rather than Judas. The latter’s treason was indeed blackest of all, but is not presumed known to Pilate, who had moreover already said: ‘Thy own nation and the chief priests have delivered thee up to me’. The ‘therefore’ is exceedingly difficult to interpret. The logical connexion implied in it would seem to be conveyed most satisfactorily by the following paraphrase: ‘You, Pilate, a pagan and under God’s permissive providence an instrument in this crime, partly unwilling, though sufficiently responsible to be a sinner, have sin indeed, but for the very reason of your lesser and his greater responsibility, the spiritual ruler of Israel who handed Israel’s Messias over to you has greater sin’.
§ d 12–16. As Pilate is now seeking to release Jesus it is clear that the religious charge has failed; and since the political charge has also failed, there is only one thing left, to play on Pilate’s fears for his own security. The Sanhedrists now play their last desperate card and wrest the death-sentence from Pilate by intimidation. 12. After the last word of Jesus—‘And from this’ is both temporal and logical—Pilate tried to release him. He is deterred by the threat of denunciation to the emperor. Not to be ‘a friend of Caesar’ was a serious matter, when the Caesar was Tiberius who, as Suetonius informs us, was atrociously severe where there were suspicions or charges of treason—‘judicia maiestatis atrocissime exercuit’ (Vita Tiberii, 58). ‘If thou release this man, thou art not Caesar’s friend. For whosoever maketh himself a king declares against Caesar’—this was decisive. 13. Pilate had Jesus brought out and set up his tribunal—the folding curule chair of a Roman magistrate—‘in the place … called Lithostrotos’ (from the remarkable pavement), but also known by the Hebrew (Aramaic) name of Gabbatha, meaning a height or eminence rather than a bare front (also etymologically possible). § e 14. Jn also carefully notes the time. Parasceve (preparation) had become synonymous with Friday, but here it probably means the preparation day before the Pasch. It was actually Friday, Mk 15:42. The hour was approximately the sixth (probably about 11 a.m., cf. Mk 15:20 ‘the third hour’). Defeated but haughty towards those forcing his hand, Pilate said: ‘Behold your king’. 15. Another frenzied cry for the crucifixion of their victim—and Pilate responded with the deliberate question: ‘Am I to crucify your king?’ To which the leaders of the theocratic people said: ‘We have no king but Caesar’. 16. According to legal form the sentence had to be read—as being irrevocable. A usual form of sentence was Ibis ad crucem—‘Thou shalt go to the cross’. All that Jn says however is that Pilate delivered him to the Jews that he might be crucified (by an execution squad of four Roman soldiers under the command of a centurion).
§ 810a 16b–22 The Crucifixion—Jn is very brief regarding the via dolorosa. He does not repeat what Mt, Mk, Lk had recorded of Simon the Cyrenean, nor the sympathy shown by some women of Jerusalem, Lk. It was of course the soldiers, not the Jews, that took Jesus (and led him out). 17. The cross which he carried would, on the basis of probabilities established by ancient references to crucifixion, be the patibulum or cross-beam only. The upright, which the Gk word σταυρός more properly indicates, would in this case have been already erected at the place of execution. Nevertheless, all the narratives suggest that Jesus carried a heavier weight than a mere cross-beam; the use of one and the same word by Jn identifies the instrument which Jesus carried with that beside which his mother stood; Tertullian who knew the facts of crucifixion, writing against Jews (Adv. Jud, 10), says very confidently: ‘Jesus carried his cross on his shoulder’—note singular number, for the patibulum was lashed over both shoulders. Jesus, therefore, probably carried the whole cross, which was a crux immissa (not decussata or commissa), having an upright above the cross-beam, to which an inscription could be affixed; cf. § 722b. The place of crucifixion was called Golgotha (Aram. Gulgulta), meaning skull, not because the skull of Adam was unearthed there to receive the flow of Christ’s blood—a beautiful conception still often represented on crucifixes—nor because it was like a head in the imaginary topographic skeleton of Jerusalem, but simply because it was a hill promontory such as Arabs in Jerusalem still call râs (head). As the Calvary under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is most probably the true site, we can calculate the length of the via dolorosa—from Antonia to Golgotha—as something over one-third of a mile. § b 18. Jn repeats, in a different form of words, what the Synoptists recorded of the crucifixion of Jesus between two thieves (Is 53:12—but the citation in Mk 15:28 is possibly a gloss imported from Lk 22:37). 19. The form of the title of the cross, given substantially by Mt, Mk, Lk, is most probably reproduced with verbal accuracy by Jn. As Pilate had to write the sentence of crucifixion, the words ‘Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews’ would be excerpted from some such formula as: Jesum Nazarenum Regem Judaeorum crucis supplicio animadverti placet. With the same evident unwillingness the proconsul Galerius Maximus pronounced a similarly worded sentence of decapitation on St Cyprian. 20. Pilate would have written Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum with his own hand in Latin (the language of administration) and then ordered the same to be written in Greek (the language of lettered people and of pilgrims) and in Hebrew (Aramaic, the spoken language of Palestine). 21 f. His firmness in refusing to change the title of the cross was a magistrate’s insistence on the irrevocability of a Roman sentence, mixed with a desire to have this revenge on the Jews; but, in God’s providence, Pilate’s inscription stands as a perpetual monument of the Kingship of Jesus of Nazareth.
