others with him. From the Gospel-history we know him to have been cautious by nature
and education, and timid of character; yet, as in other cases, it was the greatest offence to
his Jewish thinking, the Cross, which at last brought him to the light of decision, and the
vigour of bold confession. 9 And this in itself would show the real character of his inquiry,
and the effect of what Jesus had first taught him. It is, at any rate, altogether rash to speak
of the manner of his first approach to Christ as most commentators have done. We can
scarcely realise the difficulties which he had to overcome. It must have been a mighty
power of conviction, to break down prejudice so far as to lead this old Sanhedrist to
acknowledge a Galilean, untrained in the Schools, as a Teacher come from God, and to
repair to Him for direction on, perhaps, the most delicate and important point in Jewish
theology. But, even so, we cannot wonder that he should have wished to shroud his first
visit in the utmost possible secrecy. It was a most compromising step for a Sanhedrist to
take. With that first bold purgation of the Temple a deadly feud between Jesus and the
Jewish authorities had begun, of which the sequel could not be doubtful. It was involved
in that first encounter in the Temple, and it needed not the experience and wisdom of an
aged Sanhedrist to forecast the end.
7. A Nicodemus is spoken of in the Talmud as one of the richest and most distinguished
citisens of Jerusalem (Taan. 20 a: Kethub. 66 b : Gitt. 56 a; Ab. de R. Nath. 6 comp. Ber.
R. 42. Midr. on Eccles. vii. 12, and on Lament. i. 5). But this name was only given him
on account of a miracle which happened at his request, his real name being Bunai, the son
of Gorion. A Bunai is mentioned in the Talmud among the disciples of Jesus, and a story
is related how his daughter, after immense wealth, came to most abject poverty. But there
can scarcely be a doubt that this somewhat legendary Naqdimon was not the Nicodemus
of the Gospel.
8. 'We know that Thou art a Teacher come from God.'
9. St. John xix. 39.
Nevertheless, Nicodemus came. If this is evidence of his intense earnestness, so is the
bearing of Jesus of His Divine Character, and of the truth of the narrative. As he was not
depressed by the resist ance of the authorities, nor by the 'milk- faith' of the multitude, so
He was not elated by the possibility of making such a convert as a member of the great
Sanhedrin. There is no excitement, no undue deference, nor eager politeness; no
compromise, nor attempted persuasiveness; not even accommodation. Nor, on the other
hand, is there assumed superiority, irony, or dogmatism. There is not even a reference to
the miracles, the evidential power of which had wrought in His visitor the initial
conviction, that He was a Teacher come from God. All is calm, earnest, dignified - if we
may reverently say it - as became the God-Man in the humiliation of His personal
teaching. To say that it is all un-Jewish were a mere truism: it is Divine. No fabricated
narrative would have invented such a scene, nor so represented the actors in it.10
10. This, of course, is not the view of the Tubingen School, which regards the whole of
this narrative as representing a later development. Dr. Abbott (Encycl. Brit., Art.
'Gospels,' p. 8 21) regards the expression, 'born of water and of the Spirit,' as a reference
to Christian Baptism, and this again as evidence for the late authorship of the fourth
Gospel. His reasoning is, that the earliest reference to regeneration is contained in St.
Matt. xviii. 3. Then he supposes a reference in Justin's Apologia (i. 61) to be a further
development of this doctrine, and he denies what is generally regarded as Justin's
quotation from St. John iii. 5 to be such, because it omits the word 'water.' A third stage