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Joh_18:24. By the incident Joh_18:22-23, the conversation of Annas with Jesus was broken off, and the former now sent Him bound (as He was since Joh_18:12) to Caiaphas,—therefore now for the first time, not already before Joh_18:15. In order to place the scene of the denials in Caiaphas’ presence, it has been discovered, although John gives not the slightest indication of it, that Annas and Caiaphas inhabited one house with a court in common (Euth. Zigabenus, Casaubon, Ebrard, Lange, Lichtenstein, Riggenbach, Hengstenberg, Godet). In order, also, to assign the hearing of 19–21 to Caiaphas, some have taken critical liberties, and placed Joh_18:24 after Joh_18:14 (so Cyril, who, however, also reads it, consequently, a second time in the present passage, which Beza admits),[215] or have moved it up so as to follow Joh_18:13 (a few unimportant critical witnesses, approved by Rinck); some also have employed exegetical violence. Joh_18:24, that is, was regarded either as a supplemental historical statement in order to prevent misunderstanding; so Erasmus, Castalio, Calvin, Vatablus, Calovius, Cornelius a Lapide, Jansen, and several others, including Lücke, Tholuck, Krabbe, De Wette, Maier, Baeumlein; or the emphasis was laid on δεδεμένον , to which word Grotius ascribed a force explanatory of the following denial, but Bengel one explanatory of the previous maltreatment. These exegetic attempts coincide in this, that ἈΠΈΣΤΕΙΛΕΝ is understood in a pluperfect sense: miserat, and is regarded as supplying an omission.[216] The aorist, in order to adduce this as a supplemental addition, would rather be: Annas sent Him. But when the Aor. actually stands, making a supplemental statement, the context itself incontestably shows it (the pluperfect usage of the aorist in relative clauses, Kühner, II. p. 79; Winer, p. 258 [E. T. p. 343], is not relevant here), as in Mat_14:3-4 (not Mat_16:5; Mat_26:48; Mat_27:27, nor Joh_1:24; Joh_1:28; Joh_6:59). Here, however, this is altogether not the case (see rather the progress of the history, Joh_18:13; Joh_18:24; Joh_18:28), and it is only a harmonistic interest which has compelled the interpretation, which is least of all justified in the case of John. John had the pluperfect at command just as much as the aorist, and by the choice of the latter in the sense of the former he would, since the reader has nothing in the context to set him right, have expressed himself so as greatly to mislead, while he would have given, by the whole supplemental observations, the stamp of the greatest clumsiness to his narrative, which had flowed on from Joh_18:15 down to the present point. The expedients of Grotius and Bengel are, however, the more inappropriate, the more manifest it is that δεδεμένον simply looks back to Joh_18:12, ἜΔΗΣΟΝ ΑὐΤΌΝ . The sole historical sequence that is true to the words is given already by Chrysostom: ΕἾΤΑ , ΜΗΔῈ ΟὙΤῺς ΕὙΡΊΣΚΟΝΤΈς ΤΙ ΠΛΈΟΝ , ΠΈΜΠΟΥΣΙΝ ΑὐΤῸΝ ΔΕΔΕΜΈΝΟΝ ΠΡῸς ΚΑΙΆΦΑΝ .
[215] Comp. Luther, who, after ver. 14, comments: “Here should stand the 24th verse. It has been misplaced by the copyist in the turning over of the leaf, as frequently happens.”
[216] So also Brandes, Annas u. Pilat, p. 18 f., who adduces many unsuitable passages in proof.