[2038] We return to the single mention of "the love of God" in the Gospel. It follows the Healing on the Sabbath. Jesus charges the Jews with rejecting Him on account of this act of kindness and with refusing the testimony of His works: v. 37-42 "The Father that sent me, he hath borne witness to me...ye have not his word (λóyov) abiding in you (èv vpîv μévovтa), [I say this] because him whom he sent ye believe not......ye desire not to come to me that ye may have life......I know you that ye have not the love of God in yourselves (τὴν ἀγ. τ. θεοῦ οὐκ ἔχετε ἐν ἑαυτοῖς).” Theoretically, and taken by themselves apart from N.T. and Johannine usage, these last italicised words might mean, "Ye have no love for God," but that this is not the case is probable for the two following reasons. [2039] (1) Whenever this writer describes a believer as "having" or "to have" something "in himself," he always means "having in his heart some vitalising germ placed there by God." Unstable believers are described by Mark as "having no root in themselves," and Matthew follows Mark. Luke omits "in themselves1." Perhaps Luke thought that "the root" of a Christian life is in God. There is a difficulty in defining how far the divine seed in the heart of man is still God's, and how far it is now man's, when it takes root there. But John, though he rarely uses the metaphor of a seed, habitually regards the life-giving entity as a gift from God: iv. 14 "the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water," v. 26 "as the Father hath life in himself so also to the Son gave he to have life in himself," vi. 53 “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood ye have not life in yourselves." So in the Epistle (iii. 15) "no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him (marg. in himself).” In one passage, the fountain of life is described not as "in" the believer but as gushing forth from him (vii. 37-8) in "rivers." But in every case the evangelist, while insisting that each believer must have this vitalising source "in his very self"-for that is the meaning of èv avr—always regards it as the gift of God, not as the thought of man. [2040] (2) The second reason is the parallelism between "Ye have not in yourselves the love of God" and the preceding "Ye have 1 [2039 a] In the explanation of the Parable of the Sower, Mk iv. 17 ok ἔχουσιν ῥίζαν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς, Mt. xiii. 21 οὐκ ἔχει δὲ ῥίζαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ, Lk. viii. 13 simply pišav ovк Exovow. [So Mark alone has (ix. 50) "Have salt in yourselves (év ἑαυτοῖς) and be at peace with one another (ἐν ἀλλήλοις).”] not abiding in you his Logos," i.e. "the Logos that proceeds from God." The writer assumes here (as in the Prologue) that even before the Logos came to "his own," bringing Light into the world, all men had some affinity to the Logos and some glimmerings of the Light, But some stifled the sound of the Logos and shut out the Light, so that when the crisis came-the moment for accepting or rejecting the incarnate Logos-they had not a trace of the Logos in them, nor a trace of the Love of God, that might have helped their hearts to go forth responsively to meet the Love incarnate. In accordance with this parallelism, "the love of God" would mean "the love that proceeds from God": and this rendering agrees with the Johannine usage elsewhere and also with the contextual phrase "have in yourselves." (iii) Partitive [2041] In partitive phrases with roλús, John never uses Matthew's and Luke's expression #oddoì tŵv......., “many of the.....'