Expositor's Bible: The Epistles of St. John. John Alexander Williams

Footnote_14_14

Ibid., vers. 17, 18, 19.

Footnote_15_15

The beginning of old age would account sufficiently for the anticipation of death in 2 Peter i. 13, 14, 15.

Footnote_16_16

δοξασει ver. 19. The lifelike shall (not should) is part of the many minute but vivid touches which make the whole of this scene so full of motion and reality – "I go a fishing" (ver. 3); "about two hundred cubits" (ver. 8); the accurate αιγιαλος (ver. 4. See Trench, On Parables, 57; Stanley, Apostolic Age, 135).

Footnote_17_17

διορατικωτερος. S. Joann. Chrysost. —Hom. in Joann.

Footnote_18_18

Euseb. H. E., iii. 23. See other quotations in Bilson, Government of Christ's Church, p. 365.

Footnote_19_19

Ap. Euseb. H. E., v. 20.

Footnote_20_20

Adv. Hæres., lib. iii., ch. 1.

Footnote_21_21

ἱερευς το πεταλον πεφορεκως – "Pontifex ejus (sc. Domini) auream laminam in fronte habens." So translated by S. Hieron. Lib. de Vir. Illust., xlv. The πεταλον is the LXX. rendering of צִיץ, the projecting leaf or plate of radiant gold (Exod. xxviii. 26, xxxix. 30), associated with the "mitre" (Lev. viii. 9). Whether Polycrates speaks literally, or wishes to convey by a metaphor the impression of holiness radiating from St. John's face, we probably cannot decide.

Footnote_22_22

Acts xix. 20, 21. In this description of Ephesus the writer has constantly had in view the passages to which he referred in the Speakers Commentary, N.T., iv., 274, 276. He has also studied M. Renan's Saint Paul, chap, xii., and the authorities cited in the notes, pp. 329, 350.

Footnote_23_23

St. John ii. 2, iv. 14.

Footnote_24_24

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against," etc. Eph. vi. 12-17.

Footnote_25_25

Saint Paul, Renan, 318, 319.

Footnote_26_26

For the almost certain reference here to the Chaldean Sybil Sambethe, see Apoc ii. 20, Archdeacon Lee's note in Speaker's Commentary, N.T., iv. 527, 534, 535, and Dean Blakesley (art. Thyatira, Dict. of the Bible).

Footnote_27_27

1 John iv. 1, 3.

Footnote_28_28

1 John ii. 7, ii. 24, iii. 11; 2 John vv. 5, 6. The passage in ii. 24 is a specimen of that simple emphasis, that presentation of a truth or duty under two aspects, which St. John often produces merely by an inversion of the order of the words. "Ye – what ye heard from the beginning let it abide in you. If what from the beginning ye heard abide in you" (ὁ ηκουσατε απ' αρχης … ὁ απ' αρχης ηκουσατε). The emphasis in the first clause is upon the fact of their having heard the message; in the second upon this feature of the message – that it was given in the beginning of Christianity amongst them, and kept unchanged until the present time. Cf. εντολη παλαια (ii. 7) with αρχαιος = "of the early Christian time," in Polycarp, Ep. ad Philipp., i.

Footnote_29_29

Acts xviii. 18-21. To these general links connecting our Epistles with Ephesus, a few of less importance, yet not without significance, may be added. (1) The name of Demetrius (3 John 12) is certainly suggestive of the holy city of the earth-mother (Acts xix. 24, 38). Vitruvius assigns the completion of the temple of Ephesus to an architect of the name, and calls him "servus Dianæ." (2) St. John in his Gospel adopts, as if instinctively, the computation of time which was used in Asia Minor (John iv. 6, xix. 4 – Hefel. Martyrium S. Polycarp. xxi.). On the same principle he speaks in the Apocalypse of "day and night" (Apoc. iv. 8, vii. 15, xii. 10, xiv. 11, xx. 10); St. Paul, on the other hand, speaks of "night and day" (1 Tim. v. 5). It is a very real indication of the accuracy of the report of words in the Acts that, while St. Luke himself uses either form indifferently (Luke ii. 37, xviii. 2), St. Paul, as quoted by him, always says "night and day" (Acts xx. 31, xxvi. 7). (3) Is it merely fanciful to conjecture that the unusual αγαθοποιων (3 John 11) may be an allusion to the astrological language in which alone the term is ever used outside a very few instances in the sacred writers? "He only is under a good star, and has beneficent omens for his life." Balbillus, one of the most famous astrologers of antiquity, the confidant of Nero and Vespasian, was an Ephesian, and almost supreme in Ephesus, not long before St. John's arrival there. Sueton., Neron., 36.

Footnote_30_30

Aïa-so-Louk, a corruption of ἁγιος θεολογος, holy theologian (or ἁγια θεολογου, holy city of the theologian). Some scholars, however, assert that the word is often pronounced and written aiaslyk, with the common Turkish termination lyk. See S. Paul (Renan, 342, note 2).

Footnote_31_31

Bengel, on Acts xix. 19, 20, finds a reference to manuscripts of some of the synoptical Gospels and of the Epistles in 2 Tim. iv. 13, and conjectures that, after St. Paul's martyrdom, Timothy carried them with him to Ephesus.

Footnote_32_32

Renan's curious theory that Rom. xvi. 1-16 is a sheet of the Epistle to the Ephesians accidentally misplaced, rests upon a supposed prevalence of Ephesian names in the case of those who are greeted. Archdeacon Gifford's refutation, and his solution of an unquestionable difficulty, seems entirely satisfactory. (Speaker's Commentary, in loc., vol. iii., New Testament.)

Footnote_33_33

It has become usual to say that the Epistle does not advert to John iii. or John vi. To us it seems that every mention of the Birth of God is a reference to John iii. (1 John ii. 23, iii. 9, iv. 7, v. 1-4.) The word αιμα occurs once only in the fourth Gospel outside the sixth chapter (xix. 34; for i. 13 belongs to physiology). Four times we find it in that chapter – vi. 53, 54, 55, 56. Each mention of the "Blood" in connection with our Lord does advert to John vi.

Footnote_34_34

The masc. part. οι μαρτυρουντες is surely very remarkable with the three neuters (το πνευμα, το ὑδωρ, το αιμα) 1 John v. 7, 8.

Footnote_35_35

1 John i. 7, v. 6, 8.

Footnote_36_36

See note A. at the end of this Discourse, which shows that there are, in truth, four such summaries.

Footnote_37_37

ὁ ακηκοαμεν.

Footnote_38_38

ὁ εωρακαμεν τοις οφθαλμοις ἡμων.

Footnote_39_39

John xx. 20.

Footnote_40_40

ὁ εθεασαμεθα, 1 John i. 1. The same word is used in John i. 14.

Footnote_41_41

John xix. 27 would express this in the most palpable form. But it is constantly understood through the Gospel. The tenacity of Doketic error is evident from the fact that Chrysostom, preaching at Antioch, speaks of it as a popular error in his day. A little later, orthodox ears were somewhat offended by some beautiful lines of a Greek sacred poet, too little known among us, who combines in a singular degree Roman gravity with Greek grace. St. Romanus (A.D. 491) represents our Lord as saying of the sinful woman who became a penitent,

Footnote_42_42

1 John i. 2. The Life with the Father = John i. 1, 14. The Life manifested = John i. 14 to end.

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