Approach Of The Feast Of Tabernacles, And Offence Of Even The Brethren Of Jesus At His Refusal To Go To It. Christ’s Time And The Time Of The Worldly Mind. Christ The Object Of The World’s Hatred
Joh_7:1-9
1[And] After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry [Judæa], because the Jews sought to kill him. 2Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles 3was at hand. His brethren [brothers] therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also [thine adherents in that country, 4 especially in Jerusalem] may see the [thy] works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself [For no one doeth anything in secret and yet himself] seeketh to be known openly. If thou do [doest] these things, shew thyself to the world. (5For neither did his brethren believe in him.) [For even 6his brothers did not believe in him.] Then Jesus said [saith] unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready. 7The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto 8this [the] feast; I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full [fully] come. 9When he had said these words unto them he abode still [remained] in Galilee.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
“According to Baur this seventh chapter goes to show how the dialectics (criticism?) into which unbelief enters, is only its own dialectical (critical?) refutation.” Meyer.
Joh_7:1. And after these things Jesus walked.—After the occurrences and discourses in Galilee in John 6; a new general date succeeding the
ìåôὰ ôáῦôá
of Joh_6:1. The festival caravan had proposed to take possession of Him and make Him a king. But He had completely delivered Himself from them, and went not with them the Passover. Nor did He join the next train, which went up to the feast of tabernacles. The words “walked in Galilee,” therefore, mean, as their primary antithesis, that He went not up with the caravan to the feast [passover, Joh_6:4] next following. John mentions only the second antithesis: that He could not walk in Judea, without peril of death. If He had now at once gone about publicly in Judea, and remained there, He would have too seriously embarrassed His exit. In Judea, the main theatre of His ministry, He no longer had room to work; He still had room in Galilee. And His isolated and sudden appearance and His ministry in Judea hereafter take place only under the protection of secresy, or of Galilean and Perean friends and adherents, as well as individual disciples in Judea. The proximate period of the walking in Galilee is from the feast of Purim to the feast of tabernacles of the year 782 (A. D. 29), from the month Adar to the month Tisri. (Wieseler: from the 19th March to about the 12th October.)
In this period of Galilean itinerancy fall the charges of heresy against Jesus in Galilee and His contests with the hostile Pharisees there, Matthew 12; most of His parables or sermons on the sea, Matthew 13 (Matthew 14 dates the beginning); His interview with the deputation from Jerusalem, and the great gathering on the mountain, which followed, Matthew 15; the last contest with Pharisean power in Galilee, the retirement of the Lord and His transfiguration, Matthew 16 and Mat_17:21 (not John 15-18, as Meyer gives it.)
Joh_7:2. The feast … was at hand.—The second occasion and demand to go with a festival caravan, which Jesus declined. Though He went to Jerusalem, He did so not in the full publicity of the festival pilgrimage, nor in the capacity of a festival pilgrim.
Feast of tabernacles.—
çַâ äַñֻּëּåֹú
,
óêçíïðçãßá
in Josephus,
óêçíáß
in Philo. The third of the great festivals of the Jews (Passover, Pentecost or Weeks, Tabernacles); celebrated in the seventh month or Tisri (in October), for seven days from the 15th, in memory of the dwelling of the Israelites in tabernacles or tents on their journey through the wilderness, and in thanksgiving for the harvest now, with the fruit and grape gathering, entirely finished. Thus: Passover: deliverance from the destroying angel and from Egypt, beginning of harvest; Pentecost: completion of grain-harvest, thanksgiving feast of first-fruits, no doubt also in celebration of some point of the theocratic history (Maimonides: the giving of the law on Sinai); Tabernacles: feast of the wandering and of vintage. It is to be remembered that the eighth day of this feast (23d Tisri) was kept by the Jews as the feast of the joy of the law. The feast of tabernacles formed at the same time the counterpart to the great penitential feast of the day of atonement which occurred five days before, as a sort of preparation for the feast of joy. The feast was distinguished by its grand offerings, as well as its joyful tone; so that it was called by Josephus “the holiest and greatest of the feasts.” [Antiqu. VIII. 4, John 1 :
ἑïñôὴ ἁãéùôÜôç êáὶ ìåãßóôç
).—P. S.] People lived in tents formed of live branches of trees, on roofs, in streets, on open grounds; they carried boughs of fruit, noble, handsome fruits, especially branches of palms and citrons, in their hands, and had merry banquets. The feast of tabernacles had so joyous an appearance that Plutarch could think it a feast of Bacchus. But it is a mistake to try to trace the Israelitish festivals of events of theocratic history to original festivals of nature. As Israelitish feasts they must be primarily historical. They may have attached themselves, however, to existing popular feasts of Asia, absorbing and spiritualizing them, as was confessedly done by Christian festivals [Christmas, Easter, etc.] in reference to existing feasts of heathenism (comp. Leben Jesu, II. p. 941). Attendance on these festivals in Jerusalem was binding upon the male portion of Israel (Deu_16:16). Respecting the particular practices of the feast of tabernacles, see below.