.” But he sometimes uses a modified form of it, interposing a verb or participle, e.g. "Many therefore having heard it [many I mean] of his disciples, said...." In such cases, the genitive is sometimes preceded by the Hebraic ἐκ: iv. 39 ἐκ δὲ τῆς πόλεως ἐκείνης πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτὸν τῶν Σ., vi. 6ο πολλοὶ οὖν ἀκούσαντες ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ εἶπαν, xii. 11 πολλοὶ δι ̓ αὐτὸν ὑπῆγον τῶν Ἰουδαίων, xix. 20 τοῦτον οὖν τὸν τίτλον πολλοὶ ἀνέγνωσαν τῶν Ἰουδαίων. Comp. vii. 44 τινὲς δὲ ἤθελον ἐξ αὐτῶν πιάσαι αὐτόν. [2042] A construction almost if not quite peculiar to John is the partitive genitive, with or without èk, (a) before the governing word, or (b) with no governing word. In (b), èk Tŵv Papıσaíov means "from the Pharisees [some]." Obviously, with a verb of motion in the context this may create ambiguity, because the meaning may be (1)" Some of the Pharisees came, were sent etc.," (2) "They came, were sent etc. from the Pharisees." This ambiguity (on which see Ellipsis, 2213-5) occurs in the first of the instances quoted below: 1 [2041 a] Пool Tŵ does not occur at all in Mk (Bruder) but is in Mt. iii. 7, Lk. i. 16, Acts iv. 4, viii. 7, xiii. 43 etc., also in Rev. viii. II. * [2041 ] The Hebraic "many from (ek)," " some from (ek)," which is also used by the Synoptists (though very rarely by Mark) is fairly frequent in Jn, especially in the Raising of Lazarus, e.g. xi. 19, 37, 45, 46. It is quite distinct from the selective éx in classical Gk, e.g. ǎpioTOL ÈK. i. 24 (?) καὶ ἀπεσταλμένοι ἦσαν ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων, i. 35 ἱστήκει Ι. καὶ ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ δύο, vi. 1 (?) ὁμοίως καὶ ἐκ τῶν ὀψαρίων ὅσον ἤθελον, vi. 64 ἀλλὰ εἰσὶν ἐξ ὑμῶν τινες οἷ, vi. 7ο καὶ ἐξ ὑμῶν εἰς διάβολός ἐστιν, vii. 31 ἐκ τοῦ ὄχλου δὲ πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτόν, vii. 40 ἐκ τοῦ ὄχλου οὖν ἀκούσαντες τῶν λόγων τούτων ἔλεγον, ix. 16 ἔλεγον οὖν ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων τινές, ix. 40 ἤκουσαν ἐκ τῶν Φαρισαίων ταῦτα οἱ μετ ̓ αὐτοῦ ὄντες, xii. 42 ὅμως μέντοι καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἀρχόντων πολλοὶ ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτόν, xvi. 17 εἶπαν οὖν ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ πρὸς ἀλλήλους, xviii. 9 οὐκ ἀπώλεσα ἐξ αὐτῶν οὐδένα. (iv) Before Nouns [2043] The Synoptists place the possessive αὐτοῦ mostly after its noun, e.g. τὸν ἱμάντα αὐτοῦ. John frequently places it before the article and its noun, e.g. αὐτοῦ τὸν ἱμάντα—somewhat like the Latin dative "loose for him the shoe-latchet": this throws the emphasis from the pronoun on the noun. See 2558 foll. (v) Special passages (α) With πρώτος and πρῶτον [2044] i. 15, 30 πρῶτός μου ἦν, xν. 18 ἐμὲ πρῶτον ὑμῶν μεμίσηκεν, see 1896-1901 and 26657, where it is maintained that the latter means "me your chief," and that vuor is a possessive genitive. (β) Τιβεριάδος [2045] In vi. 1 “Beyond the sea of Galilee [ie. the sea] of Tiberias,” the apparently superfluous genitive (Τιβεριάδος) has been thought by some to be corrupt. But it is probably to be explained as one of the many instances of Johannine intervention coincident with, or consequent on, Luke's deviation from the Synoptists. Mark and Matthew always have "the sea of Galilee," Luke calls it "the lake [of] Gennesaret,” and afterwards “ the Lake”.” But Mark and Matthew speak of Gennesaret as a place at which the disciples disembark. John mediates, as it were, between the two names, but inclines towards the ancient tradition "sea of Galilee," only explaining it by a name more familiar to his readers. Perhaps variations in the application of the term Galilee induced Luke 1 Mk i. 7, Lk. iii. 16, Jn i. 27. Τὸν αὐτοῦ ἱμάντα would emphasize αὐτοῦ. to substitute Gennesaret1. But "Gennesaret" was supplanted by "Tiberias" in Talmudic Tradition and the latter (which was also used by Pliny) was preferred by John, who, later on, makes (xxi. 1) "the sea of Tiberias" the scene of Christ's last manifestation to His disciples. Tiẞepiádos in vi. 1 is a genitive of possession ("belonging to") governed by "sea" which must be understood as appositionally repeated. (γ) Η Διασπορὰ τῶν ̔Ελλήνων [2046] This phrase occurs in vii. 35 "Will he go to the Dispersion of the Greeks (την διασπορὰν τῶν Ἑλλήνων) and teach the Greeks?" In LXX, we find "the Dispersion of Israel," and "the Dispersions of Israel," as one might speak of "the church, or churches, of the Christians." But this phrase might be followed by another genitive describing the city or country to which the