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Joh 21:16. Ποίμαινε, feed) This verb Peter has repeated in his first Epistle, ch. Joh 5:2.-πρόβατα, sheep) The Latin Vulg. has, in the second answer, ‘agnos’:[407] although it comes to the same thing, as we shall presently see. By far the most frequent form in which this saying was quoted, was, Feed My sheep. Therefore more modern transcribers have introduced into John the formula which Ancient writers employed; and John seems to have written ἀρνία in this second place. [A different judgment is passed upon this reading in the margin of both Ed. and in Vers. Germ., wherein the word ἈΡΝΊΑ is approved of only in the first place, Joh 21:15 : however, the subject itself, exhibiting as it does three periods, equally favours each of the two views.-E. B.]; (and the more recent Greeks seem to have laid hold of πρόβατα); so that thus there are three distinct sentences in Joh 21:15-17, ΒΌΣΚΕ ΤᾺ ἈΡΝΊΑ ΜΟΥ· ΠΟΊΜΑΙΝΕ ΤᾺ ἈΡΝΊΑ ΜΟΥ· ΒΌΣΚΕ ΤᾺ ΠΡΌΒΑΤΆ ΜΟΥ. In these three sentences the flock that is committed to Peter is distributed into three ages; and the flock of the first age comes under the appellation, lambs; that of the third age, under the appellation, sheep (which, however, are never without lambs growing up to maturity); therefore the flock of the second age fall under the appellation of sheep still somewhat tender, or of lambs already become somewhat hardy. The distinction between the nouns, which the Greek language hardly admitted of, is compensated for by the distinction of the verbs, βόσκε and ΠΟΊΜΑΙΝΕ: ΒΌΣΚΕΙΝ is a part of ΠΟΙΜΑΊΝΕΙΝ. And, though the Hebrew language did not admit of these distinctions in the words, it does not follow that John could not have expressed the sense of our Lord by the convenient propriety of distinctions which the Greek words afforded. It is with this meaning that the Syr[408] Version puts, in Joh 21:15-17, after the verb, Feed, three different nouns, to which lambs, little sheep (‘oviculæ’), sheep, correspond. And similarly Ambrosius writes on Luke 24., “In fine, in the third instance Peter is desired to feed, not the lambs, as in the first instance, nor the little sheep (oviculas), as in the second instance, but the sheep; i.e. that having become more perfect himself, he should govern the more perfect.” Maximus says, in his discourse concerning SS. Peter and Paul, that the little sheep were commended to Peter, as also the sheep. Neither of these writers, indeed, reads in Joh 21:16, προβάτια, as Bellarmine contends in his B. I. concerning the Roman Pontiff, ch. 16., whilst seeking to find marvellous classes of sheep, subject to the Pope: but at all events those ancient writers acknowledged the gradation in the three sentences, which most delightfully accords with 1Jn 2:13-14, “Fathers-young men-little children.” Between this discourse and the death of Peter there elapsed thirty-six years: and this discourse itself divides that space of time into almost three equal periods. During the first. Peter fed the tender age of the Christian Church, or in other words the lambs; the appellation of which is in consonance with that appellation which is found in Acts, viz. disciples, to which afterwards the appellation, brethren, succeeded. See on Mat 10:1-2. [The Apostles were often called disciples before Pentecost; after it never, but apostles. In Acts, those who either had learned with, or were learning from the apostles, were called disciples. After Act 6:1; Act 21:16, the term disciples does not occur in the New Testament, but they are called brethren, Christians, believers, saints, etc.] In the second period, he brought to him, ruled, and gathered together, the sheep. In the third, he fed the Church collected out of Jews and Gentiles up to the time of his martyrdom.
[407] b has ‘oviculas.’ But ABacd support πρόβατα.-E. and T.
[408] yr. the Peschito Syriac Version: second cent.: publ. and corrected by Cureton, from MS. of fifth cent.