John 6:67-69

“ Jesus said therefore unto the Twelve: And you, you will not also go away? 68. Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of eternal life; 69 and as for us, we have believed and have known that thou art the Holy One of God. ”

At the sight of this increasing desertion (οὖν), Jesus addresses Himself to the Twelve themselves. But who are these Twelve of whom John speaks as personages perfectly well known to the readers?

He has, up to this point, only spoken of the calling of five disciples, in chap. 1; he has mentioned, besides, the existence of an indefinite and considerably numerous circle of adherents. In this example we lay our finger on the mistake of those who claim that John is ignorant of, or tacitly denies, all the facts which he does not himself relate. This expression: the Twelve, which is repeated in John 6:70-71, implies and confirms the story of Luke 6:12 ff.; Mark 3:13 ff., which John has omitted as known; comp. the ἐξελεξάμην (John 6:70) with the ἐκλεξάμενος of Luke. Jesus' question expects a negative answer (μή). So de Wette, Meyer, Weiss, give to it this melancholy sense: “You would not also leave me?” Here, as it seems to me, and whatever Weiss and Dusterdieck may say, is an example of the errors into which grammatical pedantry may lead.

Far from having the plaintive tone, this question breathes the most manly energy. Jesus has just seen the larger part of his earlier disciples leaving Him; it seems, therefore, that He must hold so much the more firmly to the Twelve, the last human supports of His work; and yet He Himself opens the door for them. Only, as he certainly does not wish to induce them to leave Him, and it is only a permission that He intends to give them, He cannot use the expression οὐχ ὑμεῖς θέλετε, will you not, which would be a positive invitation to depart. He limits Himself, therefore, to saying: you surely will not...? a form which implies this idea: “But if you wish to go, you are free.” It must not be forgotten, that, in the use of the particles, there are shades of feeling which prevent our subjecting their meaning to such strict rules as those which philology sometimes claims to establish. The καί before ὑμεῖς, you also, emphatically distinguishes the apostles from all the other disciples.

At which one of them did Jesus aim, as He discharged this arrow? The close of the conversation will give us the answer. Peter hastens to take up the discourse, and, without troubling himself, perchance, enough to find out whether his feeling is shared by all his colleagues, he makes himself their mouthpiece; it is exactly the Peter of the Synoptics and the Acts, the bold confessor. His answer (John 6:68) expresses these two facts: the deep void which all other teaching has left in his soul, and the life-giving richness which he has found in that of Jesus. This confession of Peter is, as it were, an echo of the declaration of Jesus, John 6:63: “ My words are spirit and life; ” but it is not a mechanical imitation of it; it is the result of a personal experience already gained (John 6:69). By substituting “ the words” for “ words ” our translations have transformed the ejaculation of immediate feeling into a dogmatic formula.