PREFACE.

DURING the thirty years that I have been in Holy Orders, I have watched with eager interest the various Commentaries that have been published in England on different portions of the Scriptures. To many of these too much praise cannot be given, especially for the careful attention which has been paid of late years to the teaching of the Scriptures on the Incarnation, and on the effects of the Incarnation on man's present life, not merely on his future state, but on his present life, as preparatory for his future. But there is still required, as it appears to me, a Commentary on the New Testament for English readers and others, more critical in its character, and at the same time more Catholic in its doctrinal tone, as well as more continuous and connected in its explanations, than is usually the case with Commentaries intended for general use.

The present volume is submitted to the public, with a view to ascertain how far a Commentary of this kind, and by the same hand, would be acceptable to members of the English Church. The object aimed at throughout has been, to combine the ancient Faith of the Church with the results of modern investigation. A few words about its leading characteristics will not be deemed out of place.

In preparing the following pages I have especially endeavoured to meet the case of that large and increasing class of intelligent readers, who feel a warm interest in every thing that tends to the elucidation of the Scriptures, but who lack either the opportunity or the inclination to consult numerous books of reference. Considerable advantage has been taken of the immense accessions, which the last half century has added to our stores for the illustration of the Old and New Testament, and in a no less degree of our English Authorised Translation of them. Among these it will be sufficient to refer to the important addition made within the last few years to our Manuscripts of the text, to the more critical examination of the historical

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documents relating to the Jews, and to the various nations that were contemporary with them, and to the more accurate knowledge which we possess of the topography of Palestine.

The three principal objects, which I have kept in view, are :—

1. To lay before the reader St. John's Gospel in a form so correct, that no exception could possibly be made against it, either as a text or as a translation. This has been accomplished chiefly through the labours of Professor Tischendorf, and the late Dean Alford and his four coadjutors.

Each verse is given from the Authorised Version, and under that whatever various readings there are, in either the Sinaitic, Vatican, or Alexandrine Manuscripts, and then any difference of translation as revised by the late Dean Alford and his friends.

2. To give the sense of St. John's words as interpreted by the best Commentators from the earliest times. After several unsuccessful trials to appropriate to each author his own, as far as possible, I relinquished the attempt, and have contented myself with endeavouring to weave into one connected whole, and within reasonable limits, interpretations ranging from the third century to the nineteenth. No age or school has been exclusively regarded, but what appeared best in each has been selected. In this Commentary no claim is made to originality. My object has not been to invent new interpretations, or new ways of expressing old interpretations, but to make use of other men's successful labours, and to throw these into a popular form for the common good.

3. By means of an introductory note to each chapter, as well as by foot-notes, to show the exact meaning of the original text or of the English translation; to illustrate the history, geography, and customs referred to, and by means of extracts from travellers, chiefly modern, to bring before the mind of the reader a living picture of the various localities and scenes that are named. I have preferred, where possible, to give the glowing description of the travellers themselves, rather than a more concise but necessarily more dry summary of their words by myself. In this part each statement is attested by the name of the writer. I am answerable only for the selection.

In the foot-notes will also be found all the most important improvements in translation, and illustrations of the grammatical construction, that have been suggested by Bishop Middleton in his Treatise on the Greek Article, by Archbishop Trench in his Synonyms of the New Testament, by Winer in his Grammar of the New Testament

diction, and by Dr. J. B. Lightfoot in his Revision of the New Testament, as well as by others.

It is acknowledged on all hands, that the best key to unlock the meaning and spirit of any ancient document is contemporary literature . To see the full force of this as applied to the New Testament, we have only to call to mind, how minute and numerous the religious observances of the Jews were in the days of our Saviour, and how intimately these were interwoven with all their public, social, and domestic life. To such a degree was this the case, that the life of a truly devout Jew, according to their meaning of the term, must have been, so to speak, an endless ritual. But the great mass of these rites and ceremonies were not prescribed in the Law of Moses, but in that body of traditionary interpretations, that had been accumulating for ages, and which in the time of our Saviour had become both burdensome to the people, and destructive of the very spirit and intention of the Law. These traditionary rules had succeeded in rendering the Law not only nugatory, as to any moral effect on the Jewish mind, but positively injurious to it. Our Saviour's denunciations are not directed against the Law, but against their observance of it, and against those who insisted on such observance. "Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, woe unto you Lawyers," were His usual words; and to enter into the full meaning of His words, a knowledge of the received interpretation of the Law is scarcely less necessary than a knowledge of the Law itself. For we miss the point in a rebuke, when we know not the nature of the abuse, which calls forth the rebuke. Among the most successful students in this branch of literature, Dr. John Lightfoot, Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, and who died 1675, has always stood in the foremost rank. Few greater services, as I conceive, can be rendered to the English Church, than to make Dr. Lightfoot's learning more accessible to the general reader. Probably no man ever possessed the same amount of Rabbinical learning, with the same accurate scholarship, that he did. But this, imbedded as it is in two thick folio, or in thirteen octavo volumes, is little known except to students. Copious illustrations of the meaning of St. John's words have been given from Lightfoot, based on the Rabbinical traditions.

It will thus be seen that an attempt has here been made to bring the information, furnished to the public in the shape of a popular Commentary, up to a level with the knowledge and the scholarship of the present day, and that without any faltering as regards the

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Faith once delivered. The Christian Religion has nothing to fear from real learning. For past experience shows, that whatever new discoveries are made in any branch of science or literature, so far as they bear on Holy Scripture or on the Christian Religion, they help to confirm and illustrate them. All, that is required, is a full and fair investigation, that the science be sufficiently understood, and fairly applied. For Christians can scarcely be expected to surrender their Faith to crude theories, or to deductions drawn from imperfect information.

It has been rather the fashion of late years to believe, that the Greek Text, from which the English Authorised Translation was made, was in a state of almost hopeless corruption, and that the Translation itself was, to say the least, full of inaccuracies, if not of actual mistranslations. The labours and publications of Professor Tischendorf and of the late Dean Alford, have therefore a peculiar interest for English Churchmen. For the one may be said to have been investigating the genuineness of our text of the New Testament, and the other the accuracy of our Translation. No one will question their competency for the task which they undertook. They have laboured for years, each in his own department, as men only labour, who have a love for their work. The results of Professor Tischendorf's labours not only prove, but put it into the power of every man to verify this statement for himself, that the Greek Text of the English Authorised Translation is singularly correct, and that the emendations introduced from the Sinaitic, Vatican, and Alexandrine Manuscripts, the three oldest and most valuable, are, with few exceptions, of the most trifling nature. The labours of Dean Alford and of his four coadjutors are also valuable in many points of view, and not the least, as proving the general accuracy of the Authorised Translation. The Church of England owes a large debt of gratitude to these men for their respective publications, as showing the hollowness of objections, which from their very nature many could make, but few were able to answer.

One other result of their labours is exceedingly satisfactory. Neither the emendations made in the Text nor the alterations in the Translation have in any way affected, even in the slightest degree, any one single doctrine of the Christian Religion. Improvements many they have doubtless introduced, both in the way of a more genuine correctness of the Text, and also of a more scholarly accuracy in the Translation. But the Christian Faith stands exactly what it was, and as it was, before their publications.