§ c 23–24 Division of Garments—Here Jn adds notable clarifying details. None of the evangelists say that Jesus was crucified in absolute nakedness, but that was undoubtedly the rule, and the Fathers and most commentators have supposed that there was no departure from the rule in this case. Judging from passages in the Talmud, Jewish feeling was against total nudity even in capital executions. The blasphemous (2nd cent.?) graffito of the crucifixion from the Paedagogium of the Palatine at Rome cannot indeed be adduced as evidence on this point, but it is worth noting that it shows a loin-cloth. Four pieces of the clothing in which Jesus went to Calvary fell to the four soldiers of the execution squad. These (cloak, cincture, sandals and head-dress?) were divided. The completely woven unsewn tunic was too valuable to tear into pieces. They cast lots for it, and thus literally fulfilled the prophecy of Ps 21(22):19 here cited by Jn, but of doubtful authenticity in Mt. This seamless coat or tunic (which Trier and Argenteuil claim to possess) has, at least from the time of St Cyprian, been regarded as a symbol of the unity of the Church.
§ d 25–27 Jesus and His Mother—Jn draws a marked contrast, difficult to render in translation, between the soldiers who did these things and the little group that stood beside the cross. 25. The balance of the opening phrase (even as estimated by the maker of the Syriac Peshitta) leads us to distinguish not three but four women beside the cross of Jesus. The disputed point is whether ‘his mother’s sister’ is ‘Mary of Cleophas’ or another cousin of our Lady. The general love of anonymity and reticence shown by Jn would suggest that if she is the latter we must identify her with Salome, his own mother, who was certainly on Calvary that day, Mk 15:40. As Mary Cleophas is identifiable with ‘Mary the Mother of James the less, and of Joseph’, Mk 15:40, Jn most probably mentions the same three women as Mk, but Jn alone names the Saviour’s mother, § 673b. The incomparable comment of St Ambrose at the end of a letter to the clergy of Vercellae (Vercelli) should be read in P7629L 16, 1218. Part of this eloquent page is found in the Breviary (Sept 15). § e 26 f. The literal or immediate sense of Jesus’ words: ‘Woman, behold thy son’ (addressed to his mother) and ‘Behold thy mother’ (addressed to Jn) is a last touching fulfilment of the fourth commandment. Jesus provides for his mother, and the privileged legatee of this precious trust is ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. 27b indicates this clearly: ‘From that hour (comparable in many ways to the 10th hour of that wonderful first day 1:39) the disciple took her to his home’. The further spiritual meaning (which attaches a declaration of the universal spiritual maternity of Mary to these words) is barely suggested by Origen in the 3rd cent., and is not clearly enunciated (except rhetorically by George of Nicomedia, friend of Photius) either in the east or the west, till it finds its theologian in Rupert of Deutz (1070–1129). The position of this interpretation in the Church today scarcely permits us to regard it as an accommodated sense. Jn is mystically the representative of the human race called to be spiritual children of the Mother of Jesus. This motherhood of Mary was, latently at least, the mind of the Church from the earliest times—‘hoc perpetuo sensit Ecclesia’ (Leo XIII, Sept. 5, 1895—cf. Pius XI, Rerum Ecclesiæe, Feb. 28, 1927).
