John 7:43

There was a division among the people. — The word for division is our word “schism.” It is found in the earlier Gospels in one instance only, “the rent is made worse” (Matthew 9:16; Mark 2:21). This is nearer to the older meaning of the word, which is used, for example, of the hoofs of animals, and the leaves of trees. St. John uses it only to mark this rent into two parties of the Jewish multitude, here and in John 9:16; John 10:19. In St. Paul it is used of the divisions of the Church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 11:18; 1 Corinthians 12:25). The use of the word in its ethical sense may belong in some special way to Ephesus, for only in writings from this city do we find it in Biblical Greek. Later, both the word and the fact denoted by it passed into the history of the Church.