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The evangelist seemed to have concluded his history with the foregoing chapter; but (as St. Paul sometimes in his epistles), new matter occurring, he begins again. He had said that there were many other signs which Jesus did for the proof of his resurrection. And in this chapter he mentions one of these many, which was Christ's appearance to some of his disciples at the sea of Tiberias, in which we have an account, I. How he discovered himself to them as they were fishing, filled their net, and then very familiarly came and dined with them upon what they had caught, Joh 21:1-14. II. What discourse he had with Peter after dinner, 1. Concerning himself, Joh 21:15-19. 2. Concerning John, Joh 21:20-23. III. The solemn conclusion of this gospel, Joh 21:24,25. It is strange that any should suppose that this chapter was added by some other hand, when it is expressly said (Joh 21:24) that the disciple whom Jesus loved is he which testifieth of these things.

Jesus shows himself to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias, John 21:1-5. The miraculous draught of fishes, John 21:6-11. He dines with his disciples, John 21:12-14. Questions Peter concerning his love to him, and gives him commission to feed his sheep, John 21:15-17. Foretells the manner of Peter's death, John 21:18, John 21:19. Peter inquires concerning John, and receives an answer that was afterwards misunderstood, John 21:20-23. John's concluding testimony concerning the authenticity of his Gospel, and the end for which it was written, John 21:24, John 21:25.

XXI.

[7. The Epilogue to the Gospel. The Link between the Past and the Future (John 21).

(1)THE DRAUGHT OF FISHES (John 21:1-8).

(2)THE BREAKFAST. THE THIRD MANIFESTATION OF JESUS TO THE DISCIPLES (John 21:9-14).

(3)THE TEST AND THE COMMISSION. ST. PETER AND ST. JOHN (John 21:15-23).

(4)THE CLOSE OF THE GOSPEL. CORROBORATIVE WITNESS TO ITS TRUTH:

(a)By fellow disciples (John 21:24);

(b)By an amanuensis (John 21:25).]

Chap. 21. The Epilogue or Appendix

This Epilogue to a certain extent balances the Prologue, the main body of the Gospel in two great divisions lying in between them; but with this difference, that the Prologue is part of the original plan of the Gospel, whereas the Epilogue is not. It is evident that when the Evangelist wrote John 20:30, he had no intention of narrating any more ‘signs’ The reason for adding this appendix can be conjectured with something like certainty: the Evangelist wished to give a full and exact account of Christ’s words respecting himself, about which there had been serious misunderstanding. In order to make the meaning of Christ’s saying as clear as possible, S. John narrates in detail the circumstances which led to its being spoken.

The whole of the chapter is peculiar to S. John’s Gospel. It falls into four parts. 1. The Manifestation to the Seven and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1–14). 2. The Commission to S. Peter and Prediction as to his Death (15–19). 3. The misunderstood Saying respecting the Evangelist (20–23). 4. Concluding Notes (24, 25).

CHAPTER 21.

Supplementary chapter in which Jesus again manifests Himself after the resurrection.

[There is no reason why this chapter should be ascribed to a different hand. The style is the same as that of the gospel, and although the gospel closed at the end of chap. 20, this supplementary chapter must have become an integral part of the gospel at a very early period. No trace exists of a gospel without it. It is by no means so certain that John 21:25 is Johannine. It seems an inflated version of John 20:30. The twenty-fourth verse is also rejected by several critics on the ground of οἴδαμεν. This may be valid as an objection; but it is in the manner of the Apostle to testify to his own truthfulness, John 19:35; and the use of the plural instead of the singular is not decisive.]

CHAPTER 21

John 21:3. Instead of ἐνέβησαν, Elz. has ἀνέβησαν, against decisive testimony.

After πλοῖον, Elz. Griesb. Secholz have: εὐθύς, which is condemned by decisive testimony.

John 21:4. γενομ.] Tisch.: γινομ., which is to be preferred, since to the witnesses C.* E. L., A. B. with γεινομ. are to be added; though with the copyists γενομ. was more current.

εἰς] Lachm. Tisch.: ἐπί. The Codd. are very much divided; ἐπί came to be more readily added as a gloss than εἰς. Comp. Matthew 13:2; Matthew 13:48; Acts 21:5.

John 21:6. ἴσχυσαν] Tisch.: ἴσχυον, according to preponderant testimonies. The aorist form was involuntarily suggested from the surrounding context (ἔβαλον, ἑλκῦσαι).

John 21:11. ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς] Lachm. Tisch.: εἰς τὴν γῆν, according to A. B. C. L. א., etc. Nevertheless, the Recepta is to be retained. ʼΕπὶ τὴν γ. (so D. Curss.) was written as a gloss in some instances,—in others, after John 21:9, εἰς τ. γ. was written.

In John 21:15-17, as in John 1:43, instead of Ἰωνᾶ, we are to read: Ἰωάννου.

