Commentary on John's Gospel

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK FIRST. THE APOSTLE ST. JOHN. John In His Father's House. ALL the documents set forth that John was a native of Galilee. He belonged to that northern population, with whose lively, industrious, independent, warlike character Josephus has made us acquainted. The pressure exerted on the nation by the religious authorities who had their headquarters at Jerusalem, did not weigh so heavily on that distant country. More free from prejudice, more open to the immediate impression of the truth, Galilean hearts presented to Jesus that receptive soil which His work demanded. Thus all His apostles, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, seem to have belonged to that province, and it was there that He succeeded in laying the foundations of His church. John dwelt on those shores of the lake of Gennezareth which at the present day only present to view a vast solitude, but which were then covered with towns and villages, all containing, according to Josephus, several thousands of inhabitants. Had John, as has been frequently said, his home at Bethsaida 1 Such is the conclusion drawn from Luke v. 9, where he is designated, along with his brother James, as the associate of Simon; and from John L 44, where Bethsaida is called the city of Andrew and Peter. But we may also think of Capernaum, which could not have been very far distant from the hamlet of Bethsaida, since on coming out of the synagogue of that town Jesus entered the house of Peter, who, according to the preceding verses, dwelt at Bethsaida (Mark i. 29). The family of John consisted of four persons known to us ?his brother James, who seems to have been the eldest, as he is generally named before him; their father, Zebedee, who was a fisherman (Mark i. 19, 20); and their mother, who must have borne the name of Salome; for i..