* there.
  20:30,31  Job 26:14  Ps 40:5  71:15  Ec 12:12  Mt 11:5  Ac 10:38 
  Ac 20:35  Heb 11:32 
 * that even.
   This is a very strong eastern expression to represent the
   number of miracles which Jesus wrought.  But however strong
   and strange it may appear to us of the western world, we find
   sacred and other authors using hyperboles of the like kind and
   signification.  See Nu 13:33; De 1:28; Da 4:11; Ec 14:15.
   Basnage gives a very similar hyperbole taken from the Jewish
   writers, in which Jochanan is said to have "composed such a
   great number of precepts and lessons, that if the heavens were
   paper, and all the trees of the forest so many pens, and all
   the children of men so many scribes, they would not suffice to
   write all his lessons."

  Am 7:10  Mt 19:24 



               CONCLUDING REMARKS ON JOHN'S GOSPEL.

 John, who, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancient
 fathers and ecclesiastical writers, was the author of this
 Gospel, was the son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Bethsaida, by
 Salome his wife, (compare Mt 10:2, with Mt 27:55, 56; and Mr
 15:40,) and brother of James the elder, whom "Herod killed with
 the sword," (Ac 12:2.)  Theophylact says that Salome was the
 daughter of Joseph, the husband of Mary, by a former wife; and
 that consequently she was our Lord's sister, and John was his
 nephew.  He followed the occupation of his father till his call
 to the apostleship, (Mt 4:21, 22, Mr 1:19, 20, Lu 5:1-10,) which
 is supposed to have been when he was about twenty five years of
 age; after which he was a constant eye-witness of our Lord's
 labours, journeyings, discourses, miracles, passion,
 crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.  After the ascension
 of our Lord he returned with the other apostles to Jerusalem,
 and with the rest partook of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
 on the day of Pentecost, by which he was eminently qualified for
 the office of an Evangelist and Apostle.  After the death of
 Mary, the mother of Christ, which is supposed to have taken
 place about fifteen years after the crucifixion, and probably
 after the council held in Jerusalem about A.D. 49; or 50, (Ac
 15.,) at which he was present, he is said by ecclesiastical
 writers to have proceeded to Asia Minor, where he formed and
 presided over seven churches in as many cities, but chiefly
 resided at Ephesus.  Thence he was banished by the emperor
 Domitian, in the fifteenth year of his reign, A.D. 95, to the
 isle of Patmos in the (9267)ean sea, where he wrote the Apocalypse,
 (Re 1:9.)  On the accession of Nerva the following year, he was
 recalled from exile and returned to Ephesus, where he wrote his
 Gospel and Epistles, and died in the hundredth year of his age,
 about A.D. 100, and in the third year of the emperor Trajan.  It
 is generally believed that St. John was the youngest of the
 twelve apostles, and that he survived all the rest.  Jerome, in
 his comment on Gal VI., says that he continued preaching when so
 enfeebled with age as to be obliged to be carried into the
 assembly; and that, not being able to deliver any long
 discourse, his custom was to say in every meeting, My dear
 children, love one another.  The general current of ancient
 writers declares that the apostle wrote his Gospel at an
 advanced period of life, with which the internal evidence
 perfectly agrees; and we may safely refer it, with Chrysostom,
 Epiphanius, Mill, Le Clerc, and others, to the year 97.  The
 design of St. John in writing his Gospel is said by some to have
 been to supply those important events which the other
 Evangelists had omitted, and to refute the notions of the
 Cerinthians and Nicolaitans, or according to others, to refute
 the heresy of the Gnostics and Sabians.  But, though many parts
 of his Gospel may be successfully quoted against the strange
 doctrines held by those sects, yet the apostle had evidently a
 more general end in view than the confutation of their heresies.
 His own words sufficiently inform us of his motive and design in
 writing this Gospel:  "These things are written that ye might
 believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
 believing, ye might have life through his name."  (ch. 20:31.)
 Learned men are not wholly agreed concerning the language in
 which this Gospel was originally written.  Salmasius, Grotius,
 and other writers, have imagined that St. John wrote it in his
 own native tongue, the Aramean or Syriac, and that it was
 afterwards translated into Greek.  This opinion is not supported
 by any strong arguments, and is contradicted by the unanimous
 voice of antiquity, which affirms that he wrote it in Greek,
 which is the general and most probable opinion.  The style of
 this Gospel indicates a great want of those advantages which
 result from a learned education; but this defect is amply
 compensated by the unexampled simplicity with which he expresses
 the sublimest truths.  One thing very remarkable is an attempt
 to impress important truths more strongly on the minds of his
 readers, by employing in the expression of them both an
 affirmative proposition and a negative.  It is manifestly not
 without design that he commonly passes over those passages of
 our Lord's history and teaching which had been treated at large
 by other Evangelists, or if he touches them at all, he touches
 them but slightly, whilst he records many miracles which had
 been overlooked by the rest, and expatiates on the sublime
 doctrines of the pre-existence, the divinity, and the
 incarnation of the Word, the great ends of His mission, and the
 blessings of His purchase.