Joh_7:3. His brothers therefore said unto him.—According to Mat_13:55 these were James, Joses, Simon and Judas. A disposition on their part to act as guardians and advisers to Jesus appears again, and prominently in Mar_3:21. But they as surely mean well with their counsel here, as they meant in that other case to act in faithful solicitude for Him. Euthymius Zigabenus [also Luther], attributed to them a malicious design (to draw Him into the hands of the Jews), because their unbelief is afterwards mentioned. The speech of His brethren refers to the fact that Jesus did not go to the late passover that in general he seems to wish to avoid Judea, and that, by going about on the mountains and the sea, He makes even His residence in Galilee a half-concealed one. They propose that He should appear publicly in judea and accredit Himself as the Messiah before His adherents there. Evidently the echo of the spirit of Joh_6:15. They were right in assuming that a Messiah could not complete His legitimation of Himself and His work outside of Judea and Jerusalem; they were wrong and frivolous (1) in beginning to think lightly of His quiet ministry in Galilee; (2) in still hoping that by a public appearance in Jerusalem, He might carry the nation with Him, and become a Messiah glorious after an Old Testament sort; (3) in not submitting themselves to His wisdom and His self-determining course of action. And herein chiefly lay their unbelief.
Joh_7:3-4. How important the brothers of Jesus thought it, that He should change His field, appears from the twofold expression: Depart hence and go into Judæa, that thy disciples also may see thy works, etc.
ìåôÜâçèé ἐíôåῦèåí
,
êáὶ ὕðáãå
,
ê
.
ô
.
ë
. In this view we are to understand by the disciples who were to see His works, all His adherents in the land of Judea; chiefly the influential ones in Jerusalem, but not these alone. In contrast with such an appearance His Galilean work, particularly His quiet itinerancy and His withdrawal to the Phenician borders, to the highlands of the Jordan, and across the sea, seems to them an incongruous working in secret (Joh_7:4). And it presents to them the contradiction of His proposing to be a public personage with a secret ministry. (On the misinterpretations of
ἐíêñõðôῷ
, by Baumgarten-Crusius, Brückner, and Luthardt, see Meyer.) Not the least thing which pertains to the authentication of a public character, does such an one perform in secret; much less does he waste such (great) works (
ôáῦôá
) on an obscure region. The
åἰ
[“if Thou doest these things”] is not intended to throw doubt on the works; it denotes the logical premise. (Meyer, against Lücke, etc.)