§ f 28–30 Last Words and Death of Jesus—Of the first three words of petition, pardon, and piety spoken by Jesus on the cross, Jn has only the third just dealt with; of the last four words of desolation (moral suffering), thirst (physical suffering), consummation, and voluntary surrender, he has two: ‘I thirst’ and ‘it is consummated’. 28. He fulfilled Ps 68(69):22 (cf. Ps 21(22):19) when he said the former of these. The soldiers had sour wine with them—a mixture of acid wine and water called posca. A sponge, which served for some purpose or other, formed part of their apparatus. This they dipped in the vessel and fixing it on sprigs of hyssop they offered it to him by means of a reed or cane, as Mt and Mk had already narrated. Jn added the detail of the hyssop. To read ὗσσῳ on a javelin instead of ὑσσώπῳ, as many now do, is not only an unreasonable preference of one codex (476 London) against all other MSS and the ancient versions, but also supposes what, on consideration, is an unlikely scribal lapse. Moreover, it supposes the improbability that ‘reed’ or cane in Mt, Mk stands for the shaft of a javelin. 30. ‘It is consummated’ means that the work of redemption is accomplished. So it really is at the moment that Jesus, after the seventh word recorded by Luke, bows his head and dies.
§ 811a 31–37 The Transfixion—This passage is the biblical and historical basis of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Its devotional riches may be gathered from the 8 homilies assigned for that Feast and its Octave in the Breviary. Here only the main points of the history are noted. 31. It was very much the concern of the Jews that the bodies should be removed before sundown of that Parasceve or Friday. Deut 21:23 ordered this removal of an ‘accursed one’ (cf. Gal 3:14) executed on a tree, and in this case the sacred Sabbath just about to begin was also the Paschal solemnity. Hence the request to Pilate for crurifragium (breaking of legs with a hammer or club to bring about immediate death from muscular cramp or shock) and removal. 32. Soldiers (apparently not the execution squad) came to carry out the order. The legs of the two robbers were broken. Jn mentions a ‘first’, but we do not know which it was. § b 33 f. The soldiers (two at least) took timely notice that Jesus was dead. One, however, wishing to make assurance doubly sure, struck the side of Jesus with a lance (a broad-headed spear) intending, no doubt, to pierce the heart. The word for ‘struck’ or ‘pierced’ (ἔνυξεν) had become ‘opened’ (ἤνοιξεν) in the codices from which the Latin version was made. Hence Augustine’s famous reference to the evangelist’s ‘watchful word’—not really a blunder, however, because Jn’s verb means ‘to pierce’, which is equivalent to opening. The soldier has been named in hagiographic legend, Longinus (or Spearman). ‘Immediately there came out blood and water’. As Jesus had been dead some time, the phenomenon was extraordinary, as the eyewitness Jn certainly recognized. Many attempts have been made to give a physiological explanation, but none of them seems adequately to explain the impression which Jn registers here and in his first epistle, 5:6. Many hold that the water was serum which owing to Jesus’ intense sufferings collected in the pericardium; cf. IE7630R. March 1951. But whether the double flow was miraculous or whether it can be explained on natural grounds, as many physiologists claim, is immaterial. There is no doubt about its reality. The Fathers have therefore rightly taken the two liquids as symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist, and, in consequence, see in these regenerating and life-giving streams the graces which produce a second Eve (the Church) from the side of the second Adam sleeping on the cross. § c 35. That Jn invokes the knowledge of Jesus to corroborate his own testimony is suggested by the word ἐκεῖνος (Lat. ille), but perhaps the pronoun has not its full classical Greek force here. In any case, the testimony is very solemn. 36 f. Two Scriptures were fulfilled in what had happened: the typal precept not to break the bones of the Paschal lamb, Ex 12:46; Num 9:12, and a word of Zacharias 12:10, taken from a passage which undoubtedly refers to Messianic times and to the Messias himself. Jn only changes the accusative pronoun from first to third: ‘They shall look on him whom they pierced’; cf. Apoc 1:7.
