ultimately goes back to Deut. xviii, like the other. For these reasons the hypothesis that St. John is drawing from the life seems distinctly preferable. Allusion has already been made to some of the popular ideas and to the meeting of the Sanhedrin in chap. vii. That chapter is especially important from our present point of view, that of the Messianic expectation. We see there reproduced with wonderful vividness just such an undercurrent of criticism as we may be sure was constantly going on, particularly in Jerusalem. ‘Some therefore of them of Jerusalem said, Is not this he whom they seek to kill? And lo, he speaketh openly, and they say nothing unto him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ? Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no one knoweth whence he is.’ ‘But of the multitude many believed on him; and they said, When the Christ shall come, will he do more signs than those which this man hath done?’ ‘Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said, This is of a truth the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, What, doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there arose a division in the multitude because of him. And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him.’ ‘They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet’ (vers. 25-7, 31, 40-4, 52). It is to be observed that several of the points in the expectation thus depicted are of a somewhat recondite character. ‘We know this man whence he is: but when the Christ cometh, no one knoweth whence he is.’ This point can be verified, at least approximately. There is a Jewish saying that ‘three things come wholly unexpected, Messiah, a god-send, and a scorpion[52].’ And Justin Martyr alludes to another tradition, that the Messiah would not even know his own mission until he was anointed by Elijah[53]—the idea of this was perhaps suggested by the anointing of David. Again we note that the writer assumes the point of view of the crowd, according to which Christ was regarded as coming from Nazareth in Galilee, though in any case he had before him the First and Third Gospels which placed His birth in Bethlehem. Not a hint escapes the Evangelist of his knowledge of this, although the point is brought as an objection to our Lord’s Messianic claims. In other words, the Gospel reflects the real state of things in A.D. 28, not the Christian beliefs of A.D. 90. We have to say the same of the test applied by the Sanhedrin, that a prophet was not to be looked for from Galilee.