Joh_7:5. Then when John remarks: For even his brothers did not believe in him, it is entirely gratuitous to make of this, as has been done, a disbelief of His Messiahship itself common to all the brothers, and to infer that the brothers of the Lord, James, Judas and Simon, must be distinguished from the apostles of the Lord, James, Judas and Simon, whom He had chosen before the feast of Purim.(Matthew 10) See Com. on Matthew on Matthew 10 and Mat_12:46 ff., (comp. Mark, at Joh_3:30; Mat_13:55).; Leben Jesu, II., p. 139 sqq., and 926; Herzog’s Real-Encyklop., Art. Jakobus, der Bruder des Herrn. It is plain from the connection that the unbelief of these brothers of the Lord was a want of confidence in Him of the same sort, at the worst, as that of Mary in Mar_3:31, of Peter in Mat_16:22, and of Thomas in Joh_20:25; that is, while believing in His Messiahship, they lacked in the perfect yielding of a believing obedience, and assumed to prescribe to Him from their own judgment; but they were not unbelieving in the sense in which Caiaphas and the Jewish people were. Tenaciously as the Ebionistic Clementine tradition, distinguishing between the three apostolic brothers of the Lord and the three apostles, James, the son of Alpheus, Judas, and Simon, endeavors to maintain itself, it will not ultimately withstand, with its half-dogmatical, half critical prejudice, the sense of Scripture and the primitive church tradition. [I dissent from this view. See my remarks below on Joh_7:9, p. 241. The theory here opposed is certainly older and exegetically more natural, than the cousin-theory, which cannot be traced beyond Jerome in the fourth century, and which owes its popularity far more to an ascetic over-estimate of the perpetual virginity of Mary (and Joseph) than to exegetical or critical arguments. It is clearly irreconcilable with the whole tenor of this passage, as I shall presently show.—P. S.]
Joh_7:6. My time is not yet come.—Interpretations: 1. The time for Me to go to the feast (Jansen, et al.); 2. The time to show Myself openly to the world (as they had demanded in Joh_7:4, Lücke, et al.); 3. The time of my passion (Chrysostom, et al.). The first interpretation is connected with the second, the second with the third. His first public entrance into Jerusalem was the entrance in the procession with palms; by that He showed Himself publicly to the world, and by that also He brought on His own death. Hence: My time for going to the feast to manifest Myself to the world. His words, therefore, referred primarily to the time of journeying, but in connection with the deeper meaning. The connection lies in the fact that His fixed time (
êáéñüò
), like His hour (Joh_2:4), denotes the time ordained and appointed to Him by God for His public appearance, in distinction from the hours arbitrarily chosen by other men.
Hence the other words: But your time is always ready; describing the free, arbitrary disposal of times which sinful men make; with primary reference to their travelling, but with respect also to the safety with which they may show themselves to the world, with which they do not yet stand, like Him, in full and pure antagonism, Joh_7:7. An intimation of their want of decided faith.
Joh_7:7. The world cannot hate you.—The world considered as unbelieving, in its antagonism to the Lord. It can no more take the internally complete attitude of mortal enmity towards you, than ye have thus far taken this attitude toward its spirit. All chiliastic kinds of faith, (e.g. in the church of the middle ages) have an element akin to the world and open to its sympathy. But me it hateth.—The entire antagonism brought into play by His testimony against the world.
Joh_7:8. Go ye up unto this feast.—This is, after the ritual manner of the Israelitish law, as pilgrims in the festival caravan, to participate in the exercises of the feast.
I go not up (yet) unto this feast.—Interpretations with reference to Joh_7:10 : [omitting the “yet.”]
1. The hostile interpretation of Porphyry, that Jesus proved Himself fickle (Jerome, Contra Pel.)
2. Bruno Bauer’s modification: The Evangelist entangles himself in contradiction in his narrative (see Lücke, p. 193; kindred constructions by F. Chr. Baur, etc., see in Meyer.)
3. Meyer: “Jesus might alter His plan without being inconsistent, especially since the motive of this change of purpose is not patent. He also changed His purpose with the Canaanitish woman (Mat_15:26 sqq.).” But He no more changed it there, than here. The entrance of a new motive, must at least have been intimated.
4. The reading
ïὔðù
[which is omitted by some of the oldest MSS., but inserted by others and by the early Versions.—P. S.] or to the same purpose, the emphasizing of the present
ἀíáâáßíù
, inserting a
íῦí
in thought (Chrysostom, Lücke, and others). Of the same class is the restricting of the
ïὐê
by the
ïὕðù
following (De Wette and others).