§ d 38–42 Burial of Jesus—Jn here supplements the synoptics. Joseph of Arimathea (which is Ramathaim-Sophim, the birthplace of Samuel, now Rentis, 8 miles NE. of Lydda) is described as a disciple by Mt, and by Jn as a secret disciple. His fear of the Jews vanished at the great hour, for he went boldly to Pilate to ask for the body, Mk. Nicodemus figures in Jn’s narrative only. The quantity of aromatic mixture, which he brought, was very considerable (72 lbs avoirdupois of myrrh, a dried Arabian gum, and of aloes, an odoriferous wood crushed fine or powdered). The intention was not embalmment, and there was no anointing; the women intended doing that later, Lk, Mk. The spices would have been strewn on the shroud, but principally on the funeral bench and within the sepulchral chamber. Jn mentions only smaller bands of linen used for tying. These are to be distinguished from the sindon or shroud, Mt, Mk, Lk, and the napkin over the face, Jn 20:7. The shrouding was according to Jewish custom but hurriedly done, and we should say (in view of the intention of the women) that it was provisional; cf. Barnes, The Holy Shroud of Turin, London 1934. Jn alone tells us that the new tomb was in a garden. Finally, it is not unfair to say that D7631V failed to render the solemn cadences which 19:42 has both in Gk and Latin.
§ 812a 20:1–21:25 The Risen Saviour—That, on the Sunday following the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, the tomb in which he had lain was empty, and that he showed himself alive from the dead many times that day and during forty days are the best certified facts of human history. For thirty years and more eyewitnesses were proclaiming these facts to the world, and shaking the world with their proclamation. The fragmentary written record of their evidence which we possess in the four Gospels is unassailable, but, like all evidence of the kind, it presents difficulties of harmonization. This work of distinguishing persons and moments and other circumstances, so as to eliminate apparent contradictions, belongs mainly to commentators on the Synoptists. Jn concentrates on the empty tomb, on the first appearance to Mary Magdalene, and on three appearances to the Apostles as a body or in representative numbers. His narrative touches the synoptic narrative at four points only. These will be noted as they occur. Jn unites both Judaean and Galilean appearances, for after the three appearances at Jerusalem he records a fourth on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias. This makes the Gospel end serenely, on an April or May morning, beside the waters where the Apostles were formerly called to be fishers of men. The last page dedicates its final words to Simon Peter, the Supreme Shepherd of the Lord’s sheep, and to the disciple whom Jesus loved. Chapter 21 without its epilogue is really the record of an apparition marked by a miracle, 1–14, to which are attached the conferring of the primacy on Peter, 15–17, the prediction of his martyrdom, 18–19, and the rectification of a misunderstanding about 20–23.
§ b 20:1–10 The Empty Tomb—The Johannine witnesses of the empty tomb are first Mary Magdalene and then the two Apostles Peter and John. 1. After the Sabbath, Mt, Mk on the first day of the week—our Sunday, Lk, Jn—Mary Magdalene came to the tomb (not alone, but with other women). Jn agrees with Lk on the early hour, ‘while it was yet dark’, but seems to differ from Mk who says that the sun had risen. As it seems likely that the women had been staying over in Bethany, the difficulty is solved by distinguishing the moment of setting out from the moment of arrival. Whereas in Mk the three women saw the stone already removed, Jn only records the presence and action of her on whom the impression of the empty tomb was most rapid and vivid. 2. He does not say that Mary looked into the tomb, but the sequel supposes it. She ran back at once to tell the Apostles. The repetition of prepositions seems to indicate that she found Peter and John in different places. Her report is rapid: ‘They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him’. The use of the first person plural shows that she had not gone unaccompanied. § c 3 f. Peter and John ran to the tomb. John’s youth is sufficient reason for his outrunning Peter. 5. Bending down to the low opening, he saw the bandages but did not go in—retained possibly by some strong emotion or more probably by respect for Peter. 6 f. The latter entered and found complete evidence that the body had not been removed; for bodysnatchers would surely never have carefully divested the body of its linen bands before taking it away. The bandages were not in a confused heap, but were ‘lying’ on the ledge (in the shape of the body and not folded up?). And the napkin that had been over his head was lying apart and carefully rolled up. 8 f. John perceived the truth at once, and with the light of his faith saw the meaning of some Scriptural prophecy of the resurrection (probably Ps 15 (16). 10. Each went his way, but Lk shows Peter ‘wondering in himself’.
