26‐27. *He again promises the Holy Ghost, who together with the Apostles, will bear testimony of Him.* 1. Ego sum vitis vera: et 1. I am the true vine; and my Pater meus agricola est. Father is the husbandman. 1. After they had left the supper‐room Christ again addresses the Apostles. The fact that the Evangelist gives the discourse that follows without any introductory remark, such as: And Christ said, or: And while they went Christ said—favours the view that only a slight break separated this discourse from that recorded in the preceding chapter. This would, therefore, render it very probable that what follows was spoken in the vicinity of the house in which they had supped rather than on the outskirts of the city. As Christ was about to leave His Apostles, He now impresses upon them the necessity of abiding in Him by faith and love. For this purpose He compares Himself to the stem of the vine, and the Apostles to its branches. As the branches draw all their life and nourishment from the stem, so must the Apostles draw all their spiritual life from Him. This idea would be illustrated by the relation between the trunk of any tree and its branches. The chief reason, then, why He compares Himself to the vine is because it was customary to prune its branches, and He was about to speak of the pruning of His mystical branches by the Father.(98) He is _the true_, that is the perfect vine, because He nourishes His members more perfectly than does any vine tree its branches. In a similar sense He is the true light (John i. 9), and the true bread (John vi. 32). “He is the ‘vine’ in His _humanity_, in which the branches of the same nature are united with Him. But it is from His _Divinity_ the branches derive the spiritual and life‐giving influence that leads to eternal happiness” (MacEv.) It is needless to say, that in calling Himself the true vine, Christ does not mean to signify that He is really a vine. The language is plainly metaphorical, and is so explained by our Lord Himself in verses 4 and 5. Hence it bears no comparison with the words used by Christ in instituting the Blessed Eucharist. In the latter case He declared that what He held in His hands was His body, and there was nothing in His words, or in the circumstances in which they were uttered to point to a figurative sense. On the contrary, His discourse delivered twelve months beforehand in the Synagogue of Capharnaum, and recorded in the sixth chapter of our Gospel, prepared the Apostles to receive His words, mysterious though they must have seemed, in the literal sense.