5. Emphasizing of feast,
ἑïñôÞ
; Cyril:
ïὐê ïὕôùò ἑïñôÜæùí
. He took no part ritually in the festal train or the festal scenes, (Leben Jesu, II. p. 927; Ebrard and others). In favor of this is the ensuing:
ïὐ öáíåñῶò
,
ἀëë
’
ὡò ἐí êñõðôῷ
.
6. The explanation: Not with the caravan (Bengel, Ewald, Luthardt), is properly only one part of the preceding interpretation. It is emphatically said, moreover: “unto this feast;” Jesus thus already announcing in a manner His intended decisive observance of the next passover. A glance at that last feast we see in the words: “For my time,” &c.
Joh_7:9. He remained in Galilee.—That is, He let the train pass on, and perhaps His brothers with it.
[Remarks on the Brothers of Jesus.—The family dispute which John relates in this section from personal knowledge, with the simplicity and frankness of a genuine historian, gives us an insight into the domestic trials of our Saviour. The unbelief of His brothers need not surprise us any more than the unbelief of the Nazarenes generally, according to the sentence: “A prophet has no honor in his own country” (comp. note on Joh_4:44). Not unfrequently the nearest relatives throw more obstacles in the way to God’s children than strangers. Christ entered into the condition of fallen humanity with all its daily troubles, temptations and miseries. The unbelief and misconduct of His brothers must have been to Him a deep source of grief and a school of patience and forbearance in order that, being tempted even as we are in all things, He might become a merciful High Priest able and willing to sympathize with His followers in passing through similar experiences. (Heb_2:17-18; Heb_5:7-8).
But the full significance of this passage depends upon the proper view of the brothers of Jesus. And here I must again dissent from the cousin-theory of Jerome, advocated in a modified form by Dr. Lange, which assumes that these brothers were only distant relatives of Jesus, and that three of them, James, Simon and Jude (i.e., all but Joses or Joseph), were identical with the three apostles of that name. I regard this passage (with Meyer, Godet, Alford, Lightfoot) as one of the strongest arguments in favor of the more natural view that the brothers of Jesus were really members of the holy family and under the care of Joseph and Mary in whose company they constantly appear.
1. It is perfectly plain that John here, as in Joh_2:12 and in harmony with the Synoptists, also with Act_1:13-14, and 1Co_9:5, distinguishes the brothers of Christ from the apostles. The brothers themselves make this distinction in Joh_7:3, “That thy disciples also,” etc., on which Bengel remarks: Eo ipso ostendunt se non esse discipulos.
2. But what is more conclusive, John represents here the brothers as unbelievers, and as using irreverent, presumptuous and ironical language against our Lord. This is absolutely incompatible with the assumption that they were apostles, especially after the sifting process described in John 6, and the noble confession of Peter in the name of all (Joh_6:67-68). I readily admit that the brothers were not unbelievers in the sense of the hostile Jews or indifferent pagans, but they certainly were not believers in a sense in which we must suppose all apostles (with the exception perhaps of Judas Iscariot) to have been almost from their first acquaintance with Jesus, and as John expressly says that they were even as early as the miracle at Cana, Joh_2:11; comp. Joh_7:22; Joh_16:17; Joh_17:8. How, in the name of consistency, could he say that the apostles believed in Him (
ἐðßóôåõóáí åἰò áὐôüí
), and afterwards, that His brothers, including at least three of the apostles, did not believe in him,
ïὐäὲ ïἱ ἀäåëöïὶ áὐôïῦ ἐðßóôåõïí
—mark the imperfect which denotes continued and habitual unbelief, in distinction from a momentary act as expressed by the aorist—(
ἐðßóôåõóáí
)? Why did he not avoid such flat contradiction by the qualifying words: some of His brothers, or by using a milder term than unbelief? John recognizes indeed different degrees of belief (comp. Joh_2:23; Joh_4:39; Joh_8:31; Joh_12:42), and different degrees of unbelief, but he never confounds the sharp lines which, in his system especially, distinguish belief from unbelief, light from darkness, truth from falsehood. Moreover the language used by the brothers on this occasion, however mildly we may explain it, is very unbecoming, and strongly contrasts with the profound reverence shown by the apostles to our Lord on every occasion, even where they could not understand or appreciate His conduct (comp. Joh_4:27).