§ d 11–18 Appearance to Mary Magdalene—As Aug7632. says so beautifully: ‘When the men went away, a stronger affection kept the weaker sex fixed in the same place’. 11 f. Mary was so completely absorbed in the grief of her loss, that she only just noticed the two white-robed figures within. 13. To the question of the angels she has only one answer, ‘they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him’. 14. She turned back, possibly because, while she was answering, the angel at the foot of the funeral bench was fixing his eyes on someone outside. Jesus was standing there, but either because he did not show the appearance which she had known, or because of tears in her eyes, or because of her state of soul she did not recognize him. 15. His double question was identical with that of the angels. With her fixed idea regarding the removal of the body, Mary grasped at what seemed some hope of finding it. This man (whom she thought to be the gardener) could tell her. In her request to the stranger she names no name, only him, him, him, as if the whole world should know who he was. In saying: ‘I will take him away’, it is ‘the audacious Mary Magdalene’, as St Thérèse called her, who speaks. § e 16. Jesus spoke then. In the sound of the name Mariam from the lips of the Saviour we should meditate the voice of the Good Shepherd calling his sheep by name. In calling him Rabboni Mary used a form of address which had more solemnity and respect in it than Rabbi. 17. A gloss in some MSS says: ‘She ran forward to touch him’. Most probably she did take hold of his feet, for the words ‘Touch me not’, representing a Gk present imperative, mean ‘Do not cling to me’. The reason of the prohibition is that just now she must be a messenger, apostolorum apostola. The content of the message is that he is risen and is still with his brethren, till he ascends to his Father—not immediately. There are many interpretations of these difficult words, but the above seems the simplest. 18. Jn records that Mary delivered her message; Mk registers the incredulity of the disciples, 16:11.
§ f 19–23 Appearance to Ten Apostles—Lk places this apparition after the return of the two disciples from Emmaus. The Apostles had reassembled during the day. The collegiate term ‘eleven’ is used by Lk for those gathered, but there were actually only ten. Jn seems to consider the Apostles only, though some others were present, Lk 24:33. Faith in the resurrection had already established itself, for Jesus had appeared to Peter during the day. Nevertheless, Mk tells that the pilgrims from Emmaus were not believed. The joy of the resurrection, it seems, did not exclude the feeling expressed in the popular phrase that some things are too good to be true. The place of reunion is probably the Cenacle. 19. The news of the empty tomb and the calumny that the body had been stolen by disciples of Jesus, Mt 28:13, was no doubt already circulating in Jerusalem. Hence the fear which made the disciples hide behind closed doors. Jesus, whose glorified body needed no open door to enter by, suddenly stood in their midst. The salute ‘Peace be to you’ must have sounded like a general pardon.
§ g 20. Proof beyond all doubt of the identity of the Lord was given by the wounded hands and side which he showed them. 21. The exhibition of these signs of redemption was a fitting introduction to a repetition of ‘Peace be to you’. The words that follow conferred on the Apostles the same mission which the Word Incarnate had from the Father, to be exercised in the name and with the authority of Jesus himself. 22 f. By the symbolic gesture of breathing upon them he signified that he was communicating the Holy Spirit—a partial anticipation of the gift of Pentecost. The words: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’ made the meaning quite clear. The power of remitting and retaining sins, clearly supposes judicial authority exercised over sins in a tribunal. Accordingly the Church has perpetually understood this act of the Saviour as the institution of the sacrament of Penance (Trent, Sess. 14). Thus the sacrament of pardon was instituted under a double sign of the Saviour’s peace, on the most joyful day of the world’s history. It should be noted that in the intention of Christ who gave this power to the members of an apostolic college, Thomas, who was absent, also received it.
