Note 32 — Chapter VII · DISCOURSES OF JESUS IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

The same conclusion is to be drawn from the discourse with which the fourth Evangelist represents Jesus as closing his public ministry (xii. 44–50). This discourse is entirely composed of reminiscences out of previous chapters,32 and, as Paulus expresses it,33 is a mere echo of some of the principal apophthegms of Jesus occurring in the former part of the gospel. One cannot easily consent to let the ministry of Jesus close with a discourse so little original, and the majority of recent commentators are of opinion that it is the intention of the Evangelist here to give us a mere epitome of the teaching of Jesus.34 According to our view also, the Evangelist is the real speaker; but we must contend that his introductory words, Jesus cried and said, Ἰησοῦς δὲ ἔκραξε καὶ εἶπεν, are intended to imply that what follows is an actual harangue, from the lips of Jesus. This commentators will not admit, and they can appeal, not without a show of reason, to the statement of the Evangelist, v. 36, that Jesus withdrew himself from the public eye, and to his ensuing observations on the obstinate unbelief of the Jews, in which he seems to put a period to the public career of Jesus; whence it would be contrary to his plan to make Jesus again step forward to deliver a valedictory discourse. I will not, with the older expositors, oppose to these arguments the supposition that Jesus, after his withdrawal, returned to pronounce these words in the ears of the Jews; but I hold fast to the proposition that by the introduction above quoted, the Evangelist can only have intended to announce an actual harangue. It is said, indeed, that the aorist in ἔκραξε and εἶπε has the signification of the pluperfect, and that we have here a recapitulation of the previous discourses of Jesus, notwithstanding which the Jews had not given him credence. But to give this retrospective signification there ought to be a corresponding indication in the words themselves, or in the context, whereas this is far less the case than e.g. in John xviii. 24. Hence the most probable view of the question is this: John had indeed intended to close the narrative of the public ministry of Jesus at v. 36, but his concluding observations, v. 37 ff., with the categories of faith, πίστις, and unbelief, ἀπιστία, reminded him of discourses which he had already recorded, and he could not resist the temptation of making Jesus recapitulate them with additional emphasis in a parting harangue.