3. Finally our Lord Himself here characterizes His brothers as men of the world whom the world cannot hate (Joh_7:7); while He says the very reverse of His apostles, Joh_15:18 f. comp. Mat_10:5 ff., Mat_10:22; Mat_10:40 ff.
We infer then that all the four brothers of Jesus were distinct from the apostles, and were not converted till after the resurrection. James, it would seem, became a believer in consequence of a special manifestation of the risen Lord, 1Co_15:7. They first appear among the disciples, Act_1:14.
As to the other question, whether the brothers of Jesus were older brothers of Jesus from a former, otherwise unknown marriage of Joseph (the old Greek tradition defended by Epiphanius), or younger children of Mary and Joseph (the view held by Tertullian and Helvidius, and denounced first by Jerome as heretical and profane because of its conflict with the prevalent ascetic belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary), our passage gives no decisive answer. The patronizing tone assumed by the brothers towards Jesus on this occasion seems to favor the former view, but may be found also with younger brothers. Comp. the fuller discussion of this whole question in my notes on Matthew, pp. 256–260, also on Mat_1:25 and Joh_2:12. (p. 115 of this vol.)—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The heavenly precaution with which Jesus guarded His life from a premature end, that He might sacrifice it with full effect at the right hour, forms a contrast with the heedless boldness with which His brothers would push Him upon the stage of the most glaring publicity; and a contrast with the many premature sacrifices which occur in the lives of worldly heroes and even of Christian missionaries and martyrs. The life of the believer must be in spirit offered up to God at all times; but the actual sacrifice of it must be put with all decision under the law of Christian wisdom. No one should prematurely squander his life; every one should, in the holiest sense, “sell it at the highest possible price.” But for His wise reserve, the life of the Lord would perhaps have fallen before the hatred of Judaism in the very first year of His ministry; certainly at the feast of Purim in the spring of the second year. A ministry of about three years in the midst of Pharisaic Judea could be secured to Jesus only by His heavenly wisdom.
2. The subsequent appearance of Christ at the feast of tabernacles does not contradict this caution. It is an act of consummate psychological mastery. By this oft-repeated sudden appearance, He places Himself as an astounding wonder before His enemies; they themselves are restrained by fear, or at least their servants, and they do not venture to seize Him. They are disarmed not only by the personal impression of Jesus, but also by fear of the powerful popular following which He had, particularly of the fighting Galileans. Not till the continuous stay of Christ among them at the last passover could they carry out a definite plan against Him.
3. It agrees with the nature of human restlessness that the same brothers of the Lord, who with His mother sought to rescue Him some time before from the press of Galilean enemies through fear (Mark 3; Matthew 12), now sought in recklessness to press Him upon the theatre of decision. Apart from the fact that such extremes beget and account for each other, the experience which the brothers of Jesus had had of the uselessness of their fear and of the security of Jesus amidst the strongest probabilities of danger, might urge them now to the utmost risk in His behalf.
4. Jesus, in respect to His time and place is subject to the individual direction (
ἐíôïëÞ
) of His Father. Thus His time at every point is a point of eternity, and His being in every place is a being in heaven. The contrast between the Divine discernment of His time and His hour [in the life of Jesus] and the arbitrary caprice of men in the use of times and hours.
5. The notion of the world which the brothers of Jesus express, differs greatly from the notion expressed by Christ. Judas Lebbæus recurs to this favorable idea of the world in Joh_14:22. The brothers of Jesus vaguely see a world ready to receive Christ with open arms; Christ sees through a world disposed to kill Him. Undoubtedly Christ Himself also distinguishes between the world as the object of the Divine love (Joh_3:16), and the world in its decided ungodliness and unbelief.
6. Christ’s word: The world cannot hate you, expresses the truth that there is no deeper, more incisive opposition than that between a godly mind and a worldly mind, faith and unbelief. The world’s hatred comes out completely only in opposition to that which is divine.