John 21:17. πρόβατα] A. B. C.: προβάτια. Rightly adopted by Tisch. The Recepta is a repetition from John 21:16. Tisch. has, indeed, even already in John 21:16, προβάτια, but only according to B. C., so that the testimony of A. appears first for John 21:17.

John 21:22. Read with Lachm. Tisch., μοι ἀκολούθει.

John 21:25 is wanting in א., is explained in Scholia as an addition, aud has in detail the variations ἅ (Lachm. Tisch.) instead of ὅσα; Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς (D.), in one Cod. of It. with the addition: quae non scripta in hoc libro; οὐδʼ (Laehm. Tisch.) instead of οὐδέ; χωρήσειν (Tisch. according to B. C. א.** Or.); at the conclusion ἀμήν (Elz.).

Chap. John 20:30-31, bears so obviously the stamp of a formal conclusion worthy of an apostle, while chap. 21, moreover, begins in a manner so completely unexpected, that this chap, can appear only as a supplement. The question is, however,[273] whether this supplement proceeds from John or not. This question first became a subject of investigation from the time of Grotius, who saw in the chapter a supplement of the Ephesian church, composed after the apostle’s death by the bishop (perhaps by John the Presbyter). Since all witnesses contain the chapter, a judgment can only be pronounced from internal grounds. These, however, decide only against John 21:25, which contains an exaggeration so surprising, unapostolical, and in such absolute contradiction to the Johannean simplicity, intelligence, and delicacy, that it is impossible that it can have proceeded from the pen of the apostle, but must appear probably as a later, although very ancient, form of conclusion, an apocryphal and inharmonious echo of John 20:30. The omission[274] of John 21:25 in א*, and its suspicious character in the Scholia, rests upon a correct critical feeling. On such feeling, however, also rests the fact that this omission and suspicion have not likewise affected John 21:24, which throughout contains nothing that John could not have written, but rather forms a worthy conclusion to the entire supplement of chap. 21, and does not by οἴδαμεν betray the work of a strange hand (see the exegetical notes). The grounds, moreover, brought forward against the authenticity of John 21:1-23 are untenable. For (1) it by no means follows from John 21:23, that at the time of the composition the apostle was already dead (Weizsäcker, Keim, and others), since the speech there mentioned required the correct historical explanation precisely for the eventuality of his death, which was still future. Comp. Ewald, Jahrb. III. p. 172. (2) The advent of Christ, mentioned in John 21:22-23, is without any reason declared to be non-Johannean. See on John 14:3. Just as little is (3) the self-designation, John 21:20, un-Johannean; it corresponds rather just as well to the importance which the recollection, therein expressed, of the never-to-be-forgotten moment must have had for John, in and of itself, as also to the connection into which it is interwoven. See on John 21:20. Further, (4) the individual expressions[275] which are designated as non-Johannean (as e.g. John 21:3, ἔρχεσθαι σύν instead of ἀκολουθεῖν; John 21:4, πρωΐας γινομ. instead of πρωΐ; John 21:12, τολμᾶν and ἐξετάζειν; John 21:18, φέρειν instead of ἄγΕΙΝ) are, taken together, phenomena so unessential, nay, having for the most part in the sense of the context so natural a foundation, that they, especially in consideration of the later time of the composition of the supplement, do not leave at all any serious difficulty behind them, and are far outweighed by the otherwise completely Johannean stamp, which the composition bears in itself, in the language, in the mode of presentation, and in the individual features which betray the eye-witness (how entirely different is the section concerning the adulteress!). For, in particular, (5) the alleged want of Johannean clearness and demonstrativeness is removed partly by correct exposition, partly in the question as to the genuineness, rendered ineffective by the fact that John, even in the earlier part of the Gospel, does not always narrate with equal clearness and demonstrativeness. (6) It is not correct to say that with the spurious conclusion the entire chapter also falls to the ground,[276] since the non-Johannean conclusion may have been added to the Johannean chapter, especially as, on the assumption to be made of the genuineness of John 21:24, the appendix itself did not proceed without a conclusion from the hand of the apostle. In accordance with all that has been advanced, the view is justified, that John by way of authentic historical explanation of the legend in John 21:23, some time after finishing his Gospel, which he had closed with John 20:31, wrote chap. John 21:1-24,[277] as a complement of the book, and that this appendix, simply because its Johannean origin was immediately certain and recognised, already at a very early period, whilst the Gospel had not yet issued forth from the narrower circle of its first readers (Einl. sec. 5), had become an inseparable part of the Gospel; but that simply owing to the fact that now the entire book was without a principal conclusion, the apocryphal conclusion, John 21:25, exaggerating the original conclusion, John 20:31, came to be added. This addition of John 21:25 must have been made at a very early date, because only a few isolated traces of the spuriousness of John 21:25 have been preserved, which, however, by the evidence of א.* go back to a very ancient time; while, on the other hand, in reference to John 21:1-24, not the faintest echo of a critical tradition is found which would have testified against the genuineness. Tisch. also designates only John 21:25 as spurious.

