John 5:3

John 5:3. In these lay a multitude of sick folk, of blind, halt, withered. Under the shelter of these porticos many such were laid day after day. The general term ‘sick folk' receives its explanation afterwards as consisting of those who were blind, or lame, or whose bodies or limbs were wasted. The omission of the remaining words of John 5:3 and of the whole of John 5:4 is supported by a weight of authority which it is impossible to set aside. The addition belongs, however, to a very early date, for its contents are clearly referred to by Tertullian early in the third century. It is evidently an explanatory comment first written in the margin by those who saw that the words of John 5:7 imply incidents or opinions of which the narrative as it stands gives no account. The well-intentioned gloss was not long in finding its way into the text; and, once there, it gave the weight of the apostle's sanction to a statement which really represents only the popular belief. It will be seen that, when the unauthorised addition is removed, there is nothing in the text to support the impression that wonderful cures were actually wrought. The phenomena are those of an intermittent spring; and the various circumstances described, the concourse of sick, the eager expectation, the implicit faith in the healing virtue of the waters and in the recurring supernatural agency, find too many parallels in history to make it necessary to suppose that there was any supernatural virtue in the pool. It may be observed that the ordinary translation of the added words is not quite correct. The angel's visit was not looked for ‘at a certain season' (as if after some fixed and regular interval), but ‘at seasons,' from time to time.