7. There is an infinite difference between the delicate precision of the Lord’s form of expression and a made-up reservatio mentalis. But for this reason the words of Christ, and especially His expression here: I go not up to this feast, are also exposed to the ready abuse of men. The abuse is not due to ambiguities on His part, but to the want of discrimination on the part of His expounders. Else it would have been easily seen that between a public Messianic progress of Jesus to the ceremonial observance of a feast, and an incidental appearance of the anonymous prophet at the feast, the difference is wide.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See under the previous head.
The quiet walking of Jesus in Galilee a token also of His glory.—A token of His prudence, His foresight, His wisdom, in His spirit of self-sacrifice.—How Jesus by wisdom preserved and spared His official life till the right, decisive moment, though it was forfeited to death from the first.—The most splendid and joyous feast of the Jews no allurement to the Lord, but an object of holy solicitude and dread.—The want of the obedience of faith in the enthusiastic zeal of faith in the brothers of Jesus.—The contrast between Christ’s knowledge of the world and His brothers’ knowledge of it.—Marks of the worldly element in the belief of the Messiah.—The word of Jesus to His brothers: Joh_7:6-8.—The declaration in Joh_7:6-7;—the several words of Joh_7:6-8.—“No guile found in His mouth,” or, Jesus, even in the pure and precise form of His words, hard to understand by the ordinary way of thinking.—The sharp precision of the words of Jesus a reflection of the perfect clearness of His mind.—The lesson of the divine peace in the Lord’s quiet tarrying at home while His brothers go to the brilliant feast.—We also must be able to slay at home.—With what a different eye from that of His brothers did Christ look upon the glories of the world and even of the Jewish people of God (or “church”).
Starke: Hasten not after suffering: it will come soon enough.—Cramer: Let every one look well to himself in his office that he may long serve the church of God.—Christians still celebrate their feast of tabernacles when they heartily praise God for His shelter and defence.—Hedinger: Let no one lord it over the wisdom of God.—Canstein: Follow not the voice which urges thee to seek a great name and become renowned in the world. The sole voice of self-love often leads a minister to leave a place where he may do much good, and move to another where he can do none.—Kindred are most commonly the ones who obstruct the godly.—Bibl. Wirt.: A true Christian heart desires not to distinguish itself; the more secret, the happier.—God does everything exactly at the right time, but men do much out of season.—One hawk does not pick out another’s eyes; he who accommodates himself to the world, will be loved by it.—The friendship of the world, Jam_4:4.—Canstein: It bespeaks humility and prudence for a man to wait God’s time, keeping himself quiet till it come; this does not conflict with the joyousness of faith, which afterwards goes joyfully forward when it perceives its time.—Gossner: I guide myself by the hour-glass of my Father; ye can go according to your pleasure; ye may say what ye will, ye will never be arraigned for it; but I must walk cautiously, that I may not wantonly encounter my suffering. He who follows his own will, who does everything out of his own head, and never consults the divine moment,—his time is always ready. But he who loves God, lets all his moments depend on the will and indication of God.—Braune: Even though they (the brothers) hastened forward to the feast, they after all remained behind.—They who are forward with outward worship, do not therefore worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. With the boisterous (Isa_5:19) the Redeemer can have no fellowship.—It is trying indeed to be left alone with one’s Christianity in a good cause, but it is better to be alone than to burden one’s self with precarious companions who rather corrupt than improve. (Rieger).—Circumspection and prudence best become the boldest.—Gerlach: Such an appearance as ye demand would draw upon me not splendor and honor, but death and ruin.
Heubner: The world is still challenging: Show thyself, come out, make thyself known to the great rulers, recommend thyself by writings and the like.—Besser: Their time did not coincide with His time. It is the peculiar glory of believers, that in all their actions, God’s time is also theirs.—The more one sees the extraordinary mind develop itself under the common limitations of life, the harder he finds the acknowledgment of it.
Footnotes:
Joh_7:1.—
êáß
is omitted by
à
* and
à
cb C. 2 D. text. rec. Tisch. (ed. VIII.), inserted by
à
ca (but erased). B. C.* L. X. and other uncial MSS. Lachm. Treg. Alf. Westcott & Hort.—P. S.]
