The Gospel of St. John. Joseph MacRory
it up, were understood by the Jews (v. 20), and apparently by His disciples (v. 22), in reference to Herod's temple. Various views have been put forward to show that His words were not necessarily misleading.
(1) It is said that He may have pointed with His finger to His body while He said: Destroy this temple. But the fact that He was actually misunderstood by all seems to exclude this hypothesis.
(2) It is held by many that He spoke both of Herod's temple and of His body. So, apparently, Origen; and Cardinal Wiseman says explicitly: “Finally did our Lord speak altogether of His resurrection so as to exclude all allusion to rebuilding the temple which stood before Him? I must confess that ... I cannot read the passage without being convinced that He spoke of both” (Lect. on the Euch., [pg 058] p. 135, No. 4). We, however, cannot bring ourselves to adopt this view against what seems to be the clear sense according to the interpretation of the inspired Evangelist, who tells us, (v. 21), But He spoke of the temple of His body.
(3) There is the common answer, that He spoke ambiguously and allowed them to be deceived, because they were unworthy of plainer speech. They were not, however, necessarily deceived, for ναός (a temple) was used frequently in reference to the human body (see, e.g., 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; vi. 19; 2 Cor. vi. 16), and our Lord's language might have given them some reason for suspecting that it was of His body He spoke. For the two verbs, which he used λύσατε and ἐγερῶ though they could be understood in reference to the temple of stone, applied more appropriately to His body; the former signifying the breaking up or loosing of the union between His soul and body; the latter, the raising of the body to life, as so often in St. Paul. See, e.g., 1 Cor. xv. 4, 12, 14, &c.
Destroy this temple, is not, of course, a command to put Him to death, but a permission like what He said to Judas: That which thou dost, do quickly (John xiii. 27). It was usual with the Prophets to announce their predictions in the form of a command; as, for instance, Isaias (xlvii. 1): “Come down, sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon.”
| 20. Dixerunt ergo Iudaei: Quadraginta et sex annis aedificatum est templum hoc, et tu in tribus diebus excitabis illud? | 20. The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? |
20. The rebuilding of the temple by Herod the Great is said by Josephus, in Antiq. xv. 11, 1, to have been begun in the eighteenth year of his reign; in B. Jud. i. 21, 1, in the fifteenth; the difference arising from the fact that in one case Josephus counts from the death of Antigonus, in the other from Herod's appointment by the Romans. (See Antiq. xvii. 8, 1.) Reckoning from the latter, we have twenty years till the birth of Christ, and thirty years since that event, making fifty, from which, however, four must be subtracted, because our era is four years too late. This gives forty-six years. The mere building of the temple took only nine years and a half, but during the remainder of the time it was decorated. These decorations were still going on, and were not completed till 64 a.d., so that the Greek verb ought to get its proper sense: has been in building.
| 21. Ille autem dicebat de templo corporis sui. | 21. But he spoke of the temple of his body. |
21. The inspired Evangelist here tells us that it was of His body Christ spoke. He adds the explanation to show, perhaps, how utterly devoid of all foundation in fact was the [pg 059] distorted testimony of the false witnesses, who on the night before His death charged our Lord with having threatened to destroy the temple made with hands (Matt. xxvi. 61; Mark xiv. 58).
| 22. Cum ergo resurrexisset a mortuis, recordati sunt discipuli eius, quia hoc dicebat, et crediderunt scripturae, et sermoni quem dixit Iesus. | 22. When therefore he was risen again from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had said. |
22. When Christ had risen His disciples understood the Scriptures, or rather they believed that they (see, e.g., Psalms iii. 6; xv. 10), and Christ's present words, referred to His resurrection.
| 23. Cum autem esset Ierosolymis in pascha in die festo, multi crediderunt in nomine eius, videntes signa eius, quae faciebat. | 23. Now when he was at Jerusalem at the pasch, upon the festival day, many believed in his name, seeing his signs which he did. |
23. Upon the festival day. Rather during the festal time, which, at the Pasch, lasted a week, many believed in His name, that is to say, in Him, seeing the miracles which he wrought, and which were proofs of His divine power.
| 24. Ipse autem Iesus non credebat semetipsum eis, eo quod ipse nosset omnes. | 24. But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men. |
24. Unto them; i.e., all the Jews, or perhaps those very persons who believed in Him; because, as searcher of hearts (verse 25), He foresaw that they would not remain faithful followers.
| 25. Et quia opus ei non erat ut quis testimonium perhiberet de homine: ipse enim sciebat quid esset in homine. | 25. And because he needed not that any should give testimony of man: for he knew what was in man. |
25. He knew this, not by any external indications, but because He is the searcher of hearts. This is noted as another proof of Christ's Divinity, because this knowledge of the secrets of the hearts of all men belongs to God alone. See 3 Kings viii. 39; 1 Paral. xxviii. 9; Job xlii. 2; Ps. vii. 10; Acts xv. 8. Some of the saints in special cases were able to read the hearts of certain individuals, but no one save God knows the hearts of all.
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Chapter III.
1-21. Nicodemus comes to Christ; their discourse.
22-36. Christ begins to baptize; complaints of the Baptist's disciples, and testimony of the Baptist to Christ's divine origin, and to the necessity of faith in Him.
| 1. Erat autem homo ex pharisaeis, Nicodemus nomine, princeps Iudaeorum. | 1. And there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. |
1. This chapter is closely connected with the end of the preceding. Among the many who believed (ii. 23) was a man of the Pharisees (see i. 24). The sect, name, and dignity of the man are mentioned, because of his importance, and because of the importance of the discourse about to be narrated.
A ruler of the Jews; that is to say, as we gather from vii. 45, 50, he was a member of the Sanhedrim.
| 2. Hic venit ad Iesum nocte, et dixit ei: Rabbi, scimus quia a Deo venisti magister: nemo enim potest haec signa facere quae tu facis, nisi fuerit Deus cum eo. | 2. This man came to Jesus by night, and said to him: Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God: for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him. |
2. Because he believed in Jesus, he came; but because he feared the Jews, he came by night.
We know. Nicodemus may have come in the name of several, to learn more about Jesus, or he may be merely alluding to the fact that some others were of the same belief. He professed his faith in Jesus as a heaven-sent teacher, stating the nature of his belief. “Nicodemus estimates accurately, we may almost say with theological precision, the force of the evidence of the miracles of our Lord, if they were to be taken apart from other considerations which belonged to the same subject-matter. The miracles in themselves proved exactly that God was with [pg 061] Him; but if they were taken in conjunction with the witness of St. John the Baptist, with our Lord's manner of working them, that is, as one who was using His own power, and with His way of speaking of Himself, and of God as His Father, they might have been enough to form the ground of a still higher faith concerning our Blessed Lord” (Coleridge, Life of our Lord, vol. i., page 256).
| 3. Respondit Iesus, et dixit ei: Amen, amen, dico tibi, nisi quis renatus fuerit denuo, non potest videre regnum Dei. | 3. Jesus answered and said to him: Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. |