§ h 24–29 Appearance to the Eleven—The case of Thomas, in whom Jn took a special interest, 11:16; 14:5, is very important because, as St Gregory remarks, the slow surrender of Thomas is of more advantage to strengthen our faith than the more ready faith of all the believing Apostles. Besides, the act of faith made by the believing Thomas is the fullest and most explicit of all the confessions of faith recorded in the Gospels. 24. For the third time Jn mentions Thomas, and for the second time interprets his name, which means ‘Twin’. A blend of scepticism and pessimism goes with a melancholic temperament, such as seems to have been that of Thomas. He had probably lost heart more than the others during the Passion, and his absence from the reunion on Easter Sunday may have been due to a hard-headed attitude towards such wishful imagining as he would have thought Mary Magdalene’s message to be. However, this is partly conjecture. 25. The fact is that he met the joyful announcement of the Apostles ‘We have seen the Lord’ with a most exacting demand for proof. He required every sort of experimental test, before he would believe that the Crucified was risen. 26. And he remained in this stubbornness a full week, till Jesus appeared in the same circumstances to all the Apostles, including himself. Again our Lord gave his peace, § i 27, invited Thomas to apply his tests, and added: ‘Do not become an unbeliever but a believer’. This is the force of the Gk words, which indicate that Thomas had not lost the virtue of faith, but was on the way to losing it. 28. The Apostle, we may feel certain, did not approach to touch Jesus in the way he had demanded, but immediately made his sublime act of faith. The words he spoke do not seem to be either an exclamation nor a vocative, but an elliptic proposition: ‘Thou art my Lord and my God’. Rather than a confession of the Messianic character and divinity of Jesus, it is a double confession of his divinity. 29. If we read the words of Christ, which follow, as an assertion, we must understand them thus: ‘Because thou hast seen me (risen), thou hast believed (me to be God)’. It is better, however, to read them as a question: ‘Is it because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed?’ No, because believing does not require seeing. Hence the beatitude (the last evangelical beatitude) of believing without seeing. The more faith is an interior supernatural light—the more it is independent of the support of merely human arguments, the better it is.
§ j 30–31 First Epilogue—There are two tenable explanations of this first epilogue. Either the Gospel originally ended here and Jn later added ch 21 with another epilogue, or this first epilogue was originally at the end of 21 and migrated here, when presbyters of Ephesus, gathered around Jn and under divine inspiration, added the final epilogue. The first epilogue sums up the whole purpose of the Fourth Gospel. This writing was not intended as an exhaustive record of the signs wrought by Jesus. The evangelist made a choice of a certain number of facts and discourses, in order to confirm disciples in their faith regarding Jesus as Messias and Son of God, so that believing they may have life in his name—the life meant being everlasting life.
§ 813a 21:1–14 Manifestation at the Lake—1. After the Paschal octave, the Apostles returned to Galilee. The homes of many of them were near the sea of Tiberias. 2. Seven of their number were to be witnesses of a second miraculous catch of fishes. Simon Peter was the chief, and with him were Thomas, whose name is again interpreted, Nathanael (Bartholomew) designated here as a native of Cana, the (two) sons of Zebedee, and two whose identity we have no means of establishing. Some commentators, appealing to Jn’s habitual reticence about himself and his, regard ‘the sons of Zebedee’ as a gloss, but the MSS should be decisive. 3. Six disciples therefore went with Peter (probably from Capharnaum) and spent a fruitless night fishing on the lake. 4. As morning was coming (rather than ‘when morning was come’), a figure appeared standing on the shore, a hundred yards away. He was not recognized as Jesus, presumably because of the distance and the obscurity of early dawn, and perhaps also because Jesus did not himself wish to be recognized immediately. § b 5. To draw attention to the miracle about to take place Jesus asked them: ‘Young men, have you any fish?’ The word of address is one of familiarity, and the Gk substantive, which means something-to-eat-with-bread, is in the circumstances a polite synonym of ‘fish’. The unwillingness with which fishermen admit that they have caught nothing is probably reflected in the curt ‘No’ that came over the water. 6. As the boat was probably moving south close to the western shore, the order to put the net out on the right side meant putting it out where fish were less likely to be. Nevertheless the catch was enormous. 7. John was the first to recognize the Master—ubi amor, ibi oculus: love gives eyesight. But if John was a better contemplative, Peter was more prompt in action. His undress meant that he was clothed only in a sort of overall (without tunic) which he quickly girded to come to Jesus directly, more by wading than swimming through the water. 8. The others followed in the boat, dragging the net. 9. The breakfast prepared by Jesus on the shore is a touching instance of his solicitude for hungry men—a fire of coals, a fish roasting, bread ready. § c 10 f. His order to bring some of the catch was only intended to provoke the count. The number 153 has been given many symbolic meanings, mostly in the sense of the catholicity of the Church (Jerome’s 153 species of fishes) or the total number of the elect. St Augustine discovered—one can hardly guess how—that 10 (the commandments) and 7 (the gifts of the Holy Ghost) in the addition of the whole series 1, 2, 3 … 17 give exactly 153. That the net was not rent suggests the unity and integrity of the Church. The net was used by Christ himself for a parable of the kingdom of heaven. 12–14. The kindly invitation, the respect of the disciples, who knew who he was and in a sense did not know, and yet did not question him, the charity of the risen Lord ministering—these show that the intimate contact of friendship with Jesus is always the same, yesterday, today, and for ever. 14b. Jn numbers this as the third manifestation to the disciples in a body.
