John 21:24-25

Conclusion of the Appendix: John 21:24-25.

Vv. 24, 25. “ This is the disciple who testifies of these things and who wrote them;and we know that his testimony is true. 25. There are also many other things which Jesus did; and if they were written in detail, I do not think that the world itself could contain the books which would be written. ”

This postscript attests two things: 1. The composition of the Gospel by the apostle John (John 21:24); 2. The infinite richness of the evangelic history, which would not let itself be confined in any written word, whatever might be its extent (John 21:25).

There are three very different opinions respecting the origin of these two verses. Some (Hengstenberg, Weitzel, Hoelemann, Hilgenfeld, etc.) ascribe them both to the author of ch. 21, who is at the same time the author of the entire book, either the apostle John (the first three) or a pseudo-John (Hilgenfeld). So Lange and Schaff, who ascribe only the words: “ And we know that his testimony is true,” to another hand. Meyer, Tischendorf, etc., ascribe John 21:24 to the author of the whole, but they see in John 21:25 a later interpolation. The third party (Tholuck, Luthardt, Keil) regard John 21:24-25 as both added by another hand than that of John, the author of the whole of ch. 21. De Wette, Lucke, Weiss ascribe them also to the author of the appendix, but without admitting that he is the apostle.

The pronoun οὖτος, he, can only refer to the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 21:23), and the pronouns τούτων and ταῦτα, these things, only to the contents of the entire book. For the appendix alone (John 21:1-23) would not have importance enough to occasion such a declaration. It may even be asked whether ch. 21 is itself included in the expression: these things in this case we should also have in John 21:24 the attestation of the Johannean origin of this chapter or whether it is not rather the author himself of this ch. 21, who concludes the appendix by bearing witness to the Johannean origin of the Gospel properly so called. This second view seems to me more probable; for, as we have seen, the connection of John 21:23-24 is so close that it is difficult not to ascribe them to the same pen.

As the conclusion John 20:30-31 ended the Gospel, so this new conclusion, an imitation of the previous one, closes the entire work, completed by the appendix. The author of this postscript says of the beloved disciple, that it is he who testifies (ὁ μαρτυρῶν) of the facts related and who wrote them (ὁ γράψας). If we do not hold that there is a pure and simple imposture here, we must acknowledge that “this declaration, which is so precise, excludes all possibility of a merely indirect composition by the apostle John.” Thus Weiss expresses himself in answer toWeizsacker and Hase; we add: and to Reuss. The latter thinks that the redactors of this supplement (those who say: “ we know”) may have acted in good faith in erroneously ascribing the redaction of the Gospel to the apostle John. At a certain distance they may have mistaken the distinction which the author had himself expressly made between his person and that of the apostle witness in the passage John 19:35 (Theol . joh., p.

105). But Reuss surrenders himself here to an amiable illusion. By affirming the Johannean redaction of the Gospel, these men give themselves out as persons who are acquainted with the state of things, who even know the apostle personally (see below); an involuntary error is therefore impossible. They say: who testifies and who wrote. The present testifies refers, according to most (Weiss, Keil, etc.), to the permanence of the testimony in this writing composed by John. But in this case the epithet ὁ μαρτυρῶν, who testifies, should have been placed after ὁ γράψας : “ who wrote, and who thus testifies in the Church in a lasting way.” But the priority of the words who testifies and the contrast between this present par ticiple and the past participle which follows do not allow any other meaning than: “who testifies at present, still at this hour” (Meyer, Luthardt, etc.). This postscript was added, therefore, during the lifetime of the apostle, “ Johanne adhuc in corpore constituto,” as a manuscript of the Vatican says, citing Papias (Tischendorf: Wann wurden uns. Ev. verf., p. 119); which agrees with the design of the appendix. Who, more than John, should have been anxious that the meaning of the saying which the Lord had uttered with respect to him should be set right?

The verb οἴδαμεν, we know, cannot have as its subject John himself, either alone, as Chrysostom would have it, reading οἶδα μέν, I know undoubtedly, or in company with the persons who surround him (Weitzel), or even the readers (Meyer). It can only be a plurality of individuals outside of which John himself is found. Who then? The Fragment of Muratori places on the scene the apostle Andrew and other apostles (Philip perhaps) who lived in Asia at that time, and then the bishops of Ephesus. If the question is of apostles, the we know signifies: that, knowing of themselves the facts related, they can testify to their accuracy; “recognoscentibus cunctis,” says the same Fragment. But if this we designates the Christians who surrounded John at Ephesus, this “we know” means that, having lived personally with John, they know his sincerity and declare him incapable of relating anything false. There is nothing to prevent us from uniting in the we these two classes of persons, in whose number may also be found Aristion and the presbyter John, of whom Papias speaks. The persons who speak thus were in any case the depositaries in whose hands the apostle had placed his work and who had received from him the charge to publish it at a suitable time. It was in the discharge of this commission that they added, no doubt, the appendix of ch. 21, and then they affixed to it the attestation of John 21:24. Perhaps it was rendered necessary in their view by the striking differences which existed between the history of John and the Synoptic narratives which were already spread abroad in the Church.

Does John 21:25 come from the same plurality of witnesses? Three indications prevent us from thinking so:

1. The grammatical and syntactic form is more complicated than that of John 21:24;

2. The singular οἶμαι, I think, forms a contrast with the plural οἴδαμεν, we know.

Finally, 3. The exaggeration, not without emphasis, which characterizes this verse is in contrast with the simple gravity of John 21:24.