Dispersion belonged: "the Dispersion of Israel of, i.e. belonging to, Egypt, Pontus, Cappadocia etc." Then "of Israel" might be assumed, and dropped for brevity, and so we might get (1 Pet. i. 1) "to the elect sojourners of the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia etc.," and here "the Dispersion of the Greeks," meaning, "the Dispersion belonging to the Greek-speaking countries." It may be asked why the sentence does not proceed thus, "and teach the Dispersion of the Greeks"? One answer may be, "For brevity." But another answer, and a more satisfactory one, is that the words are intended to represent the Jews as unconsciously predicting the manner in which the Spirit of the risen Saviour, travelling abroad in His disciples, would teach, first, the Dispersion among the Greeks, and then the Greeks themselves (2645)*. 1 [2045 a] 'Gennesar," or "Gennesaris," is used mostly by Josephus, and is also recognised as the popular name for the Lake by Pliny (v. 15) “Plures Genesaram vocant." 2 66 [2045 6] Wetstein (Jn vi. 1) quotes Erachin 32 a 'Tiberiadi mare murus est." Hor. Heb. i. 142 says that the lake called in O.T. "the sea of Chinnereth" is called "in the Targumists 'the sea of Genesar, Genesor, Ginosar,' it is the same also in the Talmudists, but most frequently the sea of Tiberiah.'” 3 [2046 α] Is. xlix. 6 τὴν δ. τοῦ Ἰσραήλ, Ps. cxlvii. 2 τὰς δ. (Aq. and Sym. τοὺς ¿žwoμévous) Toû 'Io pańλ. Wetst. ad loc. quotes Paralipom. Jeremiae MS. ỏ dè Bapo`x ἀπέστειλεν εἰς τὴν διασπορὰν τῶν ἐθνῶν. 4 [20466] In xii. 20, "Greeks" means Greek proselytes to the Jewish faith. The congregations of the Dispersion would contain a large admixture of these: and so the name "Greeks" might be given contemptuously to congregations of Jews in Alexandria, Antioch etc. (δ) ΤΑ ΒΑΪΑ ΤΩΝ ΦΟΙΝΙΚΩΝ [2047] The difficulty about this phrase xii. 13 Tà Baia Túv povíkov is that both Baia and poívikes, separately, may mean "palmbranches" (though the latter may also mean "palm-trees")', so that the phrase might mean "palm-branches of palm-branches." One word (it would seem) might have sufficed. The LXX, with various readings and accents, has βαίων, βαιν, βαεων etc., and sometimes φοίνιξ, but never βαΐα φοινίκων, except as an anonymous rendering in Lev. xxiii. 40 "branches of palm-trees." Possibly Bata may have been loosely used for "bunches of twigs" of any sort used in festal processions. The parallel Synoptists mention no palm-branches taken in the hands, but Mark xi. 8 mentions orßádas "bed-litter." Matthew has the common word kλádovs for "branches," and these (like Mark's "bed-litter") are supposed to be strewn in the road. Luke omits all mention of "branches." In Mark, A, C, and Origen, have στοιβάδας, where SS omits the clause, D has εστιβαδας, and some inferior authorities σreẞadas and orvßadas. John's rare word βαία has different forms, βαινας, βαιας, βαεις, and possibly one of these has been corrupted by Mark into στιβάδας. If so, it is a case where Mark errs, Luke omits, and John intervenes. This hypothesis would also explain why John took special pains to define the Bata as belonging to φοίνικες. (ε) Παρασκευή του Πάσχα [2048] xix. 14 ἦν δὲ παρασκευὴ τοῦ πάσχα does not present any grammatical difficulty. If the phrase were used consciously as meaning "preparing the Passover" it would be objective genitive. More probably it is possessive-the word "Preparation" having come to mean "the eve [of]," and being applied to any feast but most frequently to the sabbath, so that it is used in the second century absolutely to mean (Didach. viii. 1 and Mart. Polyc. vii. 1) "Friday." But what makes the phrase interesting is that John's insertion of τοῦ πάσχα differentiates his use of παρασκευή from that of the Synoptists, two of whom connect it with the sabbath, and 1 See Wetstein ad loc. and I Macc. xiii. 51, 2 Macc. x. 7, xiv. 4 (comp. I Macc. xiii. 37). 2 [2047 a] If an early Greek Gospel used (Jelf § 817) ëσtɩ d' oï for ấλλoi dé, "and others [carried] palms," eσTidoßaias, it might explain the readings of Origen and D. Βαΐα φ. may be illustrated by L. S. on λύγος and μόσχοισι λόγοισι. |