§ d 15–17 The Primacy of Peter—After the meal Jesus proceeded to an act which was of the utmost importance for the future of his Church. From the first day Jesus had called Simon son of John Kêphâ, 1:42, and had declared many months ago that on ‘this rock’ he would build his Church, Mt 16:18. Weak as the Rock was during the Passion, the prayer of Jesus for the future confirmer of his brethren, Lk 22:32, was necessarily efficacious. Therefore the Rock is restored to its proper strength in a triple profession of love intended to undo the triple denial. The questions and the answers show that the devoted but presumptuous Peter has found the strength of his devotedness in humility. The whole admirable drama, in which Peter’s love of his Master is turned to care of his Master’s sheep, is founded on the parable of the Good Shepherd. The first question of Christ, with its term of comparison ‘Lovest thou me more than these?’ was evidently set against the Apostle’s boast ‘Although all shall be scandalized in thee, I will never be scandalized’, Mt 26:33. Peter does not now dare to say that he loves more than the others, but he does assert that he loves, and appeals to Jesus’ knowledge of his heart. The emotion of his third answer, under the sadness of being asked three times, is most touching. To each response the same commission corresponds, expressed in a variety of terms which give it emphasis. ‘Feed my lambs—shepherd my sheep—feed my sheep’ mean the same thing, for there is no reason for the supposition that sheep and lambs mean pastors and people. The whole flock (all the sheep of the Good Shepherd) are committed to Peter’s care. To understand this commission as anything less than a primacy of authority over the universal church is to falsify the text. The passage has been dogmatically interpreted in this traditional sense by the Vatican Council, D7633z 1822.
§ e 18–19 Prediction of Peter’s Martyrdom—A vision of Peter’s future destiny is annexed to the supreme commission with the solemnity of a double ‘Amen’. The chief shepherd will follow the Good Shepherd even in the manner of his death. The words have some of the mysterious obscurity of prophecy. Against the liberty of Peter’s younger days (girding himself and walking where he pleased) is set this mysterious future event of his old age. If the counterpart contains only two terms, namely, girding by another, as an old man is helped to dress himself, and being led to a place not naturally desired (a place of execution), the prophecy envisages a violent death only, not the mode of death by crucifixion. The extension of the hands must therefore be the term specifically corresponding to crucifixion, but as the extension of hands is set before girding and being led away, it is difficult to discern how it must be conceived. If the order is part of the prophecy, we must suppose the prisoner lashed to the patibulum before being girded and led out to execution. Jn writing after Peter’s death notes that Jesus said this ‘signifying by what death he should glorify God’. The words ‘Follow me’ which Jesus spoke immediately afterwards to Peter are so general as to include imitation, ‘even to the death of the cross’.
§ f 20–23 Rectification concerning John’s Future—The Prince of the Apostles there and then did turn his footsteps to go with Jesus, but seeing John walking just behind, he was seized with a friend’s interest in the beloved disciple. Affection and curiosity moved him to ask the question, ‘Lord, and this man what?’ (as the original Rheims translates). The change of si to sic in many V7634g MSS and the adoption of that reading in the Clementine edition has given us the present V7635g translation. But read: ‘If I will have him to remain till I come, what is it to thee? do thou follow me’. This answer really means: Even if I should let him remain till my second coming, what concern is it of thine? Follow me and leave the destinies of others in my hands. In view of a current rumour making Jesus say that the beloved disciple would not die—a rumour which spread on account of his longevity—Jn here draws attention to the exact form of the word of Jesus concerning him.
§ g 24–25 Second Epilogue—The mixture of first plural with first singular in these final words seems to justify the view that St John dictated them surrounded by the presbyters of Ephesus, but cf. 1 Jn 1–2. These, according to the Muratorian canon had requested him to write the Gospel, and are now giving testimony of its veracity together with him: ‘This is that disciple who giveth testimony of these things, and hath written these things: and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things which Jesus did: which if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written’. Semitic hyperbole, no doubt, like comparing a people to the stars of heaven in multitude or to the sand at the lip of the sea, but how amply justified by the multitude and the magnitude of the things which Jesus did!