Joh_7:1.—The
ìåôὰ ôáῦôá
immediately follows the
êáß
in [
à
.] B. C. D. G. K., etc. [In the text. rec. it follows after
ὁ Ἰçóïῦò
—P. S.]
Joh_7:1.—[Jewry is antiquated. The E. V. uses it twice in the N. T. (Luk_23:5), in all other passages Judæa.—P. S.]
Joh_7:3.—[On the meaning of
ἀäåëöïß
, see Text. Notes on II. 12, p. 114.—P. S].
Joh_7:6.—[
Ïὖí
, therefore, is wanting in
à
.* D. and omitted by Tischend., but retained with
à
.c B. L. etc., by Lachm. Alf., etc.—P. S.]
Joh_7:8.—This first
ôáýôçí
is wanting in B. D., etc., and is omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf.
Joh_7:8.—“Elz., Lachmann:
ïὕðù
, not yet; supported, too, by the preponderance of Codd. (only D. K. M. [
à
] and three minuscules have
ïὐê
); but against the weight of versions, most of which, including Vulgata and Itala, read
ïὐê
. Of the fathers, Epiphanius, Cyril, Chrysostom, and many others, have
ïὐê
. Porphyry found
ïὐê
in Jerome, and drew from it the charge of fickleness against Jesus. Just to avoid this offence
ïὔðù
was introduced.” Meyer. [Lange adopts, with Meyer,
ïýê
, (not, instead of
ïὔðù
, not yet. So also Cod. Sin., Tischend. ed. VIII.) Alf., Treg., while Lachm. and Westcott and Hort retain
ïὔðù
.—P. S.]
Joh_7:9.—Tischendorf reads
áὐôüò
instead of
áὐôï
͂
ò
after some undecisive Codd. [The Cod. Sin. D. Vulg. (ipse) support
áὐôüò
.—P. S.]
[On the
óêçíïðçãßá
or
ἐïðôὴ ôῶí óêçíῶí
(from
óêçíÞ
and
ðÞãíõìé
, lit. a booth-pitching, tent-pitching) comp. Leviticus 23; Deuteronomy 16; Josephus, Antiqu., III. 10, 4; IV. 8, 12; VIII. 4, 1; Ewald, Jewish Archœol., p. 481 f.; Keil, Arch. I, § 85, and the respective articles in Winer, Smith, Kitto, Fairbairn.—P.S.]
[The passage of Papias about the four Marys, published by Grabe and Routh from a Bodleian MS., (No. 2397), which Mill, Wordsworth, and two writers in Smith’s Dictionary (sub. Brothers and James) have uncritically quoted in favor of the cousin-theory, is not from the Papias of the second century, but from a mediæval namesake of the bishop of Hierapolis and author of a dictionary. Comp. Lightfoot Com. on Galatians , 2 d ed., 1866, p. 265 f. Lightfoot asserts and proves that the Hieronymian hypothesis is a pure conjecture unsupported by any previous traditional sanction.—P. S.]
[This was my conviction nearly thirty years ago when I first carefully examined this vexed question in my German treatise on James the Brother of the Lord. Berlin, 1842.]
[For a refutation of the various attempts to weaken the force of
ïὐê ἐðßóôåõïí
, see my treatise on James, etc. pp. 51 ff. In Joh_6:64, the
ìáèçôáß ïß ðéóôåýïõóé
are clearly distinguished from the twelve, and they forsook the Lord (66), while the apostles remained (68). In Luk_12:23, the disciples are called “men of little faith,” but this is very different from unbelief. The
ãåíåÜ ἅðéóôïò
, Mat_17:17, refers to a particular fact and a single act, not to a state of mind or tendency. The question, Joh_16:31,
ἅñôé ðéóôåýåôå
(if it be a question), can in no way contradict the
ðåðéóôåýêáôå
in Joh_7:27 and the
ἐðßóôåõóáí
Joh_17:8.]
