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Joh_21:25. Apocryphal conclusion to the entire Gospel (see the critical notes) after the Johannean appendix, Joh_21:1-24, had been added.—ὅ óá] ἅ which Lachmann, Tischendorf, after B. C.* X. à . Or. read, would give the relative definition simply as to matter (quae fecit); but ὅ óá gives it quantitatively (quotquot fecit), as, frequently also in the classics, ὅ óïò follows after ðïëýò (Hom. Il. xxii. 380; Xen. Hell. iii. 4. 3). The ἐ ðïßçóåí (without óçìå ῖ á, Joh_20:31) designates the working of Jesus in its entire universality, but as that which took place on earth, not also the Logos activity from the beginning of the world, as, in spite of the name ὁ Ἰ çóï ῦ ò, comp. Joh_20:30, Hoelemann, p. 79 ff., assumes, who sees in Joh_21:25 the completion of the symmetry of the gospel in keeping with the prologue. The pre-human activity of the Logos might be an object of speculation, as Joh_1:1 ff., but not the contents of the histories, which were still to be written êáè ʼ ἕ í, not the task of a gospel. Hence the composer of Joh_21:25 , moreover, has throughout indicated nothing which points back further than to the activity of the Incarnate One,[1] and not even has he written ὁ ×ñéóôüò, or ὁ êýñéïò, or ὁ õ ἱὸ ò ôï ῦ Èåï ῦ but ὁ Ἰ çóï ῦ ò.— ἅ ôéíá] quippe quae, utpote quae. The relative is like wise qualitative (Kühner, II. § 781, 4, 5, and ad Xen. Mem. ii. 1. 30), namely, in respect of the great multitude; hence not the simple ἅ .—êáè ʼ ἕ í] one by one, point by point. See Bernhardy, p. 240; Ast, Lex. Plat. I. p 639 f.—ï ὐ ä ὲ á ὐ ô ὸ í ô. êüóì.] ne ipsum quidem mundum, much less a space in it.—ï ἶ ìáé] Placed in John’s mouth by the composer of the concluding verse.—÷ùñ ῆ óáé] to contain (comp. Joh_2:6; Mar_2:2). The infin. aor. after ï ἶ ìáé without ἄ í, a pure Greek idiom (Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 751 ff.), expresses what is believed with certainty and decision. See Bernhardy, p. 383, and on the distinction of the infin. pres. (Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec. 283) and future, Kühner, II. p. 80 f.— ô ὰ ãñáöüìåíá] the books, which, if the supposed case occurs, shall be written. The w orld is too small, then thinks the writer, to include these books within it, not, as Luthardt suggests, to embrace the fulness of such testimonies, to which he inaptly adds, since in truth it is books that are spoken of: “for only an absolutely external circumference is in keeping with the absolute contents of the Person and of the life of Christ.” Hengstenberg also applies the expression of external dimension to the “internal overflowing greatness;” comp. Godet; the object of the history is greater than the world, etc.; Ebrard’s remark is singular: there would be no room in literature for the books. In a manner opposed to the context, Jerome, Augustine, Ruperti (who says: the world is “et ad quaerendum fastidiosus est ad intelligendum obtusus”), Calovius, Bengel, and several others have explained it of the capacitas non loci, sed intellectus (comp. on Mat_19:11).
Not only is the inharmonious and unspiritual exaggeration in Joh_21:25 un-Johannean (unsuccessfully defended by Weitzel, loc. cit. p. 632 ff., and softened down by Ewald, with a reference also to Coh xii. 12), it is also apocryphal in character (comp. similar hyperboles in Fabricius, ad Cod. Apocr. I. p. 321 f., and Wetstein in loc.), but also the periodic mode of expression, which does not agree with the Johannean simplicity, as well as the first person (ï ἶ ìáé), in which John in the Gospel never speaks; moreover, nowhere else does he use ï ἴ åóèáé, which, however, is found in Paul also only once (Php_1:17). The variations are (see the critical not es) of no importance for a critical judgment.
[1] For that καθʼ ἕν should point back to Joh_1:3, and τὸν κόσμον to Joh_1:10, is without any internal justification, and could be discovered by no reader.