"Never man spake ..."

"The officers answered, Never man spake like this man." (Jn 7:46, KJV)

In today's gospel, Jesus is a source of dissension, confusion, and conflict. The need to answer the question "Who do men say that I am?" (Mk 8:27, RSV) has become pressing, and the uncertainty and anxiety expressed by the people and their leaders are palpable--indeed, a crisis is at hand.

In all the richness and turbulence of this episode, however, one passage is striking in its simplicity. When the temple officers, having been sent by their superiors to bring Jesus in (Jn 7:32), return empty-handed, they are roundly scolded by the priests and Pharisees for failing to fulfill their assignment: "Why have ye not brought him?," (Jn 7:45, KJV), is the angry question. Their answer is simple and guileless, so overwhelmed they had clearly been by Jesus' presence and word: "Never man spake like this man."

The guards' reply is profound in its simplicity. Yet, at the risk of complication, a comparison of variant Greek readings of this sentence suggests an even more dramatic wording. Most standard versions of the Greek (Textus receptus, Nestle-Aland, and variants), those that underlie almost all vernacular translations from the Authorised Version to the present, offer a reading like the following: "οὐδέποτε ἐλάλησεν οὕτως ἄνθρωπος, ὡς οὗτος λαλεῖ ὁ ἄνθρωπος," literally "never spoke thus man/human, as this speaks the man/human." In the many English renderings available, the wording is clear: no single human person ever uttered words like this man Jesus utters--hence the guards' utter failure to apprehend the Lord, their complete surrender to the power of His presence. This is surely stuff enough on which to meditate.

However, a variant reading (old Westcott-Hort), has the following shortened sentence: "οὐδέποτε ἐλάλησεν οὕτως ἄνθρωπος," "never spoke thus man/human (anthropos)." Without contradicting the more common reading, this variant emphasizes a dramatic Christological and anthropological truth inherent in the officers' simple words: never before has human nature spoken the Word, the eternally begotten Son of the Father, which humanity can speak now only because the Word has taken up human nature in Himself. So the sense is not that just Jesus' words touch the heart in a way that no words ever have--although there is certainly nothing wrong in finding this truth in the phrase in question. But I would suggest that a much greater horizon is present as well, brought out in the shorter variant introduced here: for the first time in human history, the Word Himself speaks with his own human voice, the dramatic utterance of the Second Person of the Trinity in space and time. Thus, it is the power of the Logos that overwhelms--but does not destroy!--the hearts of the humble officers sent to carry out an arrest. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the soldier following orders is so often in the gospels the one to recognize the Lord: the temple officers here, the Roman centurion at the cross ("Truly this man was the Son of God" [Mk 15:30]), the guards placed at the tomb ...