[67] Schulz, die Lehre vom Abendmahl, s. 145. Winer, Realwörterbuch, 1, s. 693. [↑]
[69] The passage above quoted from the Acts gives us also some explanation, why the fourth Evangelist of all others should be solicitous to place the Baptist in a more favourable relation to Jesus, than history allows us to conceive. According to [v. 1 ff.] there were persons in Ephesus who knew only of John’s baptism, and were therefore rebaptized by the Apostle Paul in the name of Jesus. Now an old tradition represents the fourth gospel to have been written in Ephesus (Iræneus adv. hær. iii. 1). If we accept this (and it is certainly correct in assigning a Greek locality for the composition of this Gospel), and presuppose, in accordance with the intimation in the Acts, that Ephesus was the seat of a number of the Baptist’s followers, all of whom Paul could hardly have converted; the endeavour to draw them over to Jesus would explain the remarkable stress laid by the fourth Evangelist on the μαρτυρία Ἰωάννου. Storr has very judiciously remarked and discussed this, über den Zweck der Evangelischen Geschichte und der Briefe Johannis, s. 5 ff. 24 f. Compare Hug, Einleitung in das N. T., s. 190 3te Ausg. [↑]
[71] Ueber den Lukas, s. 109. [↑]
[73] Ueber den Ursprung u. s. w. s. 79. [↑]
[74] The expression οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι is thus interpreted by the most learned exegetists. Comp. Paulus, Lücke, Tholuck in loc. [↑]