The apostolic origin of the chapter was controverted, amid the setting forth of very different theories, especially its derivation from the author of the Gospel, after Grotius, by Clericus, Hammond, Semler, Paulus, Gurlitt (Lection. im N. T. Spec. III., Hamb. 1805), Bertholdt, Seyffarth (Beitr. zur Specialcharakt. der Joh. Schriften, Lpz. 1823, p. 271 ff.), Lücke, Schott, De Wette, Credner, Wieseler (Diss. 1839: John the Presbyter wrote the chap, after the death of the apostle), Schweizer, Bleek, Schwegler, Zeller, Baur (because it is not in keeping with the main idea of the whole), Kostlin, Keim, Scholten, and several others; Brückner has doubts. In opposition to Baur’s school, according to which it is said to be designed, along with the entire chap., for the purpose of exalting the apostle of Asia Minor over Peter, see especially Bleek.

The Johannean origin, or at least the derivation from the writer of the Gospel, is defended, but in such a way that recently John 21:24-25 have been for the most part rejected by Calovius, Rich. Simon, Mill, Wetstein, Lampe, Michaelis, Krause (Diss. Viteb. 1793), Beck (Lips. 1795), Eichhorn, Kuinoel, Hug, Wegscheider (Einl. in d. Ev. Joh.), Handschke (de αὐθεντίᾳ c. 21 ev. Joh. e sola orat. indole dijud., Lips. 1818), Erdmann (Bemerk. üb. Joh., Rostock 1821), Weber (authentia … argumentor. intern. usu vindic., Hal. 1823), Guerike, Redding (Disput. Groning. 1833), Frommann, Tholuck, Olshausen, Klee, Maier, B. Crusius (not decidedly),[278] in the Stud. u. Krit. 1849, p. 601 ff., Luthardt, Lange, Laurillard (Disp. L. B. 1853), Ebrard (on Olshausen), Hengstenberg, Godet, Hoelemann, Schleiermacher (at least in respect of the contents). According to Ewald (l.c., comp. also Jahrb. X. p. 87), a friend of the apostle (probably a presbyter at Ephesus), of whose hand, probably also of whose art, John availed himself in the composition of the Gospel, wrote the appendix for himself alone at a later date, without desiring in the slightest degree to conceal that it was by a different individual. In his Johann. Schriften, I. p. 54 ff., Ewald ascribes the composition to the same circle of friends, in which the Gospel may have remained perhaps for ten years before its publication; that the apostle himself, however, permitted the publication with this appendix (inclusive also of John 21:24-25) before his death. Similarly Baeumlein.

Very superficially and peremptorily does Hengstenberg designate the entire view that chap. 21 is a supplement, as leading to a view of the accidental nature of the authorship, which is unworthy of the apostle, and in conflict with the character of the Gospel. Hilgenfeld assigns the chap., with inclusion of John 21:24-25, to the evangelist, who, however, was not the apostle. Comp. also Bretschneider, p. 182.

[273] See generally Hoelemann, der Epilog des Evang. Joh., in his Bibelstudien, II. p. 61 ff.

[274] According to the usual statement, ver. 25 should also be wanting in Cod. 63. This, however, Tisch. (Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verf. p. 127, ed. 4) declares to be an error. On ver. 25 in א. Tisch. passes this judgment: the copyist of this Cod. did not find the verse in his copy, and therefore did not add it; but the words are supplied, “ab eo qui eadem aetate totum librum recensebat ac passim ex alio exemplari corrigebat atque augebat,” Cod. א. ed. Lips. p. LIX.

[275] For a minute discussion of the peculiarities of language in chap. 21, and their variation from the Gospel, see in Tiele, Annotatio in locos nonnull. ev. Joh. ad vindicand. huj. ev. authent., Amst. 1853, p. 115 ff. In answer to Scholten, who believes he has found most linguistie deviations, see Hilgenfeld in his ZeitsChr. 1868, p. 441 ff.

[276] Much more correct would it be to say: the chap. partially betrays, in so striking a manner, the Johannean delicacy and originality (pre-eminently vv. 15–17), that the whole stands along with it as a production of the apostle.

[277] Vv. 1–14 hardly have an object unknown to us (Brückner), since they are in simple objective historical connection with what follows.

[278] He, as also Lange, Hengstenberg, Hoelemann, ascribes also vv. 24, 25 to the apostle, in opposition to which Luthardt regards 24, 25 as a testimony added from the Ephesian church.

Joh 21:1-23.

SUPPLEMENTARY PARTICULARS.

(That this chapter was added by another hand has been asserted, against clear evidence to the contrary, by some late critics, chiefly because the Evangelist had concluded his part of the work with

Joh 20:30, 31.

But neither in the Epistles of the New Testament, nor in other good authors, is it unusual to insert supplementary matter, and so have more than one conclusion).

1, 2. Jesus showed himself again--manifested himself again.

and on this wise he manifested himself--This way of speaking shows that after His resurrection He appeared to them but occasionally, unexpectedly, and in a way quite unearthly, though yet really and corporeally.