80. Pirqé de R. Eliez. 45 ed. Lemb. p. 59 b, line 10 from top.
81. I need scarcely point out how strongly evidential this is of the Jewish authorship of the
Fourth Gospel.
This would also explain why Christ only replied to the charge of having a demon, since
the two charges meant substantially the same: 'Thou art a child of the devil and hast a
demon.' In wondrous patience and mercy He almost passed it by, dwelling rather, for
their teaching, on the fact that, while they dishonoured Him, He honoured His Father.
He heeded not their charges. His concern was the glory of His Father; the vindication of
His own honour would be brought about by the Father - though, alas! in judgment on
those who were casting such dishonour on the Sent of God.82 Then, as if lingering in
deep compassion on the terrible issue, He once more pressed home the great subject
of His Discourse, that only 'if a man keep' - both have regard to, and observe - His
'Word,' 'he shall not gaze at death [intently behold it]83 unto eternity' - for ever shall he
not come within close and terrible gaze of what is really death, of what became such to
Adam in the hour of his Fall.
82. St. John viii. 50.
83. The word is that peculiar and remarkable one, θεωρεω, to gaze earnestly and intently,
to which I have already called attention (see vol. i. p. 692).
It was, as repeatedly observed, this death as the consequence of the Fall, of which the
Jews knew nothing. And so they once more misunderstood it as of physical death,84
and, since Abraham and the prophets had died, regarded Christ as setting up a claim
higher than theirs.85 The Discourse had contained all that He had wished to bring before
them, and their objections were degenerating into wrangling. It was time to break it off
by a general application. The question, He added, was not of what He said, but of what
God said of Him - that God, Whom they claimed as theirs, and yet knew not, but Whom
He knew, and Whose Word He 'kept.'86 But, as for Abraham - he had 'exulted' in the
thought of the coming day of the Christ, and, seeing its glory, he was glad. Even Jewish
tradition could scarcely gainsay this, since there were two parties in the Synagogue, of
which one believed that, when that horror of great darkness fell on him,87 Abraham had,
in vision, been shown not only this, but the coming world - and not only all events in the
present 'age,' but also those in Messianic times.88 89 And now, theirs was not
misunderstanding, but wilful misinterpretation. He had spoken of Abraham seeing His
day; they took it of His seeing Abraham's day, and challenged its possibility. Whether or
not they intended thus to elicit an avowal of His claim to eternal duration, and hence to
Divinity, it was not time any longer to forbear the full statement, and, with Divine
emphasis, He spake the words which could not be mistaken: 'Verily, verily, I say unto
you, before Abraham was, I AM.'
84. He spoke of 'seeing,' they of 'tasting' death (vv. 51, 52). The word M(+ 'taste,' is used
in precisely the same manner by the Rabbis. Thus, in the Jer. Targum on Deut. xxxii. 1.
In Ber. R. 9, we are told, that it was originally destined that the first man should not taste
death. Again, 'Elijah did not taste the taste of death' (Ber. R. 21). And, tropically, in such a
passage as this: 'If any one would taste a taste (here: have a foretaste) of death, let him