* there.
20:30,31 Job 26:14 Ps 40:5 71:15 Ec 12:12 Mt 11:5 Ac 10:38
Ac 20:35 Heb 11:32
* that even.
This is a very strong eastern expression to represent the
number of miracles which Jesus wrought. But however strong
and strange it may appear to us of the western world, we find
sacred and other authors using hyperboles of the like kind and
signification. See Nu 13:33; De 1:28; Da 4:11; Ec 14:15.
Basnage gives a very similar hyperbole taken from the Jewish
writers, in which Jochanan is said to have "composed such a
great number of precepts and lessons, that if the heavens were
paper, and all the trees of the forest so many pens, and all
the children of men so many scribes, they would not suffice to
write all his lessons."
Am 7:10 Mt 19:24
CONCLUDING REMARKS ON JOHN'S GOSPEL.
John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient
fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this
Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by
Salome his wife, (compare Mt 10:2, with Mt 27:55, 56; and Mr
15:40,) and brother of James the elder, whom "Herod killed with
the sword," (Ac 12:2.) Theophylact says that Salome was the
daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and
that consequently she was our Lord's sister, and John was his
nephew. He followed the occupation of his father till his call
to the apostleship, (Mt 4:21, 22, Mr 1:19, 20, Lu 5:1-10,) which
is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of
age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord's
labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion,
crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. After the ascension
of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem,
and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for
the office of an Evangelist and Apostle. After the death of
Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken
place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably
after the council held in Jerusalem about A.D. 49; or 50, (Ac
15.,) at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical
writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and
presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly
resided at Ephesus. Thence he was banished by the emperor
Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, A.D. 95, to the
isle of Patmos in the (9267)ean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse,
(Re 1:9.) On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was
recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his
Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age,
about A.D. 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan. It
is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the
twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest. Jerome, in
his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so
enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the
assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long
discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear
children, love one another. The general current of ancient
writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an
advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence
perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom,
Epiphanius, Mill, Le Clerc, and others, to the year 97. The
design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have
been to supply those important events which the other
Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the
Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute
the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians. But, though many parts
of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange
doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a
more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies.
His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in
writing this Gospel: "These things are written that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing, ye might have life through his name." (ch. 20:31.)
Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in
which this Gospel was originally written. Salmasius, Grotius,
and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his
own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was
afterwards translated into Greek. This opinion is not supported
by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous
voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek,
which is the general and most probable opinion. The style of
this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which
result from a learned education; but this defect is amply
compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses
the sublimest truths. One thing very remarkable is an attempt
to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his
readers, by employing in the expression of them both an
affirmative proposition and a negative. It is manifestly not
without design that he commonly passes over those passages of
our Lord's history and teaching which had been treated at large
by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches
them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had
been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime
doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the
incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the
blessings of His purchase.
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