On the other hand, we have no right to conclude from this that this verse was interpolated at a time posterior to the publication, as Meyer and Tischendorf think. True, the Sinaitic MS. omits it, but this MS. is alone in this case, and we know how it abounds in omissions and inaccuracies. We may suppose, moreover, an intentional omission occasioned by the strange hyberbole which distinguishes this verse. As it is wanting nowhere else, it is probable that, as in John 21:24, it was added to the Gospel at the time of its publication. It is probably a personal addition proceeding from that one of the friends of John, who, in company with all his associates, had drawn up the 24th verse. He afterwards added, of his own impulse, John 21:25. Hence the change from the first person plural to the first person singular, a thing which proves his good faith. Hence also may come, perhaps, the difference of style between these two verses. The tone of the latter is not without some resemblance to that of the emphatic descriptions of Papias, in his picture of the millennial reign, or in his story of the death of Judas, and one might be tempted to find in the aged bishop of Hierapolis the subject of the verb: I think. Herein may be the truth pertaining to that strange note in the manuscript of the Vatican which we quoted just now, according to which Papias was the secretary of John in the redaction of his Gospel. In any case, the author of this verse means to say that, if this Gospel is all of it the truth (John 21:24), it is not the whole truth. And in speaking thus, the object of his enthusiasm is evidently not the apostle and his writing, but the Master and His work. A complete evangelic narrative is, in his view, a task which cannot be realized by reason of the boundlessness of its subject. He expresses this just and profound sentiment by means of a somewhat strange Oriental hyperbole, such as we find constantly in the letters of Ignatius, but taking care to weaken it by the words: I think. It is, indeed, that the infinite inevitably goes beyond the finite, and that the category of the spirit is always absolutely superior to that of space. Let writings be added to writings to describe “the glory of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth,” one of two things must follow: either this series of writings will not exhaust the subject, or, if they exhaust it, they will not be contained in the world!

From this study of the twenty-first chapter we conclude: 1. That the story, John 21:1-23, comes, if not from the hand, at least from the oral narration of the author of the Gospel; 2. That John 21:24 is an attestation emanating from the friends who surrounded him and who, after having called forth the composition of his work, had received it from him in trust to publish it at the fitting time; 3. That John 21:25 proceeds from the hand of the one among them who had drawn up the postscript, John 21:24, in the name of all; 4. That the addition of this solemn attestation (John 21:24-25) was made, also, during the lifetime of the apostle.

After this, it only remains to hold: either that John is the author and the redactor of our Gospel, as those who publish it testify, or that the anonymous author who composed it in the second century (after having presented himself to the world in this narrative with all the characteristics of the apostle) has carried his shamelessness so far as to cause to be given out by an accomplice of his fraud, or rather for to such a man nothing is impossible has himself given out, as if in the name of one or several of John's friends, a certificate of his identity with the apostle. If any one is willing to accept such a story, let him accept it. In our view, it contains its own refutation.

The work, the study of which we are closing, traces out the realization of an ideal which, as we have more than once observed, in order to be described must have been beheld, and in order to have been beheld, must have been lived. It is not an abstract description, like a character of La Bruye:re; it is a concrete picture, detailed, abounding in positive and precise facts, as well as in sayings original and full of appropriateness a true human life which is like the transparency through which the divine life shines even upon us. Every sincere heart will always feel itself as incapable of denying this ideal as it is powerless to create it.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

Vv. 24, 25. It is worthy of notice that the most full and complete designation of the disciple who is nowhere mentioned by name in this Gospel is given in this place, and this is immediately followed by the words, “This is the disciple who wrote,” etc. We have, therefore, in this verse the strongest affirmation that this disciple is the writer of the book. If the contrast in the tenses of the two participles γράψας and μαρτυρῶν, which Godet presses, is to be insisted upon, the evidence of the sentence is very strong that the author of the Gospel was still living when this verse was written. It will follow from this understanding of the words, also, that the verse was either written by the author himself, designating himself by the use of the third person as in other places, or by contemporaries who could say of his testimony, “We know that it is true.” Weiss, however, claims that ὁ μαρτυρῶν determines nothing as to this question, and Westcott says that it may not determine the point. The position of Westcott may be admitted.

But the passage John 1:15, to which both of these writers appeal “John bears witness (μαρτυρεῖ) and has cried (κέκραγεν), saying,” etc. is hardly altogether parallel. The perfect κέκραγε in that passage may, not improbably, be used in the sense of the present (see Meyer on that verse), and the propositional present form is adapted to the character of the statements in the Prologue. Here, however, there is a natural contrast, as in John 19:35 between μεμαρτύρηκεν and οἶδεν ὅτι λέγει, and if there were a reference to a permanent testimony in the book, it would more naturally be set forth either by putting the expression in such a form as to declare it distinctly, or at least by placing the participle which speaks of testimony after (instead of before) that which speaks of the preparation of the book.

That the disciple whom Jesus loved was the author of this Gospel is proved without this passage, as we have seen. This passage only adds, at the most, a definite and distinct declaration of what is contained elsewhere in incidental references or statements, and is suggested, above all, by the manifold evidence of his personality and his remembered experience, which we find throughout